My Not-So-Still Life

By Liz Gallagher

Vanessa is wise beyond her years. She's never really fit in at school, where all the kids act and dress the same. She's an artist who expresses her talent in the wacky colors she dyes her hair, her makeup and clothes. She's working on her biggest art project, and counting the days until she's grown up and can really start living. That adult world seems closer when Vanessa gets her dream job at the art supply store, Palette, where she worships the couple who runs it, Oscar and Maye. And she's drawn to a mysterious guy named James, who leads her into new, sometimes risky situations. Is she ready for this world, or not?

One

It's time for a new color.

I drape my Smurfette towel over my shoulders and yell, "I'm ready for pink!"

Nick joins me in my bathroom. He unpacks the bleach kit, the bottle of dye.

We do this so often, we've got it down to a science. Nick gets everything prepped, using the back of the toilet as his work space.

An hour later, I'm blowing my new hair dry while Nick plays with eyeliner at my desk.

"The pink looks hot," he says when I come out of the bathroom. "It's so bright."

"I love it," I say. It reminds me of cherry blossoms, my favorite.

Here's why I change my hair color so much: All the talent in the world doesn't equal an actual personality. It's not enough to only make the art. You have to be the artist.

Since sixth grade I've been all sorts of other colors. They were all starting to blend on top of each other, though, so it was a mess. Now that we've bleached it out and started over with the pink, I feel like myself, like a good version of me, like something worth looking at, twice. And that's what I want. If people don't notice me, why should I do anything? Why even exist?

"Nice job coloring in the lines," I say to Nick.

"Coloring in the lines" is all about comics. Nick likes to draw, but he's better at doing color than outlines. He and a boy called Jewel started a strip together freshman year, before I was close with either of them. Not that I'm close with Jewel anymore.

Their strip lasted for only a few months. They'd get color copies at the copy shop by school and put a stack on a table during each of their lunch periods, all nonchalant, like they didn't care if anyone picked it up or not. People did. I'm not totally sure why the guys stopped, except that neither one of them seems to have a long attention span. Not for projects, and not for relationships.

In comics, there's the penciler, the inker, and the colorist. Sometimes they're all the same person, and sometimes people are great at one or two parts, so they specialize. The penciler sketches the general feeling of each panel. That was Jewel. The inker does the outlines, the black, the final artwork. That was Jewel, too. The colorist does the color, the lighting, the shading. That's Nick, prettying up everything around him.

That's me, too, in general. A colorist. Giving life to a black-and-white world.

Nick's pretty colorful himself, at least in his clothes. Jet-black hair works on him, so he's kept that up since the fall, and it looks especially good when he wears his neon tank tops and tees. He loves his eighties hoodie with the electric-blue star on the back, outlined in silver glitter.

He's actually dialed it down, adding jeans and sneakers to the mix, but for a while there in the fall, he always looked like he was on his way to a rave. He's the sweetest guy you've ever met, though, and he doesn't go to raves.

Tonight, he's wearing my black T-shirt with the metallic stars, his favorite Euro-style jeans, and his silver adidas Superstars. He dresses the same whether he's at school, hanging out in my bedroom, or going out, which for us usually means taking the bus to grab coffee or food and watch Seattle go by while Seattle watches us.

I'm in my black cotton tank dress. It's stained with paint splotches and drips of bleach from various hair experiments, and those stains are the reason it's my favorite thing to wear around the house. At school, I dress in a way my mom considers "wild," but really it's not that crazy. When I go out, I wear school-type clothes with more intense makeup.

"I nuked you a snack," Nick says, nodding toward the plate on my bed. My mom and Grampie always stock our freezer with microwave burritos, the healthy ones with the whole-wheat tortillas. Except for the weeks after they do their big salmon grab.

They love salmon, the ocean, and Puget Sound. Grampie was a lifer longshoreman until he retired last year, and Mom still works at the docks. Grampie jokes that they have water in their veins.

They go out fishing with a friend on his boat, leaving the port in Ballard before sunrise, and they fish salmon till the sun goes down. They do this for a solid week. Then they host this party in our tiny backyard for everyone we know, and they smoke the salmon.

Burritos are more to my liking. I sit down to munch. "Thanks."

Nick's eating at my desk. He went minimal with his eyes, just a touch of brown liner at the outside corners.

He picks up my phone and snaps a photo of me when I'm off guard. "To show Holly your hair," he says. My friend Holly doesn't usually leave her house on weeknights, except for orchestra practice.

"Send it," I say, so Nick does.

Mom pokes her head in the door. Her curly brown hair is in a messy ponytail as usual, and she has zero makeup on. At least she keeps a decent tan from working outside. It's not the kind of tan you'd get in a sunny place, of course, but the sun does break through, even in Seattle, and she does ten-hour shifts at the docks. She's in her gray sweats. You can tell how strong she is from her hard work. Still, she's feminine. Her voice is so warm. "Pink. Hmmm. Not bad."

"Thanks," I say.

Mom looks at Nick before going back to the family room to watch TV with Grampie. "Ten o'clock, hon."

"Time flies when you're coloring Vanessa." He grabs his backpack and I walk him to the front door, give him a quick hug goodbye. "Art walk tomorrow night?"

"Absolutely," I say. "Holly might be able to come too."

"Superb." He heads out the door.

My Not-So-Still Life

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