Chapter 1: The Seduction of Ivy
The fluorescent light in Doreen’s office buzzed like a trapped insect, flickering over towers of art books and canvases smeared with the ghosts of abandoned projects. The air was thick, a permanent cocktail of turpentine, dust, and something vaguely mildewy. Ivy shifted on the cracked leather chair, her portfolio—a sleek, expensive thing—feeling absurdly out of place against the chaos.
“I just don’t get it,” Ivy said, her voice tight. She gestured at the latest critique sheet, a brutal slash of red ink. “She said my use of color was ‘derivative’ and my composition ‘lacked conviction.’ What does that even mean?”
Doreen watched her from behind a desk buried in papers. She took a slow sip of tea from a chipped mug, her eyes, magnified by thick glasses, moving over Ivy: the fall of perfect blonde hair over a slender shoulder, the pout of her full lips, the way her leggings hugged her long legs. She saw the frustration, the beautiful, vulnerable confusion. It was a delicious sight.
“Professor Halston is… traditional,” Doreen said, setting her mug down with a soft click. “She doesn’t appreciate contemporary beauty. Not like some of us do.”
Ivy blinked those striking blue eyes, so wide and trusting. “I’m not even sure I should be an art major. Maybe I should just focus on the modeling. My agent says I have maybe two years of ‘freshness’.”
Doreen’s pulse gave a little jump. She leaned forward, her chair groaning. “Modeling. Yes. That’s a practical use of your… attributes. But the art world, the right part of it, can open doors for a girl like you. High-fashion editorials. Gallery openings. It’s all connected.”
“Is it?” Hope, naive and desperate, flickered in Ivy’s expression.
“Oh, absolutely.” Doreen lowered her voice to a conspiratorial murmur. “There are people here, powerful people, who have their fingers in those very exclusive pies. People who appreciate a muse. A living piece of art.”
“Who?” The word was a breath.
Doreen savored the moment, drawing it out. She adjusted her glasses. “Dr. Rossi. In Art History.”
Ivy’s nose wrinkled slightly. “The one who smells like old sweaters?”
“That’s the one.” Doreen smiled, a thin stretching of lips. “Don’t let the exterior fool you. Seraphina Rossi sits on the boards of two major cultural foundations. She curates shows. She knows photographers, gallery owners… the kind who discover girls. She has a particular eye for… certain aesthetics. Classical beauty. Youth.”
Ivy was leaning forward now, the critique forgotten. Doreen could smell her shampoo, something fruity and expensive.
“How do I… get her to notice me?”
“She runs a private seminar,” Doreen said casually, tracing a stain on her desk. “Very selective. Independent study credit. It’s called ‘The Body as Historical Text.’ Mostly graduate students. But I could put in a word. I could tell her I have a truly exceptional undergraduate, a living exemplar of the form she’s always lecturing about. She’d listen to me.”
The offer hung in the smelly air. Ivy’s gaze dropped to her hands, then back to Doreen’s face. “Would you? That would be… amazing.”
“Of course, dear.” Doreen reached out, patting Ivy’s hand. Her skin was warm, soft. She let her fingers linger a moment too long. “We help our special students here. But these opportunities… they require a certain level of commitment. Of trust. It’s an intimate setting. A mentorship.”
“I understand,” Ivy said quickly, nodding, already picturing a runway, a flashbulb burst. “I’m a hard worker.”
“I know you are.” Doreen finally withdrew her hand, the ghost of Ivy’s warmth clinging to her skin. “Leave it to me. I’ll speak to her today.”
The seminar room was in the old library building, all dark wood and leaded windows. The other students—three serious-looking grad students—barely glanced up as Ivy slipped in, her heart hammering. Then Dr. Rossi entered, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop.
She was a large woman, her body swathed in layers of grey and brown tweed. Her hair was a steel-grey helmet, stiff and unforgiving. The smell preceded her: mothballs, stale parchment, and beneath it, a faint, sweetish odor of decay. But her eyes, behind smudged lenses, were terrifyingly alive. They swept the room and landed on Ivy with the force of a physical blow.
“Miss Vance,” Rossi stated, her voice a dry rustle of pages. “Doreen’s protege. We shall see if the vessel matches the hype.”
Ivy felt her face flush. The two-hour lecture was a dissection of Renaissance nudes, of the male gaze, of the commodification of feminine beauty. Rossi’s words were complex, sharp, and they circled Ivy, making her feel simultaneously exposed and utterly invisible. Yet, when Rossi spoke of Botticelli’s models, of their unknown lives and leveraged beauty, she would look directly at Ivy. It felt like being x-rayed.
