I hang toward the back and follow the rest of the students inside the museum. Chatter instantly turns into whispers, as if we were in a library. The room is cavernous, dark brown stone and lit low and soft. It’s cool, very cool inside, like a tomb.
Yates comes up next to me. “Do you have your sketchbook, Emily?”
“Umm … don’t I have until next Tuesday?” I keep blowing every opportunity to look cool in front of Yates. I sound like I don’t care.
Yates shakes his head and tsks me. “Here,” he says, and carefully rips some pages out of his own book. “Make sure you get your own today. You don’t want to make Mr. Frank think you’re slacking. He takes these summer classes very seriously, and if he decides that you don’t, there’s no changing his mind.”
I appreciate how nice Yates is to me, even if it’s his job. “Thanks.”
“Don’t forget,” he warns.
“Okay, students,” Dr. Tobin says. “We’re going to enter into the main wing as a group. The professors will all engage you in discussion, but you should for the most part use this time to sketch and to contemplate the pieces. Please do not wander off.”
Everyone shuffles up a wide staircase into the main hall. On the landing, there’s a big iron statue of Diana, goddess of the hunt, with bow and arrow pointed directly at us. It’s like she’s guarding the museum. I catch myself ducking out of her aim.
We enter into the first gallery room, full of colorful paintings in gilded frames. Dr. Tobin gathers us around van Gogh’s Vase with Twelve Sunflowers. I recognize it right away. Ms. Kay has a poster of it hanging by the slop sink.
“So who can tell me the artist of this painting?”
I check to see if anyone raises their hands. But no one does. Could I possibly know something the rest of the kids here don’t? My hand tentatively leaves my pocket.
“Who painted this picture?” Dr. Tobin repeats, frustrated.
My arm is just about over my head when the entire room says “Van Gogh” in the most bored, tired voices.
It’s not that I was the only one who knew the answer. It’s the obvious one everyone knows. I run my hand through my hair to play it off, but I’m sure my red cheeks give me away.
“Now, let’s talk quickly about the Expressionist movement. Who can explain it?”
Robyn’s hand shoots up. “That’s when artists play with color and texture to express emotions in personal ways.”
“Exactly,” Dr. Tobin says. “I want you all to please look at the textures of this piece up close as we move along. Van Gogh was famous for his impasto style. Can anyone tell me what that is?”
At least five kids raise their hands.
I feel so completely ignorant. I have no idea what these words and terms mean.
Once everyone moves to the next room, I stop and stare at Sunflowers. I get close enough that my nose almost touches the canvas, so I can see the brush strokes and the energy, stuff you could never ever see on a stupid poster. Instead of feeling inspired, I feel daunted. I’ll never be this good. Why even try?
After looking at a bunch more nineteenth-century paintings, we make our way into the modern art wing.
Mr. Frank holds a hand high, calling for everyone’s attention. “We’re about to enter the Duchamp gallery.”
“This is the best freaking part of this whole museum!” Fiona says, bouncing up and down. She pulls Robyn’s arm and Robyn pulls Adrian’s arm and they weave together through the crowd.
I’m almost the last one in the gallery. I don’t know exactly what to expect with that kind of buildup, but I’m curious to know what someone like Fiona finds inspiring. All the spotlights in the room are pointed at three pedestals. There’s a bicycle wheel perched on a stool. A white porcelain urinal. Something metal and spiky that looks like a coatrack. I double-check that the walls around me are white, that there are no paintings hanging up. That this is really the stuff I should be looking at.
This gallery looks like the curbs of Blossom Manor on heavy trash day.
Mr. Frank steps forward. “These pieces are some of the most important in the history of art. These readymades were assembled between 1913 and 1917, and were a sensation at the Armory Show in New York. And see how modern, how artistically striking they still are today.”
Is this art Mr. Frank would really value, considering how intent he is on making his students produce perfect, calculated drawings?
“Would anyone like to comment?” His eyes seek me out. “Emily, what is your response to these pieces?”
