Free Justine by Kerri A.; Iben; Pierce Mondrup Page A

into a relatively balanced position. Three legs and an appendage. I whack the appendage that dangles and droops.
    â€œStop it,” he says.
    â€œI’m deciding,” I say.
    â€œDon’t you like reggae?”
    â€œDid I say that?”
    He leaves.
    I’m left with three legs and unsteady, limp hands turning a lever.

V ita will not, she doesn’t want to, she simply will not answer the phone when she sees that it’s me calling. No. Vita. Why the fuck is she being so cold? I want to call and ask why, why the hell . . . I’ll think of something to ask . . . and then she doesn’t answer.
    Someone is knocking on the door. Ane walks in with the baby in a sling on her chest. He’s sleeping.
    â€œTorben’s application has been turned down,” she says, waving away Vita’s ghost with a hand.
    â€œWe were really counting on him getting that grant. They know good and well we’re new parents . . . and how much the money means to us,” she says and starts crying.
    The baby wakes up.
    â€œHave you seen her?” I ask.
    â€œWho? Who are you talking about?”
    â€œVita. I’m talking about Vita. Have you seen her?”
    â€œNo. But . . .”
    Ane stops crying and that’s good.
    â€œWasn’t she going on vacation? Wasn’t she just talking about that?” she says. “I don’t know what we’re going to live off of. I just don’t know.”
    The boy starts crying.
    â€œI just wish something in life was dependable. I can’t take this. Shit, we need something to live off of. What about when I finish up . . . we’ll just have nothing, I guess? Spit out into reality with no food and no clothes.”

S he’s taken the stroller and rolled home again, home to Torben. She’s left me with a dull feeling. I know she’s right, and she knows it, too, even though we pretend it’s nothing. It’s bad enough with Torben, he deserves to get the short end, but there’s an even bigger problem for Ane. Myself I don’t even want to think about, just forget it. We discovered it right when we entered the academy of arts, and now the smoke’s in the clothes.
    At one of our very first joint critique sessions, our painting instructor told us that it was likely that just one, maybe two of us, would ever amount to something, would continue doing art. But he said that he thought we should just drop it, quit for our own sakes, that it was a mistake that we’d ever entered this arena. He didn’t think it was possible for us girls to create anything truly interesting. It was always about womanhood, motherhood, or something else sweet and funny and cute, small animals with big eyes, fairytales and feelings. You’re terrible concept artists, he said, and meant it.
    It was a spoonful of flour in our mouths that we believed to be sugar. We sucked and sucked and thought we’d heard wrong. The instructor’s eyes swept over us while we stood pressed together in a workshop stall across from the five paintings that were being critiqued. The paintings showed a woman in different stages of dissolution. Mascara ran down her cheeks. The woman held a wine glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The painter in question had slack shoulders. But then the instructor said it wasn’t necessarily her he meant, she really was very sweet. Ane sat and pressed herself into a corner. A couple of weeks later she was scheduled for a critique session with the same instructor. It was already on the calendar.

O ne Friday after a bunch of openings we had met our painting instructor in the city. He was standing at the bar together with a couple of professors drinking highballs with ice.
    â€œBitches,” he called.
    Me and Ane and a girl named Katrine.
    â€œGirls, come join us for a drink.”
    The first professor downed his drink and had trouble walking away. Our instructor stared at us and called for the