Same Difference Read online

  Meg turns to me. “Do you want a ride back home? Or we can walk. It’s just hot out and I’m kind of tired. But whatever you want, Emily. It’s your last summer afternoon.” She’s talking fast. Her light blue eyes sparkle. She still gets so excited about Rick driving us around, even though he’s probably given us over a million rides.

  “Hey, that’s right!” Rick says. “Emily, are you dreading summer school or what? I was so happy when I passed my US History final so I wouldn’t have to go again this year and lose out on all the money I’d make working for my dad. But don’t worry. The classes are way easier than regular school.”

  Even though I don’t want to get into it with Rick, I feel the need to defend myself. “It’s not summer school,” I tell him. “It’s a pre-college art program.” Rick looks at me blankly, like I’m speaking another language. “It’s at the Philadelphia College of Fine Art.” Still nothing. “I chose to go to it.”

  Rick takes off his ball cap, runs his hand through his matted brown hair, and puts it back on again. Thinking. Then he chuckles in a friendly, quiet way. “Okay, that makes sense. I’ve never heard of anyone failing Art at Cherry Grove High.”

  I don’t know why this annoys me so much, because Rick’s right. Ms. Kay’s Art class is an easy A. That’s why it’s so popular. That’s why I took it in the first place.

  No one takes it seriously. In my class, all the boys ever drew were sports players or weird Alice in Wonderland-type drug stuff. Amy Waterman turned every project into a chance to practice her bubble letters. And the rest of the girls were obsessed with glitter pens and making origami roses for each other. Everyone but me slept during the weekly slide-show presentations. Though it was actually hard to pay attention, since Ms. Kay always had the projector tweaked slightly out of focus, and unless you squinted the whole time, you’d get nauseous.

  But for whatever reason, I really did like it. I looked forward to tying on my musty apron, even the eggy smell of the water in the slop sink. It was a place where I didn’t have to think about anything other than what I was drawing.

  So when Ms. Kay offered to recommend me for the invitation-only summer program, I felt relieved. Though, honestly, I doubt anyone else in our class would have been interested. But I needed a break from it all, and taking some art classes in Philadelphia a few times a week was as good an idea as any I could think of. Meg got a boyfriend and I got a hobby. That’s just the way things worked out.

  “Well, don’t worry, Emily. Meg’s going to be lost without you.” Rick shuffles backward toward the register and grabs a bottle of water. “But I’ll take good care of her while you’re gone. Promise.”

  I say “thanks” — not because I’m thankful, but because it seems like that’s what I’m expected to say.

  Meg pivots so Rick can’t see or hear us. She pulls my napkin out of her pocket, smoothes it out against her thigh, and hands it back to me. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t want Rick to see your drawing before you had a chance to fix it. You’re not mad, are you?”

  Meg’s apology is sincere. I can tell by how her mouth refuses to close until I let her know that things are okay, that I’m not upset.

  “It’s fine,” I say, and give her arm a squeeze. “And we can get a ride home with Rick.”

  “You sure?”

  “Seriously.” And I take the tray and napkin from her hands and throw everything away — including my drawing — to prove it.

  Meg and Rick wait for me outside, standing closer than close. I watch as Rick twirls a piece of Meg’s long hair around his finger. She stands on her tiptoes, gently picking bits of cut grass off his neck.

  I make sure to put on a smile before stepping through the door.

  My heart is not beating in my chest. Instead it thumps a tiny beat underneath the callus on my middle finger.

  The skin there is white, almost translucent. It bubbled up a week after taking Ms. Kay’s class, in the exact spot where I steady my pencil when I draw. I usually keep the callus covered with a Band-Aid because it’s not very pretty, only I forgot to put one on this morning. Luckily, the bump has gotten smaller, softer since school ended two weeks ago. But not by much.

  “Mom, can you please put the top up and turn on the AC?” Even though I blew out and then flat-ironed my hair, it is already frizzing in the humidity, and soon my only option will be a boring ponytail. I wear ponytails a lot — you can tell by all the broken little pieces of hair that have been ripped by my elastic bands. They stick straight up if I don’t hair-spray them down.

