The Fixer: New Wave Newsroom by Jenny Holiday

elapsed. But I went for the truth. I owed her that, didn’t I, for spending a gorgeous Saturday morning inside posing for me? “Nah. I can pretty much paint or draw through anything. Growing up, my house was very…” I trailed off, trying to think how to put it, how to explain that I used to hide in my room while my parents shrieked and threw things at each other. “Loud,” I finally said. “Once I painted through an auction.”
    â€œLike, with an auctioneer and everything? Going once, going twice?”
    I nodded. “It wasn’t like on TV, though. It was a lot more orderly than you’d expect.”
    â€œDid you buy anything?”
    I shook my head. “Nope. It was our stuff that was being auctioned—our house had been foreclosed.” I didn’t look at her as I said that, just fiddled with the pastels to try to get her skin tone right. I wanted to tell her something true, but I didn’t want to see the pity I knew would be in her eyes. “So I just set up an easel in the yard and tried to paint the house. I don’t know why. I never had any particular attachment to it.”
    â€œKind of like you don’t have any attachment to the art building.”
    That did make me look up. I didn’t see any pity. She was just sitting there with her head cocked, teasing me.
    I shrugged. “Buildings, houses—they’re just bricks and mortar. Why get all fussed about them? They’re all ultimately going to be dust anyway.”
    â€œWell, so are people, if you want to get technical about it.”
    I shrugged again, letting her fill in the blanks. Even I could see that outright saying I didn’t care about people any more than I cared about buildings just made me sound like a jerk. “Why do you care so much?”
    â€œI guess I just want to leave my mark on this school.” She scowled. “Well, that’s not totally true. I mean, it is true, but also, I’m planning to—”
    â€œNot the art building,” I interrupted. “Why do you care so much about everything ?”
    She inhaled. Not quite a gasp, but a sharp intake of breath I thought might signal that I’d hit on a truth she wasn’t completely comfortable with.
    â€œIsn’t it better to care too much than not to care at all?” Her voice was low, almost a whisper.
    â€œProbably.” She was certainly a better person than I was—no argument there. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”
    To my utter shock, her eyes filled with tears. I wasn’t quite sure what was happening, why what I’d thought was an innocent question had spawned tears. “Oh, hey, don’t cry, Rainbow Brite. I’m a jerk. Just ignore me.”
    She did what I asked, looking down at her hands and fiddling with her nails. Her coral nail polish from the other night was chipped and she started to peel it off one of her fingers. It made me realize that I didn’t actually want her to ignore me, God help me. “I think it’s cool that you care about things—and people. ”
    She was still playing with her nails, and she remained silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, she’d raised her voice from its previous whisper, and it startled me a little. So did what she said: “I can’t fix my father, so I try to fix everything else.” She still wasn’t looking at me, but I could see a single tear begin its journey down her cheek.
    I kept drawing.
    â€œI never thought about it like that until just now, but I’m pretty sure that’s the truth.” She moved from her nails to her skirt, fiddling with the ruffle. “I’m terrified my father is actually going to kill himself one day, and I’ll be alone. So I guess I have to care about everything else so that when that happens, I’ll have…something.”
    I had heard her reference her mother’s grave over the phone the other