8. Dorien #2
He relaxes a little, but he still hesitates. I shrug and start to move my hand back when he suddenly snatches the joint away. I toss him a lighter.
He holds it like a cigarette and lights it.
I lean forward and show him how to position his fingers. “Just take a small puff. Don’t try to be a hero.”
He inhales a bit too much, forgetting to actually breathe it in, so it’s probably just sitting there burning his throat. He coughs, bending forward and hacking out the smoke.
“See? That’s why I don’t do it,” Carter says.
I shove his arm. “Be encouraging.” But the words “be encouraging” are fucking hilarious for some reason, so I laugh.
Carter rolls his eyes at Aeron. “Ignore him. He’s high and not laughing at you.”
I keep laughing because my body won’t stop.
Aeron blinks at me, probably having second thoughts about what he’s about to put in his lungs. But Carter helps him take another hit, inhale, then hold it. Aeron doubles over again, coughing, and presses a fist to his mouth.
Carter lets out a low laugh and claps him on the back. “Congrats, man. Your first hit.”
“I don’t feel anything,” Aeron says once the coughing stops. His voice is raspy.
I’ve finally calmed down, so I say, “Give it a second.”
He hands the joint back and settles into his recliner.
For the first time tonight, he actually leans against the back cushions instead of hovering in front of them.
He tips his head back and stares up at the ceiling, at the cracks in the plaster, and I watch the change happen in stages.
His shoulders drop first. Then the muscles in his jaw release.
His foot, which had started tapping again, goes still.
His breathing slows and his body sinks deeper into the worn brown cushion, and for the first time all evening he looks like he’s actually enjoying his time in this basement.
He lets out a small, surprised laugh. His face is looser, the tension around his eyes gone.
I smile. Then I start laughing again.
“Oh great,” Carter says, gesturing between us with his beer. “Now I’m outnumbered. Two potheads. What’s next, you’re going to start demanding snacks? Melia’s got leftover lasagna upstairs and I will fight you both for it.”
I flip him off without looking at him. Carter laughs. Aeron laughs too.
Aeron is still staring at the ceiling. “I hate… all… the cracks,” he says while laughing.
“No, they’re fucking awesome,” I say.
Carter shakes his head. “You’re both dumb.”
The three of us are just laughing, and I don’t really know why.
Later, once I’m sufficiently sober, I drive to my parents’ house.
The campus sculpture studio is what I prefer to use, but the open hours end at ten.
Besides, the work I need to do tonight doesn’t belong in a room where other students can see.
So I drive the twenty minutes to the house where I grew up, because it has one thing no campus space can offer: guaranteed privacy.
It’s eleven at night, and my mother is still at a charity event. I know because she goes to the same gala every year, gets drunk with other rich people, then finds her way home around two a.m. That was true even when I was a child.
My father is in Singapore. Or Seoul. I forget because he seems to be somewhere new every week.
I pull into the driveway. The house is dark except for the porch light, which runs on a timer. My mother sets it to turn on at seven in the evening and off at six in the morning. I don’t see why it can’t be on all the time since it’s not like we have to worry about the extra electricity cost.
Inside, the foyer is silent. The marble floors are cold through my sneakers. The chandelier is off but the recessed lights along the hallway are on their overnight setting, a dim amber glow that makes the space look like a gallery after hours.
“Bonsoir, personne,” I mutter to the empty hall. Hello, nobody. The house doesn’t answer.
During the day, there’s a housekeeper, a chef, the occasional lawn or pool person. People are here to fill this house with sound, though none of them are residents. The residents are always gone.
Why not just sell this place? What’s the point of maintaining it when no one actually calls it home?
I take the stairs to the third floor where my studio is.
Truly, it’s my space. My tools are arranged on a metal shelving unit I bought with my own money at sixteen: chisels, rasps, files, sandpaper in various grits, a set of rifflers for detail work.
There’s a worktable I assembled from two sawhorses and a sheet of plywood.
A desk lamp clamped to the edge provides the only light, a focused cone that turns the rest of the room into periphery, though there is overhead track lighting I use when I’m working on bigger pieces.
On the table, under a cloth, is what I’m here for.
I pull off my gloves and set them on a small table. I flex my fingers. They’re cold, and I rub them together before reaching for the cloth.
The sculpture underneath is small. Twelve inches, maybe. And it’s marble, not clay. I’d chosen marble deliberately, because marble is permanent.
Like her.
The figure is a girl. Her chin is lifted and she’s gesturing. Or dancing. I’m not sure. There are no features yet, only the planes of the face suggested through the tilt of the head and the tension in the neck.
Her.
I pick up a flat chisel and position it along the jaw line.
I tap it gently with a mallet and a small curl of marble pulls away.
The grain underneath is finer and smoother, closer to the surface I want.
I work slowly because marble doesn’t forgive mistakes.
With clay, you can push material back, reshape, start over.
With marble, every stroke removes something permanently.
You have to know what you’re looking for before you find it.
You have to trust that the shape is already inside the stone and your job is to carve away everything that isn’t her.
Isn’t that what I’m always doing? Every waking second?
Carve away everything that isn’t her.
These sculptures are the only way I can ever let myself be near her.