She lifts the corner of her blanket and shows me a knife at least nine inches long. “Don’t you worry. I’ll be fine. Sweet dreams.”
“You too.” I take about two steps before I stop and turn around. “My name’s Sabine.”
“Sabine. Your mama chose a beautiful name for her girl.”
And even though there’s no way Julie could have known Mom, the feeling that she did floods me and I walk wobbly-legged to my car. I unlock the door, launch myself inside, and slam down the lock. When I glance up at the rearview mirror, the backseat stares back at me.
Memories I’ve tried to forget come hurtling back. The plastic knife, jar of peanut butter, and loaf of bread on the floor of the backseat. Washing underwear in a library sink. A cop banging on the window at 3:00 a.m. “You can’t sleep here. Move your car.”
I go to start the engine and drop my keys. Dammit. I scrabble around by my feet, getting more and more frustrated when I can’t find them.
Stop. Breathe.
My heartbeat begins to slow and I start to catch my breath. I need to avoid Julie. She’s triggering me.
But then Mom’s voice comes through so clear it’s as if she’s listening. No, baby, she’s your spirit guide.
The idea is so new-age-y, so Mom, I start laughing. Mom would talk about people, ordinary, everyday people who didn’t look the least angelic, but who appeared when she was screwing up. I couldn’t shake them, baby. I’d try to ignore them, but they’d keep showing up until I got the message.
I’m done laughing when I find my keys. Okay, fine. If Julie’s got a message for me, then what is it?
I’m not sure what she’s trying to tell me, but the first time I saw her I was compelled to take her photo. And the other night when I saw her again, I was swamped by the urge to paint her, but I chickened out and painted the urban landscape that got me reamed.
The engine starts and I shift into drive. The logical answer to my completely irrational question is: I have to paint her.
I need to paint Julie.
Portraits are my passion, they always have been, but painting a portrait of Julie to show to Krell, one of the leading portrait painters of our time?
It feels dangerous—no, insane! Krell will savage the painting’s flaws and weaknesses, he’ll shred me in front of the class.
But I can’t hand in another painting that’s safe. Krell told me to risk failure, and I guess that means I need to be daring and paint Julie.
I turn off the engine and walk back to where she’s sitting. I crouch on my heels so we can look eye to eye. Julie’s not surprised to see me, but she is when I ask if I can paint her. “This face? Why would you want to paint this ugly face?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s ugly.”
She sizes me up, her mouth working, then says, “Would I have to go sit in that fancy school while you paint?”
“Not if you don’t want to. I could paint you from the photo I took the other day.”
She asks to see it again, and I show it to her. “Would it help you?” she says. “Painting my picture, would it help you?”
A sob rises in my throat, but I catch it and force it down. “Yes,” I tell her. “It would.”
“You go ahead, then.”
We say good night and I walk back to my car, holding her permission to my chest like a gift.
Krell’s absent from Painting Strategies 101, so class is the most relaxed it’s ever been. I text Adam asking if he can take a break, but he doesn’t text me back, so after class I head for the student lounge. Bryian and Bernadette have taken over one of the couches, their giraffe-long limbs splayed over the arms and the table in front of them. They’re both absorbed in whatever she’s showing him on her tablet.
I veer over to where Taysha’s working. A pile of earrings on midnight-blue paper backings sits on the table in front of her along with sheets of price stickers. “Nice jacket,” she says.
“It was my mom’s,” I say, slipping off the cerulean velvet jacket she used to wear onstage.
“You should raid her closet more often.”
Taysha’s comment slides into a soft spot between my ribs, but still I smile through the pang in my chest, because when I put Mom’s jacket on this morning, it was the first time that wearing something of hers made me feel close to her instead of infinitely lost.
I pick up a pair of earrings. Tiny origami cranes dangle from the silver wires. “You made these?”
“Yes, indeed. The whole bunch.” Taysha waves her hand over the pile. “They’re not really my thing, but they sell like crazy. Do me a favor and peel the price sticker off that one.”
“Sure.” I sit down and scratch at the card stock with a fingernail, careful not to tear it.
Taysha hands me a new sticker. “Here. Put this on. It’s almost the holidays. Time to raise prices.” She watches me for barely a second, then pushes the rest of the earrings over to me. “You peel, I’ll replace.”
I smirk as I reach into the pile. “Why do I feel like you planned this?”
“Because you can see into my calculating soul.”
We work in silence for a minute, then Taysha says, “Something’s different about you.”
The little square of card stock I’m holding pops out of my hand and I snatch it off the table. Calm down. She has no idea what you’re up to with Adam.
“It has to do with Kevin, doesn’t it?”
“We are not a thing, Taysha.”
“You were pretty tight on that bench outside the Broad the other day.”
“Okay, stop. Don’t even.”
“Fine,” Taysha declares with a flick of her hands. “Maybe you’d be more interested in who got busted hooking up in CALINVA’s hallowed halls.”
“Ah, yeah.”
“So Jorge—” Taysha sees I have no clue who he is. “Security guard, really tall, short black hair?”
“Nope, go on.”
“Last night around ten, he’s doing his rounds and he hears slamming noises coming from the library and thinks someone’s destroying equipment. So he bursts in, and these two second-years are banging away. Chairs are turned over. Clothes are everywhere. Art journals cover half the floor.”
“No!”
“To hear Jorge tell it, he’s never seen an action sequence like this one. He made them hand over their student IDs, and the administration put them on probation. They can’t even step into the library unless the librarian’s present.”
I laugh with Taysha, but at the same time, take this as a warning. With Jorge patrolling the halls at night, I need to be careful. The heat gun I need to use to fuse the layers of encaustic paint is as loud as a hair dryer. I don’t want to tip anyone off that I’m in Krell’s studio.
Class is about to start, so Taysha and I pack up. “Oh, before I forget,” she says, “I could use some help next Sunday if you’re free. I rented a space at the Rose Bowl flea market. It’s how I pay for the extras, like, you know, food.”
It sounds fun, but I was hoping to spend that Sunday in Krell’s studio. Duncan will be gone in a few weeks, so I don’t have a lot of time to work on it. “I don’t know, Taysha. I’d like to, but I might be doing something.”