Zenn Diagram Read online

I covertly touch his letterman’s jacket while he’s packing up his stuff. I’m not proud of the fact, but I can’t help it. I want to see if there is anything going on that I need to worry about, but his fractal doesn’t give me the kind of information I’m looking for. All I get is the same navy-blue sadness — a complex network of arteries branching off forever. There is the same puppy-kicking heartache, the same heavy weight of disappointment, and a slight fuzzy, dizzy feeling. I don’t know what any of it means, exactly, but I doubt it has anything to do with Charlotte.

  Zenn doesn’t come for tutoring on Mondays and Charlotte left right after school, so I walk home by myself. I think about heading up the hill to the body shop to see how they’re doing on the van, but I don’t want to seem like some kind of stalker. I mean, it’s a van I’ve seen a million times. They’re putting the clear coat of paint on soon. There is literally nothing new to see.

  Out of ideas, I take a detour to the cemetery. I don’t go all that often because, frankly, I don’t have much of a connection to my real parents, much less to the random place where they are buried. But I find cemeteries oddly soothing, and maybe I still come occasionally out of survivor’s guilt. My mom brought me when I was little and I would make crayon rubbings of the headstones while she tidied up my parents’ — her sister’s and her brother-in-law’s — grave. I can tell she visits without me now because their grave is still weedless and green compared to the ones around it. I’m not sure what the proper frequency is for visiting the grave of parents you never really knew.

  I step carefully down the rows between headstones until I find theirs: Lynn and Thomas Scheurich. Once again, a smooth, round stone sits on the top of the marker. The first time I found one I thought it was just a weird coincidence — that a rock had been kicked up by a lawnmower and landed on the gravestone — so I brushed it back to the ground with my hand. But the next time I visited, I found another one, same place. The third time, I pocketed the rock and went home to Google stones on graves. It had to be intentional.

  My Google results showed it is a Jewish tradition to place a stone or pebble on a headstone, indicating that you have visited. Unlike flowers, stones don’t die, so stones are better suited to the “permanence of memory.” I also learned that shepherds used to keep pebbles in a sling, one for each of their sheep, to keep track of their flock when they would take them out to pasture. Placing a pebble on the grave is a way to ask God to keep watch over your departed loved one. So it’s a show of respect. And a symbol. Mystery solved.

  Today, there is another one: nearly white, and speckled, about the size of an egg, but flat. I hold it in my palm and note it’s the kind I find when Charlotte and I walk South Beach, made smooth and round by the sand and waves. Someone brought it here on purpose, and I suspect it’s my mom. Even though we are clearly not Jewish, she loves religious traditions and tokens of any kind. We’re not Catholic, but she lights candles for people who have died and uses a rosary when she prays sometimes. Leaving a stone on the grave would be right up her alley.

  I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my own stone — an almost square reddish one that I picked up the last time Charlotte and I were at the beach — and I swap hers for mine.

  My mom and I don’t talk much about my parents and she no longer feels obligated to drag me along to the cemetery with her, but I know she’ll be happy to see this evidence that I am visiting on my own. If she notices the different rock and realizes I’m the one who left it, that is. I could leave hers there and add mine, or I could leave her a note or something, but I kind of like the idea that we’re having an unspoken conversation, back and forth, with just our stones.

  On Tuesday I put on mascara, telling myself it’s not that unusual; I do it sometimes. But then I also blow-dry my hair a little and put on some lip balm. It’s lip balm, not lip gloss, but I know it’s a fine line — just a slight variation of shimmer — between the two. When I look in the mirror the difference is so subtle no one would even notice. But I notice. I know it’s all for Zenn, and my high-and-mighty stance about beauty now feels fake. Maybe it’s normal to want to make yourself stand out around the guy you like, I tell myself. It’s nature. I mean, that’s why peacocks have fancy feathers and why baboons flaunt their rosy-pink asses. It’s all a mating ritual and we humans are just animals when it comes down to it. Maybe Charlotte, with her lip gloss and eyeliner, is more normal and natural than I am. Maybe I’m the ridiculous one, destined for a life alone because I refuse to flash my pink ass. So to speak.

