And meanwhile, time just schlumped along, days passing, slipping into the next, and the next, with little variation, until I wondered what the point was, anyway.
It was time to do something about it. For the twentieth time, I eyed the flyer I’d posted on my bulletin board way back in October.
Junior Year Abroad. Application deadline: January 31. Rome, Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg. The flyer informed me that I could only apply if I had four years’ language experience in Italian, French, or German. Well, I didn’t. Stupid high-school Spanish classes.
But there was one more option listed, one I’d filed in the back of my mind.
London.
And now I wondered: why not?
I’d never thought much about the United Kingdom, but it seemed decent—and foreign—enough. I searched my memory for facts about it, mostly dredged up from my middle-school geography report on the place. For one thing, England seemed so civilized, chock-full of castles and trifle, princesses and charmingly spelled words. In fact, the more I remembered, the more it began to seem like paradise, where policemen didn’t carry guns, and the art museums were all free. Staring at that JYA flyer, I knew it was my next escape route. In a whole new country, I’d be starting from zero, and this time, it might work.
Unfortunately, on further investigation, the details started getting in the way. For starters, art majors couldn’t just hop to foreign countries willy-nilly. There was no art program at Butler College, London. There wasn’t even an art history program, as I discovered during some fevered research and phone calls the following day, in lieu of going to class. I couldn’t get into their program unless I was majoring in one of their disciplines. And so, I considered, was being a mediocre art major worth giving up a year in London?
I loved painting, more than anything. But it was getting me nowhere. I would have to downgrade myself to hobbyist rather than career painter. A person had to make a choice at some point, and better to cut the art career short now, while living on Uncle Paulie’s precious, tainted money, than after graduation when I was on my own, and trying to make a living painting, what? Doll heads and plastic spiders? For whom? It was surprising, how quickly a life of artistic dreams could die, right then, in the space of 24 hours. I let all those thoughts that lurked constantly in the back of my mind—the ones that said, “You’re not good enough, and you never will be”—I let them push their way to the front, examined them, and realized that they were probably true.
But it was okay, because I could replace my plans with a new dream, the last idea I could grasp like the flimsiest of lifelines. London would save me. It had to. A year away from my unsatisfactory life, and from the memories I hadn’t managed to escape by coming all the way to the East coast. A year when something—anything—might happen.
~ ~ ~
And here I was, jet-lagged, starving, and temporarily homeless. Since I wasn’t going to be napping, I might as well lunch, I reasoned fuzzily as I left the hostel. Then maybe sit in that lovely park for a while. The sunlight from just a few minutes earlier had faded, replaced by ominous gray clouds. I turned around, puzzled. I had no idea which way I’d come from, and I’d left my map in the dormitory. There was certainly no way I was going back there.
I lost my bearings right off. Bloomsbury Square was half a block away, but I turned the wrong direction, and then off down another street entirely. I was so tired that I couldn’t be bothered to back-trace my steps, and just kept walking till I came to a main street—High Holborn. That Wimpy Burger was nowhere to be seen, so I jingled the pound coins Desk Girl had given me as change, and directed myself toward a little local-looking sandwich shop painted bright green, a nice spot of color on this desolate gray street, where I was now being splattered with rain. I ordered a ham sandwich, looking forward to my first London meal. I was handed two squares of pocked dark wheat bread, with one slice of ham inside. No condiments, not even lettuce. Not even a little mayonnaise. Worse, there was no room to dine inside—the three tables were taken up by a group of loud middle-aged women and their shopping bags. Miserable, I made my way back outdoors, munching the unsatisfactory sandwich as I laboriously attempted to retrace my steps.
