A few people, including myself, giggle. For the first time I remember that I’m in a room full of teenagers. And I’m not the only one who seems to look to Fiona for her reaction. It’s like everyone turns their heads her way. But she’s not laughing or smiling or rolling her eyes like the rest of us. She’s already drawing.
Mr. Frank takes an egg timer and spins the dial around. It starts ticking. Slowly. “For this first drawing, I’d like to get a sense of your skill level. Please just capture the form at its most basic. We shall, obviously, progress from there.” He claps his hands. “Begin.”
The pencils of the students around me fly over their papers. I gaze ever so slightly above the edge of my drawing pad. Just look and get the shock over with. The woman’s boobs are huge and hang heavy off her slightly lumpy frame. And her nipples are erect because it’s so cold in here. Is Mr. Frank going to want us to draw nipples? Because I seriously don’t think I can do that.
I’ve never seen anyone else naked in real life, definitely not an adult, except for the time everyone went skinny-dipping in Billy Barker’s hot tub after New Year’s. Rick invited us to the party after he and Meg first started talking. Everyone was game for it, except for Meg and me. Luckily, it was dark and we couldn’t really see anyone. Not that we were trying to look. Rick didn’t try to make Meg go in or anything. Instead, he stayed with her on the chaise lounge and they talked about school and stuff. I sat high and dry at the picnic table and blacked out the teeth of the models in the J.Crew catalog.
With the way she’s twisting, if I lean to my left, I can’t see the model’s private parts at all. The girl from Helsinki across the room probably doesn’t see anything else but the private parts. The model’s got a bit of a belly, round and plump, and some love handles that hide the shape of her hip bones. I have a perfect view of her butt crack, before it smashes into the base of the pedestal.
Mr. Frank is suddenly behind me, his shadow the only thing darkening my white sheet of paper. “What is your name again?”
Everyone glances my way. Of course he hasn’t remembered. “Emily,” I say.
“Emily, start with the spine. Always build from the spine.”
I pick up one of my pencils and press it to the paper halfway up the page. I try to start drawing but the pencil point is so sharp, it pushes off the paper like it doesn’t want to listen to me. So I just hold it there, without moving, until my arm prickles from lack of blood flow.
“Hey,” a smooth voice comes from behind. Yates. “Which pencil are you using?” His breath smells icy, like a fresh piece of gum.
I roll it between my fingers until I see the foil stamp. “Umm . . . the HB?” I have absolutely no idea what that means.
“Use the 6B,” Yates instructs. Then, before he walks away, he whispers, “The name has to do with the softness of the lead.”
I am too embarrassed to say thank you, so I just take out the 6B from my art box, even though it looks absolutely the same as the pencil I was just holding. I raise my hand and position myself . . . and the point sinks right into the paper. It’s soft, like butter left out on the kitchen counter.
I try to get into my drawing, but I think I am overthinking. My lines aren’t smooth — they’re sharp and jagged and impatient. My eyes bounce between the model and my paper so fast it makes me dizzy. I try to get everything just right. I can’t shut my brain off enough to relax, especially knowing that Mr. Frank will probably make us all share our drawings at the end of the day. It’s pretty much the most impossible situation.
What seems like seconds later, the egg timer rings and Lily excuses herself for a pee and a smoke break. The rest of the class gets up to stretch and walk around. Except Fiona, Robyn, and me. Fiona keeps drawing, staring at the empty space as if the model were still there. Robyn casually walks the room, peering at everyone’s sketches. I bite down on my pencil until I taste wood and flip to a new sheet before she has a chance to see how bad I suck.
Not like she can’t already tell.
I’m not even halfway up my front steps before Meg’s sing-song call trills from across the street. “Em-i-ly!”
She bounds out of her front door, shiny hair swishing from side to side. Her arms keep her lilac slip dress from flying up past her thighs and her chunky espadrilles might as well be sneakers because of how quick she is with every step.
I feel like I’ve been gone for months. “Hey!” I say, and hold my arms out for a hug.
“Yay! You’re home!” Meg gives me a squeeze, but quickly wriggles out of it, leaving me slightly sticky from the unabsorbed cucumber-melon lotion on her skin.
“I have about a million stories to tell you,” I say, laughing as flashes of the day light up my mind. Where should I start?
“And I want to hear absolutely everything about your first day, but listen.” She’s all eager and excited. “A bunch of people are going to Dairy Queen, and Rick will be here any minute to pick us up.” She glances down. “What’s all over your pants?”
My white denim capris are smudged across the thighs with pencil lead. “Art class, remember?” My hands are dirty, too — not just on the palms, but in thick black stripes under my nails. I shove them in my pockets before she notices.
“Well, quick, go change!” She brushes a piece of hair out of my eyes. “Maybe wear that green polo dress with your pink flip-flops, or your red halter with your teeny jean skirt.” Meg is really good with clothes and she always helps me pick things out. “I have to run home and grab my purse. Hurry!”
I charge upstairs to my bedroom and quickly change into the green polo dress, because the red halter is in my hamper. I slide on my pink flip-flops. Cherry Grove feels more like home than ever. I know the rules here. I know how I’m supposed to think and act, and all that is very comforting after the day I’ve had.
At least I was able to do an okay drawing. I stopped thinking about the naked lady as a lady, and instead pretended I was drawing a statue. So that made it easier. I also just drew her torso, so I could avoid the stuff I felt was too intimate to draw. Mr. Frank said I had an “interesting composition.” I hoped that was a compliment. But the rest of the class stayed quiet during my crit, so who knows.
I run into my bathroom and scrub my hands hard and fast. Most of the dirt comes off, but not all. Hopefully, no one will notice once the sun goes down. I use hair spray to smooth down my ponytail. It smells like apples, so I don’t need perfume. But I put a little more deodorant on, because it’s really hot outside.
The beep beep beep of Rick’s truck horn blows in my open window.
I gotta go.
Rick and Meg are waiting in his red pickup truck. I get in, close the door, and cuddle myself against it to give Meg more room. But she doesn’t want it. Rick’s truck is small, and Meg seizes the opportunity to cozy up next to him.
We pass through the gates, and Meg and I wave to the security guard who mans the entrance from a white-shingled booth, made to look like a small version of the Blossom Manor it protects.
Rick waves, too, and I notice that two of his fingers, the pinky and the ring, are wrapped in white tape and unable to grip the steering wheel.
“What happened to your hand?” I ask him. The edges of the tape are frayed into white strings, and the end is all jagged, like someone ripped it with their teeth.
“I was on the push mower and a rock flew up and dinged my pinky. It’s probably broken, but I’m just going to buddy-tape it like coach did for me last season