Pieces of Georgia Read online

  doesn’t even know it, and probably

  doesn’t care.

  11.

  I took Blake for a long walk after school.

  We’re lucky that your dog is real healthy

  and has to go to the vet only for his annual exam.

  (We use the SPCA community clinic. It costs just twelve dollars

  and they give us free heartworm medicine

  and flea powder for a year.) Once in a while he tries

  to get Daddy to play,

  but like everything else that reminds him of you,

  Daddy mostly ignores him.

  Blake just turned ten—that’s seventy in dog years, I think—

  but he’s still high-strung. He drives Daddy

  crazy at night, whining and pacing

  if he doesn’t get enough time outside. He doesn’t bark much,

  and he’s stopped chasing Mr. Kesey’s geese, which is good,

  ’cause I’m sure Daddy’d make me give him away

  if he annoyed our landlord.

  I used to dread going out in the cold to take Blake for walks

  or to run him in the fields, but lately I don’t mind as much

  ’cause it seems like I’ll E-X-P-L-O-D-E

  if I stay inside our trailer for more than an hour or so.

  Like today, for instance…the snow had melted a little,

  and there was mud everywhere.

  I walked the first half-mile, then I started jogging, and then I ran—

  for no good reason, I just ran—

  the whole rest of the bridle trail and across

  both big pastures and all the way

  up the hill. My shoes got soaked, the back of my jacket got

  splattered, and my leg muscles ached.

  But I felt so much better—like the wind and mud

  had sucked out some of my restlessness.

  Whenever I get like this, when I feel like I

  just drank twelve cherry Cokes, or like the top of my head

  will pop off at any moment,

  I start thinking something’s wrong with me.

  Once, I asked Mrs. Reed about it. She said:

  “Georgia, I think you’re a pretty normal seventh grader.

  All those hormones swooshing through your body

  will make you moody,

  but don’t you worry too much about it.”

  That made me feel okay…for about a day.

  And lately when I get to feeling that way,

  I put Blake on a leash and just get out.

  If it’s not too muddy, we head over to Tiffany’s

  (Mrs. O’Neill’s real picky about her driveway

  getting paw prints on it).

  But she’s hardly ever home. She’s usually at

  basketball practice, lacrosse practice, or religious classes.

  Last year, at one of her lacrosse games,

  she got tripped and fell on her wrist.

  She broke it in two places and had to have

  an operation to set it straight. Then she got an infection

  and had to stay in the hospital for a whole week.

  You’d think with all the sports she plays

  an injury would make her miserable.

  But when I visited her,

  she said it was the first time in months she’d had a rest.

  “I’m gonna enjoy this,” she told me.

  “The food’s no worse than what I usually have after practice,

  and there’s no coach, no sprints or laps.

  It’s like those hotels we stay in with my travel team,

  but I have unlimited cable TV,

  and I can stay up late ’cause I don’t have to play

  in a tournament early the next day.”

  We played cards (one-handed War—

  I played one-handed, too, so it’d be fair)

  and did crossword puzzles and watched

  the Hitchcock Film Festival on HBO.

  Tiffany got more thoughtful

  while she was laid up.

  “Maybe I’ll quit the summer swim team, or maybe

  I’ll play only one sport and take up horseback riding just for fun,”

  she said while we were watching Psycho for the third time,

  and I reminded her that she was only

  the fastest backstroker in the county

  and the star guard on the school basketball team

  and maybe she’d feel different after she

  laid around a while longer. To cheer her up,

  I told her I wouldn’t mind

  having enough money to pay for

  a pool membership,

  a lacrosse stick and uniform,

  a new pair of Nikes, a backboard and hoop,

  and I sure wouldn’t mind traveling

  all over the state on Saturdays,

  instead of cutting coupons and food shopping all morning,

  and spending the afternoon bathing and braiding

  other people’s horses for the Sunday shows.

  Tiffany just looked at me, and we both

  laughed, remembering when she tried to teach me how

  to catch and throw a lacrosse ball

  and how I accidentally cracked her mother’s kitchen window

  and how, when we went swimming at her country club,

  I swam back and forth across the lanes

  instead of up and down.

  “I think you are a lot less dangerous

  with a sketch pad and pencil,” she said,

  and I had to agree.

  12.

  From our trailer, it’s a ten-minute walk

  to the little shopping center

  where the Route I shuttle bus comes.

  If I get on and ride three stops, I can get off right

  at the traffic light by the

  Brandywine River Museum.

