Devon Hartford - Reckless

“But I’m getting A’s in all my classes! And I have time left over. How do you think I’ve been able to draw all these drawings and still keep my grades up?”

“Yes, but you have SATs coming up. You need to be focusing on your SAT study guides.”

“I have been!” I protested. “And I still have time for drawing!”

“I don’t want to hear it. No more drawing, Sam. We’re not paying double for some fancy art college. Your father and I simply can’t afford it. And that’s final.” She marched out of my bedroom.

When my father came home, I didn’t even bother to mention it. I didn’t want to have him look at my drawings and tell me I wasn’t good enough, too.

Over dinner that night, my mom just had to bring it up. Dinner with my parents was never actually fun.

“Do you know what crazy scheme your daughter has been cooking up?” my mom orated as she scooped a spoonful of carrots onto her plate before passing them to Dad.

“What’s that, dear?” my dad asked, spooning carrots.

“Sam has the crazy idea she can go to art college. And get a scholarship, no less.”

I felt like the literal translation of my mom’s words would be “Our daughter is insane, isn’t that a laugh riot? What an idiot.”

“Art college?” my Dad frowned. “We’ve never talked about art college. A good business college is the proper place for her.”

They were talking like I wasn’t in the room.

“That’s what I said,” Mom said, chuckling.

Was it okay to think your mom was a total bitch? I mean, not every second of the day. But more often than not?

My dad turned and addressed me directly. “Sam, art colleges are generally private universities, and therefore, significantly more expensive.”

“I already knew that,” I sniveled. Demonstrating that I wasn’t a completely ignorant idiot was my only remaining defense. Sadly, I didn’t think it was going to get me anywhere.

“Knowing doesn’t pay for anything,” my mom laughed.

Called it.

“Your mother is right, Sam,” Dad said. “We don’t have the money.”

Called it again.

“But I could get loans, maybe even a scholarship!” I protested.

“That’s all well and good, Sam, but how do you plan to pay off those loans? Have you thought about what kind of a job an artist can get? Do you intend to draw caricatures at the county fair? Sell watercolors on the boardwalk in Atlantic City? How could you possibly support yourself making twenty dollars here and there?”

“I wasn’t talking about that kind of an artist!” I argued. “There’s other kinds of artists everywhere. What about that painting you guys bought, the one of the waves that hangs in your office?”

I was grasping at straws, and my parents knew it.

“Sam,” my dad said condescendingly, “I paid one hundred dollars for that painting. How long do you think it would take you to paint such a painting?”

I didn’t want to say that I didn’t know how to paint an oil painting. I’m pretty sure if I had, my dad would’ve said “Check and mate, game over .”

“Your daughter doesn’t know how to paint in oils,” my mom said. “She just draws in pencil.”

Thanks, mom. I rolled my eyes. They were both playing with me like cats before the kill.

My dad was smiling now, always happy to run the numbers. “Now hold on a second, Linda. Let’s think this through. Sam, how long does it take you to finish a drawing? And I mean a good one?”

Why did I feel like I was walking into a trap? “Um, all day?”

“Okay. Let’s call that eight hours. So, for eight hours of work, you make one hundred dollars. That’s $12.50 an hour.”

My dad was a human calculator, and quite proud of it.

“That’s pretty good, isn’t it?” I knew minimum wage was $8.25 in D.C. $12.50 sounded pretty damn good to me.

“Hah!” my mom bellowed. Her eyes twinkled as if she enjoyed the way my dad was shredding my artistic dreams with practiced ease.

Groan.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Dad said. “You have to assume the cost of supplies. Conservatively, let’s say ten percent for paint and whatever other materials artists use, another ten for the frame. I’m sure the gallery gets some kind of commission, so another, oh, fifteen for that. Now we’re down to $65.00 for that painting of yours. That comes out to $8.13 an hour, Sam. You’d make more pouring coffee at Starbucks. And I hear some of the big corporate coffee chains have decent health insurance plans these days, which aren’t cheap. Working as a barista would put you significantly ahead of the guy who painted that painting in my office.”

My mom smiled at me with a mixture of superiority and, I hate to say it, glee. “Your father’s right, Sam. Being an artist is a bad idea.”

I felt something close inside me at that moment, like my parents had somehow proved with total certainty that it was impossible to be an artist.

I remember trying to swallow a bite of mashed potatoes, and it knotting in my throat like a ball of lead. When I went to my room that night, I buried all the drawings I’d been working on in the bottom of my closet.

SAMANTHA

PRESENT DAY

Christos said, “That’s rough.”

I wrapped my free arm around his chest and hugged him while I sobbed weakly. “Now you know why I don’t want to tell my parents.”

“I don’t know if you realize this, Samantha, but your parents are ignorant.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there’s thousands of different jobs out there for artists. Your dad, as smart as he may be with numbers, doesn’t know shit about the art business. He is literally ignorant of the options that exist for artists.”

“But I still have to convince them of that. I don’t know what you know, so I feel like they’d try to change my mind over the phone, and who knows, maybe by the end of the call, I’d be agreeing with everything they said all over again.”

“That’s not true,” Christos said encouragingly. “Didn’t you tell me you took Life Drawing last quarter, even though they wanted you to take Economics instead?”

“That was an elective class. I had to take one anyway. Actually changing my major is a whole ‘nother level.”

“If you want, call them while I’m here. I can cheer from the sidelines. I’ll get some pom-poms and do those goofy clapping high kicks. Then you’ll be able to see my underwear,” he chuckled. “Not that I’m wearing any.”

The idea of Christos, in a skirt, with no underwear, kicking his legs high while his jewels jiggled made me wrinkle my nose.

“Okay, maybe I’d wear underwear for the high kicks,” he grinned. “But seriously, I’ll totally back you up. I’ll talk to your parents if I have to. Whatever you need, I’m here for you, agápi mou. ”

“Thank you, Christos. That means so much, I can’t even tell you.”

“You want to call them now?”

I almost said no, but then I felt something I’d never felt before. Anger. I was suddenly mad at my parents. No matter what I’d tried to do to shape my own future, they’d always pushed back, steering me away from where I wanted to go. I could let this go on forever, always caving into them, but I was tired of being bullied by everyone, and that included my parents.

I’d chosen San Diego University for college because it would put me far away from their constant control, and I would be free to make my own choices for myself. And I had stood up to Damian when I’d broken my silence about Taylor Lamberth.

Back then, Damian had threatened to kill me. Now, my parents were threatening to kill my dreams. It almost amounted to the same thing, in my book. One just took longer.