“Take off your shirt,” she said to me.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you shy or something? You got little boy chest under that tee?”
I was still me, okay? I couldn’t resist. I pulled off my T-shirt and threw it to the side. I had left my belt and boxers at Evey’s, so there wasn’t much material left to hide anything. I didn’t even bother pulling up my hanging jeans. They covered the important part.
“Jesus, lord,” Tracey said. People really needed to stop saying that. I was starting to get a complex. She looked at Evey. “He’s perfect. Perfect shoulder width, sculpted jaw and abs, narrow hips.” She turned to me. “How tall are you? What’s your inseam?”
“Six two. Maybe thirty-five inseam.”
Evey came over and whispered in my ear, “You’re eating this up.”
“I have a plan,” I whispered back. I knew which items Evey had designed, but to Tracey, it was my first time in the warehouse.
Tracey left and then came back over with a stack of jeans and some T-shirts. I really had no shame. When I dropped my jeans, Tracey and the assistant lurking behind her froze. They went slack-jawed.
Evey, standing next to me, looked over and said, “Really, Lucian?”
“Well, he’s definitely not shy.” Tracey approached Evey and said, “How’d you land him?”
I slipped on a pair of jeans that I knew Tracey had designed because they were hideous. I shook my head, pulled them off, and dug around for a pair that Evey had worked on. “These are perfect.”
“Evey, we have a photographer coming,” Tracey said as she ran to the phone. “I’m canceling the other model. Lucian, how do you feel about making an easy grand?”
“Why not? But I only want to be photographed in these jeans.” I pointed at Evey’s.
Tracey was a ball-buster. “Well then, I better keep the other model on. Your pay just went down to two hundred.”
“Fine by me,” I said, although I wondered how I was going to get money now that I had been cut off from Mona and the higher-ups.No, Lucian, you are not going to model Tracey’s jeans.
The photographer only took about four shots of me. I kept my head down as much as I could, wondering what would happen to the photograph after I was gone. Would it just go poof like the rest of me? Was that my fate?
After we were done, Evey pressed her warm hand to my cheek. Looking into my eyes, she said, “Thank you. She would have never photographed the other model in those jeans.” I smiled but suddenly felt too weak to talk. “Are you okay, Lucian? You look pale.”
“I need to eat. Low blood sugar.”
“Oh yeah, you have that crazy metabolism,” she said.
But the truth was that angels didn’t need to eat. Wecouldeat and enjoyed eating, but nothing happened if we didn’t. I was feeling weak because I was getting sick or starving, something I had never experienced.
“Come on,” I said, “let’s go get lunch.”
“Tracey, is it all right if I do some sketches at home and take the rest of the day off?”
“Two days in a row, huh?” Tracey asked.
I think both Evey and I had forgotten she’d missed the day before.
“I’ll email you sketches tonight, I promise,” Evey said.
Tracey quirked an eyebrow at me. “As long as he’s the subject.”
I rolled my eyes.
Once in the car, Evey asked where I wanted to go to lunch and I told her anywhere, so we ended up at her favorite Japanese restaurant. I had spent many Saturday nights hovering in the corner while Brooklyn and Evey drank sake with one random imbecile or another.
I felt a tiny bit better after eating, and I had no idea why. Back at Evey’s apartment, Brooklyn was sitting on the couch when we walked in. She was still in college, on the ten-year plan. She spent most days on the couch, surrounded by a pile of books I knew she hadn’t read. Studying, she called it. Her parents pretty much supported her and probably would for the rest of her life.
