Even though I’m an hour early, I find Iona sitting in her usual seat when I open the door. She gives my appearance her all-knowing look.
“Hi, Iona.” For once, I definitely don’t sound chipper, not even a little bit.
She stares at me as if I were a piece of art and she’s decoding me. “I thought you were the she-must-be-on-Red-Bull type.”
I did, too, but my pep meter is on empty.
“What’s wrong?” Iona asks. Strangely, it looks like she might actually care.
“The rain,” I answer.
But I’m also wondering what happened to no-one-can-get-a-word-in-edgewise Kitsy. I must’ve left her in Texas. Despite all of that well-meaning advice, you can’t just “be yourself” two thousand miles away. It’s just not that easy. At home, I’m a caretaker, a girlfriend, and a cheerleader. But here, I’m an aspiring artist—who goes out with a strange boy until three in the morning and then lies about it. Who you are depends on where you are. Why doesn’t anyone ever tell you that? That would have been a great piece of advice.
“You know what we say in New York? Or rather, what the gangsters say?” Iona asks.
I raise my eyebrows to show the faintest interest.
“We say fuhgeddaboudit,” Iona says, laughing. And when she laughs, her eyes get all squinty, and she doesn’t seem so intimidating.
I laugh along with her because it is sort of funny. I didn’t expect Iona to have a sense of humor, especially after our first introduction, when she grilled me on my (nonexistent) art school credentials.
“Can I see your sketchbook?” Without waiting for an answer, Iona gets up and walks across the room to me.
I don’t even have time to cover up the sketch I’m working on with my hand.
“Wow,” Iona says, picking my book off my desk. “You’re as good as the very best kids in this class, even the ones who’ve been taking classes since nursery school. But . . .”
“But what?” I ask.
“Artists who have perfect technique or who can replicate are not the ones that get noticed. Besides, technique you can learn. In person, Kitsy, you have all this energy, but your art doesn’t reflect it. If you really want to do this, you need your art to have a je ne sais quoi, a less-studied element to it.” She drops my sketch and it flutters back onto my desk.
“I’m from Texas, Iona. The Middle of Nowhere.” I hold up my index finger next to my thumb to make a point. “My entire city could fit on one city block. Work with me in English, and I’ll try to translate it into my native tongue.”
“Je ne sais quoi is French for ‘I don’t know what,’” Iona says and smiles. “It’s used to describe an intangible quality. Think about your favorite piece of art in the world. I’m willing to bet you don’t love it because of its technique. It makes you feel something even if you can’t exactly describe what it is. That’s je ne sais quoi to me.”
I think of The Starry Night, and I know that Iona’s right. While Van Gogh did have amazing technique and developed methods and a new style for painting, it’s been my favorite painting since before I knew anything about art. It made me feel something just by looking at it. The little village in the middle of nowhere reminds me of Broken Spoke, and the night sky reminds me of the world that’s bigger than Broken Spoke.
“Thanks, Iona,” I say. “It’s really kind of you to help me. And I think I know what you mean. It’s just I’m new to art as serious business. In Texas, I only sketch for myself. The only kind of public art I do is makeup for my cheerleading team. I’m still getting used to being critiqued.”
That is, being critiqued about something that I’ve created.
“New Yorkers have a lot of opinions, Kitsy. Professor P. will just be one of them. Make sure you get some thick skin, but don’t lose your sensitivity. I think that will play an important role in your art.” Then Iona leaves me to draw, her Doc Martens boots stomping as she walks away.
“By the way, you should apply for the scholarship,” Iona says as she trots up the stairs to her seat.
Wait, scholarship?
“What scholarship?” I ask. “I didn’t see anything about that in the orientation packet.”
I turn around and watch Iona sit back down, put on her glasses, and lean back. “That’s because it’s not in the orientation packet, it’s a separate application. Every year, one summer student is picked for a ten-thousand-dollar scholarship donated by an anonymous patron of the arts.”
“Ten thousand dollars?” I stammer to make sure I heard it right. That’s roughly 1,600 hours at Sonic, not including tips. Ten thousand dollars would be the difference between everything for me and my art. Not to mention my life.
