Meredith smiled at Dani. Meredith had been at the school over a year and a half. She wasn’t exactly new anymore.
Dani continued. “Well, in middle school they make you take drawing, chorus, band, and drama. One class each quarter. Anyway, I don’t know my way around a paintbrush or a sketchpad. What in the world am I going to create that would be art?”
“Well, uh, I’m taking the class, too.”
“You are? No way.”
Meredith was shocked at how excited Dani sounded. “Yeah, Mrs. Levine asked me to take it.”
“But aren’t you in AP Art?”
“Yeah, but she said I could take time out of the elective class to work on my AP stuff. I could, uh, show you stuff.” Meredith couldn’t believe she had just told Dani Lassiter she would help her. What in the world could she, Meredith the loser, possibly show this larger-than-life senior class president? That was crazy. She had just lost her mind.
Dani beamed at her. “Oh, my God. You’d really show me what to do? That’s awesome. Now I won’t freak out so much. I have to pass the course because I need a half credit of fine arts.”
Meredith must have had a surprised look on her face because Dani added, “Yeah, yeah, I know. Stupid of me.”
“No, I have the same thing. I have to take Health with a bunch of freshmen next semester.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a graduation requirement and I didn’t take it at my old school.”
“I can help you if you want, but I think you’ll be helping me more with the art. And thanks in advance.”
Dani put her hand on Meredith’s. The shock of Dani’s touch shot up her arm and sent her heart pounding. She swallowed hard again as she pulled her hand away. She said in a choked voice, “You’re welcome.” She couldn’t squeak out any more words.
Mr. Dalton tapped on his desk and requested order. He said, “Okay, hopefully you’ve all had the chance to get a preliminary start on your project. We’ll talk more about them next semester.”
Meredith felt Dani looking at her but was reluctant to meet her gaze. She knew she was still beet red. She wasn’t sure if it was the physical touch that sent her pulse soaring or just the fact that somebody as nice and as important as Dani actually treated her like a human being. Like a friend.
Dani whispered, “Crap, Meredith. We didn’t even talk about the project. Here.” She ripped a piece of paper from her spiral notebook and tore it in half. On one half she neatly printed her name and phone number. She handed both halves to Meredith. “Give me your cell phone number and I’ll text you over the weekend, so we can come up with something.”
“Oh, I don’t have a cell phone. I guess I’m one of the three people left in the world that doesn’t own one. I’ll have to give you my home phone number, okay?”
“Yeah, that’s cool.”
Meredith felt odd. Not a single soul at this school had ever asked for her phone number. When she first got to Whickett she’d hoped some cute jock would ask her, but when even casual friendships failed to materialize she gave up on that pipe dream. As she began to write the number, Meredith felt good about finally giving her phone number to someone, but then it dawned on her. Dani only wanted the number for the project. She was not asking out of friendship. Meredith hastily scribbled her phone number on the half-sheet and thrust it back at Dani.
MEREDITH FOUND THE familiar sound of pencil on paper comforting. She sat on her bed with the light from her bedside stand illuminating her sketchpad. She enjoyed Friday nights because she had the whole weekend alone. The rest of her classmates were probably hanging out in town having a good time, but Meredith hadn’t gone out on a Friday night in a long time. Well, she’d gone out to eat with her family, but they had been her only Friday night dates. Ever.
Meredith looked at the storm she had drawn in Dani’s eyes. She thought she had captured Dani’s fiery expression quite well, but the best way to capture a person’s essence was to have them sit right in front of her. Meredith suddenly felt the need to capture Dani on canvas in a way she had never felt about a subject before. Not even Mikey. She puzzled over the urge. She looked down and hoped, though, that the storm depicted in her sketch never came her way.
If Meredith ever got up the nerve to ask Dani to sit for a portrait or two, she would use hot colors like reds and oranges and yellows to capture the tempest in Dani’s expression, but for the happier sketch, she would use cool blues and greens.
Meredith grinned. Working on this history project with Dani might have benefits after all. Even though Dani asked to be her partner to get even with Ben and had maneuvered things so Meredith would help her pass the Senior Art Elective, two could play at that game. She would help Dani all right, but Dani would have to help her, too. Dani would have to pose for at least one portrait.
A soft knock on her bedroom door startled Meredith out of her absorption.
