Web of Dreams (Casteel 5)

"And we will be the first to do it here in America so a Tatterton doll will become the thing to have, something special, precious, a personalized collectible. Brilliant!" he exclaimed again, this time pounding his knees with his fists.

I had to admit Tony's fervor took my breath away and the idea did sound very good. "But how does this involve me?" I asked, remembering what had drawn me deeper into the room and the conversation. Tony gazed at Momma, his smile deepening, and she smiled back and then turned to me.

"Tony wants you to be the model for the very first doll and he wants to do the doll himself," she said.

"Me?" I gazed from one to the other. Mamma's face was locked in her soft, happy smile. Tony's eyes were fixed on me, already with an artist's intensity. "Why me?"

"For one thing," Tony began, "I want to make the first set of dolls for young girls. Not little girls," he added quickly, "young girls, teenage girls. That's going to be the biggest market of all for the portrait dolls, I think. Little girls are not old enough to appreciate the extra-special artwork involved, but most importantly, they don't dote on their own image and worry about how they look as much as teenage girls do."

"But I still don't understand. Why me, of all people?" I asked. Tony shook his head.

"Isn't it wonderful, Jillian, that she has such modesty?"

Momma looked at me with a twinkle in her eyes as if she understood I was being coy. She had told me often that men like it when beautiful women pretend to be modest. It gives them an opportunity to heap compliments on them without shame or fear of being too flattering, and the woman could draw compliment after compliment by denying and blushing and looking as though she needed the adulation.

But I wasn't doing any of that. I really couldn't understand why Tony wanted me to be a model for a special doll. There were many girls my age, girls who were far more beautiful and who were trained to be models. With his money and investments, he could hire the best in the country, if he wanted to. Why me?

"Tony thinks you are special, Leigh, and so do I," Momma said.

"You already have a doll's face," Tony explained. I shook my head. "Yes, you do, Leigh. You can cling to modesty if you like, but why should I go searching for the right look, the right girl, when I have the perfect look and the perfect girl living right under my roof?

"I'm going to have the best photographer in town take pictures of your face, many pictures until we decide on the perfect one, and then, I'll have that, picture placed beside the first doll, whose face will be yours, too. Then all my rich customers will

understand what a portrait doll is and want one for themselves. Your picture will be featured in all my store windows . . . everywhere," he said.

The idea made my heart beat fast. What would my girlfriends say, the "special club"? I knew they would all be jealous, but Tony was probably right-- each would want a doll made of herself. I sat back and thought about it seriously for the first time--a doll with my face.

"I'm so proud that Tony wants the first doll to be you," Momma said. I gazed at her for a moment. Why didn't Tony want to use Momma's face? She still looked so young and she had a perfect face, a face everyone agreed was beautiful.

What puzzled me too was that Momma wasn't jealous. She looked happy about it.

Then I thought, Momma would never agree to do such a thing anyway. She would hate to have to sit for hours and hours while Tony painted her. Or, was there more to it?

"What do I have to do?" I asked.

Tony laughed.

"Just be yourself, nothing more, your entire self."

"My entire self?"

"The doll has to be perfect," Tony said. "In every aspect. It's not going to be just another doll, molded and reproduced in some assembly line. It's a work of art. That's the point. Think of it as a miniature statue, only made like a child's doll."

"What does all that mean?" I asked, my voice coming out breathless, almost a whisper. Tony looked at Momma, his smile wilting. Her eyes quickly turned from soft, happy eyes to angry eyes.

"It means you will be a model, Leigh. Why are you acting so stupid all of a sudden? A model, an artist's model. You'll pose."

"But don't artists' models usually pose . . . in the nude?"

I asked, fearfully.

Tony laughed as if I had said the silliest thing.

"Of course they do," he replied nonchalantly. "What of it? It's art, and as I said, this doll is going to be a miniature statue."

I tried to swallow. Stand in a room somewhere naked while Tony painted a picture of me, a picture anyone could see?

"It's not like Tony's a complete stranger," Momma said shaking her head and smiling. "He's family now. I wouldn't want anyone else to do it but him," she added.