“Yes,” she says. “And I’m predicting that you’ll get it. A lot of these other kids are just here because they got in, and it looks good on their already-bloated résumés,” Iona says. “None of them flew across the country to be here. I think that says something about you.”
New York keeps surprising me. Monday might’ve started with rain, but it’s getting sunnier by the second.
Professor Picasso begins Monday’s class at exactly nine a.m. “Enough with nudes, which I know must disappoint your hormones, but this week is pottery week.”
Broken Spoke High’s budget, particularly the art budget, gets slashed every year, so we definitely don’t have any art supplies other than charcoal and antique (read ancient) paint. So when our class goes into the pottery room, I almost faint when I see it. Inside, there are twenty stations, each with its own pottery wheel. This is like the new Dallas Cowboy football stadium of art rooms. (Not that I’ve been to a game there—it costs sixty dollars just to park!)
My heart starts pumping again, and I get the same rush that I did when I first came to New York, the same one I got from singing “Don’t Stop Believin’” with Tad, and the same rush I got when I realized Iona wanted to help me, because she thinks I’m a good artist.
Professor Picasso explains the terminology for, as he puts it, “those of you who might not have had the pleasures of working with clay.” I’m so excited that I find myself barely able to listen. I’ve always wanted to try throwing clay ever since I saw the classic movie Ghost with Amber on late-night TV. Amber just kept commenting on how hot Patrick Swayze was, but all I could think was I wonder if one day I’ll get to try pottery. The closest I’ve ever been to really working with clay is Kiki’s Play-Doh.
Professor Picasso stops lecturing for a moment and sits down at the wheel right next to where I’m standing.
Splashing water on the clay, he slowly begins to press the foot pedal. He explains that working with clay on a wheel is called “throwing.” As Professor Picasso gradually opens, centers, and grounds the clay from a heap into a vase, I decide that throwing is totally an inappropriate term. Watching someone work with clay on the wheel is like watching a transformation. A caterpillar to a butterfly. Michelangelo once said that he could see the object inside a block of marble, and that he’d chip and chip away until it became free. I wonder if I’ll be able to see something in this clay and figure out how to let it escape—or better yet, find the artist in me and let her be free.
As we all sit down at our individual stations, I start to forget the other stuff: Hands, Amber, Kiki, and Tad. Maybe Professor Picasso is right. You can’t multitask with art. I need to figure out how to concentrate. Maybe then I’ll find my je ne . . . whatever it’s called.
As a class, we start slowly together. We lather our clay blocks with water as if we were baptizing them. Then, Professor Picasso instructs us to put our feet on the pedal and slowly start spinning our wheels.
“Slower, slower,” he urges us. “Now press your thumbs into the center but hold on to the edges. Keep your foot on the pedal.”
Instead of looking at my own clay mound, I find myself watching the other students in the class. I see most students’ clay start to effortlessly mold into shapes. They don’t even seem nervous. Meanwhile, I can’t figure out how to concentrate on the p
edal and the clay at the same time. I feel like those kids who can’t rub their tummies and pat their heads at the same time except I’m the cheerleading captain and I’m actually very coordinated. It’s a requirement for being the top on a pyramid.
Peeking out of the corner of my eye, I notice Professor Picasso watching me. You can do this, Kitsy, I say to myself. You wanted to do this, Kitsy. As Professor Picasso hovers over me, I press as hard as I can and barely push my thumbs into the clay. I didn’t know that throwing clay required hands of steel!
“Kitsy . . . ,” Professor Picasso says calmly. “Slow the wheel, Kitsy.”
I should probably mention that I don’t have my driver’s license. You need a parent to drive with you for a hundred hours before you qualify. No way Amber’s up for that. So maybe because I’m not used to a pedal or because I’m nervous, when I hear Professor Picasso say slow, I just press down harder. Like a firecracker exploding, the clay flies everywhere. Most of it hits me, but I see one kid across the room blocking his face and I’m pretty sure a glob smacks the ceiling.
