“I don’t know,” I said, in response to Catherine’s question. We had already fully discussed the whole chicken bone thing. “I want to. That class is filled with a bunch of freaks.”

“Yeah,” Catherine said. “But you told me there was one cute guy.”

I thought about familiar-looking David, his Save Ferris T-shirt, his big hands and feet, and his liking my boots.

And the way he had seen me totally and utterly crushed, like an ant, in front of him by Susan Boone.

“He’s cute,” I admitted. “But not as cute as Jack.”

“Who is?” Catherine asked, with a sigh. “Except maybe for Heath.”

So, so true.

“Will your mom let you quit?” Catherine wanted to know. “I mean, isn’t this supposed to be kind of a punishment for the C minus in German thing? Maybe you aren’t supposed to like it.”

“I think it’s supposed to be a learning experience for me,” I said. “You know, like how Debbie Kinley’s parents sent her to Outward Bound after she drank all that vodka at that party at Rodd Muckinfuss’s house? Art lessons are supposed to be like my Outward Bound.“

“Then you can’t quit,” Catherine said. “So what are you going to do?”

“I’ll figure something out,” I said.

Actually, I already had. Little did I know what I’d figured out was going to end up practically getting me killed.

Top ten Reasons I Would Make a Better Girlfriend for Jack than My Sister Lucy:

10.  My love for and appreciation of art. Lucy doesn’t know anything about art. To her, art is what they made us do with pipe cleaners that summer we both went to Girl Scout Camp.

9.  Having the soul of an artist, I am better equipped to understand and handle Jack’s mood swings. Lucy just asks him if he is over himself yet.

8.  I would never demand, as Lucy does, that Jack take me to whatever asinine teen gross-out movie is currently popular with the sixteen to twenty-four crowd. I would understand that a soul as sensitive as Jack’s needs sustenance in the form of independent art films, or perhaps the occasional foreign movie with subtitles.

And by that I am not referring to Jackie Chan.

7.  Ditto the stupid books Lucy makes Jack read. Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus is not appropriate reading material for a guy like Jack. The Virgin and the Gypsy by D. H. Lawrence would do far more to stimulate Jack’s already brilliant mind than any of Lucy’s pathetic self-help manuals. Although I have never actually read The Virgin and the Gypsy. Still, it sounds like a book that Jack and I could really get into. For instance we could take turns reading it out loud on a blanket in the park, which is something artists always do in movies. Just as soon as I am done rereading Fight Club, I will give The V. and the G. a try to make sure it is really as intellectual as it sounds.

6.  On Jack’s birthday, I would not give him joke boxer shorts with Tweety Bird on them, the way Lucy did last year. I would find something highly personal and romantic to give him, such as sable paintbrushes or perhaps a leather-bound copy of Romeo and Juliet or one of Gwen Stefani’s wristbands or something like that.

5.  If Jack were ever late to pick me up for a date, I would not yell at him the way Lucy does. I would understand that artists cannot be held to pedestrian constraints like time.

4.  I would never make Jack go to the mall with me. If I ever went to the mall, which I don’t. Instead, Jack and I would go to museums, and I am not talking about the Aeronautical and Space Museum, which everyone goes to, or the Smithsonian to see Dorothy’s stupid ruby slippers, either, but actual art museums, with actual art, such as the Hirschorn. Perhaps we could even take drawing pads with us, and sit back to back on those couches and sketch our favourite paintings, and people would come up and look at what we were drawing and offer to buy the sketches, and we would say no because we would want to treasure the drawings forever as symbols of our great love for one another.

3.  If Jack and I ever got married, I would not insist on a massive church wedding with a country-club reception, the way I know Lucy would. Jack and I would be married barefoot in the woods near Walden Pond where so many artistic souls have gone to receive succour.

And for our honeymoon, instead of a Sandals in Jamaica, or wherever, we would fully go to Paris and live in a garret.

2.  When Jack came over to visit me, I would never read a magazine while he sat at our kitchen table eating doughnuts. I would engage him in friendly but spirited and intellectual conversations about art and literature.

And the number one reason I would be a better girlfriend for Jack than Lucy:

1.  I would give him the loving support he so desperately needs, since I understand what it is like to be tortured by the burden of one’s genius.

Fortunately it was raining on Thursday when Theresa drove me to Susan Boone’s studio. That meant that the chances of her finding a parking space, scrounging around the backseat for an umbrella, getting out of the car and walking me all the way to the studio door were exactly nil.