Astrid Magnussen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
white_oleander) wrote2019-09-13 04:10 pm
white_oleander) wrote2019-09-13 04:10 pm
Entry tags:
Hollywood, California, 1993. Friday Afternoon [09/13 FT].
With the arrival of fall, Astrid was back to pursuing life at a normal high school, which still felt oddly quaint after Fandom High, though that place, like living with Starr, like perhaps even living with her memory, was starting to fade, even with its recent attempts to reinstate itself into her memory. Everything with Claire and Ron was so...strangely perfect that she feared at every turn it would be ripped away from her, like it was all a mistake, like she didn't deserve it, and it would all end, so she leaned into it, tried to embrace it for all it was, while she still could.
She'd been signed up for honors classes again, and also some art classes at the museum. Claire made her think it was worth trying. Of course you took the honors classes. Of course you wore your jewelry. Of course you signed up for art classes at the museum. Of course.
In the empty studio in the basement of the art museum, they waited for the teacher, Ms. Tricia Day. Astrid's palms sweated onto the portfolio case Claire had bought for her. She wanted to sign Atrid up for an adult class in painting. There were teen courses, in photography, fabric art, video. But no painting. “We’ll go talk to the teacher,” she said.
A woman came in. Small, middle-aged, with cropped gray hair. She wore khaki pants and black horn-rimmed glasses. She looked at them wearily, an overeager mother and her spoiled kid, asking for special treatment. Astrid was embarrassed just being there, but Claire was surprisingly businesslike. Ms. Day went through Astrid's portfolio briskly, her eyes moving in sharp lines over the surfaces. The realistic things, Claire lying on the couch, poinsettias, and the L.A. Kandinskys. “Where have you studied?”
Astrid shook her head. “Nowhere.”
She finished the portfolio and handed it back to Claire. “Okay. We’ll give it a try.”
Every Tuesday night, Claire brought Astrid to the museum, went home, and then returned three hours later to pick her up. Astrid felt guilty for Claire's willingness to do things for her, like she was just using her. She heard her mother saying, “Don’t be absurd. She wants to be used.” But Astrid didn’t want to be like that. She wanted to be like Claire. Who but Claire would make sure she had art class, would give up a Tuesday night for her?
In art class, Astrid learned to build a support, stretch canvas, gesso it smooth. Ms. Day had them experiment with color, with strokes. The stroke of the brush was the evidence of the gesture of your arm. A record of your existence, the quality of your personality, your touch, pressure, the authority of your movement. They painted still lifes. Flowers, books. Some of the ladies in class painted only tiny flowers. Ms. Day told them to paint bigger but they were too embarrassed. Astrid painted flowers big as pizzas, strawberries magnified to a series of green triangles on a red ground, the patterns of the seeds. Ms. Day was spartan in her praise, blunt in her criticism. Every class there was somebody crying. Ingrid would have liked her. Astrid liked her too.
Astrid carefully edited what she wrote to her mother. Hello, how are you, how’s the writing. She wrote about grades, gardening, art class, the smell of the Santa Anas and the scorched landscape, the blues of November, shortening of days. Straight A’s, homecoming queen. She sent her small drawings, watercolors the size of postcards, she didn’t have much space. She loved the Kandinsky period, and Astrid's new work. She sent her a series of pencil drawings on onionskin paper. It was a self-portrait, but layered, a line here, a line there, one at a time, for her to figure out—-she had to layer to get the whole thing. Astrid didn’t lay it out for her anymore. She had to work for it.
Ingrid, meanwhile, wrote that she had poems in the Kenyan Review and in the all-poetry issue of Zyzyva. Astrid asked Claire if they could get them, and she took Astrid up to Book Soup on the Strip, bought them both for her. There was a long poem about running in prison, that was a big part of her day. When she wasn’t writing she was running the track, fifty, a hundred miles a week. She wore out her shoes every four months, and sometimes they’d give her new ones and sometimes they wouldn’t.
Then Astrid had an idea.
She Xeroxed ten copies of the poem, and used them as the background for drawings. She sat at the table in the red-and-white kitchen and drew in oil pastel on top of Ingrid's words, the feeling of running, of senseless, circular activity. Like her mind.
The rains had begun, they whispered outside the steamed kitchen window. Claire sat next to Astrid with a cup of mint tea. “Tell me about her.”
