for me to wear something that looks exactly like a blank piece of paper. No wonder no one makes eye contact with me.
Though it’s not like the other students are mingling all that much, either. Everyone seems cautious and careful around each other. The only people who are enjoying themselves are the parents. They talk and laugh in little groups, an Aha! look on their faces, like suddenly, in this context, their weird kids make sense.
“Please take a seat, everyone, and we’ll get you off to classes as soon as possible,” a low female voice booms out of a microphone I can’t see from where I’m standing.
“What’s your name?” a boy asks me from behind a table. He’s wearing a T-shirt that says STAFF, and his black hair pokes out like carpet fringe from underneath a plaid yarmulke, covered in crudely sewn yellow lightning bolt patches.
“Emily Thompson.” A flashbulb pops in my face.
He thumbs through a file box. “Okay, here’s your schedule, Emily. And here’s your ID.” He hands me a stack of papers and a warm, plastic square. My eyes are closed in the picture, like I’m sleeping. “Go ahead and find a seat.”
There are not many empty chairs. The ones that are vacant seem uncomfortably sandwiched between people who lean across them to whisper to each other. I get a hollow feeling in my chest. If I had gotten here earlier, maybe I would have met some people already.
Maybe.
I walk toward the back of the atrium and take the very last chair in the row. The section reserved for parents.
A short woman with stringy black hair and burgundy lipstick stands behind the podium on the stage. She beams a smile out into the crowd. Even from this distance, her teeth look gray and dull, like she is definitely a smoker. Of cigars.
“Hello, students. My name is Dr. Tobin, and I am the Program Director of the Pre-College Summer Art Institute. I want to welcome you to Philadelphia and to six weeks filled with personal growth and artistic discovery!” She’s leaning in too close to the microphone, and her deep voice vibrates along my metal chair. “I want to begin by going over the housing rules for the summer for those of you staying in the dorms.”
The funny thing is, there are very few rules for her to go over. Obviously, no drugs or alcohol are allowed, but students who live in the dorms can come and go from the campus as they please until 1:00 a.m., when curfew begins. It sounds pretty good, considering the new strict summer curfew Mom’s imposed.
I actually considered living on campus when Ms. Kay first gave me the brochure, but now I’m glad I decided against it. The dorms don’t have air-conditioning, and the beds are probably not nearly as comfortable as mine. And what would I actually do here all by myself at night? I’d miss home too much.
Dr. Tobin asks everyone to look at their schedules. Mine is damp and wrinkled from being squeezed in my hand. I have Drawing on Tuesdays and Mixed Media on Thursdays. Those were my first-choice classes, which is pretty nice.
“Classes will run from nine until four-thirty Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wednesdays are reserved for program-wide field trips to museums and creative destinations all over the city. Everyone will be assigned designated studio space where you can store your supplies, and you should feel free to use the campus on non-program days to continue working on your projects.”
I’m relieved to hear we get studio space, because the muscle between my shoulder blades is throbbing from carrying all my bags and I definitely don’t want to lug this stuff in for every class. But I doubt I’ll be coming into Philadelphia on the days I don’t have class.
“Finally, the summer program will culminate in a gallery reception, where student work will be displayed for faculty, friends, and family. There will be a special section where the best student work will be displayed, juried by faculty consensus.” Dr. Tobin clears her throat dramatically. “But I want to remind you all that art is not about competition. It’s about self-expression and discovery. I hope you will allow yourself the opportunity to explore your own creativity, to strip yourself of the hesitations and insecurities that might have limited you in your high school, and create in an environment free of judgments and established social mores. Here, you are among your true peers, people who value originality.”
It’s sort of nice, what Dr. Tobin is saying. From the looks of everyone around me, you can tell these kids take art seriously. It’s not a joke like Ms. Kay’s class. These kids actually care. They want to be here. And, honestly, I do, too.
“Now, please welcome Joe Farker, our Director of Campus Security. . . .”
Two parents want to get into my row. When I stand up to let them pass, I notice something outside the glass doors behind me. There’s a girl lying flat on the ground, like she’s dead.
Weird.
Her sea-foam jellies have bits of glitter on them, casting small rainbows on the concrete. She’s wearing a navy cap-sleeved dress, and the elastic pinches in on the flesh of her upper arms, making rings much pinker than the rest of her pale body. The dress is covered in tiny white polka dots and reminds me of something I wore on the first day of school when I was a kid. The stringy, raw ends of a pair of gray shorts, probably cut from a man’s suit pants, peek out from underneath the hem. The girl puts a dark brown cigarette to her lips, flashing five colorful rhinestone rings — a gaudy one for each finger, jewelry you’d find in a glass dish on an old lady’s dresser. After a second or two, she lets the smoke out in a cloud.
The most striking thing about this girl is her hair — brown, blunt, and cut in a pageboy falling just past her chin, with bangs straight across her forehead. But there’s also a bright streak of electric pink underneath. That thick pink strand is about five inches longer than her brown hair, and it cascades over her shoulder and onto the concrete like a Kool-Aid waterfall.
My eyes wander back to her face, only to see that the girl is now staring at me from the ground. Like, obviously staring at me. She lifts one hand and waves, a fluttering gesture, demure like a beauty queen.
I quickly turn away and lower myself back in my chair.
Dr. Tobin returns to the podium. “Okay, students. It is now ten o’clock. You will be free to finish up the registration process, say your good-byes to your parents, and get some lunch. All of you will be expected to report to your first classes by twelve-thirty. If you have questions or need any more information, please report to my office on the third floor.” She claps her hands together. “Have an exhilarating first day!”
Everyone stands up and scatters. I wait a few seconds before moving, just in case that girl is still watching me. As I lean over to grab my stuff, I glance outside. I don’t see her.
I walk outside to the courtyard between the east and west dorms. Everyone’s looking down at the ground. Pointing. Smiling. The girl has traced shadows all over the pavement in smooth lines of colored chalk — a tree, a bush, a statue of a stone head perched on a big marble pedestal, a trash can. The sun has already shifted the shadows just outside her lines.
By the number of tracings, it’s a safe bet that this girl probably didn’t go to orientation at all, if she’s even a student here. She was outside by herself the whole time, making art.
My phone rings. It’s my mom again, but I still don’t answer. Instead, I walk the edges of the shadow outlines the girl has drawn, careful like I’m on a tightrope. Other people around me do the same. Someone’s mom asks a security guard who did this. He shrugs and calls maintenance on his radio, telling them to bring a hose. He doesn’t get that the lady wasn’t complaining. He doesn’t get it at all.
I try to line myself up to where the girl was when she waved at me. There, her outline is traced on the ground. It’s different from the kind you see police draw around dead bodies — there’s detail and depth to it. I can see the wrinkles of her clothes, the fringe of her choppy hair, features I never thought possible to capture with sidewalk chalk.
When no one is looking, I step inside the lines. My shadow doesn’t come close to filling it up.