Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
I wake up feeling shockingly fine. Probably because Vin force-fed me Gatorade and ibuprofen last night. But I’ve never been more nervous to talk to him in my entire life.
I’m doing a killer impression of making pancakes while he’s in the shower. Every time I hear the water splash off his head onto the shower floor I nearly scream.
At some point this shower is going to be over. Vin will smell pancakes and emerge.
We’ll have to discuss—sober—that I accidentally went on a date last night. (Lauro leaned in and ate the cherry out of my drink! And I almost took his eye out with my elbow.) And then I came home and snotted all over Vin and he literally had to button my pajamas and tuck me into bed.
If I were him, I’d be checking into the Holiday Inn.
Vin emerges from the bathroom in a puff of steam. He’s in athletic shorts and a T-shirt and his toothbrush is hanging out of his mouth. I think he says “Smells good.”
“Yup. Thanks. There’s plenty, if you want.”
He nods and turns back toward the bathroom and I can’t help but shout at his back. “I spent seventy-five dollars last night! On tacos and fancy drinks.”
He keeps walking, spits and rinses in the bathroom sink, and comes back with a little smile on his face. “Lauro didn’t foot the bill? What a cheapskate.”
“Ack!” I’m so mortified over all of this, practically melting down the counter. “What a waste of money.”
“It wasn’t a waste of money.”
“Why?”
“Because I got to see you like that.” He comes up behind me and grabs a pancake off the stack. “I forgot how cute you are when you’re shithoused.”
“Ack!”
This is the sort of mortification people don’t survive. They just, simply, cease.
He’s chuckling, I can hear it, but when I glance at him, his face is serious.
“Hey,” he says.
I flip the last of the pancakes onto the stack and turn off the griddle, turning to give him my attention. “Yeah?”
“I’ll do it.”
“You’ll do what?”
“I’ll be your model.”
I’m leaning back on the counter, and when he drops that bomb, I slip and bang the crap out of my elbow. “Ow! Shit! What?”
He’s there in a second, gently rotating my arm, leaning in and inspecting.
“Are you okay?” His brows are so low they’re practically melting into his beard.
“Yes. Just my funny bone. What did you say?”
He’s still bent over my arm, inspecting, and I get impatient. I poke his shoulder with my free hand. “Vin. What did you say?”
Finally satisfied that my arm isn’t going to fall off, he lets go of me, steps back, and crosses his arms over his chest. His eyes land on mine. “I’m offering, is all.”
“You’d let me draw you?”
“All I have to do is sit still, right?”
“Naked.”
His eyebrows rise a half centimeter.
“Nude, I mean,” I continue.
He clears his throat. “Right. Yeah. I knew that when I offered.”
He’s still got his arms crossed and his eyes boring into me and it makes it very hard to have this conversation.
“Even…even with all this going on, you’d let me draw you naked? Like naked? In front of me?”
His brows kick up and his arms finally uncross.
“Roz, I’d trust you to figure out whether to pull the plug if I were in a coma.
” He takes one step toward me and for a diamond-sharp moment I think, no I know, he’s going to put his hand against my cheek again, like he did in bed just the other night.
But then his hands slide into his pockets and he holds, a few feet from me.
“Of course I can get naked in front of you.”
I trust you.
“Look, Vin. I won’t do the Craigslist thing. You were right about that. You don’t have to get naked just to stop me from doing something dumb.”
Now he’s looking at the floor. “I’m not allowed to help you?”
And what am I supposed to say to that? No?
Of course not! Nor can I say yes.
I go with a good old-fashioned foot stomp. And then I say the only thing I really can that doesn’t proclaim either I don’t want your help, which feels incriminating, or I do want your help, which also feels incriminating.
“Well!”
“Look, you said classes are too expensive. Strangers on the internet are a bad idea. And based on your reaction to your accidental date last night—”
“Ack!”
“—it seems like finding someone else to see naked isn’t…
” His eyes glitter with something I can’t name.
“Isn’t…what you want. So…” He throws two arms out.
“I figure, you’ve got a husband. It’s a person and, uh, territory you’re…
familiar with, at least.” He pauses, looking like this conversation has just shaved a year off his life. “Right?”
“Right. Well…fine. Thank you. We can try. Try. If it’s weird, we’re bailing.”
“All right.” He nods and his face has gone full marble again. “Where do you want me?” He looks around. “The kitchen probably has the best light, yeah? But that seems kind of weird, somehow.” He scratches at the back of his neck. “Living room is probably best, huh?”
I’m gaping at him. “Now?”
