Drawn

DRAWN

  Maria Keffler

  Copyright 2013 Maria Keffler

  * * * * *

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Maria Keffler in 2013.

  Cover photo by Irena Mila.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to all who contributed to this book, especially my wonderful beta readers, Aaron Keffler, Dana Peinado, Joan Stiver, Jasmina Tang and Amie Temenak.

  Hugest thanks and appreciation to my editors, Abigail Knutson, Sally Schlatter, and Melanie Sunukjian, who helped bring the story up to a much higher level. You walk the fine line between encouragement and admonishment, motivation and criticism, with grace, honesty and love,

  and I am so grateful for you.

  And finally, thank you to all the real characters in my life, pieces of whom have wandered into this story. I can neither confirm nor deny whether you actually are the one you think you may be.

  * * * * *

  For Christopher, Anna, and Nadia.

  * * * * *

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Excerpt from Deo Volente, Book II in the DRAWN Series

  About the Author

  Other Books By This Author

  Connect With Me Online

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 1

  Wads of hot pink taffeta and starchy crinoline bunched between my thighs as my knees pumped up and down – right, left, right, left – and sweat seeped out of the stiff underarm seams between the dress’s bodice and its puffy, ribbon-bound sleeves. The flat soles of my black Mary Janes kept slipping off the pedals, and the third time my leg flew forward it scraped the rim of the front wheel and snagged the inside of my calf. My stocking caught on it, ripped open, and the run zippered all the way up to my inner thigh.

  Was it too much to ask for a ride?

  By the time I got to school I raged at Dad for teaching a night class on Fridays, at Mom for signing up for a business development seminar tonight, and at Mark for having more dates than a Christmas fruitcake.

  I locked my bike in the rack, wiped the sweat off my face with the inside of my skirt, and smoothed everything out as best I could. I unclipped Nonnie’s antique barrette and laid it on my bike seat as I finger-combed my hair. The rows of multi-colored jewels sparkled with the moonlight. I slid it back on and hoped my hair had finally gotten thick enough to support its weight.

  With a deep breath I went inside and followed the sounds of laughter and music.

  The first week at Parnell Junior High always ended with the Back-To-School Dance. I’d dreamed about it since the fourth grade: clusters of lilacs and roses on linen-draped tables; tall boys in tuxedos and shiny black shoes that clicked when they walked; elegant girls in shimmery gowns that swirled as their partners danced them masterfully across a glossy marble floor.

  And I would be the most beautiful of them all. Juliet Brynn, the belle of the ball, envied by girls and studied by boys with smoldering eyes and half-smiles that dimpled their square-jawed cheeks and revealed the one weakness in their chiseled, masculine armor: me.

  Last year’s seventh grade dance? A huge disappointment.

  This one looked no better.

  The gymnasium smelled like it always did. Armpits. Dirty socks. Dolph’s homebrewed pine-ammonia-whiskey cleaner. They repainted the floor over the summer, and the tang of polyurethane stung my nostrils.

  “Hey, Juliet.” Amica Aldridge walked past and snorted as she looked back over her shoulder. “Nice outfit.”

  Bethany Howard and Tori Wetherton followed her to the center of the gym. Squares of light off the mirror ball flickered all around them.

  All three wore black or dark gray dresses and looked about ten years older than the rest of us. Amica played with her diamond pendant as Tori whispered something and they all laughed. Bethany tossed her head and thick auburn curls spilled over her bare back. They swayed to the music, vigilant dragon-beasts hungry for a sacrificial innocent.

  Most of the time, that was me.

  I looked down at myself, grateful for the semi-dark and the flickering lights beside the D.J. stand.

  Knobby knees poked out under the crumpled skirt of the bridesmaid dress Mom found at a garage sale, and my shoulder blades stuck out farther in back than my chest did in front. According to my stupid brother someone screwed my torso on backwards. And when mom found the package from my Better Bust Beginner’s Bra in the trash, she told me, “Only God can make something out of nothing.”

  Other than the three dragon-girls in the center of the gym, however, no one else looked much better than I did.

  The astoundingly un-dashing boys not only failed to wear tuxedos, but few of them even changed out of the T-shirts and sweatpants they’d worn to school that day. Some hovered around the punchbowl and crushed pretzels over each other’s heads. Others kicked and punched each other in the hallways like a bunch of retarded Ninja wannabes. Two eighth-graders snuck up on a seventh-grader and pulled his underwear so far up his back that the poor kid screamed, clutched his crotch, and fell to the floor on his face.

  The girls mostly clustered around the walls and stared at the boys.

  Only the party kids hung out co-ed. A few slipped behind the bleachers as Mr. Tollin argued with Miss Downey and someone’s mom confiscated a pack of bubblegum from a kid next to the D.J.

  “Hey,” came a voice behind me.

  I spun around.

  Oh. “Hey.”

