Notorious by Cecily von Ziegesar Read Free Book Online Page A

Jenny’s rows. “And these two …”
    Jenny stopped listening. Easy was already turning his desk to face hers. It was almost as if everyone in the world had united to try and torture her.
    “Who wants to go first?” he asked, his pencil already doodling on his paper.
    “I’ll do you first,” Jenny said, not ready for him to be drawing her face yet. She’d blush like an idiot the whole time. Besides, she didn’t want him to start comparing her looks to Callie’s—she’d never measure up. Callie was the kind of girl who got all primped just to head out to field hockey practice and spend a few hours sweating. Callie was
beautiful
. Jenny looked down at her own less-than-perfect body with her disproportionately large chest and wondered again why he would ever even consider going from being part of such a glamorous couple to being with a girl more than a foot shorter than him. They’d look like freaks!
    “All right, but I’ve never been a model before, so I might not be too good at it.” He looked vaguely embarrassed by the whole situation, tapping his fingers nervously on his drawing table.
    “It’s okay; you don’t have to pose or anything.” Jenny giggled. “You can talk or draw if you want as long as you don’t move too much. And keep your eyes up.”
    Easy met her eyes, and a slow grin spread across his face. “Okay, boss.”
    She looked down at her paper and started her preliminary sketch of the outline of his head with a stub of vine charcoal, but her eyes were immediately drawn back to his face. With only a few glances down at the paper as she sketched, Jenny studied his features more closely than she had before, appreciating the small bump in his nose, the way his big blue eyes turned up at the corners, his slightly uneven sticky-outy ears. Her paper filled up quickly.
    “Good,” Mrs. Silver said from behind Jenny’s desk. “Excellent—class, see how Jenny is keeping her eyes on Easy’s face, not buried in her paper? I want you to concentrate on what you are
seeing
, and the drawing will fall into place.”
    Perfect,
Jenny thought. More mixed messages—she couldn’t keep her eyes off Easy and she was getting praise for it.
    “You were almost late today,” Jenny remarked after Mrs. Silver passed on to the next pair, wanting to end the silence between them. She had an itch on her nose but didn’t want to scratch it because her fingers were black with charcoal.
    “I was out with Credo. The weather’s been so sweet, I want to ride as much as possible.” Easy’s face always lit up when he talked about his horse. Jenny had grown up with lots of girls whose families had houses and stables out in Westchester and Connecticut and who talked about their prize jumpers as if they were in love with them or something. Maybe her anarchist dad had rubbed off on her, but she’d always found them, with their jodhpurs and sleek riding boots, way too pretentious. Or maybe she was just jealous.
    “I’ve never been horseback riding,” she admitted, flipping to another page of newsprint and starting a new sketch. She traded her vine charcoal for a soft graphite pencil and set to work on the shape of his eyes so that she had an excuse to look right into them.
    Easy’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding me?”
    Jenny shrugged. “I’m from New York. I think I took a pony ride at a street fair once. A woman led me around in a circle. I don’t know if that counts.” Jenny cocked her head and grinned. “Actually, it might have been a donkey.”
    Easy laughed. “There’s a pretty big difference.” He ran his hand through his hair, making his curls even more disheveled than usual. He looked at Jenny shyly. “Well, you can always come with me sometime. If you wanted.” He shrugged, like he wasn’t sure if she’d be interested. “Credo’s very gentle with beginners.”
    Jenny concentrated on the charcoal-scrawled eyes on her paper instead of the ones on Easy’s face. Why was he
doing
this to