Back in the Land of the Living: A Novel by Eva Crocker

Author:Eva Crocker [Crocker, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Adult, Lesbian Romance, Covid-19, Starting Over
Goodreads: 63375049
Publisher: House of Anansi
Published: 2023-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

When she entered the apartment she could tell it was empty just from the atmosphere. Then she remembered Kathleen was working at the bar. Sharon was probably at her studio working on the bassinet she’d been commissioned to make. Without taking her coat off Marcy turned and left the apartment again. She went for a long walk down Saint-Laurent, trying to convince herself she wasn’t hoping to run into Leanne. She hated feeling like she’d ruined the evening.

Down by Barfly, where she’d once had a drink with Kathleen, she noticed a sandwich board advertising pay-what-you-can life drawing classes in a second-floor gallery on the following evening. The need to meet people and fill up her life was ripping around in her chest. She missed Hannah. Hannah was working all the time at her new job, and when she wasn’t working she was tired from working, or she needed to go to bed early to get up for work. Marcy didn’t take it personally, but she still missed her.

Leanne didn’t text her at all the next day. Marcy bought a sketchbook and pencils at the dollar store and walked to the gallery, grateful for the long walk because it ate up more of her time.

At the gallery a girl was sitting door with a grey cash box. Her hair was dyed yellow and crinkled into waves with a curling iron or crimper. She was wearing a tight black shirt and baggy black jeans. She had a sharp chin and high cheekbones and big, wet brown eyes. It felt like the girl’s beauty was hanging in the air between them, embarrassing them both.

“Five dollars?” Marcy asked, holding the bill out to her.

“Have a seat anywhere.” She opened the cash box a crack and crammed Marcy’s money into a mess of bills sitting on top of the coin shelf.

Moody French music was playing in the narrow room. There were already a handful of people sitting in twenty or so fold-out chairs set up in a semicircle. A square table in the centre of the room was covered with a white sheet. On top of the sheet there was a dirty cushion with the bottom half of a mannequin laid across it. Marcy sat in a chair facing the mannequin’s severed waist. A Black guy next to her was sketching the legs starting from the toe-end. Two girls sitting together in front of her were also drawing the legs — one in a hyper-realistic style, the other was more impressionistic.

Marcy eased her sketchbook out of her knapsack. She flipped it open quickly, ashamed of how bright and brand- new the cover looked. She got out the pencils.

She was trying not to stare at the girl doing door, but she heard someone climbing the stairs to the studio, turned that way on impulse, and was mesmerized by her again.

A white guy came in with a cardboard container of fries, a fork sticking out of the top. He nodded at the girl and walked in without paying.

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