fanfic1

         Emma James is a young girl who moves to Liverpool with her mum to start
a new life.
She enrolls at the Liverpool College of Art and befriends five people who will
play pivotal rolls
in her life.

She closed her eyes, her head pounding. She knew she shouldn’t have come here,
but
she couldn’t spend on more second in her apartment. So she came to her
favourite coffee shop.
The one that served tea and English muffins. The one that reminded her of
Liverpool.
The waitress came back with her order and she managed a smile and a polite
‘thank you.’
The waitress smiled back and then left to take care of her other customers.
She picked up the cream. Her hands shaking too badly to hold it steady.
She ran a hand through her long strawberry blond hair and pushed up her dark
sunglasses
that hid her sleep deprived violet eyes. She’d been up all night trying to
finish a painting.
Finally in the wee hours of the morning she had given up and retreated to the
coffee shop.
It had been three weeks since she’d last completed a painting. Her creativity
and
inspiration seemed to have vanished. Things just couldn’t get any worse.
“Emma?” A male voice interrupted her thoughts. A British male voice.
She looked up and her mouth dropped open. “Paul?”

The sky, which had started out so blue, was now boiling with clouds. The wind
had
picked up too, and it took her ten minutes to set up her easel at the right
angle so that it wouldn’t
blow over.
Oh well, she thought. Nothing’s going right today anyway. She taped a piece
of textured
paper to the board on the easel, and then, sitting on the low folding stool a
few feet from the
walking path, she started experimenting with the pastels she had bought earlier
that morning.
Right away she wished someone was there to give her pointers. Not knowing what
to do,
she made many different marks, using the end of a pastel stick and then its
side. Next she tried
rubbing the marks with a piece of paper towel. Then she layered one colour over
another. It
started to look like mud.
Frustrated, she sighed heavily, ripping the paper from her easel and starting
over with a
new sheet. How can people do this so easily? She wondered, biting her lip in
concentration as
she drew in the outlines of a landscape: water, a couple of people on the beach,
some seagulls.
She drew fast because the cloud patterns were changing minute by minute. The
colours
were difficult to capture, and she used every pastel in the box, layering and
blending them to try
to get just the right effect. At one point she stopped to stare at a small boat
zipping at the
horizon. It made her think about the times she went sailing with her father.
Annoyance rising,
she narrowed her eyes, then marked the boat on her drawing with a slash of
black.
“Yuck,” she said out loud.
“Actually,” a voice behind her said, “I think it’s pretty good.”
She turned around to see who’d spoken and smiled.
There was a guy probably a couple years older than her standing behind her.
He was
dressed in black drain pipes and a black turtleneck sweater. A thin black scarf
was draped
around his shoulders and his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses.   He reminded
her of James
Dean. A sketch pad was tucked under her left arm. He walked over to her with
one hand
extended. “Stuart Sutcliffe,” he said.
She stood up to shake his hand, feeling kind of awkward, as she always did
around guys.
But when he smiled at her, his blue-grey eyes twinkling, she felt at ease.
Stuart was only an inch or two taller than her, his brown hair styled like
Elvis.
“Emma James,” she said.
Stuart waved at her easel. “Hope I didn’t wreck your concentration.”
Emma glanced at her drawing, a new wave of frustration washing over her. “It
doesn’t
matter. I wasn’t getting anywhere.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Stuart studied Emma’s work. “Maybe you haven’t used
pastels
before, but you know how to draw.”
Emma raised her eyebrows.
“You’re great with line and colour.” Stuart went on. “You usually paint with
oils or
water colours, right?”
Emma nodded.
“Well I should get out of here so you can get back to work,” he said.
“That’s all right,” Emma told him. She held up a pastel stick. “I was just
messing
around trying to figure out how to use these things. I’m ready to quit.”
“No way. You should finish this. It’s cool - it expresses a lot of emotion,
you know?”
Stuart looked at the easel to Emma, his eye’s contemplative. “Anger, maybe?
Loneliness?”
Emma stared at her picture. Was there something lurking there, in the wild
clouds and
dark slash of a sailboat?
Then she felt her cheeks flame up. The drawing was supposed to be an innocent
landscape. It wasn’t supposed to say anything about herself. With a quick
motion, she ripped
the paper off her easel. “It stinks,” she murmured.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” he said.
“I’m not embarrassed,” Emma protested, but she cast her eyes down and pretended
to be
busy putting away pastels. “How come you know so much about art anyway?”
“I’m an artist,” Stuart explained. “I’m a student at Liverpool College of
Art.”
“Really?” Emma pushed her strawberry blond hair away from her face, looking
back at
Stuart with increased interest. “I have an interview there this afternoon.”
Stuart smiled. “You’ll get in.”
Emma folded up her easel. “We’ll see.”
“Hey, I’m on my way over there. We can walk there together.”
Emma stood up and slipped her art supplies into her messenger bag. “Only if
you show
me what’s in your sketchbook.” She smiled pointing to the book under his arm.
Stuart laughed and handed Emma his sketchbook.
Emma took the book and began flipping through the pages. “These are really
good,” she
said looking up at him. “These are really good.”
It was Stuart’s turn to blush. He took the sketchbook and tucked back under
his arm.
“Come ‘ead. You don’t want to be late.”
Emma gathered the rest of her things and her and Stuart set out for Liverpool
Art
College.

Stuart walked Emma to the head Master’s office. “Good Luck.” He told her.
“Though
you won’t need it.”
Emma smiled. “Thanks. Maybe I’ll see you around campus.”

Stuart started walking away.   He lifted up a hand in a small wave and then
turned around
and headed down the hall. Emma watched until he disappeared around a corner and
then she
took a seat in the waiting room. She hadn’t been waiting more than five minutes
when the
secretary came out and said that Mr. Harrington was ready to see her.