9
ELY
I’m not a patient person. I have friends who are—Shannon is like some kind of superhuman when it comes to waiting. She had a kid last spring and went two weeks past her due date and basically didn’t bat an eye. Meanwhile, I struggle to put up with a slightly long Starbucks line. Waiting for my meeting with Wyatt is the worst kind of waiting, because I’m way more invested in this than I am in my iced Americano.
By Monday night, I’m exhausted and annoyed with myself for procrastinating on my very serious deadlines by spending gross amounts of time scrolling through Reddit. I could ask Ophelia if she wants to hang out, but it’s crunch time for her on some project, and Diego has flown out to Minnesota to visit family and doesn’t get back until next Monday.
I want to text Wyatt and ask if he wants to hang out. But that’s just asking for Wyatt to shoot me down, and I’m not sure my fragile ego could handle that.
As soon as my last class lets out on Tuesday, I head to the bathroom and spend two minutes trying to wrangle my hair into something resembling order. A useless effort because it hasn’t seen a brush in days.
Well, hey. At least this is nothing new. Wyatt saw me in my unfiltered morning state already, all drooly and covered in the previous night’s mascara. If anything, this is an improvement.
Plus, I’m not actively trying to get in his pants anymore. Obviously. Going after a guy who’s made it very clear he doesn’t want me going after him would be deeply uncool. This is just about the art.
I wrote the room number in my phone’s Notes app after Wyatt texted it to me last week, but apparently I have no problem remembering that detail on my own: 36C.
He’s already there when I arrive, leaning against a table and examining a set of photos scattered out across its surface. It takes a beat for me to recognize them as prints from my application portfolio.
Wyatt glances up when I close the door behind me. “Hey,” he says. “Leave that open, if you don’t mind.”
Right. I mumble an apology and open the door again, trying to fight the flush rising in my cheeks. Great—now he thinks I’m trying to come on to him again.
I clasp my sweaty hands behind my back and approach the table. He gestures for me to come around to stand at his side, and I comply, gazing down at the photos in front of me.
“What do you think of them?” Wyatt says.
I don’t know how to respond. I’ve spent hours—weeks, probably—staring at these images, between choosing them, cropping them, editing them, studying them for flaws long after I’d hit Send on my application to Parker. Looking at them now, trying to see them through Wyatt Cole’s eyes, is about as bad as you’d expect. All I can see are the mistakes.
“They’re…fine,” I say, hedging slightly. Nobody likes an overly enthusiastic self-critic. “My work is better now. But it was good enough to get me in here, so…they’re fine, I suppose. A solid foundation.”
“A solid foundation,” Wyatt echoes.
I nod. “Everyone starts somewhere.”
“Is that what you really believe? That these are only worth the price of admission to Parker? Nothing more?”
I steal a sidelong glance at him, but he isn’t watching me; he’s still looking at the photographs. I shrug one shoulder and wish I knew what he wanted me to say.
“They’re fine,” I tell him a second time. “But this one has tonality issues, see? And this one…the focus isn’t right. I should have cropped it a little smaller, cut out some of this negative space. They have flaws.”
“All art is flawed,” Wyatt says, sounding surprisingly sage for a guy with neck tats and a penchant for arguing about sparkling water. “You can’t chase perfection. You just have to figure out what you wanna say, and then say it.”
I keep looking down at my work, the portfolio I labored over for months back in California. Once upon a time, I thought these pictures said everything there was to say about me. Taking them had felt like opening a vein and bleeding out in public. Like everyone could look at these photos and know who I was down to the core, see every muddy, rotten-apple dark spot of my junkie self.
“What do these photos say, Ely?” Wyatt says softly.
I don’t know how to answer him.
Eventually he leans over and shifts the photos around slightly, showing some of the images that had been partly concealed under the corners and edges of their fellows. “Do you want me to tell you what I see?”
I nod again, my jaw clenched so hard my cheeks hurt.
“I see someone who was hurting. Someone who did things they weren’t proud of but who wanted to be better. Someone who fought as hard as they could to claw their way back to sanity. And maybe it’s not perfect yet, maybe they’re still ashamed of what they used to be, but it’s still something.”
I force a shaky, shattered laugh out of my chest. “You’re like a bootleg therapist.”
He laughs too, although Wyatt’s laugh sounds richer, more like it belongs to an actual human. “Nah, I’m just an ex-junkie who likes looking at sad pictures. But I’m really good at looking at sad pictures, so when I tell you these are great, you ought to believe me.”
I can’t bring myself to look at him. I can imagine the expression on his face—gentle, considerate—and something in me feels like if I were to see that right now, I’d crumble. All the flimsy threads holding me together would snap. I don’t know who I’d be then, without those restraints, and I don’t want to find out.
“I’ll do my best,” I say instead, and push a photo from one spot to another on the table as if I’m looking at it more closely. Really it’s just to have something to do with my hands.
Wyatt shifts away, moving somewhere behind me. I hear the rustle of fabric, and when I do finally dare to glance back, he’s slinging his satchel over one shoulder. “You know what?” he says. “Five p.m. is hitting me kind of hard right now. Do you mind if we go grab a coffee? We can talk more on the way.”
