“I’m jealous. I wish I’d applied when you did,” I said. “I don’t even know what I was thinking. Waiting tables and following Clint around.”
“Nah, it was probably meant to go that way for you. Your work is going to be really mature now. And you’ll appreciate school more, you know?”
“If I get in.” I looked at the floor.
Micah shrugged. “I was waitlisted for three semesters. But it wasn’t that bad. Plus, aren’t you busy making those accessories?”
The way she said “those accessories” made me wrinkle my nose.
“Not that busy,” I said. “But it pays my bills, so…” My speech trailed off and I shrugged.
“Yeah, that’s cool. I thought about just throwing some pots, glazing them, and seeing if I could get some of those shops on Central to sell them, but I don’t know. I’ve been reading this one blog about fine arts career management and she’s real big against diluting your brand.”
“Diluting your brand?” That sounded like one of Sophie’s buzzwords. “Whatever. I don’t have to wait tables any more so it’s cool.”
“Absolutely,” Micah said. Her smile felt patronizing, but maybe it was my imagination.
The romantic feeling I had about her studio and her creative lifestyle dulled a little when she told me about her day-to-day life as a student. There were deadlines and meetings with mentors and more paperwork than any student should have to deal with. Plus she was racking up some debt and living on a stipend that was way smaller than my monthly expenses.
Then there was the fundraising factor. It sounded like she had to go to different soirée with the art department’s benefactors. She was supposed to talk to them about her projects. She didn’t exactly use the phrase “sucking up,” but that’s sure what it sounded like.
“You’ll love it,” she said as she rinsed off a handful of sculpting blades and arranged them in a dish-drying rack. “You do a little bit of collaboration with the other artists and there’s just a great energy here.
“I mean, if I get inspired and want to stay up all night working on something, I have the freedom to do that. I’ve got 24-7 access to my studio and—even though I do have to keep some appointments—my days are really flexible. Well, except when I’m doing the teaching assistantship.”
Ew. Teaching. I hadn’t even thought of that.
I had a studio at my house. One of the reasons I bought it was because it has an enclosed side porch. The realtor had apologized for its poor climate control but I knew as soon as I stepped inside that it would be a perfect studio. I worked in it regularly the first few months I lived there. I was working on a series of sculptures exploring innocence and incomplete parenting.
But gradually I began doing my work at the kitchen table. The studio wasn’t very pet friendly and it was too far from the coffee maker. Beadwork and jewelry design really didn’t require a studio anyway. And my kitchen has great light.
I never got inspired and stayed up all night working on anything. Except entire TV series on Netflix.
Micah and I made some tentative lunch plans for next week and then I headed toward the registrar’s office to see if my safety office payment had gone through and I could finally get my transcripts released.
I knew I was returning to the registrar’s office on a day that Lee was working. I told myself that I planned things that way because it would be simpler to deal with someone who already knew my situation. Not because Lee seemed kind and was handsome and was probably the most interesting man I’d met in at least a year. Or, you know, the only man.
I worked with women, making products for women. Women were really the only humans I interacted with on a regular basis. No wonder I fell into a rut with Clint. About a year ago Sophie had urged me to try online dating, so I did. But my only matches were either college kids or men who lived two hours away.
Lee smiled when he saw me. He could definitely be a toothpaste model. I thought I saw a little light in his eyes too. It had to be more than his go-to customer service smile.
I smiled reflexively and then quickly looked down at the papers I was holding. I told myself to get a grip and at least pretend I wasn’t enthralled by the novelty of any male member of our species.
“Hey,” he said, still smiling. “Get things taken care of at the safety office?”
“I hope so.” While he was typing my student ID into his computer, I realized this might be the last time I needed to come to the registrar’s office for a long time.
Lee kept his eyes on his screen while he typed. I leaned on the counter and pretended to be interested in one of the stacks of brochures that was sitting there. Finally he gave me a consent to sign and took my $15 processing fee. The interaction seemed so businesslike, maybe I had misread him last time. He did ask me to call him, right? I guess I probably should have called him.
Time to stop overthinking and just jump in.
“So. Any new developments in ancient societies?” I asked while I folded my receipts and shoved them into my bag.
“Of course,” he said with a bigger smile than I’d seen from him so far. “However, you and I might have slightly different ideas about what new is. I’m actually planning a research trip to an archeological site in West Virginia.”
“Oh, that’s cool. I’ve done a couple of arts and crafts fairs there,” I said. “I have a little side gig making jewelry and women’s accessories and stuff.”
Lee raised his eyebrows. “Really? I’ll have to look you up. My sister’s birthday is next week.”
“Sure,” I said. I gave him our web address and asked what type of jewelry his sister likes.
Lee shrugged. “I don’t really pay attention to that stuff. She does wear necklaces. Sometimes. I think.”
“On second thought, skip the web site. I have a ton of samples at my house,” I said. “Um. How about I bring a few pieces here—or we could meet for coffee—and we’ll pick something out for her?”
“Sure,” he said.
Now it was my turn to smile a big smile.
4.
People always assume Sophie and I are sisters. It’s been that way our entire lives.
