“Penelope.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Sorry?”
“Penelope.” She takes another swig, blinks away the sting of it, then says, “My name’s Penelope Norman.”
“Penelope … Nell. I see.” I smile, appreciating it. “When’d you start going by Nell?”
“When I left high school. I couldn’t stand the … sound of my own name. I needed to … shed my old skin, I guess you could say.”
“Didn’t have a good childhood?”
“No.”
She stares down at her bottle, lost in a thought. Somewhere in those infinite, green eyes of hers, I feel like there’s a hundred things she’s not wanting to say. I need to tread lightly.
“My childhood sucked, too.” I take a seat on an empty platform next to her. “Well, I mean, school did. Kids are fuckin’ mean.”
She looks at me curiously, as if appraising me. “Mean little shits, they all were,” she agrees, squinting.
“I wasn’t always … like this,” I admit to her, then instantly regret it, feeling a wave of discomfort surge through me as I recall prepubescent Brant and the way he’d freeze up in front of any girl, pissing himself at parties while pre-deaf Clayton confidently strode forth, showing little me how it’s done. “Anyway, I—”
“Like what?” she asks, pursuing the subject I was trying to avoid. “You weren’t always like what?”
I reach for my neck, then make a sudden and timely discovery that I decide to use as a distraction. “Shit. I … I left my camera in the car. Didn’t even put it back in its case. Left it sitting out on the passenger seat, I think. I wanted to, uh … take another photo of you.”
Nell crosses her legs the other way, then smiles. “Take it now.”
“Now? But I gotta run back down a hundred flight of stairs and grab—”
“Take it on your phone. Who cares? We make art with nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“You don’t need your big flashy device. You just need whatever you got on you, always. And if you didn’t have your phone, you’d take pics with your mind.” Her green eyes are ablaze. “Take my picture, Brant.”
I fumble, diving into my pocket and retrieving my phone. Quickly lifting it, I get her in frame, angling the pic to capture her legs and long, beautiful hair, then snap a shot of her.
“Let me see,” she says at once, snatching the phone from me before I’ve given her an answer.
I watch as she stares at the picture, peering curiously at it. The silence in the room grows thicker and thicker the longer her face is lit by the screen. I smile, watching her watch herself.
Then she asks, “What do you see in this?”
“What do you mean? It’s … you. Nell.”
“I mean … you don’t ever just take a photo.” She turns my phone one way, then the other, squinting. “You consider the lights and darks. The balance. Depth. Where my eyes are and … I mean, look. You even caught the white canvas behind me, contrasting with my dark hair.”
“I did?” I lean over, peering into the phone with her. My shoulder grazes hers. I’m so close, her scent invades me and it’s intoxicating.
“See?” she murmurs quietly.
I look at the photo. I guess I see what she means. “Yeah, totally.”
“Hmm.” She continues to study it as if she were analyzing some great piece of art she happened across. And I study the side of her face as if she was some great puzzle I was trying to pull apart.
Then another puzzle comes to mind. “Hey, Nell. Where’s your, uh … bathroom?”
“Other side of the fridge near the door.”
I help myself, crossing the narrow space to a short hallway I didn’t notice when coming in where a salmon-colored opened door leads me into a dim bathroom with a combo tub-and-shower squeezed next to a sink and toilet. The first thing I smell is bleach and paint, then notice the bathtub stained with various colored splotches. Guess she uses the tub more in the name of art and less in the name of actually taking baths.
I close the door softly behind me and touch my back pocket, just to be sure it’s still there. Condom, check.
Then I take a deep breath and look at myself in the mirror, leaning forward to inspect a red spot, curious if I got a bug bite or something. I push down a strand of hair that’s sticking straight up in the back. I lick my lips and check my breath, huffing into my palm.
I could very well move to the next step with Nell and I need to make sure I do this right, because it’s clear to me that her whole “art” thing can shove me away as easily as it can pull me into her bed. She’s not as tough as she looks; minute by minute I’m peeling back the layers and finding the sensitive Nell I know is in there, the one who will respond to my advances, the one who’ll let me kiss her.