“Better money, maybe,” conceded Kitty. “But what else will he be expecting?”
She finally relented after Lillian hounded her for a full week, provided Lillian stayed quiet and let her do all the talking. “He’ll see soon enough what he’s up against.”
The man who showed them into his West Side studio didn’t come across as lecherous in the least, and Lillian breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t balk at Kitty’s presence beside her, and gently offered them tea. While he made it, Lillian looked around. The studio was a haphazard mess of clay-smeared workbenches and tool cabinets, the disarray softened slightly by the northern light spilling through the steel casement windows.
She didn’t know then that the mess was the sign of a true working artist, versus the imposters who were trying to lure in stupid girls by appealing to their vanity. Eventually, Lillian and Kitty would turn around and leave if the artist’s studio was too clean, if it featured a smattering of Persian rugs draped across the floors or candles glowing beside pristine velvet settees.
“More like a bordello than a workshop,” Kitty would say loudly on their way out the door.
When he returned with the tea, Mr. Konti addressed Kitty, not Lillian. “I don’t usually go to the theater.” He was in his late fifties, and had a soft Bavarian accent and a graying beard. “I was brought by a friend, and struck by your daughter’s expressive face.”
“What is it exactly you’re working on?” Kitty asked.
“A piece for the Hotel Astor, called Three Graces. Grace, Charm, and Beauty, with the same woman figure representing all three.”
Kitty sat up a little straighter, and Lillian’s hopes rose. The Hotel Astor was an elegant anchor of Times Square, with a thousand rooms. “Where in the hotel would it be located?”
“In the ballroom.”
Even better.
“However, the muses will be lightly draped.” Mr. Konti shrugged when Kitty gasped. It was a simple fact of the job. “She’ll get paid forty-five cents an hour, and the work may take several months.”
“Lightly draped?” Kitty gripped her purse tightly, like she was about to bat Mr. Konti about the head with it.
“I imagine two of the muses will be bare-breasted, one will be covered. You can see, looking around at my work, that there is nothing unsavory about my art.”
Although Lillian wasn’t entirely confident about posing in the nude, she had to admit that the studies around the room were beautiful, even to her untrained eye. His work had a languid elegance, and in the faces of his figures, she recognized glimpses of her own features, the long, straight nose and narrow jaw. She didn’t know then that she had the ideal body for the times: slim shoulders, narrow waist, shapely hips that tapered down into long legs.
“You can decide, yes or no.” Mr. Konti finished his tea. “We can start today. Or not at all.”
“Not at all.” Kitty rose, shushing Lillian’s protestations. “My daughter is only fifteen, far too young for you.”
“For me?” Mr. Konti wasn’t angry, only amused. “What I do is not for my own gratification. It is to bring beauty forth in the world at large.” He pointed a finger toward the door. “That sordid world, the city outside that’s teeming with people whose lives are full of toil and trouble. If they walk by one of my statues and look up and see something beautiful, an idea or person who inspires them, then I have done my job. I do this not for me. It’s for humanity.”
“Grandiose, I must say.” Kitty grabbed Lillian’s arm. “We are leaving at once.”
Outside, Broadway was indeed teeming with a rush of workers heading home after a long day. Kitty’s face was red, and Lillian wasn’t sure if it was from Konti’s proposal or the afternoon heat that shimmered up from the concrete sidewalk.
“Mother, are you all right?”
Kitty leaned on Lillian, panting slightly. Lillian pulled her back into the shade of the building, out of the way of the pedestrians.
“I’m fine.”
Lillian thought back. Her mother hadn’t had breakfast with Lillian, saying she’d eaten before Lillian woke up. At lunch, she’d said she wasn’t hungry as Lillian had finished up a generous helping of beans on toast.
Kitty began to step forward, but Lillian held her back. “You haven’t eaten at all today, have you?” She didn’t let her answer. “One hour with Mr. Konti equals a dozen eggs, some milk, and a loaf of bread. Think of it that way. I’ll earn breakfast for both of us in one hour.”
Her mother swallowed. She was hungry.
“I’m fifteen, that’s not a baby anymore, and you’ll be with me the entire time. Did you see his work? It’s beautiful. Imagine, I’ll be there inside the Hotel Astor ballroom. Fancy folks will look up and see me and think it’s art. In fact, they’ll see three of me!”
Her mother’s tone was dry. “That’s three pairs of breasts.”
“Only two. He said one muse was clothed.”
In spite of herself, her mother laughed. “You are a sly one, Lilly.”
The unflappable Mr. Konti didn’t appear surprised by their return. He didn’t chide Kitty, or make her feel foolish about her change of mind. They came to an agreement, with Kitty speaking in soft, measured tones as if she were arranging the details for a garden party. Lillian would pose for four hours a day, six days a week, until the piece was finished.
Lillian had figured modeling over the course of an afternoon would be far less difficult than having to learn choreography and lyrics. The first session, he’d begun with the middle figure of the three, and told her to sit looking down and off to the left, everything from her chest down draped by a thin layer of silk. After thirty minutes, when he told her to take a break, it was all she could do not to collapse in a heap. Her neck cricked when she straightened it, and her arms were sore from being extended outward. Even her fingers ached.
She soon learned the best way to avoid the physical toll was to go deep into her thoughts while the sculptor worked. She’d lose herself in the details of the dress her mother had promised to buy her after the job was over: a sleeveless gown of Georgette crepe from Bonwit Teller. She imagined slipping it over her head, the feel of the material on her skin, the joy of twirling around and letting the layers of the skirt float up in the air.
After a few weeks, Mr. Konti asked her to pose for the second figure, whose drapery fell below her breasts. By then, Lillian was comfortable with his stare. He observed her musculature and tendons and bones: he was looking inside her, not at her. After five minutes she didn’t feel odd at all being half naked in front of him. His age worked in his favor, as he came across as a gruff grandfather, not a potential lover. At that first exposure, Kitty, who was seated in a corner with her knitting, seemed to clack the needles together faster and louder, but slowly even she became used to her daughter sitting unclothed, collecting the payment at the end of each day with a businesslike nod.
As Lillian posed for the final muse, the drapery dipping dangerously below her hip bones, she learned the one unspoken rule of posing for a neoclassical work of art. After taking her place on the stool, she made the mistake of offering up a full smile. Konti admonished her, explaining that a nude model retained her dignity only if her lips remained closed. She might offer up the hint of a smile, but never a full one if she wanted to be successful. Lillian was not a commercial product, neither a Gibson girl nor a Ziegfeld girl. She was the vision of perfect woman, the embodiment of beauty. An angel.
“Angelica.” Her mother came up with Lillian’s model name that same session. “We’ll call you Angelica.”