  Frustrated and confused, I throw on my glasses and my favorite unflattering hoodie and head to school.

  During fifth period I take my lunch to the library. You’re not supposed to eat in there, but Mrs. Lanham loves me and won’t say a word. Besides, it’s not like kids hang out in the library at lunchtime, much less any who will be tempted down the road to delinquency by me, their nerd ringleader. The place is deserted.

  In my hurry to blend back in with the normal kids when the bell rings, I take a corner too fast and crash straight into Zenn. Like, smack into him so hard that my glasses nearly fly off my face. Figures. I have never actually seen him during the school day before and yet now, at a vulnerable moment, here he is. I grab his jacket to keep from falling, but the fractal hits so fast I let go like he’s on fire. Zenn steadies me by holding my shoulders.

  “Whoa. Sorry,” he says.

  “Totally my fault. I just” — I gesture a curve — “took that turn a bit fast.”

  His hands are still on my upper arms, holding tight. His firm grip feels amazing and I wish I could grab on to him for balance (or under the guise of needing balance). But … touching is a one-way street. I can be touched, I can’t touch back. Not with my hands, anyway.

  He looks down at the empty lunch bag clutched in my hand. “Did you eat in the library?”

  Busted. What a loser. I adjust my glasses.

  “Um …”

  Unexpected tears of self-pity sting my eyes and I blink quickly to keep them at bay. I don’t think I fool Zenn. Still holding my shoulders, he steers me back into the library and pushes me gently to sit on a table. He drops his hands from my arms and leans down to make eye contact.

  His direct gaze is unnerving.

  “What’s going on?”

  I shrug and look away, a little uncomfortable with his concern. “Nothing. Just … catching up on some homework.”

  I can tell he doesn’t believe me.

  “It’s just … my friend Charlotte.” I hesitate to go into too much detail. “She’s just … different since she started dating Pepé.”

  Zenn smiles a little at my nickname for Josh. He straightens up and nods. “You’ve been friends for a long time?”

  I nod. “I mean, she’s happy. That’s good. I just thought …” I thought she’d never abandon me. I thought we’d be BFFs forever. No matter how I finish that sentence, it sounds vulnerable and whiny, so I just let it hang out there. I wave my hand dismissively. “I don’t care. I’m fine.”

  “So fine you’re eating lunch in the library?”

  “I like the library.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I do. I like it better than I like most people. It’s quiet. It has substance.”

  He laughs and sits next to me on the table. “I have study hall fifth period but my teacher always lets me go to the art room instead,” he says. He nudges me lightly with his shoulder. “Come eat with me there.”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “Come on. Keep me company. I’ll let you help me with math.” He says this in a singsong voice, the voice my mom might use to bribe the quads with candy.

  “You don’t even need my help.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No. You don’t.”

  “I do,” he insists. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  I’m sure he’s just feeling sorry for me, but it feels nice to have someone care about me being lonely. Besides my mom, I mean.

  “Okay,” I tell him
. “But only because you’re kind of new here and I wouldn’t want you to feel like a loser.”

  “It’ll be, like, your public-service project. You could put it on your college applications.”

  I laugh at his joke, but also at the idea that spending time with him would be any sort of hardship on my part. Plus, at the very least eating with him might lessen the ache of losing Charlotte.

  Chapter 16

  Before dinner my mom drops me off at the body shop to pick up the van. I suspect her eager offer has more to do with her wanting to get a glimpse of Zenn than it does with anything else. I say a silent prayer that maybe he won’t be there, that maybe after our tutoring session this afternoon he went to work at the Piggly Wiggly. Not that I don’t want to see him again. I’m just trying to avoid my mom’s nosiness and the whole circus that four preschoolers bring with them everywhere they go. When I see his truck in the lot, I know my prayer, like many, has not been answered. My mom always says that God answers all prayers, it’s just that sometimes the answer is not what you want. I think that’s a convenient excuse for radio silence from heaven. I must have gotten the skeptic gene from my real dad’s side of the family.

