“No giggling, Tera.” Her dad frowned from across the kitchen table. “If I see you giggling, it tells me you’re not serious about this.”
Tera clamped a hand over her mouth and tore her eyes away from the book. The book made her nervous, and she always giggled when she was nervous.
“It tells me you’re not ready, that you’re not old enough.” He leaned back in his chair. “Is your mother right?”
She shook her head. Her ponytail whipped her shoulder. “I’m old enough.”
“Then look at it. Tell me what you see.”
“I see . . .” She felt a giggle coming, but she swallowed hard and it went away. “A book. I see an art book.”
“Is that it?” He sounded disappointed.
“I see a book called Drawing Nudes.”
“I didn’t ask you to read the title.” He pushed his chair back from the table like he was fed up. “I asked you, what do you see?”
“I see . . .” She squinted and pulled the book closer, knowing she had to give him the right answer so she’d be worth his time. It was one of those giant books with thick pages. It had a glossy cover, and on the cover was . . .
A naked woman, not covering herself at all. The woman’s breasts made Tera want to cross her legs like she had to pee. She knew she was being stupid and immature. A real artist wouldn’t feel weird like this. A real artist would see lines and curves and shades.
“I see beauty,” she said.
Her dad snorted. “You’re nine years old and you think the sight of a naked woman is beautiful? Not gross? Not intriguing? What the hell planet are you from?”
“But . . .” Sudden tears welled up behind her eyes. She’d told him what he wanted to hear, what a real artist would say.
“Listen, Tera, I’m not trying to trick you. I just want you to be honest and tell me what you see.”
She swallowed hard to make the tears go away. “It makes me embarrassed,” she whispered.
He nodded. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
She went on, encouraged. “It makes me feel like I shouldn’t be looking.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s naked.”
He nodded his head like she’d said something important. “And that’s what you need to get over. That uncomfortable feeling is what a girl your age who is not an artist would feel when she lays eyes on the naked human form.”
She chanced a glance at his eyes, even though she was embarrassed to look at him with the naked woman between them. He wasn’t looking at her, though. He was studying the naked lady like it was no big deal.
“Did you ever feel that way?” she asked.
“Embarrassed? Enthralled? Excited?” He laughed. “All of the above.” Then he leaned back in his chair and smiled. “When I was in college I signed up for this class where we had live nude models. You know what that means?”
“Huh-uh.”
“It means someone stood in front of our class and took their clothes off so we could draw them.”
“Oh.” She wondered if people really did that.
“And I was so . . .” He smiled like he was remembering something really good. “So fascinated, you might say, that I was distracted from doing my job. You know what my job was?”
“No.”
“To learn. To learn everything I could about drawing the human form. Because once you get good at drawing nudes, it’ll be easier to draw everything else.”
“Like dogs?” Tera said. She loved drawing dogs but always had a hard time with their faces.
He chuckled. “I was thinking more along the lines of human faces, human torsos, hands, feet.”
She found herself staring at the nude woman’s body in a new way. Now she looked at the way the charcoal was smudged under the curves of her breasts. She noticed the feathering shades between the woman’s legs.
“You get it, don’t you? I see it on your face.”
He was proud of her, she could tell. But she still felt shy. She laid her hand on the book so it covered the woman’s body. “It’s for me?”
“Who else?” He winked at her. “And I have a surprise for you.” He craned his neck to look out the window behind her. She turned to see what he was looking at, but it was only a car going by.
“A surprise? Do I get to guess what it is?”
“You can try, but you’ll never guess.”
“Tell me,” she said. “Please.”
His eyes strayed back to the window for a moment. “You have to keep it to yourself. It’s a secret.”
Tera knew all about keeping secrets. Just last week she and Haley had watched a dirty movie that Haley found buried in her dad’s sock drawer. Haley made Tera promise not to tell anyone. Like Tera would ever in a billion years say what those people had been doing to each other. She couldn’t even think about it without feeling excited and weird and ashamed.
“Did you hear what I said? You can’t tell anyone—not your friends, not your teachers, not your mom.”
Tera nodded. “I promise.”
He tilted his head to look at her. “You won’t see the value of it, not until later. But it is valuable.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m building it up too much. You’ll be disappointed when I tell you.”
“I won’t be.”
He placed his hands flat on the table. “I made arrangements for you to sketch your first nude model. Next week.”
Her smile froze. “You mean a real person?” A real naked person. Already her heart felt jumpy. There was no way she could draw someone naked. One time at Burger King, she walked in on a lady going to the bathroom, and even though the lady said it was okay, Tera ran away crying with her hands covering her eyes.
“I went to a lot of trouble to arrange this.” Her dad reached across the table and took her chin in his hand. “Look at me. You know what I see?”
She tried to shake her head, but he was holding her too tightly.
“You’re supposed to say, ‘Yes,’” he said. “You’re supposed to know what I see when I look at you. I’ll give you a hint. Do I see a girly-girl who’s too busy playing with dolls to become a serious artist?”
“No,” she whispered, even though she still liked playing Barbies.
“Do I see a loud-mouthed tattletale who’s going to tell all her friends that she’s learning to draw naked people?”
“No.” She knew better than to tell her friends, especially Haley, who had a big mouth.
“Do I see a budding young artist? A protégé? A young lady who’s serious enough to handle what many people in their twenties aren’t ready for?”
She knew she was supposed to say yes and when she hesitated, she saw his eyes flicker like he was getting fed up. “Yes,” she said.
He smiled and let go of her chin, tugging on her ponytail. “Good girl.”
But then his smile disappeared, wiped from his face. He stared out the window behind her, his eyes scared. A second later she heard a car rattling down the driveway.
“Mom’s home,” he said, which wasn’t scary at all, but the way he scuttled to his feet with his head whipping toward the door made her feel like she should run and hide. He swept the book off the table and shoved it at her chest so hard that she stumbled backward.
Then he snarled at her. “What the hell are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know.” She tried not to cry as the key rattled in the lock.
“Hide the goddamn book,” he hissed. “Hide it where she won’t find it.”