Demons (Jonathan Toews)

Chapter Eleven

“Alright everyone”, Professor J’s voice boomed through the silent classroom filled with about fifteen students inches away from their paintings, focusing in on minor details of whatever object they were rendering. “It’s about five thirty, so you can all go take your break, be back by six and we will have another solid hour of working and then you can all split, okay?”

The class gave him a few nods and some muffled ‘yes professor’s and diffused. Half of the students walked into the hallway and the other half moved away from their paintings and studied them for a while before looking away and getting lost in their cell phones.

As I added a few more streaks of paint to the canvas, I took a step back and bumped into someone that was standing a few feet behind me. Turning around, I noticed the tall man smiling down at me like. “What’s up, Professor?” I laughed as he took a step away from me and pulled the tight smile a little tighter.

“May I speak with you in the other room?” His smile loosened a little as he stretched his arm toward the back room connecting the painting studio and drawing studio. With a nod, I started to walk toward the room, Professor Jacobs trailing loosely behind me as he inspected every painting along the back end of the studio.

Once I reached the small room, I quickly jumped up onto the large table covered in cutting boards and looked over at my Professor who was beaming a large smile at me. “For one I absolutely loved your paintings.” He pulled a stool away from the door, letting it shut, and then sat down on it, pressing his back into the wall of closed windows. “Second, I was speaking to a few friends of mine, we were at a get together of sorts, and they saw a few photos of your paintings.” My eyes widened as he paused. Nodding for him to go on, he let out a hearty laugh and then stood up and walked over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder, “My dear friend Annie who curates at the Mars Gallery on Fulton Street, she saw the pieces and wants to include you in her next show. If the piece go over well, she’ll give you one of your own.”

I sat there in complete silence as his words resonated in my head. They all made sense to me, but I didn’t get it. I understood they wanted to hang my pieces in a gallery, a real professional gallery, but I for some reason, I couldn’t accept the fact it was real. “Me?”

“Madison, you are very blind to just how good you really are.” He chuckled and placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me a small caring smile, “You have a very unique style about you, the way you paint and draw, and that style is what everyone wants. They don’t want a Van Gogh or Cezanne impersonator, they want someone who has the confidence to paint their own way, and you have that.”

“I have to tell Jon.” I whispered to myself as the realization started to sink into my thick skull. Once it did, I wanted to run into the hallway and dial his number, scream into the phone and tell him what had happened, what I get to do. He would be so proud of me. When I finished those paintings by his house that weekend, he insisted that I give him one once this was over. I didn’t know why he favored them so much; I thought he was just being nice. I guess he had an eye for good art too.

The door opened and I watched my Professor stick his head into the classroom, then lean against the doorframe and send me a small smile. “Jon’s his name, huh?”

“Yeah”, I whispered as a deep blush rushed onto my cheeks. It was odd to talk about Jon to other people. I really didn’t know anyone besides Professor Jacobs and Jon in Chicago. All of my old friends had disappeared from my life and were replaced with tranquil silence. Before Jon, I had no one, and although my life was a living hell, slowly being tortured everyday by my poisonous mind, it was bearable. Then again, I tried to kill myself, so maybe it wasn’t as bearable as I thought.

After a few more short words, Professor J and I parted. As I walked into the hallway and toward the stairs, he walked into the hallway and grabbed his cell phone and started typing away on the flat touch screen front. Just the thought of him telling this Annie woman I was in, that I would love to be part of a show, made my stomach twist like crazy.