Not much.” They entered the student commons. For once the wide brick courtyard was empty of people, and the sound of their footsteps echoed eerily between the surrounding buildings.
“Why—” Estelle began, but Anna interrupted her. “Have a good rehearsal,” she said, and darted away across the courtyard.
As she passed through the doors of the fine arts building, Anna inhaled the clay dust and varnish-scented air deep into her lungs. I’m home, she thought exultantly, passing the main office and heading down the echoing concrete stairs. It’s over now. I’m back. I made it through.
Inside her cubicle she went straight to the drawer that held her most recent photographs. She’d thought she would start the morning by matting a print or two, and then, if she felt up to it, she might work in the darkroom for a while. But when she set her new prints on the table, the photograph on the top of the pile was so empty and uninspired that she wondered how it could have gotten mixed in with her best work.
It was an image of a lace tablecloth she’d found in a secondhand store. Two months ago she’d hung the lace across the window of her attic room and then spent a weekend shooting it in every possible light. At the time, she’d loved how its broken folds draped between the aged window jambs, how the torn mass of it lay in a weary, graceful heap on the sill, and later, when she’d made that print, she’d been pleased by the tension she thought she’d caught between the exact froth of the handmade lace and the causal damage of time. Every Thread a Web, she’d planned to call it when she hung it in her graduate show. But this morning it seemed strained and mundane—an old tablecloth hanging awkwardly from a splintered window frame. Looking at it now, she saw only the vast distance between what she had hoped for and what she had achieved.
I was really off there for a while, she thought as she remembered back over the last six weeks, how scared and sad she’d been, how sick she’d felt. Hurriedly she began to flip through the rest of the pile, seeking to comfort herself with better examples of her work. But she couldn’t find a single print she liked. Every photograph was trite and amateurish and immature, its composition stiff, its tones muddy, its subject sentimental or clichéd. It made her feel hot and flushed to realize she had ever meant to show those prints to the world. It made her heart falter to think of all she had given for them. Standing in the empty hallway, she wondered, How could I have been so wrong?
S YLVIA AND J ON WENT WITH C ERISE TO THE WELFARE OFFICE . T HEY helped her gather the documents the caseworkers required, helped her fill out the forms to claim she was an independent minor, the forms to apply for food stamps and Medi-Cal and welfare. They took her to the clinic, where a gray-haired doctor twisted a speculum inside her and prodded her stomach and pressed the cold lozenge of his stethoscope against her breasts. They helped her find an apartment on the other side of Rossi, helped her move her clothes and her TV and the mattress from her bed while Rita was at work.
Cerise’s apartment consisted of four rooms lined up like train cars, a tiny living room in front, a stale bedroom in the rear, a dark slice of kitchen and a damp bathroom sandwiched in between. Sylvia helped her clean it, and Cerise cut pictures from magazines to decorate the walls—photos of flowers and baby animals and bright butterflies, and one strange picture with no color at all but the smooth curve of a silver river leading toward a wall of rugged mountains. There was something fierce and fearless about that picture that tugged at her, though when Sylvia asked her why she’d chosen it, Cerise shrugged shyly and answered, “I don’t know.”
At first, when she told Sam she was pregnant, he acted like a boy who’d been accused of hitting a baseball through a neighbor’s window, but later, when he realized that
“Why—” Estelle began, but Anna interrupted her. “Have a good rehearsal,” she said, and darted away across the courtyard.
As she passed through the doors of the fine arts building, Anna inhaled the clay dust and varnish-scented air deep into her lungs. I’m home, she thought exultantly, passing the main office and heading down the echoing concrete stairs. It’s over now. I’m back. I made it through.
Inside her cubicle she went straight to the drawer that held her most recent photographs. She’d thought she would start the morning by matting a print or two, and then, if she felt up to it, she might work in the darkroom for a while. But when she set her new prints on the table, the photograph on the top of the pile was so empty and uninspired that she wondered how it could have gotten mixed in with her best work.
It was an image of a lace tablecloth she’d found in a secondhand store. Two months ago she’d hung the lace across the window of her attic room and then spent a weekend shooting it in every possible light. At the time, she’d loved how its broken folds draped between the aged window jambs, how the torn mass of it lay in a weary, graceful heap on the sill, and later, when she’d made that print, she’d been pleased by the tension she thought she’d caught between the exact froth of the handmade lace and the causal damage of time. Every Thread a Web, she’d planned to call it when she hung it in her graduate show. But this morning it seemed strained and mundane—an old tablecloth hanging awkwardly from a splintered window frame. Looking at it now, she saw only the vast distance between what she had hoped for and what she had achieved.
I was really off there for a while, she thought as she remembered back over the last six weeks, how scared and sad she’d been, how sick she’d felt. Hurriedly she began to flip through the rest of the pile, seeking to comfort herself with better examples of her work. But she couldn’t find a single print she liked. Every photograph was trite and amateurish and immature, its composition stiff, its tones muddy, its subject sentimental or clichéd. It made her feel hot and flushed to realize she had ever meant to show those prints to the world. It made her heart falter to think of all she had given for them. Standing in the empty hallway, she wondered, How could I have been so wrong?
S YLVIA AND J ON WENT WITH C ERISE TO THE WELFARE OFFICE . T HEY helped her gather the documents the caseworkers required, helped her fill out the forms to claim she was an independent minor, the forms to apply for food stamps and Medi-Cal and welfare. They took her to the clinic, where a gray-haired doctor twisted a speculum inside her and prodded her stomach and pressed the cold lozenge of his stethoscope against her breasts. They helped her find an apartment on the other side of Rossi, helped her move her clothes and her TV and the mattress from her bed while Rita was at work.
Cerise’s apartment consisted of four rooms lined up like train cars, a tiny living room in front, a stale bedroom in the rear, a dark slice of kitchen and a damp bathroom sandwiched in between. Sylvia helped her clean it, and Cerise cut pictures from magazines to decorate the walls—photos of flowers and baby animals and bright butterflies, and one strange picture with no color at all but the smooth curve of a silver river leading toward a wall of rugged mountains. There was something fierce and fearless about that picture that tugged at her, though when Sylvia asked her why she’d chosen it, Cerise shrugged shyly and answered, “I don’t know.”
At first, when she told Sam she was pregnant, he acted like a boy who’d been accused of hitting a baseball through a neighbor’s window, but later, when he realized that
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