It takes a second for it to register with me what he’s asked. “Yes. For about six months after Mom died.”
“I thought you said you lived with your friend.”
“I did, but it didn’t work out.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before?”
I shrink even farther down in the chair. “Because once you tell someone you were homeless, that’s how they see you forever. I don’t want someone looking at me and wondering if I lived in a crappy motel or a tent on the sidewalk next to heroin addicts and hookers, which I didn’t. I want people to see me as I am now, as an artist.”
He’s quiet for so long that it’s obvious he doesn’t know what to say. He thought he knew me, but now…
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he says.
My heart squeezes at the gentleness in his voice. His fingers are laced together, and he’s not quite looking at me. He knows there’s more I’m not telling him.
“People are talking about me and Iona Taylor. I should probably tell you the whole story.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” he says.
“No, I do.”
He’s mostly quiet as I share Mom’s final days, and what happened after with Iona, how I chose to sell what wasn’t mine, and how it’s come back at me.
“But you knew what you were doing was wrong,” he says, leaving the so-why-did-you unsaid.
“I can’t defend what I did. I knew it was wrong, but I needed to hold on to my car, and I was still unbelievably angry about how Iona treated Mom and me.”
He’s not looking at me, and any second now he’s going to get up and go in, thank Mrs. Mednikov for a lovely dinner, and drive off, never to trust me again.
“I don’t know what I would have done if I was you,” he says quietly. “I’m not exactly sure how I’d handle things if I was thrown out on the street.”
I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding in. Kev’s not absolving me, but he’s trying to understand. If he had any fantasies about what a good person I am, they’re gone now.
“We’ve been out here awhile,” he says, and goes to stand up. “We should probably rejoin the party.”
I reach out and touch his arm. “Wait. I need to know. Are we still friends?”
“Of course we are,” he says. “Yeah, you made a mistake, but you’re a good person. And now you’re back in school, you’re safe, you’ve got your scholarship and a place to live. You’d never do anything like that again.”
Kevin’s trying, but when he meets my eyes, I see that as sorry as he is for what I’ve gone through, he wishes I’d told him all the rumors were lies.
Long after the guests leave with groaning bags of leftovers, long after the dishes are washed and Mrs. Mednikov has gone to bed, I take out Mom’s guitar.
Last week I imagined what it would be like to have it back. To wake up in the morning and see the black case tucked safely in the corner by my bureau. I’d vowed I’d never let it out of my hands again no matter how desperate I got.
But now her guitar is on my lap, and when I picture Adam opening the case and handling it, I’m sick. I feel in a drawer for my softest tee and use it to rub his touch off the shiny blond spruce, the mahogany sides, and up the neck.
The cotton glides over the wood, erasing Adam’s fingerprints, but not his taint. I’ll never be able to look at Mom’s guitar again without seeing him.
How did he get his hands on it? The pawnshop drilled into me to hold on to my ticket. “You need this to redeem your guitar. Do not lose it,” Steve said when he handed me the pawn ticket for the loan.
I reach for my wallet, but when I thumb through it, the ticket’s gone. Adam must have gone through my wallet some night in Krell’s studio while we were cleaning up. And he found out from the ticket where I live, because my license doesn’t have Mrs. Mednikov’s address on it.
But why? Why screw up my life and then turn around and give me back Mom’s guitar? Guilt? He said he liked me.
I’m polishing the brass tuning pegs when the answer pops into my head: Adam didn’t leave me Mom’s guitar because he felt guilty. He did it to warn me that I’m as guilty as he is. He knows I’ll never sell it or give it away, and every time I look at it, it will remind me of how I got it back.
Mom tack-stitched a small pocket to the velvet lining of the guitar case so she’d have a place to keep her picks. I slip my finger inside, expecting to find a plastic pick, but instead I discover a folded paper ticket.
“Great. Paid in full,” I mutter when I see the big red stamp across it.
I screwed Krell over but can’t pay him back. My debt will never be paid in full.