Never been so grateful to be invited on a coffee date in my life. “Yes. Please. That sounds perfect right now.”
We pack up my portfolio, and Wyatt slips it into his bag. I can’t help but fantasize, briefly, about him looking at my photographs again later, alone in his apartment with these pieces of my heart scattered across his desk. But I shove that thought aside and grab my water bottle instead, following Wyatt out.
Manhattan has a Starbucks on every corner, but Wyatt takes us to a smaller indie spot wedged between a record shop and an NYU building. We talk about technique on the way, Wyatt pointing out things he likes about my work mostly and offering a few ideas of things to try for my next project. It would be rude to get out my phone and write it all down in my Notes app, so I do my best to just remember. Which is a tall order for me, but hey, I’d like to think I won’t ever forget a single word of photography wisdom that drops from Wyatt Cole’s mouth.
Coffees in hand, we end up sitting on a bench in the park instead of heading back to the cramped quarters of Parker’s visual arts building. Wyatt stretches his legs out beside mine, and even though he’s barely my height, his seem longer. Or maybe that’s just the weight of the work boots he’s wearing, which look like he’s worn them every day for forty years despite being thirty-five, max.
“How old are you?” I ask before I can stop myself.
But Wyatt doesn’t scold me for crossing a line, at least not this time. “Thirty-two,” he says with a little laugh. “Why?”
“No reason. Sorry. You just seem…well, you’re younger than I thought you would be, I suppose.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot. People seem to assume I’m some crusty relic of Greenwich Village in the seventies. No idea what it is about my work that gives them that impression; it’s a little insulting to be honest.” He shakes his head and takes a sip of his coffee, watching a pair of kids rocket past us on their skateboards. “Of course, there was great stuff coming out from queer artists at the time, but somehow I don’t think that’s what they mean.”
It takes me a moment to process what he’s said, and when I do, I frown. “Are you really worried that people think your work is boring?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “I mean…yeah, sometimes. A reviewer once called my show cold and sterile. That’s the kind of thing you never get out of your brain once it’s in there.”
Sterile. Wyatt’s art is the furthest thing from sterile. I actually want to laugh. “Who the hell would say something like that? That’s so…You’re like the most unconventional photographer out there right now. The last review I saw of your stuff said you might have ‘finally gone too far.’ ”
Wyatt snorts, and when he meets my gaze, there’s something smirk-like about the twist of his mouth. “Yeah. But like I said, haven’t gotten that criticism out of my head since. It was from Donna Fowler, so, you know.” He mimes stabbing himself in the heart. “Used to think about quitting art entirely. Relapsed more than once. But turns out sometimes it’s the bad reviews that do the most for your career. I wanted to win out of spite.”
I find myself mirroring his grin and resist the urge to cover my mouth with one hand; I’ve been told I have absolutely gigantic teeth.
I might not know Wyatt very well yet, but all this tracks with my impression of him so far. Too smart not to be gutted by a vicious critic but too stupid to really let it stop him.
“My mentors in LA told me never to read my reviews,” I say.
“They’re right. You should protect your passion at all costs. Don’t be like me.” He hides his mouth with a sip of coffee, but he isn’t smiling.
I wonder how much of his brain space is still consumed by these thoughts, obsessing over what other people think of him.
Maybe we’re more alike than I thought.
“Well, Donna Fowler couldn’t take a good picture to save her life, so fuck her anyway,” I say. “Normal people think you’re great. I think you’re great, for the record.”
Wyatt makes a face and waves his hand in the air as if to dismiss the conversation entirely. “I’m not trying to get you to make me feel better. I know I’m good, or I wouldn’t be here. And we’re supposed to be talking about your work, not mine.”
“Oh, okay, Wyatt ‘I know I’m good’ Cole, I won’t compliment you anymore.” I roll my eyes and earn a chuckle in return. At least things seem a little more normal between us now. It no longer feels like we’re both holding our breath, waiting for the other person to cross an invisible line.
As worried as he might be about acting professional, I prefer it when he treats me like a normal person. We threw out professional back when we told each other about our former drug habits. When he fucked me so hard I came. Twice. That used to be something I thought was impossible. I enjoyed myself during sex, sure, but it always felt like there was a defined end point. I’d never really wanted to go further. I’d never wanted more, and so I’d never had more.
Wyatt blew my world right open.
“What are you thinking about doing for your capstone project?” he asks, distracting me from my increasingly florid fantasies about him bending me over this very park bench.
And fuck, of course my face is bright red. He must know exactly what I’ve been thinking about. He’s trying to talk about art, and I’m fantasizing about his cock.
Okay, focus.
“I haven’t really thought about it yet,” I say. “I’ve been busy with the course assignments.”
“Well, if I can give you yet another piece of advice, it’s to start working on it sooner rather than later. People—actual critics—come to the end of program. It’s better to half-ass your homework than put off your capstone.”
“Critics?” I say, waggling my eyebrows. “Like Donna Fowler?”
“Entirely possible,” Wyatt says, “so shape up.” But he’s still smiling, which means he doesn’t think I’m at risk of massively embarrassing myself. That’s a plus. “You can text me if you want to talk about it, you know. I’m always around.”
