Reckless (21 page)

Why did I feel so at ease every time I gazed into those eyes of his? Was it their color? Because they were impossibly beautiful? Or was it the man behind them, and his love for me? I’m sure it was both. But it was also the fact that I’d never felt this kind of love in my entire life. Unconditional, supportive, understanding, compassionate love. I was tearing up again. It was starting to become a bad habit.

Is that what love did to you? Made you cry all the time?

Christos pulled me into his arms. “You don’t need ice cream,
agápi mou
. You need to talk, I can tell.” He grabbed his water and led us to my couch. “What’s eating you?”

I sniffled and giggled. “My need for ice cream.”

He chuckled. “We can have some later. But right now, I want to know what’s bothering you so much about telling your parents, if you want to talk about it. If you want to wait, that’s fine too. But it needs to come out, or it’s going to keep eating away at you.”

I wasn’t sure where to begin. I held my hands up plaintively, then dropped them in my lap. But I knew Christos was right. This was just like the Taylor Lamberth situation. I knew I needed to get it out. I took a deep breath, and began.

“I never told you this before,” I started.

“Sounds like a familiar opening,” he smiled.

I shook my head and leaned into him. We were thigh to thigh on the couch. He put his arm around my shoulder and I rested my head on his chest. It was so firm and supportive, just like he was.

“When I was applying for colleges in high school, I got the idea into my head that maybe I could go to an art college. But I never told my parents. I went online and found a bunch of different schools, all of them in California.”

“Which ones?”

“Mainly CalArts and Art Center College of Design.”

“Those are the big gun schools in Southern Cal.”

“I know. Anyway, I read about portfolio submissions, and realized I needed to do some drawings of my own. Some serious drawings. So every day after school, I would draw all kinds of different things at home. Since I’d lost all my friends after the Damian thing, I had plenty of spare time. But every day, I’d make sure to put away my drawings before my parents got home. Somehow, I intuitively sensed they would say something to knock me down if they ever found out.”

“Serious?” Christos frowned.

“I guess it wasn’t like that in your house growing up.”

“Heck no. My dad and my grandad were always wanting to see what I was working on, always trying to help me make my work better.”

“You have no idea how lucky you are,” I said, my voice quavering. “Because, one time, I was so wrapped up in one of my drawings, I never heard the garage door when my mom came home from work. I was trying to copy a photograph of a horse, and I remember how amazed I was that my drawing looked good. I was drawing the entire horse, legs and all, and for once, it didn’t look like a kid’s drawing. To me, anyway.

“The next thing I knew, my mom was over my shoulder saying, ‘What are you doing?’ I covered my drawing instinctively, fear instantly knotting my guts.”

I looked up at Christos. “How lame is that? I was afraid of my mom looking at my drawing.”

Christos cupped my cheek with his palm and stroked my face with his thumb, wiping away my tears.

I continued. “I told my mom it was nothing. I remember her eyes narrowing as she searched my face, almost like she knew I was up to something…I don’t know, like I was up to something
dangerous
…”

SAMANTHA

PAST…

“What is this?” my mom asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“It’s not nothing. It’s a drawing.” She reached over my shoulder and pulled it off my desk to examine it.
 

I watched her face, trying to figure out where this was going to go. She knew I didn’t socialize much anymore. I’d thought maybe she would’ve said something about how it was nice I had a hobby or whatever.

“Why were you hiding this, young lady?” she demanded, like it was a crack pipe or a handgun.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Then she rifled through the other drawings I had laying out on my desk. I’m sure a normal girl would pin her best work to her bedroom wall. I kept mine in a stack under my books when I wasn’t working on them so my parents wouldn’t notice them.

“What have you been up to, Sam?” my mom asked, eyes narrow.

“Drawing,” I said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, because I like it?”

“You sure have a lot of drawings here. You’re not sacrificing your study time to do these drawings, are you?”

“I—”

“You need to be focusing on keeping your grades up, studying for the SATs, and college applications, Sam. Not on goofing off drawing all these worthless drawings.”
 

“I’m not goofing off! I have to do these drawings for the art schools!”

