She looked up from her phone. Everyone besides Micah and Arden had their phones out, tapping and scrolling. Arden’s would contain ninety percent bad news, if not more, so she focused on the strawberries and not sneaking glances at Seth.
“I can’t remember the last time I went forty minutes without looking at this,” Betsy said, waggling it at the group.
“Sally?”
“Focus isn’t my problem,” she said. “Drawing live bodies without turning them into an anatomical exercise, however, that’s different.”
A little laughter. Libby leaned over and said, “She’s a pathologist,” to Seth.
“Arden?”
A weird silence, because everyone in the room knew about MacCarren’s downfall, and most of them knew about the panic attacks. “There’s just so much to look at.”
More laughter. At that, Seth looked up from his phone. His face broke into a smile that wrinkled the skin around his eyes and carved lines on either side of his lips, adding entirely new layers and nuances to his already unfathomable self.
“That’s a Marine Corps symbol,” Sally said. Arden followed her gaze to a globe and anchor on his upper right shoulder.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said easily, but while the smile remained on his mouth, it disappeared from his eyes.
“I see a lot of tattoos in my line of work.”
“No shoptalk,” Betsy said gently.
Sally looked quickly at Arden. Yes, she was the reason for the no-shoptalk rule. Usually Sally’s tendency to describe the trickier parts of autopsies was the most socially awkward thing to happen, but now they were making a space for Arden to not have to think about, much less talk about, work.
“It’s not a problem,” Seth said. “If it was, I wouldn’t take off my clothes for art students.”
Slightly nervous laughter, but Arden sensed tension underneath the accurate statement. Just because you showed your soft underbelly to people didn’t mean you wanted people to poke it.
“Let’s talk about the introductory exercise,” Micah said. “What’s the connection between the warm-up and the longer session?”
“Switching on the right brain?” Betsy offered.
“In part,” Micah said. “Getting down a quick sketch is the foundation for a drawing. When we come at drawing from the left brain, we want to make each line perfect the first time. It makes us hesitant. Building from a quick sketch captures the pose’s energy and relies on intuition. If you learn to follow your instincts, the rest will fall into place.”
“I knew this was easy,” Libby quipped.
“It’s that easy, and that hard,” Micah said, and finished off his wine.
They pushed their chairs back from the table. Seth leaned over. “How are the truffles?” he asked, his voice carrying under the conversation at the head of the table. Sally was already back at her place, frowning as she erased a line and redrew it.
“Really good,” Arden said. “Carlotta makes them with red chili powder.”
“Don’t give away all her secrets,” Betsy chided.
Seth snagged a truffle on his way to the circle of easels, consuming it in two bites before stripping as casually as he did before. Micah arranged him in a reclining pose that allowed him to relax entirely. Betsy got Seth’s front while Arden the long line of his back, from the crown of his head to his heels. Libby and Sally got a serious challenge in foreshortening.
She flipped to a new page in her sketchbook and set to her task. The sword was repeated on his back, as if someone had driven it through his shoulder and now the thing pulsed inside him, the edges, carved hilt, and ornate text on the blade radiating through his skin. Arden ignored the ink and focused on the muscled cleft of his spine.
“Time.”
She’d done it again, lost track of time as she drew. Micah stopped at her easel, his slender finger tracing over the line of Seth’s torso from shoulder to knee. “Good,” he said quietly.
“It’s out of proportion.”
“He’s out of proportion,” Micah said, then nodded at Seth. “Look again. It’s good.”
Seth had risen from the pedestal and was in the act of stretching, his fingers reaching for Betsy’s nine-foot ceiling, toes pushing against the floor. Arden looked again, and discovered Micah’s eye had seen what her brain denied. Seth’s torso was shorter than his legs would suggest, something the energy of his presence hid. Her brain tried to make it “right,” but her instinct captured the truth.