Love and Vandalism Read online

  Things continue heating up between us, and when his hand slides from my waist to my side boob, I don’t stop him.

  The lions in my head rouse from their rest, but I hush them all. Tell them that everything’s okay. That I’m the one in control here.

  I’m always the one in control.

  • • •

  “When you’re working on a special piece, it’s important to access your every raw emotion,” Mom tells me in the kitchen. I’m sitting on the swivel stool by the counter, eating sherbet and mulling over the problems I’m having with my big lion project.

  I really need to snag an assistant to help me pull it off, and frat boy is just the most recent in a series of very disappointing dead ends.

  My dad hates it when Mom and I discuss art. In fact, he’s tried to forbid it, but it’s our deepest soul connection. All my talent comes from her, and he can’t find a way to relate to any of it. So he tries to squash it.

  “You must listen to your inner voice,” Mom’s saying. “It took me weeks to finally be somewhat content with the twisted yellow vase on the mantle. At least it should still be there.” She looks perplexed for a moment, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath.

  I wish I could reach over and put a comforting hand on her arm, but we just sit together silently.

  Finally, she continues, “Getting that dappled effect took so much planning. Of course, there’s always an element of surprise and discovery with glassblowing. With any art. And with life too, I suppose.”

  My mother is the most amazing artist I’ve ever known, and I mean that as an art lover, not just as her daughter. I swear, her way of seeing the world is so unique and deep, it’s like I’m getting one-on-one, free art lessons from a master every time we chat.

  We’re breaking Dad’s number-one rule right now with this discussion, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from her, it’s that art has nothing to do with rules. It jumps beyond the neat and tidy boundaries of order and discipline.

  Art that matters is some scary shit.

  We’re both smiling as Mom goes on. “Art is our way of expressing our true selves. And the most interesting art comes from our darkest places. You are an artist, Rory, and as an artist, you must not be afraid of your pain. Use it.”

  I allow my mind to dip into my chest and consider the dark places. In addition to the myriad feelings of regret and loneliness, there is a black pocket of tender ache trapped just underneath my ribs.

  It waits there, always, but I’m not disrupting it now. I save it for when I’m painting. When my lions are wide-awake and out on the prowl.

  Mom begins telling me the story about when she was a little girl coming home from kindergarten and she got off the bus one stop too early. I’ve heard this before but lean forward to listen, wishing I could comfort that little girl now, almost forty years too late.

  Her expression is one of wide-eyed innocence as she describes that agony of feeling hopelessly lost. My heart breaks for her as she talks about reopening the wound again and again as she paints, tapping into that dark place.

  “Every brushstroke is like a step in those stiff, new school shoes that had already bloodied my feet with blisters. I couldn’t know if each painful stride was bringing me closer to home or farther away.” She mimes holding a paintbrush and dabs the air as she clicks her tongue in time with her strokes. She stops and looks around as if she’s just woken up. “I should really be painting right now.”

  Finished with my sherbet, I scrape the rest of it into the garbage and quickly rinse my bowl before putting it in the dishwasher. Dad has banned me from art, but Mom is free to do what she wants.

  “That’s it for tonight. Love you, Mom.” I head up the stairs to get ready for bed.

  I pause when I hear the faint strains of her voice as she continues talking to herself. I waver on the steps a moment, sensing the pull to go back downstairs to her.

  But I’m too exhausted to take in anymore. I continue climbing slowly up to my room as I imagine broken blown glass scattered across each step.

  • • •

  The next morning, I stand at the front door and call up to Dad, “I’m heading out.” He immediately comes thundering down the stairs with Kelly at his heels.

  Kelly is a retired police dog who’s been busy patrolling our home for the past two years. Supposedly, she’s the family pet, but she hasn’t quite mastered the concept of being off-duty.

  “Where are you headed today, Rory?” Dad asks with false casualness.

  I give him a mock salute. “Guarding at the lake. Double shift.” As it happens, there is no such thing as a double shift up at the lake.

  “So, you have your bathing suit in your knapsack?”

  With a sigh, I pull one of my red straps from the neck hole of my T-shirt to show him. “Come on, Dad. I’ve been good all summer.”

  “Summer just started last week, Rory, and I thought we talked about you getting a job someplace other than that art store.”

  “You discussed that. I’ve explained that it’s just a job. It’s not like I can make art when I’m working.” His gaze on me is so steady, I feel a growl growing inside. “You won’t let me visit the art studio at school. You monitor what I do when I’m home and in my room. Dad, stop worrying. I’ve quit making art.”

  “I really don’t want to catch you again.” Dad suddenly looks very, very old and tired. “Rory—”

  The two of us are the same height, and I place my hands on both his shoulders as I look him in the eye and swallow down my anger. “Don’t worry. I’m just working there because I’d make a terrible waitress and Danny’s pays better than the bookstore.”

  “I’m sorry, Rory. I just worry about you.”

  “Well, stop worrying,” I say. “None of that stuff is a part of my life anymore.”

  Dad tries a smile, but it’s so forced he looks constipated.

  His phone sounds with a ping and I ask, “You on your way to work?”

