In Montreal

I suppose I should have gotten a hint from the drawings plastering his stand. Some colored and some simple charcoal-on-white-paper, all bore an undeniable likeness. All at least semi-sexualized, most depicted similar-looking women in fishnets and low-cut dresses standing on tiptoes, their seductively pursed lips bursting from the page. I supposed I should have had a different expectation about how he would warp and re-create my brother and me. But I didn't, and Nathan and I sat down across from the soft-faced, cherubic man with thick silver hair and a worn navy blue baseball cap. He didn't say much but seemed to know exactly what he was going to draw even before we were seated. I suppose the fact that he didn't take a good look at our faces and features before he began should have clued me in. But it didn't, and we laughed at the cracks my dad was making in the background, at the ridiculous mental caricatures he was painting for us as the physical one was being swiftly sketched in confident black sweeps. The soft-faced man worked quickly and surely, looking more at the page than at his two posing customers. Whenever he did look up at me I could feel my arms closing tighter around my body, hands stuck self-consciously between my knees. Next to me Nathan basked in the morsels of attention, body loose and shoulders dipped, an easy smile spread across his freckled brown face. His laugh, pouring out of his throat, rippled the dark red shirt draped over his torso. I laughed a little too hard, amused at Dad's jokes, amused at the scene, but really wishing the man would shout "Voila!" and be done with it.