Only in the Movies (3 page)

“Doesn’t look very artsy,” Dad commented as we drove into the parking lot and took the last space marked Visitor. I peered through the rain-drenched windshield at a blank wall with a No Smoking sign bolted to it.

We got out of the van and I followed my father through the rain, up the cracked sidewalk, past a flagpole that pinged rhythmically as the wind snapped the halyard back and forth, and into the school. Dad had a file folder tucked under his raincoat. What was in it he hadn’t said.

The office was opposite the main entrance. Inside, it looked like any other school admin centre. There were no students there, no staff to be seen—just one secretary sitting behind the counter, working hard to unjam the jaws of a staple remover.

“We have an appointment,” Dad informed her. He looked at his watch. “Two minutes ago.”

The secretary, a pudgy woman in a too-tight blouse, pointed a finger armoured with a blue glued-on nail at a couple of plastic chairs. “If you’d like to take a seat.”

“I still don’t think they’re going to let me in,” I whispered. “I can’t see there’s any point in coming here.” Except to be humiliated, I should have added.

After about ten minutes, the door marked Principal opened and a tall woman in a green turtleneck sweater and
fire-engine red jeans appeared. Her clothing contrasted dramatically with her dark skin. She held a clipboard thick with well-thumbed pages and had parked a pencil behind one ear.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Blanchard, Jake,” she said smoothly, nodding to each of us in turn. “Rehearsal. We’re doing the Scottish play this year. I’m Sylvia Pelletier. Please come in and take a seat.”

She led us into an office that looked more like a living room and waved us toward two chairs. There was a thick Persian rug on the floor, a couple of abstract oils on the green wall opposite the door, a library lamp with a brass chain on her desk. She sat in the leather chair behind the desk and opened a file.

“Now, Jake, I have the student records sent to us by your present school,” she began, avoiding small talk, “and”—lifting a single sheet of paper—“I’ve read your application. You say here that you hope to become a screenwriter.”

I nodded. Cleared my throat. What are you doing here? I imagined I heard under her words. My father made me come, I wanted to tell her.

“You’ve read our school calendar, I take it,” the principal went on patiently, removing the pencil from behind her ear and looking at it as if she wondered how it had got there. I nodded again, sinking deeper into my chair.

“Yes,” my father said brightly.

“Then you must know that we don’t have a screenwriting program here at York.”

Yes, I knew that, I wanted to say, feeling stupid and angry with myself anyway. What a couple of hicks, she must have been thinking, the old one smiling like a halfwit and the
younger one looking like a one-legged lumberjack trying to get into ballet school. I stole a glance at my father. He seemed cheerfully unaware that we were making fools of ourselves. He turned to me and flicked his eyes in the direction of the cool and sophisticated principal. Talk to her, he was urging me.

But I was tongue-tied, and I’d had enough. I gripped the arms of my chair, preparing to get up and get out.

“Yes, of course we know,” my father replied, in the voice he used when he explained to a client why her renovation was going to cost 40 per cent more than she thought. I settled back down. “But, you see, there’s nothing at all of a creative nature available at Jake’s present school. Mrs. Blanchard and I hoped that he could take some writing courses, maybe something in the art or theatre department, and that the general, er, creative environment would inspire him. He’s wanted to be in movies—well, not in them, exactly, but writing them—since he was a little boy. And graduating from York would be a help when he applies to film studies at college.”

“I see,” Pelletier said, slipping my application into the file. “I understand your thinking, Mr. Blanchard. But an important part of our application process is the interview and audition—for dance, theatre and music—or the portfolio—for creative writing or the visual arts.”

Gotcha, she seemed to be saying. Or maybe I was being too hard on her, silently accusing her of falling back on the rules the way teachers usually did. This is just getting worse the longer I sit here, I told myself. Finding my voice finally, I urged, “Dad, maybe we should—”

“Well,
this
is an interview, isn’t it?” he said to Pelletier, cutting me off.

“Yes, I suppose. But—”

Dad held up the tattered folder he had brought with him. “And I have Jake’s portfolio right here.”

I stared at the file folder. What could he have in there?

Pelletier’s brow creased. She wasn’t getting rid of us as easily as she’d hoped. Rehearsal would have to wait. She ran a fingertip across her forehead, pushing a strand of hair into place. When she lowered her head, the hair fell back across her eyes, making her look a little vulnerable. She was very attractive, even if she was going to kick me out of her office in a minute.