After the others filed out, Rossi busied herself with notes. Ivy gathered her courage, hovering near the door.
“Dr. Rossi?”
The woman looked up, impatient.
“I just wanted to thank you. For letting me join. It’s… fascinating.”
Rossi’s gaze softened, but it wasn’t warm. It was acquisitive. “You have the line,” she said abruptly. “The neck. The carriage. A blankness in the eyes that is… pliable. Doreen said you had aspirations beyond this campus.”
“Modeling, yes.”
“A crude term for an ancient practice.” Rossi stood, approaching her. The smell intensified. She reached out a stubby, ringed finger and, without permission, lifted a strand of Ivy’s hair, studying its color against her pale skin. Ivy held her breath, frozen. “I know people. Women with real influence. They collect beautiful things. They cultivate them. A party, this weekend. At my home. It would be a suitable introduction. These women appreciate art in its living form.”
This was it. The connection. Ivy’s dream, packaged in mothballs and this unsettling, close proximity. “I’d be honored,” Ivy whispered.
“Good.” Rossi dropped the hair. “Doreen will bring you. She’s… eager to be part of your journey. Now, go. I have work.”
Ivy floated out, the promise singing in her veins. She barely noticed the shadows lengthening in the corridor.
Doreen’s apartment was above a falafel shop, smelling of cumin and oil. “A nightcap, to celebrate!” she’d insisted, her hand on the small of Ivy’s back, guiding her up the narrow stairs. The apartment was a larger, messier version of her office. Canvases of distorted, fleshy forms loomed in the dim light.
“I can’t believe it,” Ivy sighed, accepting a glass of overly sweet wine. “She’s so intimidating. But she really seems to know everyone.”
“She does,” Doreen said, watching her drink. “This is just the beginning, Ivy. For both of us.” She moved closer, the faint, sour tang of her body odor cutting through the wine. “You’ll need to be… prepared. These parties, these people. They expect a certain sophistication. A willingness to be part of the art.”
“I’m willing,” Ivy said, the wine warming her, blurring the edges of her unease.
“Are you?” Doreen’s voice dropped. She took Ivy’s glass and set it aside. Her fingers, dry and rough, traced Ivy’s jawline. “It’s about trust. About showing your mentor you’re truly committed. That you understand the… transaction of beauty.”
Ivy stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Doreen whispered, her breath hot against Ivy’s ear, “that nothing is free, you stupid, beautiful girl. Rossi’s world has a price of admission. And tonight, you pay me.”
Panic, sharp and cold, shot through the wine haze. Ivy tried to pull back, but Doreen was stronger, her plump body surprisingly forceful. She pushed Ivy against a wall, a canvas digging into her shoulder blade.
“Don’t,” Ivy gasped, turning her face away.
Doreen clutched her chin, wrenching it back. “Don’t be ungrateful. I opened the door. This is just a key.” She mashed her mouth against Ivy’s. The kiss was wet, insistent, tasting of tea and decay. Ivy gagged, her hands pushing uselessly at Doreen’s heavy chest.
“Stop, please…”
“Shut up,” Doreen panted, her hands fumbling, dragging down the zipper of Ivy’s jeans. “You want to be a model? Then be still. Be a pretty object.”
Ivy froze, disconnecting. She stared at a paint splatter on the ceiling as Doreen’s rough hands yanked her jeans and underwear to her knees. The cold air hit her skin, then the hotter, grosser pressure of Doreen’s body. Fingers, calloused and intrusive, probed between her legs, dry and painful.
“See?” Doreen grunted, working her fingers inside, a brutal, sawing motion. “It’s just art. Just form. Your body is for use.”
Ivy bit her lip until she tasted blood, tears cutting hot tracks through her makeup. She made no sound. She was somewhere else, on a runway, lights blinding her. The pain between her legs was distant, a problem for the girl trapped against the wall, not for her. Doreen’s grunting, the slick, awful sound, the smell of sweat and turpentine—it all became a blurry, nauseating mess.
It ended as abruptly as it began. Doreen stepped back, breathing heavily, wiping her hand on her own pants. She looked at Ivy, disheveled and exposed, with a kind of grim satisfaction.
“Get dressed,” she said, her voice back to its normal register. “We have a party to get ready for this weekend. Dr. Rossi is expecting us.”
