“I began when I was fifteen.”
“Of course. I am in awe of all of your past likenesses. You were an inspiration to so many.” His gaze drifted to her hips.
Past tense. Were.
He sighed. “Why don’t we stop for today? You look tired.”
“No, I’m fine. Really.” She headed back to the stand, tripping on the drapery. She recovered quickly and climbed up, waiting for instruction. She couldn’t lose this job. If she lost it, she wouldn’t have enough for groceries, never mind rent.
“It’s not right, I’m afraid. I can pay you for your time, of course, but I may need to step back and rethink this piece.”
“Please, Mr. Rossi. I’m sorry.” She was trying not to beg. If Kitty were here, they’d all be laughing together, her mother flattering him about his thick mustache and strong hands, teasing him as he blushed.
She wanted her mother so badly right now. In the weeks after Kitty’s death, the job offers had come in one after another as the news had spread and the artists had reached out in support, making sure Lillian was all right. But in those cold, dark days, she’d been unable to leave the apartment other than to fetch the bare necessities. She’d lain on the lumpy sofa covered by a quilt, sometimes sleeping, sometimes staring up at the cracked ceiling, and ignored every entreaty. Without her mother to smooth out life’s rough edges, Lillian had faltered, wallowing in her sadness in a way that Kitty would never have tolerated, which only made her sadder. After years of blaming her mother for being too controlling and protective, including the raging fight they’d had right before she’d fallen ill, Lillian’s ceaseless, brittle ennui was proof that she was lost without her.
She wished more than anything to be able to once again witness the infinite ways her mother used to drive her batty: the tinny laugh, the way she hummed under her breath as she dried the dishes. To have one last look at those almond-colored eyes—a mirror of her own—but edged with a spiderweb of wrinkles. Together, they’d made a remarkable team. Watching her mother unravel over the course of her illness, from a force to be reckoned with to a frail, childlike creature, clutching at Lillian’s wrist and whimpering in pain, had been her undoing.
Unable to force one more appointment from Mr. Rossi, Lillian headed to the luncheonette across the street from her building. She was starving, craving a bowl of potato soup and a slice of pie. Her mother would never have allowed such decadence.
But just this one time wouldn’t hurt. She’d be more careful tomorrow, and eat only a tin of sardines. Today, after the way she’d been treated by Mr. Rossi, she deserved a little something special.
A gaggle of policemen stood across the street, arrayed on the steps of her building. Odd that they were still there. Perhaps Mr. Watkins had had another go at Mrs. Watkins. If so, Lillian could hold up her rent check for a good long time while he sat in jail. This might work out perfectly. Mother always said Lillian had marvelous luck, from being plucked from the chorus line to becoming muse to the greatest artists of this century.
And Mother was never wrong.
* * *
Her belly full but her change purse nearly empty, Lillian dawdled in the stairwell of her apartment building, trying to get a glimpse inside Mr. Watkins’s apartment on the first floor. Lillian raised one eyebrow at Mrs. Brown—the building’s unofficial gossipmonger, who lived next door to the Watkinses and was peering out of a crack in her door—but got nothing in return other than a quick shake of the head and pursed lips.
A police officer emerged from the Watkinses’ apartment, leaving the door open behind him. At first, Lillian wondered when the Watkinses had gotten such a deep-red rug, almost scarlet, before realizing it was some kind of dried liquid, not a new runner.
Blood.
Another policeman stepped to the door to shut it, but not before Lillian caught sight of a woman’s bloody hand, the fingers gently, almost daintily, curled in.
She backed away, bracing herself on the banister for support, and dashed up the two flights to her landing. Inside the apartment, the soup roiling in her gut, she filled a glass with water and sat down at the tiny table in the kitchen. For all his bluster, Mr. Watkins hadn’t seemed like the sort to murder his wife. They’d argue, sure, but usually it was Mrs. Watkins who had the higher volume, drowning him out with a terrible squawk.
The last time Mr. Watkins had come to collect the rent, she’d invited him into the apartment in order to speak out of the earshot of the other tenants. He’d taken his time looking around, as if assessing how much he could raise the rent for a new tenant. Hers was one of the smaller apartments in the building, with only one bedroom, where she and her mother had slept. Two windows looked out on the dreary courtyard in the back, the black metal of the fire escape glinting in the late-summer sun. A galley kitchen served as the entryway, the table and chairs tucked in an alcove to one side, and the living area wasn’t much larger. Mr. Watkins eventually turned his attention to Lillian, offering up a sympathetic sigh. “Your mother was a lively woman, now, wasn’t she?”