  Mom shakes her head. “We don’t have time to pull over, Emily. You’ll miss your train, and I can’t drive you into Philadelphia. There’s too much going on here.”

  I sigh extra loud, so she hears me over the wind. It’s funny how busy my mom is, considering she doesn’t have a job. I think about saying this out loud, but I keep my mouth shut, because I want Mom to concentrate on driving, not being mad at me. I don’t want to be late on my first day of classes. I want to make a good impression.

  “Mom,” my sister Claire whines, pulling her two long black laces really tight. Her cleats dimple the tan leather on the dashboard. “If I miss warm-ups, I’m gonna get benched.”

  Claire rides permanent shotgun in Mom’s convertible, even though she’s thirteen and I’m sixteen. That’s because her legs are a lot longer than mine, and the backseat has barely any room. Plus, Claire has to squeeze in extra knee stretches before she gets dropped off at soccer camp, because she’s already had ACL surgery. You’d think she’d be grateful for the front-seat privilege, which should be automatically mine, but she’s not.

  “They’re not going to bench you,” I grumble. Claire is the best player in middle school. She knows it, too. The high school coaches have come to see her play a few times. And her room is full of satiny ribbons stamped WINNER in gold and trophies, some so tall they have to sit on the floor.

  “No one is going to be late,” Mom says, gunning through a yellow light in exactly the way my Driver’s Ed teacher told us not to. She eyes me in her rearview mirror. “But, Emily, you’re going to have to get up earlier from now on, so the rest of us aren’t in a panic every morning. That means no late nights before summer school.”

  “It’s not summer school,” I say. “And I didn’t go anywhere last night.” Rick and Meg invited me out with them for pizza and then to Putt Putt Palace, but I didn’t feel like tagging along. I’m no good at sports. Neither is Meg, but without a boyfriend, there’s no one to laugh or tell me I’m cute when I swing and completely miss the golf ball. I just feel like I suck.

  Mom shakes her head, disappointed. “Dad saw the light underneath your door after two in the morning, Emily.”

  The thing was, I had a hard time falling asleep. I lay in bed for the longest time with my eyes closed and my television off, hoping it would happen. But it didn’t. So I got up and laid out my clothes for today on my club chair. That took about five seconds, because Meg and I had already discussed in detail what I should wear — my white capris, a tan and white striped cami, and a pair of pale gold leather skimmers that Meg let me borrow. I turned on my laptop, but no one else was online, so I shut it back down. I threw out some old makeup that I didn’t use anymore. And then, when I couldn’t think of anything else to do, I randomly decided to lay my new art supplies out on my floor in neat little piles.

  A few weeks ago, Philadelphia College of Fine Art sent a list of materials that I’d need, like paint and brushes and charcoal and Strathmore drawing pads. It took Mom and me over an hour at Pearl to find everything.

  When you’re a kid, colors have obvious names. Green is grass, red is cherry, and yellow is lemon. That changes when you grow out of markers that can be washed off the kitchen walls. How was I supposed to know that Sanguine is a fancy word for red? And what kind of purple was Dioxazine? It sounded like something I should have learned in Chemistry. Mars Black didn’t make much sense to me, either. Wasn’t Mars the Red Planet? It kind of freaked me out.

/>   Mom felt bad for me, so she made this big show of buying the most expensive stuff they had, insisting that all my brushes be sable, and not the synthetic ones that are way cheaper. I didn’t complain because they were really nice, as soft as my makeup brushes from Bloomingdale’s.

  I’d never owned real art supplies before, and seeing my whole floor covered in them felt luxurious. The materials in Ms. Kay’s classroom were old and gross. We only had big jugs of primary colors, like the ones a preschooler would finger paint with. And the brushes were frayed and fanned out and sometimes left strands behind in your strokes. We stopped using the clay because it was hard and flaky, even if you let it soak overnight inside a wet paper towel. I guess that’s why it felt like the possibilities of things I could do with my new supplies were limitless. It lit me up inside. I couldn’t sleep after touching everything. I was too excited for today.