  Whoever sent me the membership

  also sent me this schedule: Open 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily,

  Closed Christmas Day, and a brochure about its history,

  which I’ve already read five times.

  I also looked at their Web site

  and at a book in the school library

  while I was supposed to be

  researching cell division for science.

  So far, this is what I know:

  The building used to be an old mill and sits

  right on the riverbank.

  A lot of the stuff inside was painted by three guys

  from the same family, all named Wyeth.

  The grandfather, N. C. Wyeth, was the oldest.

  He was a famous illustrator who painted

  pictures for adventure books like Kidnapped and Treasure Island.

  The Web site said he and his wife had five kids

  and he encouraged them all to be creative.

  His youngest kid was Andrew,

  and I think he must be famous, too,

  ’cause the Web site had links to articles about him in

  the New York Times and the Washington Post.

  But Andrew’s paintings are a lot different from his father’s.

  He doesn’t use a lot of color, and he doesn’t

  always paint people

  (N. C.’s illustrations almost always have people).

  Andrew seems more obsessed with the land—

  streams and fences, fallen logs and branches, patches of half-melted

  snow and dry grass.

  You’d think they’d be boring, but each one

  is a little mysterious, like something had just happened,

  or is about to happen.

  Andrew’s son James (they call him Jamie)

  paints portraits of people

  (the one in the book was of President Kennedy—

  he looked real serious, but it was good, I thought)

  and also portraits of animals: One was a big pink pig

  and another was a huge raven,

  but Mrs. Mc
Given caught me

  not doing my science, so I had to put the book

  back before I could see more.

  I’d rather not go to the museum alone, at least not the first time.

  I considered telling Tiffany about my anonymous gift,

  then asking her to come with me.

  But I know she has basketball practice and then lacrosse

  and then she has to write an essay for American history

  that was due last Friday, when she was

  away at a tournament. And anyway, Tiffany has been so

  jittery lately, I’m not sure she’d stand still long enough

  to actually see the paintings.

  I’d take Blake, but they

  don’t allow pets.

  So I guess I’ll go by myself, after all.

  Tomorrow. Right after school.

  This is one of those times, Momma, I really do wish

  you were here.

  part 2

  “When I get an idea that means a lot to me, I just bury myself in it.”

  —Andrew Wyeth

  13.

  I got the last seat on the shuttle, way in the back,

  where there are no windows. I couldn’t see past

  the two fat ladies in front of me, so I had no idea

  where we were. I would have missed my stop

  if the driver hadn’t turned around and said:

  “Honey, didn’t you mean to get off here?”

  I thanked her and made sure my watch was set

  the same as her clock

  so I’d catch the last ride back.

  It was a short walk past the gray and tan

  sign by the highway

  and into the gravel driveway leading to the museum.

  My hands were shaking and my stomach

  was flip-flopping when I showed my membership card

  to the lady in the booth.

  She nodded and pointed through the cobblestone courtyard

  to the brick steps that fanned out like a skirt

  below the entrance.

  Unless you took me to one when I was little—

  and if you did, I don’t remember it—this was my first visit

  to an art museum. Miss Benedetto tried to take us

  to the Philadelphia Museum of Art,

  but when one of the seventh-grade mothers discovered

  they had a show on Michelangelo that included nudes,

  the PTA made us go

  to a paint factory instead.

  The guard inside the entrance looked at me hard.

  I guess he saw I was new…. He walked over to the table

  marked “Admissions Desk” and brought me

  a map and a floor plan.

  He led me upstairs and through a hall that’s all

  glass on one side and you feel like you could stride right out

  over the Brandywine River. At the first room,

  he smiled, nodded, and left me

  alone. I liked that. Right away I liked that

  no one was going to follow me around like I was some

  bad kid who shouldn’t be there.

  I was a little nervous—

  the people I’ve seen in pictures of art museums always have

  nice clothes and shoes

  and they look like they know something.

  But once I started looking at the paintings and reading

  the little white signs next to them on the wall,

  I didn’t feel nervous at all.

  The upstairs room was full of N. C. Wyeths,

  and I saw right away that the photos in the books

  did not come close to the real thing. That man loved his

  bright colors and he painted big. Four framed paintings

  of Indians came first

  (Mr. Hendershot would say “Native Americans,”

  but even the descriptions next to the paintings said “Indians,”

  so I guess things were different back then).

  In the one called The Guardians, three old men in deerskin

  are sitting cross-legged on a ridge.

