The Map to You Page 23

  The twelve-year-old shrugs and gets another basketball, dribbling it between her hands. “Could be your reflexes are just really slow, being old like you are.”

  “I suppose my hearing is off too?”

  Lavender passes the ball to me. “That’s what I’m guessing.”

  I aim and shoot, missing like I occasionally do.

  The dark-skinned girl shakes her head of black springy curls and darts after the ball. She’s tall and thin, seemingly more legs and arms than anything else. “How long have we been shooting hoops now? You’re as bad as you were the first day. Maybe even worse.”

  I’ve been volunteering my time at the community center for weeks now. It doesn’t pay anything, but I have enough saved to be okay while I figure out what I ultimately want to do, career-wise. During the morning hours, I work in the shed, and in the afternoon, I come here. I saw a flyer at the grocery store asking for volunteers, and I impulsively showed up the next day. This place helps me as much as it does the kids.

  Recently, I was asked by one of the coordinators to talk about the issues I had as a teen and young adult, and so far, I’ve spoken two times to a group about it. Oddly enough, it was cathartic. There’s a therapist who comes to talk with the kids, and I set up an appointment with him—for me. I realized I don’t have to fight my demons alone. Instead of holding them in, drawing them out is the way to go. Like my mom, I’m getting my shit together. The idea of being a substance abuse counselor has been flittering through my mind, and eventually, I’ll further consider it. But right now, I’m good where I’m at.

  “Oh, come on, we both know it’s not possible for me to get any worse than I already am.”

  Lavender giggles. “That’s true.”

  I know that Lavender comes from a broken home with a mother who cares more about dating than spending time with her daughter, and that she’s never met her father. I know that her best friend, Clarence, a boy with shaggy blond hair and glasses, is as much her family as her mom. Maybe more so, in the ways that really count.

  I know that every kid here makes me think of Opal, in some way.

  “Where’s Clarence?” I make a shot and pump a fist in the air.

  Lavender makes a face. “His mom said he couldn’t come today. Chores.”

  I wasn’t assigned to Lavender. It’s more like she assigned herself to me, and I’m glad she did. We don’t say words of any real value during our time together, but I don’t think we have to. I’m here for Lavender, and we play ball. It’s simple, and it works. Words aren’t always the way to reach people. Sometimes just spending time with someone is enough to let them know they matter.

  I twist my features into exaggerated horror. “What a cruel, cruel mother.”

  In true Lavender fashion, she snorts and makes ten baskets in a row within the span of seconds. Her purple shirt has a small tear near the shoulder and there is a hole in her left tennis shoe, but she’s smiling, and that’s all that matters right now. As we spend the next hour shooting baskets and talking nonsense, I lose count of how many times she laughs and smiles, and I consider that a win.

  It’s dark by the time I make it back to my house.

  Exhausted but somehow too wired to sleep, with two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a plate, I sit before the desktop computer I stationed in the empty office space of an upstairs room. I’ve been trying to locate Opal for the past month. I’m not sure why. She knows where I am, and she hasn’t tried to contact me. The logical conclusion to draw would be that she doesn’t care to be reacquainted with me. But I don’t believe that. She kissed me like it meant something. I don’t know what she’s doing, but it isn’t avoiding me. For the first time since my grandfather, I have unwavering faith in another human being.

  I’m waiting for Opal to realize it.

  About a month ago, I read online about Jonathan “Jonesy” Laxton and his association with the Morgenstern gang—a family of delinquents who made their living off robbing others. It turns out Jonesy turned in the last two to help lessen his own sentence. Opal’s safe. I didn’t know how coiled up my body was until I heard that, and some of the tension evaporated.

  As I polish off one sandwich, I type a dozen different combinations of words into the online search engine, hoping something pops up. It isn’t until I’m seven pages in that something catches my eye. The Mr. Sunshine Chronicles: Issue #1 by Opal Allen.

  “Allen,” I say out loud. Assuming it’s my Opal, I finally know her last name. I blink at the “my Opal” thought. And then my chest loosens at the rightness of it.

