Today in class: Clive Bell—“Significant Form”—aesthetics cleansed of content/narrative. A pure experience of art that is timeless, universal, and autonomous. Purity absolves the artist of self-exposure, self-absorption…what Justine calls “the infantile inward gaze.” This week we’re supposed to focus on shape, composition, balance. Maybe I’ll do some still lifes. Too staged? It might be better to find existing compositions—less contrived. I think Justine would have a stroke if I came to class with a picture of some carefully arranged fruit. “Stop trying to make things pretty!!!”
Ivy rolled her eyes and flipped to another page.
Shelby wants to get microdermabrasion. At her age! With her perfect skin! The girls are so focused on the wrong things. At this point I don’t even know if they want to go to college. They seem so disengaged. I suppose it’s my fault, our fault, for bringing them up in this exclusive little private-school bubble.
She snorted, shaking her head.
I guess I grew up in the same bubble. It took me this long to realize I need to break out of it. I wish the girls were more open-minded. I think Sydney could be some sort of artist, a writer maybe. She has that imagination. I just wish she would listen to me… Whenever I try to encourage her or give her advice, she swats me away like I’m some kind of annoying gnat. I guess I am annoying. I just don’t want the girls to make the same mistakes I did. I want them to go to college and explore and learn and try things out until they really figure out what they love to do—and not end up stuck in some kind of meaningless corporate track.
She read a few more pages, absorbing the details of poor Mary Ellen’s horrible life, her photography class, her spoiled kids, her ramblings about art. It was starting to make sense, the way her edges seemed all blurry. It was like she’d decided she didn’t want to be Mary Ellen anymore.
Ivy slammed the journal shut and shoved it back into the box of books. The lady was crazy, all right; it was the very definition of crazy to have everything you could ever need in life—a nice car, a fancy Christmas tree, a “private-school bubble”—and feel like your life was a failure. Ivy felt the low fizz of irritation begin to spill over into anger as her thoughts turned once again to the cold walk ahead of her, the heartless road, the dodging and panhandling that lay between her and the life she longed for. Fuck that lady.
She went upstairs and paced in front of the windows. She should take a kitchen knife and force Mary Ellen to drive her someplace. Force her to drive to an ATM and empty her bank account. Make her hand over her phone. But first, she’d make her erase that picture of her and the private-school-bubble girls.
Ivy caught sight of the lady coming through the trees toward the house. Her head was down, her shoulders slumped. The way she picked through the undergrowth was dogged and clumsy, like an older person who’s turned all stiff and afraid. Ivy knew she couldn’t pull a knife on someone like that. Her heart might be black, but not in that way. It was more her style to use her brain…to take a slower, more careful path, a path that could take her farther than the bus station. If she played her cards right, Ivy thought, she might be able to get all the way to Montana, all the way through rookie training, all the way up the Going-to-the-Sun Road and into the sky.
• • •
“Cheers,” Mary Ellen said, raising her glass in Ivy’s direction and settling onto the bench across from her at the table. She’d started drinking before making dinner; now that the dishes were washed and put away, she was back at it. She unbuckled her camera bag and arranged some tools in front of her—a little brush, a soft cloth, Q-tips, some kind of air pump. She took out the camera and began carefully cleaning every inch of it.
Ivy was eating a piece of cinnamon toast she’d made for dessert. “How’s the photography going?” she asked, licking her fingers.
“All right, I guess.” Mary Ellen set down the camera and sighed. “I’m really trying to push myself. As an artist.”
“Why?”
Mary Ellen picked up a Q-tip and dipped it in a little bottle of liquid. “So I can create something worthwhile. Something that will make people think.”
“Are you getting paid for it?”
“No. It’s not about that.”
Ivy pressed her finger onto the plate, coating it with sugar and cinnamon, which she licked off.
“It’s about doing something with your life that actually matters,” Mary Ellen went on. “Something that might outlive you.”
“Isn’t that what kids are for?”
“Mmm…no. I mean, maybe for some people.” Mary Ellen swabbed the Q-tip around the camera buttons, probably trying to work backward through the story she was acting out. “Personally, I’ve never bought into the so-called ‘reproductive imperative.’” She hooked her fingers in the air. “It’s just a way to keep women from gaining financial independence, or to keep them from creating art.”
“Oh.” Ivy wondered what the blond girls on Mary Ellen’s phone would think of that statement. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Yeah, well, the system doesn’t want you to think too much.”
“What system?”
Mary Ellen waved her hand around. “You know, the patriarchy. Corporations. So do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“No.” Ivy leaned a cheek on her fist. “I’m an only child.”
“Ah. The center of attention.”
“Not exactly.”
Mary Ellen gave her a long look, her face full of sympathy and a kind of hunger. “Is that why you’re running away?”
“Who says I’m running?”
“Well, you’re a little young to be taking a vacation by yourself.”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
Mary Ellen began putting away her cleaning supplies. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Ivy slowly wiped the
