THE STRIPED PORTRAITS

After wiping my face free of sweat for the thousandth time with the bottom of my shirt, I grunted in frustration and pulled the shirt all the way off, reducing myself to a dark blue sports bra and paint-smeared jeans. Normally such a bold move would be unthinkable but the heat trumped modesty and besides, I was alone in the sweltering art studio. For a fraction of a second I considered losing the jeans too, but alone or not, working in just a sports bra and jeans was as daring as this Japanese chick was willing to get in a public space. 

You walk around in less at Ala Moana Beach Park, my brain whined, desperate for relief from the heat.

Ignoring my whiny side, I wiped fresh sweat from my arms and upper chest with my abandoned shirt and wondered what the temperature in the hot classroom was. Overhead, the blowers worked noisily, cleansing the air of turpentine fumes and other toxins but did nothing to lessen the stifling heat. A monstrous oscillating fan in one corner near the posing platform added to the din of the overhead blowers. The fan helped a tiny bit with the heat by moving the air around.

I pushed my slipping Elvis Costello glasses back into place on my nose. Maybe my whiny brain has a point about losing the jeans, I thought lethargically as I tied my long, dark brown hair into a tight ponytail with a stretchy hair band.

Or better yet, we should just get the fuck out of here, whiny brain interjected.

Because of the broken air-conditioner, the scheduled figure painting class was canceled. I’m not enrolled in the class but for the last couple of weeks I’ve been sitting in just for fun so the cancellation was a mild disappointment. As embarrassing as it was to admit even to myself, figure painting was kicking my skinny artist’s ass. As a graduate of Honolulu University, I have become a dedicated abstract expressionist influenced by the likes of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollack and Helen Frankentheller so going back to painting the figure again turned out to be a very difficult thing to do.

My original plan was to stay to take advantage of having the space all to myself and work on a large abstract that was too big to fit in my tiny assigned graduate studio. But no way, not in this heat.

You win whiny brain, I conceded.

As I pack away my art stuff, the door to the hot painting studio flew open. Instinctively, I crossed my arms in front of me to cover up my near nakedness. I relaxed a bit when I saw it was the figure model in a dusty mauve robe. Apparently, no one had informed her that the class was canceled. She walked to the elevated posing platform, stepped up and without any prompting, removed her robe.

I stared at her with my arms still crossed in front of me for a few seconds. What was she doing? Couldn’t she see that the class wasn’t happening? I retrieved my sweat soaked shirt and quickly pulled it back on.

This was a different model from last week. The girl from last week was a regular named Dorothy who had a Victoria’s Secret catalog figure. This new girl was a redhead; pale, tall, slim, and athletic. A fascinating galaxy of freckles covered her from head to foot and her long red hair shone with an interesting metallic sheen. The trimmed triangle between her legs was also metallic red, just a shade darker. I liked this new girl more than Dorothy because she didn’t make me feel like a shapeless flagpole. Except for the height (the girl looked close to six feet tall) my figure wasn’t much different from hers. Even though most of the women in the developing world were starving themselves to attain the figure nature gave me, I was still cursed as a slender “B-cup Japanese girl.

It just isn’t fair that the Caucasian and Hawaiian girls get all the curves and big breasts, I bitched to myself.

“You want a new pose or do you want me to repeat Dorothy’s pose from last week?” Red asked.

“Um, it’s just me. You don’t have to stay,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter to me. I get paid either way.”

“What about the heat?”

She smiled.

“I’m naked. It’s no bother at all. You can take your shirt off if you like. That won’t bother me either.”

Ignoring her suggestion I said, “I’ll get my painting and put you in last week’s pose, if that’s okay.”

She shrugged.

“Okay.”

But instead of getting my painting from the painting rack, I stood and stared at her as she fiddled with her hair.

What is wrong with you? Look away you idiot! I yelled in my head. But I couldn’t look away; her perky, freckled breasts trapped me like a fish in a snare. She turned away from me and spread her arms out in a worshiping gesture to greet the osculating fan, giving me a nice view of her slim, perfect, freckled ass.

Is the heat fogging your brain? Get the painting before she thinks you’re some kind of weirdo freak, I urged myself.

At the painting rack in the back of the room it was even hotter. Taking Red’s advice, I lost the shirt and draped it on a nearby chair. I pulled out my unfinished canvas from last week and set it up on an easel then stood back to look at it. The pose was right out of Botticelli’s Venus but instead of rising from a clam shell, my girl stood next to the open door of a 1974 candy-apple red Volkswagen Karmann Ghia.

“Why am I painting this post-modern parody?” I asked aloud.

“Because it’s more interesting than the usual modernist abstract expressionist crap you’ve been churning out lately is why,” someone other than the model said.

I barked a small scream, quickly found my shirt and threw it back on. The unknown person turned out to be Betty Nagata, my best friend, standing just inside the door. The noise of the overhead blowers and monster fan had masked the sound of her entrance.

“You working in a bikini?” Betty asked with surprise.

