the principal's office. It took me until lunch to realize how stupid I was being. No one was
coming to get me, certainly not before three-thirty, when they could reasonably start expecting
me home. Once I stopped seeing myself as an escaped convict, the day stretching out before the
eight o'clock basketball game started to feel interminable.
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What was I going to do between two-fifty, when my last class was over, and game time?
"Hey, what are you doing after school?" I asked Madison.
"Doctor's appointment," she said, breaking off a piece of my chocolate-chip cookie and popping
it in her mouth.
Jessica wasn't allowed to go to the game unless she went straight home from school and worked
on a history paper. In the space of ten minutes, I went from having two viable after-school
options to having none. Though maybe hanging out at Jessica's or Madison's wouldn't have been
such a good idea anyway; that was the first place Mara would look for me once it became clear
I'd disobeyed her.
When last period ended, I stayed at my easel while everyone else packed up. Since I didn't have
anyplace else to go, I figured I might as well try putting the time to good use. The class slowly
filed out, leaving me alone with my sketches. The problem was I still didn't really understand
what Ms. Daniels wanted from us. Now I stood facing yet another blank sheet of paper and
chewing on my eraser, trying to decide if it was morally suspect to open other people's drawers
and steal their ideas. When the door to the studio opened, I looked up. Maybe it was Connor; I'd
called his cell from the pay phone by the gym to see if he wanted to go for a drive before the
game. By "go for a drive," I meant "make out," the only
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activity in the universe that could possibly have gotten my mind off my deeply troubled home
life.
It wasn't Connor, it was Andrea, this totally annoying girl who's in Ms. Daniels's figure-drawing
class. When no one's in the studio, she likes to come in here and talk on her cell. She looked at
me, decided I was no one, and reached into her bag. Then she went over to the sofa, threw
herself down, and dialed a number on her phone.
"Hel-lo! No, it's me.... Oh my god.... Really?"
Her piercing voice could have cut glass. "They did? ... But I told you.... No I told you that..." I packed my stuff up as fast as I could and stuffed it into my drawer. In a moment of perfect
symmetry, just as the studio door closed behind me, I heard Andrea say, "Get out!"
The hallway was deserted. Three twenty-five. Four hours and thirty-five minutes till game time.
Maybe I'd call a taxi and go to Barnes and Noble and do homework. I made my way to my
locker. Should I go to a movie? But who goes to a movie all by herself in the middle of the
afternoon? I wished I could just be cryogenically frozen for a few hours and then emerge, well-
rested, if slightly chilly, in time for the tip-off.
There was something on my locker. From a distance it looked like a newspaper clipping, but as I
got closer I realized it was a postcard. I studied the front of the card, which was a photo of a
painting, a portrait. Then I turned the card over, milton newman: new works, the margaret tanner
gallery. 525 west fourteenth
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street. new york city. opening reception march 31. five to seven.
March 31st--that was today. I looked around, totally freaked out. This was way too big a
coincidence. Who knew me well enough to know I A) liked art and B) had four hours to kill?
Connor? No, he probably hadn't even gotten my message. Madison? She was hardly a player on
the New York art scene. Jessica? Ditto. No. No. No. Was someone watching me? Had someone
overheard me asking Jessica and Madison if we could hang out after school? Did I have some
kind of freak stalker situation on my hands?
Just as I was starting to get totally weirded out about being all alone in the hallway with a
potential stalker, the answer came to me. Ms. Daniels. Of course. She must have stuck the card
on my locker. All the teachers have a list of student locker assignments, so if they get the urge
they can order a student's locker be searched for drugs or porn or credit card receipts from
termpaper.com.
But wouldn't Ms. Daniels have given me the postcard in class? Or told me about the opening like
she had the Clemente exhibit? The whole thing was really strange. Then again, my locker was
between the studio and the faculty parking lot. Maybe she'd meant to give it to me in class but
then forgotten. I could totally picture Ms. Daniels walking along the hall, reaching into her bag
for her car keys, and finding the card in her bag. She
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probably carried the locker numbers in her briefcase with her roll book or something. It made
total sense.
I'd never heard of Milton Newman before, but the portrait was fantastically cool, almost but not
quite photo-realistic. It reminded me a tiny bit of something I'd seen before, but I couldn't think
of what. I checked the hall clock. Three-thirty. It was only a five-minute taxi ride to the Glen
Lake train station. The opening was from five to eight. I could go into the city, see the paintings,
and be back on Long Island in plenty of time for the game.
I'd just been invited to my first New York art opening. For the second time this year, Ms. Daniels
had singled me out from the rest of the class as someone who would benefit from seeing an
exhibit she liked. Was I really going to say no?
Luckily the change of clothes I'd brought for the party could double as Manhattan gallery-
opening wear: chunky-heeled black boots, black low-rider pants, and a tiny, paper thin, pale blue
C and C T-shirt Madison had given me last week, since she said it looked really cute on me and
she never wore it anymore. I could change, go into the city, see the paintings, mix and mingle,
then hop on the train and be back in Glen Lake with plenty of time before the game started.
My afternoon had suddenly gone from sucky to stupendous.
I'd have to remember to tell Ms. Daniels she made an excellent fairy godmother.
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Chapter Fifteen
When my cab pulled up in front of the Margaret Tanner gallery just after five, the sun was
hanging low over the Hudson River, and the entire block exploded with light. The gallery sat on
a lawn of white gravel, slightly apart from the neighboring buildings, and there was a small
reflecting pool out front. A rough-hewn stone wall ran around the property.
The front of the gallery was all glass, and through it I could see the crowd and some of the
paintings: enormous, photo-realistic portraits. As I stood at the gate, looking across the gravel
lawn, a taxi pulled up and a couple emerged, chatting in Italian. The woman had short, spiky hair
and the man wore tiny, geometric glasses; they were both thin and chic, and as they walked past
the reflecting pool, they looked like something out of a Vogue photo spread.
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Clearly it was a very good thing I was wearing black pants.