Gandhi's Guide to Getting By

chapter fourteen

Having the time of my life. in Venice. Staying at cutest palazzo turned hotel. This is what Stella texts me. Most of me is happy for her. Then there's the little part of me that can't help but hope the bitch turned a flourescent orange, the kind that makes people think, better stay away from that walking nuclear disaster.

"Hey!" Matt says. He's come up from behind me and I guess my surprise shows on my face because his next sentence is, "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

I love his lopsided smile. More than his blue eyes, his tossled brown hair, it's his smile that gets me. He's wearing jeans and a t-shirt. "Stella," I say, holding up my phone, "Stella having the time of her life in Venice." Another text, again from Stella. Have u seen Shelby? "Weird," I say to Matt as I drop my phone into my purse, "She's asking about Shelby."

Matt reaches for my hand. It's the first day he's had off in a while. We decided to meet in front of the Whitney. There's an exhibit by Hans Lubling who's famous for his works in foil. "Foil?" Dad said when he asked how I planned to spend my Saturday, "As in aluminum foil?" He actually put down the paper he was reading to see whether or not I was kidding. I told him it was exactly as in aluminum foil. "And this aluminum foil guy has an exhibit at the Whitney? The Whitney?" Repeating things is what Dad does when he finds something hard to believe. "Forget the Whitney, Dad. Last year he had the carcass of his dog stuffed with aluminum foil. He sold the piece for six million dollars." Dad looked at Chester, who was lying underneath the table. "Can I ask you something, Emma?" he said after a few minutes. I laughed and said of course. I figured he wanted to know who I was going with. Already there was a mental debate going on in my head: Should I say Matt (i.e., Dad runs to Mom who grabs a dustcloth and launches "operation pretend nonchalant housecleaning while discreetly probing into Emma's lovelife") or should I say Anne (i.e., no reaction whatsoever). Dad cleared his throat. "Umm," he begun, "I was wondering if you have any idea where your mother keeps the aluminum foil."

The Lubling exhibit is on the fourth floor. It's divided into five separate rooms which have been "installed" specifically for the exhibit. Each room is covered with aluminum foil. The only difference is the lighting, each room becoming progressively less lit than the room before it. The idea is to see if lighting affects the type of "mark" people leave, the "mark" being the message each viewer is encouraged to write onto the aluminum foil. There are pencils everywhere, all of them screaming - Pick me, pick me to write your message. It's like five rooms of tamed graffitti. Lola was here... Derek loves Maria... Wish I'd thought of this and wish someone HAD PAID ME to put this up... just some of the "marks" people have left behind. I look over at Matt who's also reading what others have written. I tell him I'm heading to one of the other rooms. "Someone wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on this entire section," he says, his voice incredulous. He pulls out his phone and googles the Declaration of Human Rights. He wants to see whether whoever bothered to write it onto the aluminum foil, wrote it word for word. "See you in a bit," I say which is a more polite version of, Who cares?

I slowly make my way towards the dimmest room. There is no one in here. I pick up a pencil, intending to put my own mark,. To my surprise, someone has beat me to it. Not only have they chosen the exact spot I was about to write on, they've written the exact Gandhi quote I was about to write.

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

Now what are the odds of that?

"Given the popularity of the quote, I would say the odds are good. It's so popular, it's almost redundant."

Redundant? I look at Gandhi who now stands next to me, contemplating the silver wall. I give the small room a once over to make sure we're the only ones here.