Residency

“A residency?”

“Yes mama,” I sighed.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“I live there with twelve other artists,” I said.

“Oh, this is about your little paintings?” she sneered.

“Mama, I was picked to be one of twelve out of thousands, maybe even millions,” I said.

“Well, where is it?” she asked with her hands on her hips.

“France,” I muttered.

“FRANCE!?” she started laughing as soon as the shout jumped off her lips. It was so immediate, they were almost one and the same.

“Why not?” I said, mimicking her stance with my fists on my own but much thinner hips.

“You think you can make it over there on your own?” she said fighting a grin, “you won’t even get on the plane.”

So, as I stepped out of the plane and felt the breeze in my hair I smiled to myself. I proved it. I made it. I was in France. There was a car waiting for me outside the airport, a man in a suit held up a sign with my name on it: Lorraine.

“Named for the country?” he asked me in his thick accent.

I shrugged, “I’m not sure, somewhere along the line, I guess so.”

“A family name?” He asked as he took my luggage and put it in the trunk for me. I nodded at him, and he smiled as he opened my door. The drive was a long but scenic one and I fell asleep on the way. I had been traveling for what felt like days and jetlag was catching up to me as well.

“Madam,” I heard someone saying over and over as my eyes protested against opening. I pried them open anyway and looked around. Confusion melted into excitement as I saw that we were driving through giant iron gates. A tall stone fence surrounded an entire hill, at the very top of a winding driveway up the hill sat a stone castle. It must have been hundreds of years old and was bigger than any place I’d ever seen. There were five stories that I could see from the ground up. It covered the entire top of the hill and seemed to sink into it as well, like it was a part of the earth.

I knew the art residency I had signed up for was going to be in a castle, but the pictures and description couldn’t have prepared me for the reality of it. We drove over a drawbridge; I couldn’t believe the place had a moat. Then we went through the tunnel in the stone wall around the base of the hill, then pulled up the winding drive. Once at the top we drove around the side of the castle and down a slope into an underground garage. The driver parked in one of the slots in a row occupied by matching unremarkable black cars. He got out and opened my door for me and helped me out. I was glad I had worn my gauzy dress; it was comfortable but also felt medieval and ethereal. It was an off-white color spaghetti strap with barely visible flowers all over it. It fell to my calves and was cinched around my waist loosely. I left my auburn hair down and my curls felt heavy on my bare shoulders.

“Madam,” the driver had my luggage out of the trunk and was waiting for me to follow him. I shook myself out of my thoughts and went along behind him through the garage and up a staircase to an opening. It led out to a courtyard where other people were standing around in small groups talking. They all eyed me as I walked by them, but I tried to keep my head down and avoid eye contact with any of them. The driver took me into a lobby where I was transferred from his responsibility to that of a bellhop of some sort. I got signed in at the desk and was led by another much younger man to an old-fashioned elevator that looked like a golden bird cage. It was terrifying but I didn’t speak as we creaked up all of the stories.

“You’re in the turret,” he said to me looking at the paper the receptionist had handed him.

“Okay,” I whispered, I was nervous and excited to be sure, I was excited mostly. I was very excited wasn’t I? This was a dream come true. He led me down a huge and expansive hall to the end where there was a door in the chamfer corner wall. He opened it and I gasped. The room was massive and round. I floated into the room on wings; I was only vaguely aware of the bellhop showing me around. The private bathroom with a giant tub right beside the window overlooking the forest. Then back to the room and through a small door behind the fireplace, up a stone spiral staircase and up to the top of the turret. The four turrets at the corners of the castle were taller than the rest of the walls. From mine, since no one was on the other three, I could see everything, but no one could see me.

From this vantage point I could see all around myself as I turned in every direction. The sun was shining but I could see dark clouds in the distance. Too far away to be a bother just yet. The north side of the castle overlooked a valley below. Many little houses littered the vast rolls of the greenest grass. Each was surrounded by a perfect little white square fence around their yards. Most had flowers of various colors lining the fences in the front yards. There was a patchwork of colors and patterns as I looked over it. Beyond that was at river, glistening in the sunlight taking my breath. The wind blew lightly, just enough to lift a lock of my hair to brush my cheek softly. It was a cool breeze but not frigid, the air was the right temperature for standing out on a turret. France this time of year was just on the cool side of summer heat.

