I pondered that as we hung the rest of the paintings and then stood back to give the room a look. I gasped. My woman moved through the various stages of her life, growing up and then growing older, lines appearing in her face, along with the first few gray hairs.
I clutched his arm. “Do you think this is me? Tell me honestly, okay? Because that’s what everyone sooner or later says.”
“It’s cool.” He patted my arm and made cooing noises. “We always fear our subconscious.”
I had no idea what he meant.
“You need to go get high, have a drink or two, bleep out for the afternoon.” I didn’t say anything. “Yeah, it’s you,” he finally said. “So what? We can’t escape the self. It’s the whole basis behind art. If we didn’t feel conflicted, we wouldn’t bother picking up a paintbrush.”
I thanked him for his help, told him I’d see him at the opening, and slipped out the door. The sun glistened tiny sparks in the snow, so everything looked magical, like jewels shining. I was halfway to the anthropology lab before I realized where I was going. Francisco opened the door on the first knock. “I’m making oatmeal,” he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to find me at his workplace cradling his bone against my chest. “It’s microwaved, but I added nuts and dried fruit.”
I followed him inside the dusty lab and sat at a table covered with massive, curved bones. “Whale ribs,” he said. “Aren’t they beautiful?” He placed two bowls of oatmeal between the ribs and sat down at his cluttered desk.
“I brought your bone back. Thanks.” I set it down carefully on a pile of papers. “The craziest thing happened.” I sat down on the arm of his chair. “I saw my aunt in the gallery bathroom, sitting on the toilet seat, perfectly alive.” I stopped for a minute, unsure if I should go on. “She told me she was shot smuggling papers for the Polish resistance.”
“The Żegota,” he said.
“You know?”
“I researched it in college, for my junior project. I was looking for my grandfather’s brother.”
“You’re not Polish.”
“Norwegian Jew. An uncle on my mother’s side was killed in the camps.”
“Shit.”
“That’s probably why I do this, you know, reconstruct the past.” He nodded in the direction of the whale bones. “I’m trying to make sense of why things happen. Why death happens, but also life. It’s kind of amazing when you think about it.”
“So you believe in ghosts?”
He reached over and pressed my hand between his palms. “No, not ghosts. I believe we carry the memory of our ancestors in our genes and sometimes, maybe when we are weak or our defenses are down, we pick up fragments of the past, you know, like a radio station late at night.”
“So I imagined it all?”
“We see what we want to see.”
“It’s almost my opening,” I whined. “I just wanted to be happy.”
Francisco rubbed his thumb over the vein in the back of my hand because he knew me well enough to know that happiness is the last thing I want. Oh, it’s so simple, love. It’s not what they tell you, fireworks and ripping each other’s clothes off. That might happen in the beginning, but it’s not the whole story. Real love is quiet and simple. It’s someone holding your hand and allowing you to be snotty when you’re scared. It’s someone not letting go.
College art school replies: Letters #13, #14, and #15
Dear Carla Richards:
The admissions committee has reviewed your application and regrets that it is unable to offer you a place in the California College of the Fine Arts Fall program.
While your work is strong in design elements, it lacks basic compositional focus.
We wish you luck in your academic future.
Dear Carla Richards:
After reviewing your application we regret that we must decline admission to the Seattle School of Art program.
We found your work strong in compositional focus yet lacking in design elements.
We wish you success in your artistic endeavors.
Dear Carla Richards:
The selection committee has reviewed your application and regrets that it cannot offer you a position at the Idaho School of Art and Photography.
Your work showed strong design and compositional focus yet lacked basic line structure.
We wish you the best in all your artistic pursuits.
Thursday, March 2
Holy fucking shit, tomorrow is the opening.
Someone help me, okay. Please?
Please.
Chapter 29
Friday, March 3
“MOM, DID YOU SEE THIS? Mom?” Jay-Jay shook me awake early in the morning, so early it was still dark. “Mom, you’re in the paper. Your face is on the front page.”
“Wh-what?” I sat up and Jay-Jay shoved the newspaper into my hands. My face smiled out from the middle. LOCAL ARTIST SHOWS A SASSIER WAY TO PLAY WITH DOLLS, the headline blared.
“Uh-oh, this is not going to be good,” I muttered.
“They spelled your name wrong once and said we lived in a manufactured home, not a trailer,” Jay-Jay said, “and they called the restaurant an upscale Mexican establishment, but other than that it’s okay.”
“Shit.” I scratched my leg. “Why are you up so early?”
“I’m bidding on fruit-fly accessories on eBay.” Like mother, like son. I skimmed the article. The reporter had gotten most of the quotes right, but the angle was wrong. It was as if he was writing about me the way he wanted me to be, not the way I really was. Still, the photograph of my painting was great, and it took up almost half the page. The downside was that he used the word erotic five times, pornography three times, and dirty dolls twice.
“I hope this doesn’t negatively influence you at school.”
“Are you kidding? Mrs. Clampsen will drool the next time you come in. She goes overboard when she’s around hotshots. You know the coolest thing?”
“What’s that, honey?” I decided to make French toast to celebrate my opening. I doubted I could eat a bite, but cooking would tame my nerves.
