See What I See by Gloria Whelan
There’s nothing left for me to do but get into bed. I don’t hear Dad come upstairs. I decide he must be lost in his painting. I know the feeling. One idea after another grabs you and you can’t bear to stop because you know the ideas might never come again. All the anger leaks out of me as I realize he’s racing time.
In the morning I dress carefully for my first day at school, wondering what kids wear in the city, eventually pulling on my jeans and an old T-shirt. I’m there to learn to paint, not to make a fashion statement. I take a deep breath, suck in my stomach, zip my jeans, grab my backpack, and tiptoe down the stairway, anxious to get away before Dad is up. I feel like a captain deserting a ship. Don’t I have a right to my own life? I promise myself I’ll be especially nice to Dad in the afternoon when I get back.
As I leave, I lock the door behind me, shutting Dad and all the mean and selfish things he has said to me inside. I’m on my own. I’m not just my mom and dad’s daughter. Today I’m whoever I decide I’m going to be. That’s frightening. It’s like when your canvas is empty and you know that your first line or your first splash of color will help set the course for what the painting will become. Today is the start of a new painting for me.
Chapter 4
I had no idea the city could be so beautiful. In the creamy, golden light of the September morning all the grime of the city is swept clean. The old elm trees that yesterday looked diseased and faltering now appear brave and sturdy. Traffic that had been so overwhelming is cheerful and full of purpose. People know where they’re going. On the bus everyone seems to welcome me, as if they have been waiting for me to join them. When I push through the doors of the school, I know I have my life back. I’m in exactly in the right place at exactly the right time. I want to grab hold of someone and say, Isn’t this great? Aren’t you happy? But I play it cool and just move along with the other kids, trying to look like it’s nothing special. I’m relieved to see that almost everyone is wearing jeans. I think about how funny we’d look if God played a joke and suddenly made all the denim in the world disappear.
I have to ask where my first class is, and when I find the room, the students who are already there give me friendly, nervous smiles that say we’re all in this together. English lit, the official start of my college career.
The professor says right away, “I know most of you resent having to sit through this class and would much rather be in a studio painting, but some of the best paintings have been done by artists inspired by great books or poems, just as some excellent books have been inspired by paintings. A single painting, Poussin’s A Dance to the Music of Time, inspired Anthony Powell to write twelve terrific novels, hundreds of thousands of words.” I try to look interested in this writer I’ve never heard of. The girl next to me rolls her eyes, and I grin.
Next up is art history class, where the professor is dressed in a long, flowing skirt that’s been out of style since before I was born, but the skirt has patches of paint on it so I know she doesn’t just talk about what she’s teaching. Her voice is mesmerizing and intimate at the same time, as if she’s talking just to me.
She shows us slides of still lifes with fruit and flowers and some paintings of landscapes by nineteenth-century American painters, each painting more lush and beautiful than the last. “All very pleasurable,” she says, “but let’s look at some work that shakes us up, that makes us turn away yet want to look at the same time. Let’s talk about the beauty of ugliness.”
A slide goes up of a couple sitting at a table looking starved and miserable. “Van Gogh,” she says. “Notice how he’s made use of the color blue to set the mood of the painting.” Another slide. This one of a firing squad, officers aiming their guns at a row of prisoners. “Goya. You can see he spares us nothing. These are not easy artists.” The next is a slide of a woman down on her knees scrubbing the floor of an empty office building, the darkness of the night leaking in through the windows. The woman’s hair is hanging over her face, which has crumpled with fatigue and hopelessness. The painting is so depressing, I can hardly bear to look at it. A shiver goes through me. I know the artist.
“Dalton Quinn,” the professor says. “He’s a contemporary artist, still active but hasn’t done much lately. Actually Quinn is rumored to be living right here in Detroit. Look at these paintings and see for yourselves how interesting ugliness can be if it’s more than just ugliness, if the artist catches us up and makes us wonder about the people in his painting, makes us want to reach out to them.”
My hand shoots up. “Why would an artist pick ugly things to paint when there’s so much that’s beautiful?” I want to know why my father’s paintings are supposed to be great.
She looks surprised. “Are you saying there are no hungry people or countries where men are executed for their beliefs or women down on their knees scrubbing to earn a living?”
“No, but . . .” I was going to say, I don’t want to see them, but that sounds stupid and selfish. “I just wondered . . .” I back off.
“You raise a good question. Remember there are many different ways of approaching truth.” At the end of class the professor gives me an encouraging smile, as if to say there are no dumb questions.
At lunchtime I’m sitting alone in the cafeteria and I’m relieved when a girl from art history sits down next to me. I noticed her in my English class too. She’s tall, nearly six feet, and thin, mostly legs. Her hair is trimmed close to her head, giving her an African queen profile. She’s wearing an amazing outfit, a short black skirt and a long-sleeved purple silk blouse sewn with bright blue beads and cinched with a green belt. Her shoes have three-inch heels, as if to say, You want tall. You’ve got it.
