The Art of Us

Chapter Five

Ireland

Ireland woke up grouchier than she’d been when she’d gone to sleep. After a night of deranged dreams brought on by a deranged poem, she wanted to throttle whoever it was that had invaded her personal space—her sanctuary—and scribbled absurdity all over her wall after she’d spent an entire afternoon cleaning. What kind of abscess on the human population does such a thing? And sure, calling a bathroom a personal sanctuary might seem like a little much, but still.

Ireland growled her way through her morning routine of washing her face, brushing her teeth, and pulling her hair back into a ponytail. She used a washcloth to hopefully remove some of the body odor, but wasn’t sure it worked. Then she looked in the mirror and considered.

Kal Ellis.

He had asked her to dinner. And, sure, it wasn’t like a date or anything. But it almost felt like one, certainly the closest thing she’d ever had to one. The way she moved around all the time with her dad meant that she didn’t have a lot of time for forming those types of relationships.

Now? Now she had opportunities. Her father wasn’t going to move her anywhere in the next few days, weeks, or months. She was guaranteed to stay put. For a little while, anyway. That meant it was okay if she made some friends. It was okay if she talked to people. It was okay for her to take up space in a real way.

Ireland tugged out the ponytail. It was a basic sort of style that kept her hair out of her face, but it certainly didn’t make her more appealing visually. She took a pencil out of her bag and used the tip to part her hair like she’d done the night before. She braided one side and then the other. She didn’t need to tie off the braids with any kind of hair tie. Her hair had enough natural curl to pretty much stay where she’d put it. At least when it was in braids.

She didn’t know where the curl came from. Without ever meeting grandparents and having only a hazy memory of a mother, it could have come from anywhere. Ireland only knew that if she washed it and then used her fingers to fluff it up while it was still wet, the ringlets appeared. And if she didn’t comb through them, they usually stay put. Curls or braids weren’t things she did very often. The rushed ponytail was more her speed. But now, after her date with Kal and the way she felt today, she needed to figure out a different sort of pace for herself.

Her life wasn’t going to be all about the flight. Not anymore. Her life could have a few roots planted in soil of her choosing. And, honestly, she really liked where she was at now. She’d traveled up and down the coastline, moving into one unfortunate apartment after another. Most of them were crumbling to the ground, and several of them were probably used to cook meth. And the neighborhoods usually matched the apartment. But this time the school was decent. Arcata felt, in the strangest way possible, like home.

Ireland had to admit her dad had done better this time. Even the apartment in this town hadn’t been that bad. It hadn’t been great, but at least it wasn’t infested with vermin or bugs or tweaked-out addicts. Sure, there had been a few of all of the above. But they weren’t leaking out of the cracked plasters of the walls.

She took a deep breath that filled her lungs and let it out. She looked her reflection in the eye. “I can be someone different.”

With that declaration, she began to pack up her little home for the day. Now and again, she cast her gaze in the direction of the wall that had been smeared in lipstick the night before. Ireland wanted to keep her eye on it just in case she was the victim of a poltergeist. Did poltergeists use lipstick? How would she know? It’s not like she was a medium with a crystal ball.

She ate a salad and several pieces of pizza, figuring eating cold pizza was a stereotype of teenagers everywhere. She’d never read that any of them had died from it, so the food still had to be pretty good. But she wasn’t sure how long the rule of cold pizza being just fine to eat could hold out before her pizza actually went bad and gave her food poisoning and some future hiker found her dead in the bathroom. So she ate as much as possible. Better to be a little sick from being full than to be starving or to have food poisoning.

Besides, food that could be attractive to raccoons could end up being a problem for her later on.

For that reason, she stayed close to the bathroom the entire day. It’s not like she had anywhere to go. Plus, she had a ton of homework to do. So she worked on that, listened to her music, and ate pizza. Toward evening, Ireland started to feel vaguely stupid that she’d taken the time to do her hair. It’s not like anyone was going to see her on the weekend, especially since she had no intention of going into town.

Fixing herself up felt good though. Maybe that was the point. Instead of looking nice for other people, maybe you fixed yourself up to look good for you. It was an idea she could get behind.

In spite of the day having been productive and her feeling good about it, by the time evening rolled around, her anxiety spiked all over again. She could still see that message scrawled on her wall as if it had been seared into her brain—as if it were still there on the wall, which was entirely more distressing. She locked herself in her bathroom but then wondered if the moment it would take to unlock the door would be her undoing when the poltergeist decided to come after her.

