The Other Half of Me (19 page)

THIRTY-ONE

My linen dress is cut close enough that I’m not swallowed by fabric, as Sierra and Sage once told me in reference to my baggy T-shirts, but not so close I’m self-conscious. And for once, I’m paint-free. Except the twins aren’t here to see for themselves, nor is the rest of my family.

Just when I thought everything was on the slow climb upward, I find myself at the art show, program in hand, and alone. Well, not completely alone. My parents slipped a card into my bag saying congratulations, and Russ left a note on my dashboard saying good luck. The twins left overlapping messages on my cell phone. But it’s not the same as having them here with me.

Of course, I blame myself a little. I was the one who shrugged off the show, who told them to go and see Sierra and Sage’s performance. The one thing keeping me going is that my art is finally on view for all to see. The seesaw of my emotions is making me off balance; I feel guilty that I’m missing out on the twins’ performance (although I arranged for two bouquets of gerbera daisies to be delivered to their show), crumpled about Alexa and Tate, yet thrilled at being right here, right now.

People hold cups of chilled punch in their hands as they mingle and chat about the sculptures and paintings, and I watch them as much as I look at the art. It’s a relief to be at the studios but free of Sid and his ever-present critiques. Jamaica Haas gives me a nod from across the room, and I fight the urge to go and check on my painting. Then I figure it’s okay if I do, sort of like visiting an old friend. That’s the thing about art: after you make it, it’s not really yours anymore, more everyone else’s.

I stand in front of it and remember each slash of color, each stroke of purple and orange, the wax I put in to delay the drying time. Tate once commented that my paintings are filled with circles, and I guess he’s right. Now I realize the spheres are like family, everything joined together in teams. Maybe the point of art—and of everything—is that you can’t predict the outcome, that the crazy upheaval of it all is part of life. The recall of that overwhelming anxiety I felt when I first clicked on Alexa’s posting comes back when I think about not seeing her again.

“Well done, Jenny Fitzgerald.”

I know right away who that pinched voice belongs to. Perhaps my relief was premature. “Hello, Sid,” I say, and it sounds formal. Then again, I’m at an art show wearing a dress, so maybe I should be on my best behavior. “I thought you weren’t—”

“Employed here anymore?” he asks, and purses his lips. He may as well have a sign around his neck reading
ASK ME IF I’M ANNOYING
. “Well, the rumors are true. I’ve given up this suburban existence and moved back into the city.” He pauses and looks around at the crowd. “It’s where everything important is happening.”

He leaves out any notion of being fired—but maybe that’s art, too, making up your own reality in order to get on with life. I think about Alexa’s enthusiasm about me moving to the city, even if it was only for a semester, and how that would never have worked.

Sid points a finger at my painting. “So, it hasn’t sold. Shame.”

I look at the title card on the wall and see that it has no red dot like many of the other paintings. Red dot stickers signify that a painting has been sold, and a quick sweep of the room informs me that mine is one of the few that hasn’t.

“You know what, though? I’m just so glad to have my painting here. I don’t care if it sells. Who cares who buys what in art? I mean, the point is just to do it. To find what you want to say and say it!”

Part of what I said is true. Getting what you want feels good, but not the way it should if you’re completely without people to share it with. Alone, I wait for Sid’s pointed reply.

Instead of being obnoxious, he’s very calm. “That’s precisely what I was hoping you’d learn. Bravo!”

Even though Sid is evil incarnate and semistrange, it feels good to be praised by someone who knows what he’s talking about. “Thanks, Sid.” He raises a glass to toast me when I remember to ask him something. “By the way, have you seen the other paintings I did? The ones that kind of go with this one?”

His mouth goes back into twisted mode. “I have, actually. They’re tucked away in the storage space upstairs. Ask Jamaica for the key.” He pauses. “All except one—the rather bold blue?”

I make a face. “Whatdoyoumean?” My words come out so fast I sound like Sierra and Sage. “Where’s that one?”

He points a finger at me, scolding. “Oh, relax. I took it into the city with me. How do I say this without filling your head with fluff?” He puts his hand dramatically on his forehead and pauses, just to drive me crazy. Then he continues. “Jamaica Haas thinks you’ve got talent. I respect her opinion, obviously, but not more than my own. After some consideration, this new direction of yours shows promise. Enough that I’ve put the blue one—temporarily, mind you—in my new gallery.”

