What's Natural
by Jamie Lin
A six-year-old called me fat once. I countered by saying, "No. I'm curvy." She asked what curvy meant. Her words stayed in my mind ever since despite how silly it was. I wrote an enraged essay about what's wrong with society when young children are already seeing the negativity of being a little on the heavy side, already picking up on the cue to laugh and mock.
I never believed I was beautiful till I met Laird. I was just Kay. Plain. Simple. Average. I was getting a cup of cappuccino before classes when he entered the room and smiled at me, taking my breath away. I decided to linger by the window even though I was running late to Art as per usual. He appeared next to me, his elbow brushing against mine. "Oops. Sorry," he said though we both knew he did it intentionally.
"Birds," I murmured.
"Excuse me?" he said, raising an eyebrow.
Oh no. I screwed up. What did I murmur again. "Uh. I mean, hi."
He laughed. "Hi. I'm Laird. I just moved here."
"Cool. From where?"
"London. I was studying art."
"Wow." I didn't know what else to say.
He smiled and gestured to the birds lined up in one row across the top of the bank across the street. "Wild, isn't it? I have never seen so many birds in one place like that."
Oh. That was what I meant to say. "Yeah. They must be confused because of the warm weather we been having."
He laughed. "How introspective of you."
We stood in silence and watched more birds fly across the sky toward the bank, some flying away, coming back, again and again till my eyes burned.
"Well. I'm late for a meeting. Here's my card. Give me a call sometime. It's not everyday I meet such a beauty."
I accepted the card and watched him walk away, barely breathing. Touching one cheek, I found it hot.
That was how we started our love affair. I called him two nights later and realized I never told him my name in all of my clumsiness. He laughed with good humor at every mistake I made and eventually, I didn't feel the need to be perfect anymore. I started acting more and more 'myself' without hesitating or thinking things through before opening my mouth or taking action. I did without question and he had an appropriate response to everything. He was the only one who made me feel that way and as we spent more time together, I realized how much he was starting to mean to me.
So when he asked me to pose naked for him a few months after we first started dating, I didn't hesitate to let him create a painting of me. I never done anything so provocative before. "You been my muse without ever suspecting so and that's mainly why you are," he said, his eyes roaming across the couch where I lay like Kate Winslet. “You’re so beautiful. Your eyes. Your lips.”
I felt exposed but not uncomfortable. I was curious to see how it'd turn out. I wanted to know how he really saw me. He wouldn't show me till he was done like every other artist. At first, I'd quiver uncontrollably on the couch till he started talking to me softly as if in a trance. "You're the most natural girl I know, not fake, you're just real, completely down-to-earth. I find that very appealing especially with all the crap out there..."
When he showed me the canvas a month later, I gasped and couldn't close my mouth. I looked exactly like me poised in the foreground except more fresh somehow, with birds flying across the sky outside the window as the background. It was very Laird in style except with a touch of simplicity and quiet passion but careful perfection of every little detail.
"What do you think?" he said.
"It's perfect," I said, drinking in the sight of me from the endless depth in my eyes to the casual yet elegant angle of my arms to the distinguished mole on my left breast.
He smiled like my opinion mattered but we both knew he knew he was perfect as a man and as an artist. And I was fine with his confidence. Two with self esteem would drown a relationship as quick as sinking sand.
The night after he showed me, after I showed him how much I loved him, I came upon a book about Andy Wyeth in one of his many bookshelves of hundreds of artists. Laird was watching the news in the other room. I smiled to myself and fancied myself as Helga, the woman who Andy created many portraits of. She was a 'natural' woman too.
When Laird's show opened at the gallery downtown two months later, I wore a simple black jacket with similar black pants. I was determined to be myself and be proud. I'd take any comments with a grain of salt.
In the end, no one bought the portrait although everyone admired the 'naturalness' of it. No one recognized me as the muse. Throughout the evening, everyone was more focused on Laird. I left when a group of models blocked him from my view with their legs. I overheard one telling another what a great guy Laird was, how accepting, compassionate, intelligent. What a beautiful, beautiful man. So rare in this day and age.
He didn't call me for two months. I said I understood which I did completely.
I broke into his apartment one afternoon and stole the painting.
