Empire Falls

Mrs. Roderigue’s, anyway. Since she described Bill Taylor’s style as fast, she’s sensed that the woman’s opinion of her, never high, has fallen precipitously. “Is that a smart-aleck answer?” she’d demanded. Tick assured her that it was not, but the teacher continued to look insulted on her idol’s behalf.
    What Tick wonders now is whether she’ll be accused of doing a smart-aleck painting. At the center of the bouquet is a monstrous peony, probably purchased on sale at the supermarket. By Tuesday its curling petals had begun to collect at the bottom of the vase, infusing the room with the faint but unmistakably sweet odor of corruption and imminent death. Tick knows that what Mrs. Roderigue intended is for her students to paint the peony as it had appeared on Monday when it was still beautiful, at least to her way of thinking. In Tick’s opinion there was something extravagantly excessive about the peony from the start, as if God had intended to suggest with this particular bloom that you could have too much of a good thing. The swiftness with which the fallen petals began to stink drove the point home in case anybody missed it. As a rule, Tick leans toward believing that there is no God, but she isn’t so sure at times like this, when pockets of meaning emerge so clearly that they feel like divine communication. She realizes it’s entirely possible that this is simply Tick communicating with Tick, but she is willing, largely in deference to her father, who believes in God and wishes she did too, to keep an open mind.
    Her apprehension about the watercolor has to do with her decision to depict not the peony’s beauty but rather its rancid decay. The other smart-alecky thing is that she’s painting the shapes of her fellow students, the ones who are facing her as they paint the flowers, into the background. While this hasn’t been strictly prohibited, Tick’s pretty sure Mrs. Roderigue hasn’t intended for anyone to see beyond the flowers themselves. She will also not be pleased to see that Tick has painted one of the tables green, the one next to it brilliant red, or that behind them is the boxy, hovering shape of the teacher herself.
    “You’re one lucky dude, John,” Zack’s saying. “Having a grandmother to take care of you, I mean.”
    Tick cannot help but turn and stare at him, though she doesn’t indulge this need for more than a second. With John Voss sitting there, of course, there’s no way to say the obvious—that if he weren’t spectacularly unlucky , his parents would be taking care of him. In fact, for the last few days, for reasons Tick doesn’t understand, Zack has been taking every opportunity to insert the boy’s grandmother into every conversation. Saying what a fine woman she must be. And how he’d like to meet her sometime. Didn’t they think she’d make a good subject for Community Heroes , a monthly feature on the local TV channel? Earlier in the week, when Zack first suggested this in the cafeteria, John Voss had looked up from the sandwich Tick had brought for him, and the expression in his pale, watery eyes had confused her, even frightened her, though she couldn’t say why. Now he seems to have removed himself and gone to a place even farther away.
    “Hey,” Zack says, nudging Candace, off on a new tack now. “I’ve thought of a good name for Tick’s new boyfriend.”
    Except for the fact that there’s a boy she likes who lives in Indiana, Tick has revealed nothing about Donny, not even his name, so in retaliation for her secrecy, Zack has come up with this new name game.
    “Hickman,” he says, snorting loud enough for everyone over at the Red table to hear. “Get it? I mean, the boy’s from fucking Indiana!”
    For the last few days he’s been openly flirting with Candace, trying to make Tick jealous. Strange, when Zack did this with other girls last year, she simply couldn’t control her own feelings of hurt and betrayal, even rage. Not giving a shit, she’s decided, is like the defrost option on a car’s heater that miraculously unfogs the windshield, allowing you to see where you’re headed. It’s now Candace, poor girl, whose windshield’s all foggy. She broke up with Bobby, the boy who may or may not have been in jail, even citing Zack as the reason why. According to Candace, Bobby’s “out” now, and rumor has it he’s coming to Empire Falls to find this Minty asshole who stole his girl and kick his ass. Clearly, she can’t