  One wears a necklace of bear claws and one

  has eagle feathers around his head. The last one has enormous

  dark brown hands, like Daddy’s, and his shoulders are

  draped in skins. They look lean and fit,

  like they were chiseled right out of the rock.

  Then came one with a long title:

  The Children Were Playing at Marriage-by-Capture.

  A boy wearing nothing but a thin cloth tied around his hips

  is chasing a girl in a deerskin dress as she

  leaps over a creek. I counted twenty-five diagonal lines.

  (In art class, Miss Benedetto is always making us

  draw lines through paintings so we’ll “see the geometry.”

  Of course, I just drew them with my eyes this time.)

  On the October Trail (A Navaho Family) was next—

  a handsome man on a brown horse, his wife riding beside him

  on a donkey, a tiny baby strapped to her back.

  What a great view that baby must have had…

  watching eagles and flocks of hawks,

  thunderclouds and the tops of distant mountains.

  A single Indian in his canoe, on a wide, foamy river,

  steep canyons rising on either side…

  That one was called In the Crystal Depths.

  The Indian’s oar is still. He’s staring down, looking for something—

  or maybe he’s thinking—or maybe he’s admiring his reflection,

  like that Narcissus guy we read about in English.

  Something about it was sad.

  N. C. Wyeth’s pirates came next.

  These were big paintings, too, and he used lots

  of browns, yellows, and blues.

  The pirates have nasty faces and some have gold hoop

  earrings and head scarves and carry knives.

  I wanted to read more about them on the signs,

  but it was already after 4:00,

  so I had to go.

  On the bus ride, I realized I hadn’t seen one picture

  by Andrew or Jamie Wyeth (there wasn’t time!).

  I realized that even if I go there right after school,

  I will only have an hour or so. But whoever

  anonymous is, whoever

  gave me that membership, must know that….

  so I’ll go whenever I can.

  The shuttle dropped me back at the shopping center

  at quarter till five, and I was inside our trailer

  in less than ten minutes. I went right to my

  nightstand, pulled out this diary, and started writing, my heart

  pounding like a bass drum.

  Then Daddy called and said I should go ahead with dinner,

  ’cause he had to wait for the foreman to sign some papers

  and he’d be home sometime after 8:00. I made

  my voice sound casual on the phone,

  like I’d spent the whole afternoon at home,

  doing nothing.

  14.

  Mr. Krasinski caught me

  sketching Indians in the margins

  of my math book. He was trying to teach us x to the third power,

  but all I could think about

  were those N. C. Wyeth paintings—

  that baby looking at the sky, and that one

  lonely guy staring into the river.

  Mr. K. made me stay in

  for lunch to work on some extra problems. But even then

  I kept picturing those three Indian men

  sitting on that mountain, that canoe in the canyon,

  those Navajo with their donkey and their baby.

  Half of my mind was working on x to the third times twenty,

  while the other half was wondering

  if I’ll ever have enough money for proper art supplies

  and
if I will ever find someone to teach me

  how to use them. Next year Old Mrs. Finnegan is retiring

  and they’re hiring

  a new art teacher for eighth grade, so I don’t know

  if the new teacher will give me

  charcoal and sketchbooks for free, like Miss B.

  Mr. Krasinski corrected my stuff. He said I got enough

  right to make up for my not paying attention in class.

  “Georgia, I know you prefer to draw, but you’re going to have to

  deal with numbers your whole life, so I’d

  take this class more seriously, if I were you.”

  He doesn’t know that

  I do think about numbers all the time…

  at least when it comes to money. I have tried to put aside

  some of what I’ve earned from the horse boarders

  for when I’m sixteen and get my license.

  Tiffany says in two years, when she’s sixteen,

  her father’s going to give her his blue BMW,

  “’cause by then he’ll want a new one in a different color.”

  I laughed when she told me that.

  But when I saw she wasn’t kidding,

  I almost cried.

  15.

  I stayed after today ’cause

  Tiffany had a play-off basketball game against Pennfield.

  It’ll be the best one, she wrote on the note she passed in math,

  and my father can drive you home when it’s done.

  She knows I’m not much of a sports fan…. I don’t really get

  all the fuss about strategies and scores,

  and after glow-in-the-dark flea collars, I think cheerleaders

  are the stupidest things ever invented.

  But I do like basketball—Daddy is a big 76ers fan,

  and I watch their games with him whenever I can. Besides, even if

  you’re someone who doesn’t know squat about sports,

  you would see right away

  that Tiffany is good.

  In the first half, she scored fourteen points and had six assists,