KATIE LEHNA
Right now—as I stand in front of my locker knowing that Lehna will show up at hers any second and that when she does we’ll have to either look at each other for the first time since I drove away or, even worse, not look at each other—I think of all the tiny details we painted. The rings on the fingers of the princesses. The scales on the bodies of the dragons. So many rays of the sun, and so many blades of grass, and so many tiny pairs of shoes that hover above the ground because we didn’t want the colors to mix or smudge.
I spent most of yesterday in the garage, staring at it. I had to move all these boxes and plastic bins away from the wall so that I had a clear view. My parents had no idea what I was doing. They kept walking past the open garage door and pretending not to look in, maybe hoping I’d taken on an epic task of organization, only to discover that I was sitting on a bin of Christmas decorations, staring at a wall.
I took a break for lunch. Ate a sandwich in the driveway in the sun.
At around three, my mom came in carrying her laptop.
“Aunt Gina just called. Your photo is on The Daily Dish! It’s not of you—don’t get too excited—but you’re in the background.”
She kept holding the laptop out, trying to show me, but there were so many boxes between us that eventually she just held up the computer and pointed. The screen was at the wrong angle. I couldn’t see anything, let alone myself.
I smiled.
“Cool,” I said.
And then I turned back to our mural, unsure of what I was hoping to find there.
And now, here is Lehna, spinning her combination next to me.
“You wanted to see me?” she asks, because just as we both know she has History next period and that tome necessitates a trip to her locker, we also know that I have Volleyball and need precisely nothing from mine.
I nod, but she isn’t looking.
“So what do you want to say?”
My mind is blank.
“Did you see me in The Daily Dish?” I ask, without meaning to.
She slams shut her locker and narrows her eyes at me.
“I mean, it doesn’t really matter. The picture wasn’t even supposed to be of me. I didn’t actually even see it; I just wondered…”
She looks past me, down the hall.
“I have to go. Class starts in, like, two seconds and I need to text Candace.”
“Candace!” I say. “So what happened? I can’t believe I forgot.”
“I can,” she says.
“Lehna,” I say. “Really. Can’t we just get over whatever this is? I want to hear about Candace.”
“I really have to go. I can tell you at lunch. Unless, of course, you’re going to be hanging out with your new best friend.”
“Mark isn’t in our lunch period,” I say, which I guess is the wrong response, because Lehna shakes her head and stomps down the hall with such finality that I don’t even consider going after her.
* * *
On my way to the gym I see Ryan leaving the teachers’ lounge, carrying a stack of literary magazines.
“Last issue of the year,” I say, catching a glimpse of the cover. I recognize the work of Elsa, a quiet girl in my AP Studio Art class who makes intricate collages.
“Oh wow,” Ryan says. “I’m no longer invisible.”
I laugh and continue walking, but he stops me.
“Hey, um, actually…”
And I know where he’s going to go with this, and I realize there was a scenario Mark and I didn’t plan for.
We know that we aren’t going to volunteer information about Saturday night unless Ryan and Lehna ask us directly. But we were assuming that Ryan would ask Mark, that Lehna would ask me. What do I do if the reverse happens? I am not good with quick decision making. I’m much better at obsessing for so long over a decision that the answer becomes irrelevant.
“Did Mark say anything about writing an essay on Sylvia Plath?”
“Oh,” I say, confused. “An essay? It’s a little late in the year, isn’t it?”
“Exactly,” he says. “At first I was like, Yeah, Sylvia Plath puns! But then last period I thought, Wait a second. It’s review week. No one’s writing essays.”
I shrug. “You probably just misunderstood.”
“Probably,” he says, but I can tell he’s unconvinced.
“All right,” I say. “Volleyball time.”
“Okay, but one other thing.”
Shit.
“What exactly happened Saturday night? I mean, not that it’s a huge deal, but…”
He looks self-conscious, and I understand why. Mark is his best friend; he shouldn’t need to ask me. The way he’s trying to be casual while actually looking desperate is embarrassing to both of us.
I fight the urge to run away.
I decide against lying.
But I decide, also, against telling the whole truth.
“Magic,” I say. “A cat named Renoir. A whiskey bottle. A typewriter. Ferns. High-heeled shoes.”
He arches an eyebrow.
I smile.
“Volleyball,” I say again.
I step past him, and I don’t look back.
* * *
I take my time changing out of my gym clothes after Volleyball is over. Some girls loiter around me, wanting to ask me questions, but maybe the worry on my face is enough of a deterrent. They give me shy waves and goodbyes as they leave, and then it’s just me in the empty locker room. Two minutes of silence.
I wish I knew why I felt so sick.
I wish my brain wasn’t constantly counting down the days until high school is over.
Or, if that’s inevitable, I wish every day that passed lessened the pressure in my chest instead of intensifying it.
I finally get myself back outside, onto the path that will take me to the senior deck where Lehna and Uma and June will be basking in the sun with their lunches. And soon there they are, at a distance. I slow down to look at them.
What will I say?
