My eyes trailed to the print-out listing the requirements for a Living Canvas requested by Total Trickery.
Must be slim, able to stand for long periods of time, and be impervious to the cold.
Hours are negotiable, pay is minimal, clothing absolutely forbidden.
Able to hold your bladder and tongue, refrain from opinions or suggestions, and be the perfect Living Canvas.
Other attributes required: non-ticklish, contortionist, and obedient. Must also enjoy being studied while naked in a crowd.
Call or email ‘YOUR SKIN, HIS CANVAS’ if interested in applying.
Gil.
God, even though long hours separated me from the doomed interview, I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
I’d needed that job.
I’d gone with such high hopes of employment, and the failure of yet another botched attempt at earning money was just the sugar on top of my already caramelized disappointment.
If Gil had been able to tolerate me, we could’ve worked well together. I knew how intense he became when he painted. I knew what sort of dedication he’d require from his employee. Besides, I ticked off most of the wanted attributes of his advert: slim, quiet, preferred winter to summer, and was used to skimpy outfits thanks to a history in dance.
In a word, I was an ideal candidate—minus a few things I’d have to disclose if I’d gotten the gig.
It didn’t mean I’d seriously contemplated it as an important career move. I did strive to make something of myself, even if I was currently in a rut.
But dreams were costly, and living didn’t come cheap.
It was time to grow up.
Time to get a job that paid semi-decent, squirrel some savings, and go back to school to become an adult and not this pretender.
I sighed, slouching on my wooden chair at the scuffed-up table I’d found in a second-hand shop in downtown Birmingham.
When I’d been sixteen, a life coach came to school and asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. I’d envisioned a life drenched in dance. A world with bright lights, beautiful music, and elegant pirouettes as a prima ballerina. I’d pictured Gil beside me. Travelling the world together, both lucky enough to make a career out of our art.
I definitely didn’t see me single and struggling in a city that I’d left the moment I’d finished school—doing my best to succeed, all while parents didn’t care in the slightest if I ended up homeless or famous.
They’d totally forgotten they even had a child at this point.
My fingers trailed to the ad again.
What happened to you, Gil?
Who’d hurt him today?
Why did he hate me so much?
Rubbing at the ache in my chest, I stood and padded across my small apartment to grab the rest of the wine in the fridge. Taking a chipped coffee mug from the cupboard, I folded back into my chair and poured the rest of the alcohol into it.
All class.
That’s me.
Ugh, what am I going to do?
Rent was due next week, and I didn’t have it. My body was hungry, and I had nothing to feed it. I’d combed through all the job listings online and in every publication I could think of. I’d door knocked restaurants. I’d dropped my resume into random offices.
I’d exhausted all my options.
You could just leave.
I slugged back three big mouthfuls of tart wine.
Leave?
And go where?
The cost of living would be the same in any other city. I’d left London because I couldn’t afford it after losing my dancing position. I’d already run away from my problems.
Just because Gil had upset me and made me question everything, didn’t mean I had to tuck tail and run again.
Plus, I needed money to move.
I needed money for everything.
Total Trickery was owned by a boy who had completely broken me at high-school, but...it was also owned by someone I knew.
The only job opportunity where I had an in. Wasn’t that what people said? It’s not what you know but who you know?
My brain took the idea and bolted, throwing images of marching back to his warehouse and demanding he give me a chance. If I did, maybe, possibly, hopefully he might give me a job?
There was no harm in trying, right?
Are you nuts?
He practically threw me out this afternoon. I’d done nothing to hurt him at high-school—or at least I thought I hadn’t—yet he acted as if I’d committed a mortal sin.
Why would I have a chance of employment after he’d so eloquently proved he hadn’t forgotten our past? That he still held a grudge against something. That I was still...unwanted.
You need money.
I chewed the inside of my cheek. That was true. But I couldn’t see him giving me any.
Even if he flat-out refuses to hire you again, he might know of someone who will.
I stopped chewing, hating that my brain made logical sense.
At this point, I was willing to hold a placard on a street corner for a job. I’d even wash cocky businessmen’s cars in a bikini if it meant the stress of a dwindling bank account went away.
See? You’re prepared to get mostly naked. Better with the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
I shook my head, doing my best to stop thinking.
Gil had hurt me today.
He’d hurt me lots of days.
If I had any friends left, they’d all tell me to stay the hell away from him.
But...once upon a time, there had been an us.
Oh, my God, O. There is no us!
I slugged back another mouthful of wine.
I know that.
I knew I was setting myself up for more pain than I could handle by going back. But...I’d always been drawn to people who were less fortunate than me. Always wanted to share my loneliness with other lonely souls because together, we didn’t have to be lonely.
Healing people’s wounds—physical or emotional—was something that gave me purpose. It reminded me that I might not have someone to do the same for me but it didn’t mean I couldn’t be there for someone else.
Gil was injured.
He might be lonely.
Gulping back the last of my wine, I stood.
I’d seen him seven hours ago.
It was late.
I should stay home.
I should curl up in front of the TV and enjoy it while I could still afford it.
I shouldn’t throw on my only jacket.
I definitely shouldn’t summon an Uber and meet it at the curb.
It was as if I couldn’t stop myself.
My heart hijacked my self-control, and somehow, I went from standing in my apartment to loitering outside warehouse number twenty-five.
You truly are a sucker for punishment.
I scowled.
Sucker or not, no one could say I hadn’t fought for a job. That I hadn’t been brave in the face of adversity.
The Uber that I couldn’t afford drove off, leaving me with my terrible decisions in the dark. I looked left and right, prickles of uneasy forming.
The industrial area was the exact place all parents warned their kids to avoid.
My parents wouldn’t care if they knew where I was. They were thousands of miles away.
God, what am I doing?
He didn’t want me here.
To be honest, I didn’t really want to be here.
But...I missed him.
He was hurt.
Just go. Before it’s too late.
Hugging myself against the crisp evening, I looked down the long row of warehouses to the road in the distance. If I left, I would always wonder. If I left, I would never know why.