  Lucas Emberry thrust an enormous hydrangea into my face. “I brought you this.” He shifted back and forth on his creaky sneakers. “It’s no big deal. My mom has, like, twenty bushes of them. I just thought, since it was the first dance of the year. You know.”

  “Thanks.” The flower obscured Lucas’s entire head. Its stem hung down two feet. I tried not to touch his hand as I took it. “I’m not sure where to put it.”

  “You want me to stick it in your hair?” He lurched at me.

  I scuffed backwards. “No. I’ll just hold it. Maybe between my teeth, if I tango or anything.”

  “You’re hilarious!” Lucas snorted, then stuffed his hands in his pockets. “And you look really pretty, too.”

  Why couldn’t someone cool like me?

  “How was your first week?”

  “Okay, I guess.” I looked past his beet-red, cauliflower ears for Tammy or Lula.

  “You’re probably in advanced art, huh?”

  “Yeah. Painting.” Jimmy? Pam? Anyone?

  “My dad’s taking me to the Sci-Fi Festival in Chicago next weekend. How cool is that? We’re goi
ng as Klingons.”

  I refocused and saw two of my flame-pink self in the frames of his glasses. “You’re going where? As what?”

  He stepped back, clutched his chest and screeched like a wounded hawk.

  “The Science Fiction Festival? Star Trek?” He thrust his hand in my face and made a V-sign with four of his hotdog fingers. “‘Live long and prosper’.”

  “I think my brother watches that.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve got to go. It’s the best! You want to come?”

  A Billy Joel song ended and the notes of a Foreigner ballad echoed off the walls.

  Don’t do it, Lucas.

  He stopped grinning. He lowered his chin. He reached his upturned palm toward me. “Do you want to da—”

  “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”

  I spun around and smacked into something warm and hard that smelled really good. A field of azure blue, and the words DIVE and PROS in white block letters, stretched across the bridge of my nose.

  Hands grasped my upper arms as I stumbled back. My heart thudded in my temples and my legs went limp as spaghetti. A strange, electric sensation buzzed around in my head, then fizzed up and out the top.

  “You okay?”

  His shirt read DIVE PROS BRISBANE and smelled like wind and leather. “You’re really tall.”

  “Maybe you’re really short.” He let go of me.

  Then Lucas’s thick fingers spread across the small of my back. “Are you all right, honey?”

  Honey?

  Lucas cupped my elbow in his other hand as the wall I’d walked into walked away.

  I brushed Lucas off and kept wiping to get the sensation of him off my skin. “‘Honey?’ What was that?”

  “Maybe you should sit down.” He tried to get his arm around me again.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Your nose is bleeding.”

  A drip slid out of one nostril and over my upper lip. “Oh, crud.” I threw my head back and swiped the blood upward with my finger.

  Someone screamed.

  “I’ve got her!” Lucas barked and tried to pick me up.

  “Stop it!”

  “Get back. Let me through.” Mr. Hirschman’s face blocked my view of the ceiling. “What happened?”

  “I bumped into somebody.” I sniffed up a glop of blood. “I need a tissue, that’s all.”

  Mr. Hirschman waved across the gym. “Let’s get the nurse over here!”

  Amica shimmered in the corner of my vision. She pointed at me with one finger and covered her mouth with her other hand. The dragons swayed their heads into each other and hissed fire. Voices circled.

  “What happened? Is she okay?”

  “Ew, gross!”

  “Give her some air!”

  Oh, give me a break.

  * * * * *

  “It was horrible, Kitty.” I bounced the coiled phone cord against the floor and tried to get it to hit the ceiling.

  “It couldn’t have been that bad. He probably didn’t even see.”

  I switched the phone to my other ear and tucked it against my shoulder. I put my grandmother’s barrette back in its loop on the lampshade and grabbed a pencil and sharpener. “Everyone saw. You couldn’t help but see. They practically put me in an ambulance.”

  She laughed. “You exaggerate. Tell me what he looked like.”

  What did he look like? All I could really remember was his shirt, his height, and the way he smelled. “That’s weird.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t remember his face. I never forget stuff like that.”

  “Yeah. That is weird.”

  “But he had a great voice. He said I was short.”

  “You’re not that short.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve seen pictures.”

  I twisted the sharpener around my pencil a few times then tossed it at the desk. It landed on the floor next to the pile of stuffed animals between the wall and my dresser. On a blank page in my sketchbook I feathered in the outline of a T-shirt. I lingered on the arms, and probably made them bigger than they actually were.

  “You’re drawing him, aren’t you?” Kitty asked.

  “Kind of. Maybe his face’ll come back to me.”

  My bedroom door swung open and the loose top corner of my Matt Dillon poster curled down over his shoulder and the beach towel draped around his neck.

  “Mom! Would you knock, please?”

  She put up her hands and whispered a melodramatic apology. “I need the phone.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  I sighed. “I’ve got to go. I’ll put your letter in the mail tomorrow.”

  “Can’t wait to see it! I sent you one yesterday.”

  “See you.”

  “Juliet?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re about to get a really cool gift.” She hung up.

