“Yes, he said you progressed, but he was not the teacher you needed.”
I’d love to ask Steam how Krell’s doing. Taysha told me she heard he’s in therapy. But I sense Steam’s told me all he intends to about Krell. “When would you need me to start?” I ask.
“Is next week too soon?” he says. “I have a vision of a new painting and it’s holding me captive.” He smiles as if he knows I know what it feels like to be the prisoner of art.
I smile back. “I think I can make it happen.”
We sit and talk through how he likes to work: a few hours in the morning, a break for lunch and a nap, and a few hours in the afternoon. I’d be free to stay and work on my own paintings during the break. Five days a week, no nights, weekends off to rest.
When I get to my car, I’m so high I toss my portfolio in the back and throw my arms in the air. “Yes!”
“Yes, yes, yes,” I cry as I steer the car up the drive. My heart is swallow-swooping, and I have to share this unbelievable turn of fortune. I can’t even make it back to Pasadena before I pull over.
I take out my phone and message Taysha to call me as soon as she gets out of class. I hit send, and my thumbs hover over the keys. There’s one more person I long to share this with, but it’s been over a month since we last talked, and I’m not the one who decided we were done.
I stow my phone in my purse and pull back onto the road. A hawk glides down the canyon and rises over my car. He circles in front of me, riding the currents like he weighs absolutely nothing.
Saturday morning, I slip on my oldest, softest shirt and ease it over the tattoo on my wrist. The skin is still tender as I rest my finger on the word inked in cadmium green: CLARITY.
When I walk into the kitchen, a donut is waiting on a plate by the coffeemaker, and because Mrs. Mednikov had breakfast hours ago, I know the donut is for me. I break off a small piece and it crumbles on my tongue, tasting of cinnamon and apple cider.
The thaw between us began two nights ago when I came back from working with Willy Steam. “There is soup,” she said as I walked in the door. My heart skipped a beat because it had been weeks since we last ate together, but I tried to sound nonchalant. “I’d love some. I’ll set out the bowls.”
Our conversation over dinner was tentative, as if she didn’t want to promise and I didn’t want to disappoint. We passed each other questions like fragile china plates. She pretended she was only mildly interested in my enigmatic boss, but I saw right through her.
I pour some coffee and carry the donut to the porch, ready to tackle my new work in progress. Since I delivered Iona’s portrait, I’ve been free to paint what I want.
It’s only been a couple of weeks since I began assisting Willy Steam, but the give-and-take between us as we break down a face and reinterpret it in color and shape feeds my painting in a way CALINVA never did.
The morning sun bathes my canvas in golden light, highlighting the areas that still need work. The composition of my newest self-portrait isn’t the problem. I stand in the gray-black ashes of a house, gazing at the viewer, my left hand stroking a bluebird nestled in the hair on my shoulder.
Tired but not broken is what I want the eyes to convey, but I haven’t nailed them yet.
I prep my palette and am deep into painting when a movement in the garden catches my eye. I glance over, expecting Mrs. Mednikov, but it’s not her, it’s Kevin.
What the hell?
I draw in a breath, and push back the tears that would fill my eyes if I let them. CALINVA students are back from break and Taysha told me she’d seen Kev around campus, but I didn’t expect to hear from him, not after his monthlong silence. And to show up like this?
The screen door squeals as I push it open. I stand on the top step, my hand locked on the handle. “Why are you here?” It comes out harsher than I mean it to, but so what.
Kevin sways a little and takes a half step back. “I guess I should have called, but I thought…”
You thought I’d hang up.
“Stephania told me you were out on the porch so I…” He raises his hands in surrender.
My heart is still bruised, and it would be easier if I hated him, but I don’t. Kev’s got something to say, and maybe I’m being weak, but I want to hear it. “You can come in.”
Kevin’s careful not to touch or even brush against me as he comes up the steps, but when he sees my canvas, he walks right up to it. I close the screen and hang back by the door.
He shoves his hands deep in his jeans and leans in until his nose almost touches the surface. “This is—what you’re doing with color and shape, it’s—really different.”
His mouth hangs open and I don’t fight the pride I feel at how the painting affects him. “Thanks. I don’t know if you heard, but I got a job as Willy Steam’s assistant. I’m learning a lot about technique.”
Kevin continues to study my painting, his eyes tracing the lines of the figure until they focus on the face. “It’s not just the technique that’s different. You seem like you’re in a better place.”
“Getting there.”
He shifts from foot to foot, and I sense he wants me to help him out and make this easier, but he’s just going to have to suck it up and say what he came here to say.
After a long moment, Kev finally meets my eyes. “I had a lot of time to think over the break, and I realized I owe you an apology. You didn’t go looking for a way to screw Krell, and you’d never have painted that copy if that guy hadn’t set you up. I refused to see that, and I’m sorry.”
I nod, not sure how to answer.
Kevin’s apology doesn’t erase the hurt I felt when he abandoned me, but at this moment I feel as if he sees me—not the me I pretended to be for him or the me he believed I was, but the real me.
He takes a step toward the screen door. “Okay, well, I guess I should go.”
