The Reluctant Nude

by Meg Maguire

Fallon took a deep breath. “I’ll try. Thanks for the perspective. My best to Josh, okay?”

  “Indeed. Oh, and Fal?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Get laid, while you’re up there, won’t you?”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Seriously. Your hymen’s going to grow back, it’s been so long. Have a fling. It might lighten you up.”

  “Goodbye, Rache.”

  “Bye, sweetie. Call me tomorrow.”

  Fallon flipped her phone closed, dreading the next call she had to make. She dug through her bag for the business card belonging to her least favorite person on the face of the earth.

  It rang twice before that familiar, hateful voice answered. “Donald Forrester.”

  “It’s Fallon, Donald.” His name stung her throat like bile.

  “Fallon, my darling! How are you finding Cape Breton? I’ve heard it’s just beautiful,” he boomed, in that hale and hardy, grandfatherly tone that didn’t match the slithering snake he really was.

  “Yeah, it’s great. I don’t want to talk to you, except to say Emery will do the statue. He said it’ll take three months, so expect it in November sometime. Okay?”

  “Wonderful, just wonderful.” He sounded so pleased Fallon wished she could somehow punch him through the magic of cellular technology.

  “He said he won’t do the exact…pose you requested. He found it as tacky and sexist as I do, I’m happy to report,” she said. “You’ll have to be happy with whatever direction he decides to go in. He doesn’t know what it’ll be yet. It sounds like a long process.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be delighted. He does beautiful work, just beautiful. Finest artist alive today. I’ve always wanted to own one of his pieces and now… Well this is truly a delight. An honor.”

  “Great. I’m going to hang up now, and I’m not going to talk to you again until November, all right? Don’t ever call me on this number, either.”

  Fallon didn’t wait for the lecherous land developer to sneak in a creepy farewell. She shuddered theatrically to herself after snapping the phone closed.

  Max was right about patrons, at least—in two or three decades’ time, Donald Forrester would retire to his miserable, opulent grave, and good riddance. After that, the marble version of Fallon’s naked, thirty-year-old self would be the property of some other collector. Perhaps even a museum. It gave her a little jolt to imagine such a thing. Centuries from now, if the human race hadn’t yet destroyed itself, someone might be staring at her white, pear-shaped facsimile, wondering who she’d been and why she was perched on a plinth among other famous works of art.

  Odd. Definitely odd.

  “Excuse me?”

  Morning sunlight glanced off the little table by the coffee shop’s front window. Fallon looked up from her crossword to find the young, graceful model she’d encountered the previous day in Max Emery’s studio standing before her. She wore a half-apron emblazoned with the café’s logo.

  “Oh, hello.” Fallon wasn’t sure if she was being approached for coffee-related reasons or social ones. “You’re Max’s…”

  “I’m one of his models, I guess,” the woman—girl, really—said with an awkward smile. “I’m Erin.” She extended a slender hand.

  “Fallon.”

  They shook politely.

  “Um.” Erin’s blue eyes darted across the tabletop, from the near-empty cup to the Saturday crossword to Fallon’s phone. “Do you need another drink or anything?”

  “No thanks. Not yet.”

  “Okay. I could sure use one. And it’s only my first day,” Erin added with a tired laugh. Coffee splatters peppered her white T-shirt and she looked exhausted.

  Fallon glanced around the little shop. It was the no-man’s-land between breakfast and lunch and she was the only patron save an elderly woman adding sugar to a takeaway cup at the counter. Another barista was stationed by the register.

  “Would you like to sit down?” Fallon ventured. “I wouldn’t mind grilling you about the town, if you’re not busy…?”

  “I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

  “You’re not. I’m totally stumped on this.” Fallon tapped the puzzle with her eraser and slid it to one side.

  “Let me see if I can take a break.” Erin went the counter and came back shortly with a coffee and sat down opposite Fallon.

  “I like your name,” Erin said, timid.

  “Oh, thanks…” Fallon stalled out, hopeless with chitchat.

  Erin came to her rescue. “So, what do you do? Like, for a job?”