  Clicking on the link, I see a collage of black and white drawings set up like comic strips. The first square shows a guy standing with his hands on his hips, his profile set in a scowl as he glares at a truck. A truck that looks a lot like my truck. I lean forward, bringing my eyes inches from the screen. The guy looks a lot like me too.

  In the next square, it shows a short woman with flyaway hair sleeping inside the truck, looking unnaturally innocent—too innocent to be Opal. In the comic, her name is Piper. Half of my mouth slides up at the name. The third has her looking worriedly out at the man as he jabs a finger at her and shouts at her to get out of his truck.

  Snorting, I sit back in the chair and stare at the drawings. Well, Opal’s been busy, and it’s clear she’s thinking of me. Drawing me, even. Something slides through me, and I realize what it is as it thrums inside my chest. Pride. She’s doing it—Opal’s making her comics. My eyes shoot to the last available drawing, and it’s of me shoving pancakes into my mouth while offering Piper a diminutive-looking egg. The slant of my eyebrows suggests wickedness, like I’m offering poisoned food to poor, starving Piper.

  “Really?” I mutter.

  I thoughtfully chew the second sandwich as I study the images, not even tasting the peanut butter or jelly. I pause with the last mouthful of food in my mouth.

  “Mr. Sunshine,” I say slowly.

  I’m Mr. Sunshine? I choke on the food as I try to swallow around a burst of laughter.

  I scroll down and find another name under how to contact the creator: Thor Landers. My eyes sink into the name as I imagine all kinds of things I don’t want to visualize. I picture muscles and flowing blond hair and perfect teeth and Opal looking lovingly at her friend with her hands clasped beneath her chin as she sighs with longing. The veins in my neck tighten.

  It doesn’t matter that Opal said he wasn’t exactly muscular, and that there was no hint of adoration in her tone as she spoke of him. It only matters that she’s in contact with him, and not me. Below his name is an email address. I tap my fingertips on the desk as I think. Contacting him wouldn’t be the same as contacting Opal. It wouldn’t be chasing after her—it would be a concerned friend asking another friend how she’s doing, and making sure she knows her ex-boyfriend is no longer a threat. That’s all. Completely harmless, and without ulterior motives.

  Right.

  * * *

  Opal

  For the third week in a row, I ask Thor, “That’s all he said in the email? You’re sure?”

  His sigh from the other end of the phone line is long and unreasonably melodramatic. “Yes. He asked if you were doing okay, and he said to let you know that you’re safe, and to not tell you he’d contacted me.”

  “Well, I see how well you listen.” I grin and pop the pan of tater tot casserole in the oven.

  Hot air whooshes over my face and I quickly shut the oven door with my hip. My mouth is already watering at the thought of devouring the casserole, but this pan is not for me. I have another premade one ready in the refrigerator, and if things play out today how I’m hoping, I’ll be popping that baby in the oven later for me plus one. And if he doesn’t like it, I’ll just eat it all myself.

  “How long are you going to do this?” my friend asks.

  “Do what?” Using a wet washcloth, I wipe off the count
er with my free hand and sit down at the small white table I got at a garage sale for twenty bucks. I found two chairs at another one and painted them red. I furnished my home in secondhand items, but to me, each one was new. I love them all, blemished and worn like they are. They’re perfect. Everything in this place is perfect.

  And it’s all mine.

  “Pretend like he isn’t every single thought in your head.”

  “He isn’t,” I insist, turning my attention to the living room of the apartment. It’s tiny, and there isn’t much in it, but the windows are fantastic, letting in an abundant supply of sunshine whenever the sun is out. “He’s only every other thought,” I add, rolling my eyes at myself.

  “Opal.”

  “Thor.”

  “Just go over there and talk to him. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  My hand tightens around the cell phone I purchased a month ago. It’s basic and cheap—exactly what I like. Keeping my tone deceptively light, I tell Thor, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe he decided whatever happened between us was entertaining but wasn’t all that meaningful to him. Maybe he’s dating someone.”

