16. Chapter Eleven Georgia Philips
Chapter Eleven: Georgia Philips
A fter seeing Sergio at the photoshoot, I found a note on my dressing table with my name on it in his handwriting. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t rip it to shreds and throw it back in his face—maybe it was curiosity—but it was sitting in the bottom of my Birkin waiting for me to read it.
It must have been a week for annoying events. After my photoshoot last weekend, George summoned me to his office the following Monday to discuss the assignment I’d turned in.
All he’d written in the email was Your writing sucks. Please leave my class and never write anything again.
Okay, I was being dramatic. He’d told me that he thought there were some things to improve and some issues with my assignment that could be tweaked. He’d given me two and a half marks out of five for a personal reflection. Two and a half .
Now I strode toward his office, marching past a half dozen girls loitering in the hallway gossiping or texting on their phones. The thought that they might have been there to see him too didn’t occur to me until I’d hammered on his door and they’d exclaimed with protests that I was cutting in line.
I shot them withering glares that definitely weren’t born of jealousy. Why should I care if George’s relatively young age, fame in the art world, and handsome face had drawn in a particular demographic of pretty, young, female students? It was none of my business how many women wanted to throw themselves at him.
He threw open the door, his hair dishevelled as if he’d been running his fingers through it. “Georgia. Come in.”
“I was here first,”one of the girls said, snapping her gum in a way that took a cheese grater to my taut nerves.
“There’s nothing wrong with your assignment, Melissa—”
“It’s Melinda—”
“Melinda, there’s nothing wrong with your assignment. Unlike Georgia’s. You can all wait until office hours actually begin, which isn’t for another fifteen minutes.”
They rolled their eyes and shuffled down the hallway. I heard one of them mutter, “I heard she got her uncle to get him the job here. No wonder he would play favourites with her .”
I wanted to defend myself, but George had already shut the door behind us.
His office seemed suddenly claustrophobic. I stalked toward the window and tried to shove it open.
“That doesn’t open,”he said, clicking on the fan next to his desk. It gave a whir that forced him to raise his voice as he said,“Trust me, I’ve tried.”
I guess that explained his t-shirt and cargo shorts. “Is that why you’re dressed like you’re about to go fishing instead of giving a lecture? ”
He pointed at the garment bag hanging on the hook affixed to the door. “Don’t worry, I have a change of clothes in there. I know you enjoy seeing me in suits.”
“I know you didn’t ask me to come here to practice your cheesy pickup lines, Mr. Devereaux. Why did you give me a C minus?”
His brows quirked. “I didn’t realize you would take my feedback so personally.”
“And I didn’t realize that it was necessary for you to critique a 500-word essay in person instead of through an email.” The volume of the fan rose, directing a blast of cool air toward me that made goosebumps rise on my arms.
“I just want you to succeed in this class, Georgia. As I do for all my other students.”
“Then why didn’t you make me wait until office hours start, if I’m just like any other student to you?”I asked, perching on his desk. It was meticulously clean, almost like no one had taken up residence there. Other than a laptop and a notebook I suspected was a sketchbook, next to a small pen holder and desk tray, the wooden surface was bare.
“Do you want me to answer that, Georgia, or do you want me to explain my feedback on your assignment?“he asked. “We only have time for one of those things.”
“Feedback, please.” Annoyance at him and myself rose in my chest. Why hadn’t I just taken the time to make up something about my personal feelings on the topic? Then I wouldn’t have to be here, even if I would have been lying.
He sighed, picking up his laptop that sat next to my thigh, his hand coming dangerously close to brushing my leg. After punching in a few keystrokes, he turned the computer to face me. “Your portion describing the techniques Caravaggio used was perfectly fine. You demonstrated a clear understanding of how Caravaggio pioneered the use of chiaroscuro. What bothers me is that you couldn’t write a single line of personal reflection.”
“Call me crazy, but I don’t think the use of light and shadows has any light to shed on my life.”
The George I met in Italy so many years ago would have laughed at my pun, a full-bodied laugh that would have sent shivers down my spine. He would have stared at me like he didn’t know whether to kiss me or groan in frustration.
This George put down his laptop on a nearby empty bookshelf and shoved his hands in his pockets like he was holding something back. Holding himself back from me.
“I think it has more than you’d think.”His voice was deep, almost gravelly, and he rubbed his trimmed beard as he stared out the closed window.
This George was tamed, neatly groomed. That George had once kissed me with passionate abandon and what tasted like love. He’d thrown caution to the wind to take me on a motorcycle and whisk me on a grand tour of Italy. I’d once known every soul-deep secret about this man. Now, he was a stranger to me.
“I don’t have time to decode your puzzles. Just tell me what I did wrong. Or what you think I should have written about.” Folding my arms across my chest, I stared at him. My heels grazed the linoleum.
“Why not talk about your modelling experience? Or photography? Tie it to something you know.”
How could I tell him that modelling was killing me, and the last thing I wanted to reflect on, even for two hundred and fifty words, was my career?
I couldn’t .
“If you rewrite the assignment and re-submit it within two weeks, I’ll give it another read and consider giving you a higher grade,“George said. “Okay?”
“Thanks for the offer. I’ll take it under consideration.” I stood up, straightening my blazer over my dress and making a beeline for the door.
