Celestial Navigation by Anne Tyler

he had never meant it to be a joke. That was the way his vision functioned: only in detail. Piece by piece. He had tried looking at the whole of things but it never worked out. He tried now, widening his eyes to take in the chilly white air below the skylight and the bare yellow plaster and splintery floors. The angles of the walls raced toward each other and collided. Gigantic hollow space loomed over him, echoing. The brightness made his lids ache.
    “I hate to have to tell you this,” Lisa said, “but I don’t think I’m going to be coming here again.”
    Jeremy said nothing.
    “Mr. Pauling?”
    “Oh yes,” he said.
    “Did you hear what I just told you?”
    “You weren’t, you’re not—”
    “My aunt’s taking me to Europe, I won’t be coming to lessons any more.”
    “Oh yes, I see.”
    “We’ll make a tour of all the museums. Well, that’s what I
really
need, isn’t it? Studying the old masters? Learning their technique and brush strokes and use of color—”
    She was swirling a slash of magenta unnecessarily on her palette, avoiding his eyes. Telling him she meant no offense. Jeremy had not taught her anything at all about technique and brush stroke.
Line
was where his interest lay. He had given up all painting years ago, didn’t even own a set of oils, or if he did they had surely dried up by now in the back of some cabinet. When Lisa’s blobs of color slipped out of her control he could only watch blankly, with his mind on something else. It was possible that he had never offered her a single comment. What difference would it have made, anyway?
    Now she was glancing at the time, slipping off her spotless Scandinavian smock and carefully folding it. “We’ll start off in Paris,” she said. “Have you ever been there?”
    “Paris. No.”
    “That’s the place to go, Aunt Dorrie says.”
    She squatted to replace the tubes of paint in the new raw wooden box they had come in. She tucked in her uncleaned brush, and then stood up and surveyed the studio to see what she was forgetting. Jeremy stayed where he was. He had been through this before. Sooner or later all his students left. They went to college, or got married, or moved to New York City, or found another teacher. Sometimes a student only stayed for one lesson. Sometimes they didn’t even bother telling him—just failed to show up, kept him waiting idly on his stool until it occurred to him, halfway through the morning, that things were not going the way they were supposed to be. He pictured himself as a statue in a fountain, sitting eternally motionlesswhile people came and threw their hopeful pennies in and left again.
    “I can’t take the painting, it will get all over my clothes,” Lisa said.
    “The—”
    “The
painting
. What’ll I do? Shall I leave it here?”
    “Oh, fine. That will be all right.”
    “Well, I guess I’ll be going, then. I certainly do thank you. I know I’m not a
professional
yet or anything and I appreciate how you’ve tried to help me.”
    “You’re very welcome,” Jeremy said. “And also—and I’ve enjoyed getting to know you personally, too.”
    “When I get back,” said Lisa, “if I get back, and if I’m not married yet or anything, then maybe one of those snotty art schools will accept me this time. I mean, I know this trip will improve me, don’t you think? They can’t just keep turning me down
forever
, can they?”
    She held out her hand, a small tight cluster of fingers. Jeremy stared at it. He was noticing how thick the air seemed. It was pressing against his temples, flattening his eyeballs. Moving would be like swimming through egg whites.
    “Well, bye,” Lisa said.
    Moments later, pulled upward by the fading sound of her high heels, Jeremy rose from the stool. He blinked at the slamming of the front door. The memory of some obligation forced his hand out straight in front of him, and he closed it on nothing and looked at it a moment before he let it drop back to his