Shameless

by Nina Lemay

  “Huh?”

  “Emmanuel,” she says, as if to a child. “Our photography teacher.”

  “Uh, no. I don’t think so. I didn’t see him.” How can someone who pretends to want to fuck people for a living be such a lousy liar? My hands are twisting the hem of my shirt and I let it go, smooth it out, wipe my palms on my sides. “Why?”

  “I just needed to ask him something. About the lecture. There’s this thing I want to try, I just bought a new lens…” She rattles off some photography terms I’ve never heard, then gives me her smile of magenta-colored condescension. “Sorry. I’m rambling. So what are you up to?”

  “I was, uh, developing some stuff.”

  “So did it go okay this time?”

  I stare at her dumbly.

  “Well, you said you failed last time. Did it go okay?”

  I gesture at the photos drying on a line behind me. She squints and pushes her fake eyeglasses up on her nose.

  “Not bad, not bad! Congratulations, you’re off to an okay start.”

  Sweetheart, you have no idea.

  “Of course, they’re a bit overexposed,” she adds, probably so my ego doesn’t overinflate from all that praise. “But you’ll figure it out.”

  We stand a few feet apart, facing each other as awkward silence settles in.

  “Well?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “Are you going or do you still have stuff to do?”

  “I… I’m finished, I guess.”

  “Well, since Emmanuel isn’t here, I guess so am I.” She shrugs and swishes her hair over her shoulders. “Walk to the metro?”

  “Um, yeah. Sure.” I reach over to pick my bag up from the floor and take forever to fasten it over my shoulder, hoping against hope she’ll get sick of me dragging my feet and go ahead without me. But she waits patiently in the door until I join her.

  I only get to throw a curt backward glance into the lab, at the closed door—where the sign still says DO NOT ENTER.

  And just like that, I know she saw it too.

  I practically sprint the distance from the subway stop to my apartment building, and hop over three steps at a time to the second floor. I wish I had his number, so I could text him. But somehow, he tasted my vagina but it never occurred to either of us to exchange phone numbers.

  I dash to my computer, tap my foot as it takes forever to boot, and email him at the same address he uses to send out class announcements. I hope he checks it once in a while.

  Fighting the urge to uselessly refresh the page, I pace the loft, kick a bag of recycling I never got around to carrying to the bin downstairs.

  Seconds later, my computer pings. I spin around and dart over: the top message is from Emmanuel, and it’s curt.

  Call me. And below it, a number. My heart leaps and I fumble with my phone, screwing up the number three times until I get it right.

  He answers on the first ring. “Hannah.”

  “Yeah. I—back at the lab, Audrey, she—”

  “I heard. It’s fine. Stop freaking out.”

  That’s it? That’s all he has to say to me—stop freaking out. I spent the last hour worrying myself stupid. I can just feel the love.

  “She can’t have known I was in the darkroom. It could have been someone else entirely, as far as you two are concerned.”

  “But…”

  “I know,” he says somberly. “It doesn’t look good. And it was too close.”

  No kidding.

  His sigh is a ripple of static in my ear. “It’s my fault, Hannah. You were absolutely right, and I should have listened to you. It was way too risky. Two minutes earlier or later, we wouldn’t have been so lucky.”

  I say nothing, staring into space with unfocused eyes.

  “Hannah?” he prompts.

  “I was just thinking,” I say. “Is this what it takes to get your phone number? Almost getting caught by Audrey?”

  He starts to say something, but changes his mind. “Look, we’ll meet somewhere else from now on. My place, your place…”

  “This whole thing is so fucked up.”

  “I know,” he repeats. Irritation crackles in his voice, and I don’t know if he’s angry at Audrey or at me or at himself or at the whole situation. I wish desperately I could see him right now, to be able to read his cues.

  What I can’t bring myself to say—or even think without wanting to cry—is, I’m not sure if I want to continue. Not like this.

  Maybe he can tell with some kind of sixth sense. “Do you want me to come over?”

  “No.” This much is true.

