Art Girls Are Easy Read online

  “So are you going to do it, then?” Indy asked, wide-eyed. “Lose your virginity to Tyler the hot skateboarder?” This was big news. The kind of dirt she was hoping for.

  Lucy exhaled loudly, and her mouth twisted into a pout. “Probably not. I mean, we’re going to be at camp for so long and everything.…Also, he started writing me some really weird poems.”

  “What kind?” Indy giggled. “Dirty sonnets? Haikus?”

  “Not even. Just some really poorly written stuff comparing my body to a smooth half-pipe ramp that he’d like to ride for all eternity.”

  Indy guffawed. “Ew! A half-pipe? He sounds like a creep. And maybe a stalker!”

  Lucy shrugged her shoulders. “At least he was hot.”

  “Speaking of stalking,” Indigo remembered, “I read an article in the Post about this guy that would root around in his ex-girlfriend’s garbage for old Q-tips.”

  “Ew! For reals?”

  “Yup. Apparently, he was collecting her earwax so he could make a candle out of it. He was obsessed with her.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “I know. Isn’t that insane?”

  Indigo began to smile just as the sound in the distance of fifth graders singing show tunes hit Lucy’s ears like a scent reaching a cartoon skunk.

  “Ooh!” Lucy squealed. “That’s my cue! See you in a bit?”

  Lucy bolted to the front of the bus, where the theater majors held court, and sat next to an annoying actress-y girl whose name Indigo didn’t know. Tiffany? Melissa? Something. Soon, the vehicle ached with a three-part-harmony version of an emo anthem from Spring Awakening. The Silver Springs musical theater geeks had clearly warmed up before boarding the bus.

  Before going any further, a distinction should be made between Silver Springs and other camps—the ones with counselors and bunks and color war and relay races and campfires and mosquitos and those kinds of things. Because Silver Springs was by no means a typical summer camp experience.

  Set in the dominantly Unitarian section of the Massachusetts Berkshires, Silver Springs was founded in 1972 by the since-deceased “it” couple of Nic and Sunny Heavenfeather-Strauss, a beat poet and ballerina who, before embarking on a dual suicide pact, retired to the least humid section of the Northeast to focus on their mission of teaching watercolors and the Alexander technique to disabled children.

  Since then, Silver Springs, named after Sunny’s hometown near Bethesda, Maryland—as well as the haunting Stevie Nicks song—evolved into the premier fine and performing arts summer institution for 175 lucky young women.

  There were no counselors at Silver Springs, despite the C in Lucy’s C.I.T. title. There were only instructors and professors that specialized in the camp’s four fields of study: drama, music, dance, and visual art. The Silver Springs campers slept in air-conditioned chalets, not cabins, named after famous composers and choreographers—not woodland creatures. The young women of S.S. looked toward Broadway. SoHo galleries. Juilliard. Mark Morris Dance Group. Lincoln Center. And the ones self-aware enough to know that theirs was a mediocre talent were already figuring out how to marry well.

  But Indigo and Lucy were never mediocre talents.

  Indigo plugged her headphones into her iPod and blasted a playlist made up of Shins and Vampire Weekend songs as she watched the scenery wipe her window from left to right with new trees and sky. They were driving into the Greenwich area of Connecticut for another pickup, and this stop boasted even bigger SUVs, glitzier luggage, and more natural-looking face-lifts and fillers on campers’ mothers than the stop before. Indy scrambled for her bag or for something else she could put on Lucy’s vacated seat next to her so that Eleanor Dash wouldn’t take it. But it was too late.

  Eleanor Dash, alpha bitch and professional anorexic, took small, deliberate steps toward her target. Her tiny dancer’s feet made no noise as she approached with intention, and her small eyes narrowed back into her gel-slicked, dirty-blond widow’s peak. She had eyebrows that were plucked into apostrophes. Eleanor looked like a snake circling a mouse, or a Disney villainess.

  “Hello, Indigo.” Eleanor slid her bony silhouette into the aisle seat next to Indy.

  “Eleanor,” she replied curtly. “How are you?”