My ears fill with the imagined voices of Meg and Rick, making fun of this kind of art. How Rick could go to Home Depot and buy a white toilet and put it on a block and call it art. I shift my weight. I look down into the ripped blank sketchbook pages in my hands, hoping an answer will appear.
“Emily? Do you feel like this art is meaningful?”
I don’t know what to say. I definitely don’t want to look stupid in front of everyone. My heart pounds. I search the crowd. And there’s Fiona, watching me, waiting to hear what I have to say about her favorite pieces in the whole museum.
“I’m sorry” is all I can manage. “I don’t get it.”
Mr. Frank laughs, amused. “But that’s the point, don’t you think?” A few other chuckles come from the crowd.
I shake my head. “Wait. What’s the point? That I don’t get it?”
“Exactly.”
“Well … what’s the point of us not getting it?” I ask.
Mr. Frank’s grin spreads even wider across his face. “Duchamp was playing right into this kind of thinking, questioning the notion of what can be classified as art. Thank you, Emily, for illustrating my point so beautifully.”
My face burns. Mr. Frank is basically making fun of the fact that I don’t know anything. That’s probably why he called on me in the first place. When I meet eyes with Yates, his gaze falls to the floor, no doubt wondering why he ever spent his money on a cup of coffee for me.
The attention shifts off me, and I take the opportunity to step backward into a dark doorway. I prop myself up against the wall and wait for the students to move to another section. The rest of my energy is spent fighting back tears.
The cool shadows of this room are a stark contrast to the brightly lit galleries we’ve circled through. Nothing’s hanging on the walls in this space. Have I stepped into somewhere I shouldn’t be?
I turn my head to the side and stare down a long dark corridor.
At the other end of the room is a huge barn door, made of rustic, splintered wood. Big black metal hinges bolt it to the wall. Light streams through two small knotty holes, just at eye level, tempting me to come closer.
I take a few steps but then I stop. It’s hard to explain the feelings that suddenly overwhelm me. My hands get sweaty and my heart races. It’s like I’m at home alone, and I’ve just heard a noise in the basement and I have to decide whether or not to explore. Even though I know there’s nothing to be afraid of, I still can’t will myself to move forward. I’m still scared.
“This is my favorite piece in the whole museum.” Someone struts past me. Fiona.
She walks straight up to the barn door, presses her face to the wood, and looks through the little hole. “It’s called The Waterfall. Duchamp didn’t tell anyone about it. Not his assistants, or the museum directors. He didn’t want to spoil the surprise. It took me, like, three times before I had the guts to look.”
She stands there for a few seconds, taking in whatever she’s seeing. Then she pulls away and spins to face me. “It sucks, though. As soon as you know what’s behind the door, it changes the whole experience. Once you see it, you can never go back.”
I still don’t quite have a hold of myself, and I’m sure it’s obvious. But Fiona looks at me with this sort of delighted smile, like she’s relishing my discomfort. I’m afraid she’s going to stand here and watch me sweat it out, but then Robyn and Adrian crane their heads around the wall. “You coming?” Robyn asks.
“Yeah,” Fiona says. And then she walks right past me like I’m not even there, like I’ve turned invisible.
I make sure to be the first person off the bus when we get back to the college. The other students laugh and talk behind me, discussing another night of adventures away from home. I walk until I can’t hear them, keeping my eyes locked on the William Penn statue at the top of City Hall.
Even though I’m in a rush to get to the train station, I stop in the art supply store and buy myself a sketchbook. I don’t want to be caught without it again.
Then I head toward the train, passing the people who window-shop the boutiques or contemplate the menus posted outside the restaurants. I try to be as mindless as they are, with no worries except will they buy this skirt, these pants, this blazer, or if they want a salad with walnuts. Except I can’t. I have bigger problems. Like the fact that I’ve been humiliated in front of everyone.
As I shuffle through the crowds, I come upon Fiona. I know it’s her, even from a distance, by the pink hair falling over her shoulder in a stripe. She’s got earbuds in and the music is so loud I can hear it, even though I make sure to stay two full sidewalk squares behind her.
