Better Than Running at Night (9 page)

"I call it the LaLande Wetsuit," Ralph said from his seat.

We were back in the Garage and our sketches hung on the wall for an afternoon crit.

Ed planted his feet at shoulder's width and swayed from side to side, his brow furrowed. "Explain the diagrams, Ralph," he said. "Am I correct in assuming that the men in these pictures are wearing inflatable scuba gear?"

Ralph nodded. "That's pretty close. To be a fish would mean to be engulfed in wetness," he reasoned. "So I've designed apparel that would make a person literally feel what a fish is feeling."

He walked up to the wall, keys jingling, and pointed at the puffy suit. "It would be made of clear plastic and filled with water, giving the illusion that the person is submerged in liquid. You could even wear clothes under it and use it for work!" he exclaimed.

Sam slowly shook his head and rolled his eyes at me when Ralph wasn't looking.

Ralph continued. "In exploring this idea, I realized that this suit wouldn't make the wearer wet. So I came up with this model." He pointed at another diagram. "I added some squirt valves, to
provide a constant spray. But then"—he looked at his feet—"then I saw my error: squirting simulates rain more than a large body of water. So this design really teaches us what it is to wear rain, not to be a fish." He sighed. "Sorry, but this was the closest I could come."

I know what it's like to wear rain, I thought. Go outside.

Although Sam came closer to producing what Ed had in mind, he also missed the mark. His fish were conveniently arranged in the shape of the Phish logo, bubbles and all. Although Ed didn't get the pop culture reference, he did know that Sam's fish had been schooled in the shape of themselves.

Ed paced in front of our results, eyes fixed on the floor.

"Both of your ideas, Sam and Ralph ... both of them are quite inventive. I can't say I sense any movement, but I also can't deny that they are cute."

He stopped and turned to me. "Ellie, your fish are dynamic. They seem to be moving too fast for us even to catch a glimpse of them. The speed is exaggerated, but that is what makes the drawing interesting."

He paced again, this time in a circle around us.

"And Ellie, I'm glad to see that you've included Ralph—that is Ralph, isn't it?"

I nodded.

"I'm happy to see you've incorporated figurative elements into your work, because tomorrow"—he paused, taking a deep breath—"tomorrow we will start drawing the figure!"

Finally.

Class got out early. I think Ed didn't want to have to come up with more comments for our work that day. I went to the computer lab. There hadn't been any mention of the e-mail I sent Nate last week. I had to write to him and tell him I took it back; it was presumptuous of me to think he was single. Maybe we should slow things down. Or just be friends.

Also, I was curious to see whether he ever left my bed that morning. I half expected someone else to be monitoring when I opened the door. Part of me wished it
would
be someone else.

But there he was at the front desk. Tongue pressed against the corner of his mouth. Eyes squinting at the screen. I walked up to him and he didn't notice I was there until I touched his shoulder. He jumped in surprise and quickly put the computer to sleep.

"Shouldn't you be in class, young lady?" he asked, recovering his composure.

"I got out early. I wanted to see if you woke up yet," I said. "What are you working on, anyway?"

"A project." He leaned back casually in the chair.

The screensaver stars soared toward the front of the screen.

"I've got some e-mailing to do," I said.

When I opened my account, I found a note from him.

ellie yelinsky, let me tell you something, sex in general doesn't mean much to me. i see it as just a way of having fun. but you are changing that, yes, YOU. i've been with LOTS of girls, and most of them have been pretty damn CUTE (like you), but never have I met someone as genuine as you. i can tell when you say things, you really mean them. NO BULLSHITTING. you are something special, don't change.

Now what? I couldn't tell him, Sorry, I was only joking. Thanks for the compliment, but I'm not as great as you think I am.

The thing is, I really
had
meant what I'd written to him. But I didn't necessarily mean it right now. While thinking of an appropriate response, the bottom of my screen started flashing. Apparently Nathan Finerman wanted to "talk." I typed my way to the talk screen.

The awaiting message said:

midnight, my house.

I wrote back:

Sort of late, don't you think? School night.

He wrote:

come on, LIVE a little, i'm working on my project until then, don't waste away your sexual peak.

I responded:

Okay, okay. Midnight.

I knew I shouldn't go. I knew it as I ran there, as I ran up to the door and almost turned around. There was still a second left when I could've gone back. Even after I rang the bell, I had time. But there was a part of me rooted deep down, deeper than my brain could reach with its relentless rationality, that wanted nothing more than to see him, to lie with him, to wrap myself up in him.

It was that simple.

We hardly talked that night. For the first time, he seduced me in the light. I saw that his entire back was tattooed to look like the back side of a skeleton, each rib thinly outlined in permanent black. He smelled like raw paint and turpentine, an odor that once had been my own. I buried my nose in his thick hair and inhaled, as if internalizing that smell would somehow identify me as a painter again. But if given the opportunity to paint anything I wished right now, I don't know what I would've chosen. I wanted
to create images portraying subtle human emotion, images that would speak to viewers for generations to come.

I followed the lines of his tattoo with my finger. I wondered if it was anatomically correct. This was the kind of thing I wanted to be learning in school.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Counting ribs."

"They're all there," he assured me. "Don't worry." He switched positions with me so that I was on my stomach and he massaged my back.

The radiator banged and hissed, banged and hissed.

"I've got to make sure yours are all here too," he whispered in my ear. He sat up so his legs were straddling my butt. Nate was heavy, but his weight was pleasant, holding me securely to the bed. He ran his fingers over each of my ribs from the spine out. Then he pounded on my back with the outer edge of his hands. For what felt like hours, he alternated between hard probing and squeezing, light tickly caresses, and scratching. I wished he would never stop.

