Hello Stranger(24)

Before I could think of what to ask, this faceless woman said, “How long has it been?”

“Gosh,” I said, stalling. “How long has it been?”

“You look amazing,” she said next.

What else could I say? “You look amazing.”

“What are you up to these days?”

“Oh,” I said. “Same old, same old.” Then, trying to turn the tables. “What are you up to?”

“Same,” she said. “Just working and working. Trying to conquer the world. You get it.”

“I sure do.” I nodded big.

Then there was a pause.

I’d never realized before how much personal questions needed a little something to go on.

But I tried to encourage myself. I was doing okay! I was passing!

“Well,” she said then. “It’s been so great to see you.”

“You too,” I said with maximum warmth, like it really, really had been.

She started to walk away, but then she turned back. “Oh—and Sadie?”

“Yeah?” I asked, smiling big.

“I know you don’t know who I am.”

My smile dropped.

She took a step closer. “You’d never be this nice if you had any idea.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Mom told me all about it—but, I don’t know … it was kind of too good to be true. I had to see for myself.”

“Mom”? Told her “all about it”?

And then I knew. Just as she leaned close and spoke into my ear, I knew.

It was my evil stepsister. Parker.

It wasn’t until I realized who she was that I noticed her signature perfume as well. She always wears—and I swear this is true—a perfume by Dior called Poison.

So on the nose.

“Hey, Sis,” she whispered, and then she patted me on the butt and strutted away.

And that, right there, settled it. Optimism canceled.

I’d find a dog-sized Pajanket for Peanut and never leave my apartment again.





Seven


WHEN I GOT back home, there was an email waiting for me from the North American Portrait Society, which reminded me I’d forgotten all about it. It had a big long to-do list of action items before the juried show, and another copy of the rules and guidelines, including:

Portraits must be on 30 inch × 40 inch canvas.

Portraits must feature only one subject.

Portraits must be of a live model—no work done from photographs.

Portraits may be either oil or acrylic, but no mixed media.

Portraits must be new work—painted within six weeks of the deadline.



Also there was a whole attachment about a component of the evening I’d evidently missed in the original email. Not only was the show a competition that would be judged in real time, it was also a silent auction. Our portraits would be bid on over the course of the evening and sold to the highest bidder—with the proceeds going to fund classes and education.

My first thought was That sounds nice.

Eclipsed immediately by Oh god. What if no one bids on my portrait?

It was, shall we say, a pretty good reminder to get my ass in gear.

I counted back through my calendar, and I’d frittered away fourteen days since learning I was a finalist. True, I’d had a lot going on. But the North American Portrait Society wouldn’t be left waiting. The portrait submissions for finalists were due three days before the actual show, and even though other people had to crate and ship theirs, and I could just Uber mine over to the gallery, I still had just over three weeks left to get this done.

Three weeks.

Not nearly enough time for my old, fully functioning fusiform face gyrus—not to mention that I hadn’t even started painting. Or even really thought about it.

Time to pull it together. If I was well enough to marry Peanut’s veterinarian, I was well enough to paint one portrait.

But … how?

The portraits I did were classic, traditional ones. One of my art teachers in college had called me “a multicultural twenty-first-century Norman Rockwell.” I took all different kinds of subjects and gave them a Saturday Evening Post treatment—realistic, simple, easy-to-understand images with lots of warm rosy light and plenty of charm. Those were the style of portraits my mother had painted, too—and, in fact, I’d taught myself to paint by copying her portfolio. That’s what I did in high school instead of drinking: stayed in the art studio twenty hours a day and copied my mother’s brushstrokes.

I’d say, at this point, you could barely tell my work apart from hers, and that not only made me feel proud—it made me feel like I’d found a way to hold on to her.

But here’s the truth about portraits like these: They are all about the face.

Everything in a portrait like that is directing the viewer toward the face—the lines, the angles, the framing, the colors. The face is where the emotions are, and where the story lies, and where the heart of the whole thing happens.

You can’t fudge it, is what I mean. You can’t put the subject in sunglasses. Or have that person facing away from you or hanging upside down or hiding under a hat. Not if you wanted to be good. Not if you wanted to win ten thousand dollars. You needed a perfectly rendered, so-detailed-it-feels-alive face—front and center.