by Parker, Ali
Briar and I spent the first couple hours of the day working together. We shuffled some inventory around in between bursts of guests coming into the gallery. It was unusual to have much foot traffic on a Monday but today proved to be an exception. I even managed to make two sales before Mr. Ronfield and his wife arrived for their appointment at one in the afternoon.
Briar greeted them with warmth and two glasses of chilled lemon water. Morianna accepted gratefully, claiming it would help with her bloating, and Briar simply smiled, put a hand on her shoulder, and told her to relax in the studio.
“All the models who go in nervous leave feeling rejuvenated and beautiful,” Briar told her. “I know it’s really uncomfortable at first, but trust me, it will be worth every minute of discomfort when you see the finished product.”
Briar’s words reassured her, and Morianna and her husband followed me into the studio, where I gave them a brief tour before inviting Morianna to choose which painting she wanted to start with.
Her husband had no intention of only having one piece done. He wanted three portraits of Morianna to hang on the accent wall behind their bed in their New York City mansion. The man was made of money and I could only imagine what their home looked like on the inside. If this job went well, chances were high I’d be invited to the occasional soiree at their estate.
I liked the idea of arriving with Nora on my arm. We’d indulge in the fancy food, expensive champagne, and surface-level conversations with the city’s socialites before getting back into the car and making fun of the whole lavish affair the entire drive home.
Or we’d find ourselves pleasantly surprised. The Ronfields might be extravagant people, but they were also good, steady, and respectable.
Morianna fidgeted with the rings on her fingers as I explained the three poses we would do. One, the largest portrait, would be of her standing tall and proud. The two on either side would be of her sitting so I could capture the right and left profile. Her legs would be stretched out in front of her so her body formed an L shape.
She fretted.
Her husband took her hands in his. “You have nothing to be worried about, darling. Mr. Vice has painted countless women in this very studio. He has an artist’s eye. He sees beauty in all things. And you, my love, are the epitome of beauty. Let him work.”
His words were soft and full of affection.
Had I not been falling in love with a girl, I might have thought it was lame. But I was falling, so his words didn’t feel lame. The support he offered her was inspiring.
Morianna nodded nervously. “I’ll stand.”
I grinned. “Excellent. I always like to start with the one that makes the loudest statement. Trust me. After our session today, I’ll show you the progress I’ve made and you’ll be looking forward to our next session.”
“I hope you’re right,” Morianna muttered.
I led her to the changing room near the studio bathroom, where a freshly washed and pressed white hotel-style robe hung on the back of the door. I invited her to undress and put the robe on. It was much less vulnerable for a woman to remove a robe in front of me than to remove all her clothes.
While her husband and I waited for her return, I indulged him in a tour of the studio. Mr. Ronfield pointed out techniques he liked, most of which related to texture and use of foils and metallics. That was a good sign because I intended to use both on Morianna’s pieces.
Mr. Ronfield stopped in front of the incomplete portrait of Nora.
He slid his hands into the pockets of his gray trousers and cocked his head to the side. “Who is she?”
“My most recent muse.”
“She’s a real woman?”
“All of my work is of real women,” I confirmed. “This woman, I know personally. She’s special to me.”
“It shows,” Mr. Ronfield said.
“Thank you.”
“How much?”
“Pardon?”
Mr. Ronfield turned from the painting of Nora with an expectant look on his face. “How much?”
“Oh.” I hadn’t expected him to take interest in anything in my studio. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have walked him through. He was here for a special order, not to shop. “It’s not for sale.”
“Everything is for sale for the right price. Name it.”
“While I agree, this piece is not for sale. It’s a gift. No amount of money could make me part with it.”
Mr. Ronfield stroked his chin. “That’s a shame. I’d have taken it off your hands for whatever number you gave me. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You should see the real thing,” I told him.
He shared a knowing smile with me. “You are a lucky man.”
Before I had a moment to reply, Morianna returned from the changing room all wrapped up in the white robe. She walked with more confidence than she had when she first arrived in her sleek ensemble and high heels, and she moved into the middle of the studio to stand before me as I set up her canvas.
Her husband approached her, put a hand on her waist, and whispered something in her ear that made her smile as I went about preparing my paints and brushes. She giggled softly and I glanced up as he nudged the shoulder of her robe down.
That was the kind of love I wanted.
And I truly believed it was the kind of love I was growing with Nora.
Chapter 31
Nora
Time stood still as I sat at the dining-room table with my laptop open waiting for the clock to roll over to four o’clock. Precisely at that time, I’d been told to expect a video call from Helen Dolly from Words from Abroad, the travel website I’d sent my article to. To say I was nervous to speak with Helen was a gross understatement.
I’d been gnawing at my nails for the past two hours anxiously anticipating this call. Not only that, but I’d chewed the inside of my cheeks raw, picked at my lips until they were so red in spots I had to apply some of Grace’s tinted lip moisturizer to cover the damage, and made my jeans damp from running my sweaty hands over my thighs a thousand times.
