Read Online Girl in Reverse (9781442497368) by Barbara Stuber - Free Book Online Page A

occur at age four.
    I check down the street. Now that I need the bus to come, it doesn’t. I’m waiting the way Gone Mom did that day, unless she didn’t take the bus. Maybe she hopped an airplane all the way back to China. Who will ever know?

Chapter 10
    I watch The Thinker taking a chilly sunbath on his pedestal. He seems to have forgotten something important, so I don’t bother him. It’s got to be so frustrating to worry and worry without being able to get up and do anything about it. But not me—I am going in the museum to view the shelf with the display of Chinese art.
    I feel small and nervous heading up the steps. Everything, including the fancy glass-and-bronze doors, seems monumental and immovable and famous. I yank the thick handle. My saddle shoes squeak across the entry floor.
    Rows of shiny black columns line both sides of the main hall. Voices ricochet like darts piercing the three-story ceiling. The air smells old and warm, like the radiators at the orphanage. I check my coat. The man at the information desk says there is no fee for students. Heunfolds a map for me and points. “Our modern artworks and Asian collection are on the second floor. And here’s information about our special exhibitions.”
    Tapestries as big as movie screens hang around the main hall. They depict scenes from Jesus’s life. At least I recognize Him and Mary, but this is nothing like church—a place the Firestones rarely go. Dad called church a “winter sport” before he put his foot down and refused to go altogether. That’s about the only time I’ve seen him take a stand. Mother won’t go alone—“It wouldn’t look right.” In her world looks are everything.
    Donald Firestone also doesn’t like art, as if it is a universal fact that men and museums don’t mix.
    Mermen leap from a splattering indoor fountain. A massive marble lion stares out from the ancient gallery. It is surrounded by sculptures labeled “Athena,” “Hadrian,” “Hercules.” There are huge Egyptian statues—stone bodies without heads and expressionless heads without bodies. I wonder, what if museum owners adopted Mother’s philosophy and decided, hey, let’s just throw this old stuff away? Why live in reverse?
    Before I head upstairs I dart into the bathroom. No art in here, only ladies tinkling and an old-timey fainting couch with a rolled back. If Ralph’s stalking me today, I’m safe in here. A woman comes in pushing an old lady in a wheelchair. They both look tired.
    I stop cold halfway out the door. He’s headed across the main hall carrying a folded easel and an artist’s suitcase and wearing a flannel shirt and the scarf I threw in the trash.
    Elliot James.
    His shoes do not squeak. He walks into the Sculpture Hall like he owns the place.
    I sink back into the bathroom, sit on the couch, my hands turned to ice. I haven’t talked to him since he brought my books over. I haven’t thanked him, so he definitely knows I am thankless and mannerless and just plain— less.
    Go do it right now.
    I walk out, sneak over, and stand in the shadow below a tapestry of Jesus carrying the Cross, titled The Way to Calvary . I peek around the corner, the perfect spot to watch Elliot, my quarry. He unloads his supplies onto the floor, assesses the lighting, and positions his easel by a twice-life-sized sculpture of two naked people sitting on a giant, scratchy-looking pig’s head. They embrace, inches away from a kiss.
    Elliot clips dark gray paper to his easel, opens his charcoal box, and stares forever at the lovers, who stare forever at each other. With his gaze fixed on the woman, he moves his charcoal stick through midair as if he’s touching her with it and begins to shadow the very spot where her breast brushes her boyfriend’s chest. My face burns. I look away, then look right back. Shadows and curves grow on