“Our Norman,” Morgan said, as the third lemon was tossed up, and Norman juggled them higher and higher until they blurred into a band of bright yellow. “He’s just . . .” And she glanced outside, seeing him, and smiled. “He’s special, Colie. That’s why you have to be careful. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. She nodded, like we were straight, and went back to work.
Later, when I was done, I went out and found him by the Dumpsters, rummaging through the backseat of his car.
“Hey,” I said.
He barely lifted his head. “Hey.”
I sat down on the stoop. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” he said into the back of the car. He picked up a canvas and leaned it against his bumper, then rested another against it.
“Are those new?” I asked him.
He shook his head. He still wasn’t looking at me. “Just some old stuff.”
“Look, Norman,” I said slowly, knowing this counted, “I’m hoping you’ll give me another chance. To get my portrait done.”
“I figured you weren’t interested.”
“I am,” I said. “I was stupid. I forgot.”
Now he did look up. “You don’t have to feel obligated,” he said. “I mean, I’m not desperate or anything.’
“I know,” I said. “I wanted—I want—to do it.”
He bent over to rearrange the canvases, shoulder blades moving beneath his shirt. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m pretty busy these days.”
“Oh,” I said. I wasn’t about to beg; I felt bad enough as it was. “Okay.” I stood up and started inside.
I was about to open the back door when he called after me. “I didn’t really think about that when I asked you.”
I just stood there half in, half out.
“I mean, a portrait is a big commitment,” he went on. “It’s not just a one-day kind of thing.”
“I’ve got time,” I said.
He turned back to the car. I didn’t know why this was so important to me, but winning Norman back was suddenly all I wanted. So I stood there, wishing he would turn around.
He didn’t. I started back inside, but just as I did I heard him say, very quietly, “Well, okay.” I had to strain to hear him. “I mean,” he said, sounding resigned, “I guess there’s still time.”
I felt my shoulders relax and I let out a breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding. “Good,” I said. “Thanks, Norman.”
“But,” he told me in a firm voice, “you missed out on the hot chocolate. No second chances on that.”
“Okay,” I said. “I can take that. When do we start?”
“You still have those sunglasses?” he asked. “The ones I gave you?”
“Yeah.”
“Bring them down to my place tonight, around eight, so I can do a sketch. After that we’ll work on it there in the evenings, and here, during the day,” he said, going around and shutting the tailgate with a bang.
“Here?” I said. “You can do it here?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Right here, actually. Under that.” And he pointed over my head. “I’ll see you tonight.”
I turned and saw a sign I’d never noticed before. It was white, painted with red letters. DELIVERIES, it said. And then, underneath, LAST CHANCE ONLY.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there.”
The first time I’d been in Norman’s room I’d thought it was a mess. What I discovered that night was that it was, actually, a carefully ordered universe.
Norman’s universe. And in it, everything had a place, from the huge collection of plastic cartoon and action figures on a bookshelf—arranged according to height, like a class picture—to the mannequins he’d had with him the first day we met, which were seated neatly against the walls as if waiting for appointments. There was a workbench lined with baby food jars, each full of something: washers, bolts, brightly colored thumb-tacks, rusty nails, marbles, seashells, tiny plastic doll heads. It looked like he could take anything and make it worthwhile.
The walls were painted white and covered with canvases—some I’d seen before, like the one of Morgan and Isabel, and some I hadn’t. Only one other, however, featured the sunglasses theme.
It was a portrait of a man who looked to be in his early twenties, leaning against an old-model car. He had a crewcut and wore a white shirt and a tie, black pants and sunglasses, with his arms folded across his chest. Behind him the sky was blue and broad and his head was thrown back with laughter, as if someone had just cracked the funniest joke in the world. I wondered who he was.
Norman sat me down in an old blue wing-back chair. It smelled like faded perfume, like roses, and I thought it must be strangely comforting for everything around you to have its own history.
“Okay,” he said. “Look right here.”
Behind my sunglasses, I wondered how he could tell where I was looking at all. He was sitting across the room on a milk crate, a sketchbook balanced on his lap. Next to him was a coffee can filled with pencils of various colors and sizes that he kept rummaging through, as if he couldn’t find exactly what he wanted.
I realized that I was the only thing he was going to be focused on. I was grateful to have something to hide behind.
“Hold your chin up,” he said, picking out a pencil and squinting at me. “Not that far. Okay, there. That’s good. Stay just like that.”