Summer Solstice

Paintings and Photos

All I wanted to do was jump out of my chair and go hunt down Kaida. But that just wasn't an option. I waited impatiently as Miss Dega took a long drink from her coffee cup and faced the class. "Bonjour Tout le monde." She said in her usually chipper voice.

"Good morning Miss Dega." We all replied. It was typical that she started the class out in French, and she would switch back and forth throughout the day. Being one of her French students, it didn't bother me much. I suppose I could have taken any other language, but since my father had been French, it just seemed the better choice. I wasn't fluent yet, but maybe someday I would be.

Plus it was always a bonus to listen to her talk in class, there were some days she liked to talk to herself, and I got to listen to all her inner thoughts. Like how she kind of had a crush on Mr. Meaner.

Miss Dega was pretty, with classic features and average height, and long wavy brown hair that was streaked in grey. She always seemed to have a smile on her face, and that was one of the reasons I liked her. She walked around our tables and went about the daily tasks of setting up each of our color schemes and what our object of study would be.

"Don't worry about grades on this, the class is over, so it is not necessary to be perfect. Just paint what you want, and let each other be the critics." She smiled and went back to her desk. She was taking inventory on books, and I looked at my pallet.

Blues. Everything in blues.

Super.

I wasn't very good with blues, everything was always icebergs and snow drifts when it came to blues.

I swished my brush and started painting, not really paying attention to the brush strokes. Every once in a while I would glance at Miss Dega, and would catch her staring at my painting that was sitting on the drying rack. I knew she wanted it, would love to have it. And I was going to be so happy when I got to give it to her.

She was flipping through some textbooks, not really focusing, and smiled. I wondered idly if she was thinking about Mr. Meaner. Even though his name might sound bad, he was really a nice guy. And everybody deserved a nice guy, right? Kaida, Miss Dega, Harriet, they all deserved a nice guy.

"Wow, he's cute. Who's he?" Harriet's voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Huh, who?" I looked past my canvas and towards the front of the class.

She giggled and pointed and I looked again. "Who?" What guy, and where the heck was he? I turned around and looked around the room, and Harriet's giggles got worse. "Oh my goodness Andrea, just look at your canvas!" She laughed.

I turned back to look at my canvas. "Whoa."

I'd painted... well, I didn't know who he was. It was a small canvas, barely eight by ten, so all that I'd painted was a head and part of one shoulder. He didn't seem familiar at all. Short curling hair, dark against the paler blue I'd used for his skin. His face was in a tilted side profile, his eyes a brighter shade of blue, with shards of light and dark blue around the edges.

His features were soft and boyish, but he also looked intelligent beyond his years. Yes, he was definitely cute, but I didn't know him. His eyes seemed almost sad, like he needed a hug. That's what I got for being stuck with a blue pallet. Blue usually represented sad. I glanced at Harriet's canvas. It was covered in beautiful pink circles in every size and shade. "I like yours, that's neat." It was simple and pretty.

"Yeah, I have bubblegum stuck on my brain." She laughed. I looked back at mine, then hers. "So, what do you think?" I pointed towards my blue man. "Oh, he's great, you're really amazing. I couldn't paint a portrait like that, even if I studied art for the rest of my life." She sighed and stared at him a moment more. "You want him?" I pointed at the portrait.