How to Be Brave Read online

  “Yeah, eventually I want to work as a researcher in the development of human organ printing. My dad has polycystic kidney disease.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He has cysts that grow on his kidneys,” Daniel says. “He needs a transplant, but it’s unlikely that he’ll get one.”

  Oh. Wow. Like, really. Wow.

  I take a deep breath. “My mom had kidney failure.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize that,” he says. “I mean, I’d heard that she died. I’m really sorry, by the way.”

  “Thanks.” I can feel him looking at me, but I just can’t look back. I might start crying, and that would definitely put a damper on this Second Unofficial Date. Instead, I focus on not stepping on the lines in the sidewalk, just like I did when I was a kid.

  “I didn’t know it was a kidney thing, though.”

  “Well, that was part of it. She had been diabetic and had all kinds of heart trouble, which messed with her kidneys. It’s what led to the end. She actually got an infection in her catheter site that spread through the rest of her body and finally to her brain.”

  I haven’t talked about this with anyone. I mean, I would e-mail Liss in spurts when it was happening, but I haven’t actually articulated the history of how my mom died to anyone else. It’s like it just happened yesterday, and yet it’s an entirely foreign dimension of existence, me being her daughter, her being alive.

  Daniel’s looking ahead now, and I’m still avoiding the sidewalk cracks, and we’re both walking silently in a strange kind of rhythm, and I think that I’ve said too much. I’m a downer. I’ve committed the mortal sin of TMI. I bet he wants to split.

  Instead, he says this: “I have a fifty percent chance of getting polycystic disease, too.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, part of my desire to go into research is purely selfish. I want to save my own life. I want to build myself a kidney.”

  I want to tell him that he’s not selfish at all. I want to tell him about the list and how I’m trying to save my own life, too, and how I’m also doing it for my mom, just like he could save his dad’s life while he’s saving his own. But then I’d have to pull the list out of my pocket and show it to him, and I can’t do that because he comprises three of the items.

  Instead, I say this: “I know you’ll do it.”

  “Thanks.” He nods. “It’s hard.”

  We walk a little bit more, saying nothing. I focus on the cracks in the sidewalk. I don’t know what else to say, but I feel like he wants to talk about this. Finally, I ask, “Is he on dialysis?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Only for about four months. Was your mom on dialysis, too?”

  “Yes. For years. She did it at home while she slept.”

  He nods. “My dad goes to the center three times a week.”

  “Do you go with him?”

  “I wish I could. He’s out in Oregon with my stepmom. Even though he’s supposed to watch his blood pressure, I know he doesn’t, and my stepmom tries to get him to eat right, but he doesn’t listen. She’ll serve grilled chicken and kale salad for dinner, and he’ll sneak Doritos and beef jerky at night when she’s not looking.”

  “My mom used to sneak ice cream.”

  “They told him if he doesn’t take care of himself, he could die. I mean, they used the big D word. But it’s like he doesn’t hear them.”

  “And there’s nothing you can say, right?”

  “Right,” he says. “And I just—I don’t want him to die, you know?”

  How well I know.

  He stops at a corner and turns to me. “How did you handle it—when she died?”

  I look at him. How did we get here, from pumpkin pi to dialysis? From colleges to death? What happened to our romantic date?

  “I’m sorry. Is that too personal?”

  “No,” I say. “Not at all. I just have to think about it.”

  I think about the very end, the letter, her deterioration, everything that we had to decide—everything that I had to decide. I’m struggling for the words. I want to tell him, but I don’t want to start crying, either.

  “Liss told me you and your mom were close.”

  I nod.

  “You don’t have to talk about it. I’m sorry.”

  “No,” I say. “I want to. I just have to think for a minute.”

  We cross the street and walk for another half block in silence. Finally, I take a deep breath. “Look, I could say what everyone tries to say: That it’s all going to be okay, that everything will be fine. I’m a realist, and I won’t lie to you. It’s hard. It’s the worst thing in the world. My mom was my best friend, and losing her ripped me apart.” I’m trying not to cry. “Before she died, I couldn’t imagine how I would ever smile again, or laugh again, without her. When she died, I sunk hard, for a while.”