Oh, are you, now, Professor Cole?
I have to work pretty hard to drag my mind away from careening off into another fantasy and back to thinking of a capstone project idea off the top of my head. You know, how everyone does their best work: off the cuff and under pressure. “I don’t know…. I guess…I was thinking of doing another comparison piece. Like with my application portfolio.” I stop myself from adding, But better, obviously. “Mixed media, maybe. Not for any particular artistic reason, but just because it’s something I want to try.”
“A good start,” Wyatt says. “Did you have a subject in mind?”
Nope. “Something narrative. I want to tell a story. Or…multiple stories, perhaps. I’ve always liked the kind of art that pulls back the curtain and shows you that your reality isn’t the only reality.”
“And what is this other reality you want to show people?” Wyatt asks.
It’s a good question, but this is about where my creativity ends. That must be clear from my expression, because Wyatt goes on:
“One place to start is to ask what makes you different from other people. You’ve shared your addiction, but is there something deeper, more innate to explore? What about your story makes you feel the most vulnerable?”
One thing comes immediately to mind. But I’m not sure it’s the kind of answer Wyatt’s looking for. He probably wants me to say something about my worst fear or whatever it was that made me start using drugs in the first place. But those are harder questions to answer. And maybe it’s just that I’ve been thinking about Chaya, but—
“I grew up Chassidic,” I say before I can think better of it. “You know, like…black hats.”
His expression hasn’t changed. He’s watching me with placid brown eyes, calm as anything. I don’t know what I expected. Shock, maybe. A little rivulet of disgust running through whatever else. People hate us. I know that—have known it since I was three years old. Even as a small child you notice the way people step to the far side of the sidewalk to avoid getting too close to your father. The stares. The whispers under breath and surreptitious photographs snapped by tourists who seem to think your family just waltzed in from the shtetl in Fiddler on the Roof. One time, when I was twelve, my father took me to a bookstore near Prospect Park; as we were checking out, the store owner congratulated me on knowing how to read.
As much as I’d like to give folks the benefit of a doubt and assume that smart people, people who care about social justice and protecting marginalized religions or whatever, will see through the bullshit—sometimes those people are worse. Like a girl I knew in LA who watched the TV show Unorthodox and found it utterly mesmerizing. She went on a rant about how horrible it must be for Orthodox women to be so oppressed and uneducated, ground under the heels of old men and a dying religion. I told her that most Chassidim thought Unorthodox did a bad job representing the community, and besides, those people in the show were Satmars, and there are as many kinds of Orthodox Jew as there are stars in the sky. I said if a woman was happy on that path, well, why not let her walk it? Which earned me a disappointed sigh and a pompous statement about how some women won’t fight for what’s in their own best interest.
But Wyatt hasn’t taken the bait. There’s no monologue forthcoming, or at least not yet. I gulp at my coffee to give him the chance to speak. If he’s got Big Opinions, then I may or may not want to keep talking.
Just silence. Patient, completely unreadable silence.
“I left the community when I was eighteen. I haven’t talked to anyone in my family since.” I work my thumbnail against the lip of my cup, flicking the waxed paper back and forth. “I don’t know if that’s the kind of answer you were looking for, but if you want to know what I wish people understood about me, that’s it.”
Wyatt nods at last, slowly. “That’s a lot to go through at such a young age,” he says. “Losing your family, all at once…it’s like a death. Like the part of you that used to exist is gone, and you have to become someone new.”
My breath catches in my throat. “Yes,” I say. “Yes…exactly. Exactly.”
It’s like he knows. The way he describes it is too familiar, as if he reached inside my head and tore out the words. I wonder if he’s lost anyone. I’d ask, but…after that conversation about his own insecurities about art and how quickly he shut it down, I suspect he’d consider it inappropriate for me to ask about his family.
And fucking me isn’t inappropriate?
I shunt that voice aside. It’s not like he knew I was a student back then. Or when he told me about being an addict. Or when he slid his hands down over my ass and rolled our hips together as we danced, his breath hot on my neck and the taste of his sweat on my lips as I dragged my mouth along his stubbled jaw.
Stooooop.
“Maybe this is a good place to start, then,” Wyatt says. “What is it about that story you want to share the most? Find out, and you’ve found your capstone project.” He downs the rest of his coffee and tosses the empty cup into the trash bin next to our bench. “That’s what art’s all about—vulnerability. Peel your skin off, and let the wolves feast.”
He quirks a grin at me and offers me a hand to help me up from the bench as he stands. For a second I’m dizzy in a way that has nothing to do with moving from sitting to standing. My mind just short-circuits, and the whole world reduces down to him, to his hand in mine. I know he feels it too, because in that moment we are—briefly—too close, his eyes widening and my heart beating in my ears. But then his hand slips out of mine, and he clears his throat as he turns away, covering his mouth with his hand. I could keep staring at him forever, but I force myself to look at the ground instead, examining the grimy sidewalk below my feet.
We head back to campus together in silence, but the entire time I’m turning his words over in my head, feeling out the smooth edges of them.
Vulnerability.
Peel your skin off.
Let the wolves feast.