The Reluctant Nude - Meg Maguire [13]
“Are you a lawyer?” Erin asked, sounding impressed.
“No, just a loudmouth.” Fallon leaned back in her chair. “So, how long have you been here? On Cape Breton?”
“Only a couple weeks.”
“Did you move here?” Fallon asked.
“Well, I hadn’t planned on it. But I’m thinking about it now. I’d like to stay. That’s why I got a job. All my stuff’s back in Ohio, though.”
“It’s really beautiful here,” Fallon offered lamely. “What do you do in Ohio?”
“Well, I’m starting college next month, in New York City, actually. Or I’m supposed to.”
“Wow, exciting! So, you’re only like eighteen, then?” Fallon asked carefully.
“I will be, in a couple weeks.”
Fallon’s stomach gurgled. Seventeen? And Max was how old? Please, God, don’t let him be a creepy old letch. One was enough. “So how did you meet…”
“Mr. Emery? Max,” Erin amended, sounding like she’d never called him this to his face but longed to.
“Yeah.”
“It’s a weird story.”
“Too weird for a coffee break?”
Erin bit her lip. “Maybe. I’ll try and give you the SparkNotes version. Um, when I was younger, like ten, I had to have this really strange…procedure. It was featured in all sorts of surgery magazines and stuff. Mr. Emery wrote to me a few months ago. He reads medical journals, I guess. He’s sort of weird, you know? He wrote to me and invited me to come and sit for him, you know, for money. I have this really huge scar, on my hip. He thinks it’s beautiful, I guess.” She fidgeted with her cup.
“Wow. That’s pretty brave of you. I wouldn’t have been caught dead with my clothes off in front of anybody when I was your age.” Let alone Max Emery.
“When I was younger I had to all the time, for doctors. It’s not that big a deal. Well, I mean…” She blushed deeply, her pale skin burning deep pink. “It’s a little weird. With him.”
“Oh? Why’s that?” Dear God, here it comes—he’s a pervert.
“You know…he’s so not a doctor.”
Fallon took a sip of her cold cappuccino, dread wrenching her insides. “How do you mean?”
“You know. Don’t you think he’s…hot?”
Fallon nearly sprayed her drink across the table. “Oh, well.”
“I do.” Erin’s eyes were aglow in that way only women who’ve just fallen in love can manage. “And he’s got a hot accent.”
“I suppose.”
“There’s just something about him…”
“It’s called charisma,” Fallon said dryly.
“I know he’s, like, a lot older than me, obviously,” Erin went on, animated, clearly on her favorite topic of conversation. “And he wouldn’t go there.”
Fallon bit her lip. “You don’t think?”
“No, I don’t think he’s like that. Actually,” Erin said, smile fading. “Posing for him… I’ve been over there like a dozen times now, right?”
“Okay.”
“And you know what it’s like?”
“No, what’s it like?” Fallon asked.
“It’s like I’m there, but I’m there with another girl who’s like ten times prettier than me, like I’m invisible.”
“I don’t quite follow.”
Erin spun her cup noisily on her saucer. “It’s the scar, I guess. That’s what he’s into. Not like, into, you know—not like sexual. But he totally couldn’t care less about me. And I’m like, naked, you know? I guess he’s probably seen tons of naked girls.”
“Yeah,” Fallon said, cautious. “And you wouldn’t want to be with someone who’s almost twice your age, anyway. I mean, you wouldn’t want to be with a guy who’s as old as Max—Mr. Emery—is, who’d even be interested in someone as young as you, right?”
Erin shrugged in a distinctly teenaged, apathetic way, and Fallon wondered how she’d ever found this girl intimidating.
“Well, trust me, you wouldn’t,” Fallon concluded for her.
“It doesn’t matter, either way. He called and told me last night that whatever he’s working on now, it’ll take months. He said to go by there so he can give me the money for my plane ride back home.” She gave Fallon a split-second glance and then shrugged, irritated. “I may as well go to New York.”
“Yeah, college is a big deal. Where are you going?”
She sighed. “Juilliard.”
Fallon felt her jaw drop. “Well, yeah, that’s a pretty damn big deal. For dance or music or…?”
“Ballet.”
“You got accepted