“Merry?” Her mother was on the other side of the closed door. “Can I come in?”
“Sure, Mom. C’mon in.” Meredith closed the sketchbook and stretched.
The door creaked open and her mother came in and sat on the edge of the bed. She still wore her nurse’s scrubs. Meredith’s mother, Leslie Bedford, worked as a licensed practical nurse at a local clinic in town. “How was your day, honey?”
Meredith couldn’t tell her mother the truth. She couldn’t tell her mother that no one at school liked her, that she had no friends. She could only say what she always said. “Okay, I guess.” Then she remembered Mikey’s portrait. “I’ve got Mikey on canvas, but he’s not finished, yet.”
“Oh, honey. That’s wonderful. I can’t wait to see him when he’s done.” Her mother looked tired. Meredith noticed that her mother’s formerly jet-black hair had recently taken on a fair amount of silver. Her mother pushed a lock of shoulder-length hair out of her face, but it fell back. Her mother sighed. “I’ve had a long day, and I’ve got an even longer one tomorrow.”
Oh no
, Meredith thought.
Not another double.
“I’ve got to work a double at the clinic. Elizabeth’s going to visit her parents in Spring Valley, and I told her I’d take her shift after mine.” Her mother grinned sheepishly at her. Meredith knew what was coming. “Can you watch Mikey tomorrow?” She didn’t wait for Meredith to answer. “He has karate at eleven.”
“Oh, Mom.” She whined the words, but it was a tired, resigned-to-her-fate whine.
“Please, honey? I know I owe you big time, but well, we can use the money. We’re barely making it with what your dad makes at Amalgamated and what I make at the clinic. If I could just get my RN...” She patted Meredith’s knee and said wistfully, “Ah, maybe when Mikey’s a little older. So, would you watch him tomorrow?”
Meredith sighed and told her mother that of course she would look out for Mikey and take him to karate. Meredith understood that family came first and that meant Mikey came first. When Meredith headed off for college, the heavier burden would fall back onto her parents. If she could do anything to help in the few months while she was still at home, she would.
“Thanks for being the best big sister in the world, Merry Berry.”
Meredith smiled. She liked when her mother used Mikey’s nickname for her. “No problem, Mom. Oh, hey. I’m expecting a call this weekend from a classmate named Dani and—”
“Danny? Really?” Her mother’s eyebrows were raised about as high as humanly possible.
“Mom! Stop that. Dani’s a girl. We have a project to do together in history and she’s going to call about it.”
“Oh, okay. But I never heard of a girl named Danny before.”
“D-a-n-i, Mom. Dani. It’s short for Danielle.”
“Okay. Gotcha.” Meredith thought she heard disappointment in her mother’s voice. Her mother stood up from the bed and said, “Okay, honey. I’m exhausted. Your dad is working an hour of overtime so he’ll probably get in around midnight.” She leaned down and kissed Meredith on top of her head. “Don’t stay up too late. Goodnight, honey.”
“‘Night, Mom.”
Meredith watched her bedroom door close.
Oh, well. There goes Mary
. Meredith had planned to spend most of her Saturday at the Whickett Public Library researching Mary Cassatt. Mrs. Levine recommended that Meredith study Cassatt’s paintings to see how the American Impressionist used the natural expressions of her subjects to convey emotion. Meredith reopened her sketchbook with a sigh. Maybe she would have time to go to the library after Mikey’s karate class. She didn’t want to use the slow family computer to search for websites on Cassatt. She preferred the tactile feel of an art book in her hands and the fact that she could take the book anywhere in the library to get just the right lighting. The computer was too passive for her. Art was definitely not passive for Meredith.
She looked down at Dani’s fiery eyes.
You’re not passive, either, Dani Lassiter, are you?
Chapter Three
The Scary House
MEREDITH SLICED A sesame seed bagel and put the two halves in the four-slice toaster.
“Make one for your old man?”
Meredith jumped. She didn’t hear her father come in the kitchen. “Sure, Dad.” She sliced a poppy seed bagel, his favorite kind, and placed the two halves alongside hers in the toaster.
Meredith’s father poured himself a mug of coffee. The disappointed expression on his face told Meredith that the coffee was cold.
“So, daughter, what are you doing on this fine Saturday morning?” He put his coffee mug in the microwave.