Ivy mechanically pulled her clothes up, her fingers numb. She couldn’t look at Doreen. The promise of the future, once so bright, now felt like a dark, narrowing tunnel. She followed Doreen out, the door clicking shut behind them, locking in the smell and the silence. The hum of the falafel shop’s fan downstairs sounded like the buzz of a dying fluorescent light, going on and on and on.
The hum followed her all the way home. It was in the rattle of the subway, the drip of her shower, the silence of her own bedroom. It was the sound of what had happened, and it had burrowed into her skull. She scrubbed her skin raw in the shower, but the feeling of those dry, invasive fingers remained, a phantom stain.
By Saturday night, standing before her mirror in a slinky black dress Doreen had told her to wear, she felt hollow. The dress was too short, too tight. It felt like a uniform.
“You look exquisite,” Doreen said, picking her up. She acted as if nothing had happened, her homely face placid behind her glasses. “Seraphina will be pleased.”
Rossi’s house was a decaying Victorian on the edge of the faculty district. Music, low and classical, seeped from it. The door was opened by a silent woman in a severe suit. Inside, the air was warm, thick with incense and perfume and the underlying note of Rossi’s mothball scent. The lighting was dim, casting pools of gold on walls lined not with books, but with art photography—mostly of young women, in various states of undress and abstraction.
There were maybe a dozen people, all women, all older, elegantly dressed. Their conversations paused as Ivy entered. Eyes, like polished stones, assessed her. She felt like a specimen being passed under a microscope.
“Ah. The new canvas.” Rossi appeared, a glass of amber liquid in hand. She wore a dark velvet jacket that smelled of camphor. Her gaze traveled over Ivy, slow and comprehensive. “The dress is acceptable. Come. There are people you must meet.”
The introductions were a blur of names and vague, powerful affiliations: gallery this, magazine that, foundation this. Their hands were cool, their touches lingering. A woman with silver hair and sharp fingertips traced Ivy’s collarbone. “Lovely line,” she murmured.
Ivy smiled, her face aching with the effort. She was passed from one to another, a precious object on display. Doreen hovered at the edges, beaming, a facilitator of this transaction.
“Dr. Rossi says you’re eager to learn,” said a woman named Gwendolyn, her hand resting on the small of Ivy’s back, guiding her away from the main room, down a hall. “To be molded.”
“I want to be a model,” Ivy said, the statement feeling childish here.
“You are a model,” Gwendolyn corrected. Her room was a study, lined with books. She closed the door. The music muffled. “Right now. For us. The most exclusive audience you’ll ever have. Rossi’s patronage isn’t free, sweetheart. It’s an investment. And we like to… inspect our investments.”
Ivy’s breath hitched. “Inspect?”
Gwendolyn didn’t answer with words. She turned Ivy around, faced her towards a large, gilded mirror. She stood behind her, her eyes meeting Ivy’s in the reflection. Her hands came up and cupped Ivy’s breasts through the thin fabric, squeezing, weighing them. “Firm. Good.” One hand slid down, over Ivy’s stomach, pressing her back against Gwendolyn’s body. “No nerves. Good. A blank slate.”
Tears pricked Ivy’s eyes, but she swallowed them. This was the price. This was the door.
“Take the dress off,” Gwendolyn commanded, her voice cool. “I want to see the raw material.”
With trembling hands, Ivy obeyed. The dress slithered to the floor. She stood in her heels and lace underwear, exposed in the mirror’s cruel frame.
“All of it.”
She removed the underwear. The air was cool on her skin. She kept her eyes on her own reflection, trying to become the girl in the glass, separate from the one standing here.
Gwendolyn circled her. “Turn around. Bend over. Place your hands on the desk.”
Ivy did. The polished wood was cold under her palms. She saw the titles of Rossi’s books: The Female Form in Archetype, Subjugation and Aesthetics. Gwendolyn’s shadow fell over her.
A finger, slick with something from a vial on the desk, pressed against her. It wasn’t dry like Doreen’s. It was cold, clinical. It pushed inside.
“She’s tight,” Gwendolyn said, not to Ivy, but to the room, as if reporting findings.
Ivy bit her lip, staring at the grain of the wood. The finger moved, a shallow, probing motion. Then a second joined it, stretching her. There was no pleasure, only a sharp, insistent fullness. A thumb pressed against her other hole, making her jolt.
“Hmm.” The fingers withdrew. “Adequate. Physically.”
Ivy heard the rustle of clothing, the clink of a belt. She didn’t dare look back. Something blunt and much larger than fingers nudged at her entrance. It was not a part of a person; it was hard, unyielding plastic or rubber.
