And then the next Monday, Abuela had the second stroke, and fell into a coma.
Vic crunches through a few more carrot sticks and I coat my fish nuggets with ketchup before digging in. We could sit inside with the other girls from my fifth-period English class, or with Vic’s friends from chorus, but it’s nicer like this: Vic, me, and the Dead Guy. We’ve been able to eat outside for most of the school year. We did last year, too, but over at the picnic tables in the stark, sunny center of the courtyard, where everyone could see us and everything moved way too fast. Connor Hagins and his pals on one end of the long table, Bill Stafford and Tall Jon and two other white guys on the other, and Vic and me in the middle. We always sat next to each other and exchanged looks or bumped arms whenever one of the guys did something worth noting, but there was hardly a chance to talk, and we had to find time later to do a lunchtime postmortem.
That part was so critical: we had to replay everything, to dig deep into our then-boyfriends’ words and shrugs and try to use them to predict their (and our) futures. I think we forgot sometimes that we were in charge just as much as they were. And we didn’t realize until later that the guys weren’t doing the same level of English-class analysis that Vic and I were.
That’s why I have to be so wary about every word I say to her.
“You should come over this weekend.” I stare at her knees while I say this. And when she says nothing for a minute, I drop my gaze to her ankles. “Spend the night on Friday, maybe?”
“Sure,” Vic says. “Or we could go to the beach or walk around downtown.”
“That’s a possibility. Especially since Angela might be playing the piano all weekend.”
Vic straightens up on the Dead Guy’s bench. “Wait, you have a piano?”
It’s already coming true: Angela has pulled a chair from the dining room to use as a piano bench, and I’m marooned on the back porch with the pieces of Food Poisoning #2: a sketch pad with the fifteen penciled thumbnails for the painting, and the canvas itself, its blank patches staring me in the face. I’ve spent the whole fall and winter not getting this picture right, and now, with a month before submissions close for the county show, and two months to be sure I don’t flame out as the Sarasota Central High School senior with the most wasted potential, it’s like I expect the thumbnails to rearrange themselves into the raw material I need, or the shape of the painting to jump onto the canvas itself.
But everything is still. The thumbnails, the canvas, the other half of the porch, the hairy moss on the backyard trees, and me. Maybe potential is all I have: energy, all held-up and trembling, waiting to be set free.
Inside, Angela taps at the piano, stopping and starting, trying to fit notes together. But if I’m going to wait for her to come up with even five notes in a row that work, I might be out here a long time.
The door to the neighboring porch opens. “Hi there, Mercedes!”
“Hey, Rex.” I pick up a brush for show. Yep, I’m totally an artist at work. “If I could paint you a picture of anything in the world, what would it be?”
Rex comes to the screen that separates his porch from ours. “Hmm. It probably wouldn’t be something that’s in the world. I think I’d ask for an imaginary planet, or your perception of dignity . . . something like that.”
“Dignity, huh? I’ll take that into consideration.” I streak purple watercolor across the canvas. It’s the most I’ve painted all day. “Can you hear Angela from your side?”
“Not too much,” Rex says. “A note here, a note there.”
“That’s pretty much all she’s playing right now.”
Ding-ding-ding-ding-dong! Okay, that’s five decent notes. I’m free from the porch and Food Poisoning #2 if I want to be.
“Listen, Mercedes.” Rex scratches his beard. “I don’t know if your mom told you, but I’ve given you all a break on the rent for the next two months. What with, you know, the situation.”
“Thanks. The situation hasn’t gotten any better or worse, by the way.”
“No need to update me,” Rex says. “I know it might be rough going for a while. And it’s good that you and Angela have each other to depend on.”
“Yup.”
“So, your dad knows that you and Angela are here by yourselves, right?”
“Mom talked to him. He knows we’re fine.” I make a broad stroke of purple across one of the patches that’s already purple, but the shades aren’t the same and it’s going to look odd. “Anyway, she’s probably coming back soon, so it’s not like Dad needs to drive down here from Ohio.”
Angela has reverted to notes that are scratching at one another’s faces.
Rex’s gaze kind of goes in the direction of the notes, but then shifts back to me. “I also wanted to let you know that I’m going to advertise for a renter for my spare bedroom. I’ll introduce whoever it is I rent to. No need to be strangers around here.”
“Sure. Hey, if you could find someone who’s a piano teacher, I think that would make everyone’s lives easier.”
Rex grins. “I’ll see what I can do.” He nods toward my canvas. “What are you working on?”
“The second painting in a series.” It’s still technically true, even if I never finish it.
I stand at the sliding-glass door, from where I can see the left half of Angela and the piano. Maybe she’s got the right idea, devoting herself to this thing that shoved itself into our lives. Maybe if I stand on the driveway, a lacrosse stick or some knitting needles will fall out of the sky. I’ll give Food Poisoning #2 one last shot, and if nothing works, then I’ll do something else.
Here’s how a painting comes together. First, you get an idea. Maybe it’s something you see in your head or in real life, or it’s an abstract concept you want to turn into color and shape. Whatever it is, you sketch some thumbnails of it. You get to a thumbnail you like, and then you move to the vast white gulf of canvas. You create a pencil outline of your work on the canvas before bringing in color. Color is tricky and joyful and frightening all at the same time: you start with the broadest strokes, and then you come back again and again with layers and details and texture.
Here’s how Food Poisoning #1 happened: During a ridiculous lunchtime conversation, my then-boyfriend Bill pondered out loud whether the word salmonella came about because someone got sick from eating salmon. And I pondered—not out loud—if a whole series of artistic works could be made about food poisoning. Something that’s supposed to be nourishing makes you feel worse, I scribbled on a napkin. I went home and got started—no thumbnails, no outlines, just paint splashed at canvas, newspaper crumpled and torn and embedded in the paint. I added layers and birds. I was color and shape and energy. I finished a layer and had to let it dry, and I swear my fingers and eyes and legs twitched until I could come back and add more paint.