By the time I had circled back to Bloomsbury Square, the sun had reappeared. I wasn’t sure why I’d thought that park was so pretty when I’d first passed it. It was just a big green square intersected by concrete pathways. The grass was withered in half of it, and the park just lurked there really, offering nothing useful or pleasant to look at except for some utilitarian benches scattered about. I sank onto a damp bench, morosely finishing off the crusts of my miserable lunch. A pair of office workers on a break relaxed on a tartan blanket under a nearby tree. The smart-looking woman wore a gray pinstriped skirt and shiny, pointy pumps. The man was pasty-colored, with a receding chin (you’d always see good-looking women with dumpy guys, never the other way around), but they lay contentedly on the blanket, their arms around each other, kissing sporadically in between flipping through their respective tabloid papers.
Everybody had somebody, except for me. I didn’t even have a family I trusted, much less a lover. And what was I doing here in this cold, damp, godforsaken place, where a girl couldn’t even take a nap, for crying out loud? What was I going to do, really, for a whole three weeks in London before school started?
This was so different from what I’d expected, the precise fantasy of fulfillment I’d had the Monday back in January when I’d met with my advisor, Professor Newman. I’d done all the math beforehand. “I’d like to change my major,” I informed him. “And it should be really easy. I have the exact same number of history credits as I do art credits. We can just transfer the major and I won’t need to take any make-up classes this semester, even.”
Professor Newman raised his eyebrows. Those eyebrows had a life of their own, sticking out in all directions, just like his outrageous beard, big curly salt-and-pepper whorls. “Why?”
I fidgeted. “Studio art isn’t getting me anywhere. I’m not standing out and I’m not excelling. I’m just . . . average. Just getting Bs. So what am I supposed to do, with a college degree consisting of Bs in studio art?” I craftily neglected mentioning my plan of going to London.
I’d taken Intaglio Techniques I with Professor Newman, in which I’d received a B. He wasn’t rushing to undermine my self-analysis. Instead, he began to pontificate. “The whole idea of going to a liberal arts college is that you come out a well-formed citizen, a citizen of humanity . . .” I started not paying attention; I’d heard this song and dance before. Heck, it was what had convinced me to come to this little school, in this little town. I watched his eyebrow hairs wave as he talked, more animatedly now, as I tuned back in: “. . . . anywhere, with your college degree. Don’t turn your back on art in your sophomore year just because your grades aren’t up to your expectations.”
“Professor Newman, I’d just really like to change my major. Please.”
So he signed the paperwork, his eyebrows quivering ominously, and I was free. I could see myself climbing exuberantly onto one of those red London buses already, alive inside my very own picture postcard.
~ ~ ~
I was just so tired and discouraged, I must have fallen asleep on that bench, because when I suddenly started awake, the park had emptied. I looked at my Snoopy watch: it was seven p.m. My first day in London—a total bust. What an idiot, to imagine that things would magically be different here. I was still the same Vivian Lewis who had gotten on that plane the night before, but instead of a warm home to go to, the only prospect before me was that sleazy hostel, full of people I couldn’t begin to understand.
Nothing was different in my life at all. I couldn’t figure out what enabled that couple I’d seen earlier to align themselves so precisely together on that blanket. How did they fit so perfectly? What was the answer that I just . . . kept . . . missing? I scrubbed my hands through my short-cropped hair in frustration.
I dragged it out as long as I could—went
to McDonald’s for dinner, because it was nearby and familiar. When they charged me five pence for ketchup packets, I almost started to cry. This place was impossible to understand. I couldn’t believe what a huge mistake I’d made, and I was stuck here for a whole year. I used up every last bit of ketchup, out of spite.
By eight p.m.—it was still light outside, I noticed, in this different latitude—I reluctantly dragged myself back to the hostel, as slowly as possible, stopping at a nearby shop to purchase a proper London street map. I slowly climbed the stairs to Dormitory 2. It was lively now, with people sitting on the bunks talking about their day—guys and girls, all mixed up in one room. I was so innocent; I’d had no idea. I looked around and gasped. Where was my duffel? And who was this guy sitting on the bed I’d chosen?
“Hi,” I said tentatively to the room at large. “I just got here today, and . . .”
“Scott’s bed! You took Scott’s bed!” an elaborately tattooed American girl squealed. “You’re the one!”
“I didn’t know—they told me to take any bed . . .” I had never felt more shy in my life.
