The Art Of The Heart by Dan Skinner Read Free Book Online Page B

tests to hide how smart you are so no one would bother you, and because you knew you wouldn’t be going to college anyhow. She thinks you did things intentionally to be left alone. She didn’t know why.”
    He turned to the page of him in silhouette by Bullfrog Pond . Again the heat of embarrassment seared Zac’s cheeks, burned his ears.
    “ I think I know why,” he said. The tone wasn’t accusatory, or mean. It was matter-of-fact, the words said in a quiet voice.
    He felt trapped in that terrible space inside his head, caught between wanting to scream and sob.
    “Don’t worry. I’m not telling anyone. That’s your business,” Rory went on in the same soothing tone. “You’re not like all us ordinary folks anyhow. I can see that right here in these pages. You’ve got a talent that makes you different; will make you important one day. You’ve got a ticket out of Sweetwater.”
    He couldn ’t believe what he was hearing. Relief poured through him washing him free of dread’s dirty stains. It departed him through a purifying sigh. But he still couldn’t look into the face next to him. Rory had to know how he felt about him. It’s one thing to tell someone they are your world, but for them to discover it so clearly in the secret things you’ve drawn is quite different.
    “ You remember things, details, and can draw them like this. That’s pretty wild, Two-Tone,” he said, turning to the next pages showing him in the theater with his girlfriend of that moment. “I bet that means you’re some kind of genius. I don’t know anyone else who can do what you’ve done here. I’ve never even heard of it. That makes you pretty special. You know that?”
    Zac didn ’t know how to respond to a compliment. He didn’t recall anyone having ever given him one. He shrugged.
    Rory ’s eyes scanned the entire scene drawn on the next page. It was the square dance. And even though Rory himself was clearly the center of the rendering, no one had escaped Zac’s eye for detail. Down to the string-ties the men wore, the berets on some of the women’s heads, a cat crouching in a doorway. Somehow he’d taken it in and remembered it all. Rory shook his head in apparent amazement at this extraordinary ability.
    “ One day you’ll be famous, and they’ll come back to see these sketches and then I will be famous too…because of you.” His head cocked in Zac’s direction. Zac could feel his eyes on him. Without warning, the twenty-one-year old former farm boy, now a young man, put his arm around him, hugging him. Everything inside him melted into a glow like summer sunshine. From the radiance inside him, a smile bloomed. Even after the arm left Zac, its warmth remained.
    “ You have dimples,” Rory said, surprised. “I didn’t know that. I’ve never seen you smile before.”
    Blushing, he hid beneath the rust colored drape again.
    Rory had already turned his attention back to the sketchbook. The storyboard of Eros was in front of him. He drew his legs up under the book and crossed them into a bow. One of his beautiful feet grazed the leg of Zac’s pajamas. He couldn’t help but study it; the solid ankle, the smooth curves, the mound of heel. Diaphanous wings would bring those lovely feet to earth for a gentle landing.
    “ So your superhero, by day, is an ordinary farm boy named Rick who was adopted.” Rory was making his way through the drawn story. “His parents have no idea that he is really a supernatural being named Eros. His mission is to bring love to humanity and he does that with his magic arrows.” He glanced at Zac. “Like the Cupid character only older?”
    Zac nodded.
    “ As Eros, he becomes invisible so no one can see what he’s doing? Like when he shoots them with the arrow? And he does it so that the very next person they look at; that’s who they fall in love with?”
    He pointed to the sketch showing the barest outline of the shimmering figure of the hero with his bow drawn, aimed at a