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He reaches out and pats my shoulder, giving me that chummy, on-your-side gesture that I dislike so intensely. It’s bullshit. Why is so much of art school complete bullshit?
“Sorry I’m late!” Jenna blurts out as she slides a stool next to me, pushing her portfolio under the desk and pulling her messenger bag over her shoulder.
Her caramel-colored ponytail swings back and forth as she shrugs apologetically at Mr. Pecker.
“Try to catch up,” he sniffs as he walks away.
Jenna rolls her eyes. She slaps the newsprint pad down on her drafting table and flips to a blank page.
“Try to catch up,” she repeats scornfully. “Yeah, I’ll justdothat.”
Happy to have someone on my side, I settle back onto my four-legged stool and make tiny hashmarks with the charcoal in the corner of the newsprint pad.
Jenna finishes getting situated and then glances at my blank paper.
“Is the model invisible today? A ghost perhaps?” she asks, joking.
“No… Actually, it’s Diego.” I answer in a confidential murmur.
Jenna straightens up immediately, sitting up tall on her stool and sweeping her gaze across the room. She finds Diego in the far corner, where he is smiling at a couple of sophomores who giggle and sigh around him as they proudly display their artwork.
Bemused, Jenna takes several deep breaths. As a volleyball scholarship, she’s quite tall. She can really see through the crowd.
“Well, now I really am sorry I’m late,” she sighs.
“Yeah, it has been a good day,” I confirm.
She raises one eyebrow at me. “You don’t mean…”
“Yep, facing right at us,” I answer.
“Dammit!” she grunts.
Since the pedestal is in the middle of the room, all the easels are placed around it in a big circle. Sometimes you get a bad angle. That’s just the roll of the dice. And sometimes the model is facing right toward you.
“How much time do we have left?” she moans, suddenly grumpy.
“Only twenty minutes, I think,” I confirm. “Class conflict?”
“No… I just had to get some stuff loaded on the servers.” She shakes her head, scowling. “Nothing big. I can handle it.”
“I know you can,” I agree. “But you better get started. Pecker is being a… total pecker today.”
Jenna fake-gasps and draws a few quick ovals on the large sheet of paper. “Get started? You mean like this?” she jokes. “How am I supposed to get started if I’m not looking at the model?”
This is our usual joke, but I am not entirely in the mood. I don’t want to go talk to the dean. It is never good news. But Jenna’s right. Why do we have a model if drawing things that look like the model is not allowed?
“Your oval looks too… ovally,” I observe sarcastically.
She stops drawing and grimaces. “Shit… I think you’re right,” she whispers as the other students settle back behind their easels. “Do I start again, maybe with trapezoids? Oh, I know, maybe I’ll draw a teapot or some bullshit and say it’ssurreal.”
“You’re obviously a genius.”
“Obviously,” she agrees dourly.
I pluck at the coversheet, fighting the urge to begin drawing again as Diego mounts the podium. I want more than anything to draw him the way I know how. The stuffy, old-fashioned, terrible way that’s going to get me kicked out of art school. The way that makes him beautiful.
“No… I should use letters,” Jenna continues sarcastically. “Or maybe I should do something like that?”
