Naked

by Megan Hart

  Or so I thought. The mall wasn’t as crazy crowded as it had been during the holiday shopping frenzy, but it seemed as if a lot of people had decided to redeem their gift certificates. And, thanks to some fancy marketing done by Foto Folks in the fall, a lot of women were coming in with vouchers for a free glamour session.

  Every makeup chair was filled when I got there for my shift, and so were all the seats in the waiting area. They’d started signing people up for time slots and handing out short-range beepers the way they do in popular restaurants. Three of the four small picture-taking cubicles in the back were full, too, with the fourth just vacated by a woman in a feather boa and a tiara.

  “Wow,” I said, unable to stop myself.

  Mindy, who did hair and makeup, had just finished with a customer and was ducking back to the coffeepot for a mug. “You’re telling me. It’s been nonstop in here since we opened.”

  A woman in a red pleather jacket covered in zippers—think Michael Jackson in Thriller, and you’d be only half as close to how ugly that jacket was—sauntered past us. From the waist up she was entirely glamazon—hair, fake lashes, bright red lipstick. The works. Below the waist, the part the picture wouldn’t show, she was totally Mennonite. I mean complete with the flowered dress, white athletic socks and sneakers.

  “What the—?”

  “She’s doing them for her husband.”

  “But that’s…Isn’t that against…They don’t…”

  Mindy filled her mug and added sugar and cream. “I don’t know. But she came in, picked that jacket off the rack, told me just how she wanted her hair and makeup done. I’m not going to argue.”

  I wouldn’t, either. It wasn’t my place to tell anyone who came in how to dress or how much eye shadow to put on. “Hi, I’m Olivia,” I said when I went into the cubby.

  “Gretchen.”

  “So, Gretchen, did you have something particular in mind today?”

  I fiddled with the camera while we talked. Gretchen did, indeed, have an idea of what she wanted. She described it to me, including the use of the large electric fan to get the windblown look.

  “My sister-in-law Helen was in here before Christmas and she had this done,” Gretchen explained. “I want what she got.”

  Just because I’d never do it didn’t mean I couldn’t understand the appeal. Gretchen, by the looks of her, didn’t live a glamorous life. If I could make her feel pretty for just half an hour, give her pictures she could gaze at for the rest of her life, I’d do it.

  “All right, let me see you up here on this stool.” I posed her in front of the table, low enough so that she could rest her elbows on it and place her chin in one hand. Classic glamour pose. “Let me get the fan blowing.”

  We worked it hard, Gretchen and I. She was a trouper, too, bending and stretching and holding still when she had to. Her expression didn’t change much. She looked half-terrified in some of the shots, sleepy in some others, but she was laughing in between so I knew she was having fun. Our time and my allotment of shots were almost up, though, when I took the picture that would be the best of the lot.

  “Look at that one,” I said more to myself than her. “Gorgeous. That’s the one.”

  “Really?” Gretchen looked hopeful. “They look good?”

  “Beautiful,” I assured her. “Go on and get changed into your own clothes and meet me in the approval room—the small one with the door on the left. That’s where you can see all the shots and pick which ones you want.”

  We use digital photography at Foto Folks, film being outdated and nearly obsolete except for hobbyists. Customers come to the approval room to look at the pictures on a large-screen monitor, then pick their packages right then and there. They can walk out with the photos within an hour if they want to wait. Most of them do. It’s a far cry from the way we did it when I was in high school working for a local photographer. He’d have a studio session, then call the customers back in about a week later to see a slide show of the best shots, and it was another couple of weeks before they had their prints in hand. We really have become a drive-through society.

  I slipped the memory card into the reader, and had opened up the ordering software to fill in all of Gretchen’s information by the time she came in without the red jacket, her face scrubbed back to plainness. I pulled up the files and showed her each picture, one at a time.

  She didn’t say much until we got to the last one. She was laughing in it, her face turned a little, eyes downcast. It was nothing like any of the rest, all of which had a forced, plastic quality to them that shamed me, even though I knew it was what she’d asked for.

