Chapter Ten #2
I blink now, as I force myself to pull in a long breath.
And then another. The breath doesn’t feel natural, but then, nothing about this moment does.
The sooner I do what he asks, the sooner it will be over.
I retreat inside to find that place of cool calm, that thoughtless void without movement or memory.
But not without first repeating to myself: I’ll have a share of the hundreds of dollars.
As Mr. Beckwith returns to his easel and his hands begin to work, I find my mind struggling to settle.
I’m thinking of Kit. What would he make of me standing here like this?
What if he ever finds out? Dear God, what if Mr. Beckwith sells this image and it becomes widespread enough that Kit sees it?
And then my mind flies to the next terrible thought: Daddy.
What would he make of this? Would he agree with Mr. Beckwith, who is a respectable leader at the Art Students League, that this is purely high taste?
And then, hearing laughter on the street, I think of children, and school, and playing.
What I might be doing today, on this very day, were Daddy still alive.
Why, I’d be at school. In Tarentum with our rectangular house filled with sunlight from the big windows.
I’d know all sorts of things from school, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about who Mr. Church is or who Mr. Beckwith is or what the Art Students League is with its nude models.
My mind whirls until I realize that I’ve not been focused on my pose, and when Mr. Beckwith looks up from the canvas, I’m expecting him to chastise me for my unfocused expression.
Instead, he merely stares into my face and says: “Good. That longing.” He turns back to the canvas, and we don’t say another word.
—
Mr. Beckwith calls it Flower About to Bud.
And it does sell, as he said it would, for an unprecedentedly high sum of three hundred dollars.
To a Mr. and Mrs. Barnes who wish to hang it in the boudoir of their mansion in Newport, which Mamma tells me is in Rhode Island.
I’m glad it’s far away in another state.
I don’t want to think about my bare breast on display all day and night in someone’s home; likely I’ll be the topic of many a scandalous dinner party and house tour.
The idea fills my stomach with knotted nerves again.
I’d rather not think on it at all, so I push the thoughts away.
After that, Mr. Beckwith’s scenarios become bolder, but we do not revisit my posing nude.
Instead I pose for him as a girl in a Turkish harem with jade bangles wrapped around my arms, beads hanging over my breasts.
Another time I am Cleopatra, queen of the Nile, with a fake snake twined in my hands and dark kohl rimming my lids.
In the next session he fashions me as Salome, the infamous princess in Jerusalem who danced with her veils for King Herod, demanding a man’s head on a platter as payment for her performance.
And speaking of payment, the pay is so good. Given how in-demand I am, with artists writing to Mamma begging for a chance to work with me, I increase my fee that autumn to a staggering ten dollars a day. To think, we struggled back in Pennsylvania to pay two dollars a month in rent.
But I work to earn it, every dollar. I pour myself into each day’s scenario, becoming the role.
Cleopatra, Salome, the shepherdess smelling flowers for the perfume ad, or the girl drinking milk.
It’s tiring work, with long hours that make my muscles ache.
But for the first time since Daddy died, Mamma and I aren’t hungry, Kit is happy in his school, and we don’t have to worry about losing the roof over our heads.
When I receive the note from Violet that she’s in Manhattan and would like to meet up to sketch my portrait for a mural she’s working on, I jump at the opportunity.
Everything about the job appeals to me—it’s a relief to think I’ll be under a woman’s gaze.
She writes me that it’ll be a pastoral scene, which means the scenario will be entirely chaste.
Best of all is the thought of seeing my old friend, and hearing about the others in Philadelphia.
I meet Violet in Central Park on a crisp, overcast day in late autumn. As soon as I see her, something in my body softens, something that I hadn’t even realized I was clenching.
“How are you, Evelyn?” she asks, pulling me in for a hug, placing a soft kiss on my cheek.
I ignore the question and offer, instead of an answer, “It’s so nice to see you. I’ve missed you and Rachel and Leah.”
As Violet unfurls a wide blanket and we settle onto the grass, she tells me that Rachel and Leah are doing well. “They send their love, of course. And Rachel wants to make sure you’re getting enough to eat.”
I chuckle. “I am, though I wouldn’t turn down one of her roast chickens.”
Violet nods knowingly. “She’s still dreaming about running away to France to cook over there.
Oh, and Leah complains often that she has not found anyone who can replace you.
” I smile and then tell Violet a bit about my work with Mr. Beckwith, Mr. Church, and the other artists.
Then Violet explains the nature of our job.
“It’s a private commission. A family in Greenwich wants a mural in their salon.
A pastoral scene, and you are to be their sweet country girl enjoying the roses. ”
I nod. It all seems straightforward enough. But something about the way Violet is staring, studying me, gives me a twinge of unease. And then, tipping her head sideways, still holding me in her searching gaze, Violet asks: “So, Evelyn…are you?”
I lean back, frowning. “Am I what?”
Violet’s expression is intense, a bit too searching for my comfort. “Are you enjoying the roses?”
When I don’t answer right away, she interjects: “Darling, you’re the most popular model in Manhattan. I bet you have more offers for work than you have days in the week. But how are you?”
“Everything is bully,” I say, conjuring a breezy tone as I offer her a quick shrug. “Mamma and I were able to move into a larger suite in our boardinghouse. We now have a bedroom and a sitting room. And Kit is happy in school.”
