I’ll Give You the Sun(43)
Author: Jandy Nelson

“This sculpture needs to be made so much you cry like this?”

I turn around. He’s leaning against the wall by the painting of the kiss, his arms crossed.

“Yes,” I gasp out, then say more calmly, “Yes.” Is he changing his mind? The sob begins to retreat.

He’s stroking his chin. His expression softens. “You need to make this sculpture so badly, you will risk your young life by sharing space with a disease-carrying cat?”

“Yes. Totally, yes. Please.”

“You are sure you want to forsake the warm, moist breath of clay for the cold, unforgiving eternity of stone.”

“I am sure.” Whatever that means.

“Come back tomorrow afternoon. Bring your portfolio and a sketchpad. And tell your brother to give you back the sun, trees, stars, all of it already. I think you need.”

“You’re saying yes?”

“I am. I do not know why but I am.”

I’m about to leap across the room and hug him.

“Oh no.” He wags a finger at me. “Do not look so happy. I tell you ahead of time. All my students despise me.”

• • •

I click Guillermo’s front door shut, lean against it, not sure what happened to me in there. I feel disoriented like I’ve been watching a movie or like I’ve just woken up from a dream. I thank and rethank the beautiful stone angel inside who granted my wish. There is the problem of my portfolio being full of broken bowls and blobs. There is also the problem that he said to bring a sketchpad and I can’t sketch. I got a C in life drawing last year. Drawing is Noah’s thing.

Doesn’t matter. He said yes.

I look around, taking in Day Street, wide and tree-lined, with a combination of dilapidated Victorians where college students live, warehouses, the occasional business, and the church. I’m letting the first sun we’ve seen this winter soak into my bones, when I hear the screech of a motorcycle. I watch the adrenaline-happy driver, who thinks he’s at the Indy 500, boomerang a turn at such an extreme angle the side of the bike scrapes the street. Jeez, no offense, but what a stupid reckless idiot.

Evel Knievel screeches once again, but to a halt this time, not fifteen feet from me, and takes off his helmet.

Oh.

Of course.

And in sunglasses. Someone call medevac.

“Well, hello there,” he says. “The fallen angel has returned.”

He doesn’t talk, he lilts, his words taking to the air like birds. And why do English people sound smarter than the rest of us? Like they should be awarded the Nobel Prize for a simple greeting?

I zip up my sweatshirt to my neck.

But can’t seem to get the boy blinders on.

Still a reckless idiot, yes, but damn, he looks fine, sitting on that bike on this sunny winter day. Guys like him really shouldn’t be allowed on motorcycles. They should have to bounce around on pogo sticks, or better: Hippity Hops. And no hot guy should be allowed to have an English accent and drive a motorcycle.

Not to mention wear the leather jacket or sport the cool shades. Hot guys should be forced into footie pajamas.

Yes, yes, the boycott, the boycott.

Still, I’d like to say something this time so he doesn’t think I’m a mute.

“Well, hello there,” I offer, mimicking him exactly, English accent and all! Oh no. I feel my face flushing. Losing the accent, I quickly add, “Nice turn back there.”

“Ah yes,” he says, dismounting. “I have a problem with impulse control. Or so I’m quite frequently told.”

Great. Six feet of bad luck and impulse-control issues. I cross my arms like Guillermo. “You probably have an underdeveloped frontal lobe. That’s where self-control comes from.”

This cracks him up. It makes his face go everywhere at once. “Well, thank you for the medical opinion. Much appreciated.”

I like that I made him laugh. A nice laugh, easy and friendly, lovely really, not that I notice. Frankly, I also believe I have impulse-control issues, well, used to. Now I’m very much in control of things. “So what kind of impulses can’t you control?”

“Not a one, I’m afraid,” he says. “That’s the problem.”

That is the problem. He’s tailor-made to torture. I’m betting he’s at least eighteen, betting he stands alone at parties leaning against walls, knocking back shots while long-legged girls in fire-engine red mini-dresses slink up to him. Granted, I haven’t been to a lot of parties lately, but I have seen a lot of movies and he’s that guy: the lawless, solitary, hurricane-hearted one who wreaks havoc, blowing through towns, through girls, through his own tragic misunderstood life. A real bad boy, not like the fake ones at my art school, with their ink and piercings and trust funds and cigarettes from France.

I bet he just got out of jail.

I decide to pursue his “condition” as it falls under medical research, not because I’m fascinated by him or flirting with him or anything like that. I say, “Meaning if you were in the room with The Button, you know, the end of the world nuclear bomb button, just you and it, man and button, you’d press it? Just like that.”

He laughs that wonderful easy laugh again. “Kapow,” he says, illustrating the explosion with his hands.

Kapow is right.

I watch as he locks his helmet on the back of his bike, then detaches a camera bag from the handlebars. The camera. I have an instant Pavlovian response to it, remembering how I’d felt sitting in church with him looking at me through it. I drop my gaze to the ground, wishing my pale skin didn’t blush so easily.

“So what’s your business with The Rock Star?” he asks. “Let me guess. You want him to mentor you like every other female art student from The Institute.”

Okay, that was snide. And does he think I go to The Institute in the city? That I’m in college?

“He’s agreed to mentor me,” I reply triumphantly, not appreciating the innuendo. No other art student, female or not, needs his help like I do, to make things right with their dead mother. This is a very unique situation.

“Is that right?” He’s out of his head pleased. “Well done.” I’m back in the spotlight of his gaze and having the same sense of vertigo I did in church. “I just can’t believe it. Well done, you. It’s been a very, very long time since he’s taken on a student.” This makes me nervous. As does he. Kapow, kaboom, kaput. Time to go. Which involves moving the legs. Move the legs, Jude.