  “So all you’re going to do is art? Like, for the whole day?” Claire turns around in her seat. “That sounds kind of boring.”

  Sometimes, it takes me a minute to recognize Claire as my sister. She’s tall, taller than all the boys in her class. Her hair is dark brown like my dad’s, and it’s a lot thicker than mine. She’s awkward now — a teenager’s body paired up with a kid’s face. But you can already tell that she’s going to be somebody when she gets to high school this fall. Maybe even as soon as her braces come off.

  “Right, Claire. And running up and down a field a million times sounds so fun.”

  “It is. And at least I’ll be with my friends. How are you going to survive a whole day away from Meg?”

  Claire always makes jokes about how close Meg and I are, but it’s only because she doesn’t have a real best friend. She just has a big group of girls who she plays sports with.

  “You’re just jealous. I heard you crying to Mom yesterday because I wouldn’t let you come swim with us. Maybe I’d let you if you weren’t so freaking annoying!”

  Her face flushes deep red, like it does by the halftime of her soccer games. “Geez, Emily.” She turns back around and sinks low in her seat.

  “Emily, be nice to your sister,” Mom scolds.

  “She started it,” I say.

  “But you’re older,” Mom says. “You’re supposed to be more mature.”

  Whatever.

  We turn into the parking lot of the Cherry Grove train station. It’s as crowded as the mall at Christmas.

  “Just drop me off,” I say, unbuckling my seat belt.

  “I want to make sure you’re on the right train,” she says, getting out with me.

  I don’t understand why my mom thinks this is such a big deal. This won’t be the first time I’ve been to Philly — there have been plenty of family drives and school trips there. It’s just the first time I’ll be going alone.

  The track that goes to Philadelphia is easy to find because everyone’s crowding together on it. The station doesn’t have any windows or service people there to buy tickets. The three automated ticket machines are completely surrounded.

  “I’ve still got to buy a ticket!”

  “Don’t worry. You can buy them on the train,” Mom says. “Do you have enough cash?”

  “Yeah. And I’ve got my credit card, too.”

  “What about your cell phone? Is it all charged up? Keep your wallet on you at all times. Don’t talk to strangers. You need to appear street-smart, so always walk with a purpose.” The train chugs into the station, and Mom yells over the noise. “And please don’t forget to call me when you get there.” Her bottom lip quivers.

  I feel like such a baby. Luckily, no one pays me any attention, except to jostle me out of their way.

  Everyone on the train is the same age as my parents. A few people watch with interest as I squish down the aisle with my big bags of art supplies. I feel confident, even a bit mysterious. I wonder if they wonder what I’m doing here all by myself.

  It takes two cars before I find an empty seat. Well, it’s not exactly empty. A pair of super high heels pokes out of a black leather bag on the seat next to a lady in a business suit and spotless white running sneakers.

  I wait a few seconds for the lady to notice me, but she never looks up from her newspaper. I’d keep searching, but my bags are heavy and the plastic handles are starting to rip. Finally I fake cough. The woman glances at me and grudgingly moves her bag to the floor so I can sit down.

  A bell rings and “Tickets!” is shouted out in a rough, gravelly voice, like you’d expect in an old movie. The passengers slide their paper tickets into shallow pockets on the seats in front of them. I take out my wallet.

  Eventually, a man steps up to my row. He’s got on a white button-up with a light gray tie, and his navy jacket is covered in brass buttons. I can’t see the hair on his head because of his cap, but his beard has a bunch of different shades of red and blond and white in it. “Where you going, miss?”

  “Round-trip to Philadelphia,” I say proudly, and maybe a bit louder than necessary. And I hold out a crisp fifty-dollar bill.

  He frowns and doesn’t take it. “I can’t break a fifty.”

  “Oh, sorry.” I hand over a ten instead.

  He still doesn’t take it. And he looks annoyed. “Your ticket’s thirteen dollars.”

  “I thought tickets were ten,” I say, my voice squeaking so loud the man in front of me turns around to stare. That’s what I’d read on the transit website last night.