  I dropped the handset in the cradle and gave Mom a dirty look. “There. All yours.”

  “Kitty, right?” Mom looked around and sighed. “You need to pick up in here.”

  “I know.”

  “If anyone saw this room no one would ever hire me.”

  “Whatever. You don’t even have any clients yet.”

  She nodded. “Maybe you’re the reason.”

  “Like your clients are ever going to see inside our house.”

  “And I thought you and Kitty were pen pals.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then why so much time on the phone? I’m going to start charging you for the long-distance.” She picked up my pajama pants and turned them right side out. “You have local friends, too. What about Jimmy and Mia? You hardly saw the twins all summer.”

  “Just leave my stuff where it is.”

  She laid the pants at the foot of my bed. “What are you drawing?”

  I closed the sketchbook. “Nothing. It didn’t come out.”

  “Since when does anything not come out? Can I see?”

  “There’s nothing to see.”

  She folded her arms over her waist and sighed. “I miss when you were little and you brought me every picture you made.”

  I rolled onto my stomach. “I’ll do something for you. Something good. What do you want?”

  “It’s not that.”

  Downstairs the front door opened and shut again.

  “Dad’s home.”

  “Mm-hmm. I need to make those calls.”

  When she left I went to the window. This amazing thing happened, and I had no one to tell.

  I closed my eyes. Come on, memory. I leaned against the window casement and replayed it. But I still couldn’t see him, and I let it go too long. The nosebleed. Laughter.

  Nothing wonderful ever stayed wonderful. “Why does it always have to be this way?”

  The mattress caught me as I fell back, arms over my head. “I wish I could make it different. Make things happen better.”

  In the sky outside my window a star winked blue, then red, then blue again.

  At least I could draw some of it. I took up my sketchbook and pencil and pretended to talk to Kitty. “Too bad you weren’t here. He had the best arms I’d ever seen on any guy who wasn’t at least five years older than us.”

  I started to fill in the T-shirt with DIVE PROS BRISBANE, then stopped. What if someone saw it? “What should I put there instead? What do I like? What would make him even cooler?”

  “Einstein.” I fuzzed in wild, white hair. “He’s smart. And athletic and mysterious.”

  What will he say next time you see him?

  I drew a word bubble over his blank face.

  “What will he say?” I asked out loud. Then a line from a silly sitcom popped into my head. “If we keep crashing into each other like this, we’ll have to start filing flight plans.”

  I giggled, turned to the next page and sketched two jetliners about to collide. “Two jumbo-jets crash into each other in mid-air.”

  I ripped the pa
ges out of my sketchbook and tacked them to my cork wall just as Nonnie’s barrette fell off the lampshade again. I rolled off the bed, picked it back up and got this weird sort of shock. Not so much like from static, but more like a warm, fizzy sensation that shot up my fingers, through my spine and out the top of my head.

  “Weird.” When I slipped it through its loop it swung back and forth and sparkled, red, blue, green and gold.

  That night I dreamed Albert Einstein took me to homecoming. When he kissed me the glitter ball fell down on my head and turned into the homecoming queen’s tiara. I bowed and blew kisses as everyone tossed roses at me. Then I took off the crown and threw it into the sky.

  A dragon swooped down from the clouds, caught it between its teeth and ate it in one gulp.

  * * * * *

  I covered my letter in one of Kitty’s favorite motifs. Two angels in flowing robes reached toward each other across the front of the envelope, and I wrote her address in the drape of one of their sleeves. The blond angel’s hair made curlicues around the stamp.

  “Gotta go! I’m late.” Mark skipped the last couple of stairs and crossed the kitchen in three steps.

  Mom yelled down from her bedroom. “Mark, you need to drop Juliet off at school!” But he didn’t hear. The car door slammed, the engine revved and his tires spit gravel as he sped down the street.

  Typical.

  “Can you drive me, Mom? Mark left.” I licked the envelope and sealed it.

  “No! I’ve got a meeting. Ride your bike.”

  “It’s at school, remember? You picked me up after the dance.”

  “Then see if your dad can take you.” She closed her bedroom door and started the shower.

  Dad didn’t teach on Mondays, and usually spent the day on research. I went down to the basement and knocked on his office door.

  “What is it?”

  “I need a ride to school.”

  “Why can’t you take the bus?”

  “There’s an art club meeting before school. We’re submitting stuff for a contest.”

  He dropped something on his desk and sighed. “I’m neck-deep in work here. Just skip the meeting and go to the next one.”

  I laid my forehead against the door. “There won’t be a next one, Dad. There’s a deadline.”

  “There’ll be other contests. I can’t stop right now.”

  I’d have to walk.

  August humidity triggered every sweat gland in my body when I stepped outside. The weather didn’t care that summer ended. While we sat on hard chairs under fluorescent lights with totally boring textbooks and endless piles of mind-numbing worksheets, the sky continued to make days for swimming across lakes or eating warm elephant ears at carnivals.