  “I’m an ecologist. And an environmental advocate, lately.”

  “Oh, cool. I love dolphins. Do you work with them at all?”

  Fallon smiled, registering how young this woman must be. “No, not directly. I used to spend a lot of time wading around in bays, collecting eelgrass. Fieldwork. That’s about as close as I get to dolphins. But lately I’m mostly stuck inside courtrooms, arguing about conservation reform.”

  “Are you a lawyer?” Erin asked, sounding impressed.

  “No, just a loudmouth.” Fallon leaned back in her chair. “So, how long have you been here? On Cape Breton?”

  “Only a couple weeks.”

  “Did you move here?” Fallon asked.

  “Well, I hadn’t planned on it. But I’m thinking about it now. I’d like to stay. That’s why I got a job. All my stuff’s back in Ohio, though.”

  “It’s really beautiful here,” Fallon offered lamely. “What do you do in Ohio?”

  “Well, I’m starting college next month, in New York City, actually. Or I’m supposed to.”

  “Wow, exciting! So, you’re only like eighteen, then?” Fallon asked carefully.

  “I will be, in a couple weeks.”

  Fallon’s stomach gurgled. Seventeen? And Max was how old? Please, God, don’t let him be a creepy old letch. One was enough. “So how did you meet…”

  “Mr. Emery? Max,” Erin amended, sounding like she’d never called him this to his face but longed to.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s a weird story.”

  “Too weird for a coffee break?”

  Erin bit her lip. “Maybe. I’ll try and give you the SparkNotes version. Um, when I was younger, like ten, I had to have this really strange…procedure. It was featured in all sorts of surgery magazines and stuff. Mr. Emery wrote to me a few months ago. He reads medical journals, I guess. He’s sort of weird, you know? He wrote to me and invited me to come and sit for him, you know, for money. I have this really huge scar, on my hip. He thinks it’s beautiful, I guess.” She fidgeted with her cup.

  “Wow. That’s pretty brave of you. I wouldn’t have been caught dead with my clothes off in front of anybody when I was your age.” Let alone Max Emery.

  “When I was younger I had to all the time, for doctors. It’s not that big a deal. Well, I mean…” She blushed deeply, her pale skin burning deep pink. “It’s a little weird. With him.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?” Dear God, here it comes—he’s a pervert.

  “You know…he’s so not a doctor.”

  Fallon took a sip of her cold cappuccino, dread wrenching her insides. “How do you mean?”

  “You know. Don’t you think he’s…hot?”

  Fallon nearly sprayed her drink across the table. “Oh, well.”

  “I do.” Erin’s eyes were aglow in that way only women who’ve just fallen in love can manage. “And he’s got a hot accent.”

  “I suppose.”

  “There’s just something about him…”

  “It’s called charisma,” Fallon said dryly.

  “I know he’s, like, a lot older than me, obviously,” Erin went on, animated, clearly on her favorite topic of conversation. “And he wouldn’t go there.”

  Fallon bit her lip. “You don’t think?”

  “No, I don’t think he’s like that. Actually,” Erin said, smile fading. “Posing for him… I’ve been over there like a dozen times now, right?”

  “O
kay.”

  “And you know what it’s like?”

  “No, what’s it like?” Fallon asked.

  “It’s like I’m there, but I’m there with another girl who’s like ten times prettier than me, like I’m invisible.”

  “I don’t quite follow.”

  Erin spun her cup noisily on her saucer. “It’s the scar, I guess. That’s what he’s into. Not like, into, you know—not like sexual. But he totally couldn’t care less about me. And I’m like, naked, you know? I guess he’s probably seen tons of naked girls.”

  “Yeah,” Fallon said, cautious. “And you wouldn’t want to be with someone who’s almost twice your age, anyway. I mean, you wouldn’t want to be with a guy who’s as old as Max—Mr. Emery—is, who’d even be interested in someone as young as you, right?”

  Erin shrugged in a distinctly teenaged, apathetic way, and Fallon wondered how she’d ever found this girl intimidating.

  “Well, trust me, you wouldn’t,” Fallon concluded for her.