June and Uma are each nibbling sandwiches while Lehna talks, gesturing grandly about something. I wonder if Lehna and I would become friends if we met each other today. If we hadn’t had hundreds of sleepovers, if we’d never painted murals in my garage, if we didn’t stand next to each other, hands clasped and hearts swelling, at that Tegan and Sara concert in eighth grade.
If Lehna and I were to find ourselves, strangers, standing in a line in an art store or a café, would we each think enough of the other to start a conversation? And would we laugh at the things that were said?
I honestly don’t know.
June and Uma, yes. Now they are changing positions, sitting so that their backs are together, June’s short black curls against Uma’s blond waves, each using the other for support. If I saw them, let’s say, getting burritos after school, I would find them irresistible. But even that certainty doesn’t feel like enough right now. An initial spark isn’t enough to sustain a friendship. June and Uma are the kind of couple who can’t even have a one-on-one phone conversation. They always put me on speaker. And their voices sound so alike that I rarely know who is saying what, which used to bother me before I realized that it hardly mattered. They’re practically conjoined anyway.
Uma catches sight of me. She waves. And guilt crashes in. These are my friends. I walk down the steps to the wide, wooden deck and sit next to Lehna without looking at her.
June and Uma turn their faces to the side to look at me, cheek to cheek with their backs still pressed together.
“Hi, Rising Art Star,” June says, smiling at me behind glamorous sunglasses.
“Hi,” I say back, grimacing in a way I hope shows that I don’t take myself that seriously.
Lehna pulls a peach out of her bag and takes a bite. She holds it out to me. It’s such a tiny gesture, but it makes me swell with gratitude, and that makes me want to cry.
I’m so confused.
I take a bite of her peach and hand it back.
“I want to hear all about Candace,” I say.
“She’s totally in love with Lehna,” Uma says.
“I don’t know about that,” Lehna says. “We talked, though. We talked for a long time.”
“Three hours,” June says. “That’s an epic conversation.”
“What about?”
Lehna shrugs.
“Everything,” she says. “College. The future. Everything.”
I nod, but as she tells me more all I think about are the conversations that she and I have not been having. About college, about the future. The one where I tell her how afraid I am and how this new fear scares me. The one where I confess that I don’t know how I got into UCLA’s art program, because I’m sure my work isn’t good enough, and once I get there they’re going to find me out. I’ll be laughed at; I’ll be humiliated. And the one where I tell her that nothing about college excites me: not the dorms or the dining hall, not the possibility of a great roommate or great parties, not the classes that will supposedly blow my mind or the memories that will supposedly stay with me forever. Nothing. I feel like a fraud every time anyone asks me where I’m going. They are always impressed, and I always feign excitement, and all the while I’m trying to stop time from passing, stop summer vacation from coming, stop classes from ending, stop everything.
“She’s going to Lewis and Clark,” Lehna’s saying, “which is great because Portland isn’t that far from Eugene, so we could meet up on weekends. She can’t decide whether she wants to major in history or math. She knows she wants to be a teacher. Can you imagine being just as good at history as you are at math? She’s so smart.”
“Cool,” I say, trying to sound enthusiastic, but I wonder if she can see through me.
I feel like she should, because friendship is about more than facts. It’s about knowing what someone is thinking, or knowing enough to know that you don’t. But I guess it’s also about not letting too much time go by without asking them questions, so you don’t end up looking at them one afternoon, the sun so bright you have to squint, realizing that you hardly recognize the person they’ve become. Maybe, when it comes to friendship, both of us are getting this wrong.
“Holy fuck,” Uma says.
“What?” Lehna and I ask in unison.
June doesn’t have to ask, because Uma is showing her something on her phone. Both of their jaws drop.
“Katie,” Uma says.
“Kate,” June says.
“Have you been on Insta today?”
I shake my head. I’ve been avoiding my phone.
“You have, like, five billion new followers.”
Uma shoves her phone at me, and it’s true. Where I used to have a modest number of followers, mostly people I know in real life and some friends I’ve made online, now the number doesn’t even make sense to me. There are way too many digits. I click on my latest picture—an elephant painting—and there are over three thousand likes.
“What the fuck?” I say. “Look at this.”
I hold the phone out to Lehna. It takes her a moment too long to take it, but she has no other choice. She looks. She frowns. She scrolls through the pictures and comments until she stops and her eyes narrow.
“AntlerThorn says: ‘Rumor has it a show with the fabulous Kate Cleary is in our future.…’” She hands the phone back to Uma. “That gallery was on the list I found. The best new galleries? How did they…? How did you…?”
She stares at me, waiting.
I could tell her about Garrison Kline and his friends and how they promised to work magic for me, but Lehna isn’t asking out of real interest or curiosity. Instead she seems angry, as if the art show wasn’t her idea in the first place. I barely looked at her stupid list.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” I ask her.
She turns away.
The bell rings before I can say anything else, and we all stand up and gather our backpacks and lunch remnants and try to ignore the tension between us.
* * *
Today is a studio day in Art. All I have to do is paint. I block out the world with my headphones and Sharon Van Etten.
I begin something new.
Squeeze paint from tubes. Mix the color of a circus tent, a sky at dusk.
Violet.
