Emma has filled out the applications. It’s absurdly early, she knows, but she wants the essays and forms out of the way so that she can focus on her portfolio. She needs eight—wants ten. She has, over the last year, managed seven she deems adequate. Three watercolors, two in acrylics, one in charcoal, and one, the painting of Juliette at her piano, in oil.
Today she stands in her room, scrutinizing what may be the eighth piece. It sits on her bed, propped against the wall, as she paces back and forth, examining it from every angle. With this, she will have enough to make her applications, and a few more months to manage a final two—or to replace some of those she is less certain about, like the watercolor that shows the bridge over the river near the house, with its curls of water folding in on itself and the light slanting low. It is competent, but it says nothing, and she worries that the judges will think her point of view is shallow.
This piece, though—she thinks she likes it. It is nothing special, in a way. Only a portrait. Gabriel, a three-quarter view, strong shadows over his face. He leans against a doorway, neither inside nor outside the room. He looks like he is about to ask a question. The question was “How long do I have to stand like this,” but she has left out the glint in his eyes, made him wearier. In his eye is the shadowed reflection of a woman. A girl. She calls it Intruder: A Self-Portrait. She worries it is too obvious, not obvious enough, pretentious, common.
She likes it.
She is not satisfied with it, the way Lorelei cautions her against; her colors are muddy in places, the anatomy just off enough to bother her, the reflection of the girl not as distinct as she’d hoped.
Gabriel likes it, too. But he doesn’t like the title. “You’re not intruding on anything,” he’d said.
“Except your life,” she told him.
“Consider yourself an invited guest,” he said with his slantwise smile.
Their families hate each other. The details of it are murky to Emma. His father worked for hers until very recently. There were accusations of theft on one side, mismanagement on the other. But Kenneth Mahoney is a drunk and a deadbeat, and no one was surprised he’d gotten himself fired from another job.
“What is that?” a sharp voice asks.
She turns. Her mother stands in the doorway. She is dressed, as she nearly always is, as if she is about to walk out the door to a charity brunch at any second. Pearls at her neck and her nails shiny, perfect ovals, buffed and polished.
“It’s a portrait of Mrs. Mahoney’s grandson,” Emma says simply, as if this is completely neutral information.
“We’re painting portraits of boys now?” her mother asks in that same sharp tone.
Emma rolls her eyes. “It’s just a portrait, Mom. It’s not like I drew him in the nude.”
Her mother stiffens. “I hear you’ve been hanging around together.”
Tension locks into place down Emma’s spine. There is danger in this conversation. The truth is no defense against her mother’s suspicions. It would only make things worse. “He lives with Mrs. Mahoney. He’s around the house a lot, if that’s what you mean,” Emma says.
“So you’re not sleeping with him?”
“Mom!” She stares at her. She’s never even kissed anyone. There isn’t time for it, even if there were a boy in town who didn’t think she was weird and unapproachable.
Her mother makes a noise in the back of her throat. “You should have been downstairs ten minutes ago. It’s time to practice,” she snaps.
“I’ll practice later,” Emma says. When her mother is in a good mood, sometimes she can get away with half an hour after dinner, instead of the full hour she’s supposed to plink away at the piano. Her fingers are dexterous enough, but she can’t hear the music the way Juliette can. It’s all a jumble of disconnected notes to her, and it comes out sounding like it. Daphne is better than she is—competent, and uncomplaining during her hour. For Emma, it’s torture.
“Now, Emma,” her mother says. She waits; Emma complies. She thuds her way down the steps sullenly. In the great room, Juliette sits with her diary. Daphne is in the sunroom, nose in a book. Probably about something horribly gruesome like the black plague or witch trials, or a detailed explanation of pressing as an execution method, which Emma will enjoy hearing about later, out of their mother’s earshot.
Emma takes her seat. “Posture,” her mother tells her. She straightens her shoulders, stacks each vertebra in painful overcompliance. Fingers on the keys. “Hands,” her mother tells her; she straightens her wrists, relaxes her fingers. She runs through simple scales mechanically as her mother stands ramrod straight and perfectly still at her shoulder.