All Good Children - Catherine Austen [65]
“This is not a policy I agree with, Connors,” he whispers.
“We’re taking Dallas with us,” I tell him.
I expect him to say that we’re sentimental, that times are tough and we’ll need our resources for ourselves, it’s a dog-eat-zombie world. But he says, “Then you better head for Canada or Mexico. Because starting January first, every child in this country will need to show their id whenever anyone asks for it, and there’s no way that boy is going to be able to hide from his father.”
I’m called to the office at two o’clock. My name blasts over the intercom. Dallas stiffens in the row beside me. I plan to make a run for it.
Mr. Reese looks up at the speaker and back to me with a worried frown. His face relaxes when he checks his watch. “It’s time to take your work to the art exhibit, Max.”
Two girls wait in the backseat of the principal’s car, clutching black leather portfolio cases. I lean my rolled-up tent against the trunk.
“What on earth is that thing?” Mr. Graham asks me.
“It’s my exhibit.”
He stares at me, scowling, but eventually he opens the trunk.
I sit in the front seat, empty-handed and open to scrutiny.
I stare out the passenger window as we drive south along the city spine. It’s so efficient, New Middletown’s core of office towers and hospital wards and agricultural warehouses. Nothing’s ever wasted here, not a drop of water or a moment of time. It’s beautiful in its way, and I know I’ll miss it if I get the chance to leave, but for the first time in my life I feel like this is not my town.
Every moment I’m in this car, my tent seems more ridiculous. I can almost feel the weight of it behind us. It was a mistake, painting it the way I did. I should have submitted a small still life—fruit in a bowl or some naked beauty.
Mr. Graham drops us at the pedestrian conveyor closest to City Hall and drives away to park underground. I consider running home, but the tent’s too heavy to carry far, and there’s no way I’d leave it here. I step onto the conveyor and let it take me forward.
I raise my eyes to the shining columns of colored glass that reach into the sky. It’s still the most premium building I’ve seen in my life. But I understand what that taxi driver meant when he called it cold as ice.
I drag my tent across the threshold.
A man rushes up and asks my name. “Connors. Yes. I expected a sculpture.” He frowns at me and leads me to my station.
“Excuse me?” I ask the kid unfolding an easel across from me. “When you’re done there could you give me a hand with this?”
“Yes. Certainly. I’d be pleased to.”
He doesn’t ask any questions, just follows my directions, holds the tent poles while I wrench the canvas overtop. I hang two flashlights from the ceiling and turn them on. The kid looks at the dim walls and says, “It’s stuffy in here.” He walks back to his still life—red tulips in a glass vase.
It’s a long afternoon. People arrive at three thirty—parents, teachers, judges, citizens. They walk through the exhibit with polite curiosity, making small talk with the artists, nodding and smiling. I sweat beside my military surplus.
They stare at my tent, baffled. They open their mouths to speak but close them again before anything comes out, walk away shaking their heads.
I think I might get through this with embarrassment as my only damage, but at four fifteen a big black woman in a floral dress brushes open a tent flap and sticks her head inside my metaphor. “Oh my god,” she whispers, catching a few ears. She grabs a flashlight and lights up the walls. She snaps photos, leaning in and backing up. She nods her head, smiles, frowns, gasps, mutters, “Amazing.” Other adults peer through the windows or stick their necks through the front flaps but they don’t enter. They take one glance and step away, like unwitting performance artists.
“Marvelous work,” the flowery woman says when she emerges. She smiles and pats my shoulder. “You have an exciting career ahead of you.”
The principal hurries over to shake her hand.
“I’m Rosemary Seawell,” she says.
“From the New Middletown Monitor?” Mr. Graham