I could confess before Duncan goes on exhibit in Miami. But even though it’s the right thing to do, it won’t get his painting back, or the months he spent on it, or the hundreds of thousands of dollars he’ll lose when the sale falls apart.
If I confess, we both lose, but if I keep quiet, this could all go away. The buyer gets a not-so-genuine Krell, Krell keeps his money, the gallery’s reputation is spotless, and I start second semester a sadder but much savvier girl.
Mom tut-tuts in my head. Good luck with that magical thinking, honey. Let me know how that works out for you.
Maybe Adam did commit the perfect crime, but it’s also possible he screwed up, and if he does go down for it, he’ll try to take me with him. And since he’s still around, he could be watching me right now.
I get up and snap the curtains closed.
I realize I need to arm myself—not with a gun, but with evidence that shows he exists, and that he lured me into painting the copy.
Someone has to know who Adam really is. How he got keys to CALINVA and Ofelo’s account number at Artsy. There’s got to be something I’ve missed that connects Adam and CALINVA. Adam knew Ofelo’s habits, his schedule. He could have stolen Ofelo’s account number like he stole mine.
I have no photos of Adam, and I curse myself for wiping his fingerprints off Mom’s guitar, but at least I have the sketch I made. I dig out a sketch pad and jot down notes as I try to remember as much as I can about him.
And the more I write down, the more embarrassed I am at the lies I believed and the things I refused to see.
Adam made sure no one at CALINVA saw us together. Never gave me an email address. If he had a truck, he parked it where I’d never see it. Never showed me where he lived.
He never spoke about family or friends. Never even named the photographer he supposedly worked for. The people and places he did talk about…he could have picked them up on the internet.
He planned everything down to the very last detail. Keys to the building. Ofelo’s account number. Me—his naive, pissed-off accomplice.
The only person I know who saw Adam and me together at CALINVA is Julie, and who’d believe a homeless woman?
I flip through the notes, thinking maybe I won’t need any of this. Maybe Krell will be too busy walking the show and schmoozing with the luminaries of the art world to clue in to the fake, and Adam and Duncan will fade into the sunset, leaving me free of them both.
Turns out I’m a natural at magical thinking.
I work and paint nonstop the rest of the weekend, doing day shifts at Artsy and evening shifts at La Petite Tomate, and fitting in time with Seen/Not Seen in between. The art store is as frenzied as my manager promised, but the tips from happy revelers at the restaurant will more than cover my car insurance for the next month.
The nonstop pace keeps me from obsessing about Adam and Krell. I don’t know what I should do once Krell gets back, and every time I start to think about it, my thoughts tornado around my head until I almost can’t breathe.
Kevin texts me updates about his battle to get the bugs out of Unresolved before Friday’s exhibition. I’m relieved we’re still talking, but can’t help wondering if it’s because he feels sorry for me, CALINVA’s messed-up orphan.
Sunday night, I don’t have to waitress
, so I’m deep into painting the double portrait. While the rest of my life feels like it’s about to crash, Seen/Not Seen is soaring. On the left half of the canvas where I show Julie the way I see her, my brushwork is so measured and precise it almost disappears, so she looks strangely regal as she holds up her head and her handmade sign, despite her dirty clothes and bare feet.
Tonight I attack the right side, the one that will picture Julie the way others might see her: feral and unknowable. I’ve thought and sketched and talked about this other half for so long, and now it’s time to make it real.
I squeeze a line of black paint out on the palette before I remember Krell daring me not to use that color, and I reach for my tubes of scarlet, cobalt nickel green, and ultramarine blue. I’m not sure I’m ready to abandon black, but I can at least try.
I load my brush with paint and slash the white canvas. My strokes are loose, bold, and unrelenting. The band of fur Julie wears around her head darkens until it forms a charred crown. Her face is blurred, her identity erased. Sweetie perches on her shoulder, rat teeth bared, her fur spiky and electric shocked.
I paint the sign Julie holds. HI, MY NAME IS JULIE. I HAVE CANCER. PLEASE HELP. Then I XXX over the words, obliterating her message. When I step back from the canvas to take it in, the panel is both scary and unapologetic.