  “There’s a three-dollar surcharge for buying on the train during peak hours,” he explains to me. “You need to use the ticket machines on the platform.”

  I search through my change pocket, hoping for some quarters to make up the difference, but all I have are a few pennies and a dime. “Can I use my credit card?” I ask, yanking the silver square out of my wallet, dropping some receipts and my change on the floor.

  The man laughs, not like I’ve said something funny, but because I’ve said something incredibly stupid. He points to his book of paper tickets and his hole puncher and shakes his head.

  I panic. Are they going to make me get off the train at the next stop? I glance at the lady next to me. Maybe she’d help? Lend me three bucks? I’m obviously not some kind of homeless beggar. But her newspaper is a shield. She doesn’t want to see what’s going on.

  The last thing in the world I want is to cry here and now, in front of all these people. I take a couple deep breaths.

  The conductor looks at me, then quickly over each shoulder. “Listen,” he whispers, “just give me the ten and remember to buy your ticket on the platform next time.”

  I thank him, but too quietly for him to hear, as I hand over the money. He punches a bunch of holes in my ticket, sending bits of yellow confetti cascading onto the floor.

  I settle back into my seat with a deep exhale. The fake leather sticks to the skin on my back and it’s hard to get comfortable with my bags of supplies taking up all my legroom. The lady next to me drops her paper, gives me a flat smile, as if she were completely unaware of what happened right next to her a few seconds ago, and then flaps it open to another page.

  I smile back, because what else am I going to do?

  A few seconds later, my cell jingles. I think it might be Meg. But it’s my dad.

  good luck today picasso

  Dad is the only adult I know who can text. That’s how he and his secretary communicate while he’s showing real estate properties and taking bids. He was the one who filled all the homes in Blossom Manor, who sold Meg’s family their house. He also brought in the Starbucks and leased the stores in the strip mall across the highway. He’s the real estate king of Cherry Grove.

  Thirty minutes later, the train rolls over the steely blue Ben Franklin Bridge, the gray water of the Delaware River splashing in white-capped waves below us. At the end of the bridge, there’s a huge sculpture of a lightning bolt crashing into an oversized metal key, which I guess represents Ben Franklin’s discovery of electricity. It’s like I’ve been struck by lightning
, too, the way the hairs suddenly prickle up on my arms.

  I am really doing this. It’s kind of funny, how far thirty miles can be. How much bigger than myself I feel already.

  As we pull into the station, everyone stands up even though we can’t walk off the train yet. Someone behind me pushes into the small of my back with a briefcase. The train comes to a stop and everyone files out the small doors. I don’t really know where to go so I follow the flow of the masses up to the street.

  I try to find the map that came with my orientation packet, but there are too many old school papers in my bag that I forgot to throw out. A huge clock behind me chimes 9:00 a.m. Orientation will be starting.

  I take off and run … even though I’m still not sure if I’m going in the right direction.

  If you’re lost and trying to find an art school, you might as well forget about asking anyone who looks normal. Like moms pushing their babies in expensive-looking strollers, people in suits, groups of old ladies on their way to have brunch, or even police officers. That’s gotten me nothing but confused looks and indifferent shoulder shrugs, and now I’m twenty minutes late for orientation and completely disoriented. You can’t see for long distances when you’re lost in the middle of a city. There’s no horizon — just stacks of buildings interrupting your sight line. It’s like running through a maze with tall, tall walls.

  I kneel down on the sidewalk and open up my bag to try to find something with the exact address printed on it. The salty smell of bacon drifts over and makes my stomach growl. I wish I hadn’t skipped breakfast.

  I’m a couple feet away from a shiny metal food truck parked next to a fire hydrant. A few people are in line — two construction workers and an old lady with a dog. There’s also a very, very cute guy who’s watching me. He’s tall and lean, in a loose pair of dirty jeans and a VACATION RHODE ISLAND! tee that looks real … not like one you’d buy new in the mall. His hair locks in thick curls that look like rollatini pasta, and are almost the very same color of his skin — a rich, chocolaty brown.