“Noam!”
Today, Noam thinks she isn’t living up to her name—it is not a day for being pleasant and sweet, especially if she has to wake up and leave the safety of her bed.
“Noam, put on your clothes, it’s time to go to school for your summer class!”
Noam buries her nose in her pillow and lets her body slowly awaken within the confines of her well-worn sheets. A smile slowly spreads on her face as she realizes: It’s not just any morning.
It is summer, finally. No more boring regular classes, no more giggling girls who point at her when they think she doesn’t see them, no more feeling alone whenever her friend is not with her—at least for two months.
“Nomka, I swear to God—” her mother exclaims, simultaneously knocking on and opening the door.
“You don’t believe in God, Mamushka,” Noam retorts, then throws off her beloved blanket and smirks at her mother.
Myriam Geffen is not a woman to be played with or mocked, and nobody knows this better than her daughters. However, as they’ve grown, she seems to have accepted the idea that she is raising two sarcastic young women. It’s not as though she hasn’t entertained the idea of carrying an “It’s called sarcasm” sign herself.
“Har,” she deadpans with a raised eyebrow, “hardy har har, bubby. Now get up and get ready; we’re leaving in ten minutes.” She points a manicured finger at Noam as she leaves the room. “Whether you are ready or not.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” Noam calls; her smile softens. “And good morning, fellas,” she adds sotto voce as her eyes roam over the posters that cover her bedroom walls: Albert Einstein and her favorite quote of his: “If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts;” Jackson Pollock captured in the middle of a dripping action; Leonardo da Vinci’s self-portrait; Uma Thurman in all of her Pulp Fiction glory; and a collage Noam made as a tribute to Natalie Portman.
Noam cracks her neck a couple of times and stretches like a cat until she hears her back pop. Now she can face the day.
In the shower, she goes through the motions as quickly as she can. Her hands cup her breasts in a strictly sanitary fashion—they just get in her way—and she towels herself dry as fast as she can without rubbing the raw patches of skin she scratched in her sleep. She ties her long red hair into a messy bun. One of these days, she’s going to cut it all off and be free from its tyranny. It’s not that she hates it—or her breasts, now that she thinks about them—but ever since puberty, she’s thought her body is no longer her friend. It has become barely more than an acquaintance she’s lost touch with, not an enemy per se but not something she can count on either.
Her outfit is waiting for her on her desk chair—a purple T-shirt with wide, reptilian eyes printed on it, her worn denim overalls and her graphic socks and sneakers. She hops around the room as she dresses.
“Noam!”
“Ready, Mother!” she calls back, stomping down the stairs with an angelic smile on her face. She reaches for her bag, which hangs from the handrail.
“Noam, you need to eat something,” Myriam says. Her voice carries the weight of the countless times this conversation has been held.
Noam looks away with a wince and is careful to mold her face into a neutral mask when she turns back to face her mother. It’s not that she doesn’t want to eat, or that she wants to starve herself. But she really dislikes breakfasts. And she knows, deep down, that some of the insults thrown at her by the “Geese Girls”—the girls at school who cluck like a flock of birds—have a factual leg to stand on.
Noam is tall and large, there is no way around it—she is her father’s daughter through and through. The only physical trait Noam inherited from her mother’s family is her hazel eyes.
“We’re late already, Mamushka,” Noam says softly, shouldering her messenger bag and clenching her fingers around the strap. “I’ll eat twice as much for lunch, promise.”
Myriam grimaces and cups her youngest daughter’s cheek. “Take a pack of crackers to eat in the car—please?” She pats Noam’s lower back as she passes by.
As Noam reaches into the cupboard for one of the dozens of packs of saltines they always stock, Myriam shares a look with her husband, who has just entered the room all sleepy-headed and sporting a frown of concern born from the years of raising his daughters.
“Have fun, munchkin,” Alan tells Noam, throwing an apple at her. He claps his hands when she deftly catches it. “Star Wars tonight?”
Noam looks at her mother with a raised eyebrow before looking back at her father doubtfully.
Myriam raises her hands in defense. “I am not here tonight,” she reminds the pair. “All you’ll have to do is manage Dana’s disapproval.”
Noam dances around the kitchen and snuggles up to her father. “With any luck,” she whispers, “Dana will be busy with Jackson.” Noam elongates the first vowel of the name in imitation of the affectionate tone her older sister uses when talking about her boyfriend.
“With any luck,” Alan repeats softly. “And, if worse comes to worst, she’ll fall asleep da moment da credits start anyway.” He kisses her forehead, his Chicagoan accent coming at full-force this morning. “Now go, and make us proud.”
Noam rolls her eyes but blows him a kiss as she follows Myriam out of the kitchen.
“I’m proud of you no matter what,” Alan tells the empty kitchen.
The classroom looks different than it does during the rest of the year—all the tables have been pushed to the side to make room for easels and stools, which are set up in a circle around an empty stage.
“Nomnom, over here!”
Noam waves at her best friend. Charlotte—Charlie, as she prefers to be called—is, in many respects, Noam’s complete antithesis. She is dark-skinned where Noam is practically see-through, loud where Noam is quiet, outgoing where Noam keeps to herself and short where Noam is, seemingly, all limbs. The girls are on opposite ends of a spectrum, and yet they had immediately connected, feeling a bond beyond blood, religion or looks.
Noam kisses the top of Charlie’s head and grabs the closest stool. “How on earth did you manage to get here before me, Miss Montceau?” she asks and is already pulling pencils and chalks from her bag.
Charlie gives her a look and plays with the one long braid saved from her latest haircut. It’s the kind of look Charlie keeps strictly for her best friend, when Noam seems particularly unperceptive.
“The Colo-onel,” she replies, and Noam winces in support.
A retired colonel from the French army, Charlie’s father applies his military upbringing to the way he and his wife Karen raise Charlie and her three brothers—two of whom have already left for college as far from home and as soon as possible.
“He made Andy drive me here at too-soon-o’clock to make sure I wouldn’t be late,” Charlie adds with an eye roll so emphatic it nearly gives Noam a migraine.
“Too-soon-o’clock, huh?” Noam doesn’t try to hide her laughter. “Is that military lingo, or…?”
Charlie slaps her shoulder. “You’re not even funny,” Charlie says under her breath, but her dimples show.
The two girls keep up their banter, and Noam starts doodling with chalk on the side of her easel as they wait for their teacher and more students enter the room.
“What do you think we’re going to start with?” Charlie asks, rolling a pen between her fingers like a miniature twirling baton.
Noam shrugs. “No clue, dude,” she says, with a thoughtful look. “Still life, maybe?”
They slowly turn their heads toward the platform in the middle of the classroom, far from anodyne in Noam’s opinion, and Charlie’s smile turns predatory.
Noam turns back to her doodles—half abstract patterns, half elaborate phoenix—in an attempt to avoid her best friend’s inevitable nosiness.
“Aw, come on, Nom,” Charlie whines, standing to wrap her arms around Noam’s chest and hook her chin over Noam’s shoulder. “Models! Nude! It’s going to be fun!”
Noam stays silent and her face warms, and Charlie leans forward. “Better get used to seeing a cock before you have to do anything with it,” she whispers. Noam neatly elbows her in the ribs.
