Hello Stranger(25)

I’d done it a thousand times. I’d crushed it a thousand times.

Faces were my specialty.

But now?

I had no idea what to do.

And I had only three weeks left to figure it out.



* * *



AT SOME POINT, in the wake of what Sue called my “facepocalypse,” she had kindly agreed to be my live model. I had a better shot with her face, she reasoned, since I knew it so well.

And plus, as ever, she’d be willing to do crazy stuff.

I called her after getting the reminder email, and I said, “We’re still on for tomorrow, right?”

“Of course,” Sue said.

“Don’t flake out, okay? I really need you.”

“I never flake out,” Sue said.

She sometimes flaked out, to be honest. But who didn’t?

Sue worked as an art teacher at a primary school, and the plan was for her to come over after work every day for a week. We’d split some kind of takeout dinner, and her boyfriend Witt swore he didn’t mind her “working late.”

“You’re not really working, though,” I said. “Are you?”

“Labor of love,” she said, letting us both be right.

I made Sue bring her red polka-dot dress with the ruffle sleeves. If the face was going to be weaker than usual in this portrait, then everything else had to be stronger. I’d need to render the silkiness of those ruffles in a way that made you feel them rustling against your own skin. Also, the red needed to be just right—rich and eye-catching without being overwhelming. I’d have Sue sit on the floor and frame the perspective from up above so I could fill as much of it as possible with that gorgeous fabric.

No question: that polka-dot dress had a lot of work to do.

Sue, I should mention, has a stunningly beautiful face. She has perfectly defined lips, an elegant nose, black hair so shiny she could sell shampoo, and monolid eyes with deep brown irises. I’d painted her twenty times, at least, and she was one of my favorite subjects.

In ordinary times, we’d already have this thing locked up.

But now, of course, things were different. Maybe I knew her face so well, I didn’t have to see it to paint it? Maybe I’d painted her so many other times, my hands would know what to do by muscle memory?

I closed my eyes and tried to picture Sue’s face.

But no luck.

I could see her hair. If I zoomed in, I could remember the bow shape of her mouth. The rich brown of her eyes. But all the pieces put together?

My mind’s eye drew a blank.

The old me would have had this thing in the bag. But I kept pushing that thought aside. Our thoughts create our emotions. I wasn’t going to make this harder on myself—it was hard enough. I wasn’t going to freak myself out. I would practice the art of self-encouragement if it killed me.

Sue showed up dutifully every day, like a champ.

After Monday, I had the basic framing. Then Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked on the details and the drape of the fabric. Thursday, I nailed down her arms and hands.

And then suddenly it was Friday. Time to ruin it all with the face.

I dreaded it all day long, staring at the canvas’s empty white face hole. By the time Sue arrived, I was ready to quit.

“I don’t want to find out for sure that I can’t do this, you know?” I said. “I’d rather only suspect that I can’t do it. Doesn’t that sound better?”

“No. That doesn’t sound better. Because then you’re not painting. And you always get really crabby when you’re not painting.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“Even painting something bad,” Sue said, “is better than not painting anything at all.”

“Is it?” I asked. Guess we were about to find out.

“Maybe you’ll surprise yourself,” Sue said. “Maybe portrait painting is another brain system like reading emotions is. Or maybe you’re so good at this, you don’t even need your face area thingy. Wouldn’t that be amazing?”

I nodded.

“Just jump in,” she said. “I really suspect that the worst possible choice is to not even try.”

I suspected that, too.

And so I tried.

I stood in front of the canvas, looking down at the dear face of my dear friend who I’d known so long, who I’d painted so many times … and I saw nothing but unintelligible nonsense.

But I pushed on.

My best strategy was to divide the face circle on the canvas into mathematical sections, and mark, in general, where the eyes and nose and mouth should be, and then focus on one puzzle piece at a time, plugging them in where each one ought to go.

It was a good plan.

But it didn’t work.

When I finally finished the pencil sketch, I stepped back and realized that now it, too, looked like puzzle pieces.

I had just drawn that picture. But now I couldn’t see it.

I asked Sue to check it and see if I was on the right track. She got up all eager, but then slowed way down on the approach.

I couldn’t see her expression, but I could definitely read her emotion. And that emotion was “Huh.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“Do you want me to be honest?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“It’s a little funky,” Sue said at last.