Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“‘I kind of want to throw it away,’ I said. ‘I think I’d feel awful if my mom ever saw this.’

‘I think maybe art is supposed to make your family uncomfortable,’ [Zeke] offered.

‘Well, I guess I’m not quite an artist yet,’ I said, ‘because I don’t want her to see it.’ I crumpled up the original and the copy and tossed them into the garbage can.”

This quote is significant in retrospect: Frankie fears her mother’s judgment when she attempts to use a photograph of her and Frankie’s father to make art. Later, as the poster spreads throughout Coalfield, she worries about her mother discovering that she is its creator. Unbeknownst to her, Frankie’s mother does determine this but is not alarmed. Contrary to what adult Frankie fears, her mother does not judge Frankie negatively. Similarly, Zeke’s words come to ring true, as the poster ultimately makes many, many people uncomfortable. Interestingly, it does not do so in a way that either of them expects or intends. Likewise, Zeke’s father specifically is angered to learn that Zeke is the poster’s author. In this way, his reaction—by Zeke’s own definition—lends credibility to Zeke’s art.

“Zeke and I crouched down on the hard floor of the garage, said the phrase again, and then again, until it became a code. It became a code for everything that we’d ever want. It became a code that, if we met up again in fifty years, we could say this exact phrase, and we’d know. We’d know who we were.”

The power of the words she writes is instantly magical to Frankie. The importance she places upon them as a 16-year-old seems hyperbolic. However, her insistence that the phrase is a code becomes true in ways Frankie cannot anticipate. At times the phrase causes Frankie guilt and shame; at other times it instills in her a sense of power and self-determination. The phrase becomes an obsession well into Frankie’s adult life and ultimately does tie her to Zeke irrevocably.

“‘What about the original?’ I asked, holding it up.

‘You keep it,’ [Zeke] said, maybe the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me in my life. I had hoped for this, did not want it to be out of my possession.

‘Yeah,’ he went on. ‘You have the copier, right? So you keep the original. But be careful. Don’t lose it. Don’t let anyone find it. Ever. For the rest of your life, you have to keep it, okay?’”

The poster’s magic is immediately apparent to both teens. That Zeke entrusts the original with Frankie not only demonstrates the strong connection they have formed but causes Frankie to admire him even further. Though his insistence on keeping the poster a secret seems melodramatic at the time, it demonstrates his understanding that revealing its authorship could be problematic. Frankie takes his instructions very seriously—so seriously she will spend the following decades working to uphold them.

“I knew that, with the broken windows, the holes in the ceiling, rain and damp and rot would get to the posters soon enough. I knew the next group of teenagers might tear it all down. I knew that it didn’t really mean anything. But I wanted it to be there forever, so that when I was older, when I’d become the person I was going to be, I could come back and it would still be there. So that Zeke, if he ever went back to Memphis, and then went to some university in the Northeast, and then got married and had kids and started to forget about this summer, could come back to this house and it would all be here, and he would remember. And maybe, if we came back at the same time, all those years later, we’d remember each other.”

This quote exemplifies the motif of time. Frankie has an awareness of the present moment’s significance, though she cannot fully fathom the large role the poster will play in her life to come. Her words convey a doubt that the poster will last, that it will have an impact—this proves not to be the case at all. Frankie’s obsession with the poster endures into the future, and she will need no physical reminder of their displaying the posters. It is also important that Frankie and Zeke choose the abandoned house to display the poster. As a popular teen hangout, this is a place the two feel excluded from due to their shared weirdness. By displaying the poster in this socially taboo space, they are claiming ownership of the space for marginalized misfits.

“At that moment, I could feel something opening up in me and I realized how hard it was to walk through the day when you had an obsession and you couldn’t say a word about it. I wanted to tell her that I was a fugitive, that it had happened so suddenly that I could scarcely believe it myself. I wanted to ask her if gold seekers were good or bad people. I wanted to ask her if she thought I was a gold seeker […] I wanted to show her my novel about the bad girl. I wanted to read it to her. And I wanted her to say, ‘This is so good, Frankie.’ And I’d say ‘I don’t feel like I belong here,’ and she’d say, ‘You mean in Coalfield?’ and I’d say ‘Anywhere.’”

Frankie’s respect and admiration for her mother are evident here. Because the poster and its phrase—something Frankie has created—have come to fuel her life with meaning, she wishes to share it with others. Acknowledgment of her art—including the poster and her novel in process—by those whose opinions and experiences she values would bring satisfaction to her. In short, she wishes she could confide in her mother, share her secrets with her—not only the secret of the poster but her inner thoughts and fears as well. That adult Frankie is able to share the poster with her mother serves as a kind of fulfillment of this wish.