A skinny guy with darting eyes, squatting on my erstwhile mattress, glared at me. “I’ve been staying here for two months, and this is my bed, okay? You can have the top bunk.”
Apologizing, I climbed the rickety ladder and grabbed supplies from my duffel, which had been tossed up there. I made my way to the bathroom—also unisex, ack!—changed, and hastily got in bed. I could see no way of communicating with anyone in that room. They were an alien species, talking fast, smoking cigarettes, comparing itineraries. I was still so tired, but I couldn’t fall asleep. The mattress was thin and sagged hopelessly in the middle. I couldn’t get comfortable scrunched on the sides, and when I lay in the center loose springs poked me. Every time I moved, the mattress creaked ominously. At 11 pm, the lights went out, and everyone settled in, turning, muttering, snoring. In the bunk underneath, Scott was making strange noises. Was he having sex or something? I peered cautiously over the edge, my eyes adjusting to the dark. His eyes were squeezed blissfully shut. It was just him, thank god . . . oh, gross.
Chapter 2
I poked my spoon listlessly at my free breakfast Sunday morning. A cup of Nescafe next to me, a bowl of soggy muesli, and the colorful London A to Z Super Scale Street Map I’d purchased spread across the table. The A to Z’s bright streets and cheerfully labeled neighborhoods looked enticing yet offered no clue where to start. I couldn’t think. Then I remembered—the sketchbook and pencils—and it all came clear. I’d go to Trafalgar Square, do some drawing, center myself. See that Van Eyck I’d been dying to view in person. And then take it from there.
Not trusting myself to navigate London’s byzantine streets on foot yet, I made my way back to the Holborn tube station and from there, via rickety Northern Line train, two stops to Charing Cross. I counted twenty different shades of gray; I’d never seen such old buildings. San Jose was newly built compared to this place, and the history I had seen in Twyford—old clapboard houses, white-spired churches—small change in comparison to these looming edifices. History seeped through the gray bricks—Payne’s gray, blue-gray, milk-gray. So many before me had walked this way, searching too.
The rumors were true. Trafalgar Square was full of pigeons. Flapping, whirling, dive-bombing for bits of bread tossed by some Scandinavian-looking tourists. It was so loud—cars screeching around the roundabout, water spritzing from the large fountain in the square, teenage boys screaming dares to each other atop the bronze lions guarding the entrance. Two young twin girls, with pageboy haircuts and white-blonde hair, ran shrieking in total abandon, chasing after birds. Pigeons rose, flapped away, then drawn inexorably by the promise of stale bread bits, came swirling back, only to be chased again. A few drops of rain fell from an overcast sky, then the sun peeked out, blazing the girls’ hair. I pulled out my sketchbook, feeling at peace for the first time since I’d arrived. This, I knew how to deal with. I could swear that I was done with art all I wanted, but holding that pad felt like coming home.
I might be lacking by my art professors’ standards, but creating art was one the one thing I could say I truly loved, the one thing that made me feel complete. I remembered the oil painting class my mom had enrolled me in when I was eight; it was an entirely inappropriate age group but conveniently located half a mile from our house. Picture a room full of bubble-haired senior citizens, painting pastel Thomas Kincaid-esque scenes. And then me, with my always-spilling metal canisters of turpentine and my big brushes. I’d stand in front of my easel, adjusted for my small size, painting stiff-armed clowns and kittens. I still recall the thrilled look on Mom’s face when I overheard the teacher telling her, “. . . and she should consider a career in fine art.” My whole life suddenly clear on the basis of that one statement, my kindly teacher’s future plans for my small self, who only dimly understood the meaning of “career.”
Well, that idea had been a failure, but I still couldn’t wait to use my sketchbook for the first time; it had been a birthday gift from my high-school friend Kim. Inside its blue cloth cover was lovely, thick, 60-pound paper with a slightly rough surface, perfect for a pencil to grab and hold on to. Since I’d given up my foolish dreams of an art career, making art felt like a special treat, a reward to myself. Not something I could take for granted. Not something I could just do—it was something I had to deserve. I had made it to London—fine. I could draw, then.