Charlie’s insistence on talking—lewdly, at that—about Noam’s non-existent sex life is her only flaw, as far as Noam is concerned, but it is a discomfiting one, and one that she cannot simply brush under the proverbial carpet as a simple “Charlie-ism.” The sharp intake of breath brushing her ear tells her that Charlie knows she’s just gone one step too far.
But before Charlie can apologize, their teacher comes in and wins all of Noam’s attention.
All year long, Mr. Siski has nurtured and encouraged Noam’s love for art and her burgeoning talent. He’s given her various contacts in New York to consider for an internship in the summer between graduation and college and college brochures—including some from overseas schools—so she can figure out what type of artistic career she wants to pursue. He has also taken a special interest in her habit of making quick sketches of her classmates. Some students—mostly the Geese Girls—once implied that the bond between the art teacher and his teenage student was not strictly professional. But luckily for him, Alojszy Siski’s stellar reputation at New Trier—along with his open gayness—had nipped that rumor in the bud.
Noam smiles warmly at the teacher who commands all seventeen juniors and seniors simply with his presence.
“Good morning, students.” Standing on the platform, he greets them in his warm voice. Most of the teenagers reply. “Ready to unleash your inner artists?”
That earns him a couple of laughs, and he smiles benevolently. There’s a good reason he’s a student favorite.
“Now, this morning, we’ll start with some basics,” he tells them, “so I can judge your abilities and your strengths.”
“Basics?” Charlie calls, her hand raised, and Mr. Siski nods.
“Basics, like the tools,” he replies. “Graphite, chalk, charcoal, all on still life for now.” As he enumerates various drawing techniques, the tall man pulls apples, oranges and a container of berries from his bag with his long fingers. For not the first time this year, Noam sketches his long, slender silhouette on a corner of her pad, trying to capture the elegance that radiates from her teacher, from his mane of hair to his bushy eyebrows down to his slim torso and the strength of his legs, vowing to come back to his face and to the way his blue eyes shine as he gets more animated.
“And then?” Charlie pushes, tapping her pencil rhythmically against her easel.
“And then, Miss Charlotte,” Mr. Siski replies, his voice growing louder, “those of you who can use their pens will start working on models in this room. The others will have a catch-up course next door.”
Charlie smiles at him and makes a little whooping sound—and she’s not the only one to show enthusiasm for the upcoming portion of the program.
“Perverts,” Noam mutters.
“All right, all right, keep your hormones under control.” Mr. Siski arranges his fruit on the stage. “Now, do your thing, I’ll be walking around if you need help.”
They start hesitantly, but after the first twenty minutes, the only sounds in the room are the scratching of pencils on paper and Siski’s whispers when a student asks for help.
Noam draws several compositions on the same sheet of paper—just one apple, all the apples, a strawberry with heavy shadows—before trying her hand at the whole composition on a new sheet.
Next to her, Charlie sketches in what Noam can only describe as an art brut style: strong lines crisscrossing and even punching through the paper in Charlie’s enthusiasm. Even if this isn’t Noam’s favorite style, it’s not without interest. Art has always been something that the two friends have shared; they first became friends when they reached for the same red crayon in kindergarten. And throughout the more recent years, whenever classes have become too hard to handle, whenever Charlie can’t deal with her father’s strictness, they have used a common sketchbook to talk via their doodles in a drawn conversation in which one finishes a sketch started by the other.
Thirty minutes fly by before Mr. Siski calls for a break. With a carefree smile, Noam studies the drawings her classmates have produced. Not everything is good, naturally, but everybody has the same sparkle in their eyes from satisfaction at being able to draw to their hearts’ content. To know that she shares this feeling with her classmates, to see with her own eyes that other people are just as passionate about it as she is, is a revelation and a relief.
Art classes during the year had not been suffused with the same unity of spirit, nor were Noam’s classmates as outgoing about that animating passion as she was. And Charlie, though she loved art, was not consumed by it as Noam was. But from the smiles on their faces now, the relief shown in their slowly relaxing shoulders, Noam realizes that maybe she’s not as alone in her love for art as she had thought.
The morning is over before Noam knows it, and she has a dozen drawings on her pad—drawings that she will work on over and over. No matter how much she works on her drawings, lines and colors, she’s never satisfied. Noam aspires to be like her idol, Jackson Pollock, and just give in to an action painting, just accept that a first sketch can be her final work, but she also is aware that she needs training first. Pollock went through classical training, didn’t he? All in good time, that’s her motto.
All in good time.
Charlie has to trot to keep up as they walk to the food trucks near the school entrance to get their lunches. Noam doesn’t walk fast, but her long legs definitely give her an advantage.
“Taco Nano?” Noam asks. Charlie nods enthusiastically; tacos are always good, in her book. It is an unspoken rule of their friendship that the Mexican dish is a peace offering.
As they get in line behind most of their classmates and the other students attending different summer classes at the school, Noam turns to look at Charlie.
“Look, nugget,” she says softly to keep the conversation between them, “I love you, and I know you mean well. But,” she warns, raising a finger before Charlie can open her mouth, “stop trying to embarrass me into punching my V-card.”
“Oh Nom,” Charlie replies, frowning. “I don’t… I don’t mean to embarrass you. I just—I think… I only want you to know what it feels like, to love someone and have them love you back.”
Noam smiles sadly at her friend. “But love is not necessarily linked to sex, is it?”
They move forward in line and Charlie shrugs. “Of course not,” she replies slowly. After a pause she adds, “But it’s a damn fine bonus.”
Noam rolls her eyes and bumps Charlie’s shoulder with her elbow. “You would know.”
“Are you calling me a slut?”
“I would never,” Noam retorts innocently, hand on her heart.
Charlie frowns before letting out a bark of a laugh. “All right, then. I was afraid for a moment.”
They both explode into peals of laughter, which earn them startled looks from the other people in line.
“Hey, chicas,” the taco vendor welcomes them with a wide smile. “What can I get you?”
“One hard-shell, carnitas taco for that one,” Noam says, pointing her thumb at Charlie, “and one complete breakfast taco for me—please,” she adds as an afterthought, smiling with all of her teeth to make amends for her lapse of manners.
“Anything else?”
“A side of rice and beans—extra chili,” Charlie calls, “and two apple juices.”
“All right, girls. Wait on the side; your order will be coming right up!”
Charlie hip-checks Noam out of the way to pay for them both—“Puh-lease”—and they move aside to wait for their food.
They’re not alone. Noam spots their teacher, deep in conversation with a tall man who has his back turned. As he picks up his own lunch, Mr. Siski sees them and gives them a smile.
“Did you enjoy this morning’s class?” he asks, passing an avocado-covered taco to his friend.
Noam nods enthusiastically, and Charlie smiles at the stranger. “Well,” she says with an angelic smile, “it was fun, but I’m looking forward to this afternoon.”
Noam tries to make her stop, but the two men laugh at her attempt to flirt. “We’ll see if you’re still so emphatic at the end of it,” their teacher says, while his companion snorts into his taco. “Noam, Charlotte, this is Gordon Chevrar, our model for the week.”
“Gordy, please,” Gordon corrects and nods at the two girls.
Charlie beams at him, but Noam’s mind jumps to deconstructing the tall man’s figure into shapes and lines. His skin is lighter than Charlie’s, but a thousand times darker than Noam’s, which only serves to make his green eyes even more remarkable. He’s built like a swimmer, all shoulders and tiny waist. Noam pictures him as a triangle, as a shape with shadows and lines.