“This is a lesson in composition,” Gwendolyn said, her voice strained with focus. “In accepting form.”
She pushed. Ivy cried out, a short, sharp gasp as the object forced its way inside, a brutal, tearing invasion. It was huge, stretching her unbearably, a fake, rigid cock.
“Hold still.” Gwendolyn’s hands gripped Ivy’s hips, fingers digging into the flesh. She began to thrust, hard and mechanical, pounding the object into her. Each drive slammed Ivy’s pelvis against the desk’s edge. Pain radiated through her, bright and shocking.
“See?” Gwendolyn grunted, her rhythm jarring. “You can take it. You’re built for it. A vessel. A pretty, hollow thing.”
The words were worse than the pain. They filled the hollow spaces inside her, confirming her fears. She was just a thing. A canvas. A fuck-toy for bored, powerful women. Tears finally fell, dripping silently onto Rossi’s desk. She made no other sound. The only noises were the wet, rhythmic slap of flesh on plastic, Gwendolyn’s controlled breathing, and the distant swell of violins from the party.
It ended with a final, deep thrust and a sigh from Gwendolyn. The object was pulled out, leaving Ivy feeling gaping and empty. A towel was tossed onto the desk beside her hand.
“Clean yourself up. You’ll find a robe behind the screen. Come back out when you’re presentable. Seraphina will discuss next steps.”
The door opened and closed. Ivy was alone. She shook, her legs barely holding her. She used the towel, wincing. In the mirror, her mascara was smudged, her eyes wide and shattered. She found the robe—silk, expensive—and put it on. It felt like another costume.
When she returned to the main room, the party continued as if nothing had occurred. Rossi caught her eye from across the room and gave a slight, approving nod. Doreen hurried over, her face alight.
“Well? Gwendolyn is very connected. She was pleased?”
Ivy looked at her teacher’s eager, homely face, at the room of women who saw her as livestock, at Dr. Rossi who presided over it all like a spider in tweed. The buzz was back, louder now, a screaming in her veins that she knew, with a cold, sick certainty, would never stop.
“Yes,” Ivy heard herself say, her voice surprisingly steady. “She was pleased. What’s the next step?”
Rossi’s smile was a thin crack in stone. She drifted over, the mothball scent enveloping Ivy. “The next step is refinement. Your… audition was satisfactory. Gwendolyn believes you have potential, but potential is raw. It requires shaping.”
She placed a heavy, ringed hand on Ivy’s shoulder. The weight felt like a brand.
“Anton,” Rossi called, not raising her voice.
A man detached himself from a shadowed corner. He was gaunt, dressed in head-to-toe black, a camera hanging from his neck like a ritual object. His eyes were flat, assessing light and shadow, not personhood. He circled Ivy slowly.
“The dress was a prop. Too obvious. The face, though… there is fear there. A nice blankness. It photographs well.” Anton’s voice was a monotone. “We start Thursday. My studio. Doreen will bring you.”
“Start what?” Ivy asked, the robe feeling flimsy as tissue paper.
“Your portfolio, of course,” Rossi said, as if it were obvious. “The one that will be shown to my associates in Milan. Anton is… specialist. He captures the essence.”
Doreen squeezed Ivy’s arm, her fingers digging in with proprietary excitement. “This is it, Ivy. This is the real thing.”
The following days passed in a blur of normalcy that felt like a cruel joke. Ivy went to classes. She smiled at classmates. She applied concealer to the faint bruises on her hips. The humming in her head had settled into a constant, low-frequency drone, a white noise barrier between her and everything else.
Thursday night, Doreen drove her to an industrial warehouse district. Anton’s studio was a vast, cold space of concrete and draped backdrops. Heat lamps stood like skeletal aliens. It smelled of dust, electronics, and a sharp, chemical scent Ivy didn’t recognize.
“Undress there,” Anton said, pointing to a screen. He was already fiddling with lights, not looking at her.
Ivy stepped behind the screen. Her hands shook as she pulled off her sweater, her jeans. She stood in her plain cotton bra and underwear, arms wrapped around herself.
“All of it,” Anton called, his voice echoing. “We begin with purity of form.”
She took a breath that hitched in her chest. She removed the last scraps of fabric, folded them neatly on a stool. The air was chill on her bare skin. She walked out, trying to cover herself with her hands.
“Arms at your sides,” Anton commanded, finally looking at her. His gaze was clinical. “Posture. Arch the back slightly. Good. Now, look here.” He raised his camera. The lens was a black, unblinking eye.
