where they say she was jogging on the track when she
collapsed.
part 4
“[The idea] that I am recording something nobody’s looked at before, a unique view. That’s why I paint.”
—Jamie Wyeth
52.
The school library says
I have two books overdue and would I
please return them soon
or pay $34.19
at the circulation desk.
I looked all over our trailer, and inside
Daddy’s truck, and on the bus (every seat, twice),
and in all the pockets of my backpack,
and in every corner of my locker,
and at the front office lost and found,
and I still couldn’t find them.
Then, right before lunch, when my
stomach was rumbling through Mr. Krasinski’s lecture
on the distribution properties of improper fraction equations,
I suddenly remembered where I’d left them.
Mrs. Reed was busy cleaning up a sixth grader
with a bloody nose, so I stayed next to her desk
and waited. In one corner, I noticed a big stack of
those admitting forms, and on the other,
a notepad and two pens,
just like the ones I’d seen last week
at the little gift shop
in the lobby of the Brandywine River Museum.
Mrs. Reed had already set my library books aside:
The Life of Georgia O’Keeffe and Savannah: A Visitor’s Guide.
“I thought they might be yours, but I wasn’t sure.”
Then she said: “Seems like I haven’t seen you as much—
but I guess that’s good, right?”
I wanted to ask her about that notepad and those pens,
about whether she was a member, or if
she had ever sponsored someone
anonymously,
but the kid’s nose started flowing again,
so she ran back to help.
I picked up one of those museum pens, and wrote:
Dear Mrs. Reed—
Thanks for keeping the books, and for everything else you’ve done to help me.
On the bottom, I sketched a little pig—
a little portrait of a pig—
and I signed it Anonymous.
53.
Tried to see Tiffany today…. Stopped by
her house after school. Her grandmother, who’s visiting
from New York, was the only one home.
“Tiffany’s at the doctor’s for an appointment
and some tests. I don’t know when she’ll be back.”
She must be Tiffany’s grandmother on her mother’s side,
’cause she eyed Blake’s muddy feet
the same way Mrs. O’Neill always does,
and as soon as we left, she came outside with a broom
and started sweeping his paw prints off the drive.
Must be nice, though, to know
your grandmother.
I think about mine sometimes—what she looks like,
what I might call her…Grandma Speare? Mom-Mom? Nana?…
if we ever meet. I wonder if she
thinks about me—what I look like, how I do in school—
and part of me hopes she’ll send me a letter to say
that despite everything she’s lost, she’s doing okay,
that maybe we can get to know each other
someday.
I left an envelope for Tiffany’s grandmother to give to her
with some of my sketches inside:
that one of Tiffany on the bus with a pumpkin head,
a new one of Michael’s profile (I thought he’d be mad, but he
just smiled and lifted his chin when he saw me drawing him),
and one of Blake stretched out, asleep, on my rug.
I looked for a “get well” card at the drugstore,
but they were all stupid or sappy or dull.
Instead, I put in a note to her that said:
I hope you’re feeling better soon.
I miss you at school.
Come over to the farm when you can.
Love, G.
P.S. Michael keeps coming by my locker after class.
What should I do?
54.
Sometimes Blake sits at the door
and looks out, like he’s waiting, like he’s expecting
someone he knows, any minute,
to walk in.
As I write this, I am sitting next to
a big bunch of purple lilacs
that I picked last week
and arranged on my little nightstand in a coffee can
like you used to. When I first brought them in,
Blake sat right next to me, almost
on top of my feet, his nose twitching,
his tail wagging. (Do dogs have flashbacks? Do they
remember things like humans do?)
Momma, do you remember how just us three—
Blake and you and me—
would walk down to the little stream
behind the trailer park and pick huge bunches of lilacs?
We’d bring them home, arrange them
in coffee cans, and fill the whole trailer
with their sweet flower smell. Then,
when Daddy came home, we’d sit outside
on that rickety picnic bench and eat ice cream—
Blake would get some, too—
to celebrate the coming of spring.
Today, after I’d picked a few,
I gave Blake a bowl of vanilla ice cream,
which he finished in no time flat.
