The door opened, and the robed model walked in.
Usually, the men and women who got paid to pose were on the far side of desperate. Washed-up dancers or actors, with folds of flesh that spoke of indulgence or limbs bony with age. Last year, as a student at the school, Clara had quickly gotten over the shock of a nude man or woman posing for class. The challenge of capturing a sagging breast or rounded buttock on paper or canvas quickly overtook the embarrassment of gawking at a naked human being.
But this wasn’t a down-on-his-luck stranger. It was Oliver, the poet from the restaurant.
As Oliver’s robe fell to the floor and he stepped onto the platform, a collective hush fell around the room. Every line of his body, the one that ran above his hip, the one that differentiated the long muscles of his thigh, resembled those of the antique casts that stared down at them from the studio’s shelves.
She caught Levon watching her and looked at her canvas, unsure of where to begin, overwhelmed.
She wasn’t the only one. A couple of the women gaped openly, which made her smile. Back to the work at hand. She had a bet to win, and she wasn’t about to let a swell-looking fellow throw her off-balance.
“Don’t be bound by what you see,” said Levon. He came to a stop beside Oliver, who stood with his arms crossed, as if waiting for a bus. Levon whispered something, and he struck a pose, shifting his weight on the left leg, a hand on his hip, his eyes looking up and out.
Levon nodded and addressed the class. “I want you to sketch what you feel.”
Clara had to bite her cheek to keep from smiling at the vagueness of his words, so typical of pompous art teachers. Imagine if she said such a thing to her illustration class? They’d have looked at her as if she had two heads. All around her, the students dove in, knowing that time was limited and eager to please their master. As they worked, Levon drifted from easel to easel. He stared for a long time at the canvas of a young woman at the end of Clara’s row. “You’re trying to be clever again, and I don’t want that. I must break you of that habit. For the next class, when we turn to oils, I want you to use a large brush for the details and the small brush for the fill.”
He moved down another easel, to a young man whose hand was wildly moving about the paper. Levon took the pencil from him. “Permit me.”
Clara stifled a gasp as he drew over the student’s work. His arrogance astounded her.
She sharpened her pencil, the sound like a low rumble in the quiet room, and immediately regretted calling attention to herself. Levon was getting closer. He looked over and flashed a big smile her way, stuck his thumb up in the air like a clown. She should never have agreed to this—she’d placed herself at a disadvantage, and by failing here, she’d further erode what was left of her standing in the school.
Clara looked at her own blank canvas, then back up at the model, only to discover he was looking right at her. She was the only one not doing anything, frozen in place. He winked at her, and, reflexively, she smiled back.
Levon shouted at a skinny boy to her right. “No, no! You have to consider the negative space. Stupid, stupid.” He was closing in.
One thing was certain: If he dared to draw on her canvas, she’d pick it up and smash it over his head.
Clara remembered her father, who’d taken to belittling Clara and her mother once his fortunes fell, as if their reduced circumstances were their fault. He went out very little, other than to his menial job at a hospital, while Clara’s mother took over all the tasks the servants had done in Phoenix, cooking and cleaning and polishing his shoes. Clara watched with horror and revulsion as her mother kowtowed to his every need, doing whatever it took to defuse his foul moods, often making them worse in the process.
Levon was similar in temperament: his impetuousness, the cavalier disregard for everyone around him, his certainty in his own talents. She had to put him straight, let him know that she was not to be bullied. No doubt, if she didn’t do well under this ridiculous test, he’d lose interest in her. For some strange reason, the thought annoyed her even more.
She took a deep breath, reminding herself that she was a teacher, not a frightened pupil. When one of her own students seemed stuck, she’d tell them to stop believing that everything they did was precious. If you want to make a living at it, she’d say, you must sit at the drawing board, brush in hand, and simply do it.
She put the pencil to the paper and began sketching out the proportions, the same as she would approach a Wanamaker drawing. The boy was so angelic, the line of his limbs so much the ideal, that before she knew it, the figure on the canvas was almost completed. What a relief not to worry about the correct drape of a coat, or the texture of a pair of pants. This was simply skin, bones, and musculature.
Once she was satisfied with the outline, she picked up the palette and began experimenting with the oils. While watercolors were her favorite medium, oils came in a close second. She’d stepped in as a teacher for Miss Alice every so often after a couple of years of study, and she relished the challenge, switching from oils to watercolors to etching. She gave all her earnings to her father, which only seemed to make matters worse, adding to his humiliation.
When she showed up at art class with a bruised wrist after one of their arguments, Miss Alice insisted she apply for a scholarship at the Grand Central School of Art in New York City. Together, they selected her best work and sent it off in the post. The letter of acceptance arrived a month later. It was for only one term—after that, she’d be on her own—but Clara jumped at the chance. Her father had railed at her for trying to sneak away, but she was certain he was secretly pleased to get rid of her. Her mother was openly relieved, as it meant one less person to provoke him.
“You’ll never make it there,” he said over her last dinner at home, a measly meal of stringy, overcooked chicken and some kind of mashed vegetables. Her mother knew she couldn’t compete with the lavish dinners of their former cook, and she didn’t bother to try.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re a girl and you’re a dilettante. That city will devour you.”
She’d arrived in New York on a bright September day, still reeling from the train trip, where she’d learned to carry a book whenever she got up from her seat, the better to fend off the advances of male passengers who took advantage of any sudden lurch for a quick grope. A hard bonk ensured they behaved better the next time they passed each other in the aisle. Grateful to finally be discharged from the claustrophobic train cars, she’d found her way to the door of a small apartment building on East Tenth Street that leased rooms only to women. The landlord had shown her to the top floor, her very own studio, and Clara almost danced with joy. She began her illustration class the next day with Mr. Wendle, who was kind but bland. She learned later he was ill, which explained his hacking cough and lack of enthusiasm: For the first three weeks, he insisted the entire class draw shoes. Over and over. Mary Janes, oxfords, satin slippers, and mules, followed by men’s leather dress shoes. At night Clara dreamed of soles and laces. She did as she was told and was made monitor of the class, which made the other students jealous, but she didn’t care.
Armed with her drawings and desperate for rent money, Clara made the rounds of the magazines and big department stores, and Wanamaker had immediately assigned her to do an advertisement for children’s shoes. Unlike the other, less ambitious students, the ones who were unsure of their work and required Mr. Wendle’s constant hand-holding, Clara had one goaclass="underline" to make money off her art and prove her father wrong.
As the fall wore on, New York grew colder and wetter. The tree outside her apartment scraped its stripped branches against the dull stone walls. Christmas Day she spent alone in her studio drawing gloves, a step up from footwear, or so the advertising executive told her, and made just enough to pay for the next semester’s classes. In January, when Mr. Wendle didn’t show up to class, she offered to fill in, citing her experience in Arizona and her commissions from Wanamaker. Mr. Lorette had hesitated before agreeing that, for now, she might serve as a substitute. No doubt her lower salary had also factored into his decision.