  “It doesn’t matter, either way. He called and told me last night that whatever he’s working on now, it’ll take months. He said to go by there so he can give me the money for my plane ride back home.” She gave Fallon a split-second glance and then shrugged, irritated. “I may as well go to New York.”

  “Yeah, college is a big deal. Where are you going?”

  She sighed. “Juilliard.”

  Fallon felt her jaw drop. “Well, yeah, that’s a pretty damn big deal. For dance or music or…?”

  “Ballet.”

  “You got accepted at Juilliard for ballet and you’re thinking about not going?”

  Erin shrugged again.

  “Listen, kiddo,” Fallon said, unintentionally turning into her aunt. “If I catch you still in this town when September rolls around, I’ll knock you unconscious and ship you back there myself. Okay?”

  Erin grinned, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah.”

  “No seriously, I will. And I throw a mean punch.”

  “I get it.” Erin craned her long neck to check the clock above the door. “I better get back to work. You want another capp?”

  “No, thanks. I should head out soon, get my day started. Good luck with school. And don’t forget my threat.”

  Erin picked up her cup, lingering a few beats. “Are you posing for him?” she asked, not meeting Fallon’s eyes.

  “Yeah,” she said, thinking of how ridiculous that must sound to this waif. “But someone’s paying him to make a statue of me. Mr. Emery didn’t ask me to pose, specifically.”

  “Oh, okay.” Erin looked relieved, almost haughty. “I was going to ask if you had a scar too. But I guess not.”

  “No.” Fallon cleared her throat. “No scars.”

  Chapter Three

  The encounter with Erin spurred Fallon to head to Max’s earlier than she normally would have—she’d lost her appetite for crosswords and café-lingering. The sun was bright and the air wet and cool, and after a stop at the bakery, Fallon set off along the long dirt road toward the ocean. Max lived about twenty minutes’ stroll from the so-called town center of Pettiplaise, and Fallon’s time would be well spent trying to get her head cleared.

  Just as the studio’s many windows glinted in the distance, Fallon ran into Max himself. Or rather, vice versa.

  “Is that my baguette?” His distinctive baritone came from behind her shoulder, accompanied by the rhythmic crunch of gravel.

  Fallon turned to find him doing something that surprised her greatly—jogging. He had on a T-shirt and track pants and very European-looking sneakers.

  “Good morning.” She squinted at him through the midmorning sun. “I never would have guessed you were a runner.”

  He dropped to her pace and smiled through his heavy breathing. “My job is harder on the lungs than smoking. I like to make sure they still work.”

  A vee of sweat streaked the front of his shirt and Fallon tried very hard not to enjoy the smell of him—that smell of active man. From a biological standpoint she couldn’t help whose scent she found compelling. Yes, that was true enough…this was definitely not her fault.

  “I didn’t think artists were so inclined. You know, die young and all that.”

  Max flashed one of his patented grins, clearly intrigued by her decision to be friendly to him this morning. “Well, I intend to live long enough to die in some more spectacular way than particle inhalation.”

  She nodded and they walked the last couple minutes to the cottage in silence.

  Fallon set her bag on the counter and handed Max the bread he’d requested when they’d parted the previous afternoon. “I ran into Erin this morning.”

  “Thank you. Erin my model? Oh, yes?” Max looked enlivened.

  “Yeah, she was working at the café.”

  “She has the most extraordinary scar.” It was the tone of a man missing an old lover.

  “You said that yesterday. What’s so amazing about it?” Fallon pulled a carton of half-and-half from her bag, and Max put it in the fridge for her.

  “I’ll have to show you the article from the AMA journal. Just fascinating.” He went to root around in a paint-splattered filing cabinet. “She was a conjoined twin, you know.”

  “Whoa—really?” Fallon blinked a few times.

  “Indeed. A Siamese twin, as we used to say.” He withdrew an old magazine and flipped to a sticky-note-tagged page, held it out to her. “They operated and separated her and her sister, but her sister only lived a week before her kidney failed.”