There was something that kept Astrid from talking much about my mother to Claire, even stronger than what kept her from talking about her mother back at Fandom, although, back there, no one had really ever asked, had they? But Claire was curious, like everyone else here, Her counselors at school, Ray, Joan Peeler, the editors of small literary journals. Poets in prison, the sheer paradox. Astrid didn’t know what to say. She murdered a man. She was my mother. Astrid didn’t know if she was like her or not. Mostly, she didn’t want to talk about her at all. She wanted Claire to be something separate from Ingrid, she wanted them to be on different pages, and only she could hold them up to the light together.
Claire read the running poem again. “I love this line, the back stretch, twenty years. A clock without hands. Life in prison, it’s unimaginable. Two years gone, the beaten dirt around. She must be so brave. How can she stand it?”
“She’s never where she is,” Astrid said. “She’s only inside her head.”
“That must be wonderful.” Claire stroked the side of the mug like the cheek of a child. “I wish I could do that.”
But Astrid was glad she couldn’t. Things touched Claire. Maybe too much, but at least they touched her. She couldn’t twist things around in her mind, make the ends come out right. Astrid looked at her mother’s poem in Kenyan. So interesting that she was always the heroine, the outlaw, one against the rest. Never the villain.
“It’s the difference between a true artist and everybody else.” Claire sighed. “They can remake the world.”
“You’re an artist,” Astrid said.
“An actress,” she said. "Not even that.”
Astrid had seen a couple of Claire’s movies by now. She was transparent, heartbreaking. Astrid would be afraid to be so vulnerable. She’d spent the last two years trying to build up some kind of a skin, so she wouldn’t drip with blood every time she brushed up against something. She was naked, she peeled herself daily. In one film, she played a professor’s wife, trembling, in pearls. In another, an eighteenth-century woman, a cast-off lover, in a convent.
“You’re a terrific actress,” Astrid said.
Claire shrugged, read the other poem, about a fight in prison. “I like your mother’s violence. Her strength. How I admire that.”
Astrid dipped a small sumi brush into a bottle of ink, and in a few strokes she inked in arcs and lines, a black spot. Her violence. Claire, what did you know about violence? Ingrid’s strength?
Well, she wasn’t strong enough to avoid being the background of Astrids art. Just the background. Her words just her canvas.
[[ from Chapter 17 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. We're getting things in motion now, so expect quite a bit more coming up from Astrid soon! NFB, obvs, but open if anyone wants to poke or send some calls or correspondance her way ]]
She'd been signed up for honors classes again, and also some art classes at the museum. Claire made her think it was worth trying. Of course you took the honors classes. Of course you wore your jewelry. Of course you signed up for art classes at the museum. Of course.
In the empty studio in the basement of the art museum, they waited for the teacher, Ms. Tricia Day. Astrid's palms sweated onto the portfolio case Claire had bought for her. She wanted to sign Atrid up for an adult class in painting. There were teen courses, in photography, fabric art, video. But no painting. “We’ll go talk to the teacher,” she said.
A woman came in. Small, middle-aged, with cropped gray hair. She wore khaki pants and black horn-rimmed glasses. She looked at them wearily, an overeager mother and her spoiled kid, asking for special treatment. Astrid was embarrassed just being there, but Claire was surprisingly businesslike. Ms. Day went through Astrid's portfolio briskly, her eyes moving in sharp lines over the surfaces. The realistic things, Claire lying on the couch, poinsettias, and the L.A. Kandinskys. “Where have you studied?”
Astrid shook her head. “Nowhere.”
She finished the portfolio and handed it back to Claire. “Okay. We’ll give it a try.”
Every Tuesday night, Claire brought Astrid to the museum, went home, and then returned three hours later to pick her up. Astrid felt guilty for Claire's willingness to do things for her, like she was just using her. She heard her mother saying, “Don’t be absurd. She wants to be used.” But Astrid didn’t want to be like that. She wanted to be like Claire. Who but Claire would make sure she had art class, would give up a Tuesday night for her?