Fifty minutes disappear with my brush on the canvas and the thought of her, and then I am washing the colors down the sink and Elsa stops next to me to return a tube of glue to a drawer.
“Finally,” she says. “The tent.”
“What do you mean?”
“All semester you’ve had these circus elements. The elephant with the star; the tightrope; those hoops on fire. And now, finally, the tent.”
“I didn’t know it was so obvious.”
She shrugs.
“I wouldn’t call it obvious. I’d call it a theme.”
“Thank you,” I say. “And, oh, the cover of the journal looks great.”
“I was afraid they weren’t going to get it printed on time. I mean, we get yearbooks tomorrow. We have four days and then it’s over.”
I dry my brushes. I try to keep breathing. But the thought of my last yearbook, full of goodbyes from everyone I’ve known almost all my life, leaves me shaken as I make my way to the math hall. Each minute is bringing me closer to a future I’m not ready for.
But then I see Mark. And I feel better.
I sit next to him at the desk where I’ve sat every day for several months, but for the first time I turn to face him.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” he says.
We smile.
“I may have blown your cover,” I confess. “I saw Ryan.”
Mark’s smile wavers.
“He asked me about a Sylvia Plath essay.”
“Hm.”
“Sylvia Plath wasn’t in our plan. I am all for bending the truth for a worthy cause, but I can’t say it comes naturally to me. But did I get you in trouble? I hope not.”
He leans back in his chair.
“Who knows? At least he asked about it, I guess.”
“Did he ask about anything else?”
“Not in a way that made me want to answer. Did she?”
“Not really.”
“Well,” he says, “it can be our secret for a little longer.”
Ms. Kelly tells us we’ll need to take notes, and soon we’re all unzipping backpacks and digging for pencils.
“Please say you can hang out after school,” I say.
“Definitely,” Mark says.
Ms. Kelly begins her review, and Mark and I turn toward the board.
I stare at equations, copy what she’s written, but soon I drift back to Violet.
7
MARK
When I find Katie after school, she looks completely freaked out.
“What?” I ask. “What is it?”
She holds up her phone.
“It’s AntlerThorn. AntlerThorn wants me.”
“Wow,” I say. “Antler Thorn, huh?”
She nods. “AntlerThorn’s already sent me a graphic to post to Instagram. So I posted it. This is so surreal.”
“It most certainly is. I just have one question.”
“What?”
“Who’s Antler Thorn? Because I wouldn’t have pegged you as the type to be getting calls from gay porn stars. And Antler Thorn sure as hell sounds like a gay porn star.”
“It’s a gallery. The one Garrison told us about, remember? AntlerThorn. One word.”
She says this as if it makes much, much more sense as one word.
“That’s awesome, right?” I say. I don’t know much about the art world, but having a gallery want you must be like being scouted by the majors, at least.
“It is awesome. Except it’s also weird. Because it’s a lie that’s coming true. The only person who thought I was having a gallery show was Violet. And now a gallery wants me to have a show there.”
As we head to her car, she explains more of the backstory. I do not t
ell her that I am slightly distracted thinking of some of the outfits that Antler Thorn, Gay Porn Star™, would wear. I’m not sure she’d appreciate that.
I also know that Ryan would. I almost want to text him and ask him what he thinks when he hears the phrase Antler Thorn.
Then I imagine him responding:
Let me see what Taylor says.
I have to stop. I am spiraling into ridiculousness.
We’re at Katie’s car now. She points to this big, big zip-up envelope thing sitting on the passenger seat.
“I want you to look through those and pick the twelve I should show them.”
We get in the car and I tell her, “I’m not sure that’s the best idea. Ryan’s the art person, not me. If you want to go through it, I’m happy to drive.…”
She shakes her head. “If I try to go through it, it will take me about twelve hours, and at the end of the twelve hours I’ll be certain I am the most pathetic excuse for a non-artist in the history of everything. That’s just the way it is. And we don’t have twelve hours—I am supposed to be there by four. Because they’re doing this show of queer artists, and apparently one of the photographers had to take down his pieces because they were all reproductions of his cheating boyfriend’s Grindr chats, pictures included, and the boyfriend is threatening to sue.”
“Fortune does have a strange way of smiling, doesn’t it?” I say, unzipping the carrier. She’s going to have to drive fast if we’re going to make it downtown by four.
I really don’t know anything about painting. I don’t know whether the colors I see are right or if the shapes make sense. I couldn’t tell you which painters Katie is like or what style she’s painting in. But almost immediately I can tell one very important thing about Katie’s paintings: She means them.
I feel like I’m reading her journal. A journal made of poems, where the spaces and word arrangements are just as important as the words themselves. These paintings are not still lifes. There is nothing still about the life within them. Everything she’s pictured has elements that are present and elements that are missing—you feel the presence and the absence and have to figure out whether the figures are almost complete or just starting to dissolve. A rope stretching across the sky, with a girl trying to balance atop it. The rope is solid, but neither end is attached to anything. In another painting there’s a girl peering into a ring of fire. You can see her face all around the hoop, but when you look inside it there’s a starry sky where her eye should be.