  “How’d you get out of it?”

  I feel the list in my pocket. “Well, let’s just say I made this kind of promise to her, that I would live and be brave and just keep moving forward as much as I can.”

  “I wish I could get him to be brave.”

  I shake my head. “You can’t control him. You can’t change him.”

  We keep walking. It’s totally silent and weird between us now, and I feel like that’s the absolute worst thing I could have said to him. Shit.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t know your dad. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No,” he says. “You’re right. I need to hear it. No one else in my life really knows what it’s like, having a parent who’s really sick. It’s good to talk to you about it. Thanks.”

  Okay, phew.

  I can feel it. Now’s the time to do it. Now’s the time to ask him out: #13.

  Then, before I can muster the words, he points across the street. “Well, here’s my train. I have to get to work. Where are you headed?”

  Oh, right. Where am I headed? Anywhere, as long as it meant being with you. Say it, Georgia.

  Be brave.

  #13.

  Instead, I consult my mental map and construct a quick lie. “I have to go to the library.”

  “Isn’t that like, eight blocks down? You’re not taking the bus?”

  “Yeah, no…” I stumble over my words. “It’s a beautiful day. I like to walk.” Especially when I’m dressed like a dead, neurotic poet and am carrying a fake bird.

  “Okay, then. Well, it was nice talking to you.” He says this formally, and he puts out his hand like we’ve just finished a job interview.

  #13. Ask him out.

  Georgia: Ask. Him. Out.

  I chicken out, though. I ignore my promise to my mom. I put my sweaty hand in his.

  “I suspect I’ll see you tomorrow in Marquez’s class,” he says to me, shaking my hand, “if not before.”

  “Yes.” I nod. “I suspect that’s true.”

  And then he leaves. He walks up the steps to the El and disappears in the throngs of people.

  I walk for another two blocks toward the library, and then I duck into a McDonald’s for about ten minutes, just in case he happened to be watching where I was headed.

  I wish.

  I order a hot-fudge sundae, extra nuts, collapse into a booth, and take out my phone.

  Liss has texted about fourteen times:

  so?

  so?

  so?

  so?

  update?

  call me?

  didja do it?

  #13?!

  when’s the date?

  did u kiss him?

  tell me u kissed him.

  omg, ur kissing him right now, rn’t u?

  #15! YEAH!

  Ugh.

  Oh, how I hate to disappoint her. She’s so goddamn optimistic.

  I text back: No dice.

  Shit.

  I chickened out.

  Okay, Georgia. Glass half-full.

  Positive Thought #11: Hey, Mom, I’m getting closer.

  * *
*

  “We’ve been missing you these past few weeks, Miss Askeridis. Here one day, gone the next.…” Mr. Marquez gives me a knowing wink, like he’s been spying on us as we run around town getting high on Evelyn’s brownies at the beach and on the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, or at the top of the Sears Tower and with the languid dolphins at the Shedd Aquarium now that it’s started to get cold. He’s exaggerating. It’s really not a daily thing—once, maybe twice each week at most, usually on Fridays. Turns out it’s really easy to cut. I don’t know why I was so worried. All I have to do is send an excuse through from Mom’s old e-mail to the school secretary. Not feeling well, I write. Abdominal pain, or We’re taking her to the doctor today. I just sign my dad’s name. He doesn’t know any better, and neither do the teachers. But Marquez knows the truth. That man can skim us like we’re a bunch of fifth-grade easy readers.

  “Yeah, I haven’t been feeling too well,” I mumble to Marquez as I pull out my sketchbook and markers. “Sorry.” And I am sorry, too. Missing Marquez’s class is the only part of our expeditions that I regret, and not only because then I don’t get to see Daniel on those days. Art is by far my favorite class, and it’s helping me achieve #6 on my list.

  “Well, you look okay to me.”

