12. Two Dimensional
TWELVE
Cam was alreadyin the lounge when she arrived, and had taken over the center table with sketchpads, notebooks, and a textbook. “Hello, and welcome to Foundations of 2-D Design,” he announced. “Allow me to show you all the ways I suck at design because I suck at drawing.”
“Everyone says they can’t draw,” Avery said, dropping her bag on the floor next to his. “You’re a sophomore, right? You had Drawing 1 and 2 last year, and you obviously passed.”
“I think I got pity passing grades. I’m really weak at perspective, so in this class, where a lot of emphasis is on composition, the layering aspect becomes a struggle. Look.”
“Hold on.” She stopped him before he opened his sketchbook. “When you think about composition in 3-D, what makes that click for you?”
He moved his hands as he talked about sculptural design, about singular versus disconnected elements. Avery watched, fascinated, imagining clay between his palms worked into thumbprint bowls as he slipped off on a tangent about additive and deductive material choices.
“Back up to what you just said about focal points and disconnected elements,” she said, cutting off a ramble about soapstone. “When you think about 2-D composition, it’s no different from 3-D in that you want to understand the viewer’s line of sight and how it travels, right?”
“Right.”
“You said with a physical medium like a stone, you can pick it up and really see the depth. You don’t have to envision the layers translated to something flat, so the stone is easier.”
“Exactly.” He leaned closer. “I’m supposed to be studying, and I feel like I’m being studied.”
“Beware. I haven’t had my methods reviewed by the Board of Ethics yet.”
“Now we’re having fun.”
The light in his eyes vindicated her. Behind the grit and frustration, the boy in the orange hat was an earnest student whose accent thickened when he was excited. He was comfortable.
“Stay here.”
Avery darted down the hall and ducked into one of the printmaking studios. Rifling through a supply drawer, she extracted a roll of masking tape.
Cam watched in silence as she tore nine sheets from his spiral sketchpad and taped them onto the wall of the lounge in a slightly overlapping three-by-three grid, with the middle of the center row approximately at his eye level. The top row required a jump to pat down the tape. She marked a spot on the floor with a line of tape about two feet away from the wall and beckoned him to stand with her.
“Touchback,” she said, handing him a pencil. “Close your eyes. The line of scrimmage is on the opponent’s twenty-five yard line on the right hash, and you just got the snap. You stand up to drop back. Pause. Look directly in front of you. What’s in the lower third of your line of sight?”
He spun the pencil in his right hand and tapped it with his left, and Avery allowed a smile since his eyes were still closed. He was twitching for the ball as his shoulders pivoted.
“Directly in front of me, it’s Zack Tucker, the center.”
“How big is he?”
“Six-four, about two-eighty.”
“I mean in front of you. Raise your hand.”
Rolling the pencil between his fingers, he lifted his right hand.
She wanted to touch him. It could be innocent, just guiding his pencil to the center of the paper, and even a boyfriend, if she had one, couldn’t be jealous of that. It could be innocent, but it wouldn’t be—not when her ankles wobbled the way they did when he stood so close she could kiss him.
Avery pinched the soft lead of the pencil and pulled it to the grid, then stepped back.
“Here’s the fun part,” she said. “Your pencil is in the center of the center sheet, so that should be the center of your field of vision. Eyes stay closed. Draw a light circle to be the center’s helmet.”
Cam leaned forward and propped himself on the wall with his left hand. He dragged the pencil up, over, and side-to-side, while feeling his way along the paper’s edge with his left hand.
She held her breath and waited.
“Can I open my eyes now, professor?”
“Not yet. Stand up straight again.”
He obliged.
“Now, do a five-step drop. Where’s your guy’s helmet?”
Cam took a step back without thinking.
“Gotcha.” She laughed. “Don’t you dare open your eyes.”
Justin looked at his friend, his sister, and back again. “You want me to do what?”
“Nothing,” Avery said. “We want you to do absolutely nothing besides play dumb.”
“Play dumb about you guys pretending to date so you can get Cam’s attention.”
Avery jabbed his shoulder. “Were you listening to anything I said? I have his attention. I just have to keep it in a… a neutral zone for a very short while.”
“Infraction,” Justin said, rolling his eyes. “And I hate neutral zone infractions.” He turned to Isaac. “You’re seriously okay with being used like this, Fields?”
“I don’t think of it as being used,” Isaac said. “It’s nice to have a friend with you at parties. This is mutually beneficial.”
Avery rubbed his back. Part of the agreement was that they would not tell Justin that Isaac’s social anxiety bordered on crippling sometimes, and that every party they attended together would come with safe words and a time limit.
“Four weeks, huh? And then you fake break up?”
“I was thinking we could just let it fade into the background,” Isaac said. “Say the romantic part just wasn’t there for us, and we’re happy to be friends. That’s all true.”
Justin turned back to his sister. “What are you doing in the meantime?”
“Cam and I are study buddies now that I’m a safe person, and we’ll stay that way.” She lifted her chin. “I solemnly swear I will not put him in the horrible position of having to push his buddy’s girlfriend off him. We had a drawing lesson yesterday, and I left room for Jesus.”
Barely. Standing so close while he drew with his eyes closed wasn’t even the hardest part. It was when he opened them and smiled that she felt the sun’s heat on her cheeks. They talked and drew circles as his offensive line shifted and formed the pocket around him. Another day, she promised, they would add the defense. She stacked the nine sheets of paper in her drawer in the drawing studio.
“Noble of you,” Justin said drily. “What time of day are you guys always there? Mornings, right?”
“You are not sending Professor Scheer to babysit us.” Avery refused to call her Mindy anymore.
“I’m considering it.”
“You can stop bragging about staying out of my love life, then.”
“Cam’s not your love life, though, is he?”
Avery glared. “Well, he’s going to be.”
“I don’t doubt your motives, kid, but I seriously question your methods.”
Kid. There it was again: the indulgent exasperation. Her brother Isaac’s tacit permission always came with veiled warnings—warnings that, in hindsight, he tragically could not follow himself. He would have argued that what he did was necessary—had he survived to argue about it. Instead, it was Justin arguing and lecturing, filling their older brother’s shoes better than he realized, but now was not the time to congratulate him.
Isaac raised his hand. “If it goes well for the study buddies, we can reduce the four weeks. That’s just the max we agreed on.”
Justin sighed heavily, dropping his shoulders. “You two… you know, you’d have the weirdest kids.”
Avery and Isaac looked at one another, then spoke in unison.
“Gross.”