Calm down, Niya. It’s only Sean.
The venue was bright and colorful, as I would expect such a place to be. Walls were filled with canvas paintings of intricate, difficult-to-paint scenes—a woman with a large hat, a dandelion with leaves that had depth, an ocean-side sunset with various hues of purple and blue. How on earth was I supposed to create something as beautiful as these paintings?
“Hi!” A chipper, red-haired young woman wearing a black smock with the company’s logo greeted us. “You here for the seven o’clock class?”
“Yes. Sean and Niya,” he said.
A smile escaped. I liked the way our names sounded together.
The attendant searched her computer screen, clicked her mouse a few times. “Gotcha checked in. You can go on into Studio B. Grab a smock and a seat. Your instructor’s already inside.”
I followed Sean’s lead, feeling the fear of failure rise up within me.
Sean and I made more small talk as the instructor began the class. First, there was talk about safety and handling materials. Sean didn’t seem to be paying attention, but I sure was. I could barely draw stick figures. It occurred to me that perhaps I could stand behind Sean and watch the process over his broad shoulders, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen after I saw the sign telling me he’d paid $35 apiece for our tickets. For $35, I was gonna have a brush in my hand and some paint on my own canvas.
“Tonight, we’re painting Owl on a Branch.”
I gave Sean a what-in-the-world glare.
He winked at me and whispered, “Keep an open mind. Owls are a symbol for wisdom.”
The wink, of course, disarmed me. Melted me might have been a better description of what happened to my insides under his gaze.
A few minutes later, with a smock tied over my clothing and the heels tossed under my table, I made my first stroke on the blank, white canvas. It seemed odd to mess it up with the light blue paint I’d mixed. Even as I began to fill the sky area, I wondered if I had mixed enough to cover all the area I’d need. What if I ran out and the shade wasn’t a perfect match?
My mind screamed that I should have left it blank so I wouldn’t mess up.
As if on cue, the instructor said, “Don’t worry about messing up your painting. This is art. It’s not perfect. Neither is life. It’s okay.”
I relaxed my shoulders and let out a deep breath.
“You okay?” Sean asked. “You seem kind of stressed.”
I spoke with the same speed as the slow, methodical gliding of the paint brush, fearing I might lose control of the brush if I spoke too fast. “I’m not good at painting. This is hard.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But I love a good challenge. Reminds me of school.”
His comment snapped me back to my real self. I scoffed. “School wasn’t hard. It was just boring.”
“I can see why you’re saying that. You were always a genius. Jhavon said so. He said you always got good grades though you barely even tried.”
A smile slid across my face. My brother had told me that, too.
“He always thought you’d go to college,” Sean added.
That I didn’t know. I plopped my paintbrush into the cup of rinsing water. “When did he say that?”
“All the time,” Sean said, sticking his tongue between his teeth, while he focused on the branch for his owl. I watched him work until he put the brush down to tap me on the nose. “He said it wouldn’t surprise him if you grew up to be a doctor or a teacher.”
I warned my heart to stop accelerating at his playful touch and concentrated on his words. I uttered an eloquent, “Huh,” before dipping my brush in solid brown to start my own branch. Sean returned to his painting while I mulled over his words.
My brother had told me countless times that I was smart. People told me that all the time. But none of that had mattered after I finished high school. Employers don’t know how smart you are when they’re reading your application online. The few times I had worked seasonal jobs, nobody had asked me to stay past Christmas or summer, so obviously I wasn’t like “real-world” smart.
Big wasn’t a particular fan of college. She said the worst thing in the world was an “educated fool” and people who forgot where they came from. I never wanted to be either and college probably would have qualified me for both.
“You ever thought about going to college?” Sean asked, nudging me on the shoulder.
There he goes touching me again.“No.” I said the word with enough edge to let him know I didn’t want to talk about it, but Sean was persistent.