One more minute to go.
I took a slow, deep, controlled breath. I held it at the end to four counts.
Exhale.
The air came out of me and I repeated the process two more times. By the end of the breathing exercise, I felt a little calmer. More still somehow. It was a welcome reprieve to the nervous sweating.
Thirty more seconds.
I drummed my fingers on the table and tapped my foot on the bar of my chair.
Walker had told me I had nothing to be worried about, that I was a shoo-in for this job and if the interviewer couldn’t see that it meant there was something bigger and better waiting around the corner for me. Naturally, I wanted to believe that, but I had a hard time believing I’d be the girl they would want to hire out of what I was sure was a healthy batch of eager writers with far more experience and skill than I had.
When I expressed this to Walker, he’d stuck his nose in the air and scoffed at me. He called me a pessimist for the second time. I gently reminded him I was a realist. He’d shaken his head and told me that I was mistaken. He said I needed to go into this interview confident because the value I brought was my experience out of the country.
That was my asset.
That was my golden ticket.
I just had to hope other candidates weren’t as well traveled as me, and if they were, they hopefully wouldn’t be as good with words as I was.
The piece I’d submitted had been ripe with my own personal voice. There was sarcasm layered in the prose. Beautiful descriptions were contrasted with the occasional dose of crass language. In my opinion, it made for a more balanced piece. Perhaps Words from Abroad agreed.
Either that or they were just downright curious about the foul-mouthed young New Yorker who fancied herself a writer with literally no qualifications and a confused resume.
Five more seconds.
This is it. You can do this.
I wa
tched the time until it rolled over. Four o’clock.
It took another ten seconds for the call to come in. The anxious sweats returned in full force but I didn’t let anything make me hesitate. Now was the time to slap on a brave face and pretend to know what the fuck I was doing even though I felt more out of my element than I had that first day I set foot in London.
Helen appeared on the screen.
She wore glasses with thick black frames and little rhinestones in the outer corners. Shimmery chains dangled down the sides of her neck, which were attached to the arms of her glasses. She had a dramatic flair. I would give her that. Her eye shadow was purple and brilliant behind her glasses. Her lashes were lined in thick black winged liner, her lashes either extremely long or potentially fake. Either way, she was beautiful.
And probably around fifty years old.
Helen swelled up like an excited, brightly colored bird on my computer screen. “Ah, Nora Riley. It’s so nice to see your face after all our email conversations. How are you?”
“I’m good,” I squeaked. Clearing my throat, I regained my composure. “I’m doing well, Helen. How are you? Sorry, I’m a tad nervous. Is that bad to admit right out of the gate?”
Helen had a pleasant laugh that reminded me of the way older women laughed in movies at fancy weddings. “Not bad at all, my dear. I appreciate honesty and you are seriously honest. Your writing suggested as much. I’m glad to see the woman behind the words is as raw as her article.”
Was that a compliment? “Thank you,” I said.
Helen nodded graciously. I’d read the room—or rather, computer screen—well. “You’re much younger than I expected you to be. Most of our writers who’ve done year-long trips like you have are closer to their mid-thirties and up.”
“I’m twenty-eight,” I told her. My inner critic rolled her eyes. She hadn’t asked me how old I was. She’d merely implied she was surprised by how young I was.
Helen clasped her hands together and rested her chin on them. She wore many rings on her fingers in all types of metals. Gold, silver, copper, rose gold. It was all there. There were several types of stones and crystals, too. The video was a bit grainy but I was pretty sure there was a sapphire and an opal on those elegant hands of hers. Her nails were long, sharp on the ends, and glossy black.
She had style. She had edge. She was the sort of woman who commanded attention when she walked in a room.
Helen was intimidating.
“So, Nora,” Helen said, looking down at something in front of her. I assumed it was a notebook or a reference guide of some sort for conducting interviews. “Let’s hop right into it, shall we? No need to dilly-dally and waste either of our afternoons. I’m sure you have things you’d rather be doing than talking to little old me.”
“Quite the contrary,” I said.
The only thing I’d rather be doing was Walker, but he’d told me there was plenty of time for that after my interview.
I intended to hold him to it.
Helen smiled graciously. “What was it that first inspired your urge to travel? Your application mentioned you’ve only left the United States one time, and that was for the solo trip you just returned from a couple of weeks ago. Is this correct?”
I nodded. “It is. I… I never really had much of an urge to travel when I was growing up. I was your typical teenage girl who dreamed about going to all-inclusive resorts in Mexico or the Caribbean with girlfriends when we turned legal age. I envisioned going to parties in the city and drinking those horrendous-looking margaritas out of those huge glasses with the beer dumped in them upside down. Have you ever seen those things?”
“I’m afraid I’ve seen, tasted, and suffered the consequences of them.” Helen laughed.
I laughed, too. Maybe she wasn’t as scary as I initially thought. If she could drink one of those things, she definitely had some stories of her own to share.