Stop that! she admonished herself. “No poltergeist is coming to get you.” But the statement took several hours of repeating over and over to herself along with all sorts of breathing exercises to calm her heart enough for her to go to sleep. And even then, her dreams were fitful and brimming with things chasing her, catching her, clawing at her curly hair; and when she saw the creatures who were after her, there was bright pink lipstick smeared over their faces as if a child had tried to make them look pretty and failed.

Ireland had never been more grateful for school than she had after a weekend of being in her own head. She needed the company of others. So when she slid into her seat and saw Kal smiling at her, her heart rate leveled off for the first time in days.

“Hey there,” he said.

“Hey.” There were a lot of things Ireland could have said. She could have asked after his weekend. She could have thanked him again for letting her watch him and his band play and sharing their dinner with her. She could have asked if he got the homework assignment done. But all she managed was that one word. She felt all the stupidity of wanting desperately to talk to someone all weekend and then not knowing how when the opportunity finally showed up.

Luckily, Kal was not as tongue-tied as she was.

“It was really great having you there to see us play. Thanks for coming and supporting us. It’s good business if it looks like we have friends who can bring customers to the restaurant.”

“I didn’t exactly bring customers.”

He waved away her protest. “It always looks good for the restaurant to look full. It makes it seem like a hot spot and encourages people to come back. It’s totally a FOMO thing.”

“Glad I could help?” Ireland hated that it sounded like a question. But she wasn’t entirely sure that he wasn’t just making stuff up about her helping the restaurant. She didn’t want to be anybody’s charity case. But she also didn’t want to look too deeply at the possibility that she was a charity case. Because what she really wanted was a friend, and she didn’t want to sabotage that by overanalyzing.

Kal was tapping an art pencil on his desk before he blurted out, “I have a favor to ask. So I’m in charge of this art project for Wasden’s class. And I’m thinking I could use some help. It’s pretty intense, and it’s going to require a lot of support from students. And I could use somebody who loves art the way I think you love it. What do you say? Want to be on my art team?” He waited expectantly as if she would be excited about whatever this project was, but he hadn’t said what it was.

The image that came to her mind was the lipstick on her bathroom wall. Maybe the art project had already started, and she was a victim of it. Stop that, she thought. Kal was not running around sabotaging her life in the woods. In the first place, he had no idea where she was living. In the second place, he was not a villain. She was a pretty good judge of people, so she was sure of that. She smiled at him.

“So? Why are you smiling at me like that?”

This time, the smile felt like it went all the way down to her toes. “You haven’t actually told me what this art project is. So how am I supposed to know if I want to be involved or not?”

Kal’s olive complexion took on a much rosier hue. Blushing. Ireland hadn’t been aware that men could blush, since she’d never seen it. His blush warmed her up inside.

“Right. Sorry about that,” he said. “So, Wasden put me in charge of doing something that would bring the student body together, whether they were artistically inclined or not. And it seems a mural would be an amazing way for all of us to kind of get to know one another better. A chance to be creative. I want to create a mural that anyone can add their creative flair to. What do you think?”

“Sounds pretty straightforward. What would you need me to do? Hang the butcher paper?” She couldn’t see how she could help with this at all.

“Not paper. We’re doing this on the actual wall. It’s going to be a semipermanent part of our school. At least, it will be if I can get permission. What you will do is help me get the wall ready. Then you and I will put the very first art projects on the wall. That way we can kind of show students what to expect.”

It was hard not to be suspicious. Why would he pick her? It’s not like she was in the advanced art classes. Wasn’t Kal in the art club? Didn’t he have people in the art club with him who would expect to be part of a project like that? Ireland wasn’t sure if it was because she looked skeptical and probably more than a little suspicious, but Kal interrupted her wandering thoughts.

“I chose you for this because I’ve seen what you can do. You have an incredible amount of talent. I don’t know why you’re not in the advanced art classes. But I think it’s okay for the world to see that you’ve got a lot going on. Artistically speaking.”

He added that last part in a rush. His complexion went rosy again. It struck her that maybe he liked her. Like like -liked her. Why else would he be blushing? That was new. But she was probably reading more into things than she needed to. Maybe he just was incredibly shy and didn’t like talking to people. But if he was shy, how could he get up on a stage and play a guitar and sing?

She did an inner eye roll. She was overthinking things. Maybe he just had a fever or a flu or had eaten some chili peppers before class or whatever.

Kal was looking at her expectantly. That’s right. She hadn’t answered him yet. She did another inward eye roll. “Yeah. Sure. I can help with that.”