Here’s how you start with an action sketch. First, draw really fast. Draw so fast with the 2H pencil that you’re not thinking, your hand is just moving, thirty seconds tops to draw body outlines composed of messy ovals, pencil lines crossing, it doesn’t matter, because by when you start using the HB pencil, your light lines will disappear behind all the shading you’ll put in next.
You’d be surprised how fast the bodies emerge, ovals becoming more solid, clothes appearing over the ovals—another thirty seconds maybe, to sketch in flowered dresses, mary jane shoes. A whole minute on my favorite part, the faces. Big child eyes, light blonde lashes almost invisible. Need to be careful to draw children’s faces differently than adults—eyes lower on face, cheeks rounder, small snub nose. Flyaway light hair, scribble scribble, now time for the HB pencil to highlight the medium darks: the shadows on the neck, the nostrils, the tops of the shoes.
Absorbed, I was dimly aware that someone had sat down next to me, but I was too intent on capturing the fleeting sense of the girls’ movement, scribbling in the dark shadows with the 2B pencil. Soon, the children would be removed by their already distracted parents, who’d tossed all their bread and were now paging eagerly through a guidebook, chattering animatedly in Swedish, or Danish, or whatever.
“That’s really good,” commented whoever was sitting next to me. I turned, startled. This guy looked like a dark-haired cousin of MacGyver, the multitalented hero of my favorite late-1980s TV show. Except, younger. Close to my age. Around his neck, he wore a heavy, serious-looking camera that looked out of place paired with his American-casual clothes—long baggy shorts, a stretched-out polo shirt.
“Hi, thanks,” I smiled, pleased. “It’s not anything like what I usually do, but it’s kind of fun—to try something different.”
“What do you usually draw?”
“I paint, actually, in oils, and acrylics sometimes. It’s kind of embarrassing, but I paint toys mostly. Barbies. I went through this massive Hello Kitty phase.”
MacGyver laughed. “Toys! That’s funny—why toys?”
“You know, I’ve thought about this a lot. Well, first of all, they’re much easier to paint, because they don’t move. And it’s this kind of postmodern ironic thing, painting dolls as if they were real. But they’re not, they’re just this construct—the power of these toys over little girls, so that they can be passive and beautiful like Barbie, or cute and cuddly but they can’t speak and be heard, like Hello Kitty.”
“Deep thinker.”
“Tell that to my art profe
ssors; they haven’t been so impressed.”
“They should be. I can tell you’re talented.” He had a gorgeous smile. I was inordinately flattered.
“Thanks, but I’ve given it all up. Painting Gumby and doll heads—it’s over. I’m just a hack. I need to get serious about something else.”
He looked surprised. “Well, why should you give up on a talent like yours? That’s just tragic. You’re not being true to yourself.”
I cut him off with my grandma’s favorite saying. “Talent and a dollar will buy you a cup of coffee, mister.” And changed the subject. “I like your camera—is it vintage?”
“You’re right, it’s a Canon camera.1977. It’s all manual—so it takes more time than your usual point-and-shoot thing. But it’s totally worth the effort. I’m a control freak,” he grinned. “Like, the camera has a better idea how to take a picture than I do? I don’t think so! I am in charge of this puppy.” He smacked the metal body affectionately.
“So you’re a photographer?”
He laughed, pushing his messy dark-brown hair out of his eyes. “Nah! I wish. I’m still in college. I was studying at the London School of Economics for a year, actually, and I’m just finishing up a summer working here, so I could stay in London a little longer. I’m a host at Chicago Pizza here.” He rolled his eyes. “My life’s dream. I go back to Los Angeles at the end of August. I’ll be a senior at UCLA.”
“That’s funny! I just got here, and I’m starting my junior year at Butler College at the end of the month too. I wanted to spend some time, get to know the city beforehand.”
Parts Unknown Page 2
