S
tacey drifted along the stucco wall in the science wing, hoping to spot Gabe in the passing mob of students. Her Doc Martens crushed Doritos bags and Pop Rocks pouches littering the sweltering hallway. Emptied of the comforting weight of her textbooks, her backpack hung limp on her shoulder. With only a few days left of school, Stacey needed reassurance this summer wouldn’t be as lonely and lame as last year. Her heart sank. No Gabe. She took a long gulp of her warm Dr. Pepper, then turned toward art.
Stacey navigated around cliques of FFA students, athletes, and drama kids as laughter echoed off open metal lockers along the breezeway. Several basketball players were huddled across the quad. Gabe, in his signature plain white T-shirt, had his back to her. She squeezed excitedly through a cluster of underclassmen, rushing toward him, squinting in the bright sunlight. The hollow whir of skateboard wheels and the blur of a body rushed at her.
“Holy shnikes!” the skater shouted, colliding into Stacey’s left shoulder. The board rammed her ankle.
She stumbled, banged into a bank of lockers and landed hard on her butt on the hot concrete. “Ow!” she shrieked.
Students clapped and cheered.
“Gnarly,” said a boy with a backward ball cap.
Stacey fought back the sting of tears.
“Sick crash, Jess!” someone called out.
Jess? When he bent to pick up his board, Stacey’s mouth fell open. Jessie Thomas turned toward her practically in slow-motion, his sun-bleached hair swinging away from his face. Golden rays reflected off his perfect, glistening teeth. Sexy, guitar-strumming, graduating-senior Jessie Thomas. The boy she’d stalked all year in Christian Club, even though she’d never belonged to a church.
“You okay?” he asked, extending his hand. His WWJD charm shone among the dozen bracelets tied round his wrist. “You came out of nowhere!”
Stacey tucked her hand into his, staring into Jessie’s crystal blue eyes. He heaved her to her feet. She sucked in her stomach and tugged her shirt down, embarrassed.
Jessie brushed a hand through his hair. “Hey, you’re…”
“Stacey,” she said. She bit her bottom lip.
“Wet.” Jessie pointed downward to the brown stain blooming across the front of her jeans. He plucked the empty Dr. Pepper bottle from the ground and pushed it at her.
Stacey felt her face flush. She opened her palm to grab it, but fumbled. The bottle fell back to the ground.
“Sorry, Stephanie. Gotta jam. I’m totally late!” Jessie bolted toward the football field, his board in his hand. Turning the corner, he waved a shaka, then disappeared.
“Stace!” Gabe jogged up, his loose Levi’s hanging low on his hips. He grasped her shoulders, scanning her up and down. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
Stacey hung her head, humiliated. “I stepped in front of him.” She dusted the back of her pants and flinched, feeling the tenderness of a bruise forming.
“I saw. You sure you’re okay? Need me to grab spare gym shorts from my locker?”
“With Docs? That’d be hilarious.” Stacey tucked her long blonde hair behind her ear. “I’m alright. I only have art left. Thanks for coming to my rescue.”
“Jessie’s a dipshit. I could beat his ass if you want me to.” Gabe palmed his fist, flexing his broad shoulders while making a goofy, menacing expression. His snug tee stretched across his pecs. Stacey felt her cheeks flush again and looked away.
Gabe picked up her backpack and handed it to her. She held it in front of her wet pants. He shot the empty Dr. Pepper bottle at a trash can 15 feet away, and it disappeared noiselessly. “Nothin’ but net.”
“Nice shot.”
The warning bell rang.
“Shit, we better go. Call me later,” he hollered over his shoulder, jogging toward his chemistry final.
The art room was loud with chatter. While Stacey focused on shading the veins of a leaf with her pencil, the other students signed yearbooks with colorful pens. Stacey’s knees were pulled up against the edge of the desk, a graphite sunflower blossoming over the sketch paper pad covering the stain on her jeans. Someone nudged her elbow and the pencil scratched across the page.
Beside her, Amanda’s freckled nose bobbed upward, directing Stacey to the front of the room.
