Her dark brown hair is still damp and dripping from her morning bath, but she’s fully dressed and reaches for the chair with her booster seat to my left. I laugh as I bend down to help her up and buckle her in. She’s three and a half. You can’t forget to add the half, or she’ll have a meltdown. It’d be cute if her meltdowns weren’t apocalyptic.
“Dig in, everybody,” Dad announces as he pulls the rapidly cooling slices of pig toward him.
I shake my head and suppress a fresh wave of nausea as I reach for a bowl of yogurt and fresh fruit. I can never quite eat my fill on Saturdays; the anxiety gets in the way.
As I eat silently among the rowdy chaos that is my family, mythoughts drift back to the painting in my room. My mind’s eye becomes a riot of color, and for a single blessed moment, I forget it’s Saturday.
2Wannabe
By the time we’re all piled into the van with our gear, my palms are sweaty and my head is pounding. I sit in the back row of seats with my clammy forehead pressed firmly against the window. The chilled glass cools my skin and calms my nerves ever so slightly. I don’t know why I’m nervous. I never do. But every week is the same. Somehow, the monotony doesn’t make it any better.
“Any requests for the DJ?” Dad calls from the driver’s seat.
“Paw Patrol,” Everly demands.
“I don’t want to listen to that,” Gideon grumbles next to her while crossing his arms, which are covered in a dizzying assortment of temporary tattoos. An apple-red, partially rubbed-off firetruck peeks out from beneath the sleeve of his jersey.
“Let’s compromise,” Mom says in a calming tone. “We can listen to the opening of Paw Patrol first and then move on to something else. Gid, what would you like to listen to?”
He begins spewing off a string of suggestions, but I quickly zone out. I don’t care what we listen to. Besides, no one really asked me for my opinion anyway.
I watch through the window as our subdivision passes by. Soon we’re on the highway driving north toward Chicago, passing byacres upon acres of golden farmland. To keep myself from compulsively checking the social media accounts I share my art on, I try to think of a painting I might want to start later this evening. The urge to check them is overwhelming sometimes, and more often than not, dreaming up a new painting is the only way I can distract myself.
But today, distraction might as well be impossible. Like a save point in a video game, my thoughts keep drifting back to the person who watched my livestream earlier this morning. Every time I try to move my brain along by musing about a new brush technique I want to learn or debating whether or not to use my savings to buy some expensive new oil paint, they die somewhere along the way and wind up right back where they started—User4372957382. Anxiety writhes inside me like a parasite, making me squirm in my seat, as I contemplate what User4372957382 thought of my art, and possibly more importantly, what they thought of my humiliating blunder. Splattering paint in one’s mouth hardly says ‘young prodigy extraordinaire.’
Yup. That’s it. That must be what they thought: This wannabe, Maeve Johnson, is an embarrassment.
For the what feels like the hundredth time, I shove the depressing thoughts away and groan in frustration. I lean back in my seat and let my head fall against the headrest. Gideon and Everly are too busy eating fruit snacks to notice my vexation. Everyone’s too busy to notice. Like always.
We’re halfway to our destination when Mom passes back juice boxes. I take one from Gideon and sip, my teeth immediately aching from the sweetness. Then, I finally let myself check my accounts. Two new likes on one of my photos, a couple hundred more views on some videos, and an admittedly impressivezeronew sales on my online shop. Frustration mounting, I close out the apps and toss my phone back into my purse.
No matter how much new content I make, or how much time and effort I put into my paintings, nothing ever changes. I sigh as I recall Phantom’s latest viral video. Phantom is a young, accomplished artist who posts their art online anonymously under a pseudonym, and when I first saw the sixty-second compilation of clips showcasing thirty hours of work painting a massive six-by-four-foot masterpiece, it’d had my blood racing with inspirationandboiling with jealousy. The finished product—a larger-than-life self-portrait—had taken my breath away. In the painting, Phantom was dressed in an all-white outfit and their face was covered with a mouthless white ski mask, as usual. The eye holes had been painted pitch black, while the background was a kaleidoscope of color. It was wild, yet balanced; beautiful, yet haunting. It makes perfect sense why the video got fourteen million views.
But something about the painting grated against my nerves like sandpaper. It made me feel seen, yet I have no idea why. Phantom’s work has always made me feelsomething, though. That’s why they’re my favorite painter, my role model. Their art pushes boundaries and spits in the face of the viewer’s expectations. They always leave me wanting more.
Over the last year or so, they’ve become a global internet sensation. No one knows Phantom’s identity, and I imagine it will stay that way. Maybe their anonymity is what makes them so brave and bold with their art. Regardless of the reason, I wish I knew who they were. I would love to meet them. Pick their brain about their craft. Get to know the person behind the mask.
When the van jostles over a speed bump as we pull into a large parking garage, I’m forced to leave thoughts of art and masks behind. While we make the long trek to the football stadium, I hold Gideon’s tiny hand tight in mine, ensuring that he doesn’t run off and get lost in the crowd. We shuffle through thickthrongs of people, and the bittersweet aroma of beer, hot dogs, and sweaty bodies overwhelms me as we take an all-too-familiar route through the stadium. Kickoff is underway as we take our seats high up in the stands.
“This is the day,” Dad begins as he sets a seat cushion on the bench beneath him, “I can feel it. He’s going to break his PR today.”
“He broke it two games ago, Dad,” I remind him sullenly as I pull a squealing Everly onto my lap.
With enthusiasm, Dad counters, “That doesn’t mean he won’t break it again.”
I ask with a raised eyebrow, “Can’t we just be proud of him for doing it once this season? I don’t think it’s fair to expect him to do it every game.”
Dad laughs as he watches me tilt my head away from Everly’s greedy little hands, which had gotten dangerously close to one of my plaited buns. “Of course I don’t,” he says as he sits, swatting my words out of the air like a mosquito. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
I remain silent, but can’t resist rolling my eyes. He might disagree with the way I said it, but it doesn’t change the fact that his expectations for Grayson are sky-high. He’s a senior pre-med student at Northwestern University and a star D-1 running back to boot. Oh, and not to mention the measly fact that he’s funny and charismatic and popular on top of everything else. He’s everything I’m not. And still, Dad expects more. But there aren’t enough hours in the day for Grayson to do more, even if he tried. I don’t think I’ll ever understand how Dad doesn’t see that.
Grayson’s always made it look so easy, though. Juggling it all—school, sports, relationships, getting Mom and Dad’s attention. Life. But I know better. Life isn’t easy. It’s hard. Cripplingly so.
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That’s why I’ll always be in his shadow. All I have is my art, the singular talent I can claim, and unless I make it big like Phantomsomeday, it’ll never be enough for my parents. I’ll be the overlooked middle child for my entire life, always being dragged along behind everyone else, easily forgotten.