  I hop out of the minivan quickly, trying to head off a scene, but it’s too late. The church van is parked in the lot and my mom gets out to admire it, which makes all four kids clamor to get out as well. They are all old enough and savvy enough to slither out of their car seats, so in a matter of seconds my mom and all four of my siblings are out of the car and examining the van. I’m trying to corral them when Zenn comes out of the shop. He looks highly amused.

  “Hey,” I say, embarrassed.

  “Hey.” He smiles at the squirts, who have migrated toward him immediately. They look up at him with undisguised interest. My mom tries to be slightly more subtle, but she creeps over, too.

  “These are my brothers and sisters,” I tell him. I touch each of their heads as I say their names. “Eli, Ethan, Essie and Libby. And my mom.”

  Now my mom steps closer and lifts her hand in a small wave. I’m grateful she doesn’t shake his hand. Even watching other people shake hands makes me a little nervous. It’s like when you watch America’s Funniest Home Videos and someone falls off a roof or gets hit in the crotch by a baseball bat: it doesn’t hurt you, but you cringe in sympathy, imagining pain you can’t feel.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Walker,” Zenn says to my mom. Then he looks down. The little ones are still staring at him with blatant curiosity. “What’s going on, small people?”

  Now that she has his attention, Libby laughs and starts bouncing. “Hihihihi!!!”

  Ethan is more focused. “Did you paint our van?”

  “I helped paint it, yep.”

  Eli’s eyes are big, impressed. “How?” he asks. I imagine he’s amazed at how Zenn got such impressive results with finger paints or some big clumsy brush, the only kinds of painting implements three-year-olds know anything about.

  “I use a special tool called an airbrush. It’s like a little pen that sprays out paint. Do you want to see?”

  Four pairs of eyes grow big and four small heads nod in unison. Zenn looks to my mom for permission.

  “You sure?” she asks, like he might be a little bit insane.

  “Sure,” he says. I have to keep my jaw from hanging open. He has no idea what he’s getting himself into. Should I warn him?

  But my mom has already started preparations. “E’s,” she says firmly. Sometimes we call them that rather than saying each of their names. “Look at me.”

  They all turn in a unified motion of obedience and look up at my mom.

  “Mr. Zenn is going to take us into his work area.” She speaks slowly, her voice demanding attention. “We do not touch anything. We stay together. If you do not behave, we will not get to see how Mr. Zenn painted the van.” Her speech has a military quality to it and I expect them all to salute when she’s done. “Do you all understand?” she asks.

  Four heads nod earnestly.

  “Hold hands, please,” she adds.

  Zenn leads us to the garage, which is empty of cars at the moment. He lines the kids up and sits them down on four upside-down crates. Then he gets out an airbrush and explains how it works. He even lets them all feel the compressed air with their hands. When they start to get riled up, wanting him to spray them again and again, he moves on calmly and hooks the pen to the hose. He grabs a piece of cardboard and, in the blink of an eye, paints a simple dog on it — floppy ears, tongue hanging out — so cute and perfect that the girls start to bounce and want him to do more, like he’s making balloon animals or doing magic tricks. Frankly, it is magical the way he can paint so perfectly from some vision in his head. He cuts a new clean sheet of cardboard into four smaller pieces and turns to Essie.

  “Essie, right?” he asks her. “What’s your favorite animal?”

  “Koala bears.”

  He doesn’t even look to me for translation, which is amazing because Essie can’t say her l’s or her r’s and it comes out like “kowawa beaws.” The hiss of the airbrush fills the garage and he paints a little koala bear in less than a minute, along with Essie’s name in beautiful script. Then he turns to Libby. After he’s drawn and personalized a cat, an elephant and a platypus — how he knows what a platypus looks like without referring to a picture is amazing in itself — he tells them that the paintings have to dry but he’ll give them to me tomorrow at school and I’ll bring them home. Not one of the kids argues or whines. My mom and I stand in awe.

