FOUR
The refreshments table goes on for miles. Deli platters all fancied up with endive. A tiered cupcake server. Plastic bowls of M&Ms. Sushi that looks like it’s been rolled in Rice Krispies. Immediately following the awards ceremony, I walk out of the cafetorium to hide in the hall behind the food. I can’t face my parents or Nona or anyone. Martha included.
At the far end of the table there’s some cheese and crackers. I grab a little paper plate and heap it with Ritz and mottled squares of Swiss and Colby. Goosebumps have sprouted on my arms. The red dress is too summery. I’m chilled.
My homeless guy and dog has been replaced by Martha’s Mount Hood. I don’t know what they did with my sketch. People are trickling out of the ceremony, like recently chastised grade school kids; they all walk with their heads down. Then, out in the hall, they become art patrons. They back up a bit, as though in a museum, stroking chins and clearing throats. My family is still making its way down the aisle. Martha seems to have disappeared.
My heart is beating fast. Why am I so upset? Why does my head and heart feel like they’ve just been smashed with a wooden club?
Ms. Bowerman is walking toward me. Quick, but trying to seem not quick. She looks right, left, over her shoulder, then grabs me and pulls me into an empty classroom. World History. There’re colorful posters of Egyptians and a papier mâche Sphinx on a table near the window. Outside, it’s dusk. Purple and rosy sky. A dark gray bank of cloud on the horizon. Something that would come out nice with an iPhone camera. Especially if you had one of those panorama apps.
“I tried calling you, Brady. Several times. I’m so sorry,” says Ms. Bowerman.
The red dress clings to my thighs. I wish I had a sweater to cover my boobs.
“It’s a legal thing, Brady. Ridiculous.”
“A legal thing?” I’m in some parallel universe here. I have no idea what my art teacher is talking about.
“Counsel advised that offering you the prize would look like a bribe. Given the circumstances of your parents’ pending lawsuit. But that’s not what they told Cupworth.”
Outside the door, the low conversations, some laughter, a saxophone starts up. Ms. Bowerman sees the puzzled look on my face. “The company line is, Brady Wilson is on academic probation, and is therefore ineligible.”
“I am? On academic probation?”
“It doesn’t help that you’ve been skipping class, Brady. And Mr. Garrison says he saw you getting high in the parking lot.”
The retired-cop-hall-monitor guy? Saw me with Connor? “I don’t really care about the damn scholarship. It’s just, my parents. My grandparents. Putting them through this embarrassment. It’s not fair.”
Ms. Bowerman covers my scantily-clad self with an arm-over-the-shoulder. A hank of dreads scratches against my collarbone. “I know, Brady. It really sucks.”
She whispers conspiratorially, “Giving the award to Martha? She’s not a fraction the artist you are. I guess that’s what bothers me more than anything.”
Martha painted that picture from a postcard. The sort you can buy at the Japanese Garden gift shop. I remember that she wanted to get together with me afterwards. “Did she know?”
Ms. Bowerman doesn’t want to tell me. She sighs, then says, “We had to make sure she was coming tonight.”
Given that my heart feels like a million little needles just punctured it, Voodoo Doughnuts would be the perfect place to be right now.
Dusk has gone black outside. Only one bank of lights shines in this room, aimed at a scroll of hieroglyphics. A mobile of mummies hangs above us. Next year, this might be the only art the students of Greenmeadow get to do. Recreating history, one pyramid at a time. Maybe they could combine it with math class. Martha. She squeezed my hand in the cafetorium. She sat down next to me and my family and all the time, she knew?
“Oh, Brady, Honey. You poor thing.”
Ms. Bowerman takes a crumpled napkin from the pocket of her parachute pants and dabs at my mascara-blackened tears.
“I can’t go out there,” I sniff. “Not yet.”
“No, no, you can’t, dear. Sit down. Give yourself a few minutes. I’ll come back and get you once the crowd clears out a bit.”
I want to tell her to let my parents and grandparents know where I am, but it would be worse to have them trudge in here all full of pity and disgust. I settle into one of the all-in-one-chair-desks and rest my forehead on my arms.
Bowerman turns out the light and the door clicks closed behind her.
I don’t know how much time passes, but the next thing that happens is my shoulders are being rubbed, and a soft voice says, “You OK?”
I keep my eyes closed. Feign sleep. Be on your way, Brutus.
“I told your parents I’d take you home,” says the voice of betrayal.
“I’ll walk,” I mumble into my arms.
“I have something else I need to talk to you about, Brady. You can’t keep ditching me.”
With that, I lurch up and knock into her chin. I turn around and she’s rubbing her jaw. “Ditching you? I’m ditching you? Please.”
“Sorry. Word choice. Bad. Let’s start over.”
I glare at her, this fake-tan Miss Greenmeadow who just (minutes? hours?) stood in my spotlight and received a ginormous poster with the words five-hundred dollars scripted across it. The words Cupworth and Prize.
“Of course, I want to share the money with you,” she says.
Really? Give me a break.
