I’ll Give You the Sun(16)
Author: Jandy Nelson

A minute later, he lazes across the classroom in his robe toward the door—he moves like glue. I wonder if he’s in college around here like the teacher said the girl model was. He looks younger than she did. I’m certain he’s coming for the bag even before I smell the cigarette smoke and hear the footsteps. I think about hightailing it into the woods, but I’m frozen.

He rounds the corner and immediately lowers to the ground, his back sliding down the building, not noticing me standing just yards away. His blue robe glitters in the sun like a king’s. He stubs the cigarette out in the dirt, then drops his head into his hands—wait, what? And then I see it. This is the real pose, head in hands with sadness leaping off of him all the way to me.

(PORTRAIT: Boy Blows into Dust)

He reaches for the bag, takes the bottle out and uncaps it, then starts chugging with his eyes closed. There’s no way you’re supposed to drink alcohol like this, like it’s orange juice. I know I shouldn’t be watching, know this is a no-trespassing zone. I don’t move a muscle, afraid he’ll sense me and realize he has a witness. Several seconds pass with him holding the bottle to his face like a compress, his eyes still closed, the sun streaming down on him like he’s being chosen. He takes another sip, then opens his eyes and turns his head my way.

My arms fly up to block his gaze as he scoots back, startled. “Jesus!” he says. “Where the hell did you come from?”

I can’t find any words anywhere.

He composes himself quickly. “You scared the life out of me, mate,” he says. Then he laughs and hiccups at the same time. He looks from me to my pad resting against the wall, the sketch of him facing out. He recaps the bottle.

“Cat got your tongue? Or wait—do you Americans even say that?”

I nod.

“Right, then. Good to know. Only been here a few months.” He gets up, using the wall as support. “So let’s have a look,” he says, walking unsteadily over to me. He fumbles a cigarette out of a pack that was in his robe pocket. The sadness seems to have evaporated right off him. I notice something remarkable.

“Your eyes are two different colors,” I blurt out. Like a Siberian husky’s!

“Brilliant. He speaks!” he says, smiling so that a riot breaks out in his face again. He lights the cigarette, inhales deeply, then makes the smoke come out his nose like a dragon. He points to his eyes, says, “Heterochromia iridium, would’ve had me burned at the stake with the witches, I’m afraid.” I want to say how supremely cool it is, but of course I don’t. All I can think about now is that I’ve seen him naked, I’ve seen him. I pray my cheeks aren’t as red as they are hot. He nods toward my pad. “Can I?”

I hesitate, worried to have him look at it. “Go on, then,” he says, motioning for me to get it. It’s like singing the way he talks. I pick up the pad and hand it to him, wanting to explain the octopus-like position I had to be in on account of not having a stand, how I didn’t hardly look down as I was drawing, how I suck. How my blood doesn’t glow at all. I swallow it all, say nothing. “Well done,” he says with enthusiasm. “Very well done, you.” He seems like he means it. “Couldn’t afford the summer class, then?” he asks.

“I’m not a student here.”

“You should be,” he says, which makes my hot cheeks even hotter. He puts his cigarette out on the building, causing a shower of red sparks. He’s definitely not from here. This is fire season. Everything’s waiting to go up.

“I’ll see if I can smuggle you out a stand on my next break.” He stashes the bag by a rock. Then he holds up his hand, points his index finger at me. “You don’t tell, I won’t tell,” he says, like we’re allies now. I nod, smiling. English people are so not asshats! I’m going to move there. William Blake was English. Frances freaking-the-most-awesome-painter Bacon too. I watch him walking away, which takes forever on account of his sloth pace, and want to say something more to him, but I don’t know what. Before he turns the corner, I think of something. “Are you an artist?”

“I’m a mess is what I am,” he says, holding on to the building for support. “A bloody mess. You’re the artist, mate.” Then he’s gone.

I pick up the pad and look at the drawing I did of him, his broad shoulders, his narrow waist, long legs, the trail of hair on his navel going down, down, down. “I’m a bloody mess,” I say out loud with his bubbling accent, feeling giddy. “I’m a bloody artist, mate. A bloody mess.” I say it a few more times, louder and with more and more gusto, then realize I’m talking with an English accent to a bunch of trees and go back to my spot.

A couple times in the following session, he looks right at me and winks because we’re conspirators now! And on the next break, he brings me a stand and a footstool so I can really see in. I set it up—it’s perfect—then lean against the wall next to him while he sips from the bottle and smokes. I feel way cool, like I’m wearing sunglasses even though I’m not. We’re buds, we’re mates, except he doesn’t say anything to me this time, nothing at all, and his eyes have turned cloudy and dim. And it’s like he’s melting into a puddle of himself.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“No,” he answers. “Not okay at all.” Then he throws the burning cigarette into a dry patch of grass before he gets up and stumbles away, not even turning around or saying good-bye. I stomp out the fire he’s started until it’s dead, feeling as gloomy as I felt giddy before.

With the new footstool, I can see all the way to everyone’s feet even, so I witness what happens next in perfect detail. The teacher meets the model at the door and motions for him to go out into the hall. When the English guy comes back in, his head’s down. He crosses the classroom to the dressing area, and when he emerges in clothes, he seems even more lost and out of it than he did on the last break. He never once looks up at the students or at me on his way out.

The teacher explains that he’d been under the influence and won’t be modeling at CSA anymore, that CSA has zero tolerance, blah blah blah. He tells us to finish our drawings from memory. I wait a bit to see if the English guy’s going to come back, at least for the bottle. When he doesn’t, I hide the stand and stool in some bushes for next week and head back into the woods toward home.