  That thought likes to stab my heart about thirty times a day, and at the most inopportune moments, like when I’m working at the art supply store and there are people around and all I want to do is find a gallon of chocolate and stick my head into it. Stupid heart. At least I can now say I have officially fallen in love, although if I’d known how bad it could hurt, I think I might have tried better to avoid it.

  “Maybe he isn’t. Maybe,” Thor begins cautiously. “He’s waiting for you.”

  I straighten my posture, my pulse tripping at the possibility. “Maybe he’s waiting for me to show up so he can sue me.” I don’t believe that for a second.

  I’ve kept tabs on Blake. I know he didn’t go to Australia. I know he volunteers at a youth center one block from my apartment building—not stalker-ish at all—but I don’t know how he feels about us.

  “Yeah. That’s another thing. You really need him to sign something giving you permission to use his image. The comics are getting noticed, and you don’t want this all to come back and bite you in the butt later on in your career.”

  If I ever needed a father figure, I got it in my good friend Thor Landers. And sensible. He’s so sensible—for a guy who won’t eat red M&Ms because he was once told they’re injected with blood to give them their red color. When I asked him what the others were injected with then to get their colors, he got pale and wouldn’t talk to me for a week.

  “Career,” I repeat. “It’s weird to think of my drawings that way—as a way to make money. And I have, like, a total of fifty Twitter followers. I’m not exactly famous. I think I’ve made twenty dollars so far.”

  When I left Paisley’s house, knowing he would help me get my comic series started, the person I called was Thor. He is like my mentor, in charge of emails and getting the comics up on websites and other platforms, and even most of the promoting, since I have no computer or internet. Thor teaches me, and it works out great for me, since I don’t know much about any of that stuff anyway.

  “It takes time to build a fan base. Your comics are unique; they aren’t about your normal superheroes. They’re more like a satire with everyday heroes. They’re different, and different is good. These are a good thing, Opal.”

  I smile at the conviction in my friend’s voice. “Thank you. I’m glad you think so.” The scent of seasoned meat and potatoes enters my senses, and I happily breathe it in. “I have to go. We’ll talk soon?”

  “Yeah. Of course. But what are you going to do about Blake?”

  “I’m going to see him.”

  The air pauses with Thor, and he heaves a relieved breath. “Oh. Good. Finally. When?”

  I squint my eyes at the pink clock in the shape of an airplane above the stove. “As soon as the tater tot casserole is ready, which is in about forty minutes. Bye!”

  I turn off the phone and set it on the table, hopping to my feet to nervously pace around the one-bedroomed place. The bedroom walls are decorated with drawings of all the people I’ve met over the years. They are my own personal photo album, all drawn by me. I have a lot of drawings of Blake. With so many facets to his personality and expressions, he’s my favorite to draw. And, yeah, he’s just my favorite. Period.

  I’ve been in Bismarck, North Dakota for several weeks. As soon as I saw the sign for the city on my return, I knew I was where I needed to be. I got myself a job that pays enough to house and feed me, and I’ve been working on my comics in my free time. I had to do this before I could see Blake again. I hope he can understand that I had to take care of myself before I could one hundred percent care for him. I had to be whole, because you can’t fit two halved pieces together and hope for the best.

  It’s been madness keeping my distance, but now I can approach him as a choice, and not an option. I have a home; I have money. I am stable. I’m choosing him for me, and no other reason.

  I look out the living room window as snow flurries coast to the ground, immediately lost between traffic. The apartment building is located in a busier section of Bismarck; the streets always have vehicles on them, and the noise is constant enough that I don’t hear it anymore. It isn’t the country, and maybe I’ll never again be at that white house with peeling paint and endless potentials, but it’s one of my many dreams that I am.

