I'm back at the studio today. Currently, it looks a bit like someone lost a battle with a box of art supplies. I refuse to admit defeat, so we'll call it a draw.
The walls are now covered in drawings of hands, shoulders, backs, and the occasional attempt at a foot, which I have strategically hidden behind a larger painting. There are a few big canvases leaning against the wall. Most of them are half-finished and giving me the silent treatment (yes, I know I should finish them), and the air smells like turpentine, and something that is probably charcoal dust but could also be the ghost of burnt toast from last week's incident.
My studio may look messy, ok yes, it is actually really messy, but I like it. It feels more lived in. It may look like chaos to anyone else, but I know exactly where my favorite palette knife is.
Next door is Dechawat's studio. We've met a couple of times but haven't really talked much. His studio, from the little I've seen, looks like the complete opposite of mine. It's neat and tidy, and it seems like everything has its place. I seriously don't know what superpower he has to keep it that way. I think he's quite into photography, as he is always walking around with a camera around his neck and has photographs taped up in rows against the wall.
I'm standing in front of one of my 'Unfinished Bodies' pieces, trying to decide if the shoulder is just misunderstood or actually completely wonky, when I hear footsteps.
It's Dechawat. He comes and stands beside me, but doesn't say a word; he only looks at the sculpture. He stands there for a long time just looking. I don't mind that he is looking at my artwork, but I mean, really, you can at least give a helpful comment or say hi.
Eventually, I can't take it anymore and turn towards him. "You know it's considered rude to just barge into someone's space without saying anything."
"Do you consider it rude?"
"Yes, I do, if you're just gonna stand there and not say anything. You could at least tell me if the shoulder looks wonky to you, too."
He makes a sound that I think is supposed to resemble laughter.
"Yeah, it does look a little skewed."
"Mmm, I thought so."
I walk back to my sketches and start again. Maybe I should just remove the shoulder completely from this piece.
Dechawat follows me and starts asking about how I'm making progress with the assignment.
"By the way," he says, "I haven't introduced myself formally. I'm Dechawat, but my friends call me Indigo."
"I'm Lu Xiao Wei, but my friends call me Wei-Wei."
Indigo stands there for a moment, then asks, "So, Wei-Wei, were the missing parts planned from the start, or did you discover them while working?"
I open my mouth to give a short, safe answer and instead hear myself saying,
"I thought I knew when I started. I had all these studies, clear ideas about negative space and deliberate absence. But after I started sculpting, the parts just kind of started making their own decisions, and I felt like I should just go with it."
"It looks like it turned out pretty well, if you ask me."
"Yeah, I think so too. Except for the wonky shoulder."
That gets us both laughing.
"Yeah, except for that. Hey, it's about time for lunch. Do you wanna go grab something together? There's a good place close by. They have simple food, but it's delicious. I think you'll like it."
And that's how I find myself a few blocks away in a small open-air restaurant filled with plastic stools and overhead fans working overtime. The auntie who runs the place clearly knows Indigo. She smiles at him, then at me, then at the universe in general, and brings us grilled pork, som tum, and sticky rice without asking what we want. I am both impressed and slightly alarmed by this level of service.
When the food arrives, Indigo does something I was not prepared for.
Before he picks up his fork, he takes out his phone, holds it over the plate, and takes a careful photo. Then another from a slightly different angle. Then one close-up of the som tum.
I watch this entire process with my eyebrows doing most of the heavy lifting.
"Why do you do that?" I ask.
Indigo puts his phone away calmly, like this is the most normal thing in the world. "I like remembering what I ate. I once promised someone that I would share interesting things with them."
I stare at him. "So, you photograph your food before eating it. On purpose?"
"Yes."
That's strange and a little sad, I think.
"Don't you worry about the food getting cold?"
Indigo shrugs, completely unmoved, and finally picks up his fork. "The memory is worth it."
I shake my head, amused and slightly bewildered.
Halfway through the meal, a middle-aged man in a blue-collar shirt pulls out the empty chair at our table and sits down with the confidence of someone who has never once questioned whether he is in the right place.
He looks at us, blinks, looks around, and seems to realize, possibly for the first time all day, that he does not know us.
"Oh, sorry, is this your table?"
Indigo and I exchange a quick glance. Isn't it obvious? The man starts to stand up again, his chair scraping loudly on the floor. Oh gosh, and now the whole place is looking at us.
"No, no, it's fine—" I begin.
"I thought this was the one by the fan—"
"Wrong table," Indigo says calmly.
The man is now in a state of quantum chair uncertainty, half-standing, half-sitting, and fully confused. I try to help by gesturing with my spoon, which only makes things worse. (I am not qualified for this job.)
"It's okay, really, we can—"
And then, because my brain and my mouth are not always on speaking terms, the words just fall out:
"Some people just have faces you want to keep looking at even when you know you probably shouldn't."
The table goes quiet for half a second.
Luckily, the stranger doesn't seem to register it. He's still apologizing and trying to figure out where he actually belongs. He finally stands up properly, bows a little, and hurries off to another table.
Indigo, however, heard every word.
He looks at me, one eyebrow raised just slightly, a small, curious smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Faces you want to keep looking at…"
My face goes red. It is far too late to unsay anything. I pretend I didn't hear anything and just shovel rice into my mouth at a speed that suggests I am training for an Olympic event in denial.
Indigo looks at me with a warm but also quietly amused expression. He is grinning like he found a little secret, which, let's be honest, he has. I give him a look that says I don't know what you're talking about. He just shakes his head and doesn't say anything further on the topic.
I look back down at my food and become deeply invested in the fate of a single piece of grilled pork, which I push around my plate like it might reveal the secrets of the universe if I just keep going.
Finally, he asks, "Are you done, or are you going to eat that poor piece of grilled pork?"
I stammer out an answer that indicates some sort of state of done-ness. We grab our things and head back to the university.
On our way back, we continued to chat about his interest in photography and mine in art. He doesn't ask anything about "the faces," and that makes me think that I might have just made another friend.
That makes three.