Elizabeth Maynor: Never Love a Naked P.I.

At each break he started directly for Amanda but, as the evening had progressed, the students had become friendlier and more enthusiastic and kept waylaying him.

The end of class brought spontaneous applause. Antonio went behind the screen to dress as, surprisingly, Mr. Parkerson urged them all out of the studio. He praised them for their enthusiasm and the evening’s accomplishments, but nonetheless pressed them to gather their things and vacate quickly.

Normally, the class would hang around chatting with their instructor and commenting to each other about the evening’s session. The next class would slowly feed in, and eventually Amanda and a small group of fellow artists would find themselves reassembled outside the classroom as their other classmates dispersed.

“Don’t worry, Ms. Emerson,” Parkerson said gently, guiding her out the door as he helped her zip her portfolio. “I’m sure next week will be better.”

“Good work, Christine,” he called out to the disappointed group waiting in the hallway. “Next session perhaps you’ll enlarge your horizons?” And the door to the studio was firmly closed.

“Well,” a disgruntled Professor Angeli intoned to the group, “our esteemed instructor seems intent on keeping the young Antonio to himself.”

Mr. Wilde smiled beatifically, his large bulk snug in his expensive overcoat, the polished leather portfolio clasped tightly to his expansive chest. “Young Antonio was truly inspiring. I do think I’ve done my best work so far.”

The youngest member of the group, a young man who considered himself the art world’s answer to Marlon Brando’s The Wild One, punched an annoyed Christine lightly on the shoulder. “Ha! Didja hear, guys? ‘Enlarge your horizons,’ babe! Didja see how this one whipped through a whole sketch pad never getting above our hot stud’s navel or below his knees.”

Christine tugged her fur tightly under her chin and adjusted the strap of the portfolio hanging from her shoulder. “I’ve never seen a better developed set of six-pac abs. It deserved all the attention I could give it. And you, fat boy,” she said, as she firmly slapped the back of her gloved hand against the tight, button-fly denim below his short leather jacket, “might take a lesson, if you would ever learn to recognize the fact that someone else inhabits this planet other than your self-centered self.”

Haughtily, she pushed her way down the steps onto 57th Street, the small group regrouping around her.

“Now, Christine,” Professor Angeli soothed the waters, “young Nathan was more than likely a bit intimidated by our rather spectacular model. The peripatetic Maurice and the fulsome Pauline have not exactly led us to expect such a beautifully developed specimen to sketch.”

“Yeah. Specimen,” grunted a scowling Nathan, settling his leather cap over his lank, unkempt hair. “C’mon, cutie,” he grabbed Amanda’s arm. “Let’s go for a brewski and let these bozos slather over their wine spritzers about Mr. Hot Nuts. You didn’t seem so damned impressed.”

Amanda felt as if her life had been put into fast-forward. Absently, she pulled the bandeau from her head and pulled on a knitted cap. She wanted to hit the pause button, to be back in ancient Greece, to be greeting the steel worker, to be crouched at the foot of the Messenger of the Gods. It took a moment to will herself to hear what Nathan was saying.

She pulled her arm away. “Thanks, Nathan, I don’t think so. Not tonight.”

Wilde peered at her carefully. Recognizing a kindred reaction, his beaming countenance was suddenly replaced with a scowl as he turned to face Nathan. “You see,” he stated, pulling his fine white eyebrows together tightly, “our junior executive was more than impressed. And needs, I believe you call it, space. Back off, young Angry One.”

Professor Angeli chuckled, knowing the young man revered the young Brando and that Wilde’s reference would more than mollify him.

“Do you want to come with us, Amanda?” Christine asked. “Or are you more in the mood for your famous wandering the streets of noire New York.” Nathan snickered. Christine’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll miss my using a perfectly good martini to dash the smile off this surly stud’s kisser.”

Amanda laughed. She could use some air. She did need…space. The early spring night was cold and crisp and hopefully would be just what she needed to snap her back to reality.

She hugged Professor Angeli, her healthy body enveloping his thin frame.

“You will be careful, my dear…this city, you know.” He glanced around the mobbed nighttime street warily.

“Of course.” Amanda hugged Mr. Wilde, stretching to envelop his large bulk. The group knew that her nocturnal forays were very carefully planned, sticking to well-lighted and well-filled streets. She was too much of a city girl not to be careful.

Knocking fists with Nathan, she said, “Belt one back for me, graphic genius. And don’t be late for work in the morning.” She waved goodbye. Christine came close as the men moved away.

“Something really got through to you tonight, didn’t it?”

Amanda looked into Christine’s shining eyes. “Yes.”

And what she needed was time and space to figure out just what it was.

Amanda watched the group disappear east on 57th Street, headed for the tratorria where they would gripe and admire and complain and discuss art theory until Nathan would say something to enrage Mr. Wilde or Christine and send them all into the night to their respective parts of Manhattan.

She walked toward the Coliseum Bookstore past the chaos of the Hard Rock Cafe and, after a pause trying to decide whether to cross Broadway or not, swung back and returned to the door of the Art StudentsLeague. The physical proximity of the earlier events of the evening seemed to sharpen all her senses anew. She admired the examples of instructors’ and students’ work displayed in the high windows of the venerable institution, imagining the young model’s powerful presence captured there.

Abruptly she turned away and jaywalked across 57th, her heart pounding in her chest. As she stood outside the art supply store window, the implements of her avocation floated before her eyes: easels, portfolios, drawing pens, crayons, papers, wooden manikins.

Smoothly turned sections of hard wood bolted together to form a flexible human shape were capable of being manipulated to achieve any pose an artist might need. The gleaming wood erupted into the musculature of perfectly-sculpted living flesh. The round faceless knob sprouted a dark mass of curly hair.

On the cool New York nighttime street, Amanda felt a great longing for heat, for the noise of masculine voices shouting in her ears. She longed for her eyes to once again see him.

In a nearby upscale diner she downed two glasses of wine so quickly the bartender looked at her with concern. “Rough night?”

She shrugged. He held up a bottle of whisky and she laughed. “Not that rough. Yet.”

The wine warmed her chest, working its way comfortingly into her solar plexus. She wanted to keep the memory of being brightened by his quick glance in her direction, the radiance of his smile, the aura of his presence.

“Foolish,” she muttered to herself with disgust and, with a resigned sigh, headed for the subway.

Her train was pulling into the station as she pushed through the turnstile. Dashing through the crowd of disembarking passengers, she slipped inside the closing doors and eased into a vacant seat near the center of the car.

Amanda glanced around at the late-night passengers. Her breath caught in her throat. Seated toward the other end of the train was the man who had sent her head whirling.

MARC SAT grumbling to himself, his jaw tense. What the hell did David mean, hustling everybody out of the drawing class. Wasn’t “Antonio” supposed to get to know the artists who seemed the most likely suspects? Wasn’t the model guise supposed to shock someone into a fatal revelation?