The next day, I drag myself out of bed forty-five minutes before the start of my first class of the semester. My head feels like it's stuffed with pink fiberglass. And my hair looks about the same. The fifteen-minute scalding shower only makes me pruney. I don't even have time to dry my hair or make myself a cup of crappy drip coffee. I grab a printout of my schedule, stuff my laptop into my tote bag, pull on jeans that look clean and an enormous sweatshirt with the Mackay logo on the front, and bolt.
Here's the thing about not looking like a stripper: it has its advantages. When I get on the metro or wait in line at Tim's for my $1.30 large drip coffee or walk to class, I doubt I look any different from any other broke undergrad. Outside of the club, the Sky persona disappears without a trace, wiped clean along with last night's memories, with the clumps of makeup at the bottom of the sink, with the lingering smell of cheap body spray and hand sanitizer I thoroughly wash out in the 30-minute shower every night. I wear no makeup, I never wear heels even if it means I feel like a little girl wandering in a crowd of grown-ups. My wet hair is piled in a bun atop my head and I know that by mid-afternoon it'll solidify into a weird, dry, dented work of modern art. I wear clothes that drown me, not just by choice but because I've lost even more weight in the recent months. I practically live in sweatpants, and I blend in with my university peers perfectly.
Oh yeah, and I'm a raging misanthrope who glowers at people when they try to make eye contact. Sexy.
My loft is on the outskirts of the Gay Village, too close to the gritty Ontario Street, and the commute is longer than it used to be when I lived in the dorm. But those extra fifteen minutes of sleep I lose are actually worth it. As you can imagine, I don't have the easiest time sharing my space. Especially when the space is the size of my current bathroom.
I get out of the metro and sprint to the towering main building of Mackay, throwing my Tim's coffee cup in the trash on the way. Should have rolled up the rim. Could have won a car, heh heh. When my classmates see me throw away my Tim's cups like that, their expressions are priceless.
Inside the building, the AC cools off my overheated skin. I pull out the crumpled schedule printout and squint at the room numbers. My first class: Introduction to Artistic Photography. And it's on the other end of the massive building, of course.
I start running again. Half the escalators are perpetually out of order, and by the time I get to the eighth floor, I'm sweating. This is way more exercise than I like first thing in the morning. What even possessed me to take a class that starts before noon?
When I finally find the classroom, a small, windowless corner studio, I'm huffing, and my mood is down the toilet. At least it looks like I'm not the only one who had trouble getting out of bed: the class is supposed to start in two minutes and we're still only four people. The hipster quotient in the room is breaking records. The two girls wear ironic scrunchies in their ombré hair and the guys are the skinny types in glasses and knit vests too warm for the weather. Three out of four have cameras laid out proudly in front of them. Cameras that look like they might have been passed down from their dad. Or granddad. Except they were probably hunted down on Ebay for the cost of half my tuition.
The moment someone takes out a typewriter instead of a laptop, I'm out of here.
"Small class," someone remarks.
"There weren't many people signing up. It almost got cancelled."
"Yeah, traditional photography, on a Monday morning. Shocker."
"Wait," I blurt. Three pairs of eyes swivel to me like synchronized dolls. "Traditional?"
"Yeah," says one of the scrunchie girls, glaring at me above her glasses like I said something incredibly dumb. "Traditional. That means film."
Film. Of course. I slump in my seat. What the hell did I get myself into? I can barely manage to take a decent photo with my phone. I took the class because it fit my schedule, and because workshops, especially 101 level, are usually just an easy A. I can always drop it, but then I don't meet the minimum number of credits—so I'll have to settle for the classes that still have room, which means the worst of the worst.
I drum my fingertips on the edge of the table.
Two more people come in, two girls—both with their camera bags on display. Now all six of them bunch together at the other end of the table and launch into an extensive debate whose vintage film camera is better. I understand precisely zero beyond Kodak and Canon, and even then it's a stretch. I wouldn't know an EOS 1N from a Bronica SQ if the clunker hit me in the face—which is just as well 'cause I might not survive that.
