Tell Me Something True Read Online Free PDF Page A

eight thirty in the morning tomorrow,” he said curtly after consulting
     his agenda, giving me the two single most undesirable time slots, way before or after any of my classes and right in the middle
     of rush hour traffic.
    “I’ll be there at five thirty today,” I replied, cursing him inside. “Thank you,” I added formally and went directly to the
     library, where I armed myself with a mountain of Venice Boardwalk photography books.
    He was alone in the TA office when I got there, his feet propped up on his desk as he sipped coffee and read a novel, of all
     things. I wondered if he shouldn’t be grading papers or something.
    “What can I do for you, Helena?” he asked cordially, pronouncing my name “He-lee-nah,” like an American. He wasn’t annoyed
     anymore. Just amused, which made things worse.
    “It’s Helena,” I said curtly, pronouncing it “Eh-le-na,” as it’s pronounced in Spanish, even though I was resigned by then
     to being a He-lee-nah instead in a country that insisted on vocalizing the letter
h
.
    “Oh,” he said momentarily nonplussed, but then more amused even than before.
    “Helena, then,” he repeated, drawing out the second
e
so it lingered on his tongue, long enough for me to want to taste it. No one had ever enunciated my name quite like that
     and I felt the barest of tingles up my arms.
    “Marcus, I feel I don’t deserve a B,” I finally said flatly. “I’ve done well in all the projects, and I would like an explanation
     and I would like you to reconsider,” I added all in one breath.
    “Helena, you’ve done great stuff,” he answered, and it was immediately obvious to me that he’d planned his words. “But in
     this case,” he continued, “I have to tell you that (a) the Venice Boardwalk is not terribly original material and (b) because
     it isn’t, you have to do something very, very special to make it appealing for me at this point, and you didn’t. Different
     times of the day and different light and all that is pretty, but it doesn’t do it for this subject matter.”
    Marcus didn’t drop his feet from the desk, nor did he ask me to sit down, which was not only rude, but made me feel at a distinct
     disadvantage.
    “I brought some books to show you,” I said firmly, determined to win this one, like I had won my place in this class. “I’m
     sure my work can stand up to this.”
    I placed at least five books on the desk, all on the same subject, none executed with the same flair for detail or lighting.
    He picked them up nonchalantly, feet still up on the desk as he thumbed through one, then the next. Then he stopped in the
     middle.
    “I have something to show you, too,” he said, getting up for the first time and going to the office next door.
    He came back with a worn portfolio that looked a million years old and handed it to me.
    When I saw the title, I felt my stomach sink a little bit: “The Venice Boardwalk: A Pictorial Study.”
    It wasn’t a study of the architecture but of the people. But the juxtaposition of the faces against the buildings highlighted
     the architecture in a way that made my more complex project seem simply mundane.
    I have a sturdy ego. But I truly also have a healthy dose of realistic self-critique. I knew when I was beaten.
    “Yours?” I finally asked, still looking at the pages.
    “No.” He shook his head. “Horwitz’s.” He paused. “Look, it’s an unfair comparison, I know. But you have a different kind of
     eye that can do much better things, with something that you know better.”
    I kept looking at the portfolio, trying to ignore the fact that, now that he was standing beside me, the top of my head didn’t
     even reach up to his chin.
    “When you’re a photographer, half the work is in picking your subjects,” he said gently, sitting on the desk in front of me.
     “You have to photograph what you know best, what you can make look the best. You have to make me see things in a way I didn’t