Zero (9 page)

She sets the clipboard down. “My name is
Doctor
Deborah Salinger. This is Introduction to Art Application. Welcome to your first day of art!”

Doctor
Salinger swirls among us as if on tiptoe, using her hands to paint invisible canvases as she speaks. “In addition to teaching you the basic, the ever so
rudimentary
application of various paint media, I will offer lectures on modern art and art history….”

Scattered groans, mine not among them. A couple of granny types twitter excitedly. Junior college appears to be a
replica of high school, except with ashtrays and a student body age range of High School Graduate to Older than Sanskrit.

“… which you will not be tested on. Attendance and completing your assignments will affect your grade, naturally. But it is your work on the paper and the canvas that is worth the most percentage points. It is your heart and soul that matter.”

Geez. Hippie much? Still—I can’t disagree.

A student raises his hand but doesn’t wait to be called on. Rebel.

“Is that fair?”

Dr. Salinger raises her eyebrows. “I’m sorry, your name?”

“Frank.”

“My dearest, dearest Frank.
Life
isn’t fair. I would have expected you to have learned that much by now.”

The rest of the class chuckles. Teacher 1, Frank 0. Frank sneers at us.

“I paid a great deal in money, time, and linseed to become the accomplished scholar you see before you,” Dr. Salinger goes on, “so I intend to pass all my worldly wisdom and knowledge on to you.
My
pupils.”

The older broads coo and titter again. I snicker under my breath.

“Now, I do realize most if not all of you are perhaps
hobbyists
, uninterested in becoming modern masters, and that is all well and good. However, you enrolled in this class to learn how to create and share art, or as I like to think of it, create and share your
soul
.”

Uh … okay. Two
souls
in two minutes? That’s a bit much
even for me. A smarmy noise sneaks out of my mouth, and Dr. Salinger stops and gives me a brief glare.

“Sorry,” I mutter. Blah. Not a good start. Well, wait till we start drawing; that’ll show her.

“We will search for art
together
, experience life at its heights and depths,” she goes on. “We will squeeze and knead our experiences without mercy and transcribe the results to canvas and paper.” She claps her hands together. “Doesn’t that sound simply
wonderful?”

The older broads cluck again. Oooh, oh, yes, wonderful, indeed, mm-hm!

Like they know. I want to ask them all to name ten American artists of the twentieth century and at least one of their works each, by name.

“We shall plumb, indeed,
eviscerate
our own lives for subject matter and vigorously apply our findings with brush, with pen,” Dr. Salinger goes on. “With oil, acrylic, charcoal, water-color, the pencil. With whatever tools we have at hand. Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?”

She picks up her clipboard and scans the roll. I know even before she says it:

“Miss Amanda Walsh. Tell us, what
is
art?”

I look around the room just to make sure there isn’t another Miss Amanda Walsh nearby. “I’m sorry?”

Dr. Salinger stalks toward me. Her eyes sparkle.
Malevolently
, if you want my opinion.

“What. Is. Art?”

A trick question. I swallow nothing and twist my fingers into a knot, trying to recall the vocabulary I learned in high school and from Mr. Hilmer.

“Um … art—can—comprise a series of lines? Area, space … color?”

Dr. Salinger wrinkles her nose. “I see. By the end of our time together, I hope all of you can answer that question somewhat more effectively. Miss Walsh?”

I cringe.

“We’ll try again next week,” Dr. Salinger purrs. “Now, what was I talking about? Ah, yes! Art.”

There’s a short murmuring of laughter. Teacher 1, Zero 0. Ironic? I think not.

There must be some mistake. I wasn’t expecting a Mr. Hilmer, because he was a one-of-a-kind, but come
on
! It
is
college. I should have a great teacher, and show off what I can do—what I think I can do—and prove to the world, or maybe just me, that I’m not messing around.

That I’m an artist. That if I took some more time to work, learned new things from a good teacher, maybe I really could apply to SAIC again.

The look in Dr. Salinger’s eyes says otherwise.

“Now, let’s dive right in, shall we? Paper and pencils, please.”

We all dig through our various bags. Okay, this is better; once I have something in my hand, I’ll show her.