“Great! I think we should get started right after school. Sorry if you have plans or if that’s too soon or something. If it is, we can totally rework it, but I think the sooner the better, right?”

Ireland thought about the fact that some girls played weird games where they made themselves unavailable so that it looked like they were aloof. Maybe she should have said, “Yeah, sorry. I do have plans. How about three days from now.” But she didn’t really see the point in that sort of thing. If you were available, you should say you’re available. And if you’re not, then say you’re not. It was something she hated about her dad. The man never said what he meant. He only ever said the things that got him what he wanted. He was a master manipulator. Ireland was never going to be that person. “I’m totally available after school. Let’s get this started.”

Kal seemed pleased and, for whatever reason, that pleased her as well.

After school, Ireland was making her way to the front hall when she overheard female voices from around the corner. “So? Details! Spill the tea, girl. How was he at the clambake?”

Ireland recognized the voice. It was Emily, the hag in Mara’s “shrew, hag, and harpy” group.

The voice that answered was also one she recognized, Mara Washington’s. “He was ... fine.”

Mara’s friends didn’t seem to notice Mara’s hesitation when she answered. How could they not see that “fine” was hardly what anyone called a glowing endorsement? But the others seemed to take the word “fine” and apply to it all sorts of innuendos and meanings besides the one Ireland felt sure it actually had.

“I bet it was fine .” That voice was Tinsley’s. “To get cozy in that sweet ride with his hot breath all over you!” She squealed as if living out an actual fantasy. “He did kiss you, right? Please tell me he kissed you. What’s the point if he didn’t?”

“Come on, guys. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Don’t be so extra, Mara,” Tinsley said. “It’s not like kissing Rowan is some sacred event that must be kept to yourself. We’re your friends. We have the right to know.”

Ireland wanted to snort at that. They had a right to know? If being friends with someone gave them a right to know every detail about your private life, Ireland was glad she’d never really had friends.

“I bet he was a good kisser,” Tinsley continued.

Ugh and blech! Were the shrew, hag, and harpy going to talk forever? Ireland knew she should just turn the corner and walk on past them. But after they’d been ten kinds of horrible to her when she’d carried the cleaning supplies home, she wasn’t up to dealing with their ridicule. As it was, she’d had to go to school early the day she’d returned the supplies so they wouldn’t see her. She looked down the hall. The only other way she could go was out the back door and all the way around the school to come in through the front. But maybe that would be worth it? She didn’t budge though. Something felt weird about the whole conversation she was overhearing. She didn’t know why; something was just off .

Mara gave a shaky laugh. “Well, of course he was. How could he be anything but?”

Ireland heard the lie. Sometimes she felt like a human lie detector—the hazard of growing up with a father who ate dishonesty for breakfast, lunch, and dinner—at least on those days when he got three meals.

Not that being a lie detector had ever really done her any good. It’s not like anybody handed out awards or cash prizes for such a thing. It never got her a better place to sleep. It never gave her more nutritious food. And in her current situation, it was certainly not going to get these girls to be her friends.

That decided it. She turned to go out the back door. Even though Ireland felt pretty certain Mara wasn’t like her friends, exactly, she also wasn’t strong enough to stand up to her friends. The whole hierarchy of that friend group confused Ireland. Mara was the queen bee of the group. She was the pretty one. Well. Okay. They were all gorgeous in their own ways. But Mara was definitely the most beautiful of them. However, Mara didn’t gravitate toward them; they gravitated toward her—which practically required others to see them when they were with her. Mara welcomed them into her circle but never seemed to notice if others were watching or not. Ireland suspected that, had Mara been left to her own devices and welcomed nicer people into her circle, she’d probably qualify as a nice human too.

“But the world will never know.” Ireland said this out loud and then looked around to make sure nobody had caught her talking to herself and was glad she’d moved far enough from the corner where the girls were to avoid them overhearing her. She really had to stop doing that. Just because she spent a lot of time on her own didn’t mean she could act like an eccentric hermit person when she was in public.

She exited the school and walked around the entire building. She hoped Kal was still waiting for her. She’d taken enough time to get to him that he might have thought she’d bailed on him. If the shrew, hag, and harpy made her miss a chance to spend time with Kal, she was going to ... well, she didn’t know what. She wondered: if she’d had the same opportunities that Mara and her friends had been privileged with, would she be shallow, vapid, and offhandedly savage like them?

“The world will never know,” she repeated. And for the first time ever, she felt grateful to have had her own experiences because she suspected that savagery lurked in her as well.