“I got one of the copies of our poster, and I held it out for [Zeke]. ‘This is what the world gets. If we do more, lots of different designs, new words, we’ll lose it. It just goes away. It’s like…I don’t know…ordinary. Do you know what I mean?’”

Frankie convinces Zeke that the initial poster should be the only one that they display. Frankie aims to infuse the poster with meaning, adamant that its originality must be preserved. Neither of them anticipates that the poster will be copied and its words and images altered once it is made public. In this way, Frankie’s assertion becomes true: The original poster gains importance as it elicits copycats and as its authors remain unknown.

“It was our first kiss in public, which, to my mind, made it official. I didn’t know what was official, what we were announcing. We weren’t dating. He wasn’t my boyfriend, or I didn’t think of him that way, not truly. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed, like maybe they could tell us what all of this meant, but we were invisible. We didn’t matter. So I kissed him again. That’s what was official, that we were invisible to everyone in the entire world except each other.”

When they begin spending time together, Frankie worries that Zeke’s interest in her is sexual. Though this seems not to be the case, she comes to see him as a safe person with whom to get the rites of passage of teenage physical intimacy over with. Their relationship remains much more of a friendship than a romantic one. The notion of invisibility, however, is important. As social misfits, both teens have felt unnoticed and unsupported by the world around them. Here Frankie relishes that social condition, happy that no one takes notice of their experience. Similarly, their “invisibility” is essential to their hanging the posters—were they to be caught, the secret would end and they would face repercussions.

“‘We wanted it to be a thing, though, right?’

‘Not a thing that ended up with you and me in jail,’ [Zeke] said. ‘I wanted it to be more like a thing where somebody puts the poster on a skateboard deck in a few years.’

‘Well, that’s better, yeah. That is more what I’d wanted, too. But we made it, right? We made the poster. So we can still control it, I think.’

‘I don’t think that’s how art works,’ he said.”

Frankie and Zeke differ in their reactions to the poster’s reception, and this conflict will remain for much of the novel. While Frankie is excited by the poster’s spread, Zeke is concerned that it will bring negative repercussions. Both reactions prove valid in many ways. Similarly, the notion of the artist’s ability (or lack of ability) to control how art is perceived is central to the book’s main theme. Zeke recognizes that the manner in which art is received by an audience is often beyond the creator’s purview. Ironically, then, it is the way in which the poster spreads without Frankie and Zeke’s initiative that makes the poster worthy of the label “art.”

“It stung me a little to hear him talk about the poster like that. Like, I know I was the crazier one, the more broken one, but that summer, what I’d written, what Zeke had drawn, what we’d bled all over, it was the most important thing in the world to me. I would have gone to jail for the poster. I think I would have killed someone if they tried to keep me from putting up the poster.”

Zeke and Frankie respond increasingly differently to the displaying of the poster. While Zeke fears negative repercussions could follow, Frankie does not. The tone of her thoughts creates a dramatic, overly emotional teen who inaccurately gauges her actions as more significant than they truly are. Yet, to Frankie, her allegiance to the poster is authentic. Its impact on her life becomes even more apparent as she carries the secret of it into her adult life.

“The only evidence is that I’m still here. And the poster is still here. And I know because I still have the original poster, with my blood and Zeke’s blood on it. And if I start to lose a sense of myself, if I start to drift outside my life, I take the original poster and I make a copy on the scanner/copier/printer in my own private office, and I go somewhere, anywhere in the entire world, and I hang it up. And I know, in that moment, that my life is real, because there’s a line from this moment all the way back to that summer, when I was sixteen, when the whole world opened up and I walked through it.”

Frankie maintains her promise to Zeke to keep the poster forever. At the time, Zeke’s adamant request could be regarded as teenage melodrama. The poster is instantly fused with meaning for 16-year-old Frankie, though, and this meaning does not diminish as she ages. This is a testament, on one hand, to art’s power to inspire and elicit emotions that are not easily explained or understood. On the other hand, however, Frankie’s obsession with the poster is unhealthy and harmful in some respects, anchoring her to the past in ways that become limiting.

“Here’s the thing, sweetie. If you love something, you can’t think too much about what went into making it or the circumstances around it. You just have to, I don’t know, love the thing as it is. And then it’s just for you, right?”

Throughout the novel, Frankie fears her mother would judge her negatively were she to discover her involvement in the poster’s creation. Here, Frankie’s mother’s words about art—in this case a Jackson Browne song she enjoys—are filled with irony: Much of the town of Coalfield has taken an opposite approach to the poster, insisting that its words and images are intentionally harmful. Both Frankie and Zeke initially sought to create something that was meaningless but that others would mistakenly believe had intentional meaning. They succeed in this, though the outcome is ultimately problematic. Thus, Frankie’s mother’s advice is applicable to the poster, though this may not be her intent.

