patronize me.”
“I mean it.”
“Posing in my classes is a thing models aspire to, not a thing they escape from.”
“I know. Think of all they can learn while they’re standing there.”
His face changed. With one tilt of his head, he was atonce surprised and vindicated, as if he’d been wondering for years whether the models take in what he is saying in his classes. “You’re telling me you want to model again so you can learn from me?”
The wetness beneath her scanty arms spread now. A hot trickle ran down her side. How to answer this? Anything she said could infuriate him, send him into a haughty tirade about how models should be focused on the pose and nothing else, for how—if a model is taking internal dictation—can he or she possibly offer the students the most of a particular posture? Her answer would likely determine her future with Lichty.
She decided to go with honesty. “Yes.”
He huffed out a bit of air and nodded, assessing her. “Interesting.” Then he reached for his leather case and started toward the door.
“Lichty?”
He spun around.
“May I come back?”
He disappeared into the hall. A few moments later, she heard him call, “I have a nine-fifteen watercolor class in the morning. I’ll change the schedule with the office. Don’t even think about being late.” And he was gone.
L ILA DROPPED ONTO the stool by the blackboard and let herself spin in slow circles. So Lichty had a heart. Somehow, knowing this made her feel better about baring herself again. As if at least one person in the room might be, if not on her side, at least not 100 percent against her.
She kicked out at the floor to spin herself harder and watched the windows, cupboards, blackboards, speed past in a blur.
She’d never been alone in a real studio before. The first day there’d been at least a dozen students by the time she’d arrived. Now, sitting on one of the student stools, she stopped spinning and focused on seeing the room as they did. Did any of them realize that day, as they yawned and scratched and shaded her scapula and highlighted her pubic bones, how she envied them?
She crossed the room to the slatted cabinet that housed the mason boards, the paper. Like the students had so many times before her, she slid her hand inside one of the shelves and pulled out a board. Right away something feathery and multilegged skittered across her fingers and she dropped the board on the floor with a silent shriek. The back of her hand was sticky.
Lila moved closer. Deep inside the shelf, stretched across the far corner, was a dense tangle of threadlike webbing. A black spider hung from the center. Its shape was both graceful and deadly—smooth inky abdomen polished to a sheen, long front and back legs with shorter, tidier legs in the center, red hourglass shape on the underside of its round belly.
A black widow.
Her fifth-grade teacher had had a fear of them and had brought in photos of one her husband found living in their mailbox. Lila stepped back and burrowed her sticky hand into her T-shirt.
A brush with death. Though people didn’t actually die from black widow bites. There were hospitals, there were antidotes. Maybe this was more a brush with agony and panic followed by a quick scramble to find someone to administer the cure. She was entranced by the arachnid. Beautiful and terrible, delicate and revolting.
Quickly, before her subject developed stage fright and scuttled off into the gaping seams of the cabinet, Lila pinned paper to board, grabbed a pencil from Lichty’s desk, and—leaning the board against the shelving—peered into the shelf and started to sketch with only the light from the window to guide her.
The spider was blacker than black. Her outer shell appeared plastic, hard, as if it might make a sickening crunch under your shoe. The only real way to depict her menacing curves was to leave slices of white paper untouched to show the highlights. Lichty would hate this, Lila
“I mean it.”
“Posing in my classes is a thing models aspire to, not a thing they escape from.”
“I know. Think of all they can learn while they’re standing there.”
His face changed. With one tilt of his head, he was atonce surprised and vindicated, as if he’d been wondering for years whether the models take in what he is saying in his classes. “You’re telling me you want to model again so you can learn from me?”
The wetness beneath her scanty arms spread now. A hot trickle ran down her side. How to answer this? Anything she said could infuriate him, send him into a haughty tirade about how models should be focused on the pose and nothing else, for how—if a model is taking internal dictation—can he or she possibly offer the students the most of a particular posture? Her answer would likely determine her future with Lichty.
She decided to go with honesty. “Yes.”
He huffed out a bit of air and nodded, assessing her. “Interesting.” Then he reached for his leather case and started toward the door.
“Lichty?”
He spun around.
“May I come back?”
He disappeared into the hall. A few moments later, she heard him call, “I have a nine-fifteen watercolor class in the morning. I’ll change the schedule with the office. Don’t even think about being late.” And he was gone.
L ILA DROPPED ONTO the stool by the blackboard and let herself spin in slow circles. So Lichty had a heart. Somehow, knowing this made her feel better about baring herself again. As if at least one person in the room might be, if not on her side, at least not 100 percent against her.
She kicked out at the floor to spin herself harder and watched the windows, cupboards, blackboards, speed past in a blur.
She’d never been alone in a real studio before. The first day there’d been at least a dozen students by the time she’d arrived. Now, sitting on one of the student stools, she stopped spinning and focused on seeing the room as they did. Did any of them realize that day, as they yawned and scratched and shaded her scapula and highlighted her pubic bones, how she envied them?
She crossed the room to the slatted cabinet that housed the mason boards, the paper. Like the students had so many times before her, she slid her hand inside one of the shelves and pulled out a board. Right away something feathery and multilegged skittered across her fingers and she dropped the board on the floor with a silent shriek. The back of her hand was sticky.
Lila moved closer. Deep inside the shelf, stretched across the far corner, was a dense tangle of threadlike webbing. A black spider hung from the center. Its shape was both graceful and deadly—smooth inky abdomen polished to a sheen, long front and back legs with shorter, tidier legs in the center, red hourglass shape on the underside of its round belly.
A black widow.
Her fifth-grade teacher had had a fear of them and had brought in photos of one her husband found living in their mailbox. Lila stepped back and burrowed her sticky hand into her T-shirt.
A brush with death. Though people didn’t actually die from black widow bites. There were hospitals, there were antidotes. Maybe this was more a brush with agony and panic followed by a quick scramble to find someone to administer the cure. She was entranced by the arachnid. Beautiful and terrible, delicate and revolting.
Quickly, before her subject developed stage fright and scuttled off into the gaping seams of the cabinet, Lila pinned paper to board, grabbed a pencil from Lichty’s desk, and—leaning the board against the shelving—peered into the shelf and started to sketch with only the light from the window to guide her.
The spider was blacker than black. Her outer shell appeared plastic, hard, as if it might make a sickening crunch under your shoe. The only real way to depict her menacing curves was to leave slices of white paper untouched to show the highlights. Lichty would hate this, Lila
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