“Georgia,” he said.
“ What ?”
He’d said my name like that last year, with his arms around me, while he told me our fake relationship was over. I wouldn’t fall for it again. Wouldn’t let him hurt me again. Wouldn’t let another imperfect man break me open only to see who I really was and leave.
“Here.“He handed me a sheet of paper. “The form for the Italy trip.”
I fought the urge to ball it up and shove it in his face. Instead, I handed it back to him. “What makes you think I’m going?”
Even though every fibre of my being said Italy! Pasta! Beautiful art! Wandering through old buildings and looking at architecture! Every beat of my throbbing, still-bruised heart was a warning bell against going anywhere with George Devereaux. Let alone the romantic country where we’d met.
“I know you, Georgia.”
I rested my hand on the doorknob and didn’t turn around to see his face as I retorted, “You know me about as well as you know how to keep promises, George.”
***
After an exhausting week of studying, photoshoots, the run-in with Sergio, and then the meeting with George, the last thing I wanted to do was accept Katerina’s invitation to her Bible study on Friday .
But I missed her, and Abigail, and especially wanted to see Katerina and Alexander’s adorable baby, Mattias, so I agreed to go. She’d texted me last night to tell me we were going to read 1 Samuel 16. As I took the subway to the Steele penthouse, I skimmed through the passage on my phone.
I wasn’t sure what application the story of a long-dead shepherd boy who eventually graduated to in-court musician could have on my life. Then again, maybe I would find inspiration there to revive my dormant Instagram page. Followers kept clamouring for exotic vacation pictures and behind the scenes snaps of my photoshoots, but lately I hadn’t had the energy to post anything. My agent told me that I ought to post more, but I’d kept brushing Claire off, not wanting to pretend everything was shiny and happy and rose-coloured when I felt anything but.
After walking from the subway station to the Steeles‘ apartment building, the doorman let me in and pushed the elevator button for me. I came to enough Steele family dinners and events at the penthouse that the same old doorman, who had been there since I was a child, recognized me.
“Have a lovely day, Miss Philips.” He smiled at me and I returned the favour, trying not to let the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach consume me. It had to be nerves, since I’d never come to one of these Bible studies before.
After the elevator reached the top floor, I entered the elegantly decorated foyer of the penthouse. I hung up my red, patent-leather trench coat just as I heard the peal of thunder outside. And I hadn’t even brought an umbrella. Great.
Hearing the sound of familiar voices and lured by the aroma of coffee, I entered the living room and plopped into an armchair. Abigail and her husband, Emani, were sitting on a loveseat directly across from me, while Katerina and Alexander sat on the couch to my right. Matty was lying on his back on a playpen, making the occasional unintelligible baby noise as he grabbed one of the toys hanging from the mobile above his head.
My family. Also a reminder that I was perpetually single. Even if I preferred it that way, it got lonely at times.
“Georgia!”Abigail bounced off the couch and flung her arms around me, squeezing my ribs with surprising force for a woman who was a head shorter than me. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too, Abs.“I squeezed her back before letting go so I could examine her more closely. Aside from a fleck of mascara standing out on the pale skin under her left eye, she appeared put-together and content. “How have you been? We should have a girls’ night sometime.”
Katerina agreed from her seat on the couch. After we finished catching up, we started reading the Bible passage. Alexander suggested we each take turns reading one verse.
I went after Alex, and found myself reading the second verse. I almost never read out loud, and when I did find time to read, it was typically a fantasy or science fiction novel. Sometimes the Bible almost felt as foreign to me as those far-off literary worlds. When it was my turn again for the seventh verse, I read aloud, clearing my throat.
“ But the Lord said to Samuel,‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’”
The rest of my cousins and their significant others continued reading, but I just stared down at that line of text on my phone in black and white. The prophet thought the chosen one would be one of David’s brothers, someone tall and handsome and muscular, but was mistaken.
The section concluded with David the shepherd boy becoming King Saul’s servant and playing the lyre for him.
I was still fixated on that line. It shouldn’t have been some profound concept, but for me, when I was so used to being judged for my appearance and so used to judging myself for my appearance, it felt deeper.
The Lord looks not at appearances, but at the heart.
Had I cared about my appearance, not seeing my heart or caring about its condition? I’d certainly been blinded by others’ appearances. Sergio had turned out to be a handsome face hiding an ugly soul.
The notion of judging by the heart and not one’s physical appearance gnawed at me. It was still so alien to me that I couldn’t quite grasp it.
After all, even my own mother had—though not in so many words—told me that my worth and value were based on how I looked. She was the woman who was supposed to love me unconditionally in an all-encompassing way. Yet she had always emphasized my beauty over anything else when talking to me or about me. Had always encouraged me to go into career paths that would capitalize on my body and face, as if I had nothing else to offer.
The verse stuck with me all through the Bible study until the end.
“Georgia? ” Katerina prompted. “Did anything stand out to you from the passage? ”
I chewed on my lower lip. “Verse seven really stood out to me. When he said that God doesn’t judge others the way we see them. He sees the heart, not appearances. ”
Everyone else shared what had made an impression on them from the chapter, and we continued on with the study, before ending in prayer.
I bowed my head, unsure of whether the God that my family spoke to was real—but I found part of myself wanting Him to be.