Meg Cabot - Ready or Not

He tore his gaze from my chest and looked at my hair. His green eyes narrowed.

“It’s black,” he said.

I nodded. “Very good. Anything else? For instance…do you like it?”

“It’s…” He stared at my head some more. “It’s very black.”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s called Midnight Ebony. Which led me to believe it might be black. Do you like it, is what I want to know.”

David said, “Well, you aren’t going to have to worry about anybody calling you Red anytime soon.”

“I realize that,” I said. “But do you think it looks good?”

“It looks…” David looked back down at my chest. “Great.”

Wow. I wonder if Nike is aware of the power their shirts have over the eye sockets of people’s boyfriends. At least mine, anyway. So much for being able to count on David for giving me an honest opinion on my new look. I guess I was going to have to wait for—

“What in God’s name did you do to your hair?” Susan Boone looked horrified.

“I dyed it,” I said, fingering a limp curl. I couldn’t tell from her expression whether or not she approved. She mostly looked the way Theresa and Lucy had…stunned. “Do you not like it?”

Susan bit her lower lip.

“You know, Sam,” she said. “There are thousands of women who would kill for hair the color yours used to be. I hope that black isn’t, er, permanent.”

“Semi,” I said weakly. The studio was filling up with life drawing students. Except for Rob, David’s Secret Service agent—being the first son, David isn’t allowed to go anywhere without being trailed by at least one Secret Service agent—I didn’t recognize anyone.

Still, even though I didn’t know any of the people in the Thursday class, they were all listening to our conversation—mine and Susan’s.

Oh, they were pretending they weren’t, fiddling around with their charcoal and drawing pads as they got settled.

But they were listening. You could tell.

“I just really needed a change,” I said, trying to defend my—apparently bad—decision.

“Well, it’s your head,” Susan said with a shrug. Then she nodded at the army helmet David had given me last year, the one decorated with Wite-Out daisies, sitting on its shelf over the slop sink. “Guess you won’t be needing that anymore.”

Which was true. I’d only worn it because Susan’s pet crow, Joe, who roamed around loose during our drawing sessions, was morbidly obsessed with my red hair, and often dive-bombed me if I wasn’t wearing protective headgear. I eyed the evil bird, wondering if he was going to leave me alone now.

But Joe was busy preening himself on his perch, not paying the slightest bit of attention to anyone—least of all Midnight Ebony–haired little old me.

Yes! It worked! No more Joe to worry about.

“I think it looks good,” David said, apparently finally able to register something other than the way my chest looked in my new shirt.

“Really?” I asked, hardly daring to get my hopes up. Finally, a positive response (from someone who’d actually seen it—Catherine’s over-the-phone reassurances didn’t count). “It’s not too, um, Ashlee Simpson?”

David shook his head. “No way,” he said. “Totally Enid from Ghost World.”

Since this was exactly the look I’d been going for, I beamed.

“Thanks,” I said. He really is the greatest boyfriend ever. Even if he is slightly obsessed with my chest.

“All right, everyone,” Susan said, coming to stand beside a low platform in the center of the room, which she’d covered with a brightly colored satin cloth. “Welcome to life drawing. As you can see, we have a couple of first timers here. This is David, Rob”—she pointed to David’s Secret Service agent—“and Samantha.”

Everyone murmured hello to us. I couldn’t tell how many of them recognized David or me from TV. Maybe none of them. Maybe all of them. In any case, they were cool about it, not staring or giggling or being all Johnson Family Vacation about it or anything. Not that I’d expected them to, seeing as how they were all adults, and artists, besides. I mean, you sort of expect artists to behave with a modicum (SAT word meaning “a small quantity”) more dignity than, say, your average, non-artist adult.

“Well, let’s get started then.” Susan called to someone who’d been hanging around the back of the room, “Terry? We’re ready for you, I think.”

Terry, a tall, thin guy in his twenties, came ambling over to the platform, wearing, for some reason, nothing but a bathrobe. I thought maybe this was on account of how we were supposed to be doing some kind of classical drawing.

Which was cool, because, hey, I didn’t know we got to draw the models in costume.

This was going to be a lot more challenging, I knew, than drawing a piece of fruit, or cow horns. Terry’s robe had a paisley pattern in it that was going to be hard to replicate. Especially in the places where the material folded.

I couldn’t help giving a little squirm in eager anticipation. I know only a geek would be excited about drawing paisleys. But I am a geek. Or so I am informed on an almost daily basis by my peers, nearly every time I open my mouth in school, even if only to utter something innocuous, like that Gwen Stefani wrote the song “Simple Kind of Life” the night before No Doubt recorded it.

Then Terry climbed up onto the raised platform and I saw that it wasn’t going to be hard to draw the paisleys on his robe at all. Because no sooner had I picked up my pencil than Terry tugged on the sash to his robe, and it fell into a puddle at his feet.

And underneath it, he was…well, completely naked.

Top ten things that have really and truly shocked me during my lifetime:

10. Gwen Stefani coming out with a solo album. I mean, I think it’s great, don’t get me wrong. But what about the rest of the band? I worry about them, is all. Except Tony, of course, since he’s the one who broke her heart.

9. J. Lo and Ben’s wedding getting called off. Seriously. I thought those two were made for each other. And what’s with the Marc Anthony thing? I mean, he’s shorter than she is, right? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it’s like she picked the one guy who P Diddy could beat up. And that’s just wrong.

8. Lindsay Lohan starring in that Herbie the Love Bug movie. Seriously. Why would they remake those movies? How could that ever have sounded like a good idea?

7. Passing German I–II.

6. Theresa’s son Tito enrolling in technical college. And passing his first semester with flying colors.

5. The sight of my sister Lucy doing her own laundry.

4. Britney Spears marrying that back-up dancer of hers. Did she learn nothing from J. Lo?

3. Kristen Parks inviting me to her sixteenth birthday party at Six Flags Great Adventure (not that I went).

2. My boyfriend fixating on my chest so much that he wouldn’t even notice my new hairstyle-slash-color.

And the number-one thing that really, truly shocked me:

1. That the first naked guy I ever saw was a total stranger.

2

Okay, I’ve seen them before. Naked guys, I mean. On TV. In New York, when I go there for UN stuff, there’s a whole public access channel devoted to naked guys.

And of course I’ve seen pictures of Michelangelo’s statue of David. Not to mention all the classical art at the National Gallery, which is, you know. Mostly nudes.

And of course I’ve seen my dad naked. But only by accident, on the various occasions he’s had to hop around, swearing, after getting out of the shower to find that Lucy has used up all the towels to dry her cashmere sweaters on, or whatever.

But the first naked guy not related to me that I ever saw live and up close? I totally didn’t expect it to be someone I hadn’t even known five minutes before.