My mouth hangs open, and I have to tame the urge to jump up and down grade-school style. Excitement swirls around me and everything goes painty, with colors and swirls and blotches. But again, I’m at a loss—I have no hand to squeeze in sisterly excitement, no parental gaze to congratulate me. No Tate to swoop in for a kiss. “Really? In the city? A gallery?
My
work?”

“Do you realize you’ve just asked four incomplete questions?” Sid narrows his eyes. “We’ll talk more later. I have to mingle.” And with that, Sid Sleethly glides away to ogle other artwork. “And it’s only by the bathroom at the gallery—don’t be too overjoyed.”

But I am. I stand with my painting, looking at the title card with no sticker, and wishing I had someone to share my good news with. And then, right when I think I’ll break in two, I see him. Standing in the doorframe in a suit, looking like a piece of art himself, is Tate. He sees me notice him and comes over right away.

“Before you say anything, let me explain,” he states, when I’m already contemplating the statute of limitations on apologies. “From the minute Alexa got here, she and I had…a thing.” I feel like someone has dropped a slab of concrete on me. I want to tell him to stop—I can’t hear it anymore—but he keeps going. “I tried so hard to keep it a secret from you, and I wish I hadn’t. But Fitz, you’re what I’ve been wishing for.”

I’ve never been more confused.

“But what about—”

“Wait.” Tate punctuates his word with a hand on my shoulder. “There wasn’t anything between me and Alexa. We were just—”

Tate’s reveal is interrupted by familiar faces all in a jumble by the buffet table. “There she is! Jenny!” Sierra and Sage, each carrying the flowers I sent them, come dashing over to me. Their faces are matte with stage makeup, but they smile at me while my parents follow behind.

“You’re here!” I exclaim.

“Don’t sound so shocked,” Russ says as he joins us.

“You didn’t think we’d really miss this, did you?” My dad comes over, still in a half limp from his twisted ankle. Despite the injury, he manages to hug me so hard he lifts me off the ground.

“Well,” I say, “this is it. This is my painting.” I’m about to explain what I tried to do and how, but I know now it doesn’t matter, that they can see it however they want. The important thing is they’re here with me.

“So we’re too late, I see,” Mom says and points to the title card. When she does, I realize she’s been pointing that way my whole life; to the lopsided clay pots I glazed in second grade, to my first tries at “real” painting in seventh, to just plain old paint-streaked me. That to her, I am the art, and instead of feeling embarrassed or annoyed, I just smile.

“Cool name,” Sierra says, and Sage nods. They, too, gesture to the red dot as though it’s an on button.

I smirk. “You guys didn’t have to do that,” I say. “It’s really fine with me if no one buys it.”

I reach over and start to pick at the sticker with my fingernail. It’s sweet that my family wants my work, but not necessary. I remember having my own art sale, how I roped a five-year-old Russ into playing the art dealer while I displayed my wares on the floor of the living room. Together, we sold a drawing I’d made of our family then, with me, Russ, our parents, and the twins as simple orbs, little babies without personalities. Now I’d like to try my hand at them again, at all of us, this fully formed group.

“We didn’t buy it,” Mom says. She clamps her lips over her teeth and shakes her head, trying to prove she’s serious.

“We would have,” Dad says. He puts his arm over my shoulder, and I can feel him lean just a little on me, his ankle still sore.

I look around, wondering what the deal is, and then I catch Jamaica’s eye again. She points to the painting and then to me. So it wasn’t my family, but an artist—a real, working, fellow artist who bought it. I smile and lean into the huddle of my family.

“So can we go?” Sierra asks. She’s dressed differently from Sage, with her hair purposely parted on the other side. Even they’ve reached the point where being close doesn’t mean having to be the same.

“Yeah,” Sage says, “we should.”

“That’s it? You guys just pop in and then leave?”

“She doesn’t know yet,” Tate says. Then he puts both hands on my shoulders and turns me so I’m facing him. All gorgeous six feet of him. “There’s a party for you at your house.” Tate looks at my parents and they nod. “Alexa planned it and got us all involved. That’s what all the whispering and secrets were about. She figured that even if you didn’t make it into the show, you deserved some attention.”

