Random

Chapter TWENTY-ONE

I wake up in the middle of the night, not completely sure where I am. It's very dark, and I can see stars through the window.

Tyler's room. I turn, but he's not in bed with me. A light shines through the cracked door, but I don't hear anything.

The evening rushes back through me, full of perfect moments. The wine, the food, even the lady in the bathroom. And then-

Sex. I had no idea my body could feel the way Tyler makes it feel. Huddling deeper into the covers, I smile, thinking I'll drift off with my thoughts. I love being here in his house, love going places with him, love to be around him. And I'm starting to be less worried about him discovering some low-class thing about me that chases him away. He seems to really like me just as I am.

After a while, though, I haven't fallen back asleep and Tyler hasn't come back to bed, so I get up and pick up his discarded dinner shirt from the chair and button it, smelling his skin-scent rise out of it. I lift my elbow to my nose and inhale deeply.

The light is coming from the studio, so I follow it through the living room and the kitchen and to the doorway, where I pause. Tyler is sketching. His back is to me, and there is music playing quietly. Mumford and Sons, mournful and thoughtful.

I can't see his face, but I can see the work he's doing: sketches of me. There are a dozen on the floor, in various levels of completion. Some only have a face, some have a leg and an arm, too. On the one in front of him he's done more-he paints those big eyes, and mine are enormous, almond shaped and uptilted, with long lashes. My hair is the other exaggeration. Yards and yards and yards of it, pooling around my body, hiding my breasts and legs.

I'm about to announce my presence when he makes a noise and rips the sketch from the pad and throws it on the floor. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he says. He rubs his face, moves his head around to loosen his neck and picks up another sketch. He peers at it for a long time.

"Would it help to have an actual model?" I ask quietly.

He looks up, and for a minute he seems confused, as if he's been on another planet and now just landed here. I smile, because I know the expression. Henry gets it, too. I wander into the room. "What's the problem?"

He shakes his head. Gestures at the discarded sketches. "I just can't get it....they all end up looking like a velvet painting of a wood nymph."

I look closely at them, and he's right. "They do." I walk around them, inclining my head. "Where's the real?"

"What do you mean?"

"The other paintings have some...grounding details, you know, that bring them into the real world." I point. "That cigarette, the eyeglasses. Even the one with the breasts who looks so sad."

Tyler looks at his other work, back to the sketches on the floor, then looks up at me. He's caught his upper lip between his teeth, and in this moment he's only the artist Tyler, seeing me as a subject. "It's just that you're so young, so perfectly beautiful."

"Well, thanks, but not really." I show him my teeth. "Crooked, because I never had braces." I point at my feet. "No pedicure."

"What?" He grins. "No pedicure?"

"Do you want me to leave you alone?"

"No. I'd love it if you'd just sit for me for a little while. Even lie down and sleep. I'm not seeing something."

I lie down on the bed, one arm stretched out under my head, the other draped over my waist. My hair is loose, and I'm wearing his shirt, which covers me quite a bit. Still, my legs are bare, stretched out. I blink at him. "How's this?"