“This means I’m probably going to get into the Berkeley program. Stephanie won the poetry contest, you got your show, Aunt Laurel got pregnant, and Dad got a woman.” He counted off on his fingers. “Next is my turn.”
“You’ll get in,” I reassured him. “Your essay was brilliant.”
“You’re my mom, you have to say that.”
“No, I don’t.” Jay-Jay had written about the sea otter at the Alaska SeaLife Center down in Seward that had gotten trapped in the drainage pipe and died two days after we had gone down to see it. The essay was funny, spirited, and sad enough to bring tears to my eyes. “You just may grow up to be a writer,” I told him.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he droned, and sat down and ate his French toast without a peep.
“Honey?” I said, right before he headed out the door for the bus. “Be careful at school; I mean, the pieces in my show are kind of risqué, and some of the kids or parents might get ideas…”
“Mom! It’s just sex, it’s no big deal.” The door slammed and I was alone with Killer.
“Boy, oh boy, they sure make you sound different than you really are.” Laurel read the paper and ate Jay-Jay’s leftover French toast while I obsessed over what to wear to the show. She lowered the newspaper and stared at me. “What is that around your neck?”
“A scarf.”
“No, no,” she clucked. “Your neck is too long for scarves, you look like a giraffe. Try a chunky necklace instead. And something lower cut. You’re the artist of a sexy show; you need to look the part.”
“How?” I had on a short skirt, low-cut shirt, and high-heeled boots. I thought I looked sexy.
“Sexiness is not what you’re wearing, it’s what you’re not wearing, get it?”
I shook my head no.
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, must I have to do everything?” She pulled herself up from the table
and waddled after me to the bedroom. Half of my closet lay across what was now her bed. She rummaged through the stack, discarding most of it on the floor. “Is this all you’ve got?”
“Except for your and Stephanie’s clothes.”
We finally decided on a soft, gauzy skirt of Stephanie’s, Laurel’s silk blouse, Francisco’s belt, Sandee’s boots (with toilet paper stuffed in the toes because they were too big), and Barry’s old hunting cap cocked sideways on my head. “Something’s missing,” Laurel said, examining from either side as I paraded back and forth across the living room. “Wait, I know—don’t move.” She ran into Jay-Jay’s room and came out with a handful of his friendship bracelets. “Hold out your wrist,” she demanded, and as she slid them on I realized that it was as if I was getting married. Along with Gramma’s hairpins I had something from everyone I loved. Knowing this made me feel better. It’s not that I felt I couldn’t fail, because I knew I could and that I very well might. It was that I knew that I could stand tall no matter what, clothed as I was in my friends’ best intentions.
Five hours later found me crouched in the back closet at Artistic Designs, hiding from Betty Blakeslee and the hordes of well-dressed people intent on talking about me in the third person.
“She needs to work on her shading.”
“She should have taken it one step further.”
“She has the oddest mind.”
Out in the gallery, my work filled the walls, all of my mistakes and failings in full view. It was agonizing.
My show was deemed a success, at least by the Powers That Be. I sold four pieces, and Betty Blakeslee predicted I would sell more by the end of the month. She still thinks of me as Clara, so that is how everyone addressed me. “Clara,” they said, “such lovely work, so original, so fresh, so stunning.”
I wasn’t too worried about what people called me; it was the money I concentrated on, and all it would do for me, for us. Four paintings totaled almost three thousand dollars after the gallery’s cut. I could pay off my Visa and part of my MasterCard, put some away for Jay-Jay’s summer Berkeley camp, buy baby clothes for Laurel, lunch at Simon & Seafort’s for Sandee, a nice bottle of wine for Barry, and of course more painting supplies for me and maybe even a—
The door slid open and I quickly slammed it shut with my foot.
“Carla, it’s me,” Francisco whispered loudly. “Everyone’s looking for you.”
“Shhhh,” I hissed. “They’ll discover my hiding place.” I tried to close the door but he pushed it back open again.
“Come on, toughen up.” He tugged at my arm and I smoothed my skirt and walked back out in the light. Betty Blakeslee made a grab for my arm but Francisco intercepted with a brilliant swerve. I was busy listening to a man explain what was wrong with my brushstrokes when I noticed a fat woman in an ugly flowered dress staring up at my Woman Running with a Box, No. 5 painting. Her mouth was open and she breathed garlic fumes. I excused myself and ran over.
“What are you doing here?” My voice pitched too high; heads turned. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“I want to see dirty paintings.” Gramma pointed to the bottom of the canvas. “Some of them dolls got my face.” She said this matter-of-factly, as if she always expected her face to show up on a painted Barbie doll with its boobs hanging out.
“Please don’t talk to yourself,” Betty Blakeslee hissed in my ear. “It looks bad to the clientele.”
I wanted to tell Gramma that I had seen her sister and she was okay, she had been found, but it didn’t seem the right time. She followed me around as I mingled, shook hands, and made small talk with artists, wannabe artists, and people who referred to themselves as art connoisseurs. It wasn’t that much different from waitressing, really. All I had to do was pretend to be the person everyone wanted me to be, except no one left me a tip.
