Arm Candy by Jill Kargman Read Free Book Online Page A

ingénues off Amtrak whom Otto had to coax into the buff. Eden stood stark and relaxed as sweat began to gather on Otto’s brow.
    “I’m speechless. Your beauty is so rare, so flawless,” Otto said to her as he ran his hand through his hair, nervously walking back to his easel and turning to face her again. “You truly make one understand how Helen of Troy’s visage could have launched all those damn ships.”
    “Well, I’m glad we’re making art and not war,” she joked, rolling her green eyes.
    “I believe the hippie dippies say make love not war,” he countered flirtatiously.
    “We can do both,” she retorted.
    His eyes flashed from behind his canvas. There it was, desire. Lock and load: Eden knew she’d hit the target. He was all hers.
    Poor Wes didn’t know what hit him.
    “I’m so sorry, Wes. It’s been . . . such an amazing time, really, I just . . . this is an amazing opportunity for me and I—”
    “You’re seriously leaving me? After last night?”
    She flushed the thought of their final night together, a last walk on the Brooklyn Bridge, the red box of raisins, their final sex, all out of her head for fear she would lose her resolve. She choked back tears and proceeded, in a Tasmanian-devil-style whirlwind, to sweep up her things as she spewed sincere apologies with no eye contact. As Wes stood there withering with shocked grief, Eden swallowed hard and tried to speak as she finally looked at his face.
    “I just think it’s time to move on. Part of me will never stop loving you,” she said as her voice cracked. “But I need to go.”
    Wes stood silently staring at her, decimated, like in a bad dream where you want to scream but nothing emerges. He had not seen this coming at all. As she turned to the door to leave their apartment for the last time, she saw Wes draw breath to speak his parting words. Dewy-eyed, he simply said quietly, “I hope this guy loves you as much as I do, Eden. And that you love him as much as I have loved you.”
    Eden’s eyes swelled, but only for a second before she gathered her composure.
    “I’m sorry,” she said simply, before closing the rusty door behind her. And with that, she was gone.

9
    They say that age is all in your mind. The trick is keeping it from creeping down into your body.
    —Anonymous
     
     
     
    A ny latent guilt Eden had about Wes was drowned in her immediate joy when Otto told her The New York Times Magazine wanted to photograph her for a story on his new works. Her renewed ambition trumped any lingering grief. And then Otto showed her to her own room, massive and clean, gleaming white, and a huge marble bathroom just for her.
    Things were finally happening. No more record store. No more roaches. She could smell the next step, taste it. She’d come a long way from her roots as a brilliant but bored rural high school dropout from the wrong side of the wrong town, itching to get out. And now here she was, posing for Otto Clyde and The New York Times .
    Eden couldn’t help but pinch herself. While everyone would be dead and disintegrated in a century’s time, her image would still stare down from museum walls spanning the globe, tantalizing viewers forever. After her glum childhood and dreams of bigger and better things, here she was: She had pulled it off.
    Later that night, after the other studio hangers-on and one of the dealers left at nightfall, Eden and Otto remained, as he was on deadline for his new show at the Lyle Spence Gallery, which would feature the first finished canvases of his new muse. Eden, newly single, was supercharged and ready to pounce. As the sun was setting and the pair shared a snack in the industrial, skylit kitchen, Eden suggested they get back to work.
    She opened her robe and let it fall to the floor. She walked back to her chaise and lay down as Otto went back to his easel. The artist was fully clothed in khaki pants and a white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up a bit, with dabs of paint on it. After