Page 13 of My Unscripted Life

“Uh, no,” I reply, shaking my head at him. “You seriously think small-town life is anonymous?”

“Well, yeah.” He shrugs.

“Tell that to Bryce Johnson. In second grade he wet his pants while wearing green shorts, and now—ten years later—anytime anyone wears green shorts theystillget called Pee Pants. Bryce Johnson would be more than happy to explain to you hownotanonymous small-town life can be.”

I can’t believe I’ve just said “pee” to Milo Ritter, or that I’ve told him the story of Bryce Johnson (poor guy). But I don’t have to be embarrassed, because for the first time since I’ve met him, Milo’s lips curl up into a smile. A real one, and it grows bigger, his lips parting to show off his perfectly white smile, and the next thing I know he’s laughing. It’s a real laugh, too, the kind where you try to hold it in but it escapes out your shoulders.

“Anyway, I can’t wait to go to New York. I need some excitement in my life,” I tell him when his laughter slows, but as soon as I’ve said it, his smile disappears. That blank expression, a mask if I ever saw one, is back in place.

“Excitement is overrated,” he snaps, and I physically recoil, as if his words have reached out and slapped me.

Before I can respond, Ruth appears, huffing and sighing and shaking her head. “Everything is pushed, which sucks, but it’s bought us an extra day,” she says. She shoots a quick quizzical glance at Milo, then turns her entire focus back to me. She looks around for the sketchbook, which she finds where I hid it beneath the script binder, then holds it up. “You can work on this on Monday. I’m going to have Rob come look at these”—here she gestures to my canvases, but gives not a single hint as to her appraisal of them—“and I’ll let you know what he says. You’re done for the day.”

I look over at Milo, but he’s already turning on his heel and headed out the door. Whatever moment we had is gone. Whatever cracks formed in his facade, he patched them. He’s back to being a walking black cloud, and that black cloud is walking away from me.

On Monday, I return to the prop room ready to attack whatever Ruth throws my way. But when I walk in, my canvases, which I’d left leaning against the wall to dry, are in a stack next to the easel. I pick one off the top and find that the one beneath is smudged and smeared from the one that was on top of it, and the ones underneath it all suffered a similar fate. Two of them are actually stuck together. They must have been stacked on Friday, not long after I left.

Ruth comes in behind me with a fresh stack of canvases. “Uh, yeah, so Rob came in to take a look, and he hated those.” She waves her hand at the stack of canvases like it’s a pile of hot garbage. My stomach does a somersault, my breakfast feeling like it’s inside a salad spinner. I swallow hard to try to calm it, but I can’t do anything about the itch I feel in the corners of my eyes, a sure sign that tears are imminent. I turn my head so Ruth won’t see in case they start to spill over. “He wants you to give it another go. This time he wants more right angles and more primary colors.”

If I weren’t feeling quite so much like a puppy who’s been scolded with a rolled-up newspaper, I’d tell her that this was information I could have used on Friday. I mean, this was just a simple assignment. I would have followed those instructions if I’d had them instead of wandering off after some ridiculous muse and then getting slapped down. I try to shake it off, but the feeling is hanging heavy around my neck.

I take a breath to make sure my voice won’t waver. “Right angles and primary colors? So, more Mondrian?”

There’s a pause, but I don’t dare look at Ruth to see her reaction. I’m still just barely keeping my tears in. “Uh, sure. Whatever,” she says.

I wait for the standard scurry of footsteps toward the door, the sign that Ruth’s headed off wherever it is she’s needed. As soon as I hear the door slam shut, I squeeze my eyes closed tight, letting the tears that have pooled there spill over and run down my cheeks.

I didn’t even want this job in the first place. I wanted to spend my summer as far away from art as possible. That first day Rob had said “runner-type stuff.” If I’d known I was going to have to draw, to paint, I would have run, all right. Far, far in the opposite direction. Towards SAT prep or that boring office job Dad suggested. Hell, I would rather have been a camp counselor, and I hate heatandthe outdoors. For a split second I consider quitting. I imagine how good it would feel to walk out the door and away from the stack of ruined canvases forever. Reject them like they rejected me. But I can’t do it.

Instead, I wipe my cheeks with the sleeve of my shirt, blow my nose into a scrap of paper towel from the work table, and then place one of the new blank canvases on the easel. He wants Mondrian? That I can do. And then if he hates it, it’s not me. It’s Mondrian, and that’s definitely not my problem.

I work until half the canvases are filled, until I no longer notice the tangy, earthy smell of the paint. I have no idea how long it’s been, because my phone is in my bag and the prop room is like a casino: no windows and no clocks. I lose all sense of time. It could be tomorrow for all I know.

With my fourth canvas half filled with primary-colored grids, I pause to roll out my neck and crack my knuckles, left hand and then right. I hear the door open and shut behind me, but it’s not Ruth’s telltale scurry. Instead it’s the slow strut of someone much taller and more relaxed.

“Ripping off Mondrian?” asks Milo.

I experience what I can only describe as my emotions just grinding to a halt, then spinning their wheels, little dust clouds rising up as my anger grows. When they finally shift into drive, I whirl around so fast little droplets of red paint fly from my brush and spray both the canvas and the wall behind it.

“You should wear a bell,” I snap.

His lip curls. “What’s your problem?”

“What’s yours?” I say, the words coming out all angles and sharp edges. I can feel my ears get warm and a snarl start to curl my upper lip. I get that he’s going through something right now, so I’ve overlooked the dour attitude, the blank stares, even the flat-out rudeness. But to walk in here and insult my work? When I’m trying my best? When I’m just trying to do what’s asked of me?

This must read all over my face, a whole novel opening with my snappish retort, because Milo recoils. The blasé mask he’s been wearing since I first met him cracks a bit, but he quickly puts himself back together. His expression is impassive.

“I was just making conversation,” he says with a little shrug, just a tiny movement, but I can tell it’s a telegraphed effort. It’s not coming naturally to him. No, he’s having totryto be this much of a jackhole. And somehow that just makes me more angry.

I give him a big, obvious eye roll before staring him down hard. “No. You weren’t. You were being snide. And rude. Which I’m coming to realize is pretty standard from you, but I’m done with it.”

“I’m, uh—” He stumbles, the cracks in his mask now fully crumbling. I can see a bit of red start to appear in his cheeks, and he shifts from one foot to the other, his hands digging deep into his pockets. But I’m not looking for an apology. What I want is to be left alone.

“Why are you even in here?”

He’s been fidgeting like a toddler in church, but then he pauses and looks up at me, blinking. “What?”

I sigh. “Props. Why are you here?” I gesture around the cavernous room, just him and me and rows of shelves full of inanimate objects. “There’s nothing and no one here for you.”

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