By the end of the evening I was drained. My legs felt shaky and my left eyelid wouldn’t stop fluttering. I stood at the door with Betty Blakeslee as if in a wedding receiving line, and shook hands and murmured remarks to people who acted as if they knew me. Gramma sat on the floor by the buffet table, stuffing olives into her mouth. I thanked Betty Blakeslee for a lovely opening, thanked Timothy for all of his help, and finally escaped out the door, where I smacked into a woman waving a picket sign with “Down with Dirty Dolls!” blared across the front. A handful of others waved similar signs and chanted, “We’ve had enough, burn the smut.”
“Ah, shit, it’s the born-agains.” Laurel opened her coat to show off her round belly. “They wouldn’t dare harass a pregnant woman.”
A man in a plaid jacket jutted a sign in her face and yelled about decency and God’s plan for the universe, which, obviously, didn’t include women running with pornography.
I stood there, incredulous. “Weren’t you supposed to be here at the beginning of the show?” I asked.
“We just read about it in the paper,” said a familiar-looking woman in an expensive sable coat. I peered closer.
“Mrs. Hendricks?” I said. “Is that you?” I couldn’t believe it! Jay-Jay and Sophie were friends. I often drove them to gifted activities together. “How’s Sophie’s science project?”
“She’s almost done.” Her sign sagged. “Congratulations on Jay-Jay’s spelling bee place.”
“Thanks,” I said, and then she raised her sign and began chanting again: “We’ve had enough, burn the smut.”
“We could totally take them,” Stephanie said.
I looked at our group: Laurel and Jay-Jay, Sandee and Joe, Stephanie and Hammie, Barry and Toodles, and me and Francisco. We looked cold and invincible. We looked as if we could defeat an army.
“Leave them be,” I said with a shrug. “If they want to freeze their asses off, it’s their problem.”
“This will totally bring more attention to your show,” Stephanie said. “They’re doing you a favor in a, like, pathetic sort of way.”
We stopped at the light on Seventh Avenue and, as if on cue, we all threw back our heads and looked up at the sky, which was murky from the city lights, hazy, no stars to be seen, but still we knew they were up there. I could hear my heart beating against my chest: thump-thump, dum, da, dum. I had a show, I imagined it singing. A show, a show, a show.
Everyone slowly left, two by two, Laurel and Jay-Jay climbing in the back of the car while Francisco and I sat up front.
“I can’t believe it’s over,” I said as we sped toward L Street. “All that work and the anticipation, the worrying and wham, four of my paintings are gone. I’ll probably never see them again; I won’t know if they’ll end up in someone’s living room or den or hallway, and then years from now they’ll find themselves in someone’s attic or basement or even donated to a thrift shop.” I watched the lagoon fly past as we drove toward Hillcrest Drive.
“Maybe you’ll be famous and we can move into a bigger trailer so you won’t have to sleep on the floor,” Jay-Jay said. “And, Mom? We could get another dog. Killer’s lonely.”
I leaned my head against the window as an odd warmth rose through my chest.
“If so many people hadn’t felt the need to criticize my work, it would have been an almost perfect evening,” I said.
“Uh-oh, wouldn’t want that,” Francisco teased. I stared over at him, the dashboard lights reflecting across his beautiful face, and I thought of what I always think of when I feel loved and nourished and safe.
I thought of Gramma. I thought of food.
Letters #16 and #17
Dear Jay-Jay Richards:
Congratulations! You have been chosen as a scholarship recipient to the Berkeley Mathematically Gifted Youth Summer Camp July 15–July 29.
Based on the selection committee’s analysis of your academic record, letters of recommendation, and outstanding essay effort, you qualify for a $3,500 award plus work study options up to $200 per week.
Please return the enclosed information by March 15.
We look forward to seeing you
at Berkeley this summer.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Foggerty
Admissions Coordinator
Berkeley Mathematically Gifted Youth Summer Camp
Dear Stephanie Steeley:
Congratulations!
On behalf of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Stanford University’s Creative Writing Program.
A financial aid package will be arriving soon.
We once again congratulate you on your outstanding academic achievements and look forward to meeting you soon.
Best,
Ian Schaffer
Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid
P.S. The Creative Writing Department was impressed by your poem, “If I Eat Lunch with Tobias Wolff Do I Tell Him He Has Spinach between His Teeth?”
Sunday, March 5
Of course I knew I would cook a meal to celebrate my last diary entry—what else is there to do when you reach the end but eat? I planned a lavish Polish dinner filled with Gramma’s favorites: golabki, zupa koperkowa, mizeria, and for dessert, chrusciki. I lugged the wobbly kitchen table into the living room and covered it with an old sheet. That did little to subtract from its lopsided, shabby appearance, but no matter. This was my dinner, and this was how I lived: messily and impulsively, with little semblance of order.
We ate buffet-style from the pots and pans lining the kitchen counters, all of us crowded around the table, our elbows and legs bumping. When we were halfway through the zupa (soup), Barry jumped up, a jelly jar of cheap wine raised in the air.
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