  “Oh, God, that’s horrible!” She pushed his hand away. “I don’t want to read about that.”

  “Just fascinating.”

  “And you’re sculpting that?” Fallon asked, disgusted. “Don’t you think that’s massively insensitive? I mean, she’s been through enough, hasn’t she?”

  Max raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised. “How is that insensitive?”

  “She’s probably been traumatized. You think she really needs some…artist fixating on the worst memory of her whole life? She’s only seventeen.”

  “No one forced her,” he said evenly. “And I’m not treating her like a medical anomaly.”

  “I think you are.” Fallon stared at the journal, irritation snowballing into anger.

  “I don’t do grotesques. I study what I feel is beautiful.”

  “How is that beautiful? I bet she’d get rid of that scar in a heartbeat if she could.”

  “Loss is beautiful,” Max said solemnly, breaking eye contact. “What she’s got is an extraordinary proof of loss.”

  “That just seems really callous. Sick. Dwelling on someone else’s pain for your own pleasure. Or fascination, or whatever.”

  His eyes snapped back to hers again. “I don’t exploit people, if that is what you’re implying. Unlike some men. I would remind you that you’re here under duress, arguably exploiting your own body in exchange for a payoff.”

  “Are you calling me a prostitute?” Fallon was almost tempted to laugh. And even more tempted to hit him.

  He smiled. “I have studied plenty of prostitutes, Miss Frost. Be assured you lack any measure of their charm.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Pardon me?”

  Max turned away, busying himself unlacing his shoes. Fallon spun on her heel and marched to the screen door, hurling it shut behind her with a disappointingly quiet slam.

  Fallon made it nearly all the way back to town before she calmed enough to remember her priorities, swallow her pride, and return to the studio. She rang the bell, face hot with humiliation.

  Max’s distant shout came through the window. “Yes, come in.”

  Fallon entered and closed the door with intentional gentleness. As she turned her midsection jolted—in her absence Max had drawn a bath in the tub that sat beneath the far windows. Propped on the rim, his muscular shoulders and arms gleamed wet in the sun. His hair dripped, slicked back from his face.

  “Um,” Fallon began then stopped. She became
very interested in the ventilation system.

  “It is nine fifty-six,” Max announced, voice lazy. “So your sitting has not even begun yet. I think we should pretend that little outburst never happened, don’t you?”

  Fallon had no clue if he was being snide or gracious. “Fine.”

  “Very good.”

  There was a sloshing noise as he stood, and Fallon spun around just in time to preserve his privacy and hide her own furious blush. The rear of the cottage faced east so his body was largely silhouetted, but it was bright enough for Fallon to have taken in far more details of Max Emery’s lean, chiseled chest and abdomen than she cared to. There followed rustling and the rush of draining water.

  Max spoke a short time later, sounding amused. “You’re safe now, my little Puritan.”

  Fallon turned to find him dressed in jeans and an undershirt once more, tugging on socks. He grinned at her, and she could still see droplets of water along his neck and arms and face.

  “I apologize for making you slam my door.”

  “Well…I’m sorry I slammed it,” she replied, feeling idiotic.

  “No matter. Are you ready to start the sitting? You want coffee first?”

  “No, I’m ready.” She’d reached the depths of her own humility back on the dirt road.

  Max dragged the worktable over to the brightest part of the studio, and Fallon removed her jacket and shoes. As he hefted a bag of clay from a shelf, she stripped her shirt off. She unzipped her pants and let them drop, folding them neatly as Max strapped on his tool belt. He turned to find her in her underwear, shaking faintly but determined to see this through.

  His eyebrows rose. “Well.”

  She reached behind to unhook her bra. She set it atop the other items, pretending she was at the doctor’s office. Sliding her panties down her legs, she crouched as demurely as she could manage and added them to the pile. The air of the studio felt cool and dry on her skin.

  “Where do you want me?” she asked with affected calm.

  Max mimicked her casual tone. “Wherever you like. Get comfortable. I’ll do another bust.”

  She nodded. “Um…”

  He looked up from where he’d begun kneading clay on the tabletop. “Yes?”