Fiona’s ID hangs from a metal clip off her belt loop. It is red plastic like mine, which means she is also a commuter student and not living in the dorms. Which surprises me.
I take advantage of the situation and creep behind her, close. I notice things that I didn’t before. Like how the insides of Fiona’s forearms are covered in thin red scratches and scrapes. There seem to be hundreds. But they are all too small to do any kind of real damage. They’re more like tiny paper cuts.
When we both reach the train station, I let her loose in the crowd.
I sit down on a bench and wait for my train. So far, the summer program hasn’t been such a great experience. I had the opportunity to reinvent myself in Philadelphia, but it feels wasted. Maybe it’s stupid to think that was possible in the first place. You are who you are, for better or worse. That’s why there are Fionas and there are Megs and there are Emilys. Someone has to be me.
“Howdy.”
I look up. It’s Fiona. One earbud is still tucked inside her ear, one dangles down with her necklaces. The music is still on.
“Hi,” I say.
She crashes next to me. “I saw you following me before.”
“Umm … what?”
“Before. Like five minutes ago before. On the way to the train station. The sun was behind you. Your shadow gave you away.”
“I was just walking to the train station.” Fiona must think I am a complete weirdo. “So …” I say. “Sorry if you thought that.”
“Riiiiight,” she says. “Well, did you look through the door?”
I think about lying, but she’d catch me right away. “No.”
Fiona slides a black marker out of her tote bag and starts drawing candy-cane stripes on the red high heel of her shoe. “I feel bad that I left you freaking out in the gallery like that. That was kind of a bitch move.”
“I was fine,” I stress.
“Where are you from again?”
“Cherry Grove.”
“So you’re a Jersey girl, huh? I never would have guessed.”
I know this kind of joking from pretty much every bad movie and television show. New Jersey is the state everyone makes fun of. “Yeah, but Cherry Grove is actually a pretty cool place. I mean, we’ve got a Starbucks.”
“Congratulations.” I can almost hear her eyes rolling.
It’s hard, when you realize someone is trying to lead you in a conversation, but you don’t know where she wants you to go. “I’m just saying, it’s not some hick place in the middle of nowhere. It’s only thirty miles away.” I don’t know why I am defending it to her. Just to keep the conversation going, I guess.
“Don’t get defensive! I’m just saying that coming from a place like Cherry Grove to Philadelphia can be a bit of a shock to someone like you, is all.”
I’m not quite sure why Fiona cares. Or what that like you was supposed to imply. If she’s trying to say that I’m not like her, that I’m somehow different from the other people here, I already know that.
“Seriously,” I say, “I was fine.”
Fiona looks up from coloring her shoe. Her eyes bounce all over, taking me in small details. Then she shakes her head, sad, and says, “I bet you have no idea how fake your smile looks.” She’s not mean or anything. Just matter-of-fact.
It’s as if my face freezes, and my brain inside, too. And before I can thaw and answer her, say anything to her, my train rolls into the station.
“You’d better go,” Fiona announces, and she sighs when she stands back up. She’s disappointed. I’m not what she hoped I’d be.
“Okay,” I say, still smiling because it’s all I can do to keep it together. Then I take off from Fiona and walk fast to an open train door.
My train car is only half full and I have a two-seater to myself. Once we start moving, I take out my new sketchbook and a pencil, but a man across the aisle is watching me, so I put them back in the plastic bag. I’m too shy to draw here. And plus, my mind is all blurry. So I stare at my reflection in the grimy passenger window for the entire ride home.
I smile a few times. I try to figure out what it is that Fiona meant. But it just looks like me. I don’t see anything else but me.
The sunset is the same color as the thick cheese drowning Meg’s nachos — a deep, zesty orange. It burns my eyes when I stare into left field. That’s where Rick is crouched with his mitt on his knee, in a white uniform and gray baseball stirrups, haloed by a fuzz of brightness and gnats.