  Ugh. It’s probably because I’ve been losing weight. It turns out that cutting class and getting high is the best diet plan I ever tried—I’ve lost seven pounds—and it’s totally bizarre, because on the days we cut class, we’re basically living off of Wendy’s and Taco Bell and Frappuccinos. Liss thinks it’s all the walking.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been sick.”

  “On Fridays only?”

  “Yes,” I respond coldly.

  “Interesting,” Marquez grumbles. “Well, at least your projects are getting done, so who am I to complain?” He shrugs, marks me as here, and continues down the list, calling off names as we all settle into our seats.

  I open my sketchbook and leaf through my drawings. Marquez has instructed us to sketch at least five drawings each day—they can be big or small, detailed or not. “The idea,” he said, “is to teach your hand how to move. It doesn’t matter if you mess up. Your hand will learn and correct the mistakes the next time. Just keep drawing.”

  That’s what my mom used to say when I was little. I remember sitting in the booth with her, trying to draw on the backs of old menus. Even with crayons, she could produce the most amazing art—grapevines and clenched fists and Michigan Avenue night scenes that lit up with her use of something as simple as golden and burnt sienna—and they were so beautiful, they put my rainbows and sunsets to shame. “Don’t give up,” she’d say. “It takes practice. Keep at it.” I’d try, and she’d always say that everything I drew was beautiful, but I thought she was being nice. She’d even try to show me some techniques, but it never looked as good as hers, and by the fifth grade, I gave up. I think I disappointed her. And now I wish I hadn’t been so stubborn. I should have paid attention. I should have let her teach me. I should have been willing to learn.

  Well, here I am, finally, willing and ready.

  My sketchbook is jam-packed with mistakes covered by corrections covered by more mistakes. But as I flip through the pages, almost fifty in total, I see some improvement. What started out as flat interpretations of faces and bowls of fruit that look like they were created by a five-year-old have become somewhat recognizable as representative of real life; the eyes have some shadow and depth to them, the streets show some knowledge of one-point perspective.

  And our larger projects—the ones that involve charcoal and pastels and paint—those are getting better, too. My favorite so far has been when Marquez told us to play with geometry and symmetry. He talked about how Picasso was informed by the anarchists of his time. He gave us a quote by one Russian revolutionary, Mikhail Bakunin, who said, “The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.” Marquez challenged us “to find the destruction within the creation.” I spent hours on that piece, creating what looks like a cracked mirror, with eyes and lips hidden within the lines.

  I won’t give up this time.

  Marquez finishes taking attendance and calls us all to attention. “Everyone ready for Thanksgiving?” Nods and groans ring out in response. “Well, don’t be too ready. We still have another week.” More groans. “And it’s time to think about your final research paper, which will take us all the way to January. We can’t just draw silly circles all day. Certainly, the government won’t allow it. There must be standards, people! We must prove that we are actually learning something!” Everyone laughs at Marquez’s sarcasm.

  “No, really, though. Those assholes really do appreciate art.” Time for one of Marquez’s cynical, curse-laden tangents against the government and all things authoritative. It’s amazing we ever get anything done. “They put me here, an art class in the basement, where there’s no natural light for a budding artist to actually see what they’re doing, where we’re inundated by fumes from the chem lab next door. I swear, they’re trying to asphyxiate me.” Marquez points at the door. “If the lack of state funding doesn’t kill me, Zittel will.” This provokes more chuckles from the amused crowd. Marquez shakes his head and laughs. “But seriously, folks. I do like this assignment. It’s a doozy. I’m sure you’re going to love it too.”

  He hands out the guidelines for the assignment: We have to research a twentieth-century artist—any twentieth-century artist—and then create five pieces of original art inspired by this artist’s work and write a seven-page essay to reflect on how the artist’s life and work influenced us.

  I know immediately who I’m going to research.

  Lee Mullican, twentieth-century painter.

  Lee Mullican, my mom’s favorite artist.

  Lee Mullican, her muse, her master, her own personal god.