“Whatever your favorite paper, whatever your favorite pencil. Charcoal, graphite, whatever you prefer.”

I pull out my sketchbook and a charcoal pencil. The lady bugs me, but I can’t stop my pulse from picking up. I’m back where I’m supposed to be, in a studio, getting ready to create.

“Let’s begin with some gestural drawing,” Dr. Salinger
says, conjuring an oversized drawing pad and clipping it to an easel. She scans the room, zeroes in on me, and before I can react, snatches my hat off my head and flings it onto her desk.

“Voila!” she proclaims. “Still life!”

No one seems to notice I’m totally naked now; they just look at my hat and watch Dr. Salinger set to work drawing.
My
hat.

“Gesture drawing is about movement,” Doc S says as her pencil sketches in long, graceful strokes. “About form and weight. You want the least amount of line with the most amount of information. Start in the middle and work outward. Use a brisk but fluid stroke….”

The class is following along; I am trying like hell to. I’ve done gesture drawing before, but not the way she’s doing it.

“Oh, this
is
one of my favorite techniques,” Dr. Salinger says as she draws. “I had my first great success with charcoal. It was such a sheer delight to take my lovers and friends to the Paper Heart, the New York, the Fuller….”

I stop sketching. Those are big-time galleries. She’s got, like, background. I go back to my sketch pad but can’t make my hands do what she’s doing. She’s going so
fast
.

“Those were my glory days!” she says as my hat starts taking form on her paper. “Now, you need not make your drawing look like something you’d hang in a gallery, people. But this is one way to prepare for another drawing or painting you’ll take a traditional approach to later. For now, your purpose is to be bold. Expressive. Instinctive!”

My pencil snaps.

Dr. Salinger, while still sketching, regales us with a story about a summer tryst with Robert Nanci, this
spectacular artist whose work I’ve seen in a number of books and magazines. What that has to do with how she’s drawing, I have no idea. Maybe summer trysts are how you find your muse. And hey, wouldn’t I like to have one myself with a certain percussionist? We’ll see.

So I sit and stare at my half-assed, half-completed gestural drawing and consider asking for a refund. From
life
.

“And there it is!” Dr. Salinger says, stepping away from her easel. “It’s that simple! Now let’s see what you’ve accomplished!”

I bite back a sigh as she swishes around the room, inspecting everyone’s work. Her drawing (of
my
hat) is fucking gorgeous. And it’s just a
sketch
.

Damn
, she’s good.

As much as her personality gives me cramps, if she’s exhibited in those galleries, then she knows what she’s doing, and I need to know more if I’m going to have any chance of putting together a solid new portfolio this fall. Or next spring. Or ever …

Dr. Salinger appears at my side, looking down at my lap. I’m still clutching the broken pencil. My sketchbook shows only a collection of smeared charcoal lines.

“Oh,” she says softly. “Well, that doesn’t look like very much, now, does it?”

I shake my head. My hair flies around my face. “Can I have my hat back?”

Dr. Salinger gives me a look I can’t quite interpret. “Of course,” she says, and retrieves it for me. She hands it back without a word and glides over to Frank.

Oh, well, it’s not like anything else exciting is happening this summer. Right?

Except for that one guy.

Who I’ll be seeing tomorrow night
. Class goes by faster after that, and I’m the first one out the door when Dr. Salinger lets us go. Taking this class was a bad idea, I’m sure of it. Better to resign myself to living in Phoenix the rest of my life.

I spend Tuesday trying (uselessly) to duplicate the gestural drawing Dr. Salinger showed us yesterday. No luck. But I have to draw or paint something, and sort of wander around my room looking for inspiration. When my gaze hits the ceiling, I know exactly what to do. It’s destroying, not creating, but then again, maybe this’ll help free the muse.

We don’t have anything like house paint, so I have to use my white acrylic to cover up the drawing of Jenn’s face on my ceiling. It’s not her face, exactly; just a combination of circles, triangles, and lines that probably wouldn’t make any sense to anyone but me. I never even told her it was her face after I did it.

But even when the bristles are only an inch away from the drawing, I can’t quite make myself cover it up.