“As long as I kept saying the phrase, nothing would change. Zeke would not leave. He would not hurt me. He would not hurt himself. I said it again. And again. Zeke had stopped crying. I kept saying it, and he finally looked up at me, made eye contact. I kept saying it. I kept saying it. Again and again, until he knew. Until he knew that I’d never stop saying it. For as long as we lived, I would never stop saying it. And we would live forever. So it would go on forever. It would never stop.

I said it again. And again. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us. I’m saying it right now. I’ve never stopped saying it.”

The rhythmic staccato of the short lines, coupled with the repetition of words and phrases, causes the prose to enact the way in which the phrase from the poster repeats in Frankie’s mind. At some times the phrase is powerful, at other times maddening. Here, Frankie’s repetition of the phrase serves as an attempt to drive home to Zeke that she supports him, that they are united against the world, despite any disapproval it holds toward them.

“When I was done making copies, I put my hand on the glass and made a single copy of my palm. I looked at the lines, wished I knew how to read them. I wanted to know what my future was, because in that moment, I could not imagine a future at all. I could not imagine how in the world I would keep this secret for the rest of my life. But I knew I would. And even then, sixteen years old, I knew that I would hate every person in my life who loved me, who took care of me, who helped me find a way to whatever life I would have, because I could never tell them who I was, what I had done.”

This quote speaks to the motif of time and the pull of the past. Even in 1996, as the poster panic ensues, Frankie is stuck in the present (the time that will become the past). This is evident in her inability to conceive of a future. Her past, she knows already, will prove restrictive, and it is not until she is able to own up to the secret, decades later, that she is able to free herself from the past, thus opening up the future to new possibilities.

“Because I was worried what I’d do if Zeke wasn’t around, when it was just me and whatever was inside me. Maybe, I thought, Zeke was what was keeping me from doing bad things.”

As the panic of the poster spreads beyond Coalfield, Frankie wavers between feeling little responsibility for its interpretation and feeling immoral for its unintended repercussions. Frankie fears that she has driven Zeke away for good and, as he is the most important friend she has had, worries this loss will be detrimental to her psyche. This quote counters the words of Mr. Avery, who insists Frankie is a good person. Ultimately, Frankie is able to make wise decisions about the poster regardless of Zeke’s presence in her life.

“That’s…that’s absolutely lovely.”

This praise of the poster from Mr. Avery is meaningful because he is an artist himself. Frankie and Zeke often worry whether the poster is worthy of the title “art,” and Mr. Avery’s praise legitimizes it as such. This reassurance plays a role in Frankie’s continuing to make art in the form of her novels. In his letter to fellow artist Henry Roosevelt Wilson, Avery further elevates the art, insisting Frankie is possibly “the greatest artist” he has known (181).

“‘I think I’m a bad person,’ I said.

‘No,’ [Mr. Avery] said, and I thought he might say more, but then the paramedics were running up to my car, shouting things, and Mr. Avery vanished from sight. And I never spoke to him again. But sometimes, when I think, for the millionth time, that I’m a bad person, I can still hear his voice, that single word, No, and even if I don’t entirely believe him, it’s saved me so many times.”

That Mr. Avery not only agrees to keep Frankie’s authorship of the poster a secret but does not condemn her for hanging it up plays an important role in Frankie’s ability to find peace at the end of the novel. That she blames herself for the harm that resulted from the Coalfield Panic is evident in her labeling herself as “bad.” Mr. Avery’s assertion that she has made worthwhile art—and that she will continue to make important contributions to the world—fuels and reassures Frankie into her adulthood.

“‘In ten years,’ [Frankie’s mother] said, ‘when you’re out of Coalfield and you’re successful and happy, you won’t even remember this summer, sweetie.’

‘I think I will,’ I told her.

‘Well, you’ll remember it,’ she said, ‘but it won’t be as important as it seems right now.’”

Frankie’s insistence that she will not forget the summer of 1996 comes to be true. Whether this is the case because Frankie consciously refuses to let go of the past and her past self—or whether she wouldn’t have remembered the events had she not become obsessed with the poster—will never be known. Her mother’s assertion is an attempt to comfort Frankie, in hopes of deterring her from wallowing in her then-present conflicts. But her mother does not recognize that that summer, contrary to her promise, does indeed play an important role in Frankie’s life. That her mother later forgets Zeke’s name—and nearly the Coalfield Panic altogether—demonstrates the ways in which, at times, Frankie and her mother are foil characters.

“She showed [the novel] to Hobart, who also loved it, and it made me feel, for the first time, that maybe it was dumb to be embarrassed about weird things if you were really good at them. Or not good. If they made you happy.”