“I, for one, am glad that we’re going to see you every day for the next month,” Charlie says. “Right, Nom?”
Noam blinks a couple of times. “Right,” she replies and smiles at Gordon. He stares at her with a sparkle in his green eyes.
“Sorry to burst your bubbles, ladies,” Siski replies, “but Gordon won’t be the only model you’ll have to work on.”
“Charlie, don’t you dare,” Noam whispers just as her best friend opens her mouth, no doubt to make a lewd comment about the multiple ways she wants to “work” on the man.
“Oh?” Charlie breathes after a moment of hesitation, managing to save face without too much trouble.
“Do you think so little of me?” Mr. Siski replies with a smirk. “Of course I managed to give you more material to unleash your creativity.”
“Carnitas and breakfast!” the vendor calls. Charlie skips off to get their tacos.
“What do you mean?” Noam asks.
“Only that you’ll have opportunities to discover different kinds of anatomies,” Mr. Siski replies.
“Lucky you,” Gordy adds. His eyes don’t leave Noam until Charlie returns. “Well, ladies, we’ll leave you to your lunch—see you later!”
Noam takes her taco from Charlie’s hand in a dazed state. Why is Gordy, who looks as if he just stepped out of one of Dana’s magazines, paying her such pronounced attention?
“God,” Charlie groans, as they find a relatively clean bench, “Sisk really knows how to pick them.”
“And you will need a roll of paper towels for your drool,” Noam says. She takes a picture of her taco to send to her mother as proof that she got a lunch.
“Probably, yeah,” Charlie admits with a laugh. “Have you seen him?”
Noam takes a bite of her taco and munches while she considers her answer. “I have, yeah—I can’t deny that he’s aesthetically pleasant,” she finally says after sipping some of her drink.
Noam’s next bite is more cautious to keep the egg from falling into her lap, which is why she doesn’t see Charlie getting ready to slap her on the forehead.
“‘Aesthetically pleasant’? Are you insane?” she says, lowering her voice to a whisper. “There are several ways to describe that man, including ‘panty-ruiner’ and ‘drool-worthy.’ Aesthetically pleasant doesn’t quite cover it, Noam!”
“Well, it does!” Noam replies, batting Charlie’s hand away. “Excuse me for not automatically needing a change of underwear at the sight of a pretty face!”
Charlie bats Noam’s hand away. “What are you?” she asks. Noam raises an eyebrow in question. For a second, Charlie seems embarrassed. She tears her paper taco wrapper into shreds. Then she scoots closer.
“Nom—you know you can tell me anything, right?”
“Of course.” Noam replies. Charlie’s behavior is confusing.
“And that there is literally nothing you could do that would make me love you less?” Charlie insists. Noam is more confused.
“Right back atcha, sistah from another mothah,” she drawls in an affected accent. “Where are you going with this?”
Charlie clears her throat. “You… you’d tell me if you were—if you loved girls, wouldn’t you?”
Noam has to blink more than a couple of times to give herself time and make sense of what Charlie has just asked. And then she has to focus on her breath to keep her anger in check.
“Are you seriously asking me if I’m a lesbian just because I don’t show interest in the man who is going to model for us?” she asks slowly, with as much calm as she can muster. “Because I don’t flirt with the Neanderthals in our class?”
Her cold tone and lack of expression convey her anger more clearly than a shout or a scream, and Charlie recoils. “It’s not just that,” she replies just as coolly. “You never show any interest in any boy—it’s a legitimate question!”
“First of all,” Noam replies, putting the taco on the bench, “it should be my concern, and mine alone, where I stand on the sexuality scale. Second of all, I’ve never shown any interest in any girl either, as far as I know—that should make you think ‘ace’ more than anything else!”
Noam says the last sentence louder than the rest, and some heads turn in their direction. She takes a calming breath. “I don’t know, all right?” she finally says. “I’ve never been in a situation where I had to wonder, because I’ve never been attracted to anybody.”
“Not even a crush?” Charlie asks.
Noam shrugs. “Not enough to make me wonder. Maybe it’ll come later, but just—let me take it at my own pace, okay?” she asks, voice nearly pleading.
Charlie throws her arms around her. “Of course, Nomnom,” she whispers in her ear. “Remember that I’ll be here no matter what.”
Noam forces herself to smile and pats one of Charlie’s forearms. Then she smirks. “Even if my sexual awakening comes because I realize that I’ve been in love with you all this time?”
Charlie looks up at Noam and bats her eyelashes. “Particularly if that is so,” she replies, giggling into Noam’s shoulder.
Her laughter ends in a loud snort, and Noam says. “All right, any crush I might have on you in the future just crashed and burned, piggie.”
“Jackass.”
“Asshole.”
After their unplanned heart-to-heart, Noam and Charlie have just enough time to finish their tacos and rice and beans before they rush back into the classroom.
As they return to their easels, they see Gordon sitting on the platform; a silky gray kimono with a black, geometrical pattern is wrapped around his frame. He wiggles his fingers at them, even throws a wink at Noam. Then he returns his attention to their teacher, who is standing next to him.
As Mr. Siski waits for the students to settle down, Noam grabs a pencil, turns to a blank page and rushes to sketch the two men. Mr. Siski stands with his hands on his hips, all long shapes and soft curves at his shoulders and midriff, and Gordon sits in front of him with his profile to Noam. Mr. Siski’s dark shirt provides a background that strengthens the contours of Gordon’s body and creates shadows in the material draped over him. Noam’s drawing is just lines—but it’s a base, enough for her to work on later and create a new piece for her portfolio.
“All right, people,” Mr. Siski calls, “as you may have gathered, this afternoon we’ll discover the joy of drawing models.”
The class has already shaken whatever digestive slumber had threatened, and all eyes dart from the teacher to Gordon, who preens and basks, presenting himself in the best light.
“I want you to start with simple pencils—like HB and up to 2B, tops,” Mr. Siski instructs, and a cacophony fills the room as the students pull out the proper tools. “But no eraser,” he adds. “I want you to consider every stroke of graphite carefully. We’ll start with two forty-five-minute poses, so you’ll have plenty of time. Don’t rush anything, and feel free to ask for help. Gordon, whenever you’re ready.”
Gordon nods, picks up a stool and situates it on the platform. When he’s finally satisfied with its placement, his kimono is gone in a flash. Noam has to blink at the sight of his body.
The man looked good dressed, but with nothing to cover his body he is stunning, more regal than she thought at first glance.
Some of the students giggle, more out of embarrassment than anything else, but the sound shakes Noam out of her shock. She picks up her pencil to start measuring the model. Gordon has chosen a simple pose, and is sitting with one leg bent at the knee. She makes a little outline, writing down the proportions. Picking up her HB pen, she focuses on a bigger version of the outline, this time including the stool.
Next to her, Charlie has already drawn an outline that covers her whole page; Noam is just a little envious of her friend’s confidence in her own judgment. Noam needs to check and check again before launching herself into a project, but Charlie—Charlie just goes for it, all-in every single time. And if she has to start again, she just picks herself up and does so with the same energy as before.
The first period goes quickly, and, for once, Noam is happy with herself and her work. Gordon’s shape fills the sheet of paper, and she has just started outlining the shadows with quick strokes when it is time for a break.