Bored, I check my phone. Teacher is four minutes late. At ten, we're officially allowed to leave, as per school regulations. Nice start.
Across the table, the traditional photography adepts are about to start a fight to the death over which camera is the best fit for true artists when behind me, the door opens. Not a moment too soon, because they all look up and forget they were about to start swinging 5-pound Minoltas and Nikons at each other's heads. I sit up, bracing myself—just sit through this class, and then go to admissions and see about my other options.
Steps walk around me, and the teacher plunks a heavy leather satchel on the desk at the front of the room. For some reason it still doesn't register with me—girl, tall, navy pinstriped pencil skirt and black silk blouse, dark hair—and then she turns around.
"Hi guys," she says. Her voice is sweet and pleasant but it cuts me to the core, sinks metal spikes into my sides and along my spine. The shock travels through my vertebrae, exploding in my brain. "Sorry to keep you waiting." She gives an embarrassed chuckle. "Anyone else have trouble finding the room?"
She glances around the table, and then her gaze lands on mine just as mine—finally!—lands on her.
And the room disappears. I already knew this—part of me knew even as I heard her steps behind my back. But in that moment it solidifies, becomes undeniable, reality soaked in harsh halogen lights of the classroom and not some fevered nightmare. Her hair is different, spill in long undulating waves, and the blouse is buttoned to the collar and cuffs, hiding from view all tattoos—except of course the bluish smears of letters on her knuckles. But her eyes—there's no mistake, it's not someone else, someone who looks like her, not some kind of weird trick of my tired imagination. I was looking into those eyes less than twelve hours ago, in a very different place.
Her smile falters, but doesn't quite vanish as she regains control of berself. She clears her throat, reaches into the satchel and takes out a clipboard.
"So. I take it that's all of us, maybe a couple of people will be joining within the next week or so... but I guess we should do our introductions anyway. Yeah?"
Her gaze slips over all of us, pausing on no one longer than others. When it brushes over me, I feel it on a physical level. I sit up; my spine is a piano wire.
She nods at the scrunchie girl across from me. She twirls the dyed tip of her ponytail: I'm Audrey—pronounced the French way, Aud-RAY. I'm in the Fine Arts program, it's my second year. I've always loved photography and grew up practicing with my dad's old Kodak and blah blah blah.
She listens, head slightly tilted, her storm-colored gaze on hers. Her eyes still look sad—maybe it's just their shape. But it seems, to everyone and especially to that scrunchie girl, that right now she's the center of her attention, that she hears nobody but her. She bats her lashes.
The intros move along, and with every new person who speaks up I feel my own voice disappearing, withdrawing into the recesses of my throat. My fingertips tingle like after a jump scare; good thing no one seems to be standing up for their intro, because my kneecaps have turned to something between cotton and jelly.
I can't peel my gaze away from her.
Yet somehow I don't even realize it's my turn until someone clears their throat in the expectant silence. Blood rushes into my face and I wish I'd worn my pancake club-only foundation, even though I doubt even that would help. I feel my cheeks flare up in blotches to match my hair.
And finally she turns to me. In spite of myself, my mind fills in all the details it missed in the half-darkness last night, all the missing pieces of the picture in my head: she used to have an eyebrow stud that left tiny twin marks above and below her eyebrow. There's another dot of a bygone piercing below her lower lip, also closed, clearly old.
"Well?" she prompts.
Her voice jolts me. I push my chair back with an awkward squeak and start to get up, but the weight of her gaze keeps me down. "I, uh—I don't think I'm in the right class."
I hear a chuckle—from one of the vintage camera fiends, no doubt. My heart feels like a helium balloon, slamming into my sternum as if trying to get out.
"I have seven people on my list, and we're seven people. Are you sure?" she scans her list. Or pretends to. "Are you—"
"Alaska," I blurt out. My voice comes out too loud, and I cringe. "Yeah, I'm Alaska Snow. But I—I was supposed to—I must have—"
I want to lie, to say I was going to drop the class, to come up with something that doesn't make me sound like a complete moron. Well, genius, she's already seen you naked, so looking like a moron is the least of your problems—
I squeeze my eyes shut.
