The Scent of the Blueberry -- 2

She hadn’t regretted moving to the city in the summer. The idea had been to start a new life – to somehow leave the mistakes of the past behind. Get a decent job, a nice apartment – no, not a good man. A fresh start would do just fine. It all sounded like the lyrics of a country and western song – and just about as likely to become reality. But now it was winter, and she had to walk through this white shit they called "snow" in her sneakers. Served her right for not paying attention to the weather report, she supposed. Well, she was just a little bit busy these days. Working all day in the store trying to sell boys’ pajamas to parents whose kids already had enough pajamas to sink a battleship, and then spending her evenings modeling for the life drawing art class at the community center. Well, at least the modeling was fulfilling, she told herself. At least she was part of the artistic process – at least that was meaningful in some small way.

Yeah, sure. She’d looked at the drawings at the end of the 15-minute pose during the first evening. She fully realized that drawing the human figure was one of the most difficult tasks that you could attempt in art. She knew all about that – but she had to admit that only a couple of the drawings looked anything like her – or any other imaginable human being, for that matter. Well, at least they appreciated her efforts – they said they did, anyway. The money was good – and in cash – and the lack of apparent resemblence did offer her a measure of anonymity should the artwork ever reach the light of day. And they kept the temperature warm in deference to her lack of clothing. “Lack of clothing” – she wondered how her mother would feel about that. Well, she was 22, a college graduate, and there was nothing wrong with it. At least there wasn’t with this group – a bunch of middle-aged pillars of the community that included an assistant district attorney and the wife of the head of the school committee. Not like the time that I modeled at the community college, she told herself. If the male students had intended to drool that much, they should have worn bibs.

Still, the warm temperatures of the art studio had not prepared her for the snow and the wind chill associated with the walk home. The snow had accumulated just enough to wet her feet, and any sense of pride resulting from the compliments and thanks expressed by that evening’s group had long dissipated. Evelyn needed a drink.

No. Positive self-talk. She did not need a drink, she told herself. She had nipped that potential habit in the bud – swearing off after spending every night for months swirling some sort of liquid around in a glass before allowing gravity to let it flow through her mouth and down her throat. He wasn’t worth it. The bastard. She knew he had made good progress on that front. Six months ago, it would have been, “that fucking bastard.” A few months before that, “that motherfucking bastard.” The gradual loss of the adjectives marked the milestones in her self-imposed therapy. Self-talk. Positive self-talk. The snow was beautiful -- “La neige est belle aujourd’hui” -- even though she knew in her heart that the “neige” totally sucked. Fuckin’ neige.