She says, “I wanted to ask the same question you did. I’m glad you spoke up. Where’re you from?”
“Northern Michigan,” I say.
“So where are you living in Detroit?”
“I’m living in Hamtramck with my grandfather.” The lie comes easily. I don’t want questions about my dad. I don’t want anyone finding out I’m Dalton Quinn’s daughter.
“I’m from out of town too. Flint. Maybe we could get together and hang out. I don’t know a soul here.”
I hesitate, afraid to give her Dad’s address. He’d be furious. He wouldn’t want anyone in his house, certainly not an art student.
She notices the hesitation. “Your family doesn’t want a big black girl hanging out in their neighborhood?”
“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that my grandfather is pretty sick. He’s not up to having company.”
“That’s tough. I’m staying with my auntie, helping her with her sewing. She does alterations. She can stitch up anything. You should come over and see us. My auntie loves company. It gives her a chance to cook up a feast.” She scrawls her address and her email and hands it to me, and I give her my cell number. “By the way, I’m Lila Brock.”
“Kate Tapert.”
“I’m not interested in being another van Gogh,” Lila says. “I’m into fashion design. I’m going to get a job with Vogue and live in Paris and eventually I’ll have my own atelier. Isn’t that a gorgeous word?” She looks me over. “Kate, girl, you have got to break loose from the jeans and T-shirt mode. And what’s with that braided leather belt? You’ve got a great body. Loosen up a little. And could you believe that professor with her hippie outfit? I’m going to wave a wand over her.”
Lila and I sit next to each other in my afternoon life class, where you draw from models. “I told them I wanted to sketch people dressed, not naked,” she says, “but they told me I have to understand how the body works, so I’ll know how to hang clothes on it.”
There’s no model today. Instead we have a doctor from a nearby medical center with slides showing the body’s insides, things like bones and muscles that you really don’t want to think too much about. He tucks his glasses in his shirt pocket and sets up a real skeleton. We get a lecture on how Leonardo da Vinci spent hours on dissection before he began drawing t
At supper that night I can’t keep still, I’m so excited about my first day. I tell Dad, “I’ve never been around kids my own age who actually care about art, who want to live and breathe it. We’re all there for the same purpose, and who knows, maybe one of us will go on to be famous. And I met this great girl who’s so funny and friendly. She wants to be a dress designer. A doctor came and showed us a real skeleton. All the professors were great, and one of them showed us a painting of yours! It was the one of the scrubwoman. I didn’t say anything about you being my dad, because I know you don’t want publicity. She talked about how it has the beauty of ugliness.”
Dad puts down his spoonful of chili. “You’re paying money to have someone tell you what my painting means when I’m right here?”
I quibble. “I’m not paying money. I’m on a scholarship. Anyhow, aren’t you interested in what people think of your painting?”
“The last thing an artist should be thinking about is what someone thinks of his painting. You’re like a kindergartner coming home with stories about playing ring-around-the-rosy, Kate. I don’t want to hear another word about your school.” He pushes his half-full bowl of chili away as if it has been poisoned and gets up from the table. Before he heads into his studio, he says, “I’m going to ask Morgan for another advance on my work. It can pay for a dorm room for you at your precious school. That will solve both of our problems.”
I’m stunned. For a minute I consider taking the money and getting out. All these years Dad hasn’t given me a cent, and I’m certainly due a little help from him. I’d have a place to live with the other kids, and he’d have this place to himself. But I’d lose my chance to get to know my father, even if knowing him is all misery and punishment. And if he gets sicker, who will take care of him?
After supper I call Justin and tell him what’s happened. “Sure,” he says. “Take the money and run. You don’t owe him anything.”
“But he’s not well. He might need me.”
“You shouldn’t let that interfere with your dreams. I thought you wanted to be an artist.”
“I want to be a human being too.”
“Look, I’ve got a lot of homework for tomorrow. I’m really sorry you’ve got this creep for a father, but it seems to me you’re getting all tangled up in his problems. You’ve got to keep your eye on your goal.”
“You’re probably right,” I tell him.
By the time I dial Mom, I’ve all but decided to live in a dorm. But how will I explain that to her? What will she say when I tell her I’m accepting money from Dad? I hope she’ll just be glad that I won’t be under the same roof with him anymore.
Mom doesn’t answer. Then I remember it’s Monday night, her bridge night. I think about what it’s like when it’s her turn to have her friends at our trailer, the four women crowded around our little table, laughing and gossiping, talking about where the sales are and what their kids are doing, drinking cups of coffee and eating the double chocolate brownies Mom always makes.
The thought of the brownies makes me hungry. When I wander downstairs to get some peanut butter and crackers, I hear Dad talking to Morgan. He’s saying that he’ll be sending a couple of paintings soon and is asking for the money. I hear his angry voice: “What do you mean I’ve had my last advance? I’ll be sending the paintings any day now.” There are more angry words, but I don’t stay to listen.
I forget about the dorm.
