“She’s stunning.”
“She is.”
“You know, Matt, I’d hate to see your skills and talent go to waste.”
“I’m thinking about going into advertising photography.”
He nodded but seemed unconvinced. “Your photos have this story-telling quality that I don’t see often. We can talk about composition, framing, contrast, or even printing, but I think this is the true mark of an artist, when you can make a statement about humanity in a single two-dimensional image.”
I was a little embarrassed by the praise but I was relieved to finally hear what I knew myself: that I was good at it. “I’ll never stop taking photos. I just don’t know how it’ll translate into a career.”
“I have a friend who works for National Geographic. Every year he sponsors a student to shoot abroad with him. You have to apply, but I think you’d have a good chance. You’ve got the technique for it.”
I was taken aback by the suggestion but more so by how crystal clear my goals suddenly became in that moment. I thought National Geographic was a pipe dream. It’s one of those things you aspire to as a kid, like becoming a professional baseball player or the President of the United States. In my book, traveling the world and taking photos was the ultimate level of success, and I couldn’t believe this chance was falling into my lap, even if it was just an internship.
“I’m definitely interested.” I hadn’t known what I was going to do once I graduated, but now everything was coming into focus.
I made an extra print that day and slipped it under Grace’s door during my break. On my way back to class, I saw her crossing the street about a block away. I yelled to her but she didn’t hear me. By the time I walked a block up, I saw her quickly enter a medical building. I got impatient waiting at the light and dashed across the street when the traffic was clear. Once inside, I scoured each floor until I found her on the fifth, standing near a table with coffee and donuts. She was wearing a hospital gown, stirring cream into a little foam cup. When I marched up to her, she looked up at me, startled. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Generally speaking, a person’s medical history is their own private business.” She held up a little dough ball, “Donut hole?”
“Don’t try to distract me. Are you sick, Grace?” I felt sick myself at the idea.
“No, I’m not sick. I signed up to do a medical study. You wanna do it, too?”
“You’re letting them use you as a guinea pig for free donuts and coffee?”
“I’m getting eighty bucks a day. That’s a lot.”
“Grace, are you crazy? What kind of study is this?”
“I just have to take this medicine and then they take me off of it and see if I have any withdrawal symptoms.”
“What? No,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. I turned her by the shoulders and pointed her toward the curtain. “Go put your clothes on. You’re not doing this.” I looked down at the open hospital gown in the back. She was so damn cute with her little flowery underwear. I pulled the back closed and tied the strings tight so the flaps overlapped.
She turned around and looked up at me with her big green eyes full of tears. “I have to do it, Matt. I need to get my cello back.”
“Back from where?”
“I pawned it for money to pay the rest of my tuition.”
“What about your student loans and financial aid?”
“I had to give some of it to my mom because my little sister needed to get a tooth fixed and they didn’t have the money.” Tears fell from her eyes. When I reached up to brush them away, she flinched.
“Grace, I won’t let you do this. We’ll figure it out, I promise.” Grace selling her cello seemed crazy to me, considering she was a music major. It was hard for me to understand her level of desperation.
“You don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me then.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve been helping my parents out. Their situation is more dire than I’ve let on, so I’ve been sending whatever I can from my student loan money. I’m almost out of cash for the semester and my mom called and said she and my dad were going to be evicted. They had the money to cover the rent but my little sister had a broken tooth that needed to be fixed and their credit is shot so they had to pay in cash. I couldn’t stand the thought of my sister going to school in pain with a broken front tooth.”
I was shocked, but that didn’t mean Grace needed to participate in potentially dangerous medical studies. “It’s not your problem.”
“It’s my family. I read about this study and I can make the money back before next week. They pay you every day. I’m going to get my cello back and everything will be fine. But I have to do this, Matt. It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s a huge deal, Grace. You don’t know how this medication will affect you.”
“You still don’t get it.”
“I’m trying to. I have some money. I’ll get your cello back for you.”
She shook her head. “I won’t let you. You need to buy photo paper and film.”
“I have plenty. Don’t worry.” Grace hated letting me help her. She wanted to be independent. “Go change, it’ll be okay.”
She turned and shuffled behind the curtain. When she came back out, she was smiling uncertainly. “You must think I’m insane.”