Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [50]
“I can’t do this. I’m tired. I’ve got baby throw-up all over me. I need to brush my teeth.” She glanced around the room, hating to disappoint him. She wanted to be a good girlfriend and she’d already let him down more than he knew.
“What if I covered my face with a fan, you know like a Japanese geisha? Or what if I was reading a book?” At least that would give her something to do so she wouldn’t feel so embarrassed.
Tom dropped his palette and got down on his hands and knees, crawling around and looking beneath the beds. Shipley recrossed her legs and picked at her cuticles. Someone whistled out in the hallway. There were goose bumps on her thighs.
“Okay, how ’bout this?” Tom held up a red paper Macy’s shopping bag pilfered from Nick’s side of the room. He grabbed a pair of scissors and cut out two eyeholes and a little round mouth hole. It reminded Shipley of Professor Rosen’s scarecrow, only more sinister.
“I don’t know.” She pulled the bag on over her head. Her eyes were set close together and the holes were too far apart. The mouth hole was very small. “Don’t look,” she added, spreading her knees. Her thighs always looked fat, no matter how thin she was. Somehow the shopping bag made them even more embarrassing. Tom was looking at her legs, not her pretty face. And he was seeing them as they really were, compact drumsticks. Even her smaller than average breasts would look disappointing, she realized. But maybe that was the point? She wasn’t herself anymore, just the female form. After all, this was supposed to be art. But did it have to be a Macy’s bag? A bag from Tiffany’s would have been much better.
“Sit back.” He came over and pressed her shoulders against the hard back of the chair.
“I feel stupid,” she murmured, wondering how she’d gotten herself into this.
“Shush. You’re so beautiful. Besides, no one will know it’s you,” Tom assured her. “I’m just going to take a few Polaroids, and then we’re done.” He’d bought a vintage Polaroid camera at a local yard sale. He was very proud of it.
She closed her eyes, hoping that would help. The camera flashed, an explosion of white behind her eyelids.
“Just one more.” The floor creaked as he walked around.
She should have driven over to Adam’s, she realized. She could be kissing him right now, instead of this, whatever this was. She reached up and tugged on the bag. It ripped as she yanked it off. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Tom wasn’t even looking at her. He was tinkering with his camera. Shipley was so gorgeous, it was weird how plain her body looked without her head. But maybe he could do a series of the sum of her parts, putting her head in last. It would be like an economics equation, with the whole—head included—being the only viable commodity. Beauty is not a pair of nice tits or a cute ass or pretty feet. Beauty is the whole package. He could float the parts in on a seashell riding the surf, like Aphrodite. His Portraiture class was having an open studio next month. So far he had nothing he’d be willing to let the public see. This was just the thing.
“That’s okay, you’re done. Wow, this is going to be huge,” he said, suddenly inspired.
Shipley hurried into her jeans, anxious to run back to her dorm room, take a scalding hot shower, and lie down beneath her beautiful clean sheets.
“Yum,” Tom said, picking up her sweatshirt and giving it a good sniff.
She yanked it out of his hands. “I have to go do my laundry,” she said and bolted out the door.
Bitter wind lashed her cheeks as she raced across the dark quad. The streetlights lining the walks cast an eerie yellow glow that was both reassuring and frightful. Beyond the stalwart bricks of Coke she thought she saw the black Mercedes pull out of the parking lot and cruise slowly down Homeward Avenue toward the interstate. If this was what Maine was like in November, then what would December bring?
12
Tuesday was Election Day. The more conscientious students hurried