Page 53 of White Lights
Her own parents, married too young and only because Dez was on the way, never really stood a chance. In Dez’s earliest memories, her dad was mean and angry, and her mom was a shell. An unlived life. Dez thinks of the scar on her wrist, the one she got trying to protect her mom from the deep fryer at the Dairy Barn when she was four years old. It’s the first real pain she remembers, and the first time she learned that her instinct to help those she loved could backfire catastrophically. That maybe everyone was better off if Dez didn’t try. She learned this again with Mo.
Maybe that’s why Dez has always dreamed of ways to escape her home. Because on some level, she fears they’re better off without her. Because maybe if she’s far away, she can start a new story, a new life. The one her mother never got to live out when she got pregnant with Dez.
She’s done it now, gone far away, but it doesn’t feel the way she thought it would. She’s lonely and she misses them.
She thinks about Moses, his wound. Aside from the very obvious one Dez gave him, he carries one inside himself just like she does. He grew up in the same house, with the same parents, same conditions as Dez, but where she projected her pain out into the world, into her art, Mo turned all his pain inward. Then he turned to drugs.
She’s thinking of all this—the heaviness all families bear; her own wrenching, present circumstances; thedramaof it all and what she might be able to do about it—when Zarlengo dismisses the class.
“Go and think and feel and be inspired,” Zarlengo says. “Soon you’ll become one with your subject.”
The other students stream out of the classroom, but Dez hangs back, telling Simon she’ll meet him later. She finds Zarlengo alone.
“Dr. Zarlengo?”
“Ms. Rae.”
“I wanted to ask about our film assignments.”
“You’ll receive them in the Vault. Your mentor will answer any questions.”
“But I have an idea for the film I want to make.”
Zarlengo squares himself to face her and gives her a withering look. “Exactly where do you think you are, Ms. Rae?”
“I know where I am, and I know what I want to do.”
He forces a smile that looks like a knife. Rustling through his briefcase, he pulls out a library book and hands it to Dez.
She looks at the title:The Genius of the System.
“Read that,” Zarlengo says. “It explains how when you work in film, it’s never up to you.”
“Dr. Zarlengo, my brother—”
“Yourbrother?” Zarlengo laughs. “What makes you think I give a damn about your brother? I don’t ever want to hear about your brother again. Or your mother. Or your fucking uncle for that matter.”
“But—”
“Look, Ms. Rae, there’s nothing to debate. You’ll make the films we tell you to. Understand?”
Dez shakes her head. “No, I don’t understand.”
“That sounds like a personal problem,” Zarlengo says, packing up his papers and heading for the door. “See that it’s solved before you enter the Vault.”
“WAY TO WORK ZARLENGO,”SAYSa sarcastic voice behind her.
In the time it takes Dez to turn and find Rafe in the doorway of the empty lecture hall, hands in his pockets, eyes holding out last night’s secrets, head tilted like she’s the one who ghosted the scene, her chest fills with heat.
“What kind of film school doesn’t let people choose their own projects?” she demands, walking toward him into the foyer of the building. Outside, through the windows, cyclones of snow raze the courtyard.
“The kind of program that trains you for the real world,” Rafe says, holding open the door for her, looking at the book tucked under her arm. “That’s a classic, by the way.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not going to read it.”
“Good plan. Go to a prestigious school, fight with the professors, and refuse to do the homework.”
“He only gave me the homework because I fought with him.”
