He’d made me pity muffins. Even a total stranger, who had blatantly refused to meet me in person, could see that I was pathetic.
I should’ve been grateful, but it was a bitter reminder of why I needed to be pitied in the first place. The wallowing could wait. I grabbed my camera from the bookshelf and stormed right past the muffins and back out the door again.
With any luck, I might encounter some roadkill to photograph.
July 26th- Twenty days until the convention
Monday afternoon I lay in bed, in the center of my own little mandala of foreboding, surrounded by echoing, geometric ripples ofugh. Figure-drawing week had finally arrived, and I was a nervous wreck.
The good news was that whenever I found myself obsessing over Lucas’s welfare, I could easily distract myself by worrying about Skyler. I’d worked with life models before, of course, even ones as young as him, but there was something about him that made me ... protective. It wasn’t just that this was his first life-modeling gig; it was what he’d said about himself and his disposition. I worried I’d been too quick to dismiss him, to shut down the conversation.
I turned over in bed, still loath to officially join the waking world, and ran through the conversation for the umpteenth time.
He’d spoken of his gray-aceness in uncertain terms, and that made sense. He was young and far from beholden to prescriptive labels; it was only natural that he’d think and speak of his inclinations ininvestigativelanguage. For all I knew, he didn’t even consider himself asexual.
But there was nothing wrong with the boy thinking of himself as a mystery worth exploring, so long as he didn’t transform into a problem in need of solving.
I was likely making a mountain out of a molehill, and Skyler was fine, progressing through what passed for a natural, normal adolescence in this country and in his generation. Tome, however, Skyler seemed particularly vulnerable. There was a strange sort of openness that thrummed with his every movement and which reminded me so disturbingly of an ethereal version of my younger self, to be perfectly and narcissistically honest.
There was nothing shameful about this line of physical work, being a professional object and whatnot, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it had its dangers. Life modeling, like the dancing I used to do, required a certain negation of self—atoolifying, if you will. Which you probably shouldn’t.
I flung off the covers with the intent to finally, really this time, roll out of bed and begin this dreaded day, but didn’t get much farther.
Damn it, I was worried that Skyler would be tempted to romanticize his own body and its effect on others (combined with his own perceived “coldness”) and be led down a road paved by Pygmalion’s ivory wife.There, I’ve said it.
Or at least, done my best to.
That thought spurred me out of bed and into the shower.
Once clean and cleansed, I made it to the kitchen, where I stopped in my tracks, faced with something I hadn’t seen indays.
A note. A little yellow sticky note on the refrigerator, most likely a bollocking, a passive-aggressive request regarding washing up, an arrow pointing at a mess I’d left followed by a question mark.
He washome.
“Lucas?” I called out, my voice breaking. I swallowed and tried again. “Lucas, are you here?”
No answer. I slumped in a muddled mix of relief and defeat, taking the time to read the note itself.
This one was short and pointed, Lucas’s usual fare, yet insanely more obtuse:
I am a vegetarian.
What could that possibly mean?
I squinted at the kitchen at large; the muffins I’d baked the day before in a moment of weakness still stood in their place on the counter, untouched. For a millisecond, my feelings were mildly bruised, but the wonderment at Lucas’s response cast them in shadow.
I am avegetarian?
I blinked at the note a few more times before turning it over and scribbling my own rejoinder. Feeling a little better, I reappropriated one of the now-rather-stale muffins and bit into it in a confused act of defiance.
I almost choked when Finch knocked on the front door.
He chattered aimlessly at me as we drove, which I had come to perceive as a good thing; I had begun to think of Finch’s prattling as one does the crying of a sick child—the time to worry was when it stopped. He still seemed a bit pale and wan but clearly at least invested in the semblance of excitement about “the show” drawing nearer—right, he meant the play he was performing in.
“Wait till you see me wire-flying! I’m telling you, I wasbornto exist in a zero-g environment.”
“That’s nice, Titch, can’t wait.” I sighed.