  “I’m extremely well,” she sneered, crossing her knock-kneed legs, which were already tucked into saggy ballerina tights. Indy shrank toward the window so she didn’t have to be so close—what if her horrible personality was contagious? Eleanor wore a knitted shrug and a short black dress. It seemed basic but probably cost a fortune.

  Eleanor’s spiky elbow jabbed Indy in the side as she slid her purse below the seat in front of her. She didn’t apologize. Indy was aghast that Eleanor managed to somehow lose weight since last summer; she was so flat-chested she was practically concave, having halted her body’s baby steps toward puberty with unhealthy weight-loss methods. Indy and Lucy used to joke that for a girl named Dash, it was funny that Eleanor didn’t come with a period.

  “So. Did you hear the latest?” asked Eleanor, with the matter-of-factness of a seasoned gossiper. Indigo didn’t respond, and even put one of her earbuds back in. But her seatmate persisted.

  “…About Nick Estep.”

  Indigo dropped her iPod onto the floor, where it narrowly missed the remains of Yvonne’s Caramel Frapp, which seeped aggressively toward the back of the bus. Indy’s chest heaved as she fumbled with the cords, blushing and hiding her face from Eleanor as best she could.

  “No,” Indy stammered. “What happened with Nick?”

  “He’s not coming back this year.”

  Indigo felt her heart begin to thump, and a feeling of dread crept up into her throat like acid reflux.

  “Oh, yeah?” she asked. “Why not?” Indy tried to sound casual.

  What did Eleanor know about Nick, anyway? She was a dance major; her interactions with the art department were few to none. It went without saying that Nick was the best-looking instructor on site, and you’d have to be blind or from outer space not to know it. But the way Eleanor spoke, it was like she knew him socially. And that made Indy feel sick.

  “Why isn’t Nick coming back?”

  “I don’t know,” Eleanor continued, inspecting her perfectly manicured pink claws. “Maybe somebody got him fired. And maybe he should have been more careful when it came to pissing off campers with influential parents.”

  Indigo’s panic level rose. Eleanor was a creative genius when it came to making up the right lie in order to get people fired—specifically, teachers who’d “wronged” her in some way. Two years ago, an Alvin Ailey dancer who taught a master class at Silver Springs made the mistake of expressing concern to Eleanor that her pelvis was possibly misaligned. He was fired shortly after Eleanor found a blurry clip of an episode of My Strange Addiction about a man who ate rocks and happened to bear a slight physical resemblance to that very teacher. Apparently, gravel-munching staff members—who were dumb enough to go on TV—did not reflect well on the camp’s reputation.

  “So,” Eleanor continued, “what’s new with you and Lucy? Does she still return your calls now that she’s a shampoo star?”

  At the mention of her name, Lucy peeked her head into the aisle and glanced her blue mosaic-tile eyes toward Eleanor and Indy. The theater majors around her were still singing, but Lucy’s attention shifted back toward the closely seated duo. She looked concerned and mouthed, “I’m sorry!” It was kind of her fault Indigo was now stuck sitting next to Eleanor.

  Indy and Lucy both knew about Eleanor’s rich history of trying to undermine their friendship and generally being the worst person alive. But even so, there was a chance that what Eleanor said was true. Indy’s belly churned with anxiety and melancholy. Hers was a belly, not a ’riff or a stomach or anything else that could be described by words with sharp guttural consonants.

  She thought about the e-mail Nick had sent her back in May. Indy didn’t tell anyone about it—not even Lucy, who knew about her crush on Nick since it
began, at age eleven, when Nick took Indy’s pudgy hand to guide her as she mixed red powdered pigment and linseed oil with her palette knife. Nick, who was as good on e-mail as he was dispensing quippy advice to the room of art students he taught, had written to Indy to see whether she was coming back to camp this summer. He said he hoped she definitely would, and that she was a “talented girl.” He also mentioned that there was a Gilbert and George exhibition at the New Museum she might want to check out, and ended his e-mail with “Later,” and then “xo, Nick.” Just seeing his name in her inbox made Indy sweat. What’s more, she couldn’t believe that Nick had remembered a detail so specific as that she liked the bold, odd art of Gilbert and George.