Chapter 5
Every day at school is amazing. Not just classes. Yesterday a local rock group came to play in the cafeteria during lunch, and we were beating time with our silverware and dancing around. Today there was a Ping-Pong competition and a free yoga class. Lila showed me the fitness room, and we worked out on the bikes, her long legs going a mile a minute.
The weather has been warm, and between classes or at lunchtime we all hang out in the courtyard like living statues scattered among the famous sculptures. Everyone talks with everyone else because we’re all interested in the same thing—creative ideas to put down on paper or turn into clay or glass or paintings or even automobiles. There’s a student from Japan who told me he has this idea for a car that will work on the rubber-band principle. He tried to explain it and totally lost me, but then I got him talking about the island in Japan where he came from. It’s mostly sea and mountains, and I could tell he was a little lonesome for it, like I’m lonesome for up north.
One afternoon Lila dragged me over to a guy who was wearing an amazing T-shirt. She practically attacked him. “I’m going to pull that shirt right off your beautiful body and steal it if you don’t tell me where you got it.”
“Made it.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did. I dyed it and then I buried it and then I ran my car over it.”
“It’s too cool.” Lila got right in his face. “I’ve got a proposition. I’m going to have a little atelier of my own soon, nothing fancy, but I could sell as many of those shirts as you can run over.”
“Deal.”
It was like that all the time. New ideas floating around everywhere, even in the computer room where I checked Dad’s emails for him. Sitting right next to me one afternoon was a girl with the most incredible designs popping up on her screen. I just sat there looking, excited to see what was coming next. “You can do that on a computer?” I asked.
“Sure. Like this.” She started to explain, but it was over my head. Still, kids were happy to let you in on their secrets because they knew someone else would let them in. I loved that.
There is so much to discover. There are the kilns, the big ovens that bake the clay pots, and a room with furnaces where you can twist molten glass into any shape you want. All the classrooms have huge windows, so the city is as much inside the school as out. You never forget your connection with it for a minute. I think we all know Detroit is in trouble: empty houses and stores, jobs lost . . . but we’re the new wave. We’re going to make it better. We’re going to put Detroit back on the map.
Yesterday it was still warm and almost like summer, but this morning there was a cold rain that told me September is nearly over. I can’t believe how fast the month has gone. After class I know I should hurry home and see how Dad is. I also know Dad will have his usual sarcastic remark about my wasting my time at school, and I’m not quite ready for that today. Instead I stop at an art-supply store and pick up some boards to gesso. What you do is sort of whitewash the boards to make a background for the paint. I linger over the rows of paint tubes; they’re as beautiful to me as a Dior dress would be to Lila, and practically as expensive. I buy a tube of Naples yellow and one of medium magenta. I have ideas just thinking of the colors, and I’m eager to get started with the painting. On the bus on the way home I go over everything that happened in school that day, not wanting to let it go. Since I have school, I know I can put up with Dad and his demands.
When I get home, I find the house empty. In a way I’m relieved, even glad. I’ll have the peace and quiet I need to get my boards prepared for painting. But a whisper in the back of my head repeats, Something’s wrong. Dad is weak, and walking is hard for him, and the car is in the driveway. So where is he? Dad is more of a distraction when he’s gone than when he’s here. I put down my backpack and head out, wandering up and down the nearby streets. I even check the convenience store, but Emmanuel says he hasn’t seen Dad in days and gives me a critical lo
Finally I head back home, and I’m opening the jar of gesso when the phone rings. “Is this Kate Quinn, Mr. Quinn’s daughter?” Kate Quinn. No one has called me that in years. My first impulse is to say no. “Hello,” the voice says. “Are you there?”
“This is Kate Quinn,” I say. I have a feeling these are the most dangerous words I have ever uttered.
“This is the emergency room at Detroit Receiving Hospital. Don’t be alarmed. Your father is fine. He just had a little trouble breathing. Luckily he had his cell with him and called 911. We didn’t want to send him home until we knew someone would be there.” The voice develops a scolding tone. “In his condition he needs someone to keep an eye on him. Do you want to pick him up, or should we send him home in an ambulance?”
“I’ll be right there,” I say.
The car keys are still on the kitchen counter. My hands are shaking so much, I have trouble digging out my map of Detroit. I find the little red crosses on the map that show where the hospitals are. Receiving isn’t far. I’m furious with myself and with Dad all at the same time. Knowing how sick he is, I should have checked on him before I left for school today. But wasn’t he alone before I arrived? Why couldn’t he just let me get on with my life? Was he doing this to punish me for going off to school?
I leave the car in the emergency parking lot and rush into the hospital. All the chairs in the emergency room are filled, and a few people who look like they should be sitting are leaning against the wall. I have never been in a hospital. Everything is strange: the smell, the doctors in white coats with stethoscopes hanging around their necks like some sort of weird necklaces, the moan coming from behind a curtain strung across a cubicle. I’m told someone will see me shortly. Minutes later Thomas appears. At first I don’t recognize him in his white jacket. “You’re in uniform,” I say to cover my nervousness.