SENSE MEMORIES / BETH HEANEY

Once a year, it smells like that first summer in Philly. On the seventh floor in the Pine dormitories with no air conditioning, and the windows thrown open. Hearing the unfamiliar sounds on the street, in a strange place away from the suburbs for the first time.

The third week of the intensive college life drawing program, at the end of July, Jack told Grace and Gran that he knew I’d be lonely in the middle of the week. I was on the pay phone in the lobby with Gran, lying that I wasn’t lonely, when he came to the dorms. We went to find somewhere to eat that wasn’t a bar and was close so I could be back for the curfew.

In the midst of the heat, we ended up at Bookbinders, on heavy red leather seats, with air conditioning so strong that your thighs would never stick. We ate turtle soup in 90 degrees, and he told me he knew I was homesick. And he knew I was happy making drawings, and he was glad I was being careful in the city. And then he saw the insane bill for two soups and some fish and did a double take. He laughed and paid it and gave me lots of hugs.

He and mom picked me up a week later. He told Gran I drew models with underwear on. He told me if I wanted to move to the city, I was going to have to learn to drive in it.

Bookbinders is an Applebee’s now, only doing takeout. The Pine dorms have air conditioners in the windows. No soup this July. I can smell it tonight. Heatwave. July. It’s sad this year because Jack is gone. But it’s also lovely. And humid. And a little uncomfortable that no one knows when I will be lonely.

BETH HEANEY / PHILADELPHIA, PA

Beth was born and raised in Yardley, Pennsylvania in the judgmental section that the Delaware river has been trying to flood for the last hundred years. In addition to making basketball shots for the wrong side, and losing 37 pairs of glasses, she is most well known for her virulent hatred of school spirit. Her favorite traumatic childhood memory was getting voted out of her 10th birthday sleepover. 

She really enjoyed not being the weirdest person at art school. Things she loves includes pancake breakfasts, India ink, rosewater syrup, and the unlikely things that happen at museums. She is still convinced no one likes her, despite extraordinary evidence to the contrary.