Chapter Two: Ordinary Folks

Twenty years ago, no one would have seen Willian Darcy, a frail and quiet boy from a working- class neighborhood in Pittsburg, as the next major artist in the country.

When he'd been in school, his teachers would always talk about how the best jobs boys could get were as doctors, lawyers, and bosses, if not soldiers, who were considered the country's greatest heroes upon the end of the war. Even when he'd been young, no teacher ever encouraged artistic careers of any kind, not even the kind-hearted women who'd been the art and music teachers. William had never understood if this was because of a general disdain of the arts, especially since some of his teachers in high school associated them with communism (despite all the news going on about artists being censored in the Soviet Union back in the early days of the Red Scare), or because many of his classmates' parents were factory workers, domestic servants, or shopkeepers, which probably made teachers encourage their students towards more practical career paths. William's own father had worked through several odd jobs until his death in a car accident when William was twelve, so he figured this was probably what they thought was best for him as well.

William had also spent much of his grammar school years on his own. While most of his classmates would form groups and engage in games involving running and hiding behind the slides or swings during recess, he would often stay behind sketching animals and his classmates while sitting alone under an old apple tree. Because of complications he'd had as an infant, he was also prone to every childhood illness in the book, and he'd caught a heavy fever one winter at the age of nine which nearly killed him. Upon returning to school, he'd been ten pounds lighter, as pale as a ghost, and his nose had remained slightly red from the cold which had made way for the fever. But instead of feeling sorry for him, his classmates teased him more than ever before, calling him Ghost Boy and stepping away from him whenever he got near them, telling him that they might catch his sickness if he got too close.

In fact, the only person who seemed to encourage his artistic talents was his Aunt Katarina, an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, who'd been taking care of William and his sister Georgiana along with her own daughter Anna ever since their mother's death from childbirth when William was five. In her eyes, her grandson was the family's future, and she did everything to help support him, from giving him his own work space in the family's apartment to setting aside money from her job as a laundress so that he could have art lessons after school.

She'd been living on her own with Anna, who was seven years older than William, for as long as anyone in the family could remember. William's father had said that her husband died when Anna was an infant, but Anna herself told him that her mother had gotten an annulment when she was a year old for reasons she would never admit to. But despite this, everyone who knew Katarina, from their neighbors to fellow church goers, highly respected her as a woman capable of getting by on her own despite so much personal hardship. However, her support for her nephew's talents always left them shaking their heads, wondering why a woman so practical couldn't encourage the boy towards a more conventional career path. After all, stories of Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso gave them the impression that the artist's life was one of either struggle or immorality, something no decent relative should ever want for a child.

But despite all this, here he was, living in a fancy apartment in Manhattan and with his own personal studio not far from home, where both established and aspiring artists of all kinds came over to visit. Many of the aspiring artists, especially if they were working on one of William's films, could reside in special rooms set up in the studio for a certain number of months as they tried saving up money to find their own place.

Right now, he was working on a painting of Dusty Springfield as the radio blasted "Light My Fire", the song of the summer. He smiled as the song reached its lengthy instrumental part, which never failed to get him energized. Some of his friends claimed to find their inspiration through marijuana, heroin, or acid, but for William, the rebellious voices of current rock stars and their guitars were much more effective. It helped that they came without that sick and sluggish feeling that was always obvious in his friends after a night of getting high.

He was soon interrupted by a knocking on the door, followed by his sister's cheerful voice calling out, "Hey, Will! Are you still busy?"

"Always am, Gigi, but you know how flexible artists can be about their work," William answered, his voice coming out as high-pitched as always. This had been yet another thing he'd get bullied for when he was a boy, with many of the kids whispering, "What a fairy" whenever he spoke up in class. However, it had never bothered Georgiana, who saw her brother's effeminate features as something sweet rather than devious.

"I take that to mean I can come in, right?" Georgiana asked.

"I think you already know the answer to that," William said.

"Oh, yes!" Georgiana said, practically running into the large room where William worked on all his paintings. She then seated herself in one of three armchairs her brother had set up, and placed her feet on a velvet-colored pillow to get more relaxed.

