Read Online Girl in Reverse (9781442497368) by Barbara Stuber - Free Book Online Page B

Elliot’s paper.
    Sharp dashes of black.
    Highlights in white.
    Life drawing.
    The wheelchair woman and her daughter stop to watch. It’s fine to stare at bare body parts in here. You’re supposed to.
    Elliot squints, shades her jawline, bends to deepen the shadows of her armpit. He twists like the boyfriend, gripping the stone floor with his feet. His shoulders drop and rise. He smudges the contours of her cheek with the side of his thumb, closes one eye, adjusts his position, lost to the world. I lean against the wall thinking—here I am obsessing over an old stick of Chinese wood while Elliot James is twisting himself into love scenes.
    Without one bit of warning, he stretches and swivels around so fast he’s looking right at me. I jump, a termite caught in the light of day.
    Oh, God. Oh, God. I wave— hi.
    He nods.
    I walk to his easel. “Th—thanks for bringing my books over.”
    â€œYeah.”
    Say something else! I sweep my hand. “I just came by to see the Pablo Picasso painting, you know, Girl before a Mirror .”
    â€œFat chance. She lives in New York City in the Museum of Modern Art.”
    â€œOh, well. Yes, uh . . . I mean, I like that poster in the art room. . . .” Excruciating pause. Colossal embarrassment.
    I walk around the sculpture trying to appear captivated by the artist’s signature, which is etched into the woman’s hip. The marble is milk-colored, silky, and glowing, as though it’s heated from inside. The title is: Atalanta and Meleager with the Calydonian Boar. The label explains that Atalanta is the woman, the huntress who has shot the boar. The upcoming kiss must be her reward.
    â€œThey’re characters in a Greek myth,” Elliot says.
    I nod, like I already knew that.
    He shrugs. “I’m going to enter this in the Fine Arts Showcase at school.”
    Wow. That’s brave. “How do you want them to look?” I ask, instantly recognizing my second stupid, unanswerable remark. He wipes his hands on his pants and walks around the whiskery boar and its naked riders. He looks up and down their curving spines, around their pulsing necks. His gaze slides across their lips, over their navels, and down their legs. The man, Meleager, has a handful of Atalanta’s cascading marble hair. She grips his long curls, pulling him in. Their shadow on the gleaming stone floor is huge and beautiful—curving and complicated.
    Elliot stops, glances over at me, and points to his easel. “Do you want to know how I want them to look?” There’s a raise of his eyebrows and a slight smile. “Sweaty.”
    Unh!! I blink . . . blink, blink. Morse code for: Bring assistance. I am going to permanently die.
    Elliot goes back to work. It takes guts to expose your naked lovers to the students and faculty of Wilson High School, especially the rusted hearts of Miss Arth and Mr. Thorp.
    Other visitors watch Elliot draw. A tall, willowy girl, probably from the Art Institute, walks up. Her hair is in a messy blond ponytail. Her hands are covered with charcoal and she has a smudge on one gorgeous cheek. She wears a man’s shirt with a belt around it and boots. She looks at his drawing, then at him, and shakes her head. “Dammit, Elliot,” she says in a low, mocking voice, “how do you get your foreshortening so perfect ?” She fake stamps her foot. “How?”
    Next to her, I feel like a human lump with a Chinese facial problem that no eraser or coating of charcoal smudges can resolve.
    Elliot does not introduce us. The blond girl leans down. Her golden hair falls over his shoulder. He describes how to foreshorten the lovers’ giant, dimpled knees so they appear to jut forward. She throws her arms up. “I know, I know . . . but still . . . ” She blows him a kiss and walks toward her easel, exasperated—or pretending to be. Her blown kiss is