The Savage Girl - Alex Shakar [5]
Then his expression changed again; he acknowledged her with a look of bemusement and a slow nod. He buzzed his secretary. A few minutes later she was filling out a W-4 form and he was giving her the only three instructions she’d gotten so far:
Go out there, he said. Find the future. Bring it back to me.
And now, sitting between her and Javier on the cement dolphin, he goes through her guesses at the future without a shred of interest. He shakes his head and turns the pages roughly, dismissing sketch after sketch of teenagers in baggy pants, clown shoes, floppy hats, rolled pantcuffs. When he comes to the first sketch of the savage girl, though, he stops. His mouth remains set in a line, but his eyes don’t quite conceal his surprise.
“What’s this?” he grumbles. “Some kind of punk hippie?”
“An urban savage,” Ursula says.
“I tell her to bring me the future, she brings me a cavewoman,” he mutters. “Take a look, Javier.”
He and Javier pore over the pages, sharing an amusement Ursula decides must be at her expense.
“She really this filthy?” Chas asks.
“She lives in the park.”
“What are those things on her feet? Paper bags?”
“Moccasins.”
“Aha.” Chas shakes his head.
“I’m pretty sure she made them herself,” Ursula offers.
“Sure,” Javier says, still looking over the sketch. “That’s . . . evident.”
The two men fall silent. She considers trying to lead them back through the other sketches, but that would seem desperate, she knows, and she doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing her squirm.
“Well, that settles it,” Javier says, stretching and cracking his overlong fingers. “Don’t you think?”
Chas thinks for a moment, then nods.
“What?” Ursula says. “Are you going to fire me? You told me you were going to train me—‘Find the future,’ you said. You call that job training?”
“No, I don’t,” Chas says. “Training starts tomorrow.”
Javier leans forward to reenter Ursula’s field of vision, fortuitously avoiding a foam rocket that sails over his head from behind. “Your savage girl is postironic,” he says. From his tone of voice she guesses this is a good thing.
Chas grunts agreement, examining the sheen of his squared-off fingernails. Then he taps the sketchbook with them.
“You’re a good artist, Ursula,” he says.
“Thanks,” she says.
“No. You’re too good. There’s too much dirt here. You’ve got to clean it up. We need it colorful, light, airbrushy. Can you use an airbrush?”
It takes her a moment to realize what he means. He doesn’t want a good artist; he wants a bad one. She tells herself that this will be a new kind of challenge, requiring a new kind of skill.
“What’s this jewelry she’s wearing?” Chas asks. “What’s it made out of?”
“Little bones,” she explains. He seems impressed, and she feels a surge of excitement. “Actually,” she goes on, couching the boast in the form of a modest admission, “I just made that jewelry up. She didn’t really have it on.”
“Then where’s the warpaint?” he asks. “Why didn’t you give her warpaint, too?”
“I—I didn’t think of warpaint.”
“You didn’t?” he asks, his tone incredulous. He stares at her as though she’d just admitted to being a Flat Earther or an alien abductee.
“Great idea, Chas,” Javier whispers.
Finally Chas relinquishes her from his gaze and turns to Javier.
“Not mine,” he says. “Avon’s got it in the pipeline.”
“Really? Even better,” Javier says. “We’ve got synergy on this.”
Chas nods.
“Couch won’t be happy about this hide-and-fur stuff, though,” Javier goes on. “His last report was all about animal-friendly clothing, plant-fiber alternatives to leather, remember?”
James T. Couch is the other member of the team. Ursula has yet to meet him. She was hoping he’d be here today, on the assumption that whoever he is, he can