Girl in Reverse (9781442497368) Read Free Page B

Just a few perfect strokes and no more. But with a pen instead of a brush.”
    Continued blankness.
    â€œChinese calligraphy, you know, handwriting. I’m learning how. Practicing the techniques.” He tilts his head, speaks slowly. “ China . Right? That big ancient place across the ocean?” He makes a wavy pattern with his hand, then hunches over the table, rubbing his boots together as he draws. He has a rolled towel propped under his forearm to keep from smearing the ink, and an expression as intense as The Thinker ’s.
    I wring the life out of some sponges, thinking that at least he said China like it’s a place , not a slap in the face. I prop the sponges behind the spigot. I looked dumb about calligraphy because I am. I know exactly zero about China—we haven’t studied it yet—except that it’s now Red China and that pandas live there and so did Gone Mom and my birth father. But I didn’t. Babies living in Chinatown, San Francisco, don’t learn Chinese handwriting. And little Chinese orphan girls who move to Missouri and get adopted and go to Catholic school don’t learn it either.
    I check the clock. Thirty minutes to go. Now what? Clean up or don’t clean up? I straighten the stools around the blocky wooden tables and empty a coffee can into therust-stained sink. A greasy swirl slides down the drain. “That was turpentine. You don’t dump turpentine down a sink ,” Master Elliot says.
    Too late now.
    â€œAnd you can’t rinse oil paints with water,” he says.
    What else can I mess up?
    He blows on his ink drawing of our head football coach blasting a whistle. It took him all of four minutes, maybe less. Elliot turns. “So . . . what did you do for the detention?”
    â€œI walked out of social studies in the middle of class.”
    â€œBecause . . . ?”
    â€œ. . . of a cartoon, a political cartoon this guy brought for current events. . . . Kinda dumb, but anyway . . .”
    â€œCartoons aren’t dumb. What was it?”
    â€œUh, well, these creepy Chinese soldiers in an army tank are killing United Nations kids in a crosswalk, and this guy coughed ‘commie’ at me because I’m, you know, Chinese, so he wouldn’t touch the picture after I contaminated it, and it got worse and I finally walked out.”
    Elliot looks up at me, curls his lip. “ That was stupid.” His face shifts. He glances at the clock, says, “Damn,” stands, slides his drawings into a folder, and in another whoosh of freezing air bolts out the door.
    It bangs hard against the frame. The self-portraits flutter. I pace between the tables, telling my audience of zombies,“So he thinks I was stupid for walking out. Well, that’s perfect. An eighth hour plus insults!”
    I whip Elliot’s scarf off the floor, stuff it in the trash can, grab my books, and walk out on my own detention.
    *  *  *
    Sleet taps the bus windows. We wheel past the Country Club Plaza—the World’s First and Finest Shopping Center, my father’s baby. Every day my real estate developer father tramps between the restaurants, construction cranes, fountains, and cement mixers in his hard hat, yakking into his walkie-talkie. By the time I get home I have decided to tell my parents that I am volunteering in the art room after school. They won’t like it. It’s not Future Homemakers of America Club or Pep Squad. They are allergic to anything arty.
    When I walk into the front hall they are talking in the kitchen—voices hushed. Dad comes out still wearing his overcoat and carrying a highball glass full of ice. He motions me into the living room.
    Surging panic. I perch on the edge of the couch.
    He removes his hat and smooths the hair on the sides of his head. The flesh of his neck bunches when he loosens his tie and undoes his top button. He steps to the bar