Violet nods, but she keeps her gaze fixed on me. “That’s all well and good. I’m happy to hear all of that. But you’ve yet to answer my question. How are you?”
I want her to stop prying. How am I? I want to scream: Why bother asking such a silly question when the answer doesn’t matter?
I want to tell her about the kimono, how I let it slip open so that Mr. Beckwith could paint my bare breast, how it felt when his fingers tugged on the fabric to show more of my skin and I could barely breathe.
How it feels when I spread my body across the tiger pelt on Mr. Church’s floor, staring up at the images of Aesop’s Fables and wishing I could be sitting with my daddy, reading those books, instead of holding these poses for hours on end.
About how my mind wanders when I hear the laughter of children outside the studio window and imagine what it would feel like to be in school, learning, laughing, like any other girl about to turn sixteen.
But I don’t say any of that. Instead, I tell Violet about the good stuff, like how Mamma and I are no longer cold in our lodgings.
About how we can take our leisure on most Sundays, with Mamma sewing and me occasionally walking to the art museum or the library.
And how there’s plenty of time to read Kit’s newsy letters from school and plenty of food to fill a larder that was once near empty.
About all of the other work I’ve done—the advertisements and magazines and newspaper images.
“It’s as though I get to play dress-up every day, acting out a new character.
” I keep my tone crisp, like the cool afternoon air.
Violet continues to hold me in her gaze, her eyes narrowed and searching. And then, finally, she offers what appears to be a mollified nod, and mercifully she sets to work. “I’ll just get the lines down in charcoal, and then I’ll put in the color later.”
I slip into my working mode, my trancelike state, and the hours pass. Once she’s got what she needs, Violet packs up her supplies and makes a suggestion. “How about some supper? There’s a café right across the street. What do you say?”
Together we set off for the café, slipping indoors and enjoying the blast of warm, bright air. It’s over our bowls of French onion soup that Violet says, “You know, Evelyn, I always thought you might someday dream of something bigger than simply posing.”
I look up from my food, not sure of her meaning. Violet goes on, “Don’t get me wrong; I’m not putting down your work. I’m an artist, after all, and I couldn’t do what I do without talented models. I only mean that I always suspected I saw something of the performer in you.”
“I do perform in my work,” I say, a touch defensively.
“I mean the stage.” Violet breaks off a piece of bread from the warm loaf on the table, dunks it into her soup, and then goes on. “Ever consider Broadway?”
“Er, no,” I answer. Of course I haven’t. I haven’t even seen one of those shows, let alone thought about myself up there on one of those fancy stages.
“Well, you might want to think on it,” Violet continues, as though it’s the most logical thing in the world for me to mull over.
“It wouldn’t be all that different from what you are doing now.
You act out a new character every day for your painters.
Only, we’d get to hear your voice. Singing and dancing, that might be fun, right?
Folks would get to know you for more than just your pretty face. ”
I take a slow spoonful of my soup, but I barely taste it. My mind is suddenly swirling with thoughts of what my friend has said, with the picture she’s just painted in my imagination: me, on a bright stage, filling the space with song as my statue-still body breaks open and I begin to dance.
After the meal, as Violet and I stand outside the café to say our goodbyes, she reaches into her bag and retrieves a bulky parcel wrapped in tissue paper. I take it from her outstretched hands, confused. “From Leah,” she says. “Open it.”
I pull the paper aside to uncover a mound of green silk, and it takes me a moment before I realize what I am seeing. I let out a startled laugh.
“She said you’d understand,” Violet adds.
Nodding, I look from the hat, with its green serpent coiled around it, back up to Violet. “This ugly hat. Leah was staring at it in Wanamaker’s, the day we first met.”
“Oh,” Violet says, still eyeing the cap. “Well, that’s an…interesting…gift.”
“She said she’d want to sketch me wearing it. Like Eve with the serpent.”
Violet snaps her fingers. “That reminds me! She wanted me to tell you: ‘Don’t believe that it was all Eve’s fault.’ Whatever she means by that.”
I frown. I’m not sure about Leah’s meaning, either. But I accept the hat, tucking it into my own bag because there’s no way I’m wearing it as I walk home. I give Violet one final hug, thanking her for dinner and asking her to give my love right back to Leah and Rachel, and then she’s gone.
I set off on foot toward Twenty-second Street, deciding to take the route that will bring me down Broadway. The Great White Way, the glittering avenue that only Manhattan can boast of having. A channel of bright faces and brighter facades, its lights that never go dark.
As I walk, I think back to Violet’s words: I always suspected that I saw something of the performer in you.
I allow my mind to drift, just a few paces, down the road she’s conjured for me.
I imagine myself once more on the stage, because what’s the harm in a little bit of daydreaming?
The bright warmth of the footlights, a full and adoring audience before me.
Movement and noise instead of silence and stillness for hours on end.
As my steps carry me south and eventually bring me to the front door of our dimly lit boardinghouse, I chide myself, packing all that silliness away.
I know I can’t share even the ember of such daydreams with Mamma.
We are finally on a sure footing, Florence, she’d surely say.
It’s a foolish fantasy I must cherish in secret, a golden kernel I’ll have to hide deep in my heart.
Perhaps this tiny little flame can give me a bit of sparkle and warmth through the cold winter months, but it would surely be blown out if I shared it with my mother.