LITMIR.BIZ

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smile dropped from Miranda’s face. ‘OK,’ she said glumly, ‘that did it.’ She fell backwards on the bed, arms outstretched, and stared at the stained ceiling. ‘How can they do this to us? Don’t they know we’ve run out of funds?’

      ‘This guy I’ve been posing for was here on a Harrington fellowship a couple of years ago. He says the red tape’s unbelievable, that the cheques just get later from quarter to quarter.’

      Sighing, Miranda sat up and swung her legs to the floor. ‘Maybe if we call the New York office again and talk to the secretary—’

      ‘What for? So she can tell us what she told us last week?’

      ‘“The cheques are in the mail.” Right. Isn’t there some kind of awful old joke about that being one of life’s three greatest lies?’

      ‘Well,’ Mina said, slipping into a cotton blouse, ‘joke or not, we’re stuck with it.’ She fluffed her short auburn hair away from her face. ‘What about phoning the American Embassy?’

      Miranda shook her head. ‘They can’t help unless you’re desperate. Flat broke, no funds, no way to get home…’

      ‘And we’re not. Not according to the way it looks on paper, anyway. We’ve got scholarships, guaranteed plane fare back to the States—’

      ‘Which we can’t use until our scholarships expire,’ Miranda said. She laughed. ‘Unless, of course, we expire first—from starvation. How’d that guy you mentioned get by? The one you’re posing for?’

      Mina grinned. ‘He wrote home to Daddy. Daddy is R-I-C-H.’

      ‘Mmm.’ Miranda got to her feet, walked to the old-fashioned wardrobe on the far side of the sunny bedroom, and pulled a black cotton turtleneck sweater and a voluminous denim skirt from its depths. ‘Well, that method won’t work for me. My parents haven’t got a dime to spare. And I wouldn’t want them to know how close to the edge I’m living.’

      ‘They’d worry?’

      Miranda smiled. ‘Even more than they already do. They’re convinced you have to be crazy to want to be a painter.’

      Mina chuckled. ‘Sounds about right to me.’

      ‘Anyway, the starving students’ diet isn’t so bad,’ Miranda said lightly as she untied her robe and let it slip from her shoulders. ‘We get a huge Dutch breakfast, a late-afternoon roast beef broodje, and a mug of hot cocoa before bedtime.’

      ‘Breakfast and cocoa courtesy of Mevrouw De Vries.’

      ‘Courtesy has nothing to do with it. The board comes with the room.’ Miranda’s voice grew muffled as she pulled the sweater over her head. ‘If the rent money doesn’t get here,’ she said as her head popped through the opening, ‘neither will breakfast and bedtime cocoa.’ She flashed Mina a quick smile as she stepped into the skirt and zipped it closed. ‘But look at the positive side. The starving students’ diet is guaranteed to melt away weight and bring out your cheekbones.’

      The other girl peered into the chipped mirror that hung drunkenly beside the dresser. ‘As if you needed either,’ she said, touching her fingers to her softly rounded cheeks. ‘I’m the one who could use the diet, not you.’

      ‘Don’t be silly.’ Miranda plucked up a pair of silver hoop earrings and slipped them into her ears. ‘You’re the only painter I know who poses almost as often as she paints.’

      ‘Mmm. Yeah, well, I’m lucky.’ Mina smiled. ‘Some guys are still into the Rubens woman.’ Her eyes met Miranda’s in the mirror. ‘But there are lots of others who like ’em skinny but curvy, like you.’

      ‘Not enough,’ Miranda said. She put a heavy beaten-silver chain around her neck, then bent and dragged a pair of high-heeled black leather boots from under her bed and slipped them on. ‘I’ve only been asked to sit twice the past month.’

      Mina swung around and looked at her. ‘Wasn’t I with you when you bought that stuff?’

      ‘What stuff?’

      ‘The jewellery. And the clothes. Didn’t you get them at the Waterlooplein flea market?’

      Miranda made a face. ‘Where else do we ever shop?’

      Her room-mate sighed. ‘How come on me it all just looks like the second-hand junk it is, while on you it looks exotic?’

      ‘Wearing somebody’s cast-offs isn’t exotic,’ Miranda said firmly. ‘Neither is worrying that you might end up sleeping on the streets.’

      There was a moment’s pause, and then Mina spoke. ‘But posing undraped is?’ she said softly.

      Miranda turned around. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said, ‘Mueller’s been at it again.’

      ‘Mmm hmm. Yesterday, as a matter of fact.’

      ‘Well,’ Miranda said, getting to her feet and quickly smoothing out the bedclothes, ‘the man’s persistent, if nothing else.’

      ‘He’s more than that and you know it.’

      ‘Exactly. They say he’s been mixed up in some pretty shady stuff.’

      ‘Come on, Miranda, that’s nothing but talk. The man’s a good painter, and he pays his models well.’

      ‘I don’t pose nude, Mina. I told him that the first time he asked me, and I told you to tell him—’

      ‘Hey, take it easy. I did tell him. I’m only the messenger here, remember?’

      Miranda held up her hand. ‘Sorry, sorry—I didn’t mean to take your head off. Look, do me a favour. Just tell Mueller—’

      ‘I have, half a dozen times, but that hasn’t stopped him. He keeps asking if you’ve changed your mind. He says your face has some special quality he needs.’

      ‘He can have my face any time he wants it,’ Miranda said as she ran a comb through the black, glossy curls that tumbled below her shoulders. ‘It’s the rest of me that’s off limits.’

      ‘I told him that.’

      ‘And?’

      Mina shrugged. ‘And he said to tell you he’s willing to pay you double the standard fee.’

      The comb in Miranda’s hand stilled. She turned around slowly, her sapphire-blue eyes wide under their dark fringe of lashes.

      ‘You’re joking! Double?’

      ‘Yup. I’ve got to admit, it makes me gnash my teeth with envy, but that’s what he said.’ Mina sighed. ‘I wasn’t going to mention it at all, knowing how you feel, but we were talking about money and I figured it was only right to tell you.’

      ‘Double the standard fee,’ Miranda murmured with a wistful smile. ‘I’ve got to admit, it’s tempting. But—’

      ‘But it’s no go.’ Mina nodded. ‘I told him I was sure that’s what your answer would be.’ She smiled good-naturedly as she turned back to the mirror. ‘Old Ernst is just gonna have to get it through his head that Miranda Stuart thinks it’s immoral to peel down to the altogether for a strange guy, and never mind that there’s an easel between the two of them.’

      ‘Come on, you know me better than that. I don’t think it’s immoral. How could I? I’m a painter myself—I’ve done heaven only knows how many life studies.’

      ‘OK, so I overstated it. You just don’t think it’s right for you.’

      ‘Yeah. I’d be—I don’t know, paralysed, I guess. I’m just too self-conscious or something.’ She hesitated. ‘Besides, there’s something about that man…’

      ‘Mueller? I admit, he looks a little greasy, but he’s OK. In fact, he’s never so much as laid a finger on me—literally,

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