  “I think this one is the best,” I said.

  Gretchen stared at it for a long, silent moment. “I don’t like it.”

  I’d been so ready for her gushing praise I was already hovering the cursor over the add-to-order button. In fact, my finger slipped in shock at her words and I added the shot to her order. “Oops.”

  She shook her head. “That doesn’t look like me.”

  It looked more like her than any of the others, but I wouldn’t argue with her. “All right. We can choose different portraits.”

  “Wait, please.” Gretchen touched my hand on the mouse to stop me from clicking back to the image I’d chosen.

  She looked at it for a much longer time than I should’ve allowed her. I knew there were customers waiting, and Foto Folks based bonuses not only on portraits ordered but number of customers serviced. I wasn’t just holding up myself, but my coworkers, who depended on me to make their handiwork look good enough to convince customers to buy.

  “No. It doesn’t look like me. I like that one with my chin on my hand,” she said, and there was no convincing her otherwise.

  Gretchen walked out of the approval room after ordering over a hundred dollars worth of photos, including wallets. I got the idea she was going to trade them with her friends, sort of like the kids did in school with photos I’d also taken.

  “I’m so glad Helen suggested I request you,” Gretchen said as I walked with her out to the front of the store. “I’m going to tell my other girlfriends about you, too!”

  “Thank you, I appreciate it.”

  She was still bubbling and giddy as she left, and I considered I’d done my job pretty well. It was my turn to think about a run for coffee when Mindy tapped my shoulder. “You have a special customer.”

  I turned to look. “Teddy.”

  “Hey.”

  My stomach climbed into my throat. I managed a squeaky “hi.” Unlike most every other time I saw him, Teddy didn’t open up his arms to give me a hug. Awkward silence hung between us while Mindy watched, her eyes round and mouth open just a little. To be fair, Mindy’s mouth was always open just a little. But it was open a little more today.

  Teddy’s smile should’ve warmed me more than it did. “I was hoping you’d be working today.”

  “I’m working most days.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “Listen, Olivia. Patrick told me…about what happened.”

  This wasn’t a private place and I couldn’t have this conversation with him here. Didn’t want to have it with Teddy, at all. I felt the frown tug the corner of my mouth.

  “Did he?”

  “Of course he did.” Teddy looked sad, a big burly bear of a man who favored colorful sweaters and had been kind to me when he didn’t have to. “What were you thinking?”

  Past kindness didn’t give him the right to scold me, though. “I wasn’t thinking of anything. I told Patrick I was sorry. I don’t know what you want me to say, Teddy. Did Patrick send you over here to be his messenger boy, or what?”

  Teddy looked taken aback by my tone. “He’s very angry.”

  Around us, makeup artists and customers moved back and forth. Most gave us curious looks. I glanced back toward my booth, where Mindy had taken the next customer.

  “I have to get back to work.”

  “I think if you just apologized to him—”

&nbs
p; “You know what?” I said tightly, turning on my heel to get up in his face a little bit. “This isn’t any of your business, Teddy.”

  His mouth worked. I didn’t give him the chance to speak. I dropped my voice low to keep some semblance of privacy.

  “If he wants me to grovel, he’s out of luck. I’m not going to beg his forgiveness, Teddy. I’ve done that already for a bunch of shit that wasn’t my fault, and I’m not going to do it again.”

  Teddy drew himself up. “Well. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Nothing would be a good place to start,” I told him. “Because you don’t know. You really don’t. You think you know about me and Patrick, but you only know what he’s told you, and I can guess that it painted him in a pretty flattering light, didn’t it? Because that’s the way he likes to think of things. He’s not good at taking blame.”

  Teddy knew this, obviously, since he lived with Patrick, and loved him. “I think I know him well enough—”

  “You don’t know about us,” I repeated. “You only know what he’s told you, and I’ve heard his version of the story.”

