Taysha smiles knowingly.
“Not with Kevin.”
“Oh, with someone else?” she asks.
I feel my face turn pink, so I reach under the table and dig though my messenger bag. For a moment, I’m tempted to tell her about Adam, but it would be way too easy to mess up and let slip what he and I are up to. “You don’t know him.”
“So he’s not in the program?”
“He’s someone I met at Artsy.” Which is sort of true.
“Mmm. The way you’re blushing makes me think he must be hot.”
“Yes.” I feel my cheeks return to normal and I stand up. “But I’m not saying another thing about it. It’s probably nothing and it’s probably going nowhere.”
Taysha gives me a look I can’t read, then says, “Well, if you are free, and I’m not counting on it, I’ll pay you fifty in cash and throw in a pair of earrings.”
Fifty dollars I could put toward pigment or brushes or getting Mom’s guitar out of hock. I’m late paying back the pawnshop, so I’m completely torn. “I’ll check with my friend and get back to you.”
“Deal.”
Taysha and I pack up the last of our stuff and cross the lobby, skirting a group of students who’ve gathered in the center. Above us, people line the railings on the second and third floors.
As we climb the stairs to the second floor, an eerie quiet infuses the air. Class is about to start, but people aren’t heading inside. “What’s going on?” I whisper.
“Not sure,” Taysha answers, and we squeeze into an opening along the railing.
Performance art in the lobby is a regular thing, so I wait for music or a dissonant crash of notes, but the silence intensifies.
Twenty students have formed a line across the cement floor below. Their arms hang limp at their sides and their eyes are focused on their feet.
The first student in line drops to her knees. She throws her arms up before she falls forward, flattening out on her stomach, her arms and legs splayed. Her eyes are wide open, but unfocused, and her mouth gapes.
She lies, silent and immobile, and what can really only be a few seconds feels never-ending before she gets up and the next guy takes her place. Around us, there’s sniffling and muffled sobs.
He was crazy talented…this day last year…feels so unreal…
Students hug each other as each person in the line below repeats the tiny drama. My hands turn to ice, and I wrap them in the ends of my scarf. “How did he die?” Taysha asks a second-year girl I don’t know.
Her features contort before she forces out her answer. “He jumped.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Taysha murmurs, then crosses herself. “You okay?” she says, sliding her arm through mine. I squeeze her back and we hold on to each other as the last of the twenty students hit the cement.
Our instructor raps on her classroom door, breaking the spell. We file into class, shuffling as if we’ve survived a shipwreck, and half the period goes by before any of us speak.
I can’t help wondering if he was one of Krell’s students, someone creative and talented who couldn’t handle the pressure of being at CALINVA.
I’m not him and I’d never do something like that loops in my head as if repeating it will make sure it never comes true.
On Saturday, Kevin’s banana-bread apology costs me hours of cleaning out old flowerpots crusted with dirt, sweeping away dusty spiderwebs, and washing the ten windows in the sunroom until the view of her garden goes from smeary to high def, but when I’m done, Mrs. Mednikov declares this is now my space to paint.
“Really?” I say, taking it all in. “Thank you!” I can’t believe she’s giving me this extra room when the rent she charges me is ridiculously low.
“Working late at night alone at school? It’s not good for you.”
I smile. “You’re kind to worry, but I’m not alone.”
She smiles back, curious, but restrained by her last-century good manners.
“I’m working on a project,” I add. “It’ll be done soon.”
“That’s good.”
I’m relieved she doesn’t pry. She’s no fan of Krell’s, but I have no doubt she’d disapprove of what I’m doing in his studio.
We haul an easel out of the garage, one that was left behind by another art student who lived here. I wash off years of dirt until the blond wood shines through.
There are still a few hours left until my shift at the restaurant, so I set up the easel on the porch and place a small canvas board on it. I tape a copy of Julie’s photo to the top and start to sketch in pencil on the white canvas.
But I’ve only just begun when I set down the pencil and rub my arms. It’s cool on the unheated porch, but that’s not the problem. In the unforgiving light of day, my “epiphany” that I need to paint Julie feels like a delusion.
With this next assignment, I have to redeem myself with Krell, but have I learned enough yet from working on Duncan to tackle Julie’s portrait?
It has to be surprising and unconventional to satisfy him, and he came right out and warned us that this assignment is critical, because it will be hung in the First-Year Exhibition in the CALINVA gallery in December. “This will be the first time the entire faculty is exposed to your work,” he said.
Then Taysha only made it worse when she whispered, “I heard the upper-level faculty decide who they want to mentor way before they ever have you in class.”
I pick up my pencil. No pressure, I think, tapping it against my teeth. Just an assignment that determines the rest of my life.
I stare at Julie’s photo and my gut says paint her while my head says bad idea.
Most of the fine art faculty paint abstracts, and the rest don’t even paint—they create conceptual art. The only portrait painter is Krell. And even if I manage to change his mind about me, he’ll never agree to be my adviser.
I toss the pencil in the corner and it bounces back and rolls at my feet like it refuses to be ignored.
The only paintings I’ve turned in to Krell so far have been still lifes and urban landscapes, things that even when I worked on them obsessively, I didn’t love. I can’t do that anymore. I’ve got a little over a month to create the most important painting of my life and I need to trust in my passion.
The sun dips behind a cloud, casting the porch into shade. I blow out a breath and start to sketch.
Today is Mom’s re-birthday, and I’m sitting in the student lounge with a cupcake in front of me I can’t bear to eat. My pencil hovers over my sketch pad, but it refuses to land. I can’t draw myself out of my grief.
I knew today would be hard. Friday, October 23, has been staring back at me from the calendar all month and now it’s here.
And it doesn’t help that I’m way low on sleep. The last four nights, I spent hours painting Duncan, so I haven’t gone to bed before 2 or 3 a.m. But you do what you have to if you want to live your dreams.
I rest my eyes on the blank paper, but I see Mom silhouetted in the kitchen window, touching her wrist as if she’s checking her pulse, her fingertips resting on the word inked on her skin: SERENITY. Her lips move as she silently recites her morning prayer. God grant me the serenity…