  I realize I might want something from Blake that he doesn’t want to give me, and I’ll have to deal with it, because this is now my home. The city is big enough that we can both live in the area without probably ever seeing one another, if that’s the way it has to be. I shift my gaze to the building across the street, watching as an old blue and white truck parks in the parking lot of the community center. My breaths come faster, and my hands grip the windowsill as I stare. It’s bliss, and torture, and a hundred declarations I want to shout through the window. I blink and step back, taking a steadying breath.

  Although, with Blake directly on the other side of the street from me most days of the week, the chances of us never bumping into one another are pretty unlikely.

  Longing pierces my chest as he steps from the truck, and I have to remind myself that it’s not time yet. Almost, but not quite. I mean, I can’t show up at the community center with half-cooked tater tot casserole and expect anyone there to ever want to eat it again after that. I slowly take in the scuffed black boots, black straight-legged jeans, and a black bomber jacket with a black T-shirt peeking out from the top. He reaches into the truck and comes away with a stack of papers, the whiteness of them striking against his clothes. I swallow and feel a faint smile claim my mouth.

  Dressed all in black, like he doesn’t want the world to know he secretly lives in color.

  When Blake steps toward the door of the building and a semi blows by, effectively blocking my view of him, I move away from the window. I check the casserole, anxious and eager that it’s almost ready. I can smell the meat, potato, and crispy onion scent, and again my mouth salivates. Two questions rotate in my head, both quite important. What if he doesn’t like it? What if he doesn’t want to see me? Over the weeks I’ve been here, I came up with various scenarios on the best way to let my presence be known, and when I told Thor the one I’d settled on, he groaned and asked me to reconsider, which is an obvious sign that I should not reconsider.

  As I wait in the final moments until the tater tot casserole perfection is ready, I pull on Blake’s shirt I generally sleep in most nights, a pair of brown leggings, and newish boots that don’t make my feet hurt. There isn’t any way to make my hair better, so I don’t bother. Jacket on, and the piece of paper I wrote on carefully tucked inside my coat, I take the hot pan cocooned by a layer of cushiony fabric to protect my hands, and head out of the apartment and across the street.

  My heartbeat works in triple time, and the sounds leaving my lips are some
what worrisome, like I can’t quite catch my breath. The air is icy, and even though the flurries have stopped, I know more are on the forecast. Businesses and retail stores are dotted along the streets, people continuously going in and out of them. I focus on the stone structure ahead and force my feet forward.

  “Everything is going to be okay,” I whisper to myself, really hoping I’m not lying.

  Stepping into the warmth and flowery scent of the community center, as I walk down the hall to the kitchen area, I greet the workers and kids I know, and even the ones I don’t. I’ve stopped in a couple times during the day when I wasn’t working and knew Blake wouldn’t be here, offering to draw the kids. More than I thought would took me up on the offer, and a volunteer asked me if I was interested in doing more with it.

  When I asked what he had in mind, he said the children’s sections in hospitals love that kind of stuff. I spent the next Saturday drawing sick and injured kids at one of the city’s hospitals. But I drew them how they asked to be drawn, which was rarely how they really looked. And then I realized that that was how they looked—to themselves. It was the most humbling, fulfilling experience of my life. I wanted to be sad for the kids, but seeing their faces lit up told me I didn’t have that right. If they’re positive, I can be no less. The next weekend I have off from work, I plan to do the same.

  I understand why Blake comes here. Maybe we don’t make a difference, but if we do? You can’t imitate that kind of feeling.

  “Tater tot casserole?” Lavender asks hopefully as she turns the corner and sees me, her big brown eyes fixated on the pan in my hands.

  I laugh. “You liked it, huh?” I brought some in last week, and it was gone within minutes. I guess if I only know how to make one thing, I can at least be good at it.

  The girl turns and walks with me, closing her eyes and rubbing her stomach. Her blue shirt is a size too small and her jeans have holes in both knees. “Looooved it.”

  She opens her eyes as we reach the kitchen. “With the hours my mom works, and her boyfriend taking her out for meals, I do most of the cooking at home for me and my younger brother. Do you think you can teach me how to make it sometime? I think Christopher will really like it.”