  Indy wasn’t sure if he was suggesting they go to the show together, but it still took her two weeks to formulate the perfect, casual-seeming response. She signed it with the same “xo” and hoped to God it meant that they were flirting. Much to her disappointment, he’d never written back, but Indy still held on to the original e-mail like a secret treasure. Telling anyone about it—even Lucy—would have caused her to overanalyze Nick’s intentions. It was better to think he’d wanted to meet up with her but just couldn’t.

  Indy pictured his face for the millionth time that morning. Nick Estep could be described only as handsome. Not “cute,” as Lucy often called her crushes. Handsome. With his scruffy, dark hair and eyes that seemed to alternate between brooding and amused, Nick looked mature in a way that Indigo found irresistible. He looked strong and real—capable of heavy physical exertion, like he could pick her up in an excited embrace and swing her around after a long time apart.

  But the most attractive thing about Nick was his passion. For the process of creating art, the beauty of free speech, his opinion about how the Rolling Stones were better than the Beatles. He was never serious but always serious, in that if he wasn’t committed to his artwork, he would have long ago taken his father up on his offer to work for him back in Newton, Massachusetts. It was lucky he didn’t. Nick was so incredible and amazing at what he did. His art mainly consisted of elaborate photorealistic paintings and metal sculptures that were dark and twisty. His work made him even more deep and fascinating—especially since, in person, he was usually warm and friendly. At least he was whenever he saw Indy.

  Indigo hoped Eleanor was just trying to mess with her, saying Nick wouldn’t be there this year. The thought was so unappealing, Indigo closed her eyes and willed it to go away.

  She didn’t even realize she’d drifted off until she received another bony jab to the ribs. “Wake up!” Eleanor hissed. Sure enough, the bus was pulling up to campus, and the sign welcoming motorists to Silver Springs elicited cheers and general rabble from the peanut gallery of young campers at the front.

  Indigo felt disoriented and groggy. She rubbed her eyes carefully so as not to smudge her mascara and looked out the window. They were just pulling up to the front of the camp. Indy could make out the lush lawn and blue buildings with sloping gray roofs in the near distance. Massive shady trees were spaced evenly throughout the campus, and the Silver Springs camp flag, which bore a feminized coat of arms that represented each discipline taught at camp above the Latin phrase Ars Gratia Artis (“Art is the reward of art”), danced lightly in the breeze. The overall effect was quite ethereal. Indigo began to imagine which colors she would mix to achieve the specific shades of the scene if she were to paint a landscape right now. Chartreuse and goldenrod. Maybe some cerulean.

  “You were snoring.” Eleanor smirked, her thin lips a line graph of contempt under her Lancôme burgundy matte stick. “It was pretty annoying.”

  That was rich, coming from her. Indy gathered her things: she couldn’t wait to get off this bus and avoid Eleanor for the rest of the summer.

  As the girls lined up like elegant, talented cattle down the bus aisle, the camp director, Lillian Meehan, greeted each camper as she exited with a lei made from organic peonies tied together with red kabbalah string. Lillian was tall and amiable, and thin enough to look great in clothes, though not necessarily pretty. Basically, she was Glenn Close with dark hair and a whistle around her neck.

  Lucy looked back at a still-sleepy, rumpled Indigo before getting off the bus. As the two girls made eye contact for the first time since their light dish session about Tyler or Taylor or whoever, Lucy smiled and winked at her friend, and Indy felt the warm rush of camaraderie wash over her. She smiled back and soon enough emerged from the bus into the warm kiss of sunlight on the grassy patch, where Lillian greeted her with a lei. And when she lifted her face to take in the familiar postcard of the sprawling green campus before her, Indigo found something small and sublime in its composition.

  There, on the lawn of the main sprawl of Silver Springs, right near the office, stood Nick Estep, holding a blowtorch to a life-size rectangular metal sculpture. Goggles rested over his longish hair, which trickled onto the collar of his Nirvana T-shirt in the Berkshires sunlight. Indigo’s heart rocketed to every point on the surface of her skin. He was here after all.

  “What. The fuck.” Eleanor said, to no one in particular, putting her spindly hand on her hip in protest. Indy crossed her hands over her chest as though she was trying to keep her heart from leaping out into the fire at the end of Nick’s torch, and made her way toward the main house, where the staff were handing out bunk assignments. Indigo smiled. She was in a beautiful setting with an endless supply of paints; her best friend was there, and so was Nick. All of the elements of a brilliant summer were perfectly in place. Now it was just up to her to create it.

