Free Still Life with Tornado by A.S. King Page B

she’s the reason you’re not coming to school.”
    Carmen was born to be the art teacher’s pet. There is nothing original about being the art teacher’s pet. I only hope Carmen steers clear of Miss Smith’s lipstick. I don’t think Carmen is her type anyway.
    Either way, Miss Smith is kinda right about it being her fault. But telling Carmen this wouldn’t be original because Carmen already knows, only she can’t talk about it. So I say, “Nah. It wasn’t Miss Smith.” I look at the sidewalk and a piece of gum that’s been ground into it. “We’ll see you around,” I say. Ten-year-old Sarah has been walking around a signpost for the last minute and she’s making me dizzy.
    â€œI hope things get better,” Carmen says.
    â€œHave fun painting your tornadoes,” I say.
    I walk up Broad Street, and ten-year-old Sarah follows me until I realize that she brought us here and I have no idea where she wanted to go.
    â€œWe lost Alleged Earl,” I say.
    â€œHe’ll be near City Hall,” she says. “It’s Sunday.”
    â€œYou’re ten. You never followed him when you were ten,” I say.
    â€œYou don’t remember things all that well, do you?”
    â€œI remember lots of things.”
    â€œYou don’t remember asking his name. You don’t remember that he goes to City Hall on Sundays. You don’t even think we did this before.”
    â€œSo this isn’t original?” I ask.
    â€œNothing is original. We know this already.”
    Ten-year-old Sarah walks under City Hall into the underpass. I’m about to ask her if she knows that Philadelphia City Hall is the tallest municipal building in America, but then I remember she’s me and she knows because I know and I’ve known for years.
    She says, “Did you know that City Hall is the tallest municipal building in America?”
    â€œYep,” I say.
    â€œDid you know that this is where Dad proposed to Mom?” she says. “And then they went upstairs and got the license?”
    I search my brain archives. I seem to have forgotten this, too. I say, “Not very romantic if you ask me.”
    Alleged Earl isn’t at City Hall. Ten-year-old Sarah says, “He must have changed his routine.” She walks west toward the art museum, and I walk back down Broad. “See you tomorrow,” she says. “Maybe you can tell me why we dropped out of high school.”
    â€œStop saying
we
.”

MEXICO—Day Two: Selfish Bastards
    I was mortified that Mom wore a bikini. She never wore a bikini on the New Jersey seashore, but in Mexico, nearly everyone wears a bikini. As I watched the drunk adults—most of them younger than Mom and Dad—swagger around in their bikinis, I felt like Mexico was all about sex.
    Sex and drinking.
    I was ten, and this was obvious. So looking at Mom in her bikini, ordering drinks from Martín the beach bar waiter, just grossed me out.
    The other people at our resort were animals. They left their empty beer cans on the sand. They talked in that loud, drunken way all day and night long. One time I saw a couple making out so hard that it was nearly sex right there on the water’s edge. There was a kids’ club place—glorified babysitters—but there were only a handful of younger kids in there. The thatched hut sat next to the spa-massage tent between the pool and the beach, and the little kids could look out at the animal-people doing their animal-things while they made crafts or played bingo.
    Every thatched beach umbrella had a hand-lettered wooden sign nailed to its trunk. The sign said:
    RESERVING BEACH SEATS AND UMB RELLAS IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. DO NOT LEAVE PERSONAL BELONGI NGS OR TOWELS ON BEA CH CHAIRS. CHECK LOST & FOUND IF YOUR ITEMS HAVE BEEN REMOVED.
    This sign was also posted on the wall behind the beach chairs. It was posted at the towel exchange hut, and it was