An epic flame-out. Worse than the time I crashed into a trash can and spilled a tray of milkshakes at Sonic because I was busy thinking too much about bills and not enough about Rollerblading. My cheeks go redder than the clay, my mouth drops open, and I’m totally speechless. Most of the other students stop their wheels, and it seems time is frozen. The room is silent.
Putting his hand on my shoulder, Professor Picasso explodes into laughter and the other students join him. Is this happening? Aren’t teachers supposed to keep other kids from laughing at students, not be the ones that start it? Are manners really an exclusively Southern thing?
Briefly, I envision my escape out the door, out the building, off Manhattan, and back to Broken Spoke, but I stay firmly seated. After all, Kitsy Kidd is not a quitter. And the only thing worse than staying here is running home.
“Kitsy,” Professor Picasso says, not unkindly, “this happens every year. It wouldn’t be the pottery unit if it didn’t happen at least once. Go clean up and start again.”
And just like that, everyone goes back to work, and the snickers stop.
When I pass by Iona and her almost perfect vase on the way to the bathroom, she asks me, “Do you need any help?”
“I’m good, but thanks for asking.” I really need to tell Corrinne to be nicer to her.
In the bathroom (luckily, the empty bathroom), I spend a lot of time picking the clay out of my ear, my shirt, and yes, my bra. Once I’m all cleaned up, I stare at myself in the mirror.
“What do you want, Kitsy? Why are you here?” I ask my freshly washed face.
“To be somebody. Or try to be somebody,” I reply to myself. “And remember, this is supposed to be fun, so loosen up.”
I remind myself that nothing—not fixing a leaky pipe or holding your head high as you pay with coupons at the Piggy Wiggly—flusters me, so why should this? They were laughing at the situation, not me.
Back in the classroom, I take my seat and Ford calls out to me.
“Still looking fabulous somehow, Kitsy.”
I smile until I see Professor Picasso walking over and stroking his reddish beard. “Ready for round two?” he asks and drops another slab of clay on my wheel.
“Never been so ready for anything in my life,” I lie.
Looking down at the hunk of clay, I try to remember exactly what Professor Picasso explained earlier, but all I can remember is flying clay and yelps of laughter.
I see Professor Picasso step to move around the room, and I breathe in and do something I’ve never been good at doing: asking for help.
“Professor Picasso,” I say quietly, “can you help me this time?”
With a surprised look, he smiles and says, “But of course.”
Sometimes it actually helps not to act like your usual self.
Two hours and thirty minutes (and two tries plus help from Professor Picasso) later, I’m looking at my very own clay vase. It definitely tilts a little to the left, but I have to trust myself with clay, and I find that I like that.
When Professor Picasso asks the class to put our work on a table so it can be fired in the kiln, I hesitate. I’m having total separation anxiety from my masterpiece . . . okay, from my novice-piece. Gently, I place it next to my other classmates’ work, most of which are far more advanced than mine. I’m okay with that though.
“Class, there’s more to this announcement than how to fire vases. In one hour, we’re going to have a meeting in our classroom about applying for the scholarship that our anonymous benefactor has kindly donated again. The student who has the best portfolio showing will be awarded a ten-thousand-dollar scholarship to be used toward an art education. I’ll discuss the rest of the details at the meeting. Remember, this is not for a Girl Scout patch, so only come and apply if you have serious intentions about applying to art school and furthering your art education with the goal of becoming a working artist.”
The words working artist ring in my ears like a favorite Christmas hymn. Working artist definition: someone who gets paid to do art. It almost sounds impossible that it exists—that some folks make a living from it, and even crazier, that some artists get rich doing it. Of course, that’s not why I want to be an artist. It would be amazing to work somewhere where perks include being emotionally and spiritually fulfilled. At Sonic, my only real benefits are free Frito Chili Cheese Wraps.
I figure I have enough time to go and get a snack from one of those stores that Corrinne called bodegas. They just seem like mini convenience stores to me except they don’t sell gas, which makes me realize I haven’t seen a single gas station in New York. All the cars must run just on the city’s energy. I’m going to try to channel that energy more and figure out how to infuse it into my art, not let it distract me from my art.