“Well,” I continued, “after high school, my focus still never went to traveling. Instead, my parents put me in dental school. I didn’t have a say in the matter. It was the family business, you see. I hated every second of it. I tried to force myself to fall in love with it the way my mother and father had because I wanted to like it for them so badly but I couldn’t get there. They disapproved of my terrible grades and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t a natural. They kept insisting it was in my blood. But the only thing in my blood was fear that I was going to make a terrible mistake if I didn’t shake my life up and do something drastic. So, I booked a one-way flight to London, and forty-eight hours later, I was on an airplane.”
Helen beamed at me. “Marvelous. Just marvelous.”
“It didn’t feel so marvelous at the time. I was scared and overwhelmed. I had no idea what I was doing or how far my money would last me, but as the days turned to weeks, I figured my shit out. Sorry, figured my stuff out.”
Helen waved a dismissive hand. “Drop as many swear words as you like, darling. If things work out for you and you work for us, you’ll be among writers and editors. We curse like pirates. Drink like them, too.”
I giggled. “Right.”
“So, London was the first place you saw?”
“Yes. I remember standing in front of Westminster Abbey for the first time feeling so small and so out of my depth. At first it frightened me. I’d never seen architecture like that. I’d never imagined what sort of history had happened in the very spot I stood hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. But that moment made me question all those things. From that day on, I had to see everything I could. I had to experience everything I could. I never turned down an opportunity no matter how reckless it seemed.”
“Give me some examples,” Helen said.
I paused to consider my answer for a moment. “Okay, well, I never booked a hotel room for the entire course of that year I was traveling. I traveled with my single backpack and booked day of at hostels. Mostly shared rooms. I met people from all over the world in those hostels. Some had connections to locals that gave me a glimpse of life in that country unlike anything an ordinary tourist could experience. I stayed at a farm in Italy and drank wine nobody else has ever tasted but their friends and family. I crushed grapes on that farm actually. And got more drunk than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Helen chuckled and invited me to keep going with a polite nod.
I pursed my lips.
“Yes?” Helen asked, leaning toward her camera so that her face seemed top heavy.
“Well, I’m wondering if I should share. It’s kind of illegal.”
“Tell me where, not how.”
“Deal,” I said, sitting up a little straighter. “I let a local sneak me into the Colosseum in Rome one night. We had the whole place to ourselves. Unlimited access to the underground where the gladiators were held, as well as lions and other animals like wolves, tigers, and even elephants. I’ve never seen anything more incredible in my life. I’ve also never done anything so illegal in my life.”
“It would make a spectacular article.”
“Or it would bar me from ever going back to Italy,” I said.
Helen laughed and dismissed my comment with a wave of her hand. The bangles on her wrists jingled. “Nonsense, my dear. If you write for us, you would have special access to such places all over the world. We even have a partnership with National Geographic.”
My eyes nearly popped out of my skull. “Are you serious?”
I hoped she didn’t think I sounded unprepared for this interview. That was perhaps something I should have known before accepting this call.
“Oh yes. Antarctica, Peru, Italy, Turkey, Istanbul. We have locations all around the world where our writers have private access to historic sites that have been closed to the public for a long time now. Is that something that appeals to you?”
I was sure my eyes were still two times their normal size. “Definitely. My year away only made my travel bug ten times stronger. All I want to do is make enough money so I can pack up and lea
ve again and continue exploring.”
“That’s good news. This writing position might make it possible for you to do just that and skip the part where you have to save up.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Helen smiled. “I like you, Nora. You have something unique. Something in-person that you somehow manage to put on the page as well. You’re relatable. Readers and travelers will take quickly to you. I’m sure of it.”
She was talking like I already had the job.
My heart started racing.
“The starting salary isn’t noteworthy,” Helen said, “but it would be enough for you to pay for a comfortable lifestyle while you lived abroad.”
Lived abroad? Was this real life?
“How does forty thousand per year sound? Before taxes, of course,” Helen added.
Forty grand? Before taxes?
I couldn’t find any words, so all that came out of me was a hitching, stalling, stuttering sound.
Helen smiled broadly. “You’re humble, too. I like that. A lot of writers we come across assume they have the job in the bag as soon as we lay eyes on them. You? You underestimate yourself. You’re still fresh. There’s a lot you can learn and Words from Abroad is a good teacher. We encourage development. We offer critiques and feedback geared to improve your writing. We’re dedicated to equipping you to flourish, not stay stagnant. What do you say, Nora? Are you interested in the job?”
“Are… are you offering me the job?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Yes,” I gushed. “Yes, I’m interested. Of course I’m interested!”
Helen clapped four times in rapid succession. “I’m so pleased to hear it. Let me cross my T’s and dot my I’s over here. There is some paperwork I need to fill out. Expect an email from me before noon tomorrow with all the details about the job. You’ll want to familiarize yourself with our formatting requirements and submission guidelines. We require a piece every two weeks. Is that doable for you?”