D.
Her first big grade of the semester. Charlotte could hardly believe it.
Mr. Gepherdt had been kind enough not to write her grade on the front. The letter was hidden at the bottom corner of the last, almost as an afterthought.
She clutched her T.S. Eliot analysis between damp hands and looked at it with despair. This two-page paper had taken her more time than any other homework assignment of her entire life. She had even followed Emi’s counsel and done online research for secondary sources. How could this be her grade?
On the paper, Mr. Gepherdt asked her to schedule a conference with him.
She didn’t want to.
She didn’t want him to find out how stupid she was.
The rest of the day didn’t go much better. She had a geometry test coming up, but she still didn’t understand the homework. In biology, they did a lab involving potatoes and glucose. Charlotte’s group members worked so fast that she couldn’t keep up, so she wound up watching while they did all the work and occasionally glared at her for shirking her duties.
The only thing that kept her going was the prospect of art class with Mr. Kerrigan. Spanish was okay, too, because her teacher cracked jokes all the time. But Charlotte liked the peacefulness of art class most of all. The room was cool, dark and clean. Everybody was quiet while they worked. And of course, there was Mr. Kerrigan himself.
She found herself thinking of him a lot. They weren’t sexual thoughts. Not most of the time anyway. She simply admired him, and she hadn’t the inclination, nor the emotional vocabulary, to articulate why this was. She knew she wasn’t the only one who felt admiration for him. Everybody in the class respected Mr. Kerrigan. He never uttered a harsh word, never raised his voice or spoke boastfully of his accomplishments. He didn’t need to prove himself, because he was quietly confident. He knew everything there was to know about art and he loved all of it. In short, he was the most brilliant person Charlotte knew.
She had never met a man like him before.
In class, they were starting a unit on self-portraits. They studied pictures by Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and Cindy Sherman for inspiration. It was interesting to see how those artists chose to represent themselves, and how there were stories in their faces.
Mr. Kerrigan said the class could use any medium they wanted for their portraits. Photography, sculpture, watercolor. Anything.
Charlotte chose to work with black ink, because it was bold. You couldn’t go back with ink. You couldn’t second-guess yourself. Even though she wasn’t very good – not like the others in the class – she liked pretending she was. Sure, she’d never had any training, and none of her pictures turned out how she imagined, but Mr. Kerrigan didn’t care about “good” as long as there was integrity in the work. He could see right through all the mistakes and down to the intention. It was like he read peoples’ minds, and he always found something worthwhile amidst all the bad thoughts.
Charlotte entered the art classroom and sat at her usual seat next to Henry, the little freshman boy. She liked to joke around with him sometimes. They were both the least talented people in the class, so she didn’t have to feel bad about her work when she sat next to him.
Last night, she’d stayed up late working on her portrait. It was on an 11x17 piece of cardstock, so there was plenty of space to fill. She intended to cover every square inch. She wanted it dark, dark, dark.
Henry eyed the picture.
“I like it,” he said. “It looks like a bad mood.”
A moment later, Mr. Kerrigan came up beside them and placed a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. All her attention went to the one small point of contact. It magnified to the point of distraction.
“Good use of negative space,” he said, his voice filtering through the fog in her brain. “Do you know what I mean by that?”
She remembered that he had mentioned the phrase before. “The space between things,” she said.
He pointed to a dark corner on the page. “It’s almost like you reverse our expectations. Your face is in the background, and the real dynamism comes forth in the darkness. It’s intriguing. And a little disturbing.”
After class, when everyone had left, Charlotte took a tuna sandwich from her bag and she and Mr. Kerrigan sorted through heaps of movable type. Usually, he put his music on the stereo and they worked in silence, but this time he wanted to talk.
“You seemed a little distracted in class today,” he began.
Charlotte nearly put a “p” in the “q” pile but caught herself.
“I was thinking.”
“About what?”
She shrugged.
“You do that a lot,” he said.
“Hm?”
“Shrug your shoulders.” He lifted his shoulders and dropped them to show what he meant. “And every time you do it, I wonder if you don’t know, or if you know and don’t want to say.”
She smiled and made a big show of shrugging. “I don’t know.”
