“Your turn.” His voice is muffled.
I take off the lid and face the nozzle toward the wall, then start shaking the can, the rattle strangely satisfying. And then I press the nozzle, and a scattered spritz of sky blue comes out.
“Shake it more,” Finn says. “Then press harder.”
I do, and this time a solid line of blue paint comes out, so I fill in the blank spaces between Finn’s green stripes, and the color is running behind Charlie on a summer day, the ice cream truck singing in the distance. It’s lying on my back in the grass, watching clouds with Em.
It surprises me, the joy I feel in making this mark on the world.
And then a big drip of blue paint goes rogue, streaming down over one of Finn’s streaks.
“Argh, I’m sorry,” I say, dropping my arm to my side.
Finn shakes his head, then digs through his bag, finding a new can. After a vigorous shake, he creates similarly sized drips of indigo paint, layering them until they start trailing down over his green and my blue.
I laugh, then add some more sky-blue drips, until between the both of us, we’ve created something that looks like a striped jellyfish. We stand back, studying it. For the first time in weeks, months even, I feel myself tilting toward possibility, that moment at the top of the roller coaster.
This time I’m not scared.
“Why?” I ask, turning to him, lowering my mask.
His brow furrows and he lowers his. “Why what?”
“Why did you start? Why here? Why the bridges? Why do you keep it secret? Why aren’t you in art school? Why aren’t you sharing this with everyone?”
“Parker,” he says, his voice reluctant.
“Please. I want to understand.”
He’s quiet for a second, shifts awkwardly, kicks the edge of the track. “When my dad went to jail for dealing meth, Johnny and I were put into foster care. That’s how I met Carla and her husband, Noel. She was my foster mom.”
I nod carefully, not wanting him to stop.
“When I was little, I was pissed. All the time. And after we moved in with her, it got worse. It was like all this fury was building inside me waiting to explode; it made me want to rip off my skin. But then Carla signed me up for boxing. That helped. It was the first time someone saw that anger in me and didn’t think it was bad—just that it hadn’t found the best way to express itself yet.
“Johnny was never happy at her place. But, for a while, I was.”
He sucks in his breath, clenches his hands and releases them slowly.
“One day, Carla told us Dad was out of jail. He had secured a job at an old competitor’s—Tom’s Auto Body—and he had the house back and was getting it ready for us to move home. Carla said he was coming to see us the next day, and he’d keep coming to see us until we could move back in with him. Johnny was pumped. I knew I should be. But inside?”
Finn shakes his head, his expression dark.
“That night, after everyone went to bed, I found every piece of pottery Carla had in the house and smashed it on the driveway.”
The cracks in Carla’s first crooked bowl, the one she glued back together—it all makes sense now.
“Noel found me first, and he started yelling, and then Johnny and Carla came downstairs. And the look on Carla’s face?”
Finn can’t meet my eyes then.
“Johnny couldn’t stop laughing, and Noel was calling me ungrateful, but for the first time in a long time, I was totally empty inside, and it was a relief.”
He blinks hard.
“The next morning I could tell Carla had been crying, but she told me she wasn’t mad, just disappointed. She said I wasn’t being very creative with all my anger. She handed me a paintbrush, opened up a few cans of paint, and told me to go to town on the back patio. So I did. For the next six months, after every one of my dad’s visits, I’d go out on the back porch and paint every bad word I could think of. I drew bloody daggers and guns and monsters. I wrote mean things. I painted that seven-by-seven rectangle every single day until I felt empty. Carla never censored me. She’d only look at what I was doing, nod, and go back in the house.
“When we moved home for a trial basis, Carla sent me with a whole box of paintbrushes and notebooks and paint. And after my dad got custody again, she kept dropping stuff off. My dad wasn’t crazy about her stopping by, so she never stayed for long, but Carla was the one who got me started. It all grew from there. Now it’s like a habit, and not just when I’m mad. I like it.” He shrugs.
“Carla’s really great at encouraging people to try things,” I say, thinking of her gentle nudging with me not to give up on the pottery wheel.
“Yeah, she is.” Finn nods solemnly.
“And all this?” I point to the walls. “You’re really talented, Finn. You should think about art school. UC has a good program—I bet Carla could help with that, too.”
He lets out a dry laugh. “You sound just like her.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Parker, I’m not the college type.”
“That’s not true.”
“I didn’t even graduate from high school. I dropped out last year.”
“Oh,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t still—”
“With what money?”
“Scholarships and loans,” I start.
He shakes his head. “My dad, Johnny, and I are saving to buy back the old auto body shop so we can have a family business again. Dad hates working at Tom’s, and it’s been the plan for forever, ever since he got out of jail. It’s what we all want. So please, let it go.”
Staying here, with Johnny? But Finn’s shoulders are braced, and I bite back what I want to say next.
He grabs a new can of paint, tosses it at me. “Want to make another go of it?”
I nod, shaking the can, appreciating the way the color paints over all the uncertainty inside me, around me, in front of us, between us.
Thirty-Six
WHEN I GET TO Carla’s the next day, there’s a weird undercurrent in the room. I don’t see Alice, but Miss Peggy and Lorna are whispering and sneaking glances at Harriet.
“Hi, Carla,” I call down the steps, which earns me a “G’morning, Parker” shout in return.
Harriet, much to my surprise, is holding up a tiny hand mirror and applying bright-coral lipstick in an uneven line across her top lip, then her bottom. She smacks them together loudly.
“Where’s Alice?” I ask.
“Sick,” Miss Peggy says.
“Is she okay?” I ask right as the toilet flushes, and all our heads swivel expectantly to the bathroom door. I’m hoping it’s Finn, but instead, an older Asian man with silvery black hair, a tweed cap, and a bright smile emerges.
“Good morning!” he says to me.
“Henry, this is our Parker. And, Parker, this, this, is Henry Chee.” Miss Peggy’s voice is practically a coo as she gestures toward him. “He just moved into Wild Meadows last week, and I told him he had to come with us today.”
“Nice to make your acquaintance,” Henry says, giving me a firm handshake.
“Likewise.”
Harriet looks like she wants to burn down the whole building when Henry chooses to sit on the empty stool next to Miss Peggy.
“I thought we could do something a little different today, if it’s okay with you guys?” I ask the group.
“Sure!” Lorna chirps.
“If it’s okay with Henry,” Miss Peggy says, patting her hand gently on his.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Harriet barks. “It’s all new to him!”
Henry shoots me an anxious glance, and I immediately feel deeply sorry for him stuck between Harriet and Miss Peggy. I shake my head subtly, sending him psychic messages not to engage. “We’re going to do a group activity.”
“Oh Lord,” Harriet groans.