  3

  Nick Estep, a twenty-one-year-old sculptor and oil painter with a penchant for cow skulls and futurescapes, stood six-foot-four in his bare, filthy feet. He smelled like wood and sweat, and he always had stubble. His nose was an isosceles triangle, his thick black hair spilled around his ears and neck, and his intense green eyes were the star of the show. He was handsome, distinguished. Super-fucking-hot.

  Indy fought the urge to run right up to him and start chatting about the art shows she’d visited during the school year. She could tell him about the Jenny Holzer show she’d seen at MoMA, and casually drop into the conversation that she’d taken his advice and seen the Gilbert and George exhibit after all. She really wanted to bring up his e-mail. But there would be time for that later. Maybe in the art studio, when they were more…alone.

  Indigo strode toward the registration table outside the main house with autopilot confidence. She waited with the huddled masses from every age group until Lucy, in authority-figure mode, came over to the back of the line.

  “There you are!” Lucy sang, touching Indigo’s arm. “You don’t have to wait with the others.” She pulled her out of the line. “Come with!”

  “Seriously?” Indy looked around. “I mean—thanks.…”

  Lucy smiled. “Dude. Of course. One of the many perks of being my best friend.” Indy was pleasantly surprised that Lucy was already abusing her C.I.T. power a bit.

  Lucy walked Indy to the front of the registration line, where the cafeteria and swimming staff waited behind the giant table. Indy glanced back in Nick’s direction, just to make sure he was still there—he looked up from his work and nodded in recognition. Oh my God. Was that meant for her? She didn’t want to smile back and risk looking lame if it wasn’t, so she began to look around as slyly as possible to see if there was anyone else in her general vicinity who he might have acknowledged instead. But no one else was looking in Nick’s direction. Indy turned back to the table, her cheeks burning.

  “Bonjour, Indigo!” said Michel, an award-winning pâtissier who specialized in making low-lactose desserts for Silver Springs campers during his summers. He scanned the list of names in front of him. “Hamlisch, right?”

  Indy nodded. “I’m a tenth-year. I assume I’m in the Beat cabin.”

  “Ah, yes.” Michel crossed her name off a list. “Ferlinghetti.”

  While all Silver Springs camper housing was reasonably lush,
Ferlinghetti was one of the largest, most appointed bunks on the campus. It was named for the famous poet and painter, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who cofounded City Lights Books in San Francisco and hung out with many influential Beat Generation writers during the fifties and sixties. The girls in Ferlinghetti lived two to a room instead of four or five, and the A/C was the coldest at camp. Indy was psyched that she’d made it to the summer of her cushiest accommodations yet.

  “Here you go, Indigo.” Michel handed her a recyclable key card from a rubber-banded stack he held like a Vegas dealer. “Your luggage is already in your room. You’re in suite three.”

  “Thanks.” She nodded.

  As Indy scootched out of the way to let the next girl take her place at the front of the line, she rubbed her thumb over the embossed design on her key. One side of the card was the Silver Springs coat of arms. The other said simply “Ferlinghetti” in a serif font. She began to head toward the path that led east, away from the main house and toward the upper-hill campus, where the older girls stayed in the O’Keeffe, Streep, and Beat Poet cabins.

  On her way, she passed Lucy again, who was chatting with Lena Ho, a violin major with an unfortunate last name.

  “Hey.” Indy smiled at her friend. “Catch you later?”

  “Of course!” Lucy grinned back. “After dinner hangout?”

  “Sounds good. Because I have something I’m dying to tell you.…” Indigo replied, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

  Lucy’s eyes widened. “Whoa. I can’t wait.”

  She’d decided to tell Lucy about Nick’s e-mail—it was really the only juicy thing to have happened to her all year. Maybe part of her wanted to confide in Lucy just so she could feel closer to her best friend. Indy had a passing suspicion that now that Lucy might be preoccupied with C.I.T. stuff, they might grow apart unless both of them were completely honest with each other. Indy decided there’d be no secrets this summer.