“It’s a sports bra, and it has more material then any three of your hundred dollar bikinis put together,” I said, embarrassed at being caught flashing in public even by my best friend. Defensively I added, “If you haven’t noticed, it’s fucking hot.” I went to the classroom’s clunky old radio and turned it on. Classical music filled the hot classroom. “And I’m glad you think so little of my artistic achievements.” I finished securing my canvas to the easel with the bottom and top clamps.

“Don’t you have a class right now?” I asked, puzzled by Betty’s presence.

“Yeah, late twentieth century American economic history. And it’s as boring as it sounds,” Betty said as she tied back her long dark hair with a pink hair band. She dropped her backpack and purse on a nearby chair. “I had one of three ugly choices to make: go to the history class, commit seppuku, or watch you paint. Since I don’t have a sharp knife, I came here.” Betty casually assessed the tall, naked redhead on the posing platform as she spoke. The redhead gave her a casual smile and a little wave of hello.

People hanging out who are not working when a model is posing nude is strictly against the rules. Determined to enforce the rules I said, “You can’t just hang out here. It’s rude to the model.”

Betty looked at the naked woman up on the platform and asked, “Mind if I hang out?” Annoyingly, Red shrugged her indifference. “Is it always so fucking hot in here?” Betty complained. She looked at the painting and said, “You made her tits too big and she’s not a blond.”

“This is a different girl from last session,” I said irritably.

Betty put her hands up and backed away. “Just trying to help...what a grouch.”

Ignoring Betty, I instructed the model on the pose.

Close to tipping the scales into OCD, I lined up tubes of acrylic paint from light to dark divided into warm and cool groups on the taboret. Then, as was my habit, I spent the next couple of minutes squeezing out colors on the glass top pallet, reflecting my lineup of the tubes with liberal blobs of white and black dominating the upper and lower corners. With a spade head painting knife, I swished around crimson with cadmium yellow to make a dull orange. Then I scooped in some burnt sienna to create a coppery red and applied a little to the head of my unfinished figure. I frowned at the color.

“I like it. Red suits her more than blond,” Betty said.

“It’s too close to the color of the car.” I said and scooped up more burnt sienna to push the color away from the red of the car.

“Don’t do that, I like that the hair and car are the same,” Betty said from behind me.

“Well I don’t,” I said. The next thing I knew, my brush was yanked out of my hand from behind. Beyond annoyed I barked at Betty, “Have you lost your mind!” Then added with exasperation, “Why are you here anyway? You never hang out when I’m painting.”

“Because it’s like watching paint dry?” Betty said with a laugh.

“I bet the class you’re cutting is air conditioned,” I said hoping she’d take the hint. Because of the heat, Betty had unbuttoned her stylish white blouse and tied it in a knot below her breasts, exposing her flat firm abdomen. Below, she wore expensive skinny jeans. She and I had twin slim figures yet she always looked better than me in everything she wore.

Maybe her faithful visits to the Waikiki Sunset Gym are the reason, my logical side said. Maybe, although, I couldn’t see how going to the gym could possibly make her tits look bigger than mine but somehow they always appeared to be.

“This tree is totally pointless,” Betty said and put a big red X over the offending tree.

“You’re fucking crazy!” I screamed at her.

The redheaded model turned her head our way. I blushed, deeply embarrassed for shouting in public, but Betty had truly lost her mind. I attempted to take my stolen brush back but with a smooth, easy twist of my right wrist, she held me at bay.

“Ow!” I barked from the pain.

“It won’t hurt if you stop struggling,” Betty said calmly.

Naturally, stubbornly, I struggled. After a couple of seconds of pointless pain (all on my part) I slipped from her grasp but only because she let me. I pretended to accept defeat then made a sudden grab at the brush again, but she easily straight armed me then pointed the brush at my face as if it were a weapon. Perplexed by her crazy behavior, I backed away. The model was still staring at us. Burning with shame I wanted to shout out that my friend had lost her mind and that I wasn’t the cause of the disruption. But my ingrained Japanese nature of not creating a scene in public took hold and I weakly sat down in a nearby chair.

“Oh come on. You told me yesterday how much you hate this painting,” Betty said.

“So what? That didn’t mean I want you defacing it.”

“Mind if I have a go at it?” Betty asked.

“Go ahead, you’ve already ruined it.”

Betty smiled her thanks. First she went to the radio and switched from classical music to a classic rock-n-roll station. The Stones’ Satisfaction filled the stifling air as Betty went to work on the painting, starting with the red mixture for the hair. Then for the next hour I watched as she turned my blond into a redhead, slimmed her down and gave her a breast reduction. Betty looked over her shoulder at me with an excited expression and said, “Not bad for a business major.”

I smiled. I was glad she was having fun. Back in high school, Betty was an art geek just like me, but when she became an undergraduate at Stanford, her domineering mother had put an ugly end to all that. Her mother had told her, “You’re a leader Betty, not a Bohemian hippie.” In other words, you are not a total loser like your friend Gwen.

Bubbling with excitement, Betty said, “Get up there and I’ll add you in.”