She couldn’t perceive her own face, and so the process of drawing self-portraits had become a way of finding herself. She had thousands and thousands of them by now—all of them ethereal and poetic and mysterious, like she was glimpsing herself through a deep fog. I couldn’t see the faces, either, when I looked at the images of the article, but I could see the smoky pencil lines, I could feel the sense of mystery, and I could read the exquisite details.
And I realized, looking at the images, that I was seeing them in a special way. Most people, I realized, saw her face itself—and her attempts to render it. But I couldn’t see the face. All I could see was the emotion. The artistry. The longing.
It was like getting the inside view.
By the time I finished reading, my perspective had shifted. The artist described her self-portraits as “healing,” and that was the only word I needed to hear.
I grabbed some paper and some charcoal pencils, sat straight down, and started working on a self-portrait by feel of my own.
Two seconds later, two hours had gone by.
I looked up from the finished drawing and saw the darkening sky.
Then I turned back to the self-portrait I’d just drawn—that jumble of features that I couldn’t see—and I just knew, very simply, that it was good.
I texted a photo to Sue and said, This is good, isn’t it?
She texted back: OMG. It’s amazing!
I had barely “liked” it when another text came from her.
Do that to Joe!!! Then, Maybe this is the brain hack you’ve been looking for!!!
But, I texted back, I just decided to quit the competition.
Too bad, Sue said. Unquit.
* * *
NOT QUITTING MEANT I had some groveling to do. With Joe.
I went down to his apartment and knocked on the door.
“I’m sorry I was weird before,” I said when he opened the door. “I had a colossally bad day—and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Really?” Joe said.
He didn’t believe me? “Really,” I said. “It wasn’t personal.”
“It seemed kind of personal to me.”
“I had just shattered a glass door,” I said. “I was having a moment.”
“But the way you glared at me…”
Had I glared at him?
“I walked away wondering what I had done.”
“You didn’t do anything.” Not true—but I didn’t want to get into it. I didn’t want to hear any confessions or apologies about Parker. Because I’d never be able to be around him, or tolerate him, or put my hands all over him the way I was about to ask to do if he told me he was dating her.
Then I’d really need a new model.
The point was, I didn’t want to know. I needed to keep it all professional. No confessions. No truths. Just a pleasant apology and one last portrait attempt before I gave up on all my dreams.
Joe went on, “And so I thought about it. Pretty much all day. What had I done to piss you off? And then I got it.”
“You got it?”
Joe nodded. Here it was. Confession time.
“We don’t have to—” I started.
But then Joe said, “The kiss.”
The kiss?
“Right?” he went on. “It must be the kiss. You were just trying to help me out, and then I turned it into a whole other thing. I don’t have an excuse for that. I just—I guess it was the surprise of it. And I hadn’t kissed anybody in a long while. And there was definitely some sweet revenge mixed in. But mostly it was just … so unbelievably nice.”
Really? That’s what he thought I was mad about? A swoony kiss?
Who gets mad about a swoony kiss?!
In that second, my goals shifted. He wanted to have this conversation? Fine. We’d have this conversation.
It might ruin everything. But I guess that’s the thing about anger. I suddenly didn’t care.
“Not the kiss,” I said.
“Not the kiss?”
“What else might I be mad about?”
Joe hesitated.
I was going to force him to say it now. He’d started this, and I was going to finish it. “Rack your brain,” I said.
But Joe just shook his head.
And that just made me madder. “What am I mad about? What am I mad about? It wasn’t the very nice accidental sweet-revenge kiss.” I took a second to shake my head incredulously. “It was your walk of shame.”
“My walk of what?”
“Out of Parker’s apartment. This morning. At the crack of dawn.”