Read Online Instructions for a Broken Heart by Kim Culbertson - Free Book Online Page A

the other room, Jessa would flip through the pages for hours, her fingers hovering above the paintings—Botticelli, Parmigianino, Raphael, Cosimo—each one a tiny window onto an untouchable world, their rich colors like candy in glass jars. The clock would tick on the wall of the quiet room and Jessa would imagine herself in each painting, floating to the earth on a giant seashell or as one of Raphael’s tiny crouching angels, full of secrets. In each painting, she would hold still for that invisible hand of the artist, imagine herself inside the world the artist created.
    Now here she was standing in front of The Birth of Venus , her favorite painting as a child. A woman brought to earth held in her seashell on the waves, fully formed, blown here by the zephyrs, her body long and odd.
    “Ick. Why are they all so fat?”—redheaded Madison from the other group, Madison with her entrepreneurial camera and cracking-glass voice.
    “What’s beautiful changes throughout generations,” Jessa heard herself saying, remembering her mother telling her that as she turned the pages of her grandmother’s glossy book.
    Madison shrugged, waved to her friend across the gallery. “Um, yeah. They’re still fat.”
    Then Dylan Thomas was at her side. “Madison, I think they sell original thought in the gift shop.”
    “And imagination,” Jessa added helpfully.
    Madison rolled her eyes, already texting into her phone as if the press of each small key deleted them from her presence. She vanished into the sea of people all around.
    Jessa turned back to the painting. “Why did they even come to Italy?”
    Dylan Thomas stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black pants, shook his head a bit. “Their families have buckets of money. They know they should go to Italy. My mom says they’re the kind of people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
    Nodding, Jessa studied the faces of the winds, almost bored as they blew their charge to shore. Maybe they were teenage zephyrs.
    “You ever think,” Dylan Thomas waved a hand toward Venus, “that it would be better if we all just showed up full grown?”
    Jessa noticed Mr. Campbell across the room, peering closely at a small painting she couldn’t see. A sadness seemed to glow halolike around him, like one of the many religious paintings here. Shaking her head, she said, “Would it matter?”
    ***
    Jessa didn’t know who had started it. Probably Tim or Devon. It was right up their alley. And it was hilarious. Still, she had never seen Mr. Campbell so mad. He had ushered the whole group right off the bus, which idled softly behind them in the dusty parking lot.
    “I don’t want this kind of behavior on the trip.” Mr. Campbell stared at them, his face red, his eyebrows at war with his forehead. “I don’t care if you think she’s annoying. I just don’t care. You don’t act like that.” Ms. Jackson stood quietly by him, dragging a toe of her shoe through the dust. She just shook her head in disbelief.
    What had happened took all of five seconds.
    Cruella had boarded the bus. And someone had whistled the Wicked Witch theme from The Wizard of Oz , quietly but loud enough. “Do-do-do-do-do-do. Do-do-do-do-do-do. Do-do-do.”
    Cruella stopped cold, her sunglasses huge bug eyes surveying the students. Then someone laughed. Just a titter.
    Mr. Campbell had been on his feet in seconds. “Williams Peak. Outside. Now.”
    They’d scurried from the bus like ants.
    Outside, Hillary raised her hand. “I think you’re assuming it was our school. It could have been one of them too. But if it was one of us, whoever it is should just say. Don’t be a coward.” Practical, look-at-all-sides Hillary.
    Christina whispered, “I think we know it was our group.”
    “I’m not going to force someone to be a rat,” Mr. Campbell said. “But that was just awful. I mean, the woman has feelings.”
    “You sure about that?” Tim muttered.
    Mr. Campbell sighed, ran his