Nude Men

your pet to the vet to kill it?” asks Henrietta. I had told her about that.
    “To put him to sleep, yes.”
    “I’m surprised. I would have thought you might have changed your mind.”
    “He was suffering.”
    “Did you do it that day?”
    “No, of course not.”
    “When?”
    “The next day. Someone did it for me.”
    “Who?”
    “A friend.”
    “A man?”
    “Yes.”
    “Your lover?”
    The woman hesitates and finally replies, “No, just a friend.”
    “How old are you?”
    “Thirty-eight.”
    Older than I am. I’m thirty. What I really want to know is whether you have children, but I won’t ask you that, because if you do have children, you’ll say you don’t. Do you have children?”
    “No.”
    “I might need to talk to you again sometime. Also, I might come and see you outside your budding. But I won’t hurt you. I would be very surprised if I hurt you. Goodbye.”
    Henrietta waits for the woman to say goodbye, but it doesn’t happen. The woman hangs up silently. “Jeremy?” says Henrietta on the phone.
    “What?” I answer in my receiver.
    “So what do you think?”
    “I think you should paint.”
    Henrietta goes back to bed, and I watch TV.
     
    “H ow does it feel to be clapped at, everywhere you go?” a famous interviewer asks her on TV.
    “It’s funny. It’s cheerful,” she replies. “I hke it. I wonder when people will get tired of it.”
    “I predict never. Fifty years from now, people will still be clapping at you, some without even remembering why. They will simply know: She is the person one claps at. But the question I want to ask is, Will you ever get tired of it?”
    “I predict not as long as I live.”
     
    T wo days later, Henrietta is still in bed. She’s lying on her side, motionless and silent. I walk around the bed to look at her eyes. They are open and unblinking. She could be dead. “Henrietta?” I say.
    Her pupils move to my face.
    “Are you feeling okay?” I ask.
    “Yes,” she groans.
    “I was wondering if you’d like to go for a walk.”
    “No.”
    “A drive?”
    “No.”
    “Would you like to paint?”
    “No.” She closes her eyes.
    “I think it might make you feel much better to paint.”
    She doesn’t answer.
    “I’ll even pose for you if you want.”
    She sighs.
    “I’ll even pose naked for you if you want.”
    She snorts, and I’m not sure if it’s a sob or a laugh.
    “I have some painting stuff you could use, from when I was a kid. I even have some oil paints. I can bring them in here.” Henrietta does not answer, which is better than a refusal, so my mother and I carry all the paints and brushes and canvases to Henrietta’s room. We sit her at a desk, in front of a canvas. I ask my mother to leave because I don’t want to pose nude in front of her. I take off my clothes and, remembering Sara’s rule, I lie on the bed in the most comfortable position I can find.
    I talk to Lady Henrietta about light subjects, like how pretty the weather is, how pleasant it is to walk outside, how nice my mother is. To amuse her, I tell her about the agent I caught in the supermarket. I see her making a few brush strokes on the canvas. Good. She answers my comments briefly, sadly. Her brush strokes look different than usual. The movements of her arm look broad and negligent. And then suddenly they stop. She does not move anymore. She just sits there staring at me. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
    “I’m sorry Jeremy, but I can’t paint you. I’ve painted you once already. I’m just not interested in doing it again.”
    I get up and look at her canvas. On it there is a stick figure of me, lying on a stick-figure bed.
    “Oh yes,” I say. “I can see you’re not inspired.”
    She goes back to her bed and plops down.
    “I know just how to fix the problem,” I continue. “I will find you a very inspiring model.”
    “Don’t bother, Jeremy.”
    “I want to bother. I just need to know one thing: Do you want a beautiful man or an Optical Illusion Man?”
    “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
    “Please, Henrietta. I’m sure it’ll make you feel so much better to get involved in your painting, even for just one hour.”
    “O.I.M.” I hear her mumble.
     
    M y mother and I go to a bookstore. In the psychology section, we see a man checking out all the books. We wait to see what he will do. He might be a good O.I.M., depending on what he’ll do, how he’ll move.
    I decided to bring my mother along because if I’m going to