ACoN Chapter Four

Chapter Four: Child Prodigy

Art was the whole reason I was at this school in the first place.  Remarkable, they called my work.  Inspiring.  Gothic.  Prodigious.  I’d won awards, and when time to enroll in college came around several would be offering me scholarships.  In fact, several had already offered.  For my aunt it was like manna from heaven.  She put up with my “quirks” as we called them in part because she said I was an artist and my art would make me famous someday.  She wanted me to shine.  I didn’t see what everyone was talking about, to be honest.  It was just… the things cluttered around my head.  The small pieces of dreams I had crawled through that were growing spider webs.

            Yesterday we had dived in, the teacher giving me a particularly knowing glance.  Her name was Ms. Rose and she herself had been a child prodigy.  Part of me had been afraid she would call me in front of the class and make a big deal of my new existence here and the other part had wished she would.  Sure it would be humiliating, but it would have made me feel special, something no one else really did for me.  I had never been teacher’s pet.  I hadn’t had much of a chance to even be daddy’s little girl.

            Today she gave us our first assignment: still life.  That was it.  This was advanced art, after all.  We didn’t need the direction the freshman needed.  And of course, the definition of still life was a bit more flexible for those of us with “special” talent.  There was no official grade for each piece of work we finished, but at the end of the semester we had to submit a portfolio to her husband-the-art-collector and he would appraise the work like he would with any normal client.  Of course, seeing as the school wasn’t too fond of the one grade system she employed, if you finished the task on time you got a one hundred and tests were little more than write your name in the upper right hand corner.  I had this all straight from the mouth of the senior who had failed out of Ms. Rose’s class last year because he’d been suspended second semester.

            I sat down at the easel, across from Angie.  We could work on anything we wanted since doing the assignment in class was restrictive.  Yesterday I had started a sketch, but today I was uninterested in them.  I picked up a pen and scratched a few lines onto the paper before angrily scribbling them away.

            For what felt like an hour I just stared at the blank sheet.  Angie was absorbed with what she was doing and didn’t notice I was brain dead.  Not that it was her responsibility.

            “Try this,” Ms. Rose startled me, setting, with a soft bang, a set of water colors down in front of me.  She gave me a wink and then walked away to critique Jase’s (the before-mentioned senior who failed last year) all black blob.

            I picked up the brush warily and dipped it in the blue.  These were pretty much the Crayola watercolors you’d buy at target for your kindergartener.  It was unnerving to play with them.  I drew a few strokes across the paper and felt myself falling into a rhythm.  My mind wandered to you know who as I worked.

            What was he like now?  I mean, he’d been going to this school since he was a freshman.  He had friends I was sure.  A girlfriend, most likely.  Or boyfriend.  I didn’t judge.  Just turn green with envy.  They were lucky.  But I hadn’t really seen him palling around with anyone in the classes we had together.  I mean, he sat by people and talked to them, but no one he went out of his way to be with.  Was that my fault?  Was he too busy being confused with my appearance that no one else existed for him?  Worse, was I doing that to Angie?

            I glanced at her at the same moment she glanced at me.  A big smile lit up her face and then she dug back into her project.  No, it didn’t appear that I was.  There was that, at least.

            “It’s gorgeous,” Ms. Rose managed to startle me again and I this time I had to grit my teeth to stop from yelping.

            At first I didn’t know what she was talking about me and then I looked at what I had in front of me.  Two green-blue eyes, the smooth curve of a jaw, the outline of a smile, the dark brown hair over his forehead.  I wanted to impale myself on the brush when I realized that unconsciously I had painted Michael.