To earn pocket money, Matthew began posing for the advanced art classes. He was a freshman at the time. During Winter break, there was a three-week intensive advanced life drawing workshop. He was offered a flat fee – more than he usually made in a semester - for posing au natural. Of course he took the gig. Easy money. What he didn’t count on was the grad student leading the workshop, Genevieve.
He played David Crosby on repeat. Replacing the title name Guinnevere with Genevieve – who did indeed have golden hair. Eyes like stormy seas. Seas a man could get lost in. He had to stop thinking about her when he was reposed on the small stage in the center of the class. He did algebraic equations in his head and recited Monte Python under his breath, careful not to move his lips. Anything to not think of Genevieve whose quiet musical voice encouraged the students to employ a shadow here or perhaps a focus there.
On the last day of the workshop, after he’d finished dressing behind the screen in the back of the room, Genevieve was waiting for him. She handed him a scrolled drawing. Reached up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, squeezed his shoulder and thanked him for the modeling. He was too stunned to reply more than a mumbled thanks. He accepted the drawing, was dazed by the kiss – even though just on the cheek – and walked back to his dorm to the David Crosby singing in his head. The scroll went on the top shelf of his closet, unopened.
When he moved home for the summer, the scroll, still unopened, wound up in his mom’s attic and was forgotten before he returned to campus in the fall. His sophomore year he had a full schedule and worked on the side as a reader for a blind student – a job that paid considerably more than modeling. During their junior year, Matthew and Rick, the blind student, shared an apartment with Rick’s guide dog, Misty. Because of the dog, they got to live in the grad student housing. Matthew briefly fantasized about running into Genevieve and thought about the drawing she’d bequeathed him, that he’d never looked at. He’d always seen her through the filters of popular song, poetic terms of art. He wondered how she’d seen him.
Thoughts of Genevieve were soon relegated to the category of the fantasies of the young. Matthew had only dated a couple women, causally, with minimum drama breakups, when Rick introduced him to Stacey, someone Rick knew from one of the various campus activity groups Matthew could never keep straight. Stacey and Matthew quickly became an item. Stacey seemed to really see Matthew. Seemed to “get” him.
They were still dating senior year. Stacey stayed over so often, she was almost a third roommate. She paid her way in food. While Matthew had become her first passion, cooking was a very close second. Matthew, Rick, and even Misty enjoyed the fruits of her labors. Near the end of the year, Matthew proposed. Stacey said yes. Rick agreed to be best man.
Having no sisters of her own, Stacy bonded Matthew’s sister Carley during the wedding planning. Carley had recently moved into a small house. She’d been rooting around her mother’s attic for things she could use in her house when she came across the scrolled drawing. She unrolled it and was a little shocked to find her brother in the buff in pencil. Quite detailed. Then she hit upon an idea. A game for the bachelorette party she’d be hosting for Stacey.
A quick trip to Staples and she had a copy of the drawing on foam core board and a box of thumb tacks. In her back garden she gathered leaves from the fig tree that was a focal point in her garden. She thought this would be a fun party game: pin the fig leaf on the groom’s naughty bits. Carley may not have had the best read on people. Could she have used a stand in nude? Perhaps. Should she maybe not have used a drawing of the actual groom – very likely. But in her mind, this was a going to be a very fun game – champagne and laughter. What could go wrong?
On the night before their wedding, Rick throws Matthew’s bachelor party at a jazz club in the market district downtown. Carley throws Stacey a bachelorette party at her house. There will be mani-pedis, there will be champagne, there will be the utter shock when Stacey sees the drawing, she did of her fiancée during the advanced drawing workshop.
— Lkai
He played David Crosby on repeat. Replacing the title name Guinnevere with Genevieve – who did indeed have golden hair. Eyes like stormy seas. Seas a man could get lost in. He had to stop thinking about her when he was reposed on the small stage in the center of the class. He did algebraic equations in his head and recited Monte Python under his breath, careful not to move his lips. Anything to not think of Genevieve whose quiet musical voice encouraged the students to employ a shadow here or perhaps a focus there.
On the last day of the workshop, after he’d finished dressing behind the screen in the back of the room, Genevieve was waiting for him. She handed him a scrolled drawing. Reached up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, squeezed his shoulder and thanked him for the modeling. He was too stunned to reply more than a mumbled thanks. He accepted the drawing, was dazed by the kiss – even though just on the cheek – and walked back to his dorm to the David Crosby singing in his head. The scroll went on the top shelf of his closet, unopened.
When he moved home for the summer, the scroll, still unopened, wound up in his mom’s attic and was forgotten before he returned to campus in the fall. His sophomore year he had a full schedule and worked on the side as a reader for a blind student – a job that paid considerably more than modeling. During their junior year, Matthew and Rick, the blind student, shared an apartment with Rick’s guide dog, Misty. Because of the dog, they got to live in the grad student housing. Matthew briefly fantasized about running into Genevieve and thought about the drawing she’d bequeathed him, that he’d never looked at. He’d always seen her through the filters of popular song, poetic terms of art. He wondered how she’d seen him.
Thoughts of Genevieve were soon relegated to the category of the fantasies of the young. Matthew had only dated a couple women, causally, with minimum drama breakups, when Rick introduced him to Stacey, someone Rick knew from one of the various campus activity groups Matthew could never keep straight. Stacey and Matthew quickly became an item. Stacey seemed to really see Matthew. Seemed to “get” him.
They were still dating senior year. Stacey stayed over so often, she was almost a third roommate. She paid her way in food. While Matthew had become her first passion, cooking was a very close second. Matthew, Rick, and even Misty enjoyed the fruits of her labors. Near the end of the year, Matthew proposed. Stacey said yes. Rick agreed to be best man.
Having no sisters of her own, Stacy bonded Matthew’s sister Carley during the wedding planning. Carley had recently moved into a small house. She’d been rooting around her mother’s attic for things she could use in her house when she came across the scrolled drawing. She unrolled it and was a little shocked to find her brother in the buff in pencil. Quite detailed. Then she hit upon an idea. A game for the bachelorette party she’d be hosting for Stacey.
A quick trip to Staples and she had a copy of the drawing on foam core board and a box of thumb tacks. In her back garden she gathered leaves from the fig tree that was a focal point in her garden. She thought this would be a fun party game: pin the fig leaf on the groom’s naughty bits. Carley may not have had the best read on people. Could she have used a stand in nude? Perhaps. Should she maybe not have used a drawing of the actual groom – very likely. But in her mind, this was a going to be a very fun game – champagne and laughter. What could go wrong?
On the night before their wedding, Rick throws Matthew’s bachelor party at a jazz club in the market district downtown. Carley throws Stacey a bachelorette party at her house. There will be mani-pedis, there will be champagne, there will be the utter shock when Stacey sees the drawing, she did of her fiancée during the advanced drawing workshop.
— Lkai
(This is "Macoff," one of the Dippers)... this is a great story! Is it entirely fiction? The details really make it seem real.
ReplyDelete"write what you know" I have found it difficult to write complete fiction - so here are the facts in this story: I knew someone who was a model for an art class in college. He received a gift of one of the drawings. I worked as a reader for the blind in college. I once had a fig tree in a back garden. Everything else - fiction. Thank you for the comment. Helps in honing my craft!
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