Brooklyn Love (Crimson Romance) Read Online Free Page B

there? What kind of crazy artists would confuse her religious path? Or worse — maybe she’d marry “out!” Better to stay in Brooklyn, where it was safe.
    But, like the Fame theme song said, Rachel wanted to learn how to fly. She had worked on her portfolio and stood firm with her school to release her transcripts.
    Voraciously, Rachel had studied art books and practiced drawing and painting on her own. She worked incessantly on her artwork, and apparently it was good enough. The FIT evaluators found something promising and “raw” in her work. A tabula rasa , one instructor had called her — a blank slate like an untouched canvas. Rachel was a student they could teach. So she’d been accepted, while some of the talented Music and Art kids hadn’t made the cut. Remember, remember, remember.
    • • •
    “Hey, Rachel, you’re late,” Fitzgerald intoned in his trademark monotone voice. Fitz took it upon himself to critique Rachel’s artwork as well as her habits. At six feet tall, he stood sketching at his easel, wearing a white paper jumpsuit that complemented his bleached spiky mohawk. Lean and pale, with shaven red hair, Fitzgerald resembled Vincent Van Gogh — except when he dyed his hair green or purple or yellow, depending on his mood. Then he resembled Van Gogh in a colorful period. Today he was a symphony in white.
    Rachel smiled. “I’m not late. I’m just real early for the next class.” She placed her sketch board firmly on her sturdy, paint-splattered easel. The room smelled of paint fumes and solvents, and charcoal dust peppered the air.
    “Fitzgerald, leave her alone. You just came in five minutes ago.” Christine jabbed him in his ribs. She looked like Fitz’s opposite, with Goth rags held together by artfully arranged safety pins and witch-black dyed hair.
    “That’s beside the point, Chris.”
    Rachel laid out her supplies to work on the poses. “He just likes to torment me.”
    Christine laughed. “That’s because he’s in love with you, Rachel.”
    Rachel shook her head and grinned. “I’ve told you a million times, I can’t marry out of my faith.”
    Fitz laughed. “Who said anything about marriage? I just want to sleep with you.”
    Christine swatted him with a paintbrush.
    Fitz shook his head. “Women.”
    The plus-size model, Ada, was posing today, wrapped in a voluminous cotton robe. Rachel tried to sketch her.
    “You all will immortalize me!” The enormous woman gushed and folded her arms across her body, where they promptly disappeared in a mountain of fabric.
    “I can’t do this.” Rachel dropped her hand to her side and sighed to her classmates, who stood at their heavy wooden easels, sketching in circle formation around the three-hundred-pound model.
    “It’s all a matter of perspective, Rachel.” Christine held up her thumb to measure the model.
    “I don’t know. There are no lines I can follow.”
    The model caught Rachel’s eye. “Are you immortalizing me, hon?”
    Rachel stared at her blank sketchpad. “You bet.”
    Fitzgerald laughed. “At this rate, Rachel, you are going to win that internship for sure.”
    Rachel moved her conté crayon around on the rough newsprint paper. “It’s just really hard to concentrate.”
    Christine grinned. “You mean a three-hundred-pound model doesn’t do it for you?”
    “And break,” announced Tricia, the instructor.
    Ada lumbered off the central podium and strolled around the circle, reviewing her immortalization. “I love it!” she pronounced at each easel. Rachel tried to close her pad before the model saw her blundering lines but was too late.
    “You need more passion, hon,” the model advised.
    Tricia came over to see the fuss. “Absolutely. More passion, Rachel.”
    Ada went back to the center of the room. “Should I disrobe, Tricia?”
    “That’s a good idea.”
    The model took off her robe, and Rachel tried to avert her eyes. Most rabbis would have told her it was improper to sit in a nude