She stands and cracks her neck to get the kinks out—staying hunched over the easel, even for only forty-five minutes, makes her feel as if she’s been stuck in a little box—and when she raises her arms, she can sense a drift of air on her skin where her shirt scrunches up just a little bit. She hurries to pull it down, and her eyes find Charlie’s.
“You do know that you have nothing to be ashamed about?” Charlie says, trying to play it down as she brushes at the graphite stuck to her fingers.
“Shush, I had one of my rash episodes last night,” Noam says. Then she walks away to look at what her classmates have come up with.
Nothing really catches her eye until she reaches the other side of the room and sees a cubist-inspired portrait. Its lines are assertive, wide strokes of pencil that show no doubt and overflow with an energy Noam didn’t expect from one of her classmates.
“See something you like?”
Noam turns her head quickly, and then smiles shyly at the young man who snuck up on her. How did she miss the fact that the other bookworm in her core classes is also in this workshop? Peter Zenkov is a quiet boy who always dresses the same way: black shirt, dark jeans, leather boots. He tries hard to stay under everyone’s radar—except that he can’t hide his talent, and Noam has to tell him so.
“Definitely,” she rushes to say. “Peter, it’s fantastic. I didn’t know—I didn’t know you had it in you.” Her face heats up, though her embarrassment ebbs when she notices the two spots of pink high on Peter’s cheeks. He looks like a porcelain doll, as if someone has applied a paintbrush to his face.
“Thanks,” Peter replies. His voice is barely above a whisper, but he has a happy smile. “I’ve seen yours—it’s… very professional.”
The generic comment piques Noam’s temper. “Gee, control your enthusiasm, Zenkov,” she says with a humorless laugh.
Peter’s brown eyes widen. “No, no, I didn’t—I meant, it’s a good drawing, I can’t wait to see it finished!”
Before Noam can think of a reply, Gordon comes back. He uses the marks he made on the stool to return to his pose. Mr. Siski claps his hands to tell the students to return to their seats.
“Talk to you later,” Noam hurries to tell the blushing boy, before returning to her place beside Charlie.
“What was that about?” Charlie whispers as she snatches an oily pen from Noam’s table.
Noam focuses on the shadows Gordon’s muscles cast over his tanned skin. “What was what?”
“The blushing, Victorian conversation with the bookworm,” Charlie says, poking Noam’s cheek and no doubt leaving traces of graphite on her skin.
“First of all, if Zenkov is a bookworm, what exactly am I?” Noam replies then throws a pointed look in Charlie’s direction and wipes her cheek.
“I’m not going to contradict you on that point,” Charlie says with a subdued giggle.
Noam rolls her eyes. “And second of all,” she continues, “it was nothing, just an artistic conversation about our sketches.”
“And the blushing?”
“An inability to accept a compliment properly on his part, I assume,” Noam replies. She leans forward to rub away a smudge of graphite. “And on mine, a propensity for random blushing.”
Charlie makes a noncommittal humming sound. “You do have a tendency to blush for the smallest reason.”
“I know!” Noam whisper-shouts, instantly feeling her face heat up. “God, why am I friends with you?”
“’Cause I’m awesome, and my awesomeness radiates upon you. Now focus on your drawing.”
“Yes, Mom.”
That evening, Noam excitedly talks about the day she’s had, about the potential this summer class might have for her portfolio and for her college application. True to her word, her mother is not home; but her father is all ears, and asks about the teacher’s plan. Noam’s sister, meanwhile, looks as if she’s about to die of boredom.
Dana sighs loudly in the middle of Noam’s recollection of the day and then gives Noam a judgmental look when Noam stops talking to look at her.
“God, you’re exhausting,” Dana says, prickly as only she knows how to be. “Do you ever temper your enthusiasm?”
“Do you ever show any?” Noam retorts, her voice rising. Alan reaches for Noam’s hand.
“At least I know not to let my dreams take over reality.” Dana throws her words in Noam’s face before she pushes away her plate and storms out, shouting that she’s leaving anyway.
Noam sighs and snatches her hand away from her father’s, then scratches her wrist and elbow as her nerves light her skin on fire. “Why is it always me who has to keep quiet when she uses me as a punching bag, like a bitch?”
“Language,” Alan scolds. “She’s in a weird place, right now, Nomchka, you know that. Let’s just cut her some slack, all right?”
Noam wants to say that it isn’t fair, but she nods—when things get complicated for her, maybe they’ll remember it and cut her some slack, for a change.
* * *
Between the tense situation with her sister, the weird sensation she feels in her gut when she recalls her conversation with Peter and the very newness of being able to draw all day, Noam isn’t quite herself the next morning. Charlie is attuned to her conflicted emotions and thoughts and for the time being leaves her alone.
The second day seems a lot like the first; Gordon is still their model, but instead of an hour-and-a-half pose broken into two parts, they switch to shorter time frames. The morning is divided into four different poses of thirty minutes each, which prove to be a much different challenge.
After lunch, Gordon wears a pair of boxers and Mr. Siski has moved the easels. Now, instead of forming a circle around the platform, the easels form two lines, with a path between the two rows.
“Move along, people, you’re going to like this,” Mr. Siski says loudly, “at least if you like a challenge.”
Charlie rubs her hands gleefully, and Noam bites her lower lip to contain her excitement.
Looking across the aisle, she shares a look with Peter, who opens his wide eyes and smiles at her.
“A challenge,” Mr. Siski repeats, “because if you thought that this morning’s poses were short, well, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Siski’s attempt at slang makes the whole class snicker—including Gordon, who remains silent but can’t hide his shaking shoulders—and he gives a little bow in reply.
“Enough joking—as I was saying, shorter poses. First hour, five minutes each.” At that, the class stops laughing and gasps. “Second hour, two minutes, third hour, one minute, and last hour, thirty seconds.”
By the end of his list, the class is all atwitter—except Charlie and Noam, who remain silent, struck dumb at their easels.
Thirty seconds. That’s… yeah, their teacher is right, that is a challenge, for Noam in particular. With her need to think things through, letting herself create on impulse, letting the connection between her brain and her fingers run freely without overthinking every scratch of graphite on the paper, the afternoon will definitely be a trial of her adaptability. But it is a good test, one she’ll try to accept and get through.
“All right,” she says, louder than she had intended. She rolls her sleeves up to her elbows.
“Nom,” Charlie whispers, looking pointedly at the constellation of scars and fresh rashes marring the skin of her right forearm. Noam hurries to roll that sleeve down.
“It’s not like I’m going to get this arm dirty anyway, right?” she says with a tentative laugh. She mouths a “thank you” that earns her a shrug and a wink from her best friend. Which translates to a combination of “you’re welcome” and “anytime” in Charl-ese.
“Ready?” the teacher calls, with his eyes roaming over the class and Gordon. “Set, go!”
Truth be told, the first pose of each time frame is a train wreck of half-assed drawings and nearly abstract lines, barely managing to catch Gordon as he moves from one stance to another. And don’t get Noam started on the first of the thirty-second poses; she is so confused to see Gordon walking around the platform, each movement of his legs and arms exaggerated to fit in the timeframe, that she doesn’t even pick up her pencil. The second is just a jumble of messy lines, barely more advanced than the drawings Noam’s mother dutifully stuck on the fridge when she was much, much younger.