The calling of several birds danced in the air around me, mixing with the smell of the flowers below. I walked to the edge and held to the stone ledge, then closed my eyes to take a deeper breath, to listen, to be present. Somehow to make myself believe that I was really standing where I stood. In a life of nothing but bad, could anything really be this good? I opened my eyes again and looked around, no angle was wrong for painting. I could bring my easel up here and stay for months and never run out of subjects. My specialty was landscapes and so far I’d had to dream them up from inside my small house with mother. We had no yard to speak of, not a good one anyway. The neighborhood was rotting and decrepit, so far all my paintings had come from my own imagination. But all that imagining couldn’t compare nor prepare me for something, some place, like this.

Everything was perfect, everything was lovely.

*You don’t belong* a small voice whispered in the back of my mind. It wasn’t at all unfamiliar. I had been hearing that same voice in my head and at home for my entire life. The doubt, the insecurity, projected, my mother. I brushed it off, she hadn’t stopped me from coming and she wasn’t going to ruin my time here. But the meaning of what the whisper had said sunk into my heart. This place was wonderful, all the bright smells and colors, I felt grey inside of it. Not one of those aesthetic greys either, not one of the old black and white films. Not a grey of romantic melancholy, a grey of blandness. I looked over the edge, it sure was a long way to the ground.

“Hello,” a voice startled me so much that I jumped back three feet. I turned to see where it had come from.

“Oh… umm… hi,” I stuttered to the woman standing there. She was shorter than me by a lot and very tiny. Her hair was brown and wavy and fell all the way to the top of her odd skirt. It looked as though she’d taken a bunch of men’s ties and sewn them together to make the skirt. Her top was a man’s suit vest, black.

“I’m sorry I scared you; I’m Vanessa, I saw the door to your room open and came on up when I couldn’t find you in there, they wanted me to come get you for the meet and greet,” she said, bouncing a little at the end sweetly.

“No, that’s fine,” I said, “thank you for letting me know.” I expected her to leave then but she just stood there waiting on me, so I took that to mean my moment of solitude was over. So I followed her back down to my room.

“Nice room,” she twirled around and giggled. She was so carefree and full of energy, I felt like a sloth following her slowly. I saw the key to the room on the little table by the door, so I grabbed it on the way out of the room, locking the door behind me. The hall was darker than the room because there weren’t windows inside. The little sprite of a girl flitted down the hall ahead of me as I looked around at the paintings on the walls. A chill ran through me, stone castles are drafty, I realized. There was dampness in the air with the smell of something unfamiliar. All the old paintings were of former nobility that had presumably lived in this castle. It was a little creepy to think about all of them probably dying here. All of the paintings seem to follow me with their eyes which I understood on a logical level to just be an optical illusion, but my stomach felt tight anyway.

We were almost to the end of the hall and I stopped dead in my tracks. The queen in the second to last painting looked just like my mother. I blinked a few times and shook my head. The image stayed the same, it was my mother’s face. The rest of her didn’t look like mom because obviously she was dressed in old fashioned clothing with a crown and her hair up in an elaborate updo. Her hair was red like my mother’s hadn’t been for years since she’d gone grey. But the face was the same, smoother but the same.

“You coming?” Vanessa asked, but her voice sounded distant, muffled. A hand grabbed my arm, and I shrieked. But it was just Vanessa trying to snap me out of it. She jumped back and let go of my arm, “are you alright?”

“Yea, sorry I just…” I looked back at the painting and it was the same but the trance it had had me under was gone, “it’s just weird, that painting looks like my mom when she was young.”

Vanessa looked up at it, “pretty,” she smiled. It was a coincidence and that was all, I knew it was, so I smiled and nodded. She linked her arm with mine and I felt comforted, I didn’t even know her, but I felt it, kindness. It was unfamiliar to me as the smells of an old castle, the warmth of someone’s touch, the tenderness in it, completely foreign.

*she’s so much prettier than you* the voice was back. I shook it off and kept walking with Vanessa. *don’t let her hold your arm like that, people will think something awful* the voice hissed. I ignored it, tried to ignore it, even though this time it sounded like it was actually coming from the painting of my mother. The painting that looked like mom, it was a stranger, it wasn’t her. At the bottom of the stairs I felt a little better, a little less suffocated. We made our way out to the courtyard were the other ten residences and an older man were gathered in something close to a circle at the center were there was a fireplace. A legit stone fireplace that looked like it belonged inside the castle was just freestanding in the middle of the courtyard. There was no fire in it and a few of the students were sitting along the hearth. The older man resting his arm up on the mantle drinking a glass of wine. The staff of the castle milled about on the outskirts of the group passing out drinks and snacks.