“I mean…yeah? There’s time before work.”
How can he be so cool about this? I’m slowly disintegrating on the inside and he’s all, yeah, sure, what’s the big deal about showing you my dick?
I want to demand that we do it next week, next month, never!
in fact. But if I delay, then he’ll know that I need to mentally prepare myself to see his naked body and if he knows that then he’ll be able to figure out how much the idea of him naked affects me and if he knows that then he’ll know that when I can’t sleep I imagine him naked in my bed next to me, his leg between my legs, his chest under my cheek, his big hand moving up and down my back, his nose in my hair…
Okay, he probably won’t be able to figure out that last part but he’s going to get vibes if I delay this, so—
“Sure! Living room!” I (accidentally) shout. “Let me get my drawing stuff.”
I scurry to my bedroom and pull out my drawing bag. See! This is normal. Look at all these drawings. I do this. I’m a draw-er. I…can totally do this. My drawing pad under one arm, I look down at my selection of pencils and immediately hit a brick wall.
Which drawing utensil to choose?
“Roz!” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You’re not choosing lingerie for a big date. Grab a number two pencil! Draw, Antonio, draw! Draw and don’t waste time!”
I must look like a professional athlete with a gold medal on the line because as soon as I march into the living room, Vin’s eyebrows rise, his spine straightens, and his shoulders draw back.
He’s already stripped down to boxers and is sitting on our coffee table, knees spread, fingers loosely laced between his legs.
He looks comfortable.
“I, uh…” He coughs. “I don’t actually know how to pose. Now that I’m thinking about it, I assume it’s more complicated than just hold still.”
He coughs again.
Okay, so maybe he’s not comfortable. This helps.
“Well…I guess I’m not sure? I’m definitely not an expert. In class, in a round, we usually do four or five short poses. Like around two minutes, and then a long pose, ten minutes, max fifteen.”
“Sure.”
“Just try not to choose a pose you’ll have to break. Like don’t do anything acrobatic. Or that you’ll have to like, flex for.”
“No flexing. Got it.” There’s a ghost of a smile on his face as he puts his thumbs in the waistband of his boxers. He pauses and his eyes flash to mine; the smile is gone. “Yeah?”
“Um. Sure?”
His brows come down and his hands slide back up to his hips. “Roz.” He waits until I make eye contact.
“Yeah?” he says again. He’s asking me what I want.
“Oh, what the heck?” I toss my arms up. “Whip it out.”
He laughs and shakes his head, but his boxers slide to the floor and he bends down after them, picking them up, neatly folding them, and setting them aside. I don’t look directly at him, but I can tell he’s frowning, hands back on his hips, and looking down at the coffee table.
“I was picturing doing a sitting pose, but…”
“Having second thoughts?”
“Standing here bare-assed…”
I laugh a little hysterically.
“I varnished this coffee table by hand,” he says. “It just seems wrong.”
I’m swallowing my laugh and trying to get in the zone because, yes, he’s my husband, and yes, I’ve seen him naked hundreds, if not thousands, of times, but, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from drawing class, it’s that this kind of nudity is a rare and valuable gift.
I quickly walk to the linen closet and bring him a towel, handing it over as a peace offering.
“I’ll set the timer. Do whatever pose makes you feel comfortable. Seriously.”
“Two minutes?” He spreads the towel out on the floor.
“Yup. Four two-minute poses.”
“Okay.” And then he lies on his back on the towel and stares at the ceiling.
I click the timer, set up my paper, and then, finally, let my eyes actually fall to him. All of him.
He’s bigger than he used to be. There are more shadows, more muscle, a soft layer over the top. He looks like he could lift a Buick if your bouncy ball rolled under there.
There he is. Lying there naked. My husband. No! Right now, he’s the model. It almost helps a little that he looks different.
I shake my head and reach into the satchel for a pencil.
Any pencil. I won’t get in my head about this.
Except…a lying-down pose is actually really hard.
Everything is foreshortened and there aren’t really any angles to draw.
The human body becomes mostly a straight line with just a few squiggly bumps that if you don’t draw them in the exact right place, your drawing ends up looking like calligraphy gone bad.
The timer goes off.
Oh! New pose already. Okay. I’d barely done one shoulder and half a rib cage of the last one.
I’m surprised when he sits right up. I’d kind of thought all his poses would be lying-down poses.
They’re the easiest for the model and probably the least vulnerable.
I’ve got his profile now, his elbows resting on his drawn-up knees.
His back is a curve, his feet bent at an angle I can’t make believable before the timer dings again.