"You can go if you want to," she says. I open my eyes. Just like that, so easily, she's letting me off. The door is just a few feet away and I can flee like the coward that I am, and hopefully never meet her again.
Except I probably will, because she teaches here. In the school that I go to. With the super-small art department the brochure optimistically described as "an intimate environment."
Baby, you have no idea.
My head starts to spin and I draw in a much-needed breath.
"That's okay," I say. My throat feels scratchy, like when I stay too long in the dressing room upstairs where the girls smoke even though they're not supposed to. I don't know why I don't just run. Actually, I do. The simple truth of the matter is, she knows something extremely fucking compromising about me and I don't want to piss her off.
"My name is Alaska Snow, I'm from Minnesota," I say.
"Oh," Audrey—pardon, Aud-RAY—pipes up. "Une Américaine. Nice."
I ignore her. Either way, I have no idea what to say to that. "I'm in the Fine Arts program, and this is my second year." Yeah, and I also take off my clothes in front of a room full of strange people for a living. "I specialize in drawing and acrylics." Also grinding and spinning around a pole. My lips feel numb. "To tell the truth, I've never even held a camera in my entire life."
"Oh no? Why is that?" a hint of a smile touches the corners of Elizabeth's lips, but beyond that, nothing lets on that she knows more about me than she does about everyone else.
"What?" I blurt.
"Why haven't you ever held a camera in your life? Not even a digicam? Not even your phone?"
I have no idea what comes over me. "You see, I kinda have a complicated relationship with the photographic arts."
"That's all right. We're here to remedy that."
A soft laugh courses through the class.
"I kind of doubt it's anything you can remedy," I hear myself saying.
"We'll see, won't we?"
People are looking at me, I think with distant, numb horror. Paying more attention than they should, noticing me. Not in a good light.
"Thank you, Alaska." Finally, that gaze leaves me, re-centers on the classroom.
"Okay, so I'm Elizabeth Grey, and as you might have figured, I'll be teaching this course." She moves to sit on the edge of the desk. "Also as you might have figured—most of you anyway"—she throws a glance at me—"this course focuses on the traditional approach to photography, and yep, that means film. I take it you have your cameras already, as per course requirements?"
They start to fumble with the clasps of their camera bags.
"Those who don't..." she glances sideways at me for just a moment, "should get to it, because I hate to start off abruptly but you're sort of going to have an assignment for next week. If funds are a problem, any old camera from a thrift store is good, as long as it works—it's actually even more interesting to work with, for what we're doing."
She opens an old-school leather case and takes out a clunky, black-and-chrome camera straight from the seventies, showing it to the class. Judging by the rush of jealous sighs, it's one of the good ones. "This is an excellent model, but of course you won't need anything of that caliber. The minimum requirements for a camera to use in this class are all in the syllabus, but—"
She goes on about things like objective and lens, and other terms I can't possibly hold in my brain.
I have to drop this class. I repeat it over and over in my mind, as I start to fidget and claw at the seat under me. Right after she lets us out, I'll go and drop it. Totally normal. Totally cool. Just, a scheduling conflict, or something.
She goes over the syllabus—apparently there's going to be an exhibit composed of our final assignments for the term—then goes over the other required materials, paper, weird chemicals. It feels like she goes on for an hour but when she lets us out it's only twenty minutes past.
It takes all my willpower not to bolt from the classroom the second she says see you next week. I wait, counting backwards from ten. People gather their stuff and head out; finally, I reach one, shoot to my feet, and dart for the exit.
On numb legs, I walk to the elevator, not daring to look over my shoulder.
So far, it doesn't look like she has any intention to victimize me. Could it be a miracle and she's actually a normal, mature human being who knows how to make her move, wishing she'd just get it over with.
"I just wanted to know if you had a camera already or if you needed any help finding one."
I try to think of something to say, but my mind is blank.
"Unless you're going to drop the course," she catches herself. Hell, she actually sounds embarrassed. Like she has anything to be embarrassed about.