"Now Gigi, did you just come in here to sit around lazily or to give me a helping hand?" William asked, pretending to sound annoyed even as he smiled with pleasure at having his sister there.

"Neither," Georgiana said. "I just wanted to talk to you for a while."

"I'll take that," William said. "So, what is it now? Is Aunt Katrina getting on your nerves again for your work ethic, or is Mary Anne begging for money again?"

"Will, you're terrible at guessing things," Georgiana said. "Have you already forgotten about the new girl that's supposed to come to Pemberley soon?"

"The new girl? You mean Elizabeth Bennet?" William asked.

"Of course, I mean her."

William had gotten a letter, several photos, and a tape from a high school play from this girl two weeks before. At first, upon learning that she was just a middle class suburban girl with an ordinary family life, he hadn't been impressed by her. Some of the most interesting members of Pemberley studios had rather difficult background stories. The Dashwood sisters, for instance, were the daughters of a former British heir who'd been cut off from his family after his second marriage to a lower- class woman. When he'd died when Mary Anne was eleven and Eleanor fourteen, their mother had to work as a seamstress for her in- laws, while Mary Anne ended up being expelled from three different schools for reckless behavior.

However, his early doubts had been eliminated after seeing what she could do. The tape, which featured a production of Macbeth, had Elizabeth brilliantly portraying Lady Macbeth, pulling off both her ruthless ambition and chilling insanity with more passion than you normally saw in high school girls. All of those centuries -old words were pronounced correctly and recited with the intense emotion required for a believable performance, and Elizabeth appeared to be enjoying herself the whole time.

Her pictures were almost as impressive, showing a cheerful young woman with light brown hair, a tall height, and a slender figure. She looked decent in nearly everything she wore, whether it be a dress, a miniskirt, or just a blouse and jeans. Although she still had a way to go before she could look like a model, there was no denying that she was pretty. William especially liked her honey brown eyes, which were always either smiling or giving off a warm look, even in those pictures where her expressions were more serious.

"Well," William said after a moment of silence, "For a girl who seems so ordinary, she's quite talented based on her tapes. Of course, we'll have to see her in person to understand how she's really like, but she does seem promising so far."

"Being ordinary is the ultimate sin for you, isn't it?" Georgiana asked with a smile.

"Not necessarily. It's just that ordinary folks aren't really the type of people who'd like the sort of lives people lead at Pemberley," William explained.

His classmates certainly hadn't helped in this, many of whom did indeed go on to either follow their parent's paths or become one of those prosperous career men who moved in flocks to the suburbs. They'd sensed early on that he was a freak, and much of their accusations would start to haunt William in high school, especially when he started realizing that he felt similar feelings for men as he did for women.

And much to his shock, some of the boys he found himself becoming attracted to were those same ones who'd called him a fairy back in grammar school. While some of them had stopped bullying him over the years, all of them maintained a sense of machoism that they exhibited through sports or casual horse play. William would occasionally sit in on practices, hiding behind a tree and with a sketchbook in hand, and watch the boys run around and tackle each other with a strange sense of fascination. And when watching movies, he'd be as mesmerized by the stunning looks of the male leads and their romantic dialogue as he'd be by that of the female leads.

But of course, you couldn't talk about these feelings. And in some cases, even if he never uttered a word about them, people would still suspect his tendencies. Or at least that had been the case with Carol Goldberg, the girl he'd taken to homecoming his senior year. She'd been a friend he made in his art classes who was a little shy and awkward like himself, but also quite smart when given the chance. She also came from a strict Jewish family, who'd only permitted her to go to the dance with him upon meeting him and concluding that he didn't appear to be that negative of an influence.

Carol had been quite beautiful that night, wearing her curly brown hair down and a blue Cinderella style dress that she'd made herself, and kept giving William these nice smiles that made it obvious she was glad to be there.

But once they were at the dance, William couldn't keep his eyes away from the other people there, including several of the boys, who looked better than ever with their black suits, suede shoes, and neatly combed hair. They were always polite towards their dates, saying things like "You look amazing tonight, Emily," or "Would you care to dance with me now, Jean?" More than once, Darcy wished that one of them would come up to him and say something just as nice to him.