  “No. I’m on the later shift today.” He pulls his phone from his back pocket, glances at it, and quickly puts it away. My dad schedules everything in such detail, that alert may’ve been telling him to go use the bathroom.

  I point my thumb toward the door. “I’m heading out.”

  “Oh wait, your new AAA card came yesterday.” He pulls out his wallet and starts flipping through credit cards.

  I say, “You know one of your patrol guys always comes to my rescue before the automotive alcoholics can get there.” My hatchback isn’t particularly reliable, but our police force is.

  Dad gives a chuckle. “It’s always good to have backup.” He hands me a gold card.

  I shove the card into the front pocket of my backpack. “You cops and your obsession with backup. You really should trust that I know how to take care of myself.”

  He shrugs and says, “A little trust goes a long way…”

  Together we finish his favorite mantra: “And the less trust you use, the further you go.”

  I notice a shadow pass over his expression as he glances at my bag.

  My breathing slows and I look at the ground. Right now, his words are telling me he’ll see me tonight and that I should have a good day and please check in later, but I know he’s wondering if I’m carrying any drugs.

  Clearing my throat, I call, “Hey, Kelly.” When the dog moves in front of me with her ears tuned for orders, I lift my backpack by the strap and hold it out toward her. Glaring at my dad for a moment, my jaw clenched, I turn to Kelly and command, “Find it!”

  She digs her nose into the side of my bag with her tail wagging, checking for drugs. Dad’s eyes are filled with emotion as he watches her work.

  I let Kelly sniff all over the bag from every angle. She was the top K9 on the force before she retired, and she clearly misses being on the job.

  Our shepherd goes o
ver every inch so thoroughly I start to get nervous and second-guess whether there was ever pot stashed in this backpack.

  To cover up my nervousness, I snipe at Dad, “Did you train her to sniff out art supplies now too?”

  His eyes don’t move from the dog as he reads her every move.

  His worry that I’ve gotten back into art is almost as strong as his fear that I’m carrying narcotics. He was horrified when he checked in with my art teacher back in May and found out I’d been spending all my spare time at the school’s art studio.

  Finally, Kelly sits down and looks up at my dad, giving me the all clear. If she’d detected any drugs, she’d be scratching at my bag right now, and despite the beginnings of tears in his eyes, I have no doubt Dad would be putting me in cuffs.

  “You didn’t have to do that.” His voice cracks, but there’s relief in it too.

  I open the front door and leave without making eye contact with him again.

  Chapter Two

  Speeding through the woods on the road that winds up the mountain, I try to outrun my anger with my car. I’m just rounding the second switchback when I give an involuntary gasp of surprise.

  What the hell? Some asshole with slicked-back black hair is wandering along the shoulder of the road like he’s just arrived on earth and has no idea how roads work. I resist the urge to blast the horn as I swerve around him.

  But I cannot be expected to stop myself from flipping him the bird as I zoom by.

  He doesn’t seem to notice as he continues walking in his high-end activewear. I hate freaking weekenders. This guy probably just took the tags off his hiking shorts this morning.

  Just one of the many reasons I prefer sticking to my out-of-the-way places. Unfortunately, there’s only one entrance to the lake where I lifeguard, but once I’m inside the park, I head straight to my private little section of wilderness. The area doesn’t even need a “keep out” sign to discourage visitors. It’s completely overgrown and it’s all mine.

  A long time ago, there was a boys’ camp in these woods with about two dozen cabins that have been mostly reclaimed by nature. Nature is insatiable. I once read someplace that a parking lot left abandoned will return to forest within twenty years. Only a handful of cabins remain, and the way the trees have pierced the rotting floors and shredded the roofs with their branches make me believe they won’t last much longer.

  I drive toward the one cabin that I’ve managed to wrestle back from the forest.

  My lair.

  It’s well hidden along an overgrown path and—thanks to pure determination, plus a hacksaw and a few odd tools that my dad will hopefully never miss—the thing is still standing on its shaky struts. Just barely.

  It’s the place where I plan my paintings and store all my graffiti supplies.

  Parking my hatchback as close as I can, I swing my backpack over my shoulder and hike the rest of the way through the less-traveled woods to my illicit hideout.

  I feel a rush of excitement as I open the splintering door and see a piece of my oversize stencil spread out on the wooden floorboards. I only have a few hours before I need to hit the nearby lake for my single shift, so I immediately kneel down and get to work.

  Sliding long pieces around, I carefully trim edges with my box cutter as I line up the negative space that will eventually reveal my greatest lion, roaring for all to see.

  I lose myself in creative flow, curious paws in my mind batting at ideas.

  The lion I’m planning has a purpose, and the location I’ve picked out is perfect. Radically public. My ambitious eye is set on a surface that overlooks the whole valley: the town water tower.

  The tower was recently painted with a giant, obnoxious ad for Sparkle Soda. The thing has been taunting all of New Paltz’s residents with its ecstatically happy blond and her perfect skin, smiling manically from above. She commands us all to “Submit to the Sparkle,” as if Sparkle is some sort of divine god who we all must serve.

  I’m determined to transform that blasphemous ad.

