He’s smiling wolfishly at me. “Everybody is here to learn.”
It doesn’t soothe me and isn’t meant to. I stick my tongue out at him and he takes me by the shoulders and steers me toward another easel.
Lauro’s drawings. “Sexy, right?”
I stop and look. He’s annoying for saying it about his own work, but he’s right. Lauro’s drawings have an effortless appeal. Long, elegant lines that start at the spine, sail perfectly around the hip, curvily twist to a heel. No scritcha-scratch for him.
“Art school?” I ask him.
He pumps his eyebrows. “Among other things.”
I’m about to ask him if he fucked my best friend last weekend but we make it, finally, to Em’s easel.
He doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. Because there are no words. To my surprise, tears prick at my eyes. I’m not usually a cry-at-art type of gal but Em hascapturedMel.
Five different Mels stand, sit, and slouch together on the page. Like they all existed at once, like Em wasn’t trying to draw the mechanics of five different poses, she was trying to draw different sides of Mel, that only she could see, that only Mel could show her. It’s not a perfect likeness, because it’s not photorealistic, which would have been boring and impersonal. No, it’s not just Mel on the page, there’s something personal toEmin these drawings as well. In the groups of muscles that bunch just a little too far, showing Mel’s athletic vibrancy and Em’s celebration of it. The lines are slightly exaggerated, don’t meet at the cross sections, Mel’s energy bursts forth from thepage and so does Em’s. It’s the two of them at once. Artist and model. Married in a moment that has already passed, can never be replicated again, couldn’t have been photographed, can only be drawn.
I’m moved beyond words.
“Wow,” I whisper.
“Exactly,” Lauro agrees. Thrilled that I get it.
I scrunch my face down. “I need more practice.”
Raffi comes over for dinner a few nights later. Vin and I are still committed to the ruse. We’re not exactly loving, but we’re not outright cold, either. If he’s noticed that Vin and I have been falling to pieces, he hasn’t said anything. It occurs to me that maybe it happened so gradually it seems normal. Normal that Vin didn’t eat dinner with us. That he’s sitting at the kitchen table on his phone instead of chatting with us on the couch.
“Hey,” I say to Raff, my legs stretched out onto the coffee table and my hands curled around an after-dinner cup of tea. “Where can I find free nudes in this city?”
I feel Vin look up at me.
“Say more about that,” Raff answers.
“I’m super into the figure drawing thing. And I want to practice more than once a week. But classes are expensive. I need free naked people.”
“Everyone needs free naked people.”
“See, that’s the problem. This whole city is horny. Nobody will pose for me unless it comes with a happy ending.”
“Where were you looking for these people?” Raff demands. “Tinder?”
There’s a clatter from across the room and I think Vin may have just bobbled his phone.
“Of course I’m not usingdating apps.I just googledfree figure drawing, NYC,but everything seemed super sketchy. Like, in someone’s living room. That kind of thing. All the well-meaning naked people are behind a paywall.”
“Can you draw from photos? There have to be figure drawing websites, or YouTube channels or something.”
“I tried that, but I feel like a lot of the magic gets lost when it’s in 2D. There’s no connection with the model. No spark of the here and now.”
Raff cocks his head to one side. “Sounds romantic.”
“Figure drawingiskind of romantic. Not in a…flirtatious way. It’s just really personal. Vulnerable.”
“Right. The model is naked for you. Totally vulnerable.”
“And you’re doing your stupid little drawing of them, which shows all your flaws and your newbie-ness. Also totally vulnerable.”
“Yeah, I can see how drawing from some pics on the internet could flatten that experience a little bit. Well, you can draw me, if you want.”