I lean back against the row of metal bleachers behind me. There’s just a few people at the game, mainly parents watching their sons. It isn’t like the spring, when you have rivalries with other high schools and pep rallies and everyone comes out to cheer the team on. Summer leagues are more sloppy and casual, and if you go to watch the game or even play on the team, it’s because there’s nothing else to do.
But the ball field is a welcome change from that claustrophobic Duchamp gallery. The quick flash of yesterday makes me hot with embarrassment all over again, as does my whole conversation with Fiona at the train station. I’ve been thinking a lot about what she said, trying to figure out what she wanted to hear. But I’m still clueless.
Thankfully, Fiona wasn’t in my Mixed Media class today. I don’t know how I am ever going to go back to my drawing classes on Tuesdays and face her.
The teams switch sides and everyone claps as they jog to the bench. I move my hands like a zombie along with them.
Meg taps me on the shoulder. “Okay, so let me finish my story.” She takes a deep, dramatic breath. “I’m sitting at home totally bored today. I mean, it’s just about lunch and Rick hasn’t called me once, even though I’ve texted him a million times to complain about how I had nothing to do. Then the doorbell rings and it’s Rick, with two Subway sandwiches and a huge bouquet of wildflowers that he cut from the golf course while he was working! And they just so happened to be mostly pink daisies, even though I never told him they were my favorite kind of flowers! He’s, like, psychic. And then we had a picnic right on my front lawn. Your mom saw us from across the street and was cracking up, like ‘Awww, young love!’” Meg rocks back with laughter, and the pale pink flower she has tucked behind her ear falls out onto her bare legs. She scoops it up and puts it back in place. “But seriously, isn’t that just like something a guy in a movie would do?”
Rick jogs over from the bench, steals a chip, and kisses Meg quickly on the cheek. “I actually did see that in a movie.” He smiles with pride as he chews. “A trailer actually, for that florist movie you want to see.”
Meg laughs. She doesn’t seem to mind Rick’s lack of original thought. Romance is romance, I guess.
Someone on our team strikes out. I think it’s Chad, but I can’t tell with his helmet on. A round lightbulb on the scoreboard flickers on. Two outs to
go.
“I’m thinking about quitting the summer program,” I tell Meg, when Rick returns to the bench.
“What?” Meg pulls out a nacho and a dribble of cheese slides down her fingers. She looks for a napkin. “Why?”
I hand her one and think a second, searching for a way to save face. “It’s just not like how I thought it would be.”
“What do you mean? How did you think it would be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A little less … intense. It’s like all these kids are really sure that they want to be artists. I don’t think I’m cut out for it.” I grin. “Like you said, a mohawk wouldn’t look too good on me.”
Meg doesn’t laugh at my joke. Instead, she takes a long sip of Coke. “Well, I’ll support you no matter what you decide, but I’d hate to see all your talent go to waste.”
That catches me off guard. I thought Meg would have been happy to have me back home with her. I thought she missed having me around. But maybe not. Maybe she’s doing just fine without me. “So you don’t think I should quit?”
“Do what you want, Emily. I just think you end up talking yourself out of things.”
I give her a dirty look. I can’t help it. “What?”
Meg sighs like I’m dense. “You’re, like, afraid to be good at something.”
“Umm, no.” It’s more like I desperately want to be good at something. “Meg, you don’t get it because you’ve never had to work for something you wanted.”
Her face turns pink, and her mouth puffs out like it’s full of angry words. But she must realize that I’m right, because she lets all the air out and starts over, this time with a much softer voice. “You haven’t even given the program a real shot. This is only the first week. Don’t you like any of your classes?”
I actually did like the Mixed Media class today. It was taught by two girls, Hanna and Charlotte, who had just graduated from the college last year. They seemed superexcited as they explained how many different techniques can go into a mixed media collage — painting, sculpture, screen printing — and we’d get basic instruction on all of it. It was definitely going to be more freeing than Drawing, and the rest of the kids in the class weren’t judgy or full of bravado. We all seemed like beginners.
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