To pay fifty cents an hour this man must be richer than—Aunt Mabel, but this dusty dirty room didn't look it. A lot of cheap chairs like those men with collars off sat in to wait their turn in barbershops. And dusty tables with squeezed smelly tubes, and three-legged stands like in Cheever's window. She stood uncertainly, wondering a little fearfully whether she should have given up her suitcase and makeup box so readily to this strange man. Maybe she should have encouraged Vida to come up.
Clem watched her guarded manner with amusement. Congress girls weren't used to studios. On second sight she was more beautiful, the remembered image exceeded by the original. How could she have survived the conformities of this prohibiting community, an orchid among vegetables. Nor did one have to search in her for beauty, as in the taunting coarse-skinned bitches who posed in Paris. Those frizzed black masses of hair had been hard to plane into form. The black hair on and between their sturdy legs and under their arms, and their corn-misshapen toes had been impossible to view objectively. Repelling. French models, with their direct sexual posing, and in their talk and lovemaking as well, and that overpowering animal odor, had made him feel insufficient.
"You see," he explained apologetically, "this is a place to work. I don't live here. I live on Pawnee Street. It's not as dirty as it looks, painting makes a mess."
He doesn't seem like Mr. Brady, he isn't fresh at all, decided Lucy. If he really lives on Pawnee Street I guess he can pay fifty cents, but I guess it won't be for many times.
"Oh, that's all right." She waited for him to make the next move.
He was relieved that he had had the sense to clean the bathroom but was too shy to use the word. "I thought," he began hesitantly, "if you will put on your costume and stand on that platform we can decide on a pose."
"Oh sure. My dress will be a little wrinkled though. Is there a toilet or bathroom I can use?"
Clem blushed. Who ever said Nebraska was provincial? He showed her where to dress and, closing the door, rubbed his hands delightedly at his luck. Some quick sketches first, as Degas had done. Who knows, even the sketches might be good enough to show. Lucy stuck her head out. What shoulders, thought Clem, bedazzled.
"Do you want me to put on my makeup?" She hoped he would say yes.
