The Magnolia Palace(11)
“Grandiose, I must say.” Kitty grabbed Lillian’s arm. “We are leaving at once.”
Outside, Broadway was indeed teeming with a rush of workers heading home after a long day. Kitty’s face was red, and Lillian wasn’t sure if it was from Konti’s proposal or the afternoon heat that shimmered up from the concrete sidewalk.
“Mother, are you all right?”
Kitty leaned on Lillian, panting slightly. Lillian pulled her back into the shade of the building, out of the way of the pedestrians.
“I’m fine.”
Lillian thought back. Her mother hadn’t had breakfast with Lillian, saying she’d eaten before Lillian woke up. At lunch, she’d said she wasn’t hungry as Lillian had finished up a generous helping of beans on toast.
Kitty began to step forward, but Lillian held her back. “You haven’t eaten at all today, have you?” She didn’t let her answer. “One hour with Mr. Konti equals a dozen eggs, some milk, and a loaf of bread. Think of it that way. I’ll earn breakfast for both of us in one hour.”
Her mother swallowed. She was hungry.
“I’m fifteen, that’s not a baby anymore, and you’ll be with me the entire time. Did you see his work? It’s beautiful. Imagine, I’ll be there inside the Hotel Astor ballroom. Fancy folks will look up and see me and think it’s art. In fact, they’ll see three of me!”
Her mother’s tone was dry. “That’s three pairs of breasts.”
“Only two. He said one muse was clothed.”
In spite of herself, her mother laughed. “You are a sly one, Lilly.”
The unflappable Mr. Konti didn’t appear surprised by their return. He didn’t chide Kitty, or make her feel foolish about her change of mind. They came to an agreement, with Kitty speaking in soft, measured tones as if she were arranging the details for a garden party. Lillian would pose for four hours a day, six days a week, until the piece was finished.
Lillian had figured modeling over the course of an afternoon would be far less difficult than having to learn choreography and lyrics. The first session, he’d begun with the middle figure of the three, and told her to sit looking down and off to the left, everything from her chest down draped by a thin layer of silk. After thirty minutes, when he told her to take a break, it was all she could do not to collapse in a heap. Her neck cricked when she straightened it, and her arms were sore from being extended outward. Even her fingers ached.
She soon learned the best way to avoid the physical toll was to go deep into her thoughts while the sculptor worked. She’d lose herself in the details of the dress her mother had promised to buy her after the job was over: a sleeveless gown of Georgette crepe from Bonwit Teller. She imagined slipping it over her head, the feel of the material on her skin, the joy of twirling around and letting the layers of the skirt float up in the air.
After a few weeks, Mr. Konti asked her to pose for the second figure, whose drapery fell below her breasts. By then, Lillian was comfortable with his stare. He observed her musculature and tendons and bones: he was looking inside her, not at her. After five minutes she didn’t feel odd at all being half naked in front of him. His age worked in his favor, as he came across as a gruff grandfather, not a potential lover. At that first exposure, Kitty, who was seated in a corner with her knitting, seemed to clack the needles together faster and louder, but slowly even she became used to her daughter sitting unclothed, collecting the payment at the end of each day with a businesslike nod.
As Lillian posed for the final muse, the drapery dipping dangerously below her hip bones, she learned the one unspoken rule of posing for a neoclassical work of art. After taking her place on the stool, she made the mistake of offering up a full smile. Konti admonished her, explaining that a nude model retained her dignity only if her lips remained closed. She might offer up the hint of a smile, but never a full one if she wanted to be successful. Lillian was not a commercial product, neither a Gibson girl nor a Ziegfeld girl. She was the vision of perfect woman, the embodiment of beauty. An angel.
“Angelica.” Her mother came up with Lillian’s model name that same session. “We’ll call you Angelica.”
Lillian knew Kitty had done so to avoid any detection by her family back in Newport of their rather unorthodox venture, and the moniker stuck. She didn’t need a last name. More and more sculptors reached out requesting Angelica, and soon the only person who still called her Lilly or Lillian was Kitty, and only at home.
Instead, she became the belle of the Beaux Arts ball, the architectural and design movement sweeping the City of New York.
She became Angelica.
* * *
“No sleeping here. Move along.”
Lillian startled into an upright position, rubbing her ankle where the policeman looming over her had given her a light thwack. The bright sun in her eyes was disorienting. Why was she outside and not in her bed? Where was her mother?
The harsh reality seeped back, like a thick mudslide. Yesterday, after fleeing her apartment down the fire escape, she’d made her way to Central Park, wandering through the Ramble, where few park-goers ventured and thick foliage provided some measure of protection. She needed to figure out what was next, but as the sun set and her stomach grumbled, she’d eventually settled on a park bench and fallen fast asleep.
“Sorry, Officer.” She avoided looking at him directly, not wanting to be recognized, and scurried up the hill and behind a forsythia, where she checked her bag, the contents of which were intact.