There was enough for me, too, but I
wasn’t very hungry. Instead,
I pulled out this diary
from the drawer by my bed
and wrote this down, so you’d know…
we have not forgotten.
55.
Daddy got a phone call from
Great-Uncle Doug in Atlanta. It seems he’s coming up to
Philadelphia next month for business.
“I’ll be less than an hour away,” he told Daddy.
“I was hoping I could drive out, just for the day,
and maybe we could get re-acquainted.”
Daddy said after you died and all that bad stuff happened
between him and your parents,
your uncle Doug was the only one who
apologized, the only one who felt bad about
what they’d done to you
and to us.
He told Daddy he can’t wait to see me,
and maybe if things work out okay,
we can come visit him in Atlanta someday.
I figured Daddy—being Daddy—would say
“Maybe,” or “I’ll think about it,” or possibly “No, I don’t think so,”
but instead he wrote down your uncle’s number
and told him he’d be in touch
by the end of the week.
Maybe it’s me getting older, or maybe
it’s his job going pretty good, or maybe it’s just
the warmer weather and sunshine…
but something inside of Daddy has loosened up—
like the ice on the pond I saw split apart one
April afternoon,
the sharp edges slipping under the surface
until hardly a ripple was left.
56.
Mrs. Reed stopped me
in the hall between classes:
“I’m sorry about the other day,
when you came by to get your books
and I couldn’t talk to you much because of
Freddie Cromack’s nose. Anyway,
I really enjoyed your note—and your sketch, too.
Mrs. Yocum gave me that desk set for my birthday.
She got it at that museum down on Route 1,
where she’s a member. You like art, right?
Have you been there?”
I said: “Yeah, I’ve been there…,”
and before I had to say anything more,
the bell rang and I had to run
to history.
I was almost late for Mr. Hendershot’s quiz.
Even though I tried to study for it this morning on the bus,
I couldn’t remember which general was where,
on which date in which year,
and who he was fighting and why.
I ended up guessing a lot, but I got General Hood—
(I’d read about him in my Savannah visitor’s guide).
I finished and had ten minutes left, so I sat there
wondering if Mrs. Yocum was
It did make sense: She’s not really a teacher,
so maybe the “no gifts” rule doesn’t apply. Plus,
she’s given me something already (this red leather diary),
and she knows I like to draw,
’cause that’s pretty much all I did when we had our meetings.
I should probably thank her in person, but I’d rather
just write her a note and sketch her a picture
of a pirate or a pig
or maybe my self-portrait, a big
pumpkin on my head.
57.
Tiffany came up to me after history
(she’s back in school for half-days only)
and asked if she could help me
groom and walk the horses after school.
It’s been two weeks since she collapsed
on the track in gym class,
and she has had to stay away from
practice,
friends,
the farm,
and full-day school,
and she has to go to counseling
and a teen recovery group. She told me
that at first she’d been taking
pep-you-up stuff from the drugstore—
caffeine pills and cold medicine, mostly—
but then Ronnie Kline offered her some Ritalin,
and when that worked even better, she kept buying it from Ronnie
and using more.
Now she’s getting healthy again
(the doctors said she could have wrecked her heart
if she’d kept on like that),
and even though she’s not allowed to do sports
for another couple of weeks,
she can start to see her friends again
and take walks whenever she wants.
We sat in the same seat on the bus,
and she got off at my stop,
and we spent the afternoon grooming Ella
and the two new Shetland ponies,
and walking Mr. Kesey’s old gelding,
and playing with Blake,
and just hanging out and talking like we used to
when Tiffany first moved in.
I showed her my folder of pencil sketches, charcoal drawings,
and pen-and-inks, the ones I’d finished but didn’t
send in to the judges.
We set them all up against my bed, and Tiffany filled out
a little white label with an original title
for each one (actually, I don’t like titles much, but Tiffany
had such fun, I couldn’t stop her).
So now I have thirteen drawings with Tiffany’s titles on them.
“What am I going to do with those?” I asked.
“Don’t worry—someday you’ll be famous and I can say
I knew you when you were just getting started
and I named all your pictures.”