“Shit,” I whisper.

I step carefully off my bed and sit on the edge, holding the brush between my fists. After a moment, it starts to tremble, because my hands start shaking.

Oh, hell, here it comes. I’ve been successful thus far at
not remembering graduation, not
really
. Even in the parking lot of DC a few days ago, I was able to reroute my mind, get rid of the cubist rendering of Jenn’s house. This time, it’s gonna be full-color live action, start to finish. I try to roll with the memory, get it over with….

After graduation, I drove us back to Jenn’s house. Her parents were gone, as usual; both of them are political lobbyists, her dad for the NRA and her mom for a car manufacturer. Jenn was raised by a series of nannies and au pairs until sophomore year, when her folks pretty much left her to her own devices. They bought her a car, handed her a Visa, told her to keep her grades decent … and that was about it. She didn’t even decide on a school or anything last year, and they didn’t seem to care.

The Haights’ house is kept in pristine condition for parties and stuff, which also means they have a liquor collection that puts bars like The Graveyard and DC to shame.

“We should celebrate!” Jenn said when we got inside. “Let’s have our own party, huh?”

“Why not?” I said. It sounded fun. High school was at long last over and done with, I was still bent about the SAIC rejection letter, and Jenn hadn’t secured herself a guy for the night. But I felt like something was off, like those comics in the paper where you find six differences between the panels, and I was in the wrong one. She’d been invited to a party, while I’d figured I’d spend the rest of the night at home as usual. I had no idea why she hadn’t gone, and I never asked.

I was just happy she chose me, I guess.

Jenn cooked up this amazing chicken dinner for us, throwing around French words like she spoke it as her first
language. After dinner, we moved on to piña coladas. “What’s in it?” I asked. “Pineapple and lada,” Jenn said. “Lotta alcohol!” After the first one, I don’t know what else we drank.

We sat on the floor of her living room, watching cheesy romantic comedies, which I hate. Bitched about boys. Made fun of our former teachers. Laughed our asses off. The usual.

Sometime later, I was puking her awesome dinner out in a downstairs bathroom. So much for being my father’s child, right? I rinsed my mouth with mouthwash, and Jenn got me upstairs to her room and set me down on her bed. I felt like my drawing mannequin, joints and body made of wood, useless and poseable, as Jenn got most of my clothes off and pulled an oversized T-shirt over me; I’d gotten puke on my own shirt downstairs. I collapsed against the mattress, and Jenn crawled in beside me.

“This was dumb,” I remember moaning as my eyes swam around uncontrollably in their sockets. It was worse when I closed them.

“Uh-huh,” Jenn said. “But at least we were dumb together.” Her voice was still thick with alcohol. Somehow, we managed to laugh despite how gross we both must’ve felt.

Then Jenn said, “You’re my best friend. I love you soooo much.” She patted me idiotically on my thigh.

My eyes couldn’t stay open. “Uh-huh,” I said. “You. Too.”

That’s when it happened.

I was on the precipice of a delightful fall into oblivion when I felt her lips brush against mine. I forced my eyes open again, stared at her; Jenn sort of whisper-slurred my name and kissed me again. No mistake. Mouth open, the whole deal.

She said something else, but that’s when I dropped dead
asleep, assuming I’d been mistaken. Drunk still, perhaps. Dreaming. I might’ve even laughed, because it was a ridiculous situation. Absurd.

Surreal
.

The next morning—it was late, almost noon—I woke up slow and painful, except I felt something moving against my stomach.

Jenn’s hand. Tracing circles over my belly, under my shirt. I kept my eyes closed, trying to tell myself I was still asleep, dreaming, something. Anything.

A second later, I felt her curl up catlike beside me, very close, and kissing my neck, ear, jaw; all slight, small, but goddammit … so
on purpose
.

There are only a couple different kinds of kiss. There was no mistaking this kind.

“Are you awake?” she said.

And I said, out loud: “No.”

Jenn laughed a little, and I felt her lips on my cheek. Then her hand, still under the shirt, inching up—

My phone rings, and the brush in my hand snaps in two.

I jerk to
attention, hurl my broken paintbrush into a corner, and answer the phone.