Summer in the Invisible City Read Free

taking is very competitive,” Annette, Willa’s mom, says over dinner. It’s just me and Willa and her parents because her sister is in Spain for two weeks with her roommate from Yale.
    â€œI mean, yeah, I think a lot of people wanted to take it,” I say. “But that’s just because everyone thinks it’s an easy A.”
    â€œDon’t downplay it,” Willa says, kicking my shin under the table. “Sadie is the best artist in school.”
    â€œIt’s not really like that,” I say. “There’ s no ‘best artist.’”
    â€œThe fact that you’re saying that proves that you’re the best,” Willa retorts.
    â€œIs there more rice?” Willa’s dad asks, his watery blue eyes scanning the table.
    â€œNo, Gene, you’ve had enough carbs,” Annette snaps.
    Gene is small and weak looking, and there’s something about his shy, nervous demeanor that makes it seem like he’s always dissolving.
    â€œGene’s lost ten pounds. He looks great, right?” Annette asks me.
    â€œYeah, great,” I reply automatically.
    â€œHe looks exactly the same,” Willa groans. “His whole diet is totally fake.”
    For some reason, it’s when Willa is mean to her dad that I feel the most jealous of their relationship.
    Even though I’ve technically gone further than her, she is way less scared of boys than I am. She’s really good friends with her downstairs neighbor, Miles, and she lets him see her in her pajamas and they eat gross food together, just like she and I would. Sure, Miles is a big nerd, but still, he’s a
guy.
I was never friends with Noah. Not before everything happened. And not after, either.
    â€”
    I get home to an empty apartment. It’s after eight, but the sun is still out, and the last strands of light that lie across our floor are threads of gold. I love this time of year. The way that sunlight stretches into the night, as if the day is yawning.
    I get a glass of water from the kitchen and see that my mom left me a note on her “
Be Here Now
” stationery telling me she’s teaching till late and not to wait up. Which I knew already because she told me that a million times earlier and texted it to me. My mom forgets everything.
    In my room, the sounds of the city—sirens, people shouting, music spiking from cars—leak in through my cracked window. I open my laptop and flip through some Tumblrs and music videos and watch five minutes of a movie on Netflix. It’s the same restless cycle I always fall into when I’m home alone, and it’s boring. I wonder what Izzy is doing now. And Noah. I even wonder what some of the other random people from my photo class are doing. Are they finishing dinner with their families, or walking their dogs, or hanging out at a party that I don’t know about? Or are they by themselves, at their computers, like me?
    I close my computer, and in the moment that follows my room is flooded with its own emptiness. But then I see my camera, resting on top of my dresser. It’s staring at me from across the room, its glossy lens like the eye of an animal, and I know I’m not alone.

Chapter 3
    I’ve basically memorized Allan’s Wikipedia page. “
Allan Bell, (born 1960, Pittsburgh, PA), lives and works in Los Angeles.

Bell is an interdisciplinary artist whose work has been identified

with

movements

in

performance,

film,
institutional
critique, and photography. B.A., Harvard University.”
    Allan’s first big break was in the Whitney Biennial when he was twenty-five. He had already shown his work in galleries, but that show put him on the international art world map. For his project, he took over a room and built an installation that was composed entirely of labels from cans of food. The space appeared, at first glance, to be an average suburban living room.
    After that, he stopped making big colorful