homemade clothes dance like sugarplums-gone-bad in my head. I see the sagging hemlines, the left sleeves shorter than the right sleeves, the fabric bunching up in all sorts of unfortunate places. What if my mom decides to make jeans? Can you make jeans at home?
Oh. Please. No.
“Are you okay?” Angel Hair Tattoo Girl whispers across the tables, and I realize I’ve been whimpering. I nod, and she takes my nod as an invitation to move closer.
“You seem a little freaked out,” she tells me in a slightly louder voice as she takes the seat beside me. “Which, believe me, I know all about. Every day of my life is a freak-out day.”
I look at her Sharpie tattoos and believe her.
“Like today?” she continues, apparently needing no encouragement from me to go on. “I wake up and there’s, like, totally nothing to wear. My mom’s in Europe on this business trip. And my dad is useless. You know, like, welcome to the twenty-first century, Dad, where men do laundry, right?”
I nod. Right. Kids, too, I think, but keep it to myself.
“So what choice do I have except raid my mom’s closet, which she would kill me for if she knew. But here’s the weird part.” She pauses for dramatic effect, and I check out her outfit, which is nice, but unremarkable, a soft black sweater and a dark brown velour skirt over black tights and very cool-looking biker boots. “What’s really weird is my mom’s clothes smell like her. I mean, her perfume, and so all day it’s like my mom has been walking right beside me. Which, you have to admit, is a pretty freaky feeling.”
“That would be pretty freaky,” I agree.
“Hey, did you ever read that book, Freaky Friday? Where the mom and the daughter change places?”
And she’s off again. All I have to do to encourage her to keep talking is to nod and smile at the right places. I don’t even have to listen to what she’s saying. I can tell by the rise and fall of her voice, the dramatic pauses, and the “You know what I mean’s” when it’s time to rejoin the conversation.
Occasionally I take a moment to look around the library in hopes that someone is witnessing Janie Gorman personally and positively interacting with another human being.
Sadly, no one is.
The bell rings. Angel Hair Tattoo Girl stands. She smiles at me and extends her hand. “I’m Verbena. It’s nice to meet you. I see you here all the time.”
I take her hand, shake it. Her grip is surprisingly firm. I can’t help but ask, “Verbena?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, I know.” She bobs her head side to side in the international sign for I’m a goofball, what can I say? “My mom thought it sounded French. But you know what? After I started taking French, I realized it doesn’t sound French at all. It sounds like the name of some rundown eastern European country.”
I laugh. Mrs. Welsch, who completely ignored Verbena’s twenty-minute monologue, gives me the evil eye and the “shush” signal, index finger to pouty lips, but I don’t care. There’s something about Verbena that I like. Maybe it’s that for the last twenty minutes she’s taken my mind off the outfits my mom plans to make for me just as soon as she learns to thread a needle without drawing blood.
“I’ll see you here tomorrow, okay?” Verbena asks over her shoulder, retrieving her journal and Sharpie from her table. “It was really cool talking to you.”
I wave and gather my books. I try not to think about Verbena’s Sharpie tattoos. When the hand of friendship is offered, it’s bad manners to refuse it, even if it’s covered with tiny black peace signs and roses and—what were those other things, anyway? Angels of Death?
Doesn’t matter. Somebody talked to me. Verbena the Tattooed Girl talked to me.
I have arrived.
Chapter Seven
In Which Life Imitates Robert Rauschenberg
I don’t have any friends in Art I, but as a place I have to be every day, it’s not so bad. Not as good as Great Girls and Women, because Sarah’s not in it, but better than just about anything else. For one thing, the teacher, Ms. Ashdown, is both humane and reasonable. She’s funny, she’s cool, but she actually expects you to work in class and turn in your projects on time. On the respect-o-meter, Ms. Ashdown gets high marks. Add to that, she’s praised my “color instinct” three times this semester.
I’m a fan.
I thought art was where I’d