that morning. I liked to get things off my to-do list as quickly as possible. “Yes.” I handed it to her.
While she looked over it, my eyes continued to wander the room. Art hung on the walls and paintings were drying on easels. I bit my lip. “Did any of your students show a piece at the museum on Tenth Street for the show last week? I saw a painting there that my parents might want to buy.” This wasn’t the reason I had filled out my schedule so fast. I was not still curious about who Heath Hall was. Or at least that’s what I was telling myself.
She brightened at my mention of going to the museum. “Sounds like you didn’t drown your creative side, after all.”
“It’s for my parents,” I said again before she whipped out an eraser and started changing my schedule.
“Students don’t have to get my approval to enter pieces there. They have to submit them for consideration like everyone else. Did the piece not have a name with it?”
“No.” And I knew for a fact the piece had been snuck in and not submitted for consideration at all.
“What did it look like?”
“It was a painting of a shipwreck in the middle of the ocean.” It was dark and alive and even thinking about it now gave me goose bumps again. Maybe I did have a creative side clawing for air somewhere inside of me.
“I haven’t seen a piece like that come through my class. But most serious students work on paintings at home too.”
“Who would you say your most talented student is?”
“Everyone is an artist in their own way. I don’t pick favorites.”
I laughed. “I won’t tell anyone.”
She looked around, as if to make sure we were still alone, and led me to the far corner of the room where a half-done painting sat. Even incomplete, it was gorgeous. It was a tree, twisted and gnarled, dark and perfect. It had the same feel as the ocean scene from the museum. The same strokes or depth or something. “Yes. Who painted this?”
“I’m not allowed to tell you that without his permission. But I’ll ask him if he’s interested in selling any of his work. I’ll be in touch.”
“Okay. Thanks, Ms. Lin.” He’d know why I was asking. We’d been face-to-face in that hallway at the museum. We’d chatted online. He wouldn’t let Ms. Lin tell me who he was.
The door to the art room flew open and I whirled around.
“Hey, Ms. Lin. I heard you needed some muscle in here.” Jackson walked into the room.
Ms. Lin smiled like he was the cutest thing in the world. I curled my lip but then smoothed my hair, all too aware that I had just gotten out of the pool. Not that I cared what he thought of me, but still.
Jackson noticed me, and his mouth twisted into a sly smile. “Oh, I see you already have plenty of muscle. Never mind.” He started to back out of the room.
“No, Jackson,” Ms. Lin said. “Hadley was just here turning in her schedule. I still need your help.”
“Moore. We keep running into each other. It’s almost like you’re following me.”
He wanted me to point out that I was in here first. I wasn’t going to do that.
“I didn’t know you liked art,” I said to Jackson.
“There’s an artist inside each of us,” he said with a wink in Ms. Lin’s direction.
“So which painting is yours?” I asked.
“My artist just moves around other people’s paintings.”
Ms. Lin began pointing to some easels that Jackson immediately folded and moved to the far end of the room. “I asked for a student council member to help me stack paintings once a week and Jackson answered the call.”
“I am a call answerer. People call, I answer.”
“Yeah, got it.”
“Do you really get it? How about one more iteration? If I answer, it means someone has called.”
Yes, he was still the most annoying person on the planet.
“Maybe you’ll have the desire to paint by being around the paintings,” Ms. Lin said to him like she’d had this conversation with him before. So he obviously wasn’t the artist responsible for the piece in the corner.
As I moved to leave, my dad’s words about my brother being like Jackson came back to me. Dad could’ve compared Eric to almost anyone else and I would’ve been fine. But Jackson? Maybe I just didn’t know him well enough. Maybe he had another side. But that wouldn’t matter. My dad had