Vanessa giggled, “come on, sit by me.” She pulled me with her over to the hearth and sat right beneath the standing man with the wine. I sat on her other side awkwardly.

“We’re all here?” the older man said in English but with a French accent, asking mostly Vanessa. She nodded so he sat his wine on the mantle and clapped once, “okay, let’s get started, I’m professor Delacroix.” He paused waiting for the obvious question slash compliment.

“As in Eugene Delacroix?” someone asked, causing the professor to smile.

“That exact one, my direct ancestor,” Delacroix said proudly. *what an ego on this guy* the voice said to me and this time I sort of agreed but decided since it was saying it I shouldn’t. I listened to the professor talk about his own accolades and practically his entire life story. He seemed nice enough even if he was proud to be a descendant of a famous artist, who wouldn’t be? Take that voice in my head, I’m choosing to like him. She felt like sticking her tongue out at it but knew that would be inappropriate considering no one else could hear the voice.

The professor had them introduce themselves one at a time. *you have to talk in public, they’re going to think you’re a loser* I bit my lip, I rehearsed what I could say, we were supposed to introduce ourselves and say our influences and where we are from. I chewed on my bottom lip and went over and over the script in my mind that I’d whipped up in the last few minutes. I didn’t hear a word anyone else was saying. Then it was Vanessa’s turn, I had to listen because she had been nice and I owed her at least that. Plus I was interested.

*interested? Interested how? Are you like… that?*

“Shut up,” I said. Vanessa looked at me, hurt. I shook my head, “not you.” She tilted her head, confused looking like a sad puppy. I whimpered.

“Are you okay?” she asked me again.

“Yea… sorry, go ahead,” I said. She tilted her head the other way and sighed. I shook my head again, “I’m fine, please, continue.” I pleaded with her with my eyes, and she gave me a sad smile and patted my knee. She started again and I let out a sigh of relief, which she clocked giving me a glance out of the side of her eye.

“My name is Vanessa Miller and I adore art, I paint but I also like to use other things for my work, I’ll glue just about anything to a canvas, I like to gather garbage and use it if I can, that’s my favorite thing, to take things that have been discarded or overlooked. Not to make it beautiful but to display it for the beauty that was already there,” she said. I felt wetness on one of my cheeks as a tear slipped out. Vanessa glanced at me again and blushed.

“That is lovely Vanessa,” Delacroix said, “and your influences?”

“I like all the old painters, don’t get me wrong but my greatest inspiration is the world, everything, the universe,” she said almost shyly.

Someone scoffed and whispered, “hippie bullshit.” I looked for who had said that but everyone was looking at me.

“That will not be tolerated here, miss…?” Delacroix said to me waiting for me to introduce and explain myself. Vanessa was looking at me, devastated.

“That wasn’t me,” I said to her then looked up at Delacroix. *ha ha I knew you would ruin this* the voice said. I burst into tears and stood up, “that’s not true, I didn’t say it, you did.”

“Miss what is your name?” Delacroix asked.

“Lorraine,” I sobbed. Vanessa stood up and walked over to me, I thought she was going to slap me for saying what had obviously come out of my mouth involuntarily.

Instead she got to me and turned to the professor, “Professor Delacroix, this was a performance we put together to make a point, this is performance art but I think being so nice and having to say something harsh has upset her.” Why was she doing this?

“I don’t understand why you would do this,” Delacroix said.

“Art is subjective,” Vanessa shrugged, “besides it was supposed to go further but Lorraine is too kind a person to play that part, it should have been me playing the bully, I made a mistake, this was my idea, please accept my apologies.”

He sighed and shrugged, “alright, but next time pass it by me first?”

“Of course,” she curtsied to him, “can I have a minute with Lorraine to calm her down?”

“Sure,” he said waving a hand at her, clearly a little annoyed.

“Why did you do that for me?” I asked once we were in the restroom and she was washing tears off my face.

“That was a garbage thing to say to me,” she said.

“I know, I’m sorry,” I sighed.

“Weren’t you listening? Garbage is my favorite thing to work with,” she said and smiled.