And then—and then she gets inspired.
Giving up on the third pose, Noam quickly folds one large sheet of paper until she holds a small square of many layers of paper. When the fourth short pose starts, Noam is ready. The smaller format gives her a quicker understanding of the purpose of the pose and lets her fingers and the pen snap the strong lines down just in time for Gordon to move on to a new pose.
The hour flies by, and Noam finds herself feeling disappointed that it is over—even if the prospect of challenging, self-discovering days yet to come makes her smile. She carefully goes through the folded book to look at her quickly realized sketches, selects those she will work on again later and begins to add details from memory or from her imagination. She can already picture this profile in black ink with pastel auras. Or this drawing of Gordon twisting his body to the left, in white pen on black paper—that would help her focus on different aspects of Gordon’s body. Or this drawing she didn’t think she would be able to complete, because it represents Gordon sitting on the stool, facing her side of the room with his legs spread open. She had managed to keep her hands steady, and that alone is an accomplishment.
“May I have a look at that?”
Peter leans against her easel and nods toward the square of paper in her hand.
“Um…” Noam fiddles with the paper, and Peter pulls his own sketchbook from his bag.
“Show me yours and I show you mine?” he offers, the smile turning slightly crooked.
“Kinky,” Charlie comments, smiling at Peter over Noam’s shoulder. “Can I get in on that deal?”
Peter turns bright, tomato red, but nods nonetheless. “Sure,” he manages to croak and offers the sketchbook to Charlie.
Noam is more than a little surprised to see her friend flutter her eyelashes—and is that a blush darkening her cheeks? Noam can’t be sure, but she thinks it is. She places the precious wad of paper in Peter’s larger palm, reciprocating his offer.
“Kids, you have to leave the school,” Mr. Siski tells them. They’re the only students left in the room. “But I’m sure the Mini Beanie will be more than happy to welcome you and your allowances,” he adds and winks. He looks pointedly at the folded screen, behind which Gordon is changing, and leaves the room.
“Well, I guess my date awaits me,” Gordon tells them as he emerges from behind said screen, fully dressed and with his hair a complete mess. “See you tomorrow, kiddos,” he tells them over his shoulder as he struts out of the room.
Charlie, Noam and Peter exchange an incredulous look and start to giggle.
They do go to the Mini Beanie, a coffee shop that is a block away from the school. And if they spend more time than might be considered normal sitting there, with their empty cups and three sketchbooks passing from hand to hand, well, nobody is judging.
* * *
By the end of the week with Gordon, it seems as though Peter has been part of their lives for a lot longer.
Noam is convinced that there should be a special word for the platonic soul mate, because the word “friend” doesn’t cover the way Peter has completely filled a gap in her life she didn’t know was there. The role of best friend was already taken, and “soul mate” carries an underlying sense of romance that doesn’t apply.
That said, Noam suspects that “soul mate” is the right term to describe what is cooking between Peter and Charlie. Noam is not one to spread rumors—or, God forbid, gossip—simply because some looks linger maybe a beat too long, but that doesn’t make her blind. She can see how those looks between Peter and Charlie walk the line between friendly and flirtatious, just as she notices that Charlie stops wearing her thousand cheap rings when Peter mentions a severe allergy to nickel.
Noam can only nod with a private smile on her face. She’s not about to deny herself the pleasure of seeing the two of them make idiots of themselves as they fall head over heels.
She is aware—at least, a part of her is aware—that she should feel jealous; Peter joined their company thanks to her. But jealousy is the furthest thing from her mind. She’s mostly happy for them, even if they are still tiptoeing around that leap.
Now, as they sit at their easels, Noam keeps her eyes on the folded screen and waits for the new model to emerge.
Their teacher peeks behind it and smiles at whoever shoos him away. “All right, padawans,” he calls loudly, “after a week of studying the male body, it’s time for a switch.”
A long, curvy leg emerges from behind the screen, and a murmur travels through the classroom.
“Come on, don’t play shy,” their teacher says.
The new model comes out in all her naked glory, and Noam’s heart is trying to jump out of her chest.
“Class, meet my good friend and former student, Amber,” Mr. Siski says, as he puts his hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Amber, these are my new followers.”
Noam tries to smile as Amber looks at them, but she must look like Mowgli smiling at Shanti at the end of Disney’s Jungle Book, with her mouth twisted in an awkward approximation of her usual smile.
“Are you okay, Nom?” Charlie whispers and bumps their elbows. “You look like you’re having a stroke.”
“She’s beautiful,” Noam whispers, unblinking. “Like, I can’t just—I…”
“Close your mouth, babe. And yeah, she’s stunning.”
Amber is all curves, from the coppery hair that flows in rivulets escaping her hastily tied bun, to her full lips, to her full breasts and tiny waist, round calves and painted toes. The green varnish is a stark contrast to her caramel skin.
I want to find out if those curves are as soft as they look.
The fleeting thought makes Noam frown at herself.
Amber stands on the podium and puts her hands on her waist, waiting for the teacher’s instructions. Her eyes dart around the room; an easy smile is on her face. Her eyes are bluish-gray, and remind Noam of the gem on her mother’s wedding ring. Is it lapis? When Amber glances at her, Noam blushes. When her embarrassment becomes unbearable, Noam looks away.
She couldn’t say why she’s embarrassed. After all, she has done nothing wrong. They are asked to look at Amber—but Noam doesn’t look at her with her usual objective eye; she is far too flustered by the model, who is still looking at her with her head cocked and a Mona Lisa smile on her lips.
“All right, just like last week,” Mr. Siski instructs. Noam shakes her head to focus. “We’ll start with a long pose, shortening it as we go and then moving to details. Amber, dear, if you could choose a pose you’ll be able to endure for a while.”
Amber finally looks away from Noam.
“Do I have something on my face?” Noam whispers to Charlie and Peter; her fingers probe her nose and lips.
Charlie shakes her head, and Peter scrutinizes her before shaking his head, too.
“Then why was she staring at me?” Noam mumbles, more to herself than to her friends, but Charlie shrugs.
“Maybe she thinks you’re beautiful, too,” she whispers.
Noam scoffs and rolls her eyes, then turns her attention to her easel and the model, who is now lying on her side facing Noam, one hand holding her head up and one leg folded at the knee.
Yeah, no way that… that, that goddess thinks Noam is interesting. Maybe the pattern of freckles on her face interests her.
Noam takes a deep breath and tries to push all these thoughts of attraction and whatnots from her mind, these treacherous thoughts that she doesn’t know how to handle, and focus on realizing an accurate portrait of the pose Amber has chosen—.
The first forty-five minutes are fulfilling. Noam manages to draw a rough outline that brings a reversed Grande Odalisque to mind—without the additional vertebra and shortened leg Ingres gave his woman—and she looks up in surprise when Charlie touches her shoulder.
“You want to come out for the break?”
Noam shakes her head. “No, I’m good—have fun.”
Most of the students want to use their ten-minute break to soak in some sun. As the room empties, Noam pulls out her “private” sketchbook, the one she uses to rework the various sketches she makes on the run.
“Hey.”
Noam looks up and finds herself face to chest, so to speak, with Amber, who has wrapped a black and white robe around her body.
“H-hi.” Noam tries to look up. She feels like a pervert; her eyes keep going to Amber’s chest.
