Rachel Glaser - Paulina & Fran

Paulina pressed her face to the window of the Furniture Studio, where Tim’s rickety table was being critiqued. Tim nodded robotically in the corner. Paulina leaned against a streetlight, bored, thirsty, and missing Art History III. The sky was black and friendless. Paulina missed Allison and Sadie and punished them in her mind. She imagined herself the queen of Egypt and Allison and Sadie toiling in the sun, hauling bricks on their backs, begging for forgiveness.

Out of the darkness, the Venus Flytrap approached. Paulina had never seen her near a campus building. She was wearing striped pants and a huge poncho. Her wild hair hung in the air like a halo. “I know what you call me,” the Venus Flytrap said. Paulina watched as Tim left through a side door with his friends. “And I like it, but I’m not too crazy about you.”

There was an impenetrable misunderstanding between them. Paulina would never comprehend it. She wouldn’t ask. She wanted to call out to Tim, but the Venus Flytrap paralyzed her. The girl looked at her expectantly. Tim was walking farther and farther away.

“Don’t you talk?” the Venus Flytrap asked.

“Yeah,” Paulina said, “all the time.”

The Venus Flytrap scoffed. “Congratulations,” she muttered.

Paulina hesitated.

“I can see right through you,” the girl said. The girl was like a boardinghouse for misfit spirits. Paulina wasn’t the only one who thought so. “Why did you come to art school if you don’t make art?” the girl asked.

“For the memories,” Paulina said. She’d meant it to seem snappy, but it came out sentimental. Once she had seen the Venus Flytrap eat a live fish from Eileen’s fish tank. Eileen had been upset about it, but what was there to do? It was at a party and everyone had loved it.

The girl laughed at her, then turned and left.

Paulina rushed to Tim’s house thinking of things she could have said. She had modeled herself after the Venus Flytrap, but she hated her. What misuse of my time, she thought angrily. She had embarrassed herself. She had been weak like Fran. She had acted like a sophomore, not a junior. She had acted like a freshman deciding between graphic design and illustration, like someone who lived off a meal plan, who kept an online diary, someone with themed socks.

Tim opened the door a crack. “Yo, bad time,” he said. Paulina could hear Cassie’s voice inside.

“I walked all the way here,” Paulina said, exasperated. “And I have a stone in my shoe. It feels like it’s never a good time.”

“Exactly. It’s never a good time. I’m with Cassie, remember?” He sneered at her. She gave him the finger and he shut the door.

Paulina felt icy and dead. Cassie was a sculpture major. Sculpture majors think they’re so far out, Paulina thought as she wandered down the street. Sculpture majors loved nothing more than taking up space. They clogged rooms with sloppy abstractions. They destroyed their computers. They damaged hallways dragging heavy plaster pieces to show friends. They had all kinds of filth under their fingernails.

The streets were deserted like a movie set. Paulina remembered how she and Julian had made the small town into a big joke. Each store seemed ridiculous — the store that sold tights and sunglasses, the fancy hotdog place. She and Julian had towered over the town. But lately she had forgotten all that. She’d just been living in it, taking it seriously.

Fran’s apartment was totally dark. Paulina could see this from far off, but still walked up the steps and leaned against Fran’s doorframe defeated. She rang the doorbell idly, just to touch something and make a sound. Where was Fran? Drawing Marvin’s likeness with a needle? Competing in the hair-twirling Olympics? Paulina felt homeless. Glory was getting harder and harder to find. She scratched her name into the chipping paint on Fran’s door.

Walking home, she saw Eileen drive by in Sadie’s car but didn’t wave. The world bored her. She wanted to be transformed. She needed sex, or drugs, or dancing — something that pushed the old self aside and made the new self gleam. She wanted to reclaim the red boots she’d given Sadie. The boots would torture her ankles but alleviate her mind. Paulina imagined Sadie with the other apparel majors, stressing/not eating. In her purse on her key ring, she felt for the cold key to Sadie’s house.

Outside Sadie’s window, Paulina saw Sadie and Allison eating pizza with a boy. He was handsome and wore a shirt that said TODAY IS A GOOD DAY in a faux handwritten font. Paulina was shocked to see the boy. It was how Sadie had said — he had green eyes and shaggy hair. The dining room was lit with candles. Paulina felt a sticky, static dread.

The boy squinted at Paulina through the window. She shrank back into a bush. She knew he wouldn’t understand her, that his presence would evoke small talk and easy jokes. Sadie was wearing a preposterous SUPERTHRIFT costume that shouldn’t have been revived. It clung to her like mermaid skin. She was pathetically in love with the creature in the T-shirt. They were holding hands under the table. Paulina watched them like a nature documentary.

Julian’s apartment was one room plus a bathroom. In the corner, a mini fridge buzzed underneath a fake marble counter. On one wall hung a charcoal drawing of a school shooting. “Creepy!” Fran said.

Julian laughed. “Part of a series I did for my drawing class.”

“How was the crit?” she asked.

“Awkward.”

Fran couldn’t tell if this pleased him or pained him. His bookcase was filled with sci-fi books and religious texts. A layer of dust coated everything but the bed. Fran couldn’t imagine Paulina there.

Julian sat on his bed and pulled Fran to him. She noticed a picture of a Caravaggio painting that had been cut from a Caravaggio calendar and taped to the wall. She stared at a poster of a bearded man in a sweater.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“Alejandro Jodorowsky,” he said.

“Who’s he?”

“Crazy Chilean filmmaker.”

She thought they would drink something or smoke something, but nothing was offered.

His body was pale. Any muscle he had was one needed to move. They kissed. He was almost handsome. He was handsome. Julian undressed her and her mind went limp. “You’re so beautiful,” he said. “You have amazing breasts.” Sincerity felt queer at the school. Romance felt foreign. She ran her hand over his short dark hair. With her eyes closed, Julian was everyone, Paulina and Marvin, the world wanting Fran. This feeling colored her completely. Wanting proof, she stuck her hand in his boxers. Gripping his erection, she thought, Mine. She felt graceful behind her eyes. She was barely aware of what she was saying, but they did talk. They complimented and teased each other. His intense attention, his want to please her, it made her brave and powerful.

“I can’t believe you are fucking that freak,” Gretchen said. Fran’s eyes danced from tree to tree. Her breasts felt amazing. “He’s weird,” Gretchen said.

“Good,” Fran said as they walked into Utrecht. “No one will steal him away from me.”

“In Drawing II, he only drew tragedies. Bad sign.” Fran ignored her. “I’d rather get HIV from a dead warlock,” Gretchen mumbled.

Fran laughed. “You sound just like Paulina!” she said.

Gretchen glared at Fran. Fran blushed.

“That’s the only good part of this,” Gretchen said, examining a set of expensive markers.

“What?”

“That you stole Julian from Paulina like she stole Andrew from me,” Gretchen said with satisfaction.

“But she broke up with Julian.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s a sociopath.”

“Well, don’t tell anyone about me and him,” Fran said. “Okay?”