The collage is intricate—layers on top of layers on top of layers. The bottom layer is part drawing, part photo. Tammy drew the ocean in black ink with thick, dark waves crashing onto a rocky beach. The water dominates the entire image, and there’s a black-and-white newsprint cutout of the Golden Gate Bridge perched on top. Somehow, Tammy made the photo look as though it blends almost seamlessly into the drawing, but she also angled it unnaturally high, so that the bridge looks impossible to reach. Behind the dark water there’s a tiny hint of a horizon, but nothing more.
Pasted in among the waves are uneven, mismatched letters, blue and green and black, cut out on stark white square-shaped backgrounds. They look as if they’ve been cut from magazine pages, and they’re the only parts of the collage that have any color at all. NOTHING STOPS THE OCEAN, BABY, the disjointed letters spell out across the top of the collage, and at the bottom another line says, NOTHING STOPS THE TIDE.
No two letters in either line are the same size or type. The colors are similar, but there are slight variations in the shades that somehow complement each other perfectly. I can only imagine how many magazines Tammy must’ve gone through to find exactly the right mismatched letters.
The first time I looked at her collage, I studied those letters for so long I didn’t even notice the eyes, but once I did they were all I could see. They’re fixed carefully all over the entire collage, tucked away, so small they don’t draw your attention until you know they’re there. Tiny eyes from tiny black-and-white images, cut so precisely there isn’t a sliver of space around them.
Like the letters, the eyes are different, too. Beady eyes, bright eyes, wrinkled eyes, round eyes, angled eyes, cartoon eyes—there are dozens of them, maybe hundreds, buried in the waves.
I’ve had it on my wall for weeks now, and every time I walk into my room, I stare at it. I can’t decide if it’s creepy or brilliant. Maybe it’s both.
Kevin traced his finger over the letters. I wondered if he’d noticed the eyes yet. “I love the poem.”
“Poem?”
“Yeah, see?” He pointed to the word “ocean,” but the cutout letters didn’t look any more poetic to me than they had before. “It’s about the inevitability of the human condition.”
“Ah…right.”
“Mom sent me up here to make sure you two weren’t in your room.” Peter’s voice behind us made me jump, but Kevin was already smiling when he turned around. He’s always liked Peter. “Guess now I can either go lie to her and have you owe me, or tell the truth and get into Heaven.”
“As if Heaven would be any fun without Kevin and me.” I stuck out my lower lip.
Peter rolled his eyes. “Dinner’s ready.”
We followed him downstairs, where Mom was spooning out chicken salad. Hardly a fancy meal, but at this point Kevin’s been over for dinner enough times that Mom doesn’t bother bringing out the china. He’s still super polite with her, though, and by the time we’d made it through dinner he’d managed to compliment the same-old, same-old chicken salad half a dozen times.
“Delicious, as always, Mrs. Hawkins,” he said, after he swallowed the last bite of his second helping. “Thank you again.”
“It’s always nice to have extra teenage boys around to finish off my leftovers.” Mom smiled at him.
Peter stood up and started clearing the plates, even though Kevin was still dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “What time do I need to be home tonight, Mom?”
“You’re going out?” She frowned. “It’s a school night.”
“Don’t remind me.” Peter groaned as he reached for the empty chicken salad bowl. Tomorrow’s our first day back and I don’t know who’s dreading it more, him or Mom. She usually takes on a part-time job in the summers, and this year she worked nights shelving books at the library over on Portola. She’s been going to bed as soon as she gets home and sleeping in until ten in the morning, but starting tomorrow, we’ll all need to be at school at 8:00 a.m. again. “I’m meeting some friends