“The whole thing was so…complicated.”
“I’m trying not to punch you in the face right now.”
Martha grins.
“I didn’t mean that figuratively.”
“Do you want to slap me around while we’re eating bacon maple bars?”
Bacon maple bars. As if a stupid doughnut will make everything OK again. Martha’s face is so hopeful. She can’t stand to have people mad at her. Even as a kid, the few times she got in trouble for talking during class, she’d spend recess helping the teacher straighten the coat closet or staple math worksheets together.
“I’m not stepping one foot outside this classroom until everyone is gone,” I tell her. “Plus, you need to find me a sweater or something.”
Martha and her thick, chestnut mane of hair, her perfect skin and C-cup boobs, nods. And because she’s Martha, she peels her vegan leather jacket off her torso and drapes it around my shoulders. I sigh. I’ve been friends with Martha since first grade. I guess we’re going to go get some doughnuts.
There’s the usual line out the door and snaked along 3rd Avenue at the doughnut shop, where you can partake in pastries named for body parts, sex acts and super heroes. You can get married here, or have a funeral. If you’re gay, you can have a commitment ceremony. Or if you’re not, you still can. What Martha and I are doing, according to Martha, is having a counseling session. She’s the counselor and I’m the patient. “Client,” she corrects.
Martha wants to help me, she lets me know. To fix what’s broken. To help me cope with all the stuff you’ve been through. She’s good at it, too. One of those people with a natural gift for compassionate response.
Outside on the sidewalk, in a line filled with hipsters, she spits on her hand and smooths my green hair down. She steps back and takes me in, says I look amazing in Sabine’s dress. Like a whole new person. I want to tell her about hearing my sister’s voice, but something stops me. She says the doughnuts are her treat. Duh, I want to say.
“So, when did you know? About the Cupworth thingy.”
Martha fiddles with her leather bracelet. “Yesterday,” she admits. “That’s why I was trying to get you to come have lunch at Norm’s.”
A breeze kicks up, and a crumpled Subway paper cup rolls down the middle of the road like a tumbleweed. “I can’t believe nobody thought to contact my parents.”
“Yeah, it’s a raw deal. But, really, Brady, you can’t let your life go down the toilet.”
Her eyebrows are amazing when she says that. They form this studied, concerned V that I thought you needed a therapy degree to pull off. “The toilet?”
“Of course you’re grieving and upset, but even before Sabine, you were spiraling and antisocial. People were talking.”
“And by people you mean …”
“You’re so smart, Brady. So talented. I’d give anything to be able to draw like you. I just hate to see you slip down that slope. Y’know, like Connor and his ilk.”
My back teeth clamp down, my hands curve into fists. Connor. How could she even mention that name around me? The image of his red eyes, the muscles rippling under his shirt slap up against the snotty way Martha just said ilk. As if Connor Christopher were a zombie or some evil being instead of a teenaged stoner who everyone suddenly hates. It’s true that he’s a total loser, but it bugs me the way Martha can be holier-than-thou sometimes.
“They gave me that award because you’re flunking out, Brady. You’re not turning in work, not showing up to class. You can point the finger at whomever you wish, but really, you need to take a good, long look in the mirror.”
Martha’s Forever 21 faux leather tunic-jacket feels like a cold snake on my skin. My feet, all squished into Sabine’s sandals, are throbbing. In line, we’re inching closer to the Voodoo Doughnut door, where the promise of sugar and whimsy await. There’s a band playing here tonight. A drum and electric guitar fighting for attention bursts into the cooling night air every time the door opens. Into the noise of it all I say, “They gave you the award, Martha, because they didn’t want it to appear like they were trying to coerce my parents out of a lawsuit.”
My best friend’s forehead wrinkles in confusion.
“And besides,” I add, before I can stop myself. “You shouldn’t judge people. Connor included. What do you even know about him, anyway?”
“The boy who killed your sister? You’re defending him?”
I sense the entire line of doughnut patrons stopping mid-text at this statement.
“I’m not defending him,” I half-whisper.
“Connor was baked. You know that. He missed his cue, and Sabine’s neck broke because of it.”
Ms. Bowerman and the company line statement pops up in my brain. Yes, that’s what we all bought into—Connor was high and he fucked up. But something about Martha’s snippy tone tonight, and the way this whole Cupworth thing went down, and how I’m not so sure about anything anymore, I’m wondering what I’m doing out here, in the doughnut line, with this person. I’m about to ask her to loan me bus fare, when she says, “And, Brady, there’s something else I need to tell you.”
“What, are you like the new Portland Public Superintendent or School Board President or something?”
“This won’t be easy.”
I just glare at her, this self-appointed therapist so-called friend of mine.
“It’s Nick.”
“Nick?”
“Nick and I,” says Martha. “We’re seeing each other.”
A piece of garbage blows up against my bare leg thanks to a cold, gusty wind that’s now turned the weather back to Portland in the spring. I shiver in Sabine’s dress, and wrap Martha’s jacket tighter around me.
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