He doesn’t even look to me for translation, which is amazing because Essie can’t say her l’s or her r’s and it comes out like “kowawa beaws.” The hiss of the airbrush fills the garage and he paints a little koala bear in less than a minute, along with Essie’s name in beautiful script. Then he turns to Libby. After he’s drawn and personalized a cat, an elephant and a platypus — how he knows what a platypus looks like without referring to a picture is amazing in itself — he tells them that the paintings have to dry but he’ll give them to me tomorrow at school and I’ll bring them home. Not one of the kids argues or whines. My mom and I stand in awe.
Then he leads them back to the minivan and all four kids pile in. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them so docile and obedient. It’s like he has them in some kind of trance, like the freaking Pied Piper. I credit his hypnotic eyelashes.
My mom thanks him and climbs back in the van herself. When he turns his back she mouths, Wow!
I roll my eyes.
Zenn gives me the keys to the church van when they leave. I wait for questions about the age gap between the quads and me, about what it’s like to have four three-year-old siblings, but he doesn’t make me feel like a freak show. In fact, he doesn’t act surprised at all.
“You were, like, the rug rat whisperer there,” I tell him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them sit that still for that long.”
“Kids are all about paint. And animals.”
“Right,” I say sarcastically. “I’m sure that’s all it is.”
I climb into the van and Zenn closes the door behind me. I roll down the window.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, fifth period?” he asks. “Art room?”
I hesitate before answering. “I guess so.” I’m still not sure about this plan, but I’m finding it hard to resist the idea of an extra hour with him. Every day. I reach into my coat pocket for the envelope with the check. As Zenn promised, Dave did the work for only twelve hundred dollars, and Zenn worked his magic for only five hundred, so the whole thing cost less than two thousand, which my dad found in the church transportation budget. And it was worth every penny.
At least to me.
Chapter 17
I can barely concentrate during fourth-period French class. I feel like I’ve made a huge mistake, agreeing to meet Zenn every day for lunch. What the hell will we talk about? Why not just live in the fantasy of possibility instead of the reality of what this is: a dead end?
Usually French draaaags on forever, Monsieur Sullivan’s constant “En fran?ais, s’il vous pla?t” a metronome counting off the slow passage of time. But today the clock ticks at a frightening pace and before I know it, the bell rings. My stomach lurches.
Oh, God. Here goes nothing.
I take my time getting to the art room so that Zenn will already be there when I walk in. Seems like the better option than being there first. I swing by the bathroom, wiggle my way through a sea of girls taking selfies and then study my face in a tiny corner of the mirror while I wash my hands. I don’t carry makeup with me so I pinch my cheeks, feeling like a grandma as the girl next to me gives me an odd look. I slap on a coat of ChapStick. I tuck a loose strand of hair back into my braid. Good enough.
I head to the art room slowly, doubling numbers in my mind every other step: 1, step, 2, step, 4, step, 8, step, 16. I get there by 16,777,216. When I open the art room door, Zenn is already inside, standing by a light table.
“Hey!” he greets me, more enthusiastically than I could have hoped for.
I try to look relaxed.
He brushes his hands together (I realize, now, that the light table is covered in a fine layer of sand) and waves me in. I set my backpack on a nearby chair and stand awkwardly, not sure if I should sit, not sure what to do with my hands. Oh, God. Whose horrible idea was this?
But then he smiles and says, “I’m glad you came.”
Something releases its grip on my insides. I smile back. “Hopefully Mrs. Lanham won’t feel rejected.” I step closer to the light table. “What is that? Sand?”
He nods and runs a finger through it, leaving a curvy path.
“What are you doing with it?”
“Drawing.”
“In sand?”
He nods.
“Show me.”
Maybe I shouldn’t be so demanding. But at least the sand gives us something to focus on besides the awkwardness of being alone together without a math book between us.
He rubs the edge of his pinkie against the surface and clears an oblong shape in the sand. He fine-tunes the shape with his thumb and middle finger, but I still can’t tell what it’s meant to be. He reaches to the side and grabs a handful of the fine sand from a container next to the light table, then trickles more back onto the shape. His hands move so quickly to add and erase that I have a hard time focusing. But after a moment I realize what he’s drawing.
“The Loser Cruiser!” I laugh.
He finishes up the puffy white sheep clouds with a flourish.
“Oh, my God, that’s perfect.” It is perfect. The perspective, the detail, the sheep clouds. He drew it in sand. With his fingers!
He looks at it for a moment and then, before I think to take a picture with my phone, he reaches into the sand container again to obliterate his work of art.
“Don’t!” Without thinking, I reach for his arm to stop him, nearly touching his bare skin. I stop my hand just in time.
“What?” he asks.
“Don’t ruin it!”
“That’s the thing about sand pictures,” he says. “They’re only temporary.”
“Well, that’s sad.”
“Not really.” And just like that, he draws the same thing again, not identical to the first one but pretty close. To this one he adds the head of a driver, a girl with a braid. Then before I have time to say anything, his hand swoops in and clears a section and the Loser Cruiser transforms into Albert Einstein. Same sand, same table, completely different picture in seconds. I can’t stop staring.
“Holy crap, that’s amazing.”
“That’s a bit of an overstatement.”
“No, it’s not. How did you learn to do that?”
He wipes his hands together.
“And don’t tell me it’s just your thing.”
“I didn’t grow up with a lot of art supplies. I had to be creative.”
I must look at him sadly, thinking of the fuck-ton of crayons we have at home, because he says, “I know. It sounds pitiful.”
“No!”
He’s doubtful.
“Okay. Well, a little. But look what amazing thing came out of your sorry childhood! I’ve never seen anyone do that before.”
“I do have some odd talents.”
Something about this comment makes my insides clench in a not unpleasant way.
“Do you ever think about going to college for art? Like, the art institute or something?”
Zenn scoffs. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious. You could.”
“It’s, like, forty grand a year.”
I laugh triumphantly. “I thought you hadn’t thought about it!”
He gives me a look. “Thinking about it and actually doing it are two different things.”
I think about my own battle with college applications and I know he’s right. Dreams are one thing. Reality is something else.
“You could apply for a scholarship.”
Zenn sighs. “I’m no straight-A student, Eva.”