  My mom studied Lee Mullican as part of her doctorate that she was never able to finish, and she chose him as what she called her “primary focus of study and inspiration.” Mullican was a hard artist to study in Chicago since he worked in Los Angeles.

  There are no Lee Mullicans at the Art Institute of Chicago. To my mom, this was the worst kind of travesty. He died the year I was born and is well-known in certain art circles, I guess, but he never achieved the kind of popularity that my mom thought he deserved. “He was a California artist living in a New York world, but history will speak to his brilliance, his artistry, his individual voice and beauty,” she’d say. My mom had been raised in L.A., and I wonder if part of her obsession with his art was his golden suns and love of all things Eastern and hippie. One winter when I was in the fourth grade and she was still working on her dissertation, we flew out to L.A. to see a show of his at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. We spent the mornings driving in and out of canyons, up and down boulevards, and alongside beaches and foothills with some of my dad’s family who lives out there, and then my mom would head to the museum to study the exhibit and work with curators in their library while my dad and I sat by the hotel pool and ordered milk shakes from the bar. She missed L.A., but she said she never wanted to move back. “It’s not a city. It’s just one massive, throbbing suburb,” she said. But I think she missed the colors, the lush gardens and luminous sunsets. “It’s still camouflaged as paradise, though,” she said, sighing as our plane took off over the ocean. She pressed her forehead against the window and waved a silent good-bye.

  On the last day of our trip, she took us to the museum so we could see the exhibit. “You should see it, John,” she said. “The way he uses his knife to lift the paint. The movement and light. It’s extraordinary. You too, Georgia. Then, you’ll understand me.”

  I wanted to understand her, so I took it seriously. I was only nine, but I walked slowly through the exhibit, examining each painting carefully, trying to see what my mom saw. Maybe I was just too young to have any major revelations, but I did recognize that her own art was clearly influenced by him, all shapes and form and color. She didn’t believe in representing real lif
e in her professional work. She was good at it. I mean, she was constantly drawing what was right in front of her. It was kind of an obsession. Our apartment is still littered with tiny sketches of half-eaten apples on napkins and wilting daffodils on crumpled receipts and the mailman’s wrinkled face on ripped envelopes. But when it came down to putting oil on canvas, to finalizing her ideas as large permanent pieces, she preferred the abstract. She especially loved painting the female form, but it was always slightly unrecognizable, exaggerated, distorted. She was searching for ideas, she said—and she often quoted Mullican when she said it—for “ideas that went beyond what one saw, beyond form.” She was always worried about form.

  I raise my hand. “When can we tell you who we want to write about?”

  Marquez nods, impressed. “You know already?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Way to go, Miss Askeridis. Getting ahead of the bunch. Making up for lost time, making up for the”—he pauses to scan his attendance book—“count them, seven absences in eight weeks!”

  Dude, why is he picking on me today? Sometimes his sarcasm is funny, and then suddenly, it’s not. It’s fucking annoying, to say the least.

  I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of a response, so I just flip the page of my sketchbook and start drawing some random lines. “Never mind,” I mumble.

  “You can tell me after class,” Marquez says more seriously, retreating a bit on the satire. He seems to feel bad. Well, good, then. He should. I’m a good student. What does he care if I cut a few classes? It’s senior year. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?

  Marquez changes the subject by turning down the lights and pulling up a PowerPoint on value and proportion, and most everyone spaces out. Through the flashing light of the changing slides, I look over at Daniel, who’s taking notes.

  Siiigh. He’s just so cute.

  I think about my list.

  #13. Ask him out.

  And even worse, #14. Kiss him.

  How the hell am I going to do either?

  I really haven’t made much progress with my list. I tried to do a handstand in the park, but I was high and Liss and Evelyn were laughing and I almost hurt myself trying—I landed on my elbow and nearly twisted my shoulder. I also asked my dad if he could teach me how to flambé, and he said, “Sure, koúkla, this weekend, okay?” and then he was too busy at the restaurant, and we never did do it.