Franco - Naked

F+W Media, Inc.

F OR R OBYN
&
C AMILLE B.

A dashing, highly original romance rich with alternating perspectives, unexpected swerves, and deftly woven details about art tooBravo, Betsy Franco!

Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Habibi

Naked takes us to a familiar placefirst, true, unquestionable lovebut frames it in an ethereal experience of a fantastical reincarnation meets a coming-of-age story. It shows that love is timeless and ageless; love can heal all wounds, old and new.

James Franco, author of Actors Anonymous, Oscar-nominated actor

Betsy Franco captures the voice of two people on the verge of adulthood in a way that feels honest and vivid, in a romantic story thats both inventive and classic.

Gia Coppola, screenwriter, director of Palo Alto

It was the statue near the road, the girl looking down, that pulled me into the sculpture garden. Even though Rodin had lopped off her arms and her knee, she still felt complete. Curvy, young. Vulnerable, almost. I walked toward her through the gravel. I had a minute. I was early for my night class.

The bronze of the sculptures looked black in the fading sunlight. The air was still and free of the buzz of mosquitoes. I stood in front of the statue of the girl, called Meditation, then reached out and touched her left thigh.

Shit. I pulled back my hand and sucked on my finger. What the hell? I checked to see if my skin had been seared off from the heat of the bronze. It was just red and tender.

The sun had been strong, but not strong enough to heat bronze to a burning point. A nauseous feeling of disorientation took me over. Looking at the statues bent head, I had the feeling she could see inside me. It was so damned eerie even thinking that, I jerked away from her. I glanced at my watch, half expecting the hands to be twirling counterclockwise.

It was time to get to class. Stanford. What was I thinking? I was going to be the greenest oneguaranteed. Damn, even their summer school was fucking intimidating.

I didnt dare touch the statue again. I blew on my finger, then thought of him. Has he broken me in ways I dont even know yet? Am I going nuts now and dont even realize it? Shit. I left the garden. Wallenberg Hall. Had to find the classroom on campus. Had to get around other people, shake it off.

It started at dusk. A young man entered the garden and lingered by my statue, Meditation. I was only a bead of consciousness inside of it, but I could strongly sense his presence. His height, his magnetism, a palpable darkness inside him. After he touched the bronze, he became agitated, then disappeared.

From the moment of his touch, heat permeated my statue, and my consciousness expanded outward, farther and farther, until all at once I left the hollow confines of the sculpture as a moving constellation of lights. I swirled and shifted, until I slowly took a human form, hovering above it. Soundlessly, as subtly as a shiver, I began to materialize into flesh, beginning with my head and breasts, moving down my arms and torso to my legs and feet. I landed on the pedestal, on tiptoe, and grasped the ragged shoulder of the statue. A large white moth that was resting there flew off into the darkness.

The heat permeated my body, awakening my organs. In my chest, my heart vibrated with a terrible ache, as dark memories from the past stirred and forced me to squeeze my eyelids shut against the pain.

A blast of light burst inside me, a feeling of wild anticipation that made my vision blur, and settled into an ebb and flow of emotionhope and disappointment, joy and sadness, tranquility and angerlike a wave receding and crashing on a beach.

Shivering, then shuddering, shook my body and made my teeth chatter. I leaned my hip firmly against the statue for balance and hugged myself, hoping the warmth of my arms would settle the spasms. I pulled air into my chest and let it out slowly, trying to calm myself.

Under my hand, I felt the undeniable rhythm of a heartbeat.

I had lived a life before I felt it. But the soft skin on my hands, my vitality, told me I was young again. I explored my face with my fingers: high cheekbones, strong nose, full lips. I touched my breasts; my arms and thighs, strong and smooth; the curve of my waist; my rounded hips. Into my hands, I gathered my long dark-brown hair and clutched it tightly. I was young, for certain. Eighteen? Nineteen?

Below me I could see the ground, a white surface. Extending one leg downward, and then the other, I lowered myself until coarse pebbles bit into my toes. Once down, I slowly circled the statue, shielding my naked body with my hands. From the front, I could see its beautiful asymmetry and how it flowed into the shape of a question mark. The statue was a question and an answer all in one.

My gaze suddenly settled on objects in the distance, and I looked around, my eyes flitting here and there.

I am outside. Naked! Am I in danger?

I hugged myself tightly, crisscrossing my arms in front of my nakedness, madly searched the darkness, and listened for the sound of another living being. No one.

But there were strange, motionless human shapes around me.

I was in a garden of sorts, filled with a family of statues, each an island of its own surrounded by white gravel. Those to my right were blacker than the night sky, but I knew they were bronze. I knew sculpture. I could feel it in my fingers. There was a small comfort in that.

Two of the statues were seated, one was reaching skyward, another was on its back, two more were perched on tall pedestals. To my left, giant bronze gates were illuminated, filled with the contorted faces of clamoring figures. I knew all the sculptures I could see, but did not know why. I felt a sharp ache again around my heart. And a tremor of panic.

Mon dieu.

Who am I?

Who was I?

I peered through the sliding door. The chairs inside the classroom were pushed to the left. There were spotlights dotting the black ceiling, a camera on a tripod to the right, and two standing lights with umbrellas over them.

I walked in, avoiding the wires snaking around the floor. This Performance Art?

Enter at your own risk, the teacher said. Marc Stein. He was young, bearded, wore a baseball cap. A Steven Spielberg wannabe. His bio said hed gotten his work into festivals.

I held out my one-page write-up exploring a possible topic for a project.

Keep it. He waved me off, continued fussing with a computer. Therell be a lot more where that came from. Youll hand in your whole journal later.

Suddenly an image appeared on a screen on the wall, captured by the camera. I almost didnt recognize myself. My gangly body, my confused eyes. I moved out of range of the camera lens.

Hi, Im Lisa. A girl my height hovered beside me as I folded my paper and pushed it into my backpack. Tight jeans, wavy blonde hair to her shoulders. A silver top with no sleeves. Her brown eyes and dark eyebrows looked interesting with her hair.