Tiffany is a true optimist. After these past few weeks,
it’s good to know that part of her
hasn’t changed.
58.
This morning before homeroom, Miss Benedetto
came by my locker, waving a letter,
and pointed me toward her room. The letter was from
the Arts Grant Committee in Harrisburg, and it was addressed
to me. I tore it open and read it slowly, out loud:
Dear Arts Grant Applicant:
We have completed the judging for next year’s state-sponsored Grant 2834-7-B, “Arts Enrichment for Gifted Students.”
We received more than 482 applications from your region, and from that group we selected 100 finalists. From those we chose 50 students whose work we felt met and, in many instances, far exceeded the necessary requirements:
1) originality of thought
2) masterful use of materials
3) creative experimentation in form, genre, or content
4) overall quality of the work
The judges’ decisions were difficult, as each finalist exhibited a high degree of competency. If you did not make the final list of 50, we encourage you to re-apply in three years, when we expect to have additional funds.
Results are posted on our Web site: www.artsgrant2834-7-B.pa.gov
Thank you, once again, for your participation.
Sincerely,
Victoria Collier, Chairperson, Arts Grant Committee
I sat next to Miss. B. while she typed in
the address on her PC. She clicked on the link at the top
labeled “Winners”
and scrolled down slowly through the names
that were listed in alphabetical order, until she came to
“McCoy, Georgia.”
my eyes opening wide,
staring at something
I could hardly believe.
59.
Tiffany told me what it was like
to go to confession: “You sit on one side of this
little booth, and the priest sits on the other side,
and you tell him everything you’ve done wrong, and anything
that’s been bothering you
since your last confession.”
I figured that was as good a way as any
to tell Daddy what he needed to know
before the art show.
I waited till he was in the shower
(he rigged up an outside one with wood sides
that we use when it gets warmer,
so we don’t have to use that tiny one in the trailer),
and I pulled up the picnic bench right next to it
so I was sure he could hear me.
I told him
how someone named anonymous
sent me a membership
to the Brandywine River Museum,
how it came in the mail
right after my birthday, when he still seemed angry
about my drawing so much,
how I’d been taking
the Route I shuttle bus after school—
once or twice a week—to visit the museum,
how I had tried to learn all I could about drawing
from looking at the paintings
by those three Wyeth guys,
how Miss B. had asked me to apply for the grant,
how I decided he wouldn’t like it—even though I really
wanted to know if I was good enough—
how I’d applied anyhow
and found out this week that I got picked,
how I was sorry I didn’t tell him before,
and I hoped he’d forgive me,
how I was so glad that he was coming to school,
to the art show, to meet Miss Benedetto
and see my stuff.
Daddy turned off the water, asked me
to throw over his old scruffy robe
(you would remember it, Momma—it’s that old),
came out of the shower,
and sat down next to me.
“You must think I am one mean S.O.B.”
This was supposed to be a confession, so I
stuck to the truth: “No, not mean. Sa
d.
I didn’t want to make it worse.”
Daddy got up, went over to his truck,
and brought back your sketchbook.
“Here—this really belongs to you. I’d like
to look at it sometimes, but you should keep it.”
When I took it from him, a long brown envelope
fell out. The return address said:
Membership Office, Brandywine River Museum,
Route 1, Chadds Ford, PA 19317. It was the receipt for
my membership, and the postage date
was my thirteenth birthday.
“I’m sorry, Georgia. I’ve not been
the easiest person to live with. But I’m getting
better, you know? It’s getting a little easier now, for both of us,
don’t you think?”
I stared at that envelope in disbelief.
As usual, I did not know what to say.
Daddy put his arm around me and hugged me,
and I buried my nose in his scruffy old robe,
and for the first time since the day you died,
we both had a good, hard cry.
60.
Lots more people came to the
Longwood Middle School Art Show
than anyone thought. I had two pencil sketches, one
pen-and-ink perspective, and three “free choice” pieces
displayed in the main hallway. Our work was arranged
by class and grade, with sixth, seventh, and eighth
each having its space.
I showed Daddy my six pieces,
plus Marianne’s sculptures and CD covers,