Better Than Running at Night (4 page)

"No," I snapped. "I just never knew I liked red before. And I was never
in
mourning anyway. Can't I do
anything
without you questioning it?"

Right after I said it, I wished I could've taken it back; if I wanted my words to have impact, I'd have to use them more subtly, too. No more emotional outbreaks.

"Cool it, Ellie," my mom said, shaking her head.

My dad just ignored me and resumed cutting his chicken into bite-size pieces. He was used to me overreacting.

"Sorry," I said, as unsarcastically as possible.

As I sat sketching Ivan's eyes the night before my first NECAD
class, I realized I had been a little melodramatic in my attempt to erase melodrama.

When I walked into class, Ed Gilloggley was standing on top of a high table, trying to set up floodlights on white geometrical solids so the shadows would be dramatic. But he was short, and it was hard for him to reach the bars on the ceiling, even with the help of a broomstick. Finally he stood on the tallest rectangular block and secured the clamps. He was whistling so hard he had vibrato, like Disney birds.

"There we go! I've got it!" he shouted at the lightbulbs.

I was the first one there. Ed continued his monologue with the lamps. "Here they come! I can hear their footsteps!" Then he looked at me. "I pulled these out of my closet last night," he exclaimed, pointing at the blocks. "They were so dirty I had to paint them white. I was afraid they wouldn't dry in time, but I stuck them in the oven and they did! Look at those shadows!" He sprang off the table and landed lightly on the floor. His wispy comb-over flopped to the wrong side of his head, exposing a circular bald spot.

The Van Gogh Garage was a huge studio off the side of Van Gogh House, an old funeral home turned dorm. The sinks in the Garage were human-body-size. Heavy woodshop machinery lined
one of the walls. A thin layer of sawdust covered the floor. It must not have been mopped since last semester.

Not far behind me was a tall guy clunking in two-inch soles, keys jangling on a belt clip. Everything he wore matched, from scarf to pants to argyle socks. He scanned the room with a scrunched nose as if he smelled something rancid.

Next came a mopey guy with hunched shoulders and dragging feet. He carried a bag of Dunkin' Donuts and walked as if he was being towed by a rope attached to his collar. His head was covered with a miserable attempt to grow dirty blond dreads, which stuck out beneath a plaid sagging cap. The crotch in his jeans was about five notches too low and he wore wool socks beneath Birkenstock sandals.

"They're all here! Everybody, have a seat!" Ed shouted as he worked out the setup's finishing touches and gathered his papers.

We each found our way to a paint-encrusted metal stool. They were like the stools we had in grade school, but taller and with a backrest.

The mopey guy left his bulky coat and ratty army backpack on. The backpack pushed him forward in his seat.

"Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Ready or not, it's time to begin!" Ed seemed to be shouting to make up for what he lacked in size.

The matching boy looked at me. He quickly turned to the mopey guy, then back to me again. Mopey guy stared straight at Ed, never altering his frontal slouch.

"Now, my fine young friends!" Ed shouted, standing on his
toes. "Allow me to give you some background to this Foundation voyage you are about to embark upon!" He pronounced
voyage
the French way.

Mopey guy pulled his cap further over his face, putting his eyes in shadow. The bag of doughnuts rested in his lap.

"It is my job, as your Foundation teacher, to teach you the basic skills of drawing." He drew an imaginary picture with the pencil in his hand. "Two-D design." He waved a piece of paper in the air. "And three-D design!" He lifted a block from the setup on the table.

I wondered if the inside of Ed's body was actually made of gears and switches and little blinking lights. I got the feeling that if he stopped moving he would automatically deactivate, never to start up again.

"You three may not realize it, but you are in a very special situation!" he continued. "You all were deferred for a semester, so during Wintersession I have to catch you up with the rest of your class. You may envy the other students for being allowed to choose any course from the catalog for these six weeks. And you may also think, Six weeks? That's not much time! But you have the advantage of my undivided attention every day we are together. That is very rare! My attention is usually divided between fifteen or twenty students. By the end of Wintersession, you will be more than prepared to join your fellow freshmen for Foundation Two, and if I dare say so, you may learn more than they did in an entire semester!"

Matching boy sneezed three times in a row. He reached into his pants pocket for a red handkerchief, which just happened to be the same color as the stripes on his sweater.

"Bless you! Bless you! Bless you!" Ed shouted.

"Thanks," said matching boy.

"Now for attendance!"

Ed treated taking attendance like it was an audition for a Broadway production. Even though there were only three of us, he prepared for each name by taking a new stance and clearing his throat. He used his entire body. And, like all teachers, he gave us the introductory disclaimer: "I will try my best with pronunciations, but do not hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong. And
please
notify me of any nicknames!"

By my second year in high school all my teachers knew that I went by Ellie. I hadn't had to deal with new reactions to my name in a while.

Ed began, hand over his heart, after a deep breath:

"Ralph LaLande!"

This was matching boy. Apparently, his name was pronounced "Rolph," like the muppet. He sneezed three times after correcting his name. Again, Ed blessed him three times.

Next on the list was Samuel Slant. Mopey guy raised one finger to indicate his presence. "Sam," he said, almost inaudibly. He was munching his way through a chocolate glazed doughnut.

And last but not least was, in the words of Ed Gilloggley, "The one, the only ... Ladybug Yelinsky!"

Every time I hear my full name spoken by a stranger I want to say, Please forgive my parents; they were tripping when they did this to me.