The shutter clicked. It was a sound like a bone snapping.
“Turn. Profile. Chin down. Eyes distant. Not sad, empty. You are waiting for something that will never come. Yes.”
He directed her with cold precision. Onto a frayed velvet chaise. Against a cracked concrete wall. On a sheet of dirty plastic. The heat lamps burned her skin. He moved her limbs like a doll, positioning her with impersonal touches. A hand here to tilt her hip. A finger under her chin to angle her face. His hands were dry and cool.
“Now the oil,” he said.
Doreen, who had been watching silently from a stool, stood up. She held a bottle of baby oil. “This will highlight the musculature,” she said, her voice oddly reverent.
“I can do it,” Ivy whispered.
“You can’t reach your back,” Doreen said, and it wasn’t an offer.
The oil was cold. Doreen’s hands were not. They smoothed the slick liquid over Ivy’s shoulders, her back, her arms. They lingered, kneading at her muscles, sliding around to the sides of her breasts. Ivy flinched.
“Hold the pose,” Anton snapped, his camera clicking rapidly.
Doreen’s hands continued their slow, possessive slide down her spine, over the curve of her ass. The oil made her skin gleam under the hot lights. It made her feel like a glazed ham. Exposed. Preserved.
“Beautiful,” Doreen breathed, close to her ear. “You’re perfect.”
The shoot lasted two hours. Anton demanded more, different expressions. “Look at me like I am dirt. Now like I am God. Now like you are nothing at all.” By the end, Ivy’s body ached from holding positions. Her mind was a numb, frozen void. The camera had swallowed her, piece by piece.
“Enough,” Anton said finally, lowering his camera. “We have good raw material. Rossi will be pleased.”
Doreen handed Ivy a thin, stained towel. “Get dressed. We have one more stop tonight.”
“Where?” Ivy asked, her voice raspy from disuse.
“A celebration. Of your progress.”
The “celebration” was a private room at the back of a quiet, upscale bar. Rossi was there, along with Gwendolyn and two other women from the party. They sat in a plush booth, a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket beside them.
“The proofs?” Rossi asked as they approached.
Anton handed her a digital tablet. Rossi swiped through the images, her expression unreadable. She passed it to Gwendolyn.
“Mmm. The chiaroscuro on the spine in frame twelve is exceptional. She photographs better than she lives,” Gwendolyn remarked.
“She is learning to be an image,” Rossi said. “It is a difficult death of the self.”
They spoke about her as if she weren’t standing there, skin still tacky with oil, shivering in her clothes. Ivy felt something hot and sharp rise up from the hollow place inside her. It wasn’t anger. It was worse. It was the realization that they were right.
“Sit, Ivy,” Rossi said, not looking up from the tablet. “Champagne. You have earned a glass.”
Doreen nudged her into the booth, squeezing in beside her, a solid, warm pressure. A flute of champagne was placed in front of her. The bubbles seemed obscenely cheerful.
One of the women, a sleek brunette named Celia, leaned forward. “Seraphina tells us you are remarkably… compliant. That you understand the nature of the exchange.”
Ivy took a gulp of champagne. It was sour on her tongue. “I want to be a model.”
“And you will be,” Celia said, smiling. Her teeth were very white. “My publication runs a spread next month. ‘Emerging Forms.’ We need a fresh face. Anton’s work will do nicely. With the right… narrative.”
“Narrative?” Ivy asked.
“A story,” Gwendolyn clarified. “The brilliant, reclusive professor and her untouched muse. The discovery of raw beauty in the academic wilds. It’s very compelling. It sells magazines. And it sells you.”
Rossi finally looked at her. “There will be an interview. You will tell them how I discovered you. How my mentorship has… sculpted your vision. You will be grateful. Specific in your gratitude. Do you understand?”
Ivy understood. She was to become a piece of fiction they had all written together. Her reality—the fear, the pain, Doreen’s hands, the cold lens—would be erased and painted over with something more palatable, more marketable. A beautiful lie.
“I understand,” she said.
“Good girl,” Doreen purred, her hand landing on Ivy’s thigh under the table, squeezing.
The conversation moved on. Gallery talks, grant money, a summer trip to a coastal estate owned by one of the women. Ivy’s name was woven into the plans as a accessory, a living exhibit to be brought along.
The champagne bottle emptied. Another appeared. The lights in the bar seemed to grow softer, the edges of the room blurring. Ivy drank, letting the alcohol fuel the numbness. The hand on her thigh crept higher.
