The Love of My Afterlife(36)

There’s something about laughing—it makes any awkwardness disappear because you’re both in on the same thing. I’d forgotten that.



* * *





When I get back to my own flat, I take another look through my mother’s bag of clothes to find a wealth of skimpy dresses as well as some shiny nylon shirts straight from the nineties. I unearth a tan skirt made from suede. It’s soft and pretty and would have me melting into a puddle of sweat in under thirty seconds. I put it back.

Eventually I find a thigh-skimming button-up white dress dotted with tiny silver daisies. Perfect.

I imagine Jonah kissing me, running his hands through my hair. No-one can run their hands through braids this tight. I think about how Merritt said I might look better with my hair down. I take every bobby pin out so that my hair falls in thick waves across my shoulders.

Hmm. I don’t look much different.





19





“Your hair! You are Ophelia! You are Venus Rising from the Sea!”

It takes me a moment to recognise the voice of the woman from the park. Like me she has also made an effort to look alluring, although her version of that seems to be wearing a flower crown and a pale lace dress with long sleeves that sway as she moves.

I shuffle uncomfortably as a couple of patrons in a nearby café turn to look at me, seeing not Ophelia or any other Pre-Raphaelite figure but an embarrassed and sweaty ginger woman in a too-short dress and tatty trainers.

“Shush!” I admonish. Then: “I’m so sorry—I think you told me your name at the park but I can’t remember it.”

“It’s Frida.”

I hold out my hand. “Ah yes. I’m Delphie.”

“Our hands together. Feels like soup.”

“Sorry?”

“Our sweating hands, all smooshed together.”

“Hmm, yeah.” Ew. I wipe my hands on the back of my dress. She does the same, grinning at me as though that was a pleasant interaction. She pats her bag, a patchwork, tassely affair. “I’ve brought pencils and pens for drawing. Have you got yours?”

I shake my head. “Oh, no, no, no. I’m not here to do any drawing. I’m here to meet Jonah off the poster. The one with the blue eyes.”

“Ah, I thought he was the model.”

I blink. Somehow that possibility had not occurred to me. I’d only considered the notion that Jonah was a participant or maybe even the instructor. But the model? How will this work? How am I supposed to even introduce myself with his junk on full display? There is so much to worry about right now.

I follow Frida into the pub, climbing a staircase that leads into a function room. Every window is all the way open, but the room remains as hot as Hades. There’s a circle of chairs, easels set up in front of each one. In the middle of the circle is a rug, upon which is an absolutely beautiful short-haired woman sitting cross-legged in a kimono.

“Welcome, welcome!”

It’s the bald man from the poster. The one that Frida fancied. I hear her make a little excited noise beside me.

“Hallo!” She waves at the other attendees, a varied selection—some who look like they’ve come straight from the office, one in a supermarket uniform, a teenager with dyed black hair in a severe bob and a stud on each side of her nose.

Frida takes a seat and nods at me to do the same. “Come on, Delphie. Sit by me so we can buddy up.”

“Where’s Jonah?” I ask the bald man, who introduces himself as Claude. “I actually just came to see him.”

Claude looks at his watch. “Kat is our model for the first session.” He points at the beautiful woman sitting on the rug. “Jonah models for the second session.”

He is a model!

“What time is the second session, please?”

“In an hour.”

I nod. An hour. An hour is nothing when the alternative is eternity in Evermore.

I sit stiffly in front of an easel. While Claude busies about saying hello to his regulars, my phone vibrates with a text.


I realise that perhaps I was rude last night. I apologise. Best, Cooper.



“You have no materials with you?” Claude asks, distracting me before I can reply. I shove my phone back in my bag.

“Oh. No. Sorry. I didn’t think I was…I was just coming to see…um…no. I don’t.”

“What’s your medium? Charcoal? Pencil? Ink? I think we have some acrylics somewhere if you want to paint, but the sink isn’t working so probably not a great idea in terms of mess.”

“Charcoal?” I say, not quite sure why, because I’ve never drawn in charcoal. Maybe that’s why. I remember my pencil drawing of Mr. Taylor, the speckled photocopies pinned up all over school. I push the memory back into the locked box of doom in my brain and smile my thanks as Claude hands me a few sheets of thin paper and a long stick of charcoal.

“Okay, guys.” Claude claps his hand together like a flamenco dancer. “We will do a series of ten-minute speed sessions in which Kat will switch poses each time. Then we will do a longer thirty-minute pose. Following that will be a short break before Jonah arrives and we begin session two.”

I cannot believe I’m going to see Jonah again in one hour. I grin to myself as I imagine us talking again. Having him look at me with those kind, sweet eyes. Touching my arms.