I love what I’ve done, but is it enough? Krell challenged me to explore dimensionality, but where do I go from here? Is there a way I can use dimension to add a layer of meaning or force the viewer to reflect on what I’m saying?
I play with ideas for what I could add to the surface, but I don’t want to come across as copying Bernadette. My solution has to be unique. It’s late when I give up and crawl into bed.
I’m dead asleep when the answer wakes me. It’s still dark out, but I drag Mrs. Mednikov’s toolbox out to the porch. I flip the painting over and pry out the staples holding it to the supports. When the canvas is free, I cut it in half, separating the two portraits.
I set the first aside, then pick up the black-and-white one and tear at the unpainted edges, trying to shred them. I twist the canvas, ball it up until it cracks, but it’s not enough. Finally I drag a screwdriver down the face of it, gouging the paint.
When I hold it up, it’s everything I want to say about how false and mistaken this image of Julie is.
I smell coffee, and when I turn around Mrs. Mednikov is watching me from the doorway. “A breakthrough, yes?”
“Yes.” I roll the two pieces up so I can take them to work. My coworker Romy can help me fix the canvas to new stretchers. This is it.
Krell cancels Painting 101 so he can meet with us individually before the First-Year Exhibition. A sloshy feeling hits me when I note the time of my end-of-semester conference. I need to tell Krell about Duncan, but I’m afraid I’m too much of a coward to do it.
Our work is due no later than 10 a.m. on Friday, and by Tuesday everyone’s feeling the pressure. Self-medicating. Bursting into tears or hysterical laughter. It’s actually a relief to walk out of CALINVA and go work in Artsy’s pre-Christmas mania.
Taysha texts me around six. I NEED HELP. COME BY AFTER WORK?! she pleads. When I call her back, her voice is ragged, and now I know why she wasn’t in class for the last two days.
I show up with Mrs. Mednikov’s goulash still steaming under the foil cover. Taysha’s apartment is a small studio behind a garage. When she unlocks the door, her eyes are slits and her hair is a half-blown dandelion. She’s layered in sweaters, and fingerless gloves cover her hands.
A space heater rattles in the corner, but the cement floor makes my feet go cold.
The bed’s on a platform over a worktable with a sewing machine on it. Clothes hang from a makeshift rack. I set the goulash down on top of the microwave. The kitchen is a sink, a toaster oven, and a refrigerator that could fit inside a dishwasher if the place had one.
“I’m sorry,” Taysha says. “I know you’ve got your own work to do, but I’m freaking out.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m in good shape. Seen/Not Seen’s almost done.”
“I have to finish the Zoetrope Coat tonight. David Tito’s filming it tomorrow so I can make the deadline for the LA fashion scholarship.”
“Okay, we’ll get it done.”
Taysha scrubs her face with her hands. “I lost it when CALINVA announced the tuition increase. I had to bust my ass last year to get enough grants and scholarships to be able to come, and now?”
“I know. It’s crazy, right?” I can’t think of how to respond, embarrassed my scholarship protects me from tuition increases—as long as I hold on to it. “So, how can I help?” I say, turning to the fabric laid out on a folding table. I recognize the black wool as the body of Taysha’s coat and the hand-painted panels that are the insets.
“The sleeves, the collar, and the bodice are done. I painted all the panels, except the last one.” Taysha grabs her sketch pad and flips the pages until she gets to the one she wants and holds it up. “If you paint the final panel, I’ll sew the rest into the skirt and then finish sewing the pieces together.”
I take the sketch from her and my stomach sinks. I wish she’d asked me to do anything else.
Taysha sees me hesitate. “What’s the matter?”
Me painting her design on the fabric is not cheating, I tell myself. It’s her idea. I’m just executing it. “Nothing. It’s all good.”
Taysha lays out the fabric for me. Her sketch is to scale and she’s worked out all the colors. I mix the paint to match the sketch and think through how to begin. Taysha’s sewing machine growls, and the backs of our folding chairs almost touch.
