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“No. Not really.”
“And here I thought I’d done a pretty fucking good job of wearing you out.”
She laughed, lowering her brush. “You did. I know I should be sleeping, but I’m wired. Every time I close my eyes, I start thinking about tomorrow.”
“That one going with you?”
“No. I’m just messing around.” She glanced at the painting. “It helps.”
He crossed the room and bent to kiss her. “Then stay. Do your thing. I’m going back to bed.”
“I’ll be there in a little while.”
“All right.”
Back in the bedroom, Drew pulled the sheet over himself. He wanted to stay awake until she came to bed, but he was out before she ever made it down the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dr. Adams saved the painting of the children for last.
Nicole sat with her hands clasped in her lap while Dr. Adams studied the canvas propped on the easel beside her desk. Morning sunlight reached the edge of the bookcase, catching the chipped ear of a clay bust wedged between two oversized art books. Nicole had already looked at that ear three times. Anything to keep from watching the woman’s face.
Dr. Adams was a Black woman with close-cropped natural hair, going gray at the temples, and reading glasses she wore low on her nose. Her rust-colored jacket looked especially good against her brown skin, a detail Nicole had appreciated when she walked in, before the woman started asking questions that made it hard to appreciate much of anything.
She had been pleasant enough. She’d also spent several minutes on the red-umbrella painting, asking Nicole to explain a color choice she’d never thought to put into words. It looked right had sounded lame before it even left her mouth.
Now they were down to the children, and Nicole was starting to figure out how much easier it was to paint something than to sit beside it while someone decided whether she knew what she was doing.
“What do you see when you look at this?” Dr. Adams turned to her and waited.
“Freedom.” Nicole looked at the children. “They don’t have much, but they’re happy. Whatever else is going on, they have this.” She gestured toward the girl running with her arms spread. “I wanted you to see that before you saw what was around them.”
“You gave nearly half the canvas to the sky.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted it to feel bigger than everything behind them.”
Dr. Adams looked back at the painting. “It does.”
Nicole loosened her hands a little.
“Your use of color is strong,” Dr. Adams went on. “And there’s movement here. I can follow those children right across the canvas.” She lifted a finger toward it. “But your perspective needs work in places. Your figures too.”
Nicole’s eyes went straight to the middle child’s left arm. “That arm,” she said.
“That arm is one example.”
Well. Good to know there were others.
Dr. Adams turned her chair toward her. “You have an eye, Ms. Wright. There are things you’re doing instinctively that we can build on. There are also fundamentals you’ll need to learn, and some habits you may have to unlearn.”
Nicole nodded and didn’t ask which habits. She wanted the answer, but she wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take before she knew whether she was getting in.
“We discussed the coursework on Tuesday. Today I want you to think about what it will mean to have other people respond to your work. Your instructors, certainly, but your classmates as well. You’ll spend weeks on something and then stand beside it while people tell you what they think.”
