Beneath Beautiful (28 page)

“You're going to love it,” Cameron said. “I know you will.”

“That's what Marianne said.”

Cameron nodded. “She really likes it. I mean,
really
. Of course, she tells me she likes everything because she's a total suck-up, which she readily admits, but I can tell she means it about this piece. Everyone loves it. Especially the people here who've met you.”

Cassie rolled her eyes. “Thanks. So now I don't feel nervous
at all
.” She could practically hear her heart thumping in the otherwise quiet of the room.

“Come on.” Cameron beckoned her over, and Cassie came to stand beside him. “You took forever to get here. At least ten minutes. I can't wait much longer.”

Cassie laughed, and with it, her nervousness subsided a little.

Cameron bent down and picked up a corner of the sheet, revealing slightly more of the long plinth. Standing up once more, he turned to Cassie. “Are you ready?”

“No.” She shook her head, wishing she had received Marianne's text before lunch, which now sat uneasily in her stomach. When Cameron began to move anyway, she grabbed his free hand and held on tight. “Wait,” she said, gulping. “Just wait a moment.” She attempted to center herself with a deep breath before turning to him. “All right,” she finally said. “Now.”

“O
h,” Cassie said breathily, as she stared at the piece before her. “Oh. It's so . . . real.” She released her hand from Cameron's and began to circle the sculpture. “It's so incredibly real. Like a mirror.”

It was as she had sat all those many hours, the end of the long road of tweaking and adjusting. It was also fully clothed. Scarf. Coat. Boots.

“I love how deep in concentration you are. See the brow? And I love the sense of how it feels you're just about to turn the page—that you will at any moment. It's as if we're all waiting for it.”

Cassie shook her head slightly. “It really is just how I was sitting that day. That is, if you put this back in the cemetery and took a photo, I would swear on my life that it was me. Really, I would.” She glanced up. “Can I touch it?”

“Of course,” Cameron said. “Though the public won't be able to, of course.”

Cassie nodded, stretching out her hand to touch first her hair, which felt exactly like her own, and then her coat, which was hard to the touch.

“It's a mixture of the real coat—the sourced one—and the usual polyester resin, fiberglass and so on . . .”

“But it looks so real.” Cassie brought her hand to her face, flustered. “And the hair?”

“Yes, real. Dyed, though.”

Cassie moved in slightly closer to the sculpture to see what page the book had been turned to. “Was I really up to that part?” She glanced up with a small smile. She wouldn't have put it past Cameron to have checked.

“I actually have no idea. You were past halfway, though. Sometimes I need to take artistic liberties. I'm sure if I'd approached you and started reading over your shoulder, you would have run off even sooner.”

“Probably,” Cassie said, witheringly. She stepped back now to take a look from a normal viewer's perspective. It was only then that she thought to ask. “Why the long plinth? Is it to balance it out, because I'm seated? You don't usually do that, though? Your pieces are usually flush with the floor, aren't they?”

“Nice of you to have noticed,” Cameron said. “Yes. They usually are. This one, however, is not. Because it's different.”

Cassie turned her full attention to him instantly. “How is it different?”

“Do you want to see?”

Cassie paused, guessing at what was coming. “Okay, so I thought I was nervous before . . .”

But Cameron knew what the answer would be and so proceeded anyway. He brought out of his pocket something small and white, and clicked it. And that was when everything stirred into motion.

“Oh . . .” Cassie said again, reminding herself to breathe as the sculpture came to life.

In one seamlessly smooth, soundless movement, her clothes pulled off to either side and retracted to the back of the long plinth, where they closed together once more in formation—her outer trappings—like a shell. Yes, she had guessed, but until she saw it in front of her, she had had no idea of how it would all work. The clothes fit together without a crack to be seen. There had been no hint of what was to come.

And there, in front, on the plinth, Cassie was left naked, reading her book, oblivious to the world outside it.

“Oh, God . . .” She attempted to say more, but had no words. She attempted to stem the flow of tears before they started, but there was no hope. Instead, she stood, staring at herself, her eyes brimming over, realising why she had posed naked. It was for this—this juxtaposition of self—exposed and hidden, light and shade, she oblivious, the viewer suddenly self-aware. Everything came together for her here—layers, as James had said. Layers. And we all have so many of them, Cassie thought, especially, as Marianne had said, women. Young women. They would understand this piece. And hopefully come away with something to think about. If just for one moment in their day they could be kinder to themselves, less harsh and judgmental about their lives and bodies and thoughts, she would be happy.

It was only as she began to calm down that she was able to examine her naked self in more detail. She felt no shame in it, and knew that it would be the same when it was out there in the world, being viewed. Because it was honest. Just a girl. Sitting and reading. Caught in a moment. Where was the shame to be found in that? There was none, and now she wondered why for so long she had held back. Convention, she supposed. Nice girls just didn't do things like this. But there was nothing “not nice” about the piece. In no way was it pornographic, or shocking, or lurid. Far from it. It was a very gentle, thoughtful piece of work. The fact that the opportunity had come so close to slipping through her fingers scared her to her very core.

“So.” She glanced up at Cameron with a sniff. “It's okay, I guess.” She laughed then, and Cameron came over to give her a tissue. “As you can tell, I love it. I can't tell you how much.”