Rossi stood. “It is late. Doreen, you will see her home. We begin the interview process next week. Anton will send the selected edits. Celia, we will discuss the contract.”
The goodbyes were air kisses and more lingering touches. Out in the cool night air, Ivy stumbled slightly. Doreen caught her, holding her up, her arm firmly around Ivy’s waist.
“You did so well,” Doreen whispered into her hair as she bundled her into the passenger seat. “I’m so proud of you. We’re in this together, you know. You and me.”
The car ride was quiet. The world outside the window was a smear of streetlights and darkness. Doreen’s hand rested on her knee, a constant, claiming weight.
They didn’t go to Ivy’s apartment. Doreen drove to her own. Ivy didn’t question it. Resistance was a concept for a different person, in a different life.
Inside, the smell of turpentine and dust was almost comforting in its familiarity. Doreen didn’t turn on the main light, just a small lamp by the bed. She stood in front of Ivy, her homely face soft in the low glow.
“You see now, don’t you?” Doreen said, her voice thick. “How I’ve helped you? How I’ve made this possible for you?”
Ivy nodded, mute.
“You should thank me,” Doreen said, and it wasn’t a suggestion.
She stepped closer, her hands coming up to cradle Ivy’s face. Her breath was warm and sour. “Thank me, Ivy.”
“Thank you,” Ivy whispered, the words ash in her mouth.
Doreen’s kiss was hungry, possessive. It tasted of champagne and desperate longing. Ivy stood still and let it happen, her mind fleeing to the corner of the ceiling, to the paint splatter she had memorized last time. Doreen’s hands pulled at her clothes, pushing them off, guiding her back toward the messy bed.
This time, there was no violent shock. It was a slower, more thorough claiming. Doreen took her time, mapping Ivy’s body with hands and mouth, murmuring words of praise and ownership. “Mine,” she breathed against Ivy’s skin. “My beautiful girl. My creation.”
Ivy stared at the ceiling, the humming in her head rising to a crescendo that drowned out everything else. She was disappearing. Piece by piece, kiss by kiss, touch by touch, she was being erased. The girl who wanted to be a model was gone. What was left on the bed was just a body, a vessel waiting to be filled with someone else’s story.
As Doreen finally stilled, her heavy body spent and slack on top of her, Ivy blinked slowly. In the dark, she could just make out the shape of her own clothes, a discarded pile on the floor. They looked like a ghost, the empty shell of someone who had once lived there.
The next step was always another step. And she would take it. Because the only thing more terrifying than moving forward was the thought of looking back at what was already gone.
Doreen was already awake, dressed, and spreading glossy photographs across the kitchen table, Anton's images of Ivy gleaming under the harsh bulb. "These are your new face," she said, tapping one where Ivy looked hauntingly beautiful and utterly vacant. "Rossi has scheduled your first interview for Monday, and after that, the refinement sessions begin in earnest. You belong to the art now." Ivy stared at the photographs, at the girl who looked back at her with Anton's careful lighting and slick oiled skin. The emptiness in those blue eyes was not a pose. She could not remember being that girl, only the cold instructions that had summoned her into being.
She reached out and turned the photograph face down.
The weekend passed like a fever dream. She ate when Doreen placed food in front of her. She smiled when Doreen reminded her to practice. She memorized the story Rossi had prepared, a fiction of mentorship and inspiration, and recited it until the lies felt smoother than the truth.
Monday morning arrived in a blur of rain and car exhaust. Rossi met them at the magazine offices, a tower of glass that reflected the grey sky back at itself. The editor, a hawkish woman with a severe bob, studied Ivy over the rim of her coffee cup and asked about her journey, about the professor who had changed everything.
Ivy opened her mouth, and the story came out perfectly polished. She heard herself speak of Rossi's wisdom, of Doreen's nurturing guidance, of her own gratitude. Every word was a burial. Every sentence a fresh layer of soil.
The editor nodded, making notes. "We'll run the spread next month. Dr. Rossi's piece will frame it beautifully."
Ivy smiled until her face ached, and when she rose to leave, the editor pressed a card into her hand. "Milan will want to meet you. Consider this your introduction."
Outside, the rain had stopped. Doreen was beaming, clutching Ivy's arm as if she had won a prize. Ivy looked down at the card, at the embossed name of a Milanese agency, and felt nothing at all. The girl who had once dreamed of this moment was buried somewhere beneath the photographs, beneath the rehearsed lies, beneath the weight of hands that had claimed her.
She tucked the card into her pocket and followed Doreen to the car.