Actually, it was funny he had mentioned it. Ever since the accident she’d grown more aware of how often she shrugged. Whenever she moved her left shoulder, a dull pain would ripple along her clavicle.
“Next time you do it, I’d like you to try an experiment. I’d like you to stop and ask yourself, ‘What’s really on my mind?’”
“Okay.”
“So why don’t we try that again,” Mr. Kerrigan suggested. “What were you thinking about in class today?”
“Lots of things,” she said, purposefully vague to annoy him.
He gave a forbearing nod. “Oh yeah? Like what?’
“T.S. Eliot,” she said. “And the D I got on my English paper today.”
“Oh. Boy. How did that happen?”
“Basically I suck at English and the poem was gibberish.”
“I’m sure your English teacher would be more than happy to help, if you asked.”
His response was disappointing. She didn’t want another responsible adult dispensing vanilla advice. At her old school, the guidance counselor Ms. Mackey had been like that. She would call Charlotte into her office, give her free peppermints and say things like “I’m willing to work with you, if you’re willing to work with me,” and “this is a safe zone, you can open up here, sweetie.” Charlotte had always dreaded her meetings with Ms. Mackey. And she hated being called “sweetie.”
“I’d rather have all my teeth pulled out one by one,” Charlotte said.
“Try conferencing,” he insisted, as if she hadn’t spoken. “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
She had to resist the urge to roll her eyes.
“I heard something about you the other day,” she found herself saying aloud.
She wanted to get a rise out of him. To make him drop the typical teacher façade.
“A good something, I hope,” he said.
“No, it was horrible.”
He looked up from his work, movable type still pinched between his fingers. “Yikes. I’m almost afraid to ask. What was it?”
She smiled coyly. “It’s a secret.”
He was obviously confused, but he didn’t seem particularly bothered.
“If it was told to you in confidence, then you’re right not to reveal it. But if a student is upset with my teaching, please tell him or her to come speak with me in person. We can work something out. Okay?”
She flicked a few letters around before speaking again. “Have you ever been married, Mr. Kerrigan?”
She thought she saw him flinch a little. “Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered.”
“Is the institution of marriage something you often wonder about?”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
He put down the letters he was sorting. “I am married,” he said. “But my wife and I are taking some time apart.”
“Why?”
Now he was unsettled. Charlotte experienced an odd, sadistic pleasure in watching him squirm.
“Is there a reason why you’re a
sking me these questions now?” he asked.
She mirrored his pose, folding her hands in front and squaring her shoulders. “You asked me what I was thinking about, Mr. Kerrigan. And I’m answering your question.”
He unfolded his hands self-consciously. “And was there some underlying incident or conversation that inspired these queries about my marital status?”
Charlotte disliked how he threw questions back at her as an evasion tactic.
“You’re always asking about my life,” she said. “It’s not very fair that you know so much more about me.”
“Actually, I know very little about you, Charlotte,” he said quietly. “Other than what I find in your art.”
“What do you find there?”
“A girl who’s working through a lot of problems.”
She laughed derisively. “Is that the best you can do?”
He took hold of her right hand and gently extended the arm, exposing the soft white flesh of her wrist. There was a faint trail of scars left from last year, when she had cut herself with an X-acto knife.
“Did you do this to yourself?” he asked.
She met his gaze steadily in an unspoken yes.
“Why?” he asked.
She was about to shrug but caught herself.
“A bid for attention,” she said provocatively.
His face became very solemn. “I don’t think you’re taking my question very seriously.”
“I don’t know the answer.” She pulled back her arm. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Why did you ask about my marriage?”
She had no response, so she clamped her mouth shut. She let her hair fall into her face on purpose and sat father back in her seat.
“Is there something the matter?” he asked.
She stood up and slung her backpack over her should. “Mr. K. What do you think? I don’t belong here. But I have nowhere else to go.”
“What do you mean by that?”
She looked up at the clock. “It’s class time.”
Mr. Kerrigan followed her with his eyes as she moved toward the exit. “Thanks for taking with me,” he said. His eyes were so sincere. She wanted to tell him more. She wanted to tell him everything, but she was afraid of what he would think, and who he would tell. It was too much of a risk.