Eva The Avenger

Of Slugs and Ugs

Last summer I went to Toggleforth Fine Arts Camp, held on a certain University campus I won't name here. Joining me were my best friend, Eva, and about 400 other talented and gifted high school kids.

It was Hell.

It was kind of Heaven, too.

It was all Eva's fault, whatever it was. 

Good thing I'm so level-headed; I don't know what Eva would do without me. I'm Joanna, and I both play the clarinet and write. Well, you must have gathered that last part on your own. My comp teacher says I state the obvious too much. I'm not going to show her this. Sometimes it feels good to write it how I want to write it.

...

We arrived mid-day Monday. After I said goodbye to my mom in the parking lot in front of the dormitory building, and watched her pull her red station wagon off campus, I looked around and saw Eva right away.

Eva, my best friend. Whom I'd last seen the day before, eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches in jeans and a t-shirt, straddling my back-yard see-saw.

That Eva was now standing in front of a monstrous contemporary sculpture, wearing an olive-green linen cocktail dress with a cinched waist and improbably wide hem. Heirloom pearl strand wound around her neck. Nylon stockings. Little pointy white heels. Floofy hair pinned up with something glittering.

Also, hands clasped behind her back, feet spread apart, face fetchingly tipped up and to the side.

Oh, dear.

I trotted toward her. Glancing about me surreptitiously. "Eva!" I loud-whispered as I came close.

Dreamily, she turned toward the sound of my voice. Her eyes lit up in slow surprise. "Oh!" she said softly (but I could hear her because of the way her voice carries.) Her hand fluttered at her throat.

She repeated herself. "Oh!" And added, "Joanna!"

I took my hands away from my face. "Hiya. Call me Jo. Can we go find our dorms now?"

So, yeah, my best friend was in one of her moods — trying to be something. Trying on a new persona — 50's movie star, maybe? I expect it was because of all the new people around her, and wanting to see how people would like her if she weren't what she was.

Which she couldn't be, as anyone knows.

"Soon!" she said dreamily. "I'm sucking in the artiness."

"When did you arrive?" I asked. Matter-of-factly to emphasize that, I Loved Her But Wasn't Playing Along.

She said, "Half an hour ago," and sighed patho-poetically, which is a thing only Eva can do among all my acquaintance.

"This statue looks like a tormented slug," she added.

We met Arthur then, who had been examining the sculpture from the other side. He came jauntily around it and walked right at us, swinging an umbrella. He was wearing a suit and tie. The super-serious kids sometimes did that.

I had him all wrong, though. The thing about Arthur, as it turned out, was that no matter what you were at, he could and would play along.

"Arthur at your service," he said with a sweeping bow, which made Eva's eyebrows scrunch together and have a minor conference above her nose. It was ironic; it really was. You'd think she would have loved that kind of treatment.

I guess she thought he was mocking her; either that or out-doing her.

Arthur struck an art-inspecting pose and promenaded around Eva examining her ensemble, using the tip of his umbrella as a cane. After a bit, he made an unfortunate comment about the color of Eva's dress.