  “Hannah, I’m so sorry. This was a shitty situation and I hate that you had to be put on the spot like this.”

  “Well, there’s no other alternative,” I snap. “Is there. We can’t even go for a walk or drop by an ice cream place without risking running into someone.”

  “It was just once,” he says. “You’re being paranoid. I get it, it was dumb to do that at school, but—”

  “Paranoid? No, you’re being careless. Sure, it’s not a huge risk, but it’s a risk. And while it’s there, I can’t relax. Sure, you could come pick me up, drive me to your place and we stay in bed all afternoon. If that’s the kind of thing we’re having.”

  He’s silent for a long, long time.

  I whisper his name into the phone.

  “I’m here,” he says hoarsely. “I’m thinking.” He heaves a sigh. “This is all so complicated. I wish things could just be simple, you know?”

  Don’t I know it.

  “Hey, here’s what. There’s a long weekend coming up, Action de Grace, how do you call it—oh yeah, Thanksgiving. If you want, I’ll take you somewhere.”

  “Somewhere?”

  “Somewhere we can stroll through the streets and drink wine on a terrace and roll around in bed all day, or whatever we want, not necessarily in that order. With no one to recognize us or spy on us. Would you like that?”

  “I…” my breath catches and it’s an effort to talk. I’m glad he’s on the other end of the phone and he can’t see me, because my eyes mist over. “I’d love that.”

  “Excellent.” I can hear the smile in his voice. I can just picture it, the corners of his mouth tilting up subtly, his sleepy eyes.

  “Where?”

  “You’ll see. It’s a surprise.”

  Twenty days till the long weekend.

  Only twenty days.

  Time tends to fly when you have school and deadlines and classes to get to. But now it seems to slow down to a crawl. I space through class after class, counting down the days.

  The week before Thanksgiving, I arrive to Leary’s Art History class with seconds to spare only to see everyone lining up in front of his desk, handing in papers.

  I stop in my tracks. It’s like one of those naked-in-class anxiety dreams: a thunderclap goes off between my ears, and suddenly I remember that thing I’ve managed to completely forget.

  Shit. The midterm paper. Worth 25%.

  My head starts to spin a little. I catch sight of Audrey handing in her paper in a plastic sleeve, neat title page and all, with a flourish and sauntering past me back to her seat. She gives me a nod hello. Numbly, I nod back.

  “Is that everyone?” Leary demands, tapping his fingers on the stack of papers on his desk.

  My heart rises up in my throat.

  “Sir,” I say. “I’m, uh, I’m really sorry, I had a conflict with one of my other classes…”

  He turns his gaze on me, cold and evaluating. “Conflict?”

  “I’ll have the paper tomorrow at the latest,” I blurt. “Or I can email it to you tonight.”

  “Miss—you’re Hannah, correct? Hannah Shay? You know I do not accept electronic submissions. It says so in big black letters right on the first page of the syllabus I gave you first day of term.”

  “Then I’ll bring the copy first thing tomorrow,” I say breathlessly.

  “I won’t be in tomorrow.” His lips press toget
her. “But you can email it to me just this once. I’m willing to make an exception, so I hope it’s an exceptional paper.”

  “Yes, sir.” I feel like I’m in high school again.

  “And don’t forget, penalties for late papers are a point per day.”

  I gulp. “Thank you.”

  As I turn around, all the seats in the back have already been taken, and I have no choice but to sit at the front, second row. I awkwardly edge down the row as other people slide their chairs to let me pass.

  By the time I take my place and open my laptop, he’s deep in the lecture of the day, about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. On the projector screen, there’s a giant image of an empty-eyed, pouty-lipped woman on a murky dark background.

  Why are men always so enthralled by women who look like they have glass marbles for brains? The more you look and act like a mindless doll, the more you’re obsessed over, fetishized and sexualized. The slides click by, and my unease grows with each and every one. She is a puppet, posed and arranged this way and that, by a window, in a river. Her face in every picture is remarkably the same, cast in porcelain.

