Girl in the Afternoon by Serena Burdick

squealed like a child as she threw her arms around Aimée.
    â€œWait.” Leonie pulled away, propping her hands on her hips. “Let me look at you.” She smiled, and her dimples sank into her ample cheeks, the gap between her teeth fully exposed. “You’ve changed.”
    â€œStop it.” Aimée laughed.
    â€œYour first salon exhibit? They will award you a medal, and you will be famous.” Leonie tucked a strand of fine, brown hair behind her ear and picked up the wet chemise. “Have you told your beloved Édouard? Maybe he didn’t get in this year and you did. Wouldn’t that be shocking?”
    Leonie pinned up the chemise and reached for a pillowcase, giving it a violent shake.
    Everything about Leonie was fresh and vivacious. The slightest emotion lit up her cheeks, and her skin was so delicate that when a hand rested against it, red streaks appeared. When Aimée first saw her standing on the corner of the rue Bonaparte with the other models, she reminded Aimée of ripe fruit. She had a full bust, fleshy arms and hips, and an endearing gap between her front teeth, a quirky imperfection that Aimée found irresistible.
    â€œÃ‰douard did a dreadful thing I haven’t told you about,” Aimée said under her breath.
    Leonie turned her soft, brown eyes. “You didn’t let him?”
    â€œNot that. ” Aimée slapped Leonie’s arm. “Don’t be vulgar.” She picked up the end of a sheet, and Leonie picked up the other. “It’s just that right before I submitted the painting, he came into my studio and began dabbing away at it.”
    Pinning her end of the sheet, Leonie handed Aimée a clothespin, watching, bemused, as Aimée clumsily pinned hers. “Who would refuse that? You should see it as your good fortune.”
    â€œWhat if it’s the only reason it was accepted? What if it wasn’t good enough otherwise?”
    Leonie had little tolerance for self-pity. “You’re either good enough, or you aren’t. A few dashes of someone else’s brush won’t make the difference.” She hoisted the empty basket on her hip. “Besides, it was my lovely complexion that got us in. And, of course, these.” She squeezed her shoulders forward so her breasts pushed up over the handkerchief that was tucked into her bodice.
    Aimée laughed. She envied Leonie. There was freedom that women in the lower classes of Montmartre had, freedoms she was denied. Working-class women could do what they wanted. Go where they wanted. Lounge in cafés with men, drink absinthe, smoke, dance, with no reputation to uphold, or stop them.
    Only once had she said this to Leonie, who was horrified. “I most certainly do have a reputation to uphold,” she said. “You’ve never seen the women with their red lipstick and cheap crinolines.” She told Aimée of being apprenticed to a workshop at nine years old. About the stuffy workroom where women swathed in second-rate perfume gossiped over mounds of tawdry dress material. Leonie narrowed her eyes at Aimée. “You’re not as smart as I thought if you can’t see how free you are. From your bourgeois perch you have no idea what it’s like,” she said.
    Normally, Leonie didn’t bother about their class differences. Modeling for Aimée was a job, and a good one, with regular pay, which was hard to come by. Their friendship seemed natural to her. After all, they were both women, with women’s problems. No use envying one life over another. It was what it was.
    â€œCome,” Leonie said, sidling sideways through the door with the basket propped on her hip. “Have a cup of chocolate with me.”

 
    Chapter 7
    On the opening day of the Salon de Paris, the Savaray household was full of commotion. Jacques ran from room to room, getting swept out at every turn.
    Earlier that week a cart had taken Aimée’s