“Can I look?” Amber asks, and Noam has to hold back a sigh at the velvety quality of her voice.
“Oh, sure,” she replies, after maybe a moment too long. “I mean, it’s just a preparatory sketch, you know, nothing fancy; it’s not good, really. Actually, you don’t want to see this—oh, you’re already looking, good,” she rambles, inwardly smacking her own forehead.
Amber leans forward; her eyes follow the lines on Noam’s paper until they find her little doodle with the measurements in the corner. She points at it, and a colorful tattoo on her wrist catches Noam’s eye.
“That is really smart of you.” Amber crouches so she can get closer to the little sketch. “Really shows an artistic mind.”
“I thought artists were supposed to trust their guts and not overthink,” Noam replies, twirling her pencil between her fingers.
Amber gives a very unladylike snort. “Impulsive artists don’t last long,” she says, cocking an eyebrow at Noam. Her gaze is intense and tugs at Noam’s heartstrings.
The moment stretches between them, but this time around Noam isn’t embarrassed; she is captivated, in the most literal sense of the word, as if Amber’s eyes are chains she is voluntarily attaching to herself.
Is this what it is to like someone? Is this what makes so many people act so strangely? Is this the beginning of… attraction?
“You… um, you seem to know a lot about artists,” she stammers.
Amber hums in agreement. “Well, I am a freshman at Parsons,” Amber replies. “Not bragging, of course.”
“Why would it be bragging?” Noam exclaims. “Parsons! That’s—that’s the dream! Congratulations!”
A light blush appears on Amber’s collarbone and creeps up her neck as she beams—literally, it looks as if her face lights up—at Noam. “It’s nothing, really.”
“Not nothing—Parsons!” Noam cuts her off. Noam’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry, that was so rude.”
Amber giggles. “It’s all right, don’t worry—you’re passionate, it’s… it’s endearing,” she replies, batting her eyelashes slowly.
Just as Noam wonders what she could possibly say in reply, the students begin to return, guided by their teacher. Amber straightens up and moves back to the podium, after brushing her fingers on Noam’s shoulder.
“Had fun?” Charlie asks as she sits down.
“I think so, yeah,” Noam replies, dazed.
“At your drawings, people,” Mr. Siski instructs.
Amber gets back into the pose; her eyes never leave Noam.
The whole family is sitting at the dinner table that evening, enjoying the cannelloni Alan made—“From scratch, just so you know”—when Dana pokes Noam.
“You’re awfully quiet, little duck,” she says softly, using a childhood nickname in a rare moment of tenderness. “Not jabbering about your art class and other nonsense as usual,” she adds with a snicker, and the moment is gone.
“Dana,” Alan says, his voice low in warning. Dana rolls her eyes and pokes at the cannelloni on her plate. “Though she could have phrased that differently, your sister’s right.” He turns to look at Noam. “You’re awfully quiet tonight—is something wrong?”
Noam blushes and looks down, hiding behind her glass of apple juice. “Nothing’s wrong. I just—have a lot on my mind.”
Myriam pushes her plate away to put her hand on Noam’s arm. “Do you want to talk about it, Nomchka?”
Noam shakes her head. “No, not really.”
“Shocker,” Dana mumbles, just loud enough to be heard. Noam spends the rest of the meal avoiding her sister’s gaze.
Noam should have known that her parents wouldn’t let it go so easily. Later that evening, just as she closes her laptop to get back to her sketches, a knock gets her attention.
“May I come in?” her mother’s voice calls from outside the closed door. Noam sighs, but opens the door nonetheless.
“Mom, I really don’t want to talk about it,” she says, sitting at her desk while Myriam sits on the bed. “And not because I don’t trust you, but because I need to make sense of… of what is on my mind first.”
“Maybe saying it out loud would help,” Myriam says softly. She takes off her glasses and cleans the lenses.
Noam makes a noise that conveys her doubts, but she puts down the sketchbook and sits on her feet.
“I… may, just maybe,” she starts, looking for the right words, “have feelings for the model we have in class.”
Her mother nods, clearly waiting for more. When Noam stays silent, she scooches closer to her daughter. “Is he older than you?”
“Yes,” Noam replies, biting her lip as the white lie settles.
“Would it be problematic to date him? Because unless he’s much older than you or has a swastika tattooed on his forehead—”
“She just has a little rainbow flag tattooed on her wrist, Mom,” Noam says all in one breath and waits for her mother’s reaction.
While her mother processes what Noam just said, Noam realizes that she just came out to her mother. They have never talked about homosexuality, and if Myriam and Alan have an opinion on it, they have never mentioned it in front of their daughters. What if Myriam is homophobic? What if her mother hates her now? God, what if her parents kick her out? What if…?
“And you want to date her?”
What?
“What?” Noam looks at her mother and lets her jaw fall open.
“Well, if you’re attracted to her, honey, you should ask her out, get a coffee or go see a movie—do you need a little extra weekly allowance?”
“Mommy,” Noam cries with a dry throat and jumps from her chair into her mother’s open arms.
“There, there, sweetheart,” her mother whispers as she pets Noam’s hair and scratches her scalp in the way she knows Noam loves. “The heart wants what the heart wants. I just want you to be happy, okay?” Her mother gently pushes Noam away to look at her and wipes a stray tear from her cheek.
They cuddle for a little while longer. Noam clears her throat. “Mom?”
“Yes, bubbeleh?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“And I’ll come to you if I have more questions about love.”
“As you should.” Myriam kisses the top of Noam’s head, then stands up and checks her watch. “Lights out in forty minutes, baby.”
Noam sighs and smiles at Myriam as she leaves the room. “Fine.”
She returns to sit at her desk, but she leaves the sketchbook where it sits. She feels lighter all of a sudden.
The door opening doesn’t surprise her, since she assumes it’s her mother coming back to add something, but she smiles when she sees that it’s actually her sister.
“Hey, Dana, what’s u—” she starts, but her sister’s glare silences her.
“So you’re a dyke now? Is that the latest trend?”
The use of the slur is a punch to the gut. Noam is not only speechless, but also breathless.
“I—did you listen to my talk with Mom?” she finally replies, enraged at the attack on her privacy.
“The walls are not that thick,” Dana sneers. “So?”
“Maybe, I don’t know, but even so it’s none of your business,” Noam says, turning her back on Dana to keep her sister from seeing her eyes fill up with tears.
“I wouldn’t wave a rainbow flag just yet,” Dana replies between gritted teeth. “I’m sure it’s just a phase you’ll put behind you when you meet the right guy.” She slams the door closed.
Noam closes her fists over her eyes, takes a deep breath and tries to keep her tears at bay. It’s too late, though, and the familiar sensation of her nerves lighting up like a bolt of electricity right under her skin slowly spreads through her body.
As tears of anger spill from her eyes, Noam starts scratching the electricity away. Not for the first time, Noam wishes that her sister didn’t act as if her purpose in life is to make Noam’s life miserable.
* * *
“That bitch,” Charlie growls the next morning during their break, when Noam has a chance to explain how Dana has upset her. From her chair, she pulls Noam into a tight hug. “But hurrah for your mom—can I be your mom when I grow up?”
Noam laughs and wipes at the infuriating tears that persist in rolling down her cheeks.
Peter, bless his soul, remains silent and simply offers her an old-fashioned handkerchief and a soft smile.