  The last picture disappears and lecture notes scroll over the screen. I look down at my laptop and google her: Elizabeth Siddal. Wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, muse to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, subject of dozens of their paintings. Scorned by polite society, disapproved of by her husband’s family. Possibly suffering from an unspecified mental illness, or addicted to laudanum—like heroin for the nineteenth century—depending on who you ask. And then she posed as Ophelia in a tub of cold water, caught pneumonia, and died at the age of thirty-two.

  The perfect woman, who knew how to look pretty, who took off her clothes when told to and didn’t utter a peep of complaint. And who died before the wrinkles set in, without living scandalously long enough to offend with the sight of her decay. Glass-eyed Beata, moon-faced Ophelia.

  I bookmark the page, deciding I’ll write my paper about her.

  In the evening, after I’ve finished the paper, triple-checked the references, proofread it one last time and emailed it to Leary’s school email, I strip down and put on my old bermuda shorts and pant-stained t-shirt with a hole on the sleeve. Then I put up the biggest blank canvas I own, almost as tall as me, and set out my paint pots and brushes. Scrolling through my iTunes, I decide on an old favorite painting playlist: Lykke Li, Lana Del Rey, Amy Winehouse. A soft melody starts to pour from the speakers when I press play, a mournful voice singing about unrequited love and sadness and doing too many drugs, or all at the same time. That’s what most of these songs are about.

  I spend a few long minutes staring at the white canvas, tilting my head this way and that, superimposing the images inside my mind onto the blankness. Then I dip my brush into Burnt Umber and start to sketch.

  I only come out of my self-imposed trance when the sharp trill of the phone jolts my hearing. The playlist has ended a long time ago and the apartment is shrouded in silence; the daylight outside the window has completely faded, and the only illumination comes from my little clip-on lamp I’d directed straight at my canvas. It’s like waking up from hypnosis.

  The phone skids across the coffee table, buzzing like it’s about to explode. I wipe my paint-coated hands on my t-shirt, grab the phone, and do something I almost never do—answer without looking at the number.

  “Hello?” I ask the emptiness on the other end.

  Silence. Just as I’m about to get annoyed at my phone for dropping a call yet again, I hear a rustle of static, like movement on the other end.

  “Hello?” I repeat. “I can’t hear you, speak up.”

  There’s another rustle, a crackle, what sounds like a sigh. And then a click and the line goes dead.

  I take the phone away from my ear and stare at it dumbly until it occurs to me to check the caller ID. Except next to the 0:12 call it says Unknown.

  An uneasy tremor courses down my spine. I fight the urge to toss the phone away from me, like it’s contaminated, and get a little ashamed of myself for being so damn paranoid.

  It’s all my fault and my fault alone. If I didn’t have anything to hide, I wouldn’t be jumping at every phone call, says a nagging inner voice that sounds a lot like my mom.

  I don’t have anything to hide, I tell myself as I put the phone carefully next to my palette, face up. I’m not technically doing anything illegal. In any respect.

  Yeah… that’s what they’ll put on my tombstone.

  I pick up my brush again and mist some water onto the color on my palette so it doesn’t dry out. But the moment is gone, and my hands are too shaky to continue.

  The painting is a stripper, life-sized. Her back is leaning against a pole, with blurry hints of disco lights in the background, sketched out in black and splotches of purple. Except she has the face of Lizzie Siddal, empty eyes cast skyward, wild copper hair flowing over her breasts down to her hips. In her pubis, where there should be a triangle of hair, is a rose, one of those heavy, dark blooms from Rossetti’s paintings. Her hands are in prayer and she has a wreath of roses and thorns on top of her head, sharp barbs drawing tiny drops of blood.

  So far, the only things I’ve put color to are her hair, her lips, and the flowers.

  The more I look at it, the more I’m not sure if I loathe it or it’s the best thing I’ve ever painted.

  Either way, I can’t do another brush stroke right now.

