Back to the beginning: the worst and best part.
7
ELY
Dr. Zhu’s class, as it turns out, is just as good as advertised. Ava Zhu is a powerhouse, having come into photography from a totally different field—graphic design—before she discovered she liked editing her own pictures more than she liked creating logos for someone else. It’s not mixed media, but itisfascinating. Most of my work has been digital, so a part of me was worried I wouldn’t really learn anything new from a class like this. Turns out, hubris is a bitch. I have a lot more to learn than I thought. The point is to be open-minded.
That’s why I’m here, right?
(I try to ignore the voice in my head that snarkily replies,Yeah. Learn fromWyatt Cole.)
Wyatt Cole, who, it seems, has been content to ignore me ever since the welcome reception. To be fair, he isn’t ignoring just me. I’ve seen students wave at him in the hall and watched him curl into himself, his shoulders ratcheting up to his ears. I’d heard he was a bit of a hermit, but that was extra. Maybe it’s not that he hates me in particular so much as that he hates people, period.
Only that’s inconsistent with how charming and extrovertedhe’d seemed at Revel. He was effervescent, magnetic, as if he could be the center of any world he chose to be in.
The next time I spotted him was between classes, the two of us passing in the corridor, his gaze catching mine—at that moment, it felt like my heart had stopped in my chest from the sudden heat in his gaze. And then there was the color rising in his cheeks, the way he looked away so fast it felt like a slap. It’s not that he doesn’t see me.
It’s that he doesn’t want to.
Which doesn’t make any fucking sense. He was all smiles and snarky comments on Tuesday—so, what changed? It’s like he decides our boundaries based on some mystical kabbalah that is opaque to me.
Or maybe he’s just changed his mind.
My problem, obviously, is that I hate to lose. Because surely there’s nothing so special about Wyatt Cole that it justifies the way I’m obsessing over this man. He’s just…some dude, right?
Some dude who is the best photographer alive, who fucked me like a god and congratulated me on being sober for four years and gave me his phone number.
It doesn’t help that when I text my friend/sponsor Shannon from LA about the whole fucking-a-teacher situation, the only advice she can muster is a series of increasingly raunchy butt GIFs. As much as I hate to admit it, times like these, I miss Chaya. There was a lot about our friendship that was messed up, but also I know exactly what she’d say if she could see me right now.
Let it go. Move on. Get a life. Et cetera.
She’d ask me which is more important: my sex life or my art.
And to be honest, she’d be right. I only get one shot at making Parker work for me, and I’m not gonna miss it.
My instructors seem equally keen on making the most of every second we spend here. I’m inundated with projects and deadlines by the end of the first week, and by the time I’mpacking up my materials after Zhu’s class finishes on Friday, my brain feels like I’ve pounded it into jelly. I’m rubbing at my temples when someone’s purple-skirted hip hitches itself onto the edge of my desk; I look up to find Michal smiling down at me, lips painted black matte.
“Hey,” she says. “Are you doing anything this weekend?”
“No plans. Just dissolving into stress goo. You?”
She lifts her brows. “It’s Shabbat, Ely. I’m doing Shabbat shit. Want to come?”
For a moment I’m frozen. It’s the same way I felt that time in LA when I stepped out of the grocery store and there was a guy in a black hat, black suit.Are you Jewish?he asked, and I didn’t know how to answer.
In the end I just mumbled something that I hoped sounded indistinct and hurried off, head ducked down. If I’d stayed, he would have offered me Shabbos candles. It’s a mitzvah—a good deed—for a woman to light them on Friday nights to welcome the Sabbath.
I kept thinking about it for the rest of the week, wondering if he knew people in New York. Wondering if his best friend’s cousin had beenmyfriend. If his niece was my classmate at Bnos Menachem.
Chabad is big, but it’s not that big. He might have heard of me.
I wonder now ifMichalhas heard of me—if tales of my general fuckery have filtered out of Chabad and into…whatever type of Orthodox Jewish she’s supposed to be.
The type of Orthodox that wears headscarves and black lipstick.
Stop it.I’m not going to waste time making up some fantastical backstory for Michal Pereira. Her life is her life, and as long as she’s happy…well, good for her. But there’s a reason I left.
“Um…I’m good. Thanks, though.” I feel guilty for saying no, so I guess some things never change.