“As do I,” Cameron told her. “I think I'm going to show it randomly, either way. I haven't quite decided yet. I don't like the idea of some half-hourly business, like feeding time at the zoo.”

Cassie nodded. “No, I don't like that, either. Can I ask, though, you said you would have worked things out somehow even if I hadn't sat for you naked. How would you have done that?”

Cameron raised his eyebrows. “I still don't know. I would have made it work somehow, but it wouldn't have been as lovely. Layering the outer clothes only, maybe? Surely I could have got you down to your underwear at some point. Perhaps a year or two from now? Or maybe a full flesh-colored spandex bodysuit? For modesty's sake?” He grinned.

Cassie laughed. “That sounds hideous.”

“Yes, quite. I still would have done it, though.”

“You're mad.”

“So they say,” Cameron replied. “I have your permission, then? To show it? Her? You? There will only be minor cosmetic changes from now.”

“Yes, of course. I'd be honored. And you'll show it in London?”

“Naturally. The exhibition will start there in April.”

Cassie nodded. “I have a favour to ask, then. I have several people I need to see it. Maybe before the exhibition opens. Could you do that? Would they be able to meet you? It's quite . . . important to me.”

“Of course,” Cameron said. “I always do this. It can be quite confronting for people who know the model to have to view it for the first time in the middle of a crowd. I'd be more than happy to meet a few people personally, and of course we'll invite them to the events that are held before we open, as well. If you give their names to Marianne, she'll organize everything.”

Cassie breathed a sigh of relief. “Great. Because I have a couple of relationships I'd like to . . . salvage, for want of a better word.” She thought specifically of James, Alys and Jo. And, perhaps, even of her father. Maybe if he saw the sculpture he could try to understand where she had been coming from.

“I'm sure it will all be fine,” Cameron said.

Cassie nodded. “I'm sure it will.”

And somewhere deep down, she believed this. It would all be all right. Given time. There was a moment's silence in which Cassie realised that this was it. She looked up at Cameron, standing before her. “So, I'm going home. To London. I have an apartment.”

“Near Highgate Cemetery?” Cameron instantly inquired.

“It is, actually,” Cassie said, pleased that he had remembered. “It's lovely. Brand new. In a converted church . . .”

“With a desk, I hope? Where you can write thousands of equally lovely words?” He was, she knew, asking more than his glib words suggested. His gaze, fixed to her, told her this. What he was truly asking her was whether he had met his end of the bargain. She had inspired him, but had he, equally, inspired her?

“Yes,” she answered firmly and without hesitation. “Yes. I believe I might even do some of my best work there.”

Cameron grabbed her hand then. “I truly am happy to hear that, Cassie.”

“Thank you,” she said. “For . . . everything.”

He knew what for, as did she.

“No, thank you,” he replied. “The pleasure has been all mine. All mine.” He kissed the back of her hand as Cassie's eyes welled up again. “Until London, then?”

For a moment, Cassie couldn't quite imagine not spending hour after hour with Cameron, their not being the other's centre of the universe, despite the fact that it had been so for only a few short weeks. But as she pulled away toward the door, she knew it had to be like this. That this was best this way. For both of them. They both needed that space. That break until April. There was something in her that knew that if she stayed, other things might happen. Things that she had once desired, but now saw she had been right to hold back on acting upon. She saw now how life could be sweeter, the reward greater, for not giving in to temptation.

“Until London,” she said, as brightly as she could, and then quickly turned, and made for the door.

And as it shut closed behind her, it made the definite resounding snap of one thing ending, and something else entirely beginning anew.

I
t had been almost two weeks since Cassie had moved into her apartment, straight off the plane from New York. She had arrived in the early hours of the morning, bleary-eyed, despite the deliciousness of first class, which she doubted she would ever enjoy again, and already mourned. Jo had met her to give her her keys, and she had been apprehensive as she turned them in the locks—photos of apartments, she had learned after years of renting, were rarely indicative of a place when you actually saw it.

However, immediately upon entering the tiny apartment she had felt instantly at home. It was as if she had lived there for years. She had run around the apartment like an excited puppy, her energy renewed, intermittently hugging her sister as she passed by (there were not, after all, many places to run about in a one-bedroom apartment).

Jo had been kind enough to unpack a lot of her knickknacks and clothes and had set up her desk at the window, as well.

“Now you can get back to work,” she had said, giving her sister the eye. “On . . .?”

Cassie gave her a sly look. “I haven't quite decided yet,” she'd said. She had, though. It was only that she didn't want to jinx her work by discussing it too early on.

Now, back in the present, Cassie smiled, remembering that first day, as she ran up the steps to the same apartment after a morning walk in the cemetery to clear her head for the day's work. She'd spent the past week taking copious amounts of notes, and today was going to start typing them up in the hope of getting them into some kind of shape.

“Miss?” someone called out from the street below.

Cassie turned to see a deliveryman. “Yes?”

“You're not Cassandra Tavington, by any chance?”

“Yes, I am,” Cassie said, gasping as she spotted a beautiful floral arrangement in his hands. She ran down the steps again now. “Is that for me?” she said incredulously, staring at the red berries and red asters, red roses and red tulips so artfully put together. Who would send her such an expensive arrangement? Cameron, maybe? But why?