"Karou!" The British girl Helen was whispering harshly, trying to get her attention. "Is that him?"
Karou didn't acknowledge her. She drew, pretending everything was normal. Just another day in class. And if the model had an insolent dimple and wouldn't take his eyes off her? She ignored it as
best she could.
When the timer rang, Kaz calmly gathered up his robe and put it on. Karou hoped it wouldn't occur
to him that he was free to walk around the studio. Stay where you are, she willed him. But he didn't. He sauntered toward her.
"Hi, Jackass," said Zuzana. "Modest much?"
Ignoring her, he asked Karou, "Like my new tattoo?"
Students were standing up to stretch, but rather than dispersing for smoke or bathroom breaks, they hovered casually within earshot.
"Sure," Karou said, keeping her voice light. "K for Kazimir, right?"
"Funny girl. You know what it's for."
"Well," she mused in Thinker pose, "I know there's only one person you really love, and his name does start with a K. But I can think of a better place for it than your heart." She took up her pencil and, on her last drawing of Kaz, inscribed a K right over his classically sculpted buttock.
Zuzana laughed, and Kaz's jaw tightened. Like most vain people, he hated to be mocked. "I'm not the only one with a tattoo, am I, Karou?" he asked.
He looked to Zuzana. "Has she shown it to you?"
Zuzana gave Karou the suspicious rendition of the eyebrow arch.
"I don't know which you mean," Karou lied calmly. "I have lots of tattoos."
To demonstrate, she didn't flash true or story, or the serpent coiled around her ankle, or any of her other concealed works of art. Rather, she held up her hands in front of her face, palms out. In the center of each was an eye inked in deepest indigo, in effect turning her hands into hamsas, those ancient symbols of warding against the evil eye. Palm tattoos are notorious for fading, but Karou's never did. She'd had these eyes as long as she could remember; for all she knew of their origin, she could have been born with them.
"Not those," said Kaz. "I mean the one that says Kazimir, right over your heart."
"I don't have a tattoo like that." She made herself sound puzzled and unfastened the top few buttons of her sweater. Beneath was a camisole, and she lowered it by a few revealing inches to demonstrate that indeed there was no tattoo above her breast. The skin there was white as milk.
Kaz blinked. "What? How did you—?"
"Come with me." Zuzana grabbed Karou's hand and pulled her away. As they wove among the easels, all eyes were on Karou, lit with curiosity.
"Karou, did you break up?" Helen whispered in English, but Zuzana put up her hand in an imperious gesture that silenced her, and she dragged Karou out of the studio and into the girls' bathroom. There, eyebrow still arched, she asked, "What the hell was that?"
"What?"
"What? You practically flashed the boy."
"Please. I did not flash him."
"Whatever. What's this about a tattoo over your heart?"
"I just showed you. There's nothing there." She saw no reason to add that there had been something; she preferred to pretend she had never been so stupid. Plus, explaining how she'd gotten rid of it was not exactly an option.
"Well, good. The last thing you need is that idiot's name on your body. Can you believe him? Does he think if he just dangles his boy bits at you like a cat toy you'll go scampering after him?"
"Of course he thinks that," said Karou. "This is his idea of a romantic gesture."
"All you have to do is tell Fiala he's a stalker, and she'll throw his ass out."
Karou had thought of that, but she shook her head. Surely she could come up with a better way to get Kaz out of her class and out of her life. She had means at her disposal that most people didn't. She'd think of something.
"The boy is not terrible to draw, though." Zuzana went to the mirror and flipped wisps of dark hair across her forehead. "Got to give him that."
"Yeah. Too bad he's such a gargantuan asshole."
"A giant, stupid orifice," Zuzana agreed.
"A walking, talking cranny."
"Cranny." Zuzana laughed. "I like."
An idea came to Karou, and a faintly villainous smirk crossed her face.
"What?" asked Zuzana, seeing it.
"Nothing. We'd better get back in there."
"You're sure? You don't have to."
Karou nodded. "Nothing to it."
Kaz had gotten all the satisfaction he was going to get from this cute little ploy of his. It was her turn now. Walking back into the studio, she reached up and touched the necklace she was wearing, a multistrand loop of African trade beads in every color. At least they looked like African trade beads. They were more than that. Not much more, but enough for what Karou had planned.