“What’s going on?”
The three look up at their teacher. Mr. Siski’s concern is apparent. He puts down his travel mug and sits at Noam’s side. “Noam, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, sir,” she replies and blows her nose one last time. “My sister is being… mean,” she adds, not willing to insult her sister with a stronger word.
“More like being an ass,” Charlie mumbles, before Noam can plant an elbow in her ribs.
“All right,” Mr. Siski says softly, patting her knee. “My office is always open if you want to talk about it or if I need to talk with your parents about it, okay?”
“Thank you, Mr. Siski,” Noam replies. Then she sees Amber approaching and gasps. “Shit, how bad do I look? On a scale from manga cries to Claire Danes cries?” she asks her friends, and Charlie stands up and cocks her head.
“Somewhere around Alice crying in Wonderland?” she offers. She clears her throat and turns to Peter. “Say, I think I need a boost of caffeine—we should get some hot drinks. See you later, Nomnom!” She grabs Peter’s hand and practically runs away, waving at Amber as they pass her.
“You all right?” Amber asks, and Noam wants to say that yes, everything is wonderful, but her heart has just decided to set the beat for a rumba and butterflies have apparently grown in her stomach, so all she can do is nod and point at Amber’s braids.
“That’s cute,” she replies, and Amber fidgets, playing with the end of one of her skillfully tied Bohemian side braids.
The gesture looks simultaneously vulnerable and coy, and Noam’s lips stretch into a smile against the weight of her heavy mind.
“I think Charlie’s suggestion had some merit,” Noam rushes to say, willing herself to speak before she can overthink. She stands and straightens her dress. “May I… may I offer you a cup of coffee?” she asks. Her heart beats even faster as she takes the leap of faith.
“Oh—I… I don’t drink coffee,” Amber replies, and Noam is already berating herself, silently praying for the ground to swallow her now, please—or a giant eagle kidnapping her would work—when Amber touches her shoulder. “But I’d love a hot chocolate?”
Noam blinks at her and leans into her touch without realizing it. “Really?” she murmurs and smiles at Amber.
“Without a doubt—I definitely want a hot chocolate,” Amber replies with a teasing smile, and her hand moves from Noam’s shoulder to her hand.
Noam doesn’t know if she’s lesbian, if she’s bi, or if she’s just Amber-sexual, but she keeps her mother’s wisdom at the forefront of her mind. The heart wants what the heart wants, and right now, her heart wants to keep her hands in this girl’s. And after that?
After that, she has new poses to draw.
Noam sighs loudly, as she puts her pen behind her ear and looks away from the easel. This gets Mr. Siski’s attention.
“Everything all right, Noam?” he asks, his voice soft.
Noam takes a deep breath and presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. “I just… I can’t find the right way to get this pose,” she admits, wincing at the way her voice breaks at the end of her sentence.
It’s not that she’s ashamed to admit failure—okay, maybe it is—she’s more embarrassed by what is actually throwing her off of the “mojo” she has been building since the class started.
When she worked on Gordon’s poses, she would get flustered, sure, but she was still able to find a way to objectify him, translate him into shapes and lines that made sense on paper.
With Amber, this proves to be a lot more complicated. She can’t seem to get over the rumba of her heart and the sweat of her palms.
Each look she gives to analyze Amber’s body is a second-best option to reaching to touch. Each pass of the graphite on her sheet should be a caress from Noam’s fingers on Amber’s soft skin.
Mr. Siski’s silence stretches for what seems like a century. His bushy eyebrows are drawn together as he looks at the large drawing of Amber’s back, at her lifted arms. “I don’t see any problem,” he says. “Sure, it doesn’t have that sense of proportion your drawings showed earlier this week, but it is more vibrant, more um—oh,” Siski cuts himself short, his eyes darting from the easel to Amber, who is giving them a pointed look over her shoulder, and back at Noam, who is suddenly very interested in the imprint of her teeth on her pencil. “All right,” he says, perhaps a bit louder than he had intended; he clears his throat and lowers his voice. “Maybe you need to change your angle. Go sit on the side; work on the profile.”
“You think it will help?” Noam asks, as she gathers her pens and erasers.
“I think you need to change your perspective,” he replies with a gentle smile.
Noam nods an apology to the students she’s interrupting and takes a seat. She settles down and arranges her materials.
From Noam’s new point of view, Amber appears very different: Somehow, her profile is less expressive than her back, and, though Noam can’t explain why, she now can stop waxing philosophical about the many ways a human body and face can awake emotions. Noam sends a thankful look in Mr. Siski’s direction and starts tracing the rough shape of Amber’s profile.
The lines are basic at first, but now, Noam can focus on theories of anatomy: the oval of the face, a polygon for the torso, the two triangles of the legs. She can add circles for the breasts later; they don’t play a part in her understanding of the pose itself.
From this side, without the sass of Amber’s back, she can concentrate and find the geometry in the body, just as she did with Gordon.
A wave of relief goes through her and she sighs and smiles, tucks one pen behind her ear and picks another, thicker one to start building the actual shapes.
* * *
The class is empty save for the two of them. Amber stands on the platform as usual, but Noam is not sitting at her easel at a safe distance from Amber’s body.
Instead she stands with her toes against the edge of the platform, clad only in the old, soft denim shirt she usually wears to bed.
Her hands are on Amber’s hips, tracing random patterns that make Amber twitch against her, but Amber remains standing, her fingers buried in Noam’s unruly locks, tangling them a bit more as she pulls and presses. Her caresses feel divine.
Noam slowly pulls Amber toward her and brushes her nose against Amber’s soft belly, then tilts her head to brush her forehead against Amber’s breasts as she moves her hands on the small of Amber’s back.
Noam wakes up with a start, shocked but somehow still not surprised to find her shorts wet and sticky. This has never happened to her before.
When she arrives at school, it is to an almost empty classroom—just Amber, wearing only a sports bra and tiny shorts, talking with Mr. Siski. Her eyes find Noam’s before Noam can look away; and she smiles so brightly at Noam that, for a moment, Noam is convinced that Amber can read her mind.
Noam sits next to Charlie, who is doodling a ribbon on the side of her paper. Avoiding eye contact with Amber, Noam adds her own shapes and shades to the ribbon. By the time the other students have settled down, the ribbon has become the tail of a fantastic creature, half dragon and half phoenix; flames from its head and tail frame the paper completely.
Mr. Siski calls for attention, and Noam rolls her stool to her own easel.
“All right, class,” Mr. Siski says, “today we’re going to work on something that will be helpful for those of you who intend to study art in the future.”
The students are on the edges of their seats when Mr. Siski continues. “Drapery studies on models—today we work with Amber, tomorrow Gordon will be back and the day after tomorrow, we’ll welcome a new model.”
Amber comes out from behind the folded screen with a wide smile, making a show of turning on her heels on the platform before sitting down. Her body is covered in different fabrics: a stretch of heavily embroidered red silk around her breasts, tied at her back with long fringes; and an off-white sheet draped around her hips in such a way that her legs play with its length to create shadows and shapes. The drapery provides many sketching possibilities.
Mr. Siski gives his instructions. They are to start with a series of short poses, and are expected to focus on details and leave the whole for later.
Noam is preoccupied, in an almost trancelike state. Her body is warm, as if a long-forgotten volcano has suddenly decided to awaken and its lava is now pooling low in her guts.