There’s nothing like misunderstanding to make you feel like an idiot, but when I see the colorful tent in the backyard, all feelings of idiocy melt away. The only regret I have is that Alexa isn’t here with me. I tried to call her from Downtown, but all I got was her voice mail.

From my familiar place by the window in my bedroom, I look out at the silver and gold star balloons, the pointed tent, and the amazing food. With my best friend Faye’s help, Alexa enlisted the chef from her program to make famous paintings out of food. Van Gogh’s
The Starry Night
is recreated in cupcakes, and Mondrian’s
Broadway Boogie Woogie
is fashioned from imported cheese and artisan breads. Alexa outdid herself, which is why I ran up here.

Before I go out and join Tate and my family, the friends who have gathered in my honor, before I celebrate myself, I have to call her and say I’m sorry. While I put the program from the art show on my desk to savor later, I call her, but no one answers—not even voice mail. So I go to my computer and IM her, but nothing happens. Then I e-mail Alexa, hoping she’ll understand what I mean when I say I can’t lose her—and that I was wrong.

Alexa
,

A lot of painting techniques involve “broken color.” You use one or more colors in choppy layers over a different base coat to create a stippled or textured effect—maybe this sounds way more complicated than I mean. What I’m trying to say, in my own broken way, is that I’m sorry. And I miss you. I know you didn’t lie to me about Tate. The party is in full swing downstairs, and I wish you were here. I also want to thank you, because even though it sucked having things deteriorate while you were here, it’s made my regular life a little better. I knew finding you would change my life—I guess I just didn’t know it would change me. That’s all for now. I hope there’s more later.

JF

I could have added that everything’s okay with Tate, though we haven’t completely solidified what happens in the hallway on Tuesday at school, and I could tell her how much more a part of my regular family I feel, but I suspect she knows that. I press send and wait to hear back.

My room feels wider than it did when Alexa was here. Maybe I’m not as good at sharing my space as I thought I’d be, but it feels—or I feel—different. The newly done garden area is filled with draping white lights, calling attention to the space Alexa worked on with my dad. I was so upset then, but now as this has all unfolded, I’m glad to have her mark on this house. It’s like a visual reminder of how she altered my life. Or helped me alter my own.

“Hey, Jenny,” Russ knocks on my door.

“I know, I’m coming,” I say, and stop hunching over my keyboard.

“Come here,” he says, and I follow him out into the hallway to the attic door. “Go on up.”

I give him the
you’re crazy
look. “With the dead moths and boxes of fashion mistakes from years past? No thanks.”

“Just go.” Russ pushes me up the stairs to the dark attic. When I turn on the lights, I’m in awe: the once cluttered room is now pristine. Track lights shine onto two large tables, and trays of new art supplies are arranged in perfect symmetry at the far end of one of them.

“Oh my…,” I start, but my voice trails off as I wander around, touching everything as though I need to confirm its existence. “This is unreal!” I touch the easels, the canvas-stretching machine, and the creamy ceramic bowl that holds new brushes.

“It’s pretty good, isn’t it?” Russ smiles at me with his winning game face—the expression I’ve only ever seen him have at all-star games and MVP announcements.

“Thank you, Russ.” I hug him and repeat myself until he pushes me away.

“We all thought you deserved it.” He goes to the wall and flips a switch. “And the best part?”

“What?” Then I get it. “Ventilation!”

Russ nods. “Only clean air from now on.”

“This is incredible. I have to go thank everyone,” I say.

“Yeah, we should get to the party,” Russ says. “But, um, maybe you should change your dress?”

“Why?” I look down and expect to see my clean linen-ed self, but instead find that I’ve somehow managed to back into some wet paint and my backside is graced with a smear of orange paint. “You know what? I just am who I am.” I laugh. “You can only change so much, right?”

Russ goes out to join the festivities, and I dart back into my room to get my camera. I want to remember everything about this night. I turn off the lights in my bedroom and am about to head into the party when I see my computer blinking at me.

I walk to the screen and peek outside again. If it weren’t for Alexa, none of this would have happened—not just the party, but all of it. I feel tethered to everyone outside, and to Alexa, wherever she is. Maybe that’s the best kind of family, always there but not smothering you. I move the mouse over the blinking message on the screen while noises from the party filter up to my window from outside. Tate sees me in the window and waves, and I feel a rush.