To The Bone

Chapter 7

Afternoon sunlight filtered through the tall windows of Julia D' Anton's studio, illuminating slowly drifting particles of limestone that settled onto the dusty old hardwood floor. Her strong fingers worked at the stone with a wooden mallet and the hand-forged iron chisels she had brought back from Tuscany more than twenty years ago.

The block was one-quarter life size. Julia had started by sketching a live model, then roughing out the sculpture in clay. Now the model was back, to lend living nuance to the flow of the stone. Her name was Anna somebody, a softly pretty and somewhat sulky girl in her late teens, full-bodied and large-breasted. In the past, Julia had preferred working with marble, and women with lean, well-defined musculatures, but now she did not want to look at either – maybe ever again.

She had been shaping the face with small tooth chisels, trying to render expression from the blank oval. It was not going well. Her hands were getting tired. When that happened, they started to tremble and lose control. Anna was posed nude, sitting up, with her legs curled beside her. Her face was turned in profile and down, as if she were contemplating a flower in the garden where the sculpture would probably end up. She looked like she was almost asleep.

Julia gave the chisel a delicate tap along the bridge of the nose. A hairline crack appeared, a tiny fault in the stone that she had not seen. She pressed a fingertip over it, but she knew already that it could not be repaired. She thrust the clawed chisel in and gouged out a chip the size of a small nailhead. It would mean a restructuring of the entire face. Hands shaking now with anger, she slammed down the tools on the workbench.

Anna's body jerked with the sound, her eyes flicking open.

"Is something wrong?" she said.

"It's all wrong. All this work I've gone to, and it's just getting worse. You are wrong. Your bones might be all right, but everything from there out is impossible."

The girl's mouth twisted in a little grimace of resentment.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Try to look a little less bovine."

Anna's face turned suspicious. "I don't know what that means."

"Like a cow, darling."

Anna's mouth opened, then her eyes went teary. "You have – no right," she blurted out. She stood, grasping for her robe and flinging it around her shoulders, trying to look dignified but without the necessary presence.

"It's no use going knock-kneed trying to hide your bush," Julia said coldly. "It only makes your thighs look fatter."

Anna turned away with a flounce and started toward the studio's changing room.

"I didn't say the session was over," Julia said.

"You can't keep me if I don't want-"

"If you leave here without my permission, you will never come back. Do you understand?"

Their gazes met, but only for a second. This was no contest of wills. Slowly, Anna took her seat again.

"The robe," Julia said.

Eyes downcast, she shrugged it back off her shoulders and laid it aside.

Julia walked to stand behind her. She caressed Anna's neck lightly, feeling her shiver in response. Julia's fingers moved on in slow exploration, feeling the lack of tone in the deltoid muscle, tracing the flaccid triceps down the back of the arm, then moving across the smooth padded rib cage and up, to cup one full soft breast. She squeezed the nipple gently, tugging it erect. The girl relaxed a little, settling back against Julia's thighs.

Then, suddenly, Julia pinched hard with her nails. Anna flinched and gasped, tried to rise, but Julia's other hand on her shoulder held her where she was. Julia could feel her panting. She held the pressure of her fingernails steady, just short of drawing blood.

"Did I say cow?" Julia said softly. "I meant sow." She released her grip and gave the breast a contemptuous slap. "Get out."

The girl hurried across the room, almost running, the robe left lying on the floor. Julia watched her, breathing hard with anger. But it was not really at Anna – she was only a place to put it.

Julia closed her eyes, remembering the alluring innocence of Eden's face, the restless energy in her finely shaped limbs. The dark fire that came into her eyes when she was caressed.

Julia had thought it would help, having another young woman here today. But after Eden, mere creatures like Anna were intolerable.

Outside, a car started and pulled away with a spray of gravel. Anna might never come back – or she might come back pleading. Either way, there were always others.

Julia walked through the studio, her gaze moving restlessly, looking for a project to interest her. But all her fine stone looked bleak and without promise now.

Then the door into the main house opened, and her husband stepped through. She was surprised, and not pleasantly. She could not remember the last time he had been in her studio – years ago, surely. It had been that long since they had shared much of anything.

"I was almost run over by a young woman driving out of here," D' Anton said. He was stiff, formal, still dressed in the business suit he had worn at the clinic this morning.

"She was modeling for me."

"Yes, I assumed so. She looked very upset. What happened?"

Julia shrugged. "She was unsatisfactory. Since when are you so interested in my work?"

"This isn't about your work. It's about your losing control of yourself."

"I have a temperament, Welles," she said haughtily. "It comes from having warm blood in my veins, instead of ice water."

D'Anton walked farther into the room, toward her. His face was concerned, understanding – the kind of look he used with his patients.

"I know you were in love with Eden," he said. "And that you're very, very angry."

"Don't you patronize me," she snapped back. D' Anton flinched a little. She began to step slowly around him, circling.

"Yes, I gave her love," Julia said. "But she went with you, because you promised her candy. You don't have any love to give."

"I didn't try to take her love from you. I saw what I could do with her."

"With her? Or to her? Your idea of beauty goes as deep as a magazine cover. You've never understood the first thing about real art. It celebrates flaws."

D'Anton grimaced impatiently. "Let's not forget who has the world-class reputation."

"Thanks to my family's influence. Your steel mill worker father didn't help much, did he?"

"What a shame your family's influence couldn't buy you any talent," D'Anton said, with cold pity. "All that schooling in Europe, and still the only people who'll buy your work are your friends."

"And you've never dared risk pushing for something more than nice tits and a pretty smile." She slapped her trembling palm down flat on a workbench.

D'Anton moved toward her again. His face had gone rigid, his eyes very intense.

"Julia," he said, speaking very quietly now. "Did you – interfere with Eden somehow? After the surgery?"

Her eyes widened in outrage. "What are you saying?"

"Out of jealousy? Revenge, because she left you?"

Her hand scuttled across the workbench and tightened around an iron mallet. D' Anton stopped walking.

"I have ignored – certain things," he said, almost whispering. "But I can't continue. You'll destroy us both."

He turned abruptly and hurried out of the studio, fumbling to close the door behind him.

Julia stood with the mallet clenched in her shaking hand, aware of his fading footsteps, then the silence around her. A sudden spasm wracked her body, chattering her teeth and bending her over, with her muscles clenching in spastic contortions.

Panting, she walked swiftly to a large, canvas-draped marble in the studio's far corner. She yanked off the cover and raised the mallet, willing herself to smash it, to exorcise Eden Hale from her memory.

But her arm dropped to her side. This was all there was left of that passion.

She let the cover fall back into place and put down the mallet.

There would be others, she told herself again. There were always plenty of others.