  “Are you saying Patrick’s a liar?”

  “I’m saying,” I said evenly, “that he has a version of the story. And I have one. And they’re not exactly alike.”

  “Olivia, I’ve never tried to shut you out of Patrick’s life—”

  I cut him off again. “And I love you for that, Teddy, believe me. I do. But this is between me and Patrick. I know what he wants. More than an apology. He wants some sort of declaration of loyalty, he wants groveling, he wants me to roll over and show him my belly just to keep the privilege of remaining in his good graces. Am I right?”

  Teddy shifted from foot to foot, looking supremely uncomfortable. “I don’t know.”

  “I have to get back to work now.” I shook my head when Teddy tried to speak again. “I appreciate you playing the part of peacemaker, I really do. But this isn’t your job and it’s not your business. It’s between me and Patrick, Teddy. And I’m not sure I’m ready to resolve it right now.”

  “But, Olivia…”

  “This is not your business.”

  Teddy had never seen me like this, and I could tell it startled him. Probably pissed him off a little, too, the way people get when they feel their good and noble intentions have been stepped on. He drew himself up with an audible sniff.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said. “I thought we were friends. After all I’ve—”

  He cut himself off that time, maybe because the flash of anger I felt was reflected on my face. He backed off, and it was a good thing, because while I really liked Teddy a lot, if he’d tried to smack me down with how good he’d been to me I’d have said something I really would regret.

  “I didn’t tell Patrick I was coming here. I won’t tell him I did, either.”

  “That’s probably good.”

  I didn’t thank him, and we parted with as much dignity as was possible, considering the circumstances. The confrontation had left my stomach twisted and churning, though. My palms sweaty.

  “You okay?” Mindy asked.

  “Sure.” The lie tasted sour.

  I should’ve been used to that.

  There might be something I despise more than getting up early on a day I technically didn’t have to. Puppy mills. Paper cuts on my tongue. The smell of sewage. But I really hate rolling out of bed when I could be snuggled down under my blankets, dreaming.

  There was no help for it. I’d taken a job laying out a brochure-style menu for the coffee shop down the street. The owner wanted something simple in design but fancier than text photocopied on colored printer paper. I’d let it go too long, had gone back and forth with him on the pricing of the printing, which I’d stupidly agreed to negotiate. My feeling at the time had been one-stop shopping for the client. I’d do the artwork, the design and figure out all the details for printing and packaging, which basically entailed calling some local places and doing Internet research. No biggie. Except, of course, I was still working for Foto Folks and getting calls for fill-in work with LaserTouch Studios, the place that hired me for the school and sports team photos.

  I fiddled with my mouse, changing the specs on the document one more time to get it to fit the requirements of the site the client had finally chosen—not because of superior quality, of course, but for the price. Said site didn’t seem to understand the superiority of Apple computers, and though customer service had assured me several times my files should load, no problem…there were problems.

  “Fuck it in a bucket,” I said when the file timed out, midload, for the seventh time.

  “Olivia?”

  I turned, startled. “Hey, Alex. What’s up?”

  He came through the door I hadn’t realized I’d left half-open. “I knocked downstairs and when you didn’t answer I thought maybe you were up here.”

  “I am.” I gave him a smile and twirled around in my office chair.

  “Working? Or playing?”

  He was still all the way across the room, but I could feel the pull and surge of sexual tension. We’d been together for a couple weeks now but he’d been in my studio only one other time, and look how that turned out.

  “Working,” I said. “What are you up to?”

  He moved across the wooden boards with slow, deliberate steps, and by the time he got to me, my thighs had already parted so he could stand between them. The chair moved from side to side as I tilted back in it to look up at him. He stroked my hair off my shoulders and his kiss was brief, but sweet.

  “I came to see if you wanted to go to Chocolate Fest with me.”

  I raised a brow and hooked my fingers in his belt loops to hold him close. “Is it today?”