My parents named me after a mutual hallucination they had while tripping on acid. They didn't even know each other yet. Later that year they met at a party and discovered they'd had the same hallucination about ladybugs on a bathroom floor at exactly the same time on April i. My dad says the bugs were crawling but my mom says they were dead. Sometimes when they're telling the story my dad will compromise and say they were sleeping, but my mom will wink and mouth the word
dead.
They named me Ladybug, but they mostly called me L.B., which, through several misunderstandings early in my education, became Ellie.

On our first break the three of us trudged up the hill to the dining hall, Sam and his backpack dragging behind me and Ralph. Ralph
was having a sneezing fit, always in sets of three. His keys jingled with each step.

"I'm allergic to sawdust," he said, fanning his fingers in front of his nose. "And that spastic teacher jumping around doesn't help one bit." He went on to complain about how the charcoal Ed was making us buy would mess up his shirt. And what if he had an itch while he was drawing? Would I promise to tell him if he had charcoal-face?

After filling our trays, we waited in line to pay.

"Oh, Ellie," Ralph sighed, playing with the keys in his pocket. "I hadn't pegged you as a carnivore."

I looked at my grilled chicken sandwich.

"Sam I could've guessed. But not you."

Sam readjusted his cap and glared at Ralph.

"You just met us," I said. "How could you know anything about us?"

"Just a hunch," he said. "And my hunches are usually right."

We slid our trays closer to the cashier.

"Have you ever considered veganism?" Ralph asked.

"No," I said. "I've never heard of it."

"Absolutely no animal products," he said proudly. "No eggs, no cheese, and obviously no meat."

The cash register dinged as it rang up Ralph's salad.

"Really, Ellie," he said, "it's the most humane and healthy way to eat."

We found a table by the windows. I sat across from both guys.

Sam finally removed his backpack. I was relieved. I'd started to think he was hiding a large back tumor in there.

"Do you two know what you want to major in?" Ralph asked.

"Film," Sam said, engrossed in his bacon cheeseburger. His voice was so deep it sounded like someone had turned the speed knob way down on his voice box.

"Painting," I said.

"Painting," Ralph repeated. "So this Foundation stuff will actually be useful for you!"

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Isn't it useful for everyone?"

"Oh, no no no," Ralph said, shaking his index finger. "I'm going into apparel. Drawing and three-D design have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with apparel. All the sketches clothing designers make are completely stylized. The only thing I can use is two-D design. That is,
if
this Gilloggley guy can stay still long enough to teach. Foundation class is just something I have to get through."

"Right on," Sam said. "Can't wait for next year. That's when school really begins." He sipped his Coke. Some of the soda spilled on his shirt. He glanced up to see if I noticed.

I turned to Ralph. "Why did you choose fashion design?"

He finished swallowing a bite of well-chewed mixed salad greens before answering. "Well, Ellie, I believe that the purest form of art is
apparel
design—in the fashion industry, we prefer the term
apparel.
When you wear art, you
become
the art. With all other mediums, you experience the art indirectly."

"What kind of clothes do you design?" I asked.

"Recently, I've been developing a you-are-the-environment approach to apparel," Ralph said, gesturing toward the window.

Sam looked up to see my reaction.

I remained poker-faced. "You are the environment?"

"Ellie, did you ever see a sunset so beautiful you wanted to wear it?"

Sam rolled his eyes so only I could see.

"I like sunsets," I said.

"By the time we graduate from NECAD, you will be able to wear the sunset," he assured me.

Sam stopped chewing his cheeseburger and widened his heavy eyes so much that the whites seemed to glow beneath the shadow from his cap.

"But Ed, Ellie's going to be a painting major," Ralph said. "Don't you think at least
she
should get to paint?"

"Good point, Ralph. But here in Foundation class, we all start at the same place. We begin with the basics! You'd probably be surprised, even with the talent you all have, how much you don't know!"

"Like what?" Ralph asked.

Eye roll from Sam.

"For starters," Ed said, ripping off the cover to a huge pad of newsprint, "I bet none of you know how to draw those blocks correctly!" He pointed at the block setup on the table.

"I bet we do," said Ralph. "We came here to learn more complicated stuff."

"All in good time, Ralph!" Ed shouted while securing the newsprint pad to an easel. "For now, let's stick to the blocks. Now, everybody! Please direct your attention over here as I create a three-dimensional form using only this piece of charcoal and this piece of paper."

Ed drew a few lines in the shape of a cube. Then he held a knitting needle at arm's length from his face and squinted at the blocks. He redrew his lines, then erased the old ones.

"Even an old pro like me makes mistakes! This is great for you all to see! Remember, the eraser can be your most powerful tool. I don't care if you have seventy-four wrong lines showing through, as long as you finally get the right one!"

As Ed corrected his lines, I wondered if Ralph was right. I didn't come here to learn how to draw blocks; I came to learn how to paint. What was the use of being in this class if Ed wasn't even going to teach us the fundamentals of painting?

Ever since I was old enough to use crayons and finger paint, I had wanted to go to NECAD. My mother had etched in my brain that it was the best art school in the country. If she could do her life over again, she would've gone here.

It was the only school I applied to, because I figured I wouldn't
be happy anywhere else. But maybe at other schools, you didn't have to sit through block demonstrations.

This class was a far cry from the anatomical drawing class my mom took at the Art Student's League when I was young. I used to spend a lot of time pawing through the pages in her portfolio case, tracing the drawn bones and muscles with my finger. She told me the teacher had said she really had a future in art.

"So in effect, you are paying these people to take off their clothes," my dad would say when she came home from class.