By the time he finished with that I was so relaxed that
making love
didn't hurt much. For the first time, I opened my eyes during sex. We made eye contact and I didn't shut my lids again until his moaning started. I knew it would be over soon, but this time I wished it would last a little longer.

A great calm passed over him, leaving both his eyes and mouth closed.

I was almost asleep when he got up to turn off the lights, and I realized I couldn't stay there. The fact remained that he had a girlfriend, and I couldn't fool myself into thinking I was anything more than a lover to him. I began to get dressed.

"You look like you're getting ready to go out," he said with a laugh.

"I am," I said. "I'm going home. I'll sleep better there. I want to be well rested for my first day with models."

"It's a little late for that, don't you think?"

"I need to get at least
some
sleep."

"You can
sleep
with me, baby." He winked.

"Very funny," I said. "But I think I've had enough of that for tonight."

"Okay, but I can't see you again until Friday," he said. "I have to spend the rest of the week finishing this project."

He pulled me back onto his bed and flung my arm over his shoulder, forcing me to embrace him.

"Well, I'll see you Friday then," I said, wriggling out. I had to prove to him and to myself that I didn't
need
him. That I could be as casual about sex as he was.

I ran home, just in time to beat the eager dawn.

Billy was in his terry-cloth robe and ready to go when we trekked in on Tuesday morning.

Ed started us out with gesture drawings. As with the fish, we were supposed to quickly convey what Billy was feeling, rather than what he looked like. To be honest, I preferred this option anyway, since Billy's body left much to be desired. If he had any muscles, his body fat provided just enough padding to hide them. Had he been blubbery, Billy would've been more fun to draw; at least then there would have been some shapes for us to focus on. The back of his thinning hair was pulled into a pug of a ponytail. His log legs hardly tapered toward his ankles.

Ed had Billy strike gestural poses on a modeling stand, a ten-by-seven-foot piece of wood on wheels. It helped to have the models raised a couple of feet off the ground, so we could see their entire bodies.

Billy seemed to think "gesture" meant stick your nonexistent hips out as far as you can in one direction for a minute at a time.

Ed coached him:

"Give us something a little more dramatic, Billy!"

Now in addition to the hips we got a forward stomach thrust.

After lunch Ed handed a mirror to each of us. "You guys are going to love this one!" he exclaimed. "Just wait till you hear your next assignment!"

We were waiting.

"In this next piece, Sam, Ralph, Ellie ... in this next piece you will draw Billy in a long pose. And also, you will put yourself somewhere in the composition. Anywhere."

He paused for a reaction. Perhaps a standing ovation.

"So off you go! Take your mirror and find yourself in the drawing. Remember not to rush. You are in there somewhere, but only time will allow you to find yourself!"

Billy was much more at ease with the long pose, probably because he got to sit in a cushiony old armchair.

"Ed? Ed!" he called.

"What is it, Billy?"

"Do you mind if I hang my calendar so I can concentrate on it while I pose?" He waved his calendar in the air. The pictures were of baby animals dressed in doll clothes.

"That's fine, Billy. As usual. You know you don't have to ask anymore, after all these years."

Billy hung the calendar directly behind me. He was always staring just past my head. If he had been looking directly at me, it would've been less disconcerting.

Ralph later asked Billy, "What's the deal with the baby animals?"

"It helps me stay still and it gives me something to think about." Billy nodded his head as he talked, as if to compensate for our lack of empathy.

During a break, Billy paraded around the room in his robe, scrutinizing our drawings, telling each of us why they didn't look like him. The nose was too pointy, the eyebrows too bushy. What happened to the slight cleft in his chin, weren't we paying attention? None of us had any answers for him. Maybe if his face wasn't so nondescript, we wouldn't be having these difficulties.

Sam always stayed away from Billy when he wasn't posing.

By the end of the day, Billy had decided that my interpretation
of his face was the best, and therefore blessed me with the gift of his baby animals calendar. Don't worry, he assured me, he had plenty of others at home. Piles, in fact. It would not be missed. He handed it over with a hopeful smile, aS if this twenty-four-page booklet was supposed to inspire me to create masterpieces.

"Oh, a dragonfly!" Ralph exclaimed.

"Yes," Ed replied, "Tasha's dragonfly is always a big hit with new students!"

Tasha was a petite Indian woman in her late twenties with a tattoo of a dragonfly emerging delicately from her butt crack.

After putting her through a round of short gesture poses, Ed had Tasha lie on the modeling stand. He told her to roll back and forth so we could capture her movement. Round and round she went, dragonfly following with each turn. The dimples formed by her posterior superior iliac spines framed the dragonfly equally on either side.

"I hope this isn't too hard on you, Tasha!" Ed shouted.

"Oh, Ed," she called out between rotations, "only for you! Only for you!"

Tasha was much more graceful than Billy, possibly because she had once been an art student.

On our break, Tasha wrapped a satiny flowered sheet around her body and walked directly toward my easel. She pulled me aside and we sat on stools as she shared with me her artistic philosophy:

"I used to draw the figure, you know? But I realized that was pointless, because I wasn't making a statement, you know." Her irises were almost as dark as her pupils. I let my eyes blur, imagining that she just had two gigantic pupils. "So now, you know, I create what is meaningful to me, not what a teacher tells me to create. But this stuff is okay for now. You'll learn."