  I rinse my brushes in clean water, my most expensive high-end artist’s set, not the crappy plastic bristles from the school store. They were one of the first things I bought when I started stripping. One third of a night’s work for a set of three: fine point, square, and watercolor-style. And I had only used them a couple of times until now. I dry them with a soft absorbent cloth and put them on the counter to dry completely, smoothing the bristles with my fingertips. There’s paint wedged under my nails, dark crescents of it, and stains have seeped into the cracks on my knuckles.

  When the phone starts to ring, I nearly jump out of my skin. I spin around and drop the plastic container I was rinsing into the sink, splashing grimy paint-tinted water all over. The phone trills like crazy.

  I inch my way toward it like it’s a bomb I have to defuse. But the second I see the number on the screen, my heart drops into the pit of my stomach with a whole new feeling of dread.

  I pick up.

  “Emmanuel.”

  “Hi.” He sounds a bit shy. “How are you? Is this a bad time?”

  I sit on the floor cross-legged, right at the foot of my canvas. “No, of course not. Did you happen to call a couple of minutes ago?”

  “Huh? No. Why?”

  “Nothing. Wrong number.”

  “Hannah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What are you doing tonight?”

  I glance furtively at the canvas towering over me. “Uh, nothing much, I just, you know, finished some homework. I had a paper I forgot to do and I had to write it at the last second and…” I realize I’m rambling and stop, embarrassed.

  “If you have homework, I don’t want to bother you. I won’t have it on my conscience if you fail half your classes.” I can tell by his voice that he’s making fun of me.

  “Oh, no,” I tell him in all seriousness. “All my D-minus are my own personal accomplishment and I proudly take credit.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s important to do well in university.”

  My smile fades around the edges. Of course it is—if you want your life to go anywhere. And we both know my life desperately needs to go somewhere.

  “Now you sound like my guidance counselor,” I say. “And anyway, the homework is done, and finished, and emailed, no going back.”

  “Fantastic. So how about going for a glass of wine to reward your efforts?”

  “Sounds good.” I make sure to keep the little squeeing note out of my voice. “When are you coming to pick me up?”

  “Actually,” he says, “I’m right outside. In the lobby.”<
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  My heart drops. Suddenly this isn’t funny anymore. I throw a panicked glance around the room, at the scattered paints and cloths and palette sheets, the clothes on the couch, the pile of dishes on the kitchen counter. At my painting, standing there with some of the acrylic strokes still drying, so vulnerable in its unfinished state, so naked, so exposed. At myself, in my construction-worker-chic getup.

  “So?” Emmanuel prompts. “Are you going to take mercy and let me in?”

  “Just, um, wait there,” I murmur. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “If it’s just a minute, I can wait in your apartment,” he says. “Don’t worry, I don’t care if it’s messy.”

  He says that with such ease. He makes it sound normal. And if I were a normal, rational person—with nothing to hide—I might have seen it that way too.

  “No,” I say firmly. “You can’t come up here. I’ll be out in a minute, okay?”

  He sighs and I can just picture him shaking his head in exasperation. “All right. I’ll wait outside in your limo like your lowly knave that I am. Happy?”

  “I won’t be long,” I assure him. He laughs and hangs up.

  I look around, pull my t-shirt over my head and throw it in the corner. My bermudas follow. At least my underwear is clean and one of my nice pairs, lace-trimmed black boy briefs. I grab a pair of jeans and sniff around the pile of shirts on top of my dryer until I find one that I’m sure just came out of it. I pull my hair up on top of my head and twist it into a knot: that way, it won’t be as obvious I’ve got second-day hair. I feel like the world’s biggest slob and mentally curse Emmanuel for showing up unannounced.

  My phone goes in the back pocket of my jeans and I grab my purse from the back of a chair where I left it.

  When I open the front door, I find myself facing Emmanuel. I almost bump into him, chest-to-chest. Okay, my chest is more like level with his ribs.

  “I thought you were supposed to wait in the car,” I say.

  “Sorry. I got impatient.”

  I pointedly close the door behind myself before he can crane his neck and peek in. I turn the key in the lock.

  Emmanuel takes hold of my shoulders, turns me around, and kisses me on the lips. Then, when we break away, he chuckles.