As we’re wrapping up, one of the students who I used to babysit comes up to me holding a piece of paper.
“Miss Sera?”
I still can’t help but smile at being calledMiss. “What’s up, Rose?”
She hands me the paper. “Do you want to come to my softball game this Thursday?” The flyer tells me it’s the July 1 season opener over at the middle school fields. Rose is staring at her paint-splattered shoes waiting for an answer. I have a vivid memory of the year I first had Miss Iris, and how anxious I was to win her attention and approval. I kneel down and take the flyer.
“I’d love to, Rose. Thanks for inviting me.”
She lights up, one tiny megawatt grin, and skips off to her dad waiting at the door.
I look around to make sure everyone is gone and then decide I’m not ready to go home. I take my stuff to the open studio, where I’ve been working on some landscapes instead of my fellowship pieces. I drop my bag in the corner I’ve claimed as mine and set everything up. I unfold the printed application I’ve been carrying around and set it next to a blank page. Even though I decided on self-portraits, I’m struggling a little with my theme. The essay needs to answer a few questions about the project you want to work on if accepted, and the first oneis:Why is this work important to you? What is it telling the world about who you are?
I sigh and flip through my sketchbook to a self-portrait I did last year when things were awful. I’d never done one before, and I’m proud of it, but it was tough to draw. I could feel every unsaid thing I wanted to scream at the universe leaking out of my pencil onto the page. It’s not pretty or soothing, like my landscapes are. Doing more of these means thinking about the fact that even though the surgery and my new medication have extended my time before my next transplant, that’s still waiting for me, blocking me from seeing too far down the road ahead. I trace the edge of my face on the page, so glad not to be that sick girl anymore, but still worried I’ll be her again too soon. I wish I could draw her a better future. I jot that down. I chew on my pencil, thinking about the pieces I could create. Maybe I’ll do one from when I was little and proud of being a survivor instead of tired of it. The theme could be about embracing all parts of my condition: the good, the bad, the possible. The idea is still a little half-baked, but I think I can make it work.
Like she knows I’m struggling, Iris texts me right then. A picture of her view somewhere in the French countryside.
Miss Iris
It’s not the beach but it’s beautiful! Hope the kids are being nice to you. Let me know if you have any issues!
I text back a picture of my setup and tell her the kids are being angels even though I did find a rogue handprint on my back today.
Miss Iris
a blank page contains the universe!
I take a deep breath. She’s right. I start writing out the ideas for three main pieces. Me at eight, me now, and me in ten years. Three decades, three attitudes toward my heart. But all three underwater, under the pressure of time. I sketch the me now first and write a list of descriptors on the right side of the page. I want to paint myself looking forward. My gaze should be almost over the head of the viewer. I can hear the ocean out the door, echoing across the dunes. I breathe in time with the ebb of the tide, let go of my worries and just sketch, disappearing into the fine lines building up under my pencil.
I’ve lost track of time, a good sign of the work going somewhere promising, when I hear the barn door creak open. I put my pencil down, lean away from my sketch pad, and turn my sore neck. Luke is walking toward me.He came,I think as my face breaks into a smile.
“Okay if I set up here?” He points at the station next to me, and I nod, still a bit surprised even though I’d been hoping he’d come. I’m delighted to see he has his old art caddy with him, TARDIS stickers intact, along with a canvas tote. He opens the bag and pulls out a canvas painting.
“There’s no black in that.” I laugh, taking in the details of the choppy ocean scene. He’s used dark shades of many colors, but no actual black. He tries to hide a smile from me.
“That was the assignment.” He shrugs, opening the caddy and digging around until he’s pulled out a dozen or so rocks,all smooth black specimens that he starts lining up at the base. “Multimedia. But outside our usual medium, so no digital and no black for me.” He glances at my sketch pad, then at me in a way that makes me wonder if the kids got paint on my face too. “I actually was thinking about that one project you did years ago, when you glued rocks and shells into a painting. I thought it might bring dimension to have some at the foreground. And I’m not really happy with the top left corner.” He bites at his lip and steps back, and I tell myself not to ogle.You don’t ogle at friends.
“It’s really good, Luke,” I say, picking my pencil back up.
He shrugs again in reply, already sunk into his own focus. I drift back to my own work, and soon it’s like old times. We work side by side, and sometimes we turn and look at what the other is doing, offer a little comment. Luke points out that my nose looks a little flat, and I thank him and suggest he stop thinking the rocky base of his piece needs to be perfect. I tell him that the shoreline looking off-balance will feel more natural.
After another hour, my legs can’t stand being still anymore, so I start to clean up, storing my easel and putting my sketchbook in my bag. Luke leans his work up on the drying rack and then asks how I’m getting home.
“Riding.” I nod toward the parking lot, where I left my bike this morning.
He follows behind me out of the barn and up to the path. “What’s the piece you’re working on for?” he asks.
“A fellowship. The same one Miss Iris is at, for nextsummer.” I feel a rush of excitement at the thought of Paris. “The chance of me getting in is slim,” I admit, “but if I do get accepted, Maddy is going to meet me there. We want to do a backpacking trip afterward.”
“Maddy’s been dying to go to Paris.” He laughs. “That sounds great. Your parents don’t want you to go to school?”
“Oh, they definitely want me to go to school, but…” This is exactly where I should tell him what happened with my heart two years ago, where I could lean on our history, our shared understanding of how the universe doesn’t really owe us anything, especially not time. This is where I should tell him how scared I was and how I don’t want to be scared anymore. But then he’d ask more questions, and I’m not sure I can answer those yet. “I’ve asked them to give me some time to decide what I want to do. As you’ve mentioned, art school isn’t super practical…”
“But youcouldgo,” Luke says, a little sharp.
“I guess, but—why?” I look over at him as we pass the storage shed.
“Why?” He sounds frustrated, and I feel a little defensive.