  I gloss over the irrational size of the equipment packs I’ll need and deny just how high the ladder affixed to the leg of the tower goes. (Hint: it goes all the way up.) I ignore the ridiculous amount of work and skip straight to the image of my huge, majestic lion pouring out his roar over this whole valley.

  He is going to devour the model, with her perfect skin and phony grin, like a big-cat circus act that will change everything.

  I envision my lion getting discovered that very first morning. He’ll be bursting with wild color in the glow of that early dawn.

  Waking everyone up.

  I fall into the rhythm of mapping out my stencils as my X-ACTO knife slices into a new sheet of card stock. The mental image of my growling lion rises into sharper focus, and it’s as if the razor-sharp blade is leading my hand where it wants to go.

  I get so absorbed in my project, the next thing I know, I’ve ignored several reminders from my phone and have told myself, I’ll leave in just one more minute, so many times I’m already late for my shift.

  The pull to stay and work feels almost physical, and I release a grunt as I grab my bag and shoot through the cabin’s weathered door.

  I’m already looking forward to the few solid hours I’ll have alone with my lion after lifeguarding.

  I sprint down the path leading to the lake and pass my car. When I reach the turn onto the public trail, I start undoing my shorts. I’m still a half mile or so away, but I need to be ready to jump right in the canoe as soon as I get to the beach.

  Barely slowing down my momentum, I lean forward and step my right leg out of my shorts. It’s a learned skill.

  I go for the left side and find myself hopping around with my foot awkwardly in the air as I reach a bend in the trail. I hop faster when I spot the jerk with the slicked-back hair that I passed on the road. He’s straight ahead of me, sitting on a rock and reading a book as he bites into a protein bar.

  I finish pulling my wadded shorts off my ankle, and my toe catches the leg hole, bungling my balance.

  I flail as I’m pitched into the underbrush.

  “Are you okay?” The guy seems more amused than concerned. He’s about my age and height, but he’s super pale and his black hair has way more product and style than mine. Plus, I can smell his cologne from here.

  I stumble out of the bushes, pulling a leafy branch from my hair, and snap, “You might want to watch your ass when you’re walking on the road. I nearly ran over it this morning.”

  “I’m not from around here,” he calls after me as I continue moving down the trail.

  “Yeah, no shit.” I spin around quickly, catching him by surprise as he ogles my butt. Of course, I realize it’s a very fine butt in a red bathing suit, but still. “I said watch your ass, not mine.”

  He tips his head to one side, but his hair doesn’t move. “Who are you?”

  Clutching my shorts, I jog away calling, “Nobody you’ll ever get to know.”

  • • •

  By the time I reach the lake, my fellow lifeguard, Scott, is already pushing the canoe from the beach into the water.

  “My turn to do the first sweep,” I huff as I enter the pebbled clearing. The two of us always take turns paddling the canoe around the lake, and I’m up first today.

  He doesn’t look back at me. “You should’ve been here on time.”

  “I ran into someone along the path.” I drop my backpack and shorts, arching my back as I smoothly take off my T-shirt.

  “It’s always something with you, Rory.” Scott keeps one foot on shore and one foot in the canoe but stands upright, watching me. His eyes are like two pale-blue moths attracted to the light that is my cleavage.

  I don’t want to take advantage of his obvious fascination with my assets, but I desperately need the dose of inner peace that comes from a solo cru
ise around the lake. I don’t quite aim my tatas in his direction, but I do let my shoulders drop.

  The poor guy actually licks his lips as he says, “I guess you can get this round. I’ll do the checklist.”

  Doing a safety check on all the equipment is like the opposite chore to gliding freely around the lake in the canoe. After a moment of guilty hesitation, I grab the oar.

  Small clouds of fog still cling to the lake’s surface as I float peacefully along.

  I get that surreal sense of connection to all the people who have visited this spot over hundreds of years.

  The original lodge burned down a long time ago, but visitors still come from all over the world to ooh and aah over the views. And, of course, they go absolutely apeshit over the colorful dead leaves in the fall.

  I imagine what it must’ve been like to be the very first adventurer to discover this place while exploring. A sky lake, fed purely by rainwater, here at the top of the mountain. Stumbling upon it must’ve felt like a miracle.

  I like to imagine the person pulled out pen and ink or charcoals or some ground-up pigment or a chisel and stone and started drawing like mad.

  Folding the oar over my lap, I breathe in the raw air, taking my time.

  I know it was a sacrifice for Scott to give this up. He loves coming back to the beach to announce, “All clear,” as if we’re under siege and he’s just risked his life.

  When I reach the far end, I allow the boat to drift smoothly along the edge of the lake. My dreads shift back off my face as I lift my chin, scanning the trees.

  I’m halfway back to the beach when my reflexes curl and my gaze springs like a cat on the thing that doesn’t belong in the woods.

  It’s that damn guy again. The walking perfume department just standing among the pines by the shore, watching me. When he sees me looking, he smiles and gives a casual wave. Like we’re friends now or something.

  He’s not exactly trespassing. I’m here to patrol the woods for illegal activity and to check the water for swimmers outside the swim area.

  But right now, I want to chase this intruder from my woods.