In art class, Astrid learned to build a support, stretch canvas, gesso it smooth. Ms. Day had them experiment with color, with strokes. The stroke of the brush was the evidence of the gesture of your arm. A record of your existence, the quality of your personality, your touch, pressure, the authority of your movement. They painted still lifes. Flowers, books. Some of the ladies in class painted only tiny flowers. Ms. Day told them to paint bigger but they were too embarrassed. Astrid painted flowers big as pizzas, strawberries magnified to a series of green triangles on a red ground, the patterns of the seeds. Ms. Day was spartan in her praise, blunt in her criticism. Every class there was somebody crying. Ingrid would have liked her. Astrid liked her too.
Astrid carefully edited what she wrote to her mother. Hello, how are you, how’s the writing. She wrote about grades, gardening, art class, the smell of the Santa Anas and the scorched landscape, the blues of November, shortening of days. Straight A’s, homecoming queen. She sent her small drawings, watercolors the size of postcards, she didn’t have much space. She loved the Kandinsky period, and Astrid's new work. She sent her a series of pencil drawings on onionskin paper. It was a self-portrait, but layered, a line here, a line there, one at a time, for her to figure out—-she had to layer to get the whole thing. Astrid didn’t lay it out for her anymore. She had to work for it.
Ingrid, meanwhile, wrote that she had poems in the Kenyan Review and in the all-poetry issue of Zyzyva. Astrid asked Claire if they could get them, and she took Astrid up to Book Soup on the Strip, bought them both for her. There was a long poem about running in prison, that was a big part of her day. When she wasn’t writing she was running the track, fifty, a hundred miles a week. She wore out her shoes every four months, and sometimes they’d give her new ones and sometimes they wouldn’t.
Then Astrid had an idea.
She Xeroxed ten copies of the poem, and used them as the background for drawings. She sat at the table in the red-and-white kitchen and drew in oil pastel on top of Ingrid's words, the feeling of running, of senseless, circular activity. Like her mind.
The rains had begun, they whispered outside the steamed kitchen window. Claire sat next to Astrid with a cup of mint tea. “Tell me about her.”
There was something that kept Astrid from talking much about my mother to Claire, even stronger than what kept her from talking about her mother back at Fandom, although, back there, no one had really ever asked, had they? But Claire was curious, like everyone else here, Her counselors at school, Ray, Joan Peeler, the editors of small literary journals. Poets in prison, the sheer paradox. Astrid didn’t know what to say. She murdered a man. She was my mother. Astrid didn’t know if she was like her or not. Mostly, she didn’t want to talk about her at all. She wanted Claire to be something separate from Ingrid, she wanted them to be on different pages, and only she could hold them up to the light together.
Claire read the running poem again. “I love this line, the back stretch, twenty years. A clock without hands. Life in prison, it’s unimaginable. Two years gone, the beaten dirt around. She must be so brave. How can she stand it?”
“She’s never where she is,” Astrid said. “She’s only inside her head.”
“That must be wonderful.” Claire stroked the side of the mug like the cheek of a child. “I wish I could do that.”
But Astrid was glad she couldn’t. Things touched Claire. Maybe too much, but at least they touched her. She couldn’t twist things around in her mind, make the ends come out right. Astrid looked at her mother’s poem in Kenyan. So interesting that she was always the heroine, the outlaw, one against the rest. Never the villain.
“It’s the difference between a true artist and everybody else.” Claire sighed. “They can remake the world.”
“You’re an artist,” Astrid said.
“An actress,” she said. "Not even that.”
Astrid had seen a couple of Claire’s movies by now. She was transparent, heartbreaking. Astrid would be afraid to be so vulnerable. She’d spent the last two years trying to build up some kind of a skin, so she wouldn’t drip with blood every time she brushed up against something. She was naked, she peeled herself daily. In one film, she played a professor’s wife, trembling, in pearls. In another, an eighteenth-century woman, a cast-off lover, in a convent.
“You’re a terrific actress,” Astrid said.
Claire shrugged, read the other poem, about a fight in prison. “I like your mother’s violence. Her strength. How I admire that.”
Astrid dipped a small sumi brush into a bottle of ink, and in a few strokes she inked in arcs and lines, a black spot. Her violence. Claire, what did you know about violence? Ingrid’s strength?
Well, she wasn’t strong enough to avoid being the background of Astrids art. Just the background. Her words just her canvas.
[[ from Chapter 17 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. We're getting things in motion now, so expect quite a bit more coming up from Astrid soon! NFB, obvs, but open if anyone wants to poke or send some calls or correspondance her way ]]