We’re both brunettes with freckles and we have similar body types—boyish. That might explain why people think we’re sisters. But there’s probably a little more to it. I think we’re at ease with each other in a way that only siblings usually are. And we’ve probably picked up each other’s mannerisms over the years.
Our friendship predates our ability to remember things. My mom says Sophie and I started playing at each other’s houses as soon as we were out of diapers.
We grew up in one of those suburban townhouse developments outside of Pittsburgh. Those places are cute, but all of the houses look the same. You could get hopelessly lost on your own street.
The back of my house and the back of Sophie’s house faced each other. There was a lawn and some playground equipment in between them. It was about a 40-second walk, or a 20-second sprint, from one back door to the other. We timed it. And we counted the steps: 60.
Sophie’s parents split up when she was a baby and her mom worked a lot. My parents divorced right before we started kindergarten. After that, my mom worked a lot, too.
Weekdays after school were the best. Sophie’s mom was into health food. My mom was into convenience. So we spent our afternoons at my house eating Doritos and making fun of the people on those dramatized small claims court shows.
My dad was ok about visiting me. I spent one or two weekends a month at his house with his wife and her son, who’s five years older than me.
Sophie went for visits with her dad, but not as often as I did. Sometimes he came to pick her up when he was supposed to. Sometimes he was late. Sometimes he just didn’t show up.
One Friday afternoon in sixth grade, I was in my kitchen, moping because I wouldn’t see Sophie until Monday morning at the bus stop. As I stood over the kitchen sink, eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon and gazing across
the lawn, I noticed something bright pink crumpled up under Sophie’s back deck. It was something that hadn’t been there before.
I squinted and tried to see what it was. When we were smaller, that spot had been our clubhouse. But we’d outgrown clubhouses a couple of years ago. When I looked again, I thought I saw the pink thing move.
I went out my back door, my snack still in my hands. A fine, almost imperceptible drizzle was falling. When I got closer to Sophie’s house, it was easy to see what the pink thing was. It was Sophie’s jacket and she was in it. She had her knees folded up to her chest under the jacket. Her arms were wrapped around her knees. Sophie had her hood up and her forehead was resting on her arms. If it weren’t for the sneaker toes poking out and a rope of soggy brown hair hanging out of her hood, I wouldn’t have been sure there was a person inside that jacket.
My feet crunched the gravel under the deck and I sat down beside her, the seat of my jeans becoming instantly soggy. I leaned back against the brick exterior of her house and felt my sweater snagging on the rough surface.
“I thought you were an Easter egg,” I said.
There was a sniffle as a pointy elbow jabbed my arm.
I wiped off my spoon on my sleeve and stuck it in the jar of peanut butter. I held the jar toward her.
“Want some?”
She lifted her head. Her entire face was puffy and her eyes were red.
“I’m not gonna lick a spoon you already licked,” she said. “You’re gross.”
I shrugged and resumed eating. “More for me.”
We sat quietly for a long time. Then she leaned her head on my shoulder.
“My dad was supposed to be here an hour ago,” she said. “I called him. He said he can’t come.”
“People suck,” I said, almost whispering. “I guess dads are people.”
***
The shoppers of the Spruce Woods Arts and Crafts Festival were a parade of pretentious yuppie consumerism. It was the last weekend in September. Even though it had been a dry month, many of the women wore their $200 Wellie rain galoshes because that’s what Pinterest says rich ladies must wear to fall festivals.
It was only noon and I could tell Sophie was getting a little tired of my snark. I’d just said something about people flaunting wealth to make up for the fact that they’re boring and ugly when I got a good eye-roll from her.
“So what? It’s the American way,” she said.
“True.”
The cool morning mist had burned off and it was starting to get hot. I looked at my unadorned left wrist in dramatic fashion.
“Do you know what time it is?”
Sophie puckered her lips. “We are working. Absolutely not.”
I pointed at my wrist where a watch should be. “But it’s time. Come on. You know the rules.”
She turned away from me. I could tell she was hiding a smile.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said.
“Say it.”
“No.”
I shoved my naked left wrist in her face. “Say. It.”
She finally giggled and rolled her eyes. “It’s wine-thirty.”
I grinned. “Be right back.”
There was an entire aisle of tent-booths dedicated to the various Lake Erie wineries. And they all had free samples. Of course with lunchtime approaching and the clientele’s proclivity for alcohol, there was a much bigger crowd here than around our booth.
As I was standing in line to buy a bottle of the strawberry wine Sophie and I had loved last year, I noticed a man wearing brown loafers, dark jeans, and a shirt and tie with his sleeves rolled up. He was talking with a woman who looked like she could be the proprietor of one of the wineries. He pointed to something on his iPad.
He had auburn hair and a crooked smile. He wasn’t classically handsome, but there was something endearingly attractive about him. His clothes were pretty unusual for this sort of event. The woman he was talking with kept smiling and nodding. I wondered if he was a politician.
I went back to my Jeep and opened the back. I poured some wine into travel mugs I’d brought, ate a sandwich I’d packed, and got another sandwich to give to Sophie.