Every time Amber changes her pose—which is every two and a half minutes—Noam swears she can hear the blood rush from her brain to her breasts and between her legs.
If this is what it’s like to have one’s hormones agitated, all because of one person, she is almost glad that she has never experienced it before—it is far too distracting. Then again, she’s almost eager to go through this—this trial by fire, now; it is beginning to allow her to reach a new level in her art. Now, she’s not just drawing what she sees: When she manages to harness her emotions, Noam draws what she feels.
It’s not just the way the silk stretches, shimmers and flows down Amber’s back that Noam translates onto the paper: it’s the sensation of Amber’s back under Noam’s hand when they hug. It’s not just the folds draping over Amber’s knee and pooling on the floor that Noam brings to life; with quick strokes of her pencil and red chalks, she draws the butterflies which that same knee—brushing against her leg when they watched a movie together—awakened in her belly.
That’s when it hits her: the vision of the roundness of the knee peeking out from under the beige sheet—on her pad, drawn by none other than herself—makes her feel warmth all over, just like the actual knee.
During the break, Noam gently touches the drawings she has made, the different body parts that make Amber. Her fingertips are almost reverent, as hesitant against the paper as they were when she made herself brave enough to reach for Amber’s cheek in the moment before she leaned into their first kiss.
Noam picked this particular movie for their second date because she has grown up with it and Amber mentioned never having seen it, which is a great mistake, but one that could easily be corrected. Noam knows it by heart, and soon enough, comfortably seated on her bed with Amber next to her, Noam started singing along under her breath. Her fingers brushed Amber’s every now and then.
From the corner of her eye, Noam saw that Amber was not giving the movie her full attention. Instead she turned her head at random times to look at Noam with a fond smile on her lips.
During one of the less important scenes, Noam turned to look at Amber, and there it was, the butterfly swarm that had grown in her body since they met. For the life of her, Noam couldn’t look away from the dual curves of Amber’s mouth and the little strand of hair that had escaped the tight bun she coiled her hair into after class.
Trying to control the shaking of her fingers, Noam reached to move the lock from Amber’s face. The tip of her thumb brushed the soft angle of Amber’s cheekbone. Amber tilted her head ever so slightly, leaning into the touch with her eyes wide open and locked on Noam’s mouth, making a happy, throaty noise that spurred Noam forward.
It was simultaneously the easiest and the hardest thing in the world to lean closer and brush her lips against Amber’s—they’re soft, and still carried the taste of the apple gum she had chewed earlier.
Noam had made that first step, but it was Amber who deepened the kiss and sent the butterflies soaring. . .
“Wow, dude, you are seriously hooked.”
Noam looks away from the drawing on her easel; her fingers linger over the roundness of Amber’s drawn knee. Charlie is looking at her with a mischievous smile; her chin is cupped in her hand.
“Uh?”
“I would ask you if you want me to leave the two of you alone,” Charlie continues, sing-song elongating the last vowel as she gestures between Noam and her drawing, “but I don’t want to make you, you know, uncomfortable or something.”
Noam slides her fingers away from the drawing and gives Charlie a look to convey how little convinced she is by her best friend’s “attempt” to keep things from awkwardness.
“But no joke, Nom,” Charlie continues, undeterred by Noam’s look, “are you two getting, you know… serious?”
“What about you two?” Noam nods toward the other side of the room, where Peter is helping Mr. Siski hang crystal garlands from the ceiling.
Charlie’s eyes follow Noam’s nod, and her whole face goes softer; her dimples show. Noam’s feels as if her heart is bursting with happiness, to see this much contentment on her best friend’s face.
But then Charlie sighs heavily, looking back at Noam. “I’m not sure,” she says softly, fiddling with an eraser that she rolls into a ball only to smash it and stretch it again.
Noam reaches for Charlie’s knee. “Is something wrong? Is he—is he pressuring you or something?”
Charlie laughs. The sound is brief and bark-like. “If anything, I’m the one pressuring him.”
The lilt of her voice at the end of her admittedly shocking sentence makes it sound like a question; Charlie rolls her stool closer to keep the discussion private. “I… seem to have found myself a hyper-romantic, asexual boyfriend.”
Noam’s eyes widen and she pats Charlie’s leg.
“And as weird as it may sound, I’m fine with it!” Charlie says, blowing her cheeks and letting out a loud puff of air, in annoyance at herself, if Noam knows her as well as she thinks she does. “That’s what’s bothering me!”
Noam frowns at her. “It bothers you to be happy and fulfilled by a relationship with no… physical interaction?”
“Oh, we kiss, and we cuddle—we’re cuddle monsters. But basically, yes.”
Noam raises her eyebrows at Charlie, and Charlie rolls her eyes. “Oh, shut up,” she says, tension slowly leaving her body. “I know I sound cuckoo.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your eyebrows said plenty, jerk,” Charlie says, but her smile softens the insult into comfortable, familiar banter. “And don’t think I didn’t see what you did there, missy,” she adds as the other students come into the room. “Or that I’m letting you off the hook.”
The next pose, longer, definitely confirms Noam’s knowledge that what she has in her heart for Amber goes beyond a mere attraction.
The silk scarf and the sheet are gone, replaced by what can only be described as a steampunk ballerina outfit. A metallic-looking corset is laced around Amber’s torso, enhancing her small waist and the curve of her hips; coppery ribbons crisscross at her sides. A dark tutu covers her hips and buttocks, but it only serves to make her lace-covered legs look endless.
Using the middle bar of her high stool, Amber finds a comfortable pose that she can hold for an hour as Mr. Siski explains the nature of the exercise. Amber rests her black ballet shoe on the bar and folds her arms over her lap in first position, or “bras bas,” if Noam remembers the few ballet lessons she attended with Dana years ago.
Thinking about her sister is not comfortable, and Noam’s heart hurts as if it has been squeezed. Ever since the “confrontation,” the air around the two has been loaded with electricity and animosity: everything turns into a pretext for Dana to verbally attack Noam, and Noam has decided to act as if she doesn’t hear, doesn’t see Dana. For Noam, it’s the mature thing to do, but obviously her sister doesn’t share the feeling. Noam would give almost anything to clear the air, get rid of the tension in the house and erase that deepening line of worry on her father’s forehead. But she will not be the one to make apologies. Not this time.
Noam gets her lightest pencil to sketch the general shape of Amber’s pose, figure and shades. Then she looks up to start developing the details.
Her eyes meet Amber’s and she barely represses a giggle when Amber winks. A sobering thought crosses her mind.
I could draw her my whole life and not get bored.
Noam traces the lines of shiny embroidery on the corset and the reflections of the lights on the ribbons. The installation of crystals Mr. Siski and Peter put on the ceiling makes sense now, the fractal shimmer adding an almost supernatural ambiance to the pose, and some of the other students are already using pastels and colored crayons to capture it.
As far as Noam is concerned, it’s too soon to think about backgrounds and lighting effects. For now, she observes the way her pen traces the round knot of Amber’s shoulder. Letting her fingers work the lines on muscle memory, her brain goes to the early lessons, and beyond that, to the way she used to draw, the way she used to handle her pen. Oh, she’s still a long way from Charlie’s confidence or Peter’s boundless energy, but Noam is more than what she is not, and now she can see it; she only has to let it show.