Tasha turned to look at me. “No. I love you. You’re my best friend. But you need to take care of yourself, okay? Because I’m not gonna be here to hold your hand every night if you make a bad decision.”

I took a deep breath. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”

Tasha gave me a sympathetic look. “I know.”

I smiled and reached for her hand. “Tash, don’t go.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna forget about me as soon as you have Steph to yourself.”

“No I won’t. I’ll never forget about you.”

She smirked. “Now who’s falling in love with who?”

Chapter 36

Joan stood back from my painting and studied it. She cocked her head, and then went right up to the paper and examined the clumps of orange and red paint.

“What do you think?” I asked tentatively.

She stepped back again, still looking at the painting, and said, “It’s not important what I think. What do you think? What made you want to paint this?”

“I guess I was inspired by that Bernice Bing poster I saw. I wanted to make something like it.”

“Was that your goal? To copy the Bernice Bing painting?”

“Copy? I don’t know. Is that bad?”

“Copying can be a great way to learn things.” Joan turned to look at me. “Was that your intention?”

“I don’t know what my intention was. Is.”

She nodded. “Maybe this is about playing. You’ve spent a lot of time studying math and science. Maybe you want to play.”

The word play made me squirm. “Like a kid.”

“Like an artist. So much comes from allowing yourself to experiment with new ideas, new techniques. And all of this is new to you.” She gestured to the painting on the wall. “How many have you made?”

“Just that one.”

“You should make more.”

“But I don’t know what to do with this one. How am I supposed to make more if I don’t even know what I’m doing?”

“The only way to figure out what you’re doing is to do it.” She paused and then asked, “Are you having fun with it?”

“I was at first. No, at first I felt like I knew what I was doing. I wanted to use the roofing paper and that blue paint. I wanted to put it on the wall and make it like—oh, I wanted to paint the water in the Adrienne Rich poem, ‘Diving into the Wreck.’ But then I did that and I didn’t know what to do next, and now I’m stuck. What do I do now?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what to do. You need to listen to the work. What is it telling you?”

“Nothing,” I said, laughing. “It’s totally silent.”