Patty lay on her side, an ancient Lhasa Apso flopped like a throw pillow beside her shoulder. The only sound aside from their breathing was the manic sketching and scratching of eleven pencils, brushes, charcoal sticks and pens. They captured ten minutes of her at a time, then a break for coffee and cigarettes, then back for twenty.<\/p>\n
The man in the second row hadn\u2019t looked at her for almost an hour. Except to occasionally use the shading on the underside of a forearm or to copy the lines in her knuckle. He was borrowing really, adding to the first pose he\u2019d caught and committed to. He wasn\u2019t one of the thieves she\u2019 had in the class before; those were always \u2018new to the class,\u2019 they\u2019d pretend to sketch yet, given a chance, would throw dollar bills at her.<\/p>\n
The timer went off. She leaned up from her pose and picked up a long brown shirt, no buttons or collar, purchased for ease of removal. Only her boyfriend and mother knew she traveled four days a week without need of panties or a bra. She raised her arms and slipped the shirt back over her head, warming her Columbian skin.<\/p>\n
Rachel, about sixty and working with a new acquisition – the waterpen, addressed the room.
\n \u201cOK, that\u2019s a ten minute break. We\u2019ll come back and do another twenty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patty looked up. The dog lay still. \u201cTwenty?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. Right? One more twenty, then a break, then one more twenty and that\u2019s our day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAh, OK.\u201d <\/p>\n
She looked around the posing area. A blanket, pillow, a couple chairs within reach if she wanted. She crawled around on hands and knees, a content caged animal, shaking blood back into her feet. She snuck a sideways glance; he was still painting.<\/p>\n
Long ago she\u2019d made it a policy not to notice anyone – especially men. If she noticed she\u2019d feel naked and that couldn\u2019t be the job. <\/p>\n
She rolled around on kneecaps and wiggled her ankles, shaking blood back to her veins as the Tuesday afternoon artists, retired hobbyists mostly, made their way to a coffee pot. She watched as, from beneath his bench, he produced a plastic tray of store bought cupcakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had plenty from my birthday, and I know yours is almost here, right Rach?\u201d<\/p>\n
The waterpen lady smiled. \u201cYep, tomorrow!\u201d<\/p>\n
Patty pulled her knees to her chest, arms wrapped around to keep her centered. His stackable easel\/bench was front and center to her model\u2019s platform. He offered her the cupcake tray. She smiled and accepted. He smiled and turned to Rachel and the rest of the class. She watched as he made the rounds. He had a nice behind; as a model she\u2019d seen nicer of course, but there was a gentle, almost friendly nature to the slope of his back. She could see what the lady behind his wedding band certainly saw, a strong back calling to a woman\u2019s touch, a woman, she thought as she chewed the cupcake, fortunate to wrap her hands around him from any angle she desired.<\/p>\n
He passed the tray around. Mouths began chewing. Chocolate particles stuck to teeth. He returned to his bench, slid the empty plastic try beneath it and picked up his version of her; he dipped a long, thin brush into a water cup and focused back on the paper. She shifted slightly, leaned on one cheek and jutted a knee to rest her elbow. He drew his brush slowly, smoothly along her back.<\/p>\n
Students returned to benches. She pulled the shirt back over her head, leaned over, twisted the oven timer and selected a pose. The scratching and swishing resumed. She cleared her mind of everything and allowed her body to become a prop; in here she has easily, and often, lost a once strong sense of self. After ten minutes, pins and needles begin to creep up her left cheek. She held still. Her eyes darted toward his bench and away again. He\u2019d stopped working. He was just looking at her.<\/p>\n
Ding. With the timer\u2019s cue papers ruffled and a few casually dressed bodies – polo shirts and jeans, t-shirts and back-supports – joked again toward the coffee urn. He was still looking at her. She looked into his eyes. His arms had fallen on his lap. He seemed rested, relieved, completed. She smiled. He said hi.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for the cupcake. It is your birthday?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWas. Yesterday. Now it\u2019s Rachel\u2019s turn and Bonnie,\u201d he pointed two benches away to a frosted blonde of about fifty, \u201cshe\u2019s on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOhh! Es nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife made them and sent them with me to share. We\u2019re a pretty friendly group.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI like it,\u201d she said earnestly. \u201cI\u2019ve come here few times. Three.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were here my first day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cReally. When was that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, last year. July?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed at her companion. \u201cI never forget a dog. How long have you been modeling?\u201d<\/p>\n
She smiled with a tweak of comfort at the routine question. \u201cEight years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many times a week?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFour days. Maybe two, three a day.\u201d<\/p>\n
His eyes drifted up, seeming to bounce as he did the math. \u201cSo there are literally thousands of pictures of you out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSi.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re famous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d She looked down, wanting to hide a smile she didn\u2019t usually allow. It wasn\u2019t the smile so much as how genuine he\u2019d made her feel doing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you ever ask for the pictures people do? I mean, have you ever kept anything you\u2019ve liked?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh two or three.\u201d She alternated cheeks to get the blood back to the other side. She hadn\u2019t put her smock on and the angle created waves along the small rolls in her side like fleshy ribbon candy. But if she leaned her head just enough, long locks of frizzled black hair covered her weakness for brownies. The space heater warmed her spine but her small nipples stayed hardened. Talking helped the circulation. <\/p>\n
\u201cI love modeling, but my mom\u2026\u201d she drifted.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom wants you to have a nine-to-five?\u201d<\/p>\n
She waved a hand. \u201cShe wants me to be safe and married and all that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a mom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll mothers want that for their kids,\u201d Rachel said across the room.<\/p>\n
The model had opened her mouth but one of the painters, a small thin woman with a charming English accent spoke first. \u201cThe trick is to let them do what they want and not pull our hair out letting them do it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Patty smiled. When she looked back, the man was painting again, smiling contentedly. This, she thought, is one happy man. He didn\u2019t see her anymore and she imagined he didn\u2019t hear anymore either, just stroked a new brush into her hair. She bent over, reset the timer, stood up straight, and struck her David pose. Her mind was alight now, active.<\/p>\n
My name is Patty. She had one hand cocked on a hip, her right knee struck forward, a naked hoodlum to be reckoned with. My name is Patty. She hoped he\u2019d hear this through some transcendental line but, instead, she stared straight ahead into the thick oatmeal-colored curtain that protected her from daylight and the passing eyes of a world untrained to see what these eleven others understood on Tuesday afternoons.<\/p>\n
He looked up for her butt. It was right there, jutted out, the light just right. The shading below her hand created an almost bulbous quality her girlfriend had once called ethnic. She was a fine model. The ones that stood still always were. He dabbed the brush into brown gauche, generous as her skin, rich as Italian coffee, and satisfied with the first touch to paper, his mind strayed off to errands; the bank deposit he had to make by noon, his wife\u2019s prescription filled and ready, two quarts of oil for the car. He swirled the brush in a light pool while she stood still. She watched a plastic tree in the corner, unnoticed. Its plastic leaves occasionally rustled with the temperamental swirl of the air conditioning vent.<\/p>\n
My name is Patty, she thought. She stood still, then twenty minutes later, she breathed again.
\n
\n
\nMATT McGee writes short fiction in the local library until the staff makes him go home. His collection, Leaving Rayette, is available on Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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