Little Fires Everywhere(20)

There were studies of shadows against a faded brick wall, photographs of feathers clotting the shoreline of Shaker Lake, experiments Mia was conducting with printing photographs on different surfaces: vellum, aluminum foil, newspapers. One series stretched across an entire wall, photographs taken week by week of a nearby construction site. At first, there was nothing but a brown hill in front of a brown expanse. Slowly, frame by frame, the mound turned green with weeds, covered in brushy grass and scrub and, eventually, a small shrub clinging to its peak. Behind it, a three-story tan house slowly arose, like a great beast climbing out of the earth. Front loaders and trucks flitted in and out of the scene like ghosts caught unawares. In the last photograph, a bulldozer razed the dirt to even the terrain, flattening the landscape like a popped bubble.

“My goodness,” Mrs. Richardson said. “Are these all yours?”

“Sometimes I need to see them up on the wall for a while, before I know whether I’ve got something. Before I know which ones I like.” Mia looked around at the photographs, as if they were old friends and she was reminding herself of their faces.

Mrs. Richardson peered closely at a photo of a sullen young girl in a cowgirl outfit. Mia had snapped it at a parade they’d passed on the way into Ohio. “You have such a gift for portraiture,” she said. “Look at the way you’ve captured this little girl. You can almost see right down into her soul.”

Mia said nothing but nodded in a way Mrs. Richardson decided was modesty.

“You should consider taking portraits professionally,” Mrs. Richardson suggested. She paused. “Not that you’re not a professional already, of course. But in a studio, maybe. Or for weddings and engagements. You’d be very highly sought after.” She waved a hand at the photographs on the wall, as if they could articulate what she meant. “In fact, perhaps you could take portraits of our family. I’d pay you, of course.”

“Perhaps,” Mia said. “But the thing about portraits is, you need to show people the way they want to be seen. And I prefer to show people as I see them. So in the end I’d probably just frustrate us both.” She smiled placidly, and Mrs. Richardson fumbled for a response.

“Is any of your work for sale?” she asked.

“I have a friend in New York who runs a gallery, and she’s sold some of my prints.” Mia ran a finger along one photograph, tracing the curve of a rusted bridge.

“Well, I’d love to buy one,” Mrs. Richardson said. “In fact, I insist. If we don’t support our artists, how can they create great work?”

“That’s very generous of you.” Mia’s eyes slid toward the window briefly, and Mrs. Richardson felt a twinge of irritation at this lukewarm response to her philanthropy.

“Do you sell enough to get by?” she asked.

Mia correctly interpreted this as a question about rent and her ability to pay it. “We’ve always gotten by,” she said, “one way or another.”

“But surely there must be times when photographs don’t sell. Through no fault of your own, of course. And how much does a photograph typically sell for?”

“We’ve always gotten by,” Mia said again. “I take side jobs when I need to. Housecleaning, or cooking. Things like that. I’m working part time at Lucky Palace now, that Chinese restaurant over on Warrensville. I’ve never had a debt I didn’t pay.”

“Oh, of course I wasn’t implying that,” Mrs. Richardson protested. She turned her attention to the largest print, which had been stuck up alone over the mantelpiece. It was a photograph of a woman, back to the camera, in mid-dance. The film caught her in blurred motion—arms everywhere, stretched high, to her sides, curved to her waist—a tangle of limbs that, Mrs. Richardson realized with a shock, made her resemble an enormous spider, surrounded by a haze of web. It perturbed and perplexed her, but she could not turn away. “I never thought of making a woman into a spider,” she said truthfully. Artists, she reminded herself, didn’t think like normal people, and at last she turned to Mia with curiosity. She had never before met anyone like her.

Mrs. Richardson had, her entire existence, lived an orderly and regimented life. She weighed herself once per week, and although her weight did not fluctuate more than the three pounds her doctor assured her was normal, she took pains to maintain herself. Each morning she measured exactly one half cup of Cheerios, the serving size indicated on the box, using the flowered plastic measuring cup she’d gotten from Higbee’s as a new bride. Each evening, at dinner, she allowed herself one glass of wine—red, which the news said was most beneficial for your heart—a faint scratch in the wineglass marking the right level to pour. Three times weekly she took an aerobics class, checking her watch throughout to be sure her heart rate had exceeded one hundred and twenty beats per minute. She had been brought up to follow rules, to believe that the proper functioning of the world depended upon her compliance, and follow them—and believe—she did. She had had a plan, from girlhood on, and had followed it scrupulously: high school, college, boyfriend, marriage, job, mortgage, children. A sedan with air bags and automatic seat belts. A lawn mower and a snowblower. A matching washer and dryer. She had, in short, done everything right and she had built a good life, the kind of life she wanted, the kind of life everyone wanted. Now here was this Mia, a completely different kind of woman leading a completely different life, who seemed to make her own rules with no apologies. Like the photograph of the spider-dancer, Mrs. Richardson found this perturbing but strangely compelling. A part of her wanted to study Mia like an anthropologist, to understand why—and how—she did what she did. Another part of her—though she was only vaguely aware of it at the moment—was uneasy, wanted to keep an eye on Mia, as you might keep your eye on a dangerous beast.