“Art schools?” my mom sneered. “We never talked about any art schools.”

“So?”

“So? You’re not going to any art schools.”

“Why not?”

“Because we already discussed this with your father. We’re looking at business schools.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “
You’re
looking at business schools.”

My mom’s brows knit together. “Don’t take that tone with me, young lady.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I sighed. I almost gave up. I was about to stack my drawings up and set them aside to make room for my school books. But I couldn’t. I
had
to say something. “Mom, I really want to go to art school. I’ve been looking at a bunch of different programs online, and I think maybe I could get in. I read the different portfolio requirements, and you can’t get into an art school without submitting artwork. It’s not just grades and SATs.”

My mom looked at me, assessing me. “Is that so. How long have you been thinking about this?”

“A few months?” I was so unsure of myself.

“Have you looked at tuition?”

A felt a glimmer of hope. “Yeah.”

“How much is it?”

It always came down to the bottom line with both my parents. I sighed heavily. “It’s almost double.”

“Double?!” my mom blurted. “You’re kidding,” she laughed.

“No.”

“It’s out of the question, Sam,” she said with finality.

“But what if I can get a scholarship or something?”

My mom put her hands on her hips and her lips welded together sternly. She picked up my drawings and flipped through them so heatedly I thought she was going to tear them up. But I kept my mouth shut, hopeful.

She nodded with increasing intensity as she flipped. “Mmm-hmm. Hmm. Mmm-hmm.” She dropped them on my desk dismissively. “I don’t think you’re good enough for a scholarship.”

My jaw dropped. “Who are you to say that?”

“I’m your mother, Sam,” she growled.

“Mom, you don’t know anything about art!” My face was hot with anger.

“I know enough to know you’re probably not going to get a scholarship.”

“But shouldn’t I try?” I struggled to hold back my tears.

“Not when it means taking time away from your studies and your other applications.”

“But I’m getting A’s in all my classes! And I have time left over. How do you think I’ve been able to draw all these drawings and still keep my grades up?”

“Yes, but you have SATs coming up. You need to be focusing on your SAT study guides.”

“I have been!” I protested. “And I still have time for drawing!”

“I don’t want to hear it. No more drawing, Sam. We’re not paying double for some fancy art college. Your father and I simply can’t afford it. And that’s final.” She marched out of my bedroom.

When my father came home, I didn’t even bother to mention it. I didn’t want to have him look at my drawings and tell me I wasn’t good enough, too.

Over dinner that night, my mom just
had
to bring it up. Dinner with my parents was never actually fun.

“Do you know what crazy scheme your daughter has been cooking up?” my mom orated as she scooped a spoonful of carrots onto her plate before passing them to Dad.

“What’s that, dear?” my dad asked, spooning carrots.

“Sam has the crazy idea she can go to art college. And get a scholarship, no less.”

I felt like the literal translation of my mom’s words would be
“Our daughter is insane, isn’t that a laugh riot? What an idiot.”
 

“Art college?” my Dad frowned. “We’ve never talked about art college. A good business college is the proper place for her.”

They were talking like I wasn’t in the room.

“That’s what I said,” Mom said, chuckling.
 

Was it okay to think your mom was a total bitch? I mean, not every second of the day. But more often than not?

My dad turned and addressed me directly. “Sam, art colleges are generally private universities, and therefore, significantly more expensive.”

“I already knew that,” I sniveled. Demonstrating that I wasn’t a completely ignorant idiot was my only remaining defense. Sadly, I didn’t think it was going to get me anywhere.

“Knowing doesn’t pay for anything,” my mom laughed.

Called it.

“Your mother is right, Sam,” Dad said. “We don’t have the money.”

Called it again.

“But I could get loans, maybe even a scholarship!” I protested.

“That’s all well and good, Sam, but how do you plan to pay off those loans? Have you thought about what kind of a job an artist can get? Do you intend to draw caricatures at the county fair? Sell watercolors on the boardwalk in Atlantic City? How could you possibly support yourself making twenty dollars here and there?”

