But first, that warm July day when she was still a stranger, Jamie drew Sarah’s portrait. Her friends fell all over themselves when he was done. “It’s you, Sarah,” said the rock-candy eater, whose name turned out to be Hazel. “It’s your absolute essence. The Madonna of Woodland Park.”
“It’s almost spooky,” the blonde, Gloria, said. She looked sharply, almost accusingly, at Jamie. “How’d you do that?”
“I had a good model,” Jamie said, blushing furiously.
“Oh, did you?” said Gloria.
So thrilling was the experience of sitting and looking at Sarah that he hadn’t wanted to finish the drawing. Sarah hadn’t said much while she sat, though from time to time she’d responded to her friends’ banter. When he handed her the torn-off page, she’d held it in her lap, regarding it with frank interest. “You’re talented,” she said. Her gaze was direct, her voice lower than he’d expected and more authoritative. He’d taken her quietness for shyness—a silly assumption, given that he, too, was quiet but not shy. He wished he could amend the drawing, which suddenly seemed sentimental and idealized. Hazel had chosen the right word: Madonna. Docile, venerated.
“It’s not quite right,” he said.
“It might be a little too kind. But it’s very good.”
His blush deepened with dismal regret. He had wanted her to find the portrait uncanny, to think him astute.
“Sarah’s father collects art,” Hazel put in, “so she’s well informed. And one of her sisters is studying art at UW—”
“Art history,” Sarah corrected.
“—and, also, what you should know about our Sarah is that she never gives empty praise. Sometimes you can feel almost neglected. But then when she tells you something nice, you can take it as unvarnished honesty.”
Sarah said, “Why would anyone want empty praise?”
“Because it’s pleasant!” said Hazel.
The other two were anxious to have their turn under Jamie’s magic pencils, and though they exclaimed with pleasure and admiration over the finished products, Sarah’s was his best effort by far. “You should sign them for us,” Gloria said. “So when you’re famous we’ll be able to prove we own early works. And so Sarah knows your name.”
He obliged, blushing again.
“Jamie Graves,” read Gloria. “Are you often in this spot? If our other friends are jealous and demand portraits of their own?”
“Sometimes,” he said. Then, with a little burst of hope, though he had planned to try Playland the next day: “I’ll be here tomorrow.”
Hazel pumped his hand goodbye. “Very nice to meet you,” she said. The other two followed suit. He wanted to cling to Sarah’s cool, slender hand forever.
Only after they were gone did he realize they hadn’t paid.
What a despondent night he spent lying awake on the lumpy mattress in his cheerless cell, listening to his fellow boarders growing raucous downstairs. At some point there would be a fight, he knew, and the landlady, in her nightgown and brandishing a fire iron, would break it up, and only after that, sometime around sunrise, would there be quiet. He would never see Sarah again because theirs were not the kind of lives that would intersect, and though that was far worse than being shorted seventy-five cents, a little money would have been some consolation. Even though the park was still busy, he’d packed up, humiliated and furious with himself. If only he were the kind of boy who could have asked Sarah to ride the Ferris wheel with him or take a stroll along the water. Had the girls deliberately skipped out? Had they gone off and laughed at him, tossing their portraits into the nearest trash can? Even if he’d remembered the money in time, he wasn’t sure he would have had the nerve to ask for it or the will to lower himself.
As the rowdiness downstairs built to a garbled crescendo, he decided he would go to Union Station at first light. He had enough money for a ticket home. He didn’t have the heart to hop another freight train. The spirit of adventure had left him. He’d proved nothing but his own haplessness.
Earlier than usual, his landlady entered the fray, and it was still dark when quiet fell. Jamie slid irresistibly into sleep. When he woke, the day was bright and blue again. Mount Rainier’s summit gleamed above the horizon. Perhaps, he thought, he should go back to Woodland Park, as he had told the girls he would. Perhaps they would have realized their mistake. He could always catch a train later, that very night even.