“You’re
“That’s what you think.”
Christy and I had our not-date. Or we didn’t have a date. Whichever.
I was reading in my studio when she poked her head around the door.
“Are you going to be serious?” she said.
“That depends. Are you going to be here?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes.”
She smiled and stepped into the room.
I set my book aside and gestured to the empty chair. “Wanna pick up where we left off last night?”
“Before or after you were a jerk?”
“Before, of course. Let’s forget about after.”
“All right.” She took a seat and opened her sketchbook.
I reached for mine.
“So,” she said, “we were talking about proportions…”
I could’ve sworn I heard Wren smile.
Christy and I spent the next two evenings together. I made huge progress drawing people, but that wasn’t saying much, since I’d started from scratch.
Still, by Thursday I could sketch a person that looked real enough, as long as I didn’t mind a generic, almost cartoonish face.
“Don’t worry, faces take forever to master,” Christy said. “And not just portraiture. Drawing them at different angles is really tough.”
“You do it.”
“Well, yes, but…”
“You even sculpt them. They look like people frozen in time.”
“That’s because I’ve done it for years.”
“You also have talent. Loads of it.” I gestured at my own feeble attempts.
“I’ll never be able to do what you do.”
“You do other things. Here, look.” She turned to a blank page in her sketchbook. She drew a rectangle topped by a squat triangle. Then she added a smaller rectangle with a curlicue of smoke coming out of it. “That’s how
She reached over and flipped back a couple of pages in my book. She tapped a drawing of a Palladian façade.
“I watched you do that in five minutes. Five minutes! You were just doodling. Last night. I don’t even think you realized it. I was telling you about my brothers or something. Remember?”
I nodded.
“I’ll never be able to do
My eyebrows twitched up.
“Mmm hmm. Wait here.” She unfolded herself from the chair and disappeared out the door. She returned a moment later with a different sketchbook. She opened it and sat on the arm of my chair. I put my arm around her bottom out of pure habit. She glanced at me but didn’t move.
“This is from last year,” she said instead, “when you were working on that Beaux-Art building. I drew those water nymphs for you. Remember?”
I nodded again.
“Anyway, I thought your buildings were beautiful, but they didn’t look that difficult. I mean, they were just a bunch of straight lines and some shading, right?” She turned pages until she found what she was looking for.
“I thought, ‘If he can do it, so can I.’ I even checked out books from the library on architectural rendering and stuff. Ha!” She showed me her drawings.
“They’re not bad,” I said. “I mean, they’re better than mine when I was a first-year.”
“But they’ll never be like yours now,” she said. “Or in the future. That’s only part of it, though. Your drawings are beautiful, but your ideas are brilliant. I can barely come up with an idea how to pose someone, but you create whole buildings out of nothing. They didn’t exist before you thought
them up!
“Me?” She scoffed. “I just draw people. And sculpt them if I’m lucky.
Yeah, I’m pretty good at it, but I don’t really create anything new. And no one will ever live in one of my creations. I doubt they’ll ever buy them, either. I’ll probably end up a kindergarten art teacher with chalk on my dress and runs in my stockings.”
I laughed.
“You don’t think so? You know how many artists make a living at it?”
“No, I was laughing at the idea of you with chalk on your dress and runs in your stockings. Seriously? You?” I shook my head. “I’ve seen your wardrobe. If anything, you’ll be a fashion icon.” I shot her a grin. “Still a kindergarten teacher, though. You’re right about that.”
“Go ahead and joke. I’m supposed to graduate in June. I have
“Get an MFA.”
“What good will that do? I still won’t be able to make a living.” She threw herself into her chair and sulked.
“You can be a starving artist.”
“Ha!”
“Then again, maybe not. You’ll waste away if you don’t eat at least a bushel of carrots a day. Good thing they’re cheap.”
She huffed. “I eat like a sumo wrestler and barely break a hundred pounds.”
“Right. Starving artist is out.”
“Very funny.”
I flirted with the idea of suggesting she marry rich, but that wasn’t her style. She had a fierce independent streak, and I couldn’t imagine her marrying someone just so he’d support her.
She looked at me crossly, and for a moment I thought she’d read my mind.
“What?”
“You made me think about food.”
I laughed.
“Now I want a snack.”
“C’mon,” I said. “Let’s go make a sandwich or something.”
“Boy, you really know how to treat a girl right,” she said sarcastically. “If we keep not-dating like this, I might actually gain a pound or two.”