“I wasn’t talking about that kind of an artist!” I argued. “There’s other kinds of artists everywhere. What about that painting you guys bought, the one of the waves that hangs in your office?”
 

I was grasping at straws, and my parents knew it.

“Sam,” my dad said condescendingly, “I paid one hundred dollars for that painting. How long do you think it would take you to paint such a painting?”

I didn’t want to say that I didn’t know how to paint an oil painting. I’m pretty sure if I had, my dad would’ve said
“Check and mate, game over
.”

“Your daughter doesn’t know how to paint in oils,” my mom said. “She just draws in pencil.”

Thanks, mom. I rolled my eyes. They were both playing with me like cats before the kill.

My dad was smiling now, always happy to run the numbers. “Now hold on a second, Linda. Let’s think this through. Sam, how long does it take you to finish a drawing? And I mean a
good
one?”

Why did I feel like I was walking into a trap? “Um, all day?”
 

“Okay. Let’s call that eight hours. So, for eight hours of work, you make one hundred dollars. That’s $12.50 an hour.”

My dad was a human calculator, and quite proud of it.

“That’s pretty good, isn’t it?” I knew minimum wage was $8.25 in D.C. $12.50 sounded pretty damn good to me.

“Hah!” my mom bellowed. Her eyes twinkled as if she enjoyed the way my dad was shredding my artistic dreams with practiced ease.

Groan.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Dad said. “You have to assume the cost of supplies. Conservatively, let’s say ten percent for paint and whatever other materials artists use, another ten for the frame. I’m sure the gallery gets some kind of commission, so another, oh, fifteen for that. Now we’re down to $65.00 for that painting of yours. That comes out to $8.13 an hour, Sam. You’d make more pouring coffee at Starbucks. And I hear some of the big corporate coffee chains have decent health insurance plans these days, which aren’t cheap. Working as a barista would put you significantly ahead of the guy who painted that painting in my office.”

My mom smiled at me with a mixture of superiority and, I hate to say it, glee. “Your father’s right, Sam. Being an artist is a bad idea.”

I felt something close inside me at that moment, like my parents had somehow proved with total certainty that it was impossible to be an artist.
 

I remember trying to swallow a bite of mashed potatoes, and it knotting in my throat like a ball of lead. When I went to my room that night, I buried all the drawings I’d been working on in the bottom of my closet.

SAMANTHA

PRESENT DAY

Christos said, “That’s rough.”

I wrapped my free arm around his chest and hugged him while I sobbed weakly. “Now you know why I don’t want to tell my parents.”

“I don’t know if you realize this, Samantha, but your parents are ignorant.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there’s thousands of different jobs out there for artists. Your dad, as smart as he may be with numbers, doesn’t know shit about the art business. He is literally ignorant of the options that exist for artists.”

“But I still have to convince them of that. I don’t know what you know, so I feel like they’d try to change my mind over the phone, and who knows, maybe by the end of the call, I’d be agreeing with everything they said all over again.”

“That’s not true,” Christos said encouragingly. “Didn’t you tell me you took Life Drawing last quarter, even though they wanted you to take Economics instead?”

“That was an elective class. I had to take one anyway. Actually changing my major is a whole ‘nother level.”

“If you want, call them while I’m here. I can cheer from the sidelines. I’ll get some pom-poms and do those goofy clapping high kicks. Then you’ll be able to see my underwear,” he chuckled. “Not that I’m wearing any.”

The idea of Christos, in a skirt, with no underwear, kicking his legs high while his jewels jiggled made me wrinkle my nose.

“Okay, maybe I’d wear underwear for the high kicks,” he grinned. “But seriously, I’ll totally back you up. I’ll talk to your parents if I have to. Whatever you need, I’m here for you,
agápi mou.
”

“Thank you, Christos. That means so much, I can’t even tell you.”

“You want to call them now?”

I almost said no, but then I felt something I’d never felt before. Anger. I was suddenly mad at my parents. No matter what I’d tried to do to shape my own future, they’d always pushed back, steering me away from where I wanted to go. I
could
let this go on forever, always caving into them, but I was tired of being bullied by everyone, and that included my parents.