Something pulls in my chest, and I press down with my fingers to quiet it. He reaches for the handle, and as his hand closes around it, I realize what I want.
“There are apple cider donuts,” I say. “Mrs. Mednikov made them fresh.”
His eyes relax, and his lips curve into a tentative smile, and I offer him one back. We turn and he follows me into the sunlit kitchen.
I don’t know where this will take us. Maybe we can recover, and maybe we can’t, but wherever we go from here, I intend to show Kevin the me that is real, the one that is flawed and sometimes ugly, light and dark, honest and true.
Author’s Note
When we picture people who are homeless, we usually don’t think of college students. They don’t match stereotypes we have in our heads or stand out on campus, but are often invisible, hoping to appear normal and fit in.
Today, an estimated sixty thousand college students in the US struggle with housing and food insecurity. Lacking the financial resources to pay for a dorm room or apartment, they are forced to couch-surf or sleep in a library or car, or to decide whether to pay their rent or their utility bills. They may skip meals and go hungry. Some cannot afford to buy textbooks because what little money they have must go to food.
These students can be found at top state universities as well as local community colleges. Many work and receive student aid, but it is not enough to cover all their expenses, especially if they are young parents or help support other members of their families.
But students like you are making a difference at their schools right now. Here are a few examples of what is happening on campuses today.
Food pantries where students can come to get free food and toiletries have been created at 350 colleges across the country, and more are under way.
At a number of campuses, students donate the unused portions of their meal plans to support the campus food bank.
Inventive students around the US have created social media apps so a student can invite a peer for a meal in a campus dining hall, or alert hungry students to leftover food from a catered event, or connect food banks with local rest
aurants so unused food can go to those who need it.
A growing number of schools are helping students find temporary housing when they have been displaced. In 2016, a UCLA graduate student opened the first of two shelters in Los Angeles for homeless college students.
Staff and volunteers at campus resource centers are helping students sign up for government programs that assist with food, child care, rent, utilities, and medical expenses.
How can you get involved?
In November, take part in your local Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week activities such as a food and clothing drive. See HHweek.org for more information.
Check out what programs are available on your campus already and volunteer, donate, or increase awareness.
To learn how to set up a food bank on your campus, download a free Toolkit for Campus Food Pantries from the Student Government Resource Center at studentgovresources.org.
To raise donations for your campus food bank, download a free toolkit from CUFBA, the College and University Food Bank Alliance.
You can make a difference!
Acknowledgments
What I Want You to See is about perception: how we view the world, how we want to be viewed, how we succeed or fail to perceive what is right in front of us.
And because it’s nearly impossible for writers to see clearly what we’ve written, we depend on our editors and fellow writers to tell us if we haven’t yet gotten what’s swirling around our brains down on the page.
I was truly fortunate to be paired with a great editor who saw my novel’s potential. If there’s a master artist among agents, it’s Sarah Davies, who matched What I Want You to See with Laura Schreiber.
Laura pushed me to go deeper and refine what I’d only sketched. She challenged me to paint my characters more subtly and saved me from my worst creative impulses. Thank you, Laura. This book is ten times better because of you.
Thank you to the Freeform team. Mary Mudd offered knowledgeable insights and penetrating questions. Jamie Alloy brilliantly translated the spirit of my book into a cover that makes people say, “Wow!” Dina Sherman connected What I Want You to See with librarians, the connoisseurs of YA art.
Many thanks to Leda Siskind and Nina Kidd, who soldiered through the first semi-opaque drafts. Thanks also to Victoria Van Vleet, Karen Sampson, Kendra Kurosawa, and Bill Povletich, who helped define the early pages. The story benefited from the invaluable perspectives of Rebecca Maizel, Lynn Becker, Kris Vreeland, Eric Talkin, Larissa Theule, Nicole Maggi, and Julie Berry. But of all my writer friends, Tami Lewis Brown deserves a crown of laurels for reading the full manuscript three separate times.
Thank you to art experts Will Brown, Raissa Choi, Inez Litas (Liparini Restoration Studio), and Barbara Santucci, and to my legal eagle, Sue Wright. Sabine would not be as well-drawn if it were not for Joseph Wiederhold and Angela Sanchez, who illuminated the emotional life of a homeless teen by generously sharing their experiences.
Very special thanks to Kayla Cagan, Kim Purcell, Carrie Arcos, Mary McCoy, and Elle Cosimano for their support.
Since songs can illuminate character, I’m overjoyed that Mandolin Orange gave me permission to use a line from “One More Down,” written by Andrew Marlin. Thank you, Andrew and Jimmy Rhine, for your kindness.
This book is dedicated to my brothers and sisters. You’ve always made me feel loved, but the depth of your support has both surprised and touched me.
And to Bob, thank you for giving me the time and space to write, and for always saying, “You should do that.” I couldn’t have done any of this without you.
CATHERINE LINKA is the author of A Girl Called Fearless, an Indie Next Pick and winner of the Southern California Independent Booksellers Award, and its sequel, A Girl Undone. She has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Visit her online at www.catherinelinka.com or on Twitter @cblinka.
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