I pull out my cell phone as I walk into the sticky-like-a-Popsicle-wrapper summer air. I breathe a sigh of relief that the rain’s stopped, so I don’t need to open the world’s largest umbrella. Pausing, I smile as I realize that I haven’t thought about Hands, Amber, or Kiki for almost three hours. It’s not that I don’t love them, but it’s that I didn’t come here to think about them. And no thoughts about Tad or the fact that he didn’t call either. A minor victory in the Chronicles of Kitsy.
I turn on my cell phone and feel it vibrate in my hand. I brace myself for the Texts from the Spoke, and I say a silent prayer that the home front’s forecast is calm and calamity free. It’d be nice to get away from my Broken Spoke worries physically—and mentally—for at least a day.
It’s not a 580 number that pops up though; instead, a 917 number reads across my screen.
Want to play hooky? I’m in Union Square Park, watching a rousing game of chess. Find me.
I look at my watch. Tad sent me the text at two, it’s almost three, and the scholarship meeting is at four. Breathe deep, Kitsy, and pray to Cupid that he will make the pitter-pattering of your heart stop. I don’t want to have a heart attack on the sidewalk. Besides, Tad’s probably not even there anymore, I shouldn’t go anyway, and I have a devoted boyfriend writing I love you in shaving cream on the BSHS football field. But I decide that I can easily walk to Union Square, say hi to Tad if he’s still there, and make it back in time for the four o’clock meeting.
As I approach Union Square I realize why everybody falls in love with New York City. On one block alone, there are two Mister Softee ice cream trucks and a cupcake truck. A bunch of little kids are shrieking and splashing around in the fountain and a group of break-dancers perform a routine to the sounds of a boom box that’s blasting Michael Jackson.
For a second (and I’ll confess that it was barely even a full second), I take in the scene, forgetting that I came here to find Tad. I remember why I’m here when I see a cluster of people huddled around a giant chess table. A mixture of relief and disappointment washes over me when I don’t spot Tad among them.
He’s not there. Back to class, back to life, back t
o reality. Pivoting, I decide to skip the snack at the bodega and go for a cupcake from the Cupcake Stop truck. The name is telling me “Red light!” but this is probably my one and only chance to eat cupcakes out of a truck. Maybe it’s something I can bring back with me. It’d definitely make tailgating a lot more fun and would finally add some estrogen to the menu.
Waiting in line, I listen in on two friends’ lively debate over what cupcake to split. I think it’s a pretty great day when the biggest decision you have to make is choosing between baked goods. As much as I try, though, I can’t put Tad’s text out of my mind. Why would he text me on a Monday if he didn’t like me? And more important, why should I care if he does? I have less than three weeks left here, and then I go back to the last seventeen years of my life in Texas. If I’m calculating my math right, I’ll have spent less than one percent of my life here. Zero isn’t even a real number according to my algebra teacher, Mrs. DeBord.
“Next!” the lady in the truck calls out from the tiny window.
Confronted with a rainbow of mini-cupcake options, I suddenly freeze with indecision—then quickly overcome it when I see a mound of frosting topped with a giant Oreo cookie.
“Can I get one Oreo?” I ask.
As she wraps up the cupcake in pink tissue paper, my eyes stay glued to a Funfetti mini cupcake.
“Would you like the Funfetti mini, too?” the lady asks.
I nod sheepishly.
“It’s on the house, or on the truck,” she says, laughing. “It’s one of those days I feel like being nice.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, beaming. I balance in one hand two cupcakes and in the other hand, a giant umbrella.
Backing away from the truck, I start off toward school when I hear from behind me snapping to a beat I recognize:
“Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do. She looked good. She looked fine.”
I refuse to turn around. Don’t be offended, Kitsy. It’s a New York thing; men are more forward here. If anything, be complimented. Picking up the pace a bit, I use my umbrella to propel me away from the serenade.
A Long Way from You (Where I Belong) Page 12