“It’s just … my friend Charlotte.” I hesitate to go into too much detail. “She’s just … different since she started dating Pepé.”
Zenn smiles a little at my nickname for Josh. He straightens up and nods. “You’ve been friends for a long time?”
I nod. “I mean, she’s happy. That’s good. I just thought …” I thought she’d never abandon me. I thought we’d be BFFs forever. No matter how I finish that sentence, it sounds vulnerable and whiny, so I just let it hang out there. I wave my hand dismissively. “I don’t care. I’m fine.”
“So fine you’re eating lunch in the library?”
“I like the library.”
“Obviously.”
“I do. I like it better than I like most people. It’s quiet. It has substance.”
He laughs and sits next to me on the table. “I have study hall fifth period but my teacher always lets me go to the art room instead,” he says. He nudges me lightly with his shoulder. “Come eat with me there.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Come on. Keep me company. I’ll let you help me with math.” He says this in a singsong voice, the voice my mom might use to bribe the quads with candy.
“You don’t even need my help.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No. You don’t.”
“I do,” he insists. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
I’m sure he’s just feeling sorry for me, but it feels nice to have someone care about me being lonely. Besides my mom, I mean.
“Okay,” I tell him. “But only because you’re kind of new here and I wouldn’t want you to feel like a loser.”
“It’ll be, like, your public-service project. You could put it on your college applications.”
I laugh at his joke, but also at the idea that spending time with him would be any sort of hardship on my part. Plus, at the very least eating with him might lessen the ache of losing Charlotte.
Chapter 16
Before dinner my mom drops me off at the body shop to pick up the van. I suspect her eager offer has more to do with her wanting to get a glimpse of Zenn than it does with anything else. I say a silent prayer that maybe he won’t be there, that maybe after our tutoring session this afternoon he went to work at the Piggly Wiggly. Not that I don’t want to see him again. I’m just trying to avoid my mom’s nosiness and the whole circus that four preschoolers bring with them everywhere they go. When I see his truck in the lot, I know my prayer, like many, has not been answered. My mom always says that God answers all prayers, it’s just that sometimes the answer is not what you want. I think that’s a convenient excuse for radio silence from heaven. I must have gotten the skeptic gene from my real dad’s side of the family.
I hop out of the minivan quickly, trying to head off a scene, but it’s too late. The church van is parked in the lot and my mom gets out to admire it, which makes all four kids clamor to get out as well. They are all old enough and savvy enough to slither out of their car seats, so in a matter of seconds my mom and all four of my siblings are out of the car and examining the van. I’m trying to corral them when Zenn comes out of the shop. He looks highly amused.
“Hey,” I say, embarrassed.
“Hey.” He smiles at the squirts, who have migrated toward him immediately. They look up at him with undisguised interest. My mom tries to be slightly more subtle, but she creeps over, too.
“These are my brothers and sisters,” I tell him. I touch each of their heads as I say their names. “Eli, Ethan, Essie and Libby. And my mom.”
Now my mom steps closer and lifts her hand in a small wave. I’m grateful she doesn’t shake his hand. Even watching other people shake hands makes me a little nervous. It’s like when you watch America’s Funniest Home Videos and someone falls off a roof or gets hit in the crotch by a baseball bat: it doesn’t hurt you, but you cringe in sympathy, imagining pain you can’t feel.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Walker,” Zenn says to my mom. Then he looks down. The little ones are still staring at him with blatant curiosity. “What’s going on, small people?”
Now that she has his attention, Libby laughs and starts bouncing. “Hihihihi!!!”
Ethan is more focused. “Did you paint our van?”
“I helped paint it, yep.”
Eli’s eyes are big, impressed. “How?” he asks. I imagine he’s amazed at how Zenn got such impressive results with finger paints or some big clumsy brush, the only kinds of painting implements three-year-olds know anything about.
“I use a special tool called an airbrush. It’s like a little pen that sprays out paint. Do you want to see?”
Four pairs of eyes grow big and four small heads nod in unison. Zenn looks to my mom for permission.
“You sure?” she asks, like he might be a little bit insane.
“Sure,” he says. I have to keep my jaw from hanging open. He has no idea what he’s getting himself into. Should I warn him?
But my mom has already started preparations. “E’s,” she says firmly. Sometimes we call them that rather than saying each of their names. “Look at me.”
They all turn in a unified motion of obedience and look up at my mom.
“Mr. Zenn is going to take us into his work area.” She speaks slowly, her voice demanding attention. “We do not touch anything. We stay together. If you do not behave, we will not get to see how Mr. Zenn painted the van.” Her speech has a military quality to it and I expect them all to salute when she’s done. “Do you all understand?” she asks.
Four heads nod earnestly.
“Hold hands, please,” she adds.
Zenn leads us to the garage, which is empty of cars at the moment. He lines the kids up and sits them down on four upside-down crates. Then he gets out an airbrush and explains how it works. He even lets them all feel the compressed air with their hands. When they start to get riled up, wanting him to spray them again and again, he moves on calmly and hooks the pen to the hose. He grabs a piece of cardboard and, in the blink of an eye, paints a simple dog on it — floppy ears, tongue hanging out — so cute and perfect that the girls start to bounce and want him to do more, like he’s making balloon animals or doing magic tricks. Frankly, it is magical the way he can paint so perfectly from some vision in his head. He cuts a new clean sheet of cardboard into four smaller pieces and turns to Essie.
“Essie, right?” he asks her. “What’s your favorite animal?”
“Koala bears.”