  “Yep. I got tickets to the VIP session. All the chocolate you can eat, plus hors d’oeuvres and champagne and live music.”

  “Huge crowds. You have to fight for a sample bite of brownie from Sam’s Club. It’s pretty ludicrous.”

  “No crowds,” he promised. “I have it on good authority that the VIP session is crowd-free. And champagne, Olivia.”

  I glanced at the screen of my laptop and sighed. “If I could get this damn file to upload, I’d be there in a heartbeat.”

  “Then we’ll have to get that file uploaded.” A smile slid over his mouth, into his eyes, making him a pirate. Sly and sexy, his hair just a little tousled in such a way it made me think about him rolling around in a bed. Or sinking my fingers deep into it, and pulling.

  “Give me a few minutes to try again, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  He didn’t ask me if it was okay to look around, he just wandered the big room taking a peek at anything and everything. I kept an eye on him while I tweaked the file specs one last time and started another upload. I didn’t have anything in here I didn’t want him to see, no secrets, but I still felt a little strange about him helping himself to the stacks of thick, spiral-bound photo albums in which I kept copies of all my favorite shots.

  He pulled one from the pile and took it to the chair by the front windows. The chair he’d been in before. He sat, fingers flipping through the pages. I was probably the only one of us who got tingly.

  “Yes! Thank God!” I cried a minute later when the browser window showed the message “upload complete.”

  I typed quickly, entering the client’s order information and checking everything one last time. I stabbed the enter key and twirled around in my chair with a loud “woo hoo!”

  Alex looked up from the album, but I was already off my chair and doing a little victory dance. He stuck a finger in his place to watch me. I didn’t feel stupid, even though he was laughing.

  “Boom boom boom.” I shook my butt, turned and shook it some more. Jumped around a little.

  “Let’s go back to my room?”

  I stopped, hands on my hips. “I thought you were going to take me for all the chocolate I could eat.”

  Alex got up, put the album on the chair and
snagged my wrist to pull me close. Right up against him. He wasn’t naked, but might as well have been by the way my body reacted. He anchored my hips. We danced a little, more slowly than I’d done on my own. Less rump shaking, more slow grinding.

  “You’re a good dancer,” I said.

  “I know.”

  I swatted his shoulder, but when I tried to push him away he laughed and kept me pressed tight against him. “You’re supposed to tell me I’m a good dancer, too.”

  “Oh, believe me, I was checking out those fine moves.”

  “Maybe we can go dancing sometime.” I settled back into the slow circling, our feet moving half an inch at a time. Sort of like being at the prom without the cheesy music or wrist corsages, and with more full-frontal contact.

  “Any good places to dance around here?”

  I let my hands drift down to his fine, hard ass, which I squeezed. “Sure. In Harrisburg.”

  “Not in Annville.” Alex laughed and bumped his crotch against mine. “What a shocker.”

  I squeezed his butt harder. “Hey. I thought you said you were going to like being a small-town boy.”

  One of his hands slid up to center between my shoulders. Before I knew it, he’d dipped me so low my locks brushed the floor, but even though it took me completely by surprise, I never once felt he might drop me. Alex kept me there for a moment before pulling me back up into his arms.

  “Was I serious about that?”

  “I don’t know, Alex. Were you?”

  He pursed his lips and gave his head a thoughtful shake. “It sounds like the kind of thing a guy says to impress a beautiful landlord into letting him take a lease on an apartment.”

  “And here I thought you weren’t a liar.”

  We stopped dancing, stood still. I had my favorite chunk-heeled boots on, so I could look almost right in his eyes. I felt his hands on my waist, his body all along the rest of me. We’d stopped dancing but it still felt as if we were spinning, fast and faster.

  “Small-town boy it is, then.”

  My tongue dipped into the tiny well in the center of my bottom lip, wetting it. Offering it. His gaze fell there, watching, and his own lips parted. There was nothing small-town about the kiss he slid across my mouth.