  Then he leads them back to the minivan and all four kids pile in. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them so docile and obedient. It’s like he has them in some kind of trance, like the freaking Pied Piper. I credit his hypnotic eyelashes.

  My mom thanks him and climbs back in the van herself. When he turns his back she mouths, Wow!

  I roll my eyes.

  Zenn gives me the keys to the church van when they leave. I wait for questions about the age gap between the quads and me, about what it’s like to have four three-year-old siblings, but he doesn’t make me feel like a freak show. In fact, he doesn’t act surprised at all.

  “You were, like, the rug rat whisperer there,” I tell him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them sit that still for that long.”

  “Kids are all about paint. And animals.”

  “Right,” I say sarcastically. “I’m sure that’s all it is.”

  I climb into the van and Zenn closes the door behind me. I roll down the window.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, fifth period?” he asks. “Art room?”

  I hesitate before answering. “I guess so.” I’m still not sure about this plan, but I’m finding it hard to resist the idea of an extra hour with him. Every day. I reach into my coat pocket for the envelope with the check. As Zenn promised, Dave did the work for only twelve hundred dollars, and Zenn worked his magic for only five hundred, so the whole thing cost less than two thousand, which my dad found in the church transportation budget. And it was worth every penny.

  At least to me.

  Chapter 17

  I can barely concentrate during fourth-period French class. I feel like I’ve made a huge mistake, agreeing to meet Zenn every day for lunch. What the hell will we talk about? Why not just live in the fantasy of possibility instead of the reality of what this is: a dead end?

  Usually French draaaags on forever, Monsieur Sullivan’s constant “En français, s’il vous plaît” a metronome counting off the slow passage of time. But today the clock ticks at a frightening pace and before I know it, the bell rings. My stomach lurches.

  Oh, God. Here goes nothing.

  I take my time getting to the art room so that Zenn will already be there when I walk in. Seems like the better option than being there first. I swing by the bathroom, wiggle my way through a sea of girls taking selfies and then study my face in a tiny corner of the mirror while I wash my hands. I don’t carry makeup with me so I pinch my cheeks, feeling like a grandma
as the girl next to me gives me an odd look. I slap on a coat of ChapStick. I tuck a loose strand of hair back into my braid. Good enough.

  I head to the art room slowly, doubling numbers in my mind every other step: 1, step, 2, step, 4, step, 8, step, 16. I get there by 16,777,216. When I open the art room door, Zenn is already inside, standing by a light table.

  “Hey!” he greets me, more enthusiastically than I could have hoped for.

  I try to look relaxed.

  He brushes his hands together (I realize, now, that the light table is covered in a fine layer of sand) and waves me in. I set my backpack on a nearby chair and stand awkwardly, not sure if I should sit, not sure what to do with my hands. Oh, God. Whose horrible idea was this?

  But then he smiles and says, “I’m glad you came.”

  Something releases its grip on my insides. I smile back. “Hopefully Mrs. Lanham won’t feel rejected.” I step closer to the light table. “What is that? Sand?”

  He nods and runs a finger through it, leaving a curvy path.

  “What are you doing with it?”

  “Drawing.”

  “In sand?”

  He nods.

  “Show me.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t be so demanding. But at least the sand gives us something to focus on besides the awkwardness of being alone together without a math book between us.

  He rubs the edge of his pinkie against the surface and clears an oblong shape in the sand. He fine-tunes the shape with his thumb and middle finger, but I still can’t tell what it’s meant to be. He reaches to the side and grabs a handful of the fine sand from a container next to the light table, then trickles more back onto the shape. His hands move so quickly to add and erase that I have a hard time focusing. But after a moment I realize what he’s drawing.

  “The Loser Cruiser!” I laugh.

  He finishes up the puffy white sheep clouds with a flourish.

  “Oh, my God, that’s perfect.” It is perfect. The perspective, the detail, the sheep clouds. He drew it in sand. With his fingers!