3. If Jack and I ever got married, I would not insist on a massive church wedding with a country-club reception, the way I know Lucy would. Jack and I would be married barefoot in the woods near Walden Pond where so many artistic souls have gone to receive succour.
And for our honeymoon, instead of a Sandals in Jamaica, or wherever, we would fully go to Paris and live in a garret.
2. When Jack came over to visit me, I would never read a magazine while he sat at our kitchen table eating doughnuts. I would engage him in friendly but spirited and intellectual conversations about art and literature.
And the number one reason I would be a better girlfriend for Jack than Lucy:
1. I would give him the loving support he so desperately needs, since I understand what it is like to be tortured by the burden of one’s genius.
Fortunately it was raining on Thursday when Theresa drove me to Susan Boone’s studio. That meant that the chances of her finding a parking space, scrounging around the backseat for an umbrella, getting out of the car and walking me all the way to the studio door were exactly nil.
Instead, she stopped in the middle of Connecticut Avenue—causing all the cars behind her to honk—and went, “If you are not out here at exactly five-thirty, I will hunt you down. Do you hear me? Hunt you down like an animal.”
"Fine,“ I said, undoing my seatbelt.
“I mean it, Miss Samantha,” Theresa said. “Five-thirty on the dot. Or I will double park and you will have to pay the impound fees if the station wagon gets towed.”
“Whatever,” I said, and stepped out into the pouring rain. “See you.”
Then I ran for the door to the studio.
Only I didn’t, of course, go up that narrow stairway. Well, really, how could I? I mean, I had to fight the system, right?
Besides, it wasn’t like I hadn’t completely humiliated myself in there the day before yesterday. Was I really just going to go waltzing back in like nothing had happened?
The answer, of course, was no. No, I was not.
What I did instead was, I waited about a minute inside the little foyer, with rainwater dripping off the hood of my Gore-tex parka. While I was in there, I tried not to feel too guilty. I knew I was taking a stand, and all, by boycotting Susan Boone. I mean, I was showing that I was fully on the side of art rebels everywhere.
But my parents were paying a lot of money for these art lessons. I had heard my father grousing that they cost almost as much per month as the animal behaviourist. Susan Boone, it turned out, was kind of famous. Just what she was famous for, I didn’t know, but apparently, she charged a bundle for her one-on-one art tutelage.
So even though I was fighting the system, I didn’t feel too good, knowing I was wasting my parents’ hard-earned money.
But if you think about it, I am actually the cheapest kid Mom and Dad have. I mean, they spend a small fortune on Lucy every month. She is always needing new clothes, new pom-poms, new orthodontia, new dermatological aids, whatever, in order to maintain her image as one of Adams Prep’s beautiful people.
And Rebecca, my God, the lab fees alone at Horizon pretty much equal the gross national product of a small underdeveloped nation.
And me? How much do Mom and Dad spend on me every month? Well, up until I got busted for the celebrity drawing thing, nothing, besides tuition. I mean, I’m supposed to wear my sister’s hand-me-down bras, right? And I didn’t even need new clothes this year: I just applied black Rit to last semester’s clothes, and voilà! A whole new wardrobe.
Really, as children go, I am a major bargain. I don’t even eat that much, either, seeing as how I hate almost all food except hamburgers, the Bread Lady’s baguettes and dessert.
So I shouldn’t have even felt guilty about ditching art class. Not really.
But as I stood there, the familiar scent of turpentine washed over me, and I could hear, way up at the top of the stairs, the faint sound of classical music, and the occasional squawk from Joe the Crow. I was suddenly filled with a strange longing to climb those stairs, go to my bench, sit down, and draw.
But then I remembered the humiliation I had endured the last time I’d been in that room. And in front of that David guy too! I mean, yeah, he wasn’t as cute as Jack, or anything. But he was still a guy! A guy who liked Save Ferris! And who had said he liked my boots!
OK, no way was I going up those stairs. I was taking a stand. A stand against the system.
Instead, I waited in the vestibule, praying nobody would come in while I was huddled there, and say, “Oh, hi, Sam. Aren’t you coming upstairs?”
As if anybody there would even remember my name. Except possibly Susan Boone.
But nobody came in. When two minutes were up, I cautiously opened the door and looked out at the rain-soaked street.
Theresa and the station wagon were gone. It was safe. I could come out.
The first place I went was Capitol Cookies. Well, how could I not? It looked so warm and inviting, what with the rain and all, and I happened to have a dollar sixty-eight in my pocket, exactly as much as a Congressional Chocolate Chunk. The cookie they handed me was still warm from the oven too. I slipped it into the pocket of my black Gore-tex raincoat. They don’t allow food in Static, where I was going next.
They weren’t playing Garbage there that afternoon. They were playing The Donnas. Not ska, but perfectly acceptable. I went over to where they had some headphones plugged into the wall, so people could sample the CDs they were thinking about buying. I spent a nice half hour or so listening to the Less Than Jake CD I’d wanted but couldn’t afford now that my mom had seen to it that my funding for such items was shut off.
As I listened, I snuck bits of cookie from my pocket into my mouth, and told myself that what I was doing wasn’t all that wrong. Fighting the system, I mean. Besides, look at Catherine: for years her parents have been forcing her to go to Sunday school while they attend mass. Since there is like a two-year age difference between Catherine and each of her brothers, all three of them were in different religion classes, so she never knew until this year that Marco and Javier, after their mom dropped them all off, were waving goodbye and then ducking around the corner to Beltway Billiards. She only found out when her class let out early one day and she went to look around for her brothers, and they were nowhere to be seen.
So basically for years Catherine’s been sitting there, listening to her religion teachers tell her to resist temptation, etc., while it turns out the whole time her brothers—and pretty much all the rest of the cool kids who go to her church—have been next door, getting high scores on Super Mario.
So what does Catherine do now? She waves goodbye to her mom just like Marco and Javier, and then she, too, goes to Beltway Billiards and works on her Geometry homework in the glow of Delta Force.
And does she feel bad about it? No. Why not? Because she says if the Lord really is all-forgiving, like they taught her in Sunday school, He will understand that she really does need the extra study time or she will flunk Geometry and never get into a good college and make a success of herself.