Ms. Moreno was striking a colorful, wooden instrument, her signal all year to get the class’s attention. She was in her mid-twenties, perpetually wearing splattered jeans and an apron, with a paintbrush shoved through the lopsided mass of tight curls atop her head.
While the other students took their seats, Stacey continued shielding her stain and lowered her knees to skootch her chair under the table. She folded her hands over the drawing and flashed her most innocent smile toward their art teacher.
“Brown-noser,” Amanda said out of the side of her mouth.
“Takes one to know one,” Stacey whispered.
Ms. Moreno set down the guiro. “I’m sure with school ending you all have a lot going on.” Her words rolled out melodically, rounding the edges off hard consonants. “Don’t forget to collect your pottery from the shelves and grab your portfolios before you go. Anything left over summer will be thrown out.”
The only artwork remaining on the classroom’s peeling ecru walls were the bright Clara Ledesma and Frida Khalo prints, along with an “Immigrant Rights = Human Rights, STOP PROP 187” sign beside the American flag.
Ms. Moreno waved a stack of blue flyers. “Also, I’ll have Art Lab open Monday and Wednesday nights…” The bell announcing the end of the day echoed across the ceiling tiles, and was immediately drowned out by metal stool legs scraping across the concrete floor. Ms. Moreno sighed, dropping the stack of flyers on the overhead projector. “Have a great summer!”
Stacey waited out the crowd. Art class was officially over, and soon enough her junior year would be also. Just two days to go. She shoved her portfolio and sketchbook into her backpack, then looked toward the pottery shelves, wrinkling her nose. Stacey pulled her shoulder through the strap of her backpack and started toward the open door.
“Stacey, wait,” Ms. Moreno called. “Your self-portrait...”
Turning slowly, Stacey winced. Ms. Moreno approached, holding up the large white frame, and Stacey checked over her shoulder that the other students had really gone.
The misshapen body and blurred features of the painting belonged in the garbage where Stacey originally tossed it, not flattened behind plexiglass with a blue and gold ribbon. Stacey still resented Ms. Moreno for entering it in the regional art competition in the first place. At least the label said the artist and the title were both “ANONYMOUS.”
Stacey accepted the frame, but clutched the image firmly to her chest, hiding it from sight. Will this day ever end?
“I’m sure your family will be so proud of you! But why isn’t your name on the list for advance art next year?” She stilled her fluttering hands on her hips. Staring at Stacey, she awaited an explanation.
Stacey shrugged. “I have a really full schedule. All AP and honors classes.”
“Exactly! It would be a good outlet for you, and it’s only for students up to the challenge. I hope you’ll reconsider.” She held out her flyer. “And I’d love to see you at Art Escape this summer. I’m focusing the workshops on watercolor.”
“Sounds fun, but I got a job,” Stacey lied. She hadn’t heard yet whether she would be lifeguarding at the community pool, but the idea of spending any part of her summer at school depressed her. She wanted something more than always hiding in classrooms and behind books. She accepted the blue paper, tucking it between her fingers and the back of the frame. “I really need to head home.”
Ms. Moreno grabbed a doubled paper grocery bag from beside the door. Whatever was inside clanked as she handed it to Stacey. “This is yours, too. You left almost all of your pottery on the shelves.”
“I thought you said you would throw it all away.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to.”
“Yeah. Thanks. Well, have a good summer, Ms. Moreno,” she said, forcing a smile.
Stacey trudged down the stairs to the lower parking lot and she breathed a sigh of relief that most of campus was deserted. The last few cars streamed out at the stoplight, beeping at one another, arms waving out of windows.
Heat waves rippled off the asphalt as Stacey unlocked the Silver Bullet, her ’87 hatchback Civic. She popped the driver’s seat forward and wedged the frame into the back, laying it face down with her backpack on top. She dumped the bag of pottery on the floor and pushed the seat back into place.
Without getting in, she turned the key in the ignition to get the AC going. She slipped her Dookie CD into the slot on the stereo, and turned up the volume. “Welcome to Paradise” blared out of the speakers while she waited for the car to cool down. Stacey turned back to look at the high school perched on the dusty hillside.
Her stomach dropped. For better or worse, Mesa Valley High was the only place she knew what was expected of her. And in two days, a whole summer of unknowns would begin.