“Fine morning, Dad? It’s like twenty-five degrees outside.”
John Bedford looked toward the kitchen window. “Ah, but it’s sunny. And it’s still morning, isn’t it? I’m not acclimated to this second shift business. I hope I didn’t wake you when I came in last night.”
“No. I was still up sketching.”
“I thought I saw your light on.” Her father took his now steaming cup of coffee out of the microwave and sat down at the kitchen table.
Normally, Meredith would have taken her bagel and gone back to her room, but she decided that she would spend the morning with her father until she had to wake Mikey up for karate. Her father looked tired. His thin face was gaunt, and he had dark circles under his eyes. His thinning hair was taking on as much silver as her mother’s. Why hadn’t she noticed before? She went to the refrigerator and pulled out a tub of butter and a tub of cream cheese. “Which do you want, Dad?”
“Oh, uh, how about both? Let’s live on the wild side today.”
Meredith laughed and brought both to the table. She went back to the refrigerator for orange juice. She put the carton on the table and got out cups and silverware. She plucked the bagels out of the toaster when it popped, put them on plates, and sat down to eat breakfast with her father.
Her father smiled. “Wow. To what do I owe this honor?”
“Oh stop, Dad. I just never see you, that’s all.”
“We’re both busy, aren’t we? How’s school going? Don’t you have exams coming up?”
“Yeah. English and enviro on Monday, history on Tuesday, econ on Thursday, and math on Friday.”
“I remember those days. I don’t envy you at all, but then again I wouldn’t wish second shift on you, either.” He pushed up his thin wire-framed glasses to sit on the bridge of his nose.
“Why do you work second shift, then?” Meredith stabbed into the cream cheese tub and lathered one side of her bagel.
“Well, I really don’t have a choice. Since I’m the new guy in town, I sort of have to take the shift they give me. Besides, I make a little more money this way.” He stopped buttering his bagel long enough to give Meredith a teasing grin. “Somebody’s got to pay for art supplies and karate lessons around here.”
“Dad, c’mon.” She pushed him on the arm.
“Is that all you’ve got, Merry? Maybe you should be the one taking karate.”
Meredith knew he didn’t mean to, but she detected a hint of melancholy in his voice. When Mikey was born with Down syndrome, her father’s disappointment had been almost tangible. Meredith had only been six years old at the time but she still remembered a comment her father made to her mother. He’d said, “There goes Pop Warner football.” Meredith wasn’t sure what he meant at the time, but she remembered his comment and years later realized that Mikey probably wouldn’t be able to compete in sports the same way most other boys did. Her father was probably doubly disappointed when his attempts to get her interested in sports failed miserably. She’d much rather hold a paint brush than a basketball.
Meredith must have had a sad look on her face because her father said, “Oh, it’s okay, Meredith. We both know that Mikey was the surprise package we didn’t know we wanted, right?”
“Yeah.” It was true. She loved her brother. Yeah, Mikey wasn’t a traditional brother, a normal brother, but then again, Meredith didn’t really know what traditional or normal meant, anyway. Mikey was just...Mikey. Whenever he mastered a difficult task, Meredith was proud right along with him. His smile alone made her heart soar.
“So…” Her father patted the back of her hand. “Who got tapped to take Mikey to karate?”
Meredith raised her hand as if she were in class. “That would be me.”
“Yes!” He pumped a fist in the air.
“You can go, Dad. Really, I don’t mind.”
“No, no,” her father teased. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the privilege.”
“Thanks a lot. It’s only freezing out there and then I have to sit and listen to a herd of twelve-year olds yelling karate...things.”
“They’re tapping into their inner something-or-other, I guess. Ah, but Mikey loves it.”
“And Dr. Robinson said he’s got to get more exercise, so off we’ll go.” Meredith took a sip of her orange juice. “Oh, Dad, do you want me to cook tonight, or can we just order pizza?”
“Pizza’s fine. You have exams to get ready for. In fact, I’ll even call DiGiovanni’s myself.”
“Whoa.” Meredith chuckled. “Don’t strain yourself, okay?”
“Not a chance.”
“I have to go get Mikey out of bed. If Dani calls—”
“Danny? He would be the captain of the football team, hmm?” Her father loved to tease her about boys.