“How was Thanksgiving?” she says.
“It was really nice. Mrs. Mednikov invited a ton of people for dinner and Kevin came.”
“Kevin? I thought he went home to Kansas.”
“Nah. He had too much work.” I pause before adding, “But I think there’s a girl.”
The sewing machine stops. “Pray tell.”
I start painting a corner of the pie-shaped panel, and the sewing machine hums along thoughtfully as I fill Taysha in on my conversation with Kevin’s sister. When I describe the midnight food-truck runs, there’s an edge in my voice that surprises me.
“Hmm. I have to wonder if Toby got the story right,” Taysha says. “She wouldn’t be the first fifteen-year-old to invent a romance.”
“Well, someone’s been bringing him bagels.”
“How are things between you and Kevin?” she asks.
I go to answer, and the words catch in my throat. “I’m not sure where Kevin and I stand exactly. We had a long talk about what happened with my mom and my problems with Iona…”
“And?”
“You know Kevin. He was perfectly nice, trying not to make me feel bad, but the way he looked at me—it was like he wasn’t sure who I was anymore.”
“You’re afraid of losing him.”
Her words hit me harder than I could have guessed. “We’re not together, Taysha.”
“Do you know how you really feel about him?” Taysha says quietly. “Because it looks to me like you’re avoiding the question.”
I turn back to the panel. “You’re probably right,” I murmur.
Thoughts roll in my head like waves while I paint. I’m not sure I can trust my feelings when it comes to Kevin. I had Krell all wrong, Adam all wrong.
So how do I really feel about Kevin?
My knees don’t buckle when I see him, I don’t lie awake thinking about him, but when I walk into class and he’s not there?
Kevin’s the spot of red in a green painting that brings it to life. He changes how I look at things, and he makes me feel seen.
Kevin would never lie to me. He’d tell me the truth, even if it was hard for me to hear. And he’d try to be kind.
I imagine him walking through the butterfly grove with someone else, and my heart squeezes. “I really like him,” I admit to Taysha.
She smiles as she bites
through a thread. “Thought so.”
We go back to work, and I’m painting in the tiny details when Taysha asks if Tara’s gotten back to me about repaying Iona. “Not yet. I still don’t know how I’m going to come up with the money.”
“Maybe you don’t offer her money.”
“I offer her what instead?”
“A big-ass portrait.”
I start to laugh. “You’re insane.”
“Don’t laugh! I’m serious. Iona Taylor’s a diva, and what do divas want? They want to be seen! I bet if you offered to paint a life-size portrait of Iona, she’d snap it up.”
What Taysha’s saying starts to sink in. Everyone wants to be seen a certain way. Iona wants people to see her as a star. “That’s not a terrible idea. Especially if I could paint her in that dress. I bet there’s a pic of her wearing it online.”
“More like a thousand. She wore it on the red carpet.”
By midnight, we’re both exhausted, but Taysha’s finished the coat—the outside, at least. “I can line it after David photographs it. See what you think.”
She puts her arms in the sleeves and hands me her phone. “I need to see if it works,” she says, and starts to twirl. The Zoetrope Coat flares and the panels emerge from the folds. Like a flip-book, a story unfolds: A girl rises from the ground, her wrists in chains, then she surges into the air and the chains break. Fist raised, she transforms from captive to superhero.
I beam, watching Taysha spin on the screen. “It works, it’s amazing,” I say.
“I’m going to make T-shirts,” she says. “I’ll pay you royalties for using your artwork.”
“No, no way,” I tell her. “Your design. You own it. I was just the hands.”
“Then let me dress you for the exhibit.” Taysha reaches into the clothing rack and pulls out a dress. “You think that girl Kevin’s supposedly seeing will show up in anything that can compare to this?”
“No way.” I pull off my sweater and slip the sheath over my head. The brown leather is as thin as paper and it shapes to me. It’s a riff on flapper style, if flappers wore brass buckles on their hips. “Are you sure?”
What I Want You to See Page 19