Frankie longs to share her novel with her mother for quite some time. Her finally doing so is evidence of the trust she has in her mother. Her mother supports and celebrates Frankie’s weirdness and does not stand in judgment of the art she creates. This foreshadows the response her mother will have to the poster when she and Frankie discuss it years later. Importantly, her mother’s and Hobart’s acceptance and praise of the novel solidify for Frankie that her unique passions are not shameful but admirable strengths.

“And then, these little flashes, I’d hear the phrase, my words, in someone else’s voice in my head. Maybe Zeke’s? Not mine. And I’d lock up, feel trapped, and I would say the line, in my own voice, in my head, and it would calm me. It was mine. I had made it. And I wouldn’t let anyone else take it from me. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us. It had not finished. I was still a fugitive. We were still fugitives. And I would live the rest of my life certain of this. And I cannot tell you how happy it made me.”

As other versions of the poster are developed and displayed throughout Coalfield, then throughout the state and the country, Frankie grows increasingly desperate to maintain control of the phrase, to retain ownership of what she has created. That she has created the phrase brings her great pride and a sense of fulfillment. As she is a teenager, her insistence that the phrase will retain immense meaning into the future seems hyperbolic. Ultimately, however, her assessment is accurate, and the phrase becomes an obsession that Frankie clings to in the decades that follow. 

“Maybe I would have said something if you’d messed up your life. If you’d never been able to recover from that summer, I would have told you that it wasn’t your fault, any of it, and that it was beautiful, I think, what you and Zeke made. But you got married, and you had Junie, and you’re a published author, and you’re a success. So I didn’t need to say anything. And you didn’t say anything, so I hoped that you’d forgotten about it, or put it behind you.”

Spoken to Frankie by her mother, these words of approval and admiration characterize her as a supportive and loving parent who desires for Frankie to be happy. She recognized and understood the social awkwardness Frankie felt as a 16-year-old and, as a result, chose not to reveal her knowledge of the poster at that time. She regards Frankie as a success, and certainly this approval is valuable to the adult Frankie, as it would also have been to teenage Frankie.

“‘It was so long ago,’ [Zeke] said.

‘It doesn’t feel that long ago to me, honestly,’ I told him. ‘I think about it all the time. I think about that summer. I say the phrase to myself. If I’m just sitting by myself, not really thinking about anything, I see those hands that you drew, just kind of hovering there in my mind. You don’t have that?’

‘No,’ he admitted.”

While the creation of the poster was of great importance to both teenage Zeke and Frankie, it eventually loses its power over Zeke. He, unlike Frankie, is not tethered to the past, not obsessed with the work they created. In this way, he likely regards himself as a different, more mature, and wiser person than the 16-year-old version of himself. Frankie, however, metaphorically lives perpetually in 1996, until she can confront the past and its hold on her.

“I don’t know what exactly I had hoped. You hold on to something for twenty years, the expectations and possibilities bend and twist alongside your actual life […] I guess I’d hoped we’d say the phrase together, maybe a hundred times? Maybe a thousand? I feel like if we sat on the porch swing and repeated the line a thousand times, it would have satisfied me, but who knows? Maybe after all that, hours later, I would have said, ‘Maybe another thousand times?’ But I could see now that if I even asked [Zeke] to say it one more time, to even say the edge, he might turn into smoke.”

Frankie’s inability to move on from the past is evident to her here. She views the encounter with Zeke—and the poster’s authorship becoming public knowledge—as an opportunity to resolve the hold the poster, especially its phrase, has had on her. She recognizes, however, that Zeke does not wish to dwell on the poster or the past and that to ask him to do so would be unkind and unhealthy. That Frankie cares about Zeke and his well-being is apparent. She has come to realize, too, the unhealthiness of her own obsession, due to its insatiability. No number of recitations of the line will appease her obsession, and acknowledging this becomes key in moving on from the past.

“Everything was a dream. I would never sleep again maybe. I drove back to my home, back to the place that was familiar to me. I needed it. And the miles ticked off, my car taking me there, and I promised myself that it would be a good place. I would make it. I’d keep making it. I said the line to myself, and it sounded so right. I had made that. I loved it.”

The anxiety Frankie has experienced about the truth of the poster coming to light is finally alleviated. There is a surreal quality to this experience, as though she cannot quite believe that the truth of the poster’s authorship—kept secret for so long—has finally been revealed. Publicly admitting her role in its creation ultimately frees her and provides Frankie with a sense of closure and peace. Importantly, though, the power of the words she has written does not diminish, and the phrase remains magical. That she has created this phrase, once meaningless and now still meaningful, is important to Frankie’s identity as an artist.