As I walked back toward our booth I saw a small crowd around it. Business had been steady all morning, but never like this. That’s how it is at these festivals: you sit and wait and then one person shows up. Then someone sees that person and wonders what they’re on to, then it snowballs. Seemingly for no reason.
My stomach suddenly felt like it had looped itself into a tiny, guilty knot. I had been goofing around and Sophie was slammed. I hurried to the booth, stashed the food and drinks I was carrying in a cooler under the table, put on my best customer service smile, and got to work.
A new line of infinity scarves I’d made was selling really well. They were in neutral colors with a bold, contrasting-colored ribbon whipstitched around one edge. The materials to make those were less than two dollars but they sold for $20. And it only took about 10 minutes to make one.
Sophie rang up a $200 order and, when she turned around to get a paper bag, she winked at me. I guess she wasn’t mad about me leaving for too long.
It was two hours later and 10 degrees hotter before the crowd dissolved and we were able to sit down and taste the strawberry wine.
“You’re really on it today,” Sophie said.
“What do you mean?”
“You can be, like super charming with the customers sometimes,” she said. “It’s like, sometimes you forget that you’re selling a product and you just talk about all the cool stuff you make. It’s sincere and people know it.
She tipped her mug of wine toward me. “Those are the people who become loyal customers.”
I nodded. She was right. Sometimes Sophie got me worried about earning back our entrance fees and expenses for coming to events like this and I tried to push the expensive stuff. Other times social anxiety got the best of me and I used every imaginable excuse to get away from the booth. But whenever customers had sincere questions or feedback about my designs, I could actually enjoy talking to them.
“Good wine,” she said. “Thanks.”
I was telling Sophie I was already hungry again, wondering how long the kettle corn line was, when a man walked up to our booth. It was the politician-looking guy I’d seen earlier. He had a purposeful gait, not the annoying, meandering mosey that most shoppers here used.
“Hi. I’m Tommy Patterson,” he said, extending his hand while he was still two steps away.
Sophie stood up and smiled. I tried to hold back the sneer I felt coming on.
After introductions, he explained that he represents Art Cloud, some sort of “collaborative space for independent artisans.” I didn’t totally catch the point of Art Cloud. There was something with a shared website and shared marketing and he said “investment” one too many times.
“Sounds a lot like Etsy,” I said flatly. I liked Tommy—he was a cutie and he was obviously working hard on a hot Saturday afternoon. But I didn’t like his pitch. Something smelled.
To Tommy’s credit, he didn’t really get defensive when he corrected me. He explained that Art Cloud buys 60% ownership of the businesses that join. It handles marketing, retailing, bookkeeping, and distribution so the “artisans can focus on what you do best.”
Sophie was more polite than I was in rejecting Tommy.
She shook her head. “I’m flattered that you appreciate our products and our platform and everything, but Candy Blue is not for sale.”
Tommy didn’t push the issue too much.
“I understand,” he said. “We have a group of really enthusiastic investors. They have a huge commitment to artisans retaining their creative integrity. They’ve also made a big commitment financially. So if you think it over and change your mind—if you want to hear what numbers we have in mind, get in touch.”
He handed both of us a business card and pamphlet and said goodbye, stopping to look at a couple of my necklace/earring sets on his
way out of the tent.
“Say ‘artisan’ one more time, dork,” I said quietly to Sophie as soon as Tommy was out of earshot.
She giggled and we tapped our plastic wine mugs together.
5.
My MFA application checklist was looking pitiful. I had started the application process three weeks ago, but all I had completed so far was having my transcripts sent from the registrar’s office to the Graduate Studies office. Kind of a short trip for those records to take considering it cost me $125 in parking fines and the $15 processing fee.
I hadn’t started on my CV, my portfolio, references, “statement of purpose” or any of the other crap they wanted. The only thing I’d really accomplished since I announced rather publicly that I was going back to school was daydreaming. I was an expert daydreamer on the topic of my days as a fancy master’s degree art student and of course my forthcoming wild success as a professional artist.
I whipped up stories about having my own gallery among the boutiques on Central Avenue. I would be interviewed for magazines, invited to be a guest lecturer at art schools, and of course travel to shows and conventions all across the country. And Europe. May as well dream big if I’m dreaming at all.
I had tried to start gathering my four letters of reference but so far it wasn’t going too well. My mentor and favorite professor was out of the country on sabbatical. Another one of the professors I knew well had died last year. Of course I missed the memo and spent a week being alternately hurt and angry that he ignored my email before I found out why.
During the four years since graduation, I had acquired exactly zero professional art contacts. Immediately after graduation I slipped into a bit of a Clint/waitressing/too much alcohol spiral. The thing that pulled me out of the failure spiral was the advent of Candy Blue.
I tried to figure out how I could use my (ok, Sophie’s) business contacts for a reference. But making jewelry, purses, and scarves simply didn’t give me any credibility in the arena of fine arts. Unless you’re talking folk art. But my stuff was too pedestrian for even that.
There was Dr. Hurley. She might give me a reference. Or she might remember giving me a C in printmaking. Or the time I told her how I felt about the C in an ill-advised angry email. Professor Arnett seemed to like me ok, but I only had one class with him. Would he even remember me?
Designing Morgan Page 3