CHAPTER12
Remi
There are so many ways to lose the ones you love.
Gas explosions are rare, but they happen. Buses crash. School shootings aren’t nearly as infrequent as they should be. People dive into shallow water. Cancer takes way too many souls. Sometimes a random logging truck skids across the double yellow line and crashes into a sleek black sedan, instantly killing the two occupants. And destroying their only son’s ability to love.
As I drive home from Jared’s Monday evening soccer game, my thoughts are consumed with disaster scenarios. A tangled web, spun by fear, wraps around my brain, suffocating the new flicker of joy that burns there. By the time I pull into the lot across the street from the loft, my mood is dark. My anxiety is high. My hope, like that fleeting spark, has burned itself out.
I’m risking my sanity by ingratiating myself with the Wilder family—by bonding with Jared, Tommy, Wendy, and Tara. And especially by attaching my heart to Tristan’s, which I can’t deny is happening. I simply can’t let it continue if I want emotional security.
I have no choice in this—I need to be finished with them. With him…
How do you end a friendship? Can you break up with a pal… and his family?
Tristan is perceptive; a cold shoulder should do the trick. And then the Wilder family will be nothing but a sweet memory.
* * *
Tristan
Thanks to a last-minutecall from Lizzie at The Wining Painter—a paint-and-sip bar that is hugely popular with the many students at the local art colleges—I have a Friday night job. Between helping with the kids and modeling for three classes daily at White River School of Character Arts, the week has been busy.
My work at The White River School is different from what I do at the other art schools in Garner City. In one of the classes at WRSCA, the instructor transforms my face and body into that of an extraterrestrial creature, as the students observe and take notes. This includes skin prep, prosthetic application, incorporation of stencils and tattoos, and the final addition of a wig. I also model nude for Figure Sculpture for Characters and a students’ hands-on class called Dead Body Makeup. Morbid, yeah, but it pays the bills.
What has not been keeping me busy is hanging out with Remi. He seems to run hot and cold in his commitment to our friendship, or whatever it is that’s going on with us. I haven’t heard from him since he walked Jared into the apartment on Monday after coaching his soccer game and mumbled a quick good night.
Erratic behavior makes me uncomfortable. It puts me on the same kind of high alert I lived on when Mom was around. Those days are gone—and that stressful lifestyle is a done deal.
I don’t have spare time to dwell on hurt feelings. And if I’m honest with myself, Remi’s neglect is worrying, and it stings. But after an afternoon spent posing for figure sculpture class, all I have time for is a hurried jog around the edges of the WRSCA campus to loosen my muscles and a guzzled protein drink on the bus before I begin an evening posing for tipsy artists at The Wining Painter.
* * *
Tristan
“Hey there,my dearest ghosts and zombies—and I gotta love all you sexy pirates! Aargh! The Friday night you’ve been waiting for is finally here—Almost-Halloween Night at Booze and Nudes!” A few college guys dressed as lumberjacks help to hoist the Wining Painter’s owner, Lizzie McGee—a round-faced middle-aged woman in a tall, black witch’s hat—onto the upside-down milk crate I’ll soon be standing on. “Tonight’s nude is one of your all-time faves—the stunning Tristan W. His costume tonight is, of course, bare-assed Greek god!”
The crowd of about eighteen dressed-up twenty-somethings, seated in a wide semi-circle in front of tabletop easels and glasses of wine, cheers for me noisily. “Take it off, Tristan!”
“Have you got your paints, people?” Liz shouts her question and then burps noisily.
“Yeah!”
“And have you got your booze?” she shrieks.
“Yeah!” The students lift their wine glasses.
“Well, then… drumroll, please…”
The artists drum their paintbrushes on the table.
“Heeeeere’s your nude!” Lizzie, who has clearly already sipped a bit too much wine, points to me with a flourish and then stumbles clumsily from the podium. After making sure she’s steady on her feet, I drop my robe and climb up.
The polite rules of nude-model etiquette aren’t enforced on Friday nights at the Wining Painter. The artists hoot and whistle at me amid what must be a hundred orange and black balloons, some scattered on the floor, but most sticking to the ceiling. I glance around the room, smiling in greeting. Despite their costumes, I recognize many of the customers from my work in art classes at their colleges. Before I strike my planned pose—a balanced loose-kneed stance, my chin lifted and my arms hanging in soft curves by my sides—several tardy students push through the door, clutching backpacks and full glasses of red wine. They scurry to the only two empty easels, on tables in the back righthand corner of the room.
It’s Dacia and Remi, neither in costume. Remi appears as shocked to see me as I am to see him.
There’s no real reason for me to feel awkward but tell that to my shriveling dick. I’ve come to know Dacia and Remi from real life—clothed life—and it’s weird to be standing in front of them on a milk crate covered in a tacky pumpkin print tablecloth, nearly glowing in unforgiving fluorescent lighting. Among a room full of drunks and a thousand balloons. I glance down at my robe, wishing like hell I could use mental gymnastics to will it to rise from the floor and wrap around my waist. Wouldn’t that be a trick?
No such luck.
I forgo the “hello, stranger” grin, cast my gaze to the far side of the room—safely above the painters’ heads—and focus on the hundred bucks I’m making for posing here tonight.
Thankfully, the room isn’t silent, as are most college life drawing classrooms. Lizzie has chosen Chopin’s “Funeral March” to kick off this pre-Halloween Booze and Nudes party. It’s the perfect tune for my lackluster state of mind. Despite the gloomy background music, laughter erupts in scattered pockets around the room. At least the paying customers are having fun.
At the forty-five-minute mark, I ask, “Could someone please tape me?” My feet are killing from the grooves in the plastic.
A male student in the front of the room bounces to his feet and grabs the roll of painter’s tape beside my shabby podium. He carefully marks the position and location of my feet. In my humble opinion, he’s overly hands on—running his fingers up and down my calves—but he’s probably too tipsy for good judgment.
“Thanks, dude.” I hop down from the crate, wrap up in my robe, and then announce to the class, “Time for a short break.”
Lizzie rushes to me with a glass of red wine in hand. “Thirsty, Tristan?”
Normally, I abstain while working—especially when I’m trying to balance on a milk crate—but tonight, I accept the glass. “Very.” Maybe a dull buzz will help me to forget that Remi—who hasn’t called to say hello all week—is in the back of the room, closely observing my naked form. “Thank you.”