"Hey, William," Carol had said after a while, nudging him gently on the shoulder. "Do you want to dance now?"

Carol would later admit she'd gotten uncomfortable when she'd noticed him staring at all those boys and had worried that he might have been ignoring her. At the moment, William had blushed and said, "Actually, Carol, I'm not that great at dancing. I've tried practicing with Georgiana a few times before, but it always comes out being awkward and silly, more like two monkeys wrestling than two people doing the Charleston."

Carol giggled. "I don't think I see anyone here who dances like they could be on a Broadway show, William. In fact, Jean and Bradley probably resemble monkeys the way they're swinging around more so than you ever could. Besides, we're in a dance of all places. Did you really expect us to just sit around all night and drink punch?"

"No, but…"

"Come on, William," she'd protested, becoming more desperate by the moment. The jokes some people still made about him were quite clear to Carol, and she knew if people like Jean and Bradley would see that William was refusing to dance with her, they could possibly shun him in a way they hadn't done so since grammar school.

"Okay, you win," William said with a sigh, reluctantly getting up from his seat and walking up to the dance floor with Carol.

Their dancing was almost as bad as William had thought it would be. Several times, he found himself stepping on Carol's toes, and whenever they tried to swing each other, they'd bump into each other's arms and elbows, with William narrowly avoiding giving Carol a black eye at one point when he tried getting her head to go under his arm. But despite how awful they were doing, Carol insisted that they stay dancing. And so, they spend half the time tapping their toes at a far distance from each other, getting several stares from onlookers along the way.

Carol had finally requested to sit down after getting a blister on the back of her foot. William had helped her stick a napkin under her shoe to make it better, but it kept bothering her throughout the night. And so, the rest of their time at homecoming was passed by drinking punch and engaging in awkward small talk. They managed to get a decent homecoming picture along the way (which William still had hanging on his bedroom walls), but otherwise, it was far from being the best night of their lives.

A couple days later, as they were walking alone from the library and talking about how awkward that night had been, Carol had asked William if he believed he was homosexual.

"What makes you think that?" William had asked her. He'd been shocked that this would have crossed her mind at all, not only because some girls he knew (and several boys as well) seemed so naïve about sex, but also because Carol rarely brought up things that were this taboo.

"William, I saw the way you were looking at some of the boys, and the only man I've ever seen look that way at other men is my uncle, who's never been married and whom everyone in my family knows is homosexual. He's been a black sheep almost his whole life around our community, but at least my parents try acting decently around him. They say that after knowing about his condition for several years, they understand it's not something he has control over, and even if homosexuality is something wrong, he still deserves support from our family because no one else will give it to him," Carol said. She then went on to give more details she'd observed about William, and how worried she'd been that others would start teasing him for it, explaining why she'd stayed dancing with him for so long.

"Well, I don't know if I'm that way, Carol. Sometimes I feel more attracted to women, and other times I feel more attracted to men, to be honest," William admitted, expressing his feelings for the first time to another person.

"If you don't say a word to anyone about my uncle, then I promise I won't say anything about you. My father says they've recently trying to treat homosexuality with shock treatments and other stuff that probably won't help at all. I wouldn't want something like that to happen to either of you," Carol said.

"I promise not to tell anyone," William said.

Carol smiled and shock his hand, and neither of them broke their promise.

For that reason, one of the first famous paintings William ever made was one of Carol and him dancing awkwardly at homecoming, which was titled "Teenage Mistakes" and won second place in the New York Young Artists Festival of 1961. Two years later, as his fame was increasing, he'd send a copy of this painting to Carol Goldberg, with a note asking if she remembered how weird her first date had been. Carol had responded with a letter equally as friendly, saying that she could never forget a person as weird and fun as William Darcy was, and ended it by saying, "And by the way, my uncle's a big fan of your work. If you see the two of us at next year's World's Fair, be sure to say hello to us and to introduce everyone to me as the girl who can't dance."

And so, although William Darcy didn't hate everyone that was ordinary, he doubted that all ordinary people could be as understanding as Carol Goldberg had been towards him.