Already my neck was aching. But I didn’t budge. Instead, I looked at Norman, almost as if for the first time.
I couldn’t say exactly when it happened. Maybe when he bent over, looking up only occasionally, his dark brown eyes moving over and past me, taking me in glance by glance. Or when I watched his hands—which I’d seen flip burgers, capture cats, and cradle eggs, and even held, once—and how they seemed so different now, moving in slow, careful strokes, creating me. The sound of the pencil against paper was the only thing I could hear except for my own breathing. And I felt strange sitting there in front of him. As if he wasn’t just Norman Norman, another lazy hippie, but a boy with deep brown eyes, watching me and maybe, if Isabel had been right, thinking—
“Don’t mess with your lip ring,” he said quietly, his eyes still on the sketch pad, his thumb smudging a thick black line.
“I wasn’t,” I said automatically, embarrassed, as if he could read my mind.
It’s just Norman, for God’s sake.
He glanced up at me and for one panicked moment I thought I’d said it aloud. This time he didn’t look back down at the sketch.
“Something’s wrong,” he said, still watching me.
“What?” I said, too quickly. “What is it?”
He stood up, putting the sketch pad aside, and crossed the short bit of carpet between us. I felt my stomach jump.
“Hold still,” he said, leaning in, and then reached with one hand to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, his thumb brushing my cheek.
It was just one motion, one movement: it was, really, nothing. But as he went back to his sketch pad, I felt something rush in me, and, behind my sunglasses, closed my eyes. I could see him again in my head, leaning forward, eyes on me, one hand reaching out to touch my face.
“Chin up,” he said. “Look right here, Colie.”
I took a deep breath, settling myself. This was ridiculous. Mira would have said it was astrological, some crazy moon thing, the kind of celestial pull that drives women into labor and sets werewolves loose on the streets.
Yes, that was it. Just some crazy moon thing.
“Chin up,” he said, smudging another line.
“Sorry.”
About thirty minutes had passed when behind me, suddenly, the phone rang. And rang. Three times.
“Do you want me to get that?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“You sure?”
“Chin up, Colie.”
The phone rang again. It was the old kind, a rotary, and loud: normally, I could hear it two floors up. Another ring, and then Norman’s voice crackled over the answering machine.
He was still drawing, not even seeming to notice. There was a beep, and the machine was quiet. I thought whoever had called had hung up. Until I heard it: the sound of someone clearing his throat, as if he was about to say something.
Norman’s eyes were focused on the page. The person cleared his throat again, and I watched as Norman lifted the pencil, holding it above the paper, as if waiting for something.
Click. Then a dial tone. Norman went back to work.
We were silent for at least five minutes before I couldn’t stand it anymore and asked, “Who was that?”
“What?”
“On the phone. Was that a prank call or something?” We’d gotten tons when the Kiki infomercial hit it big. My mother, for some reason, was also very popular with prisoners. “Does it happen a lot?”
“Chin up,” he said, smudging another line. “Eyes right here.”
I readjusted my position, jutting out my chin. “Aren’t you even going to answer me?”
“No,” he said mildly.
“You know, if it’s a prank you can get something to trace it,” I said. It was hard to talk with my chin in the air. “It’s not that hard—”
“I know who it is,” he said quietly, tilting the sketchbook and pushing his hair out of his face.
“Really? Who?”
No answer.
“Norman.”
He put down the sketchbook, dropping his pencil into the coffee can. “Look, Colie,” he said, “don’t you have some things you’d rather not talk about?”
He didn’t say it in a mean way. But something in his tone made me feel like I was a lesser person for even asking.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “I do.”
“Then you understand, right?” I nodded as he stood up and dropped the sketchbook on the futon. “Okay, we’re done here.”
“Oh, come on, Norman,” I said, knowing now that I had pushed too far. He was so touchy. “Don’t get mad over that and—”
“No,” he said, interrupting me. “I mean, we’re done. With the sketch.” He stretched his arms over his head, his fingers reaching towards the ceiling, a full-body stretch, like Cat Norman. “And we’ll start the portrait tomorrow, at work. Okay?”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay. But I get to see the sketch, right?”
“Nope.”
“But Norman—”
“Good night, Colie.”
I knew by now not to push my luck. Instead, I took off my sunglasses and got up, making my way past the mannequins and a stack of stained glass, to the door.
When I glanced back, Norman was in the middle of his room, looking up at the protractor mobile. He stood there in the tiny amount of empty space, with all of his objects—bright and colorful—seeming to whirl around him. Now, I’d stepped inside too, and found to my surprise that I liked it there, in Norman’s universe, an eclectic solar system that pulled things in, turned them around, and gave them a new life all their own.