Janine came in, depositing her heavy crocodile tote on her desk. She didn’t write anything on the board, just stood before us, scanning the room. “Everyone in this classroom is an adult and none of you are stupid.”
We nodded,Yes, we aren’t stupid.
“I don’t know how much you all know about what’s happening at the university, but I’m going to be as honest as I can manage. It isn’t good. To put it succinctly, the White House has finally made it to us. They are threatening to cancel six hundred million dollars in funding from the school. We are not Harvard or Princeton or Columbia, endowment-wise. This will crumble our capacity for research and”—her voice cracked, and what morsel of calm I had cracked with it—“programs like ours, the creative writing program, the art program, will suffer tremendously. I wish I had different news.”
I looked at Nia, but Nia was watching Janine with a glassy stare. I shoved my hands between my thighs so I wouldn’t bite my nails. The nail beds were already sore.
Pink pixie cut asked, “There won’t be a creative writing program anymore?”
“It would likely be scaled back. Significantly. But worse, it could face federal oversight.”
Alex said, “I mean, but they haven’t actually cut the funding yet.”
Janine looked at him. “If what’s happened to other universities is any indication of what could happen here, they will be taking our funding, whether the university complies or not. And to that point on compliance, I think you all can figure out where I stand. I think you can also figure out where the school stands. I don’t say this lightly, but if you are part of any vulnerable group, here on a student visa, LGBTQ, person of color, pro-Palestine, I’m saying this because it’s my responsibility to look out for my students: You are not safe here. My gut tells me that between protecting the university and its students, the school will choose itself.”
As we all spilled into the hallway, Nia grabbed my wrist. “Hey.”
I felt nauseous, not that this was surprising. “That was fucked.”
“As fucked as it gets.”
“Did she already tell you this?”
Nia tossed her half-finished coffee in the trash as we walked out of the humanities building. “No, but the writing’s been on the wall.” Pivoting on her heel, she stopped in the middle of the pathway to face me. “I have a surprise for you.”
We walked to the arts center. When we reached her studio, she said, “It’s done.”
“What’s done?”
She grabbed a handful of her hair, jokingly tugged it. “The portrait! Can you believe it?”
I froze. What would happen to our visits? What if I hated how she rendered me? I hadn’t considered what came after everything.
She pushed open the door with her hip. I followed her inside. She was flitting around the room, dragging the easel from the corner, undraping the canvas, and then the portrait was before me, and I found myself staring into my own eyes.
The shape of my face was accurate. My jaw jutted at the right angle like she’d used a protractor. It was beautiful, really. She nailed theCowboy Cartervibes. But I felt nothing about it in my body.
We were silent for a long time. Finally, she said, “So?”
“It’s beautiful!!!” I croaked.
She watched me. “Don’t lie.”
“I don’t know,” I said cautiously. “There’s something dishonest about it.”
She looked between me and the portrait. “Dishonest how?”
“Like… it feels like something you did for class but wouldn’t actually want shown at your artist retrospective ten years from now.”
Her arms folded over her stomach. Then she unfolded them to stretch a hair tie she’d found in her pocket, seeing how far it could go without snapping it, like a game.
Sighing, she said, “It’s like a landscape painting with no perspective.” Eyes flickering over me, “What are you writing?”
I told her. She said, “Would you send them to me?”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t send them to my worst enemy.”
I was tearing both novels apart, undoing the feedback I tediously incorporated, breaking up scenes with a hammer, slicing sentences with a pocketknife, screaming into my laptop screen,Why the fuck am I here!!
