Now, we have come to the part in the story where all my useless wondering earned me the unique opportunity of posing naked for our third week of figure studies. Half-naked. The wiry old woman let me keep my underwear. She was generous.
"He's sick?"
He was sick. Rafael, the Greek god of a man who was paid $250 a class to come and display his genitals for the sake of art, was sick.
"Well, I hardly see how that's my problem."
It was very quickly becoming my problem.
"I'm the TA? Yes, I'm the TA. Forgive me, but I don't remember 'posing nude' being in the job description."
I agreed to pose nude. For a multitude of reasons. The first being, $250 dollars. The second: my parents had called me the night before, itching for details and stories of my life in the city. I couldn't seem to find any. I almost told them about seeing her, but didn't. I figured, this could be one hell of a story for the next time they called.
And I'm not sure if God smiled or smirked that day. He must have been in some sort of mood. Perhaps he was in need of a little entertainment and I was selected at random to provide it. Regardless of how it came about, what came about was her. Entering through the studio door as I lay stretched out like a Cornish hen a week before Christmas, prepped for slaughter.
The class paused when she entered... mainly because I sat up and they could no longer paint me. They stared at me who stared at her who stared at me.
The wiry old woman approached her.
"Hi, sorry, I'm, uh, Ava De Luna. They transferred me in from Borovski's class."
She spoke.
Her voice was honey, grinding against my skull. She sounded like an entirely different person and exactly the same as the day we met.
The wiry old woman led her to an open easel. It was all set up, like it had been waiting for her. Hadn't we all. I then received a stern glare from the old woman and resumed my position. The students began to paint me again. She joined them. I heard God chuckling. I swear I did.
It was my intention to disappear after that class. While I had laid there, sprawled and exposed, I had been plotting. I would move back to Italy, not home though. I could never look my parents in the eyes after this. I would build up a new life in the Tuscan countryside, working as a hand in some well off persons villa until I could afford my own place. On the weekends I would go into town to the bookstore- a quaint little place with a wooden piano out front. Some days, when I was feeling particularly frisky, I might even play that little wooden piano for the pleasure of those
"Vincent?"
I had barely made it out the door when she stopped me. I turned to face her, my only comfort being, at least now I was clothed.
"H-Hello." Not a strong start.
"Sorry, uh, do you remember me?" She was just as nervous as me. I wondered why.
"Yeah, no, yeah. Of course, I do." She smiled. It pleased her to be remembered. To be remembered, of course. "Do you remember me?"
"Yeah, I... yeah I do," she laughed nervously. Each time she stumbled, I felt more sure of my own footing.
"It's good to see you. I uh... what um what are you doing here? In Barcelona I mean?"
"Oh, my masters. I'm getting my masters."
"Cool, cool." I crossed my arms in an attempt to convince her I was casual. This was fine. I was calm.
She nodded. "Yeah, I did my first year at Queens. But um- well I'm just here for the summer. I think. I could stay longer but I don't know, yet."
YOU ARE READING
All the People in the World
Romance"But whether she was pretty or ugly, she was definitely something one felt they had never seen before. And, for all my displays of indifference, I had the nauseating feeling each time she prepared to leave, that she was something I would hardly see...
