We Are All Strangers

Published by Bull+Cross, Issue 23, February 2019 and reprinted in The Gathering, WWS Anthology, November 2021. (https://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Women-Who-Submit-Anthology/dp/173324154X)

We Are All Strangers

I love the first day of class each year. The oil paint and turpentine aromas become concentrated in August, when they close the building for the summer. I inhale its heady perfume as I click-clack across the painted wood floor in my mules, wearing my street clothes. Everything in the drawing studio at the art college is freshly painted white or pale gray for classes resuming in September, except the wooden easels. The morning light streams in the southeast-facing, floor-to-ceiling windows at an angle that diffuses some of the harshness. I’ll observe it travel across the length of the studio and disappear during the four-hour class. Usually, no one takes notice of me until I open the small door leading to my cubical and close it behind me. They’re all scoping each other out like a mob of meerkats on the savanna.

I’ve been modeling for Donahue’s drawing class and painting workshops at the art school on and off for more than twenty-five years, so I’ve worked out a little routine I follow every time. To begin with, I wear very loose clothing especially undergarments to avoid any pressure lines on my legs, back, or ankles. They’re very distracting when someone is drawing the figure. As I’ve aged, I realize this is very important. And I arrive at least fifteen minutes before class to allow myself time to disrobe and read a few pages of my current book before I pose. I need something to think about while I’m up on the stand.

It’s sort of a funny story how I got into modeling back in the seventies. My gorgeous older sister was asked to pose for a sculpture class. The post-war students were complaining about the plaster casts they’d been using to learn to draw the human form for a hundred years. The GI Bill guys wanted real, breathing flesh. They earned it, right? She did it for the cash money it paid and the flexible hours. And because of her husband who’d returned from Viet Nam suffering from stuff he couldn’t control, except her. He monitored her like she was a fugitive in witness protection, refused to let her work or give her any money of her own. They had no kids and she was bored silly hanging around their one-bedroom apartment dusting the same lamp every day. Modeling was quick money and hers alone. Anyway, she fell in love with the instructor, divorced her husband and they moved to Paris. I needed a second job, so I took over for her, but no one’s asked me to go anywhere yet.

https://www.hongkongreview.co/vol-i-no-1

Published in the Inaugural Issue of The Hong Kong Review, Volume I, Issue 1, January 2019 (https://www.hongkongreview.co/vol-i-no-1)

Celeste sat on the concrete stairs of the station. She was a little shaky; she didn’t dare try to stand. A minute ago, she was lying prone, the sharp edges of the steps digging into her head, back, hips and legs. There’d be nasty green and purple bruises tomorrow, she realized, but that was the least of her concerns. 

When she’d entered the subway near her home in Brooklyn just before noon she was excited about getting to MOMA to see the Picasso exhibit before it closed that evening. She’d always admired Picasso for his fractured vision of humanity, especially the seated portraits of his wives and mistresses, many entitled ‘Femme Assise.’ Celeste was drawn to their distinctiveness, all the more tangible with their rearranged features and body parts. The likenesses – one eye placed on a forehead, a nose where the ear should be, lips split but closed – depicted the complex and multi-dimensional women in his life. Each portrait declared his affection or loathing for the sitter at the time of the portrait. Picasso never ceded to abstraction, but held fast to representation, recognizable objects or figures when most Twentieth Century artists had veered away. 

A young man she hadn’t noticed on the street brushed past her on the steps. He abruptly stopped in front of her, knocked her backward onto the stairway and fastened his sizable hand to the bridge of her nose in an instant. It hurt. A lot. Attempting to move her head made it hurt more. 

Her mugger was young, but he’d lost the clean dirt smell of boyhood. Celeste recalled chiding her teenage sons that they must remember to use deodorant. Mother nature’s nasty little trick made teen girls extra sensitive to odors simultaneous with the boys-to-men smelling like wet goats.

“Don’t fucking make a goddam sound. I’ll break your nose.” He sounded ominous and confident in his convictions. “And keep your fucking eyes fucking closed,” he hissed.

He pried her cellphone out of her hand and smashed it against the edge of the stairs.

In her youth, Celeste had been a temporary criminal. Her high school boyfriend and his brothers, experienced shoplifters, had cut their teeth on an extended family of trusting shop owners in their town. Her role was minor, but key. She carried an oversized shoulder bag and an unsullied conscience. They’d enter a shop casually. One of the brothers would troll the interior and sidle up behind her. He’d rest an affectionate arm on her shoulder pointing out an item of interest while dropping his loot into her bag. She only discovered later what she’d stolen. Celeste was lucky. She decided to retire at eighteen with a clean record. Her mugger might not be so fortunate.

Her initial inclination to sneak a peek for future identification purposes was abandoned. The pain between her eyes nearly blinded her anyway. Before she was knocked down, she’d caught a glimpse of a skinny kid in black basketball shorts and a grey tee shirt.

 “Anybody coming?” he stage whispered.

 “Naw. You’re good,” a quiet voice above her replied.

Of course, she should have known there was a lookout. Any savvy mugger would bring along his wingman to waylay his quarry in a stairway hidden from the street. 

But surely, someone would walk by soon, Celeste prayed. This was New York City. There were eight and a half million people living here, close to three million in Brooklyn alone. Where the hell were they? It was a gorgeous day in June, sunny, mid-seventies, a ‘ten best’ day for sure. There was hint of honeysuckle on the breeze as she walked to the station. Celeste willed someone to come right now. Please God, now.

(Click on number 2 to continue reading the story.)