“You said you were rehearsing when we arrived?” Dad plowed forward.

It was then that I knew he was up to something; the giveaway was his last statement, which didn’t follow from what had come before. It was an old trick of his. Whenever he argued, with me or with Mom, he’d seem to retreat, then come at you from the side, catching you unawares.

“Um, yes,” Pelletier said, thrown off her stride.

“A play, you said.”

“Opening night is in two weeks. We’re rather under the gun, so if—”

“It’s nice to meet a principal who actually works with her students, who doesn’t just go to meetings and send memos and so on.”

You’re trowelling it on too thick, Dad, I thought. Pelletier seemed to sense a con too. She straightened up in her chair, ready to bring things back on track.

“I guess you do a lot of plays each year,” my father rolled on.

“At least three major productions. Our theatre and music programs are performance-oriented.”

“Must be expensive,” Dad said, tapping the file against his thumbnail.

The principal let out a short laugh. “You can say that again.”

“The sets alone must run you a fortune. All that designing, building, the cost of materials. Not to mention the bill for labour.”

Bing!

Like a pinball flipped back into play, his strategy became clear.

Pelletier nodded. “Yes, labour is more than 50 per cent of the total cost.”

My father got out of his chair and drew some page-sized photos from the folder. He placed them slowly in a row across Pelletier’s desk. His big mitts with their thick, callused fingers contrasted with the principal’s soft hands. On cue, she focused on each picture as he put it down, facing her.

“Ms. Pelletier, these, as you can see, are building projects. Each is different and unique.” He tapped the pictures in turn as he elaborated. “This is a garden shed, framed, before the siding was added.” Tap. “A multi-level deck.” Tap. “A dormer set into the roof of a century home so as to make space for an attic bedroom. Notice that the original style of the home has been faithfully adhered to.”

He stepped back and resumed his chair. Pelletier looked at him questioningly.

“Jake built all of them. Alone.”

Pelletier scanned the photos once more. “Very impressive,” she said, raising her eyes to me.

“Thanks.”

“There are a few other tradesmen and-women in the city who could do those jobs,” my father went on, “but Jake designed every one of them, working from nothing but the client’s imagination, or at most a sketch. Now, personally—and I admit I’m not an expert in these things—I think his work takes artistic talent, creativity, not just skill with a ruler and square.”

Pelletier hesitated, then nodded.

“It’s an unusual portfolio, we know,” Dad said. “But then, Jake is an unusual young man.”

As overwhelmed as I was by my father praising me in front of a stranger and calling me not a kid but a young man, I now saw his plan. I kept my eyes on the principal, alert for signs that gears were silently engaging behind her eyes. I didn’t have long to wait. An amused, closed-lipped smile appeared on her face. She gave an another, almost invisible nod—to herself—and then looked at me.

“And you’d be interested in set design as part of your program here?”

“And construction,” I replied on cue, making my first positive contribution to the interview.

To my father she added, “At no cost to the school?”

It was his turn to nod.

“There’s still a problem,” she added. “Insurance. The school board can’t allow a student to work here. He’s underage, he’s not insured—”

“Whenever he works,” Dad cut in, “he does so as an employee of Blanchard and Son, under contract to York School for the Arts. Our company is fully insured.”

“Well,” Pelletier said, rising to her feet as she gathered the photos and tapped them into a neat stack. “Let me talk
to the Board of Governors. I can’t speak for them, of course, but I think they’ll decide that we can find a place for you this coming September at York.” Then, turning to my father and holding up the photos, she added, “Mind if I keep these for a few days?”

“Certainly,” he said, his eyes telling me he was struggling to keep the exultation from his voice.

Pelletier shook hands firmly with both of us. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “I won’t let you down.”

“You’re welcome, Jake.” And to my father, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Blanchard. This has been a most interesting meeting.”

We left the school with a bunch of pamphlets and a booklet and a course selection sheet, provided by the blue-nailed secretary, Mrs. Zhou. We walked back through the rain to the van and climbed in.

“I can’t believe it,” I said.

Dad started the van and turned on the wipers.

“Dad … thanks.”

He made no reply. Bending to peer through the fogged window at the academic building, he said, “Why do schools always look a little like prisons?”

I laughed. “I don’t know. Budget?”

“Maybe while you’re here you can show them how to put up a decent-looking building.”