"Uh," I manage to choke out. "I—I'm still considering, actually. My schedule—" I trail off. She knows all about my schedule, I remind myself acidly.
"Understandable that you don't want to commit yet. But if you want to give the assignment a try, maybe I could lend you a camera until you make up your mind.
You... you don't have to."
"It's not a problem. I sort of collect them."
We stop; my gaze drops and I glimpse her hands, her left resting on the strap of her camera bag. My gaze travels across her knuckles. L-I-B-R-E.
"I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to embarrass you."
"I'm not embarrassed," I mutter, without looking up.
"You look embarrassed," she points out the obvious.
"Well, excuse me but it's a little weird, seeing you here," I snap, lowering my voice to a hiss.
To my fury and humiliation, she chuckles. "Seeing me here is weird?"
I draw in a breath to say something, but I'm at a loss for words. You know what else is weird? Trying to engage in formal conversation with someone who knows what you look like under your clothes. When I decided I was going to take my bra off for stranger, I never signed up for this.
"Look, it was just shit luck," she says.
"No kidding."
"I just—it's my old friend, they made me go."
I cringe. "You already told me that. It's cool."
"No, it's not."
I look up into her face. Sunlight floods through the enormous glass panes in the ceiling, and finally I can see her in full detail, like she can see me. On equal ground. Almost. Except I've yet to see her naked.
I curse myself out for even thinking it.
She heaves a sigh. "Hey, if it really makes you uncomfortable, you can drop the course."
"I need the credits," I say dryly. "And everything else is full."
"Look, I just don't want to make it awkward for you for the rest of the term."
"Why?" I blurt.
"Why what?" a worry-line draws itself between her eyebrows.
"Why not? What do you care? I'm just some—"
"I care," she interrupts— thank God. What else was about to come flitting out of my big mouth? "Why? You seem nice."
"Nice," I echo. Nice. Hell, I don't know if I should be flattered or insulted. When you dance naked a few inches from someone's face, is nice how you want them to remember you?
"Yeah. You obviously have a plan for yourself, and I don't think I have the right to interfere."
My thoughts race, spurred on by a mix of indignation and embarrassment.
"So don't worry. I'm not going to tell anyone," she adds.
Part of me wants to tell her to fuck off, to tell her she can announce it through the speakers and I don't give a damn. Part of me is furious at the idea of her being able to hold this over my head, to benevolently decide she'll spare me. For now. My hands clench into fists. I want to storm away, but stay perfectly still.
With a sigh, she shakes her head, and what she does next stuns me even more: she takes the camera bag off her shoulder and hands it to me—holds it out, waiting patiently for me to snap out of my stupor and take it.
"Are you nuts?" I say in a loud whisper.
"Take it," she says. "Like I said, I have more at home. And if you're going to learn to use a film camera, you might as well have a nice one to start with."
Still in disbelief, I reach out and take the bag. The appliqué logo reads Hasselblad. It's heavy, a pleasant weight against my hip when I sling the bag over my shoulder.
"Be careful with it," she says. "I got it from my dad. Who actually got it from my granddad, so it kinda has sentimental value."
"I can't take it." I start to fumble with the strap of the bag.
"Please do." She stops me. I shudder a little when her hand lands on my forearm, even though there's a layer of worn fleece separating my skin from her. The letters on her knuckles, CHOIX, are deep and dark, their edges sharp without a hint of the usual finger tattoo bleed. Either they're new or she keeps them up with regular touchups.
"Just take it. Give it back when you get one. Or when you decide if you're staying."
"Okay," I stammer. "I'll have it back by next week, I promise."
"Use it well."
She turns and starts to walk away. All I can do is stand there and watch her. Only the weight of the camera at my side reminds me that I didn't just imagine all this.
Then, just as I'm about to leave, she stops and glances over her shoulder.
"Oh, and Alaska? You should get that tattoo finished".
I choke on an exclamation, but she turns around and vanishes into the lunch crowd.
And leaves me there, seething.