Chapter Ten
Chapter
Ten
For the next week, Daphne got so many compliments on her lavender-hued hair, she wondered why she’d never dyed it sooner. It was wild, how different her hair color could make her feel, but she did feel different somehow.
She wasn’t sure what kind of different quite yet.
After all, she couldn’t stop checking her phone, and she cursed chasing a gin martini with shots of tequila last week, which was the only explanation for why she would’ve sent April’s name to her ex.
The text sat in her messages like a brick in her stomach, Delivered underneath those two tiny yet huge words, because of course Elena had turned off her read receipts for Daphne.
Either that, or she’d deleted her number altogether.
Or she’d read it, hadn’t cared.
Daphne squeezed her eyes closed, forcing her brain to stop. She really needed to stop thinking so much about Elena.
About the lying, the cheating, the—
“Stop,” she said out loud, even though she was alone in the art studio.
She stood before the painting she’d been working on and took a deep breath.
It was early afternoon, and she and April had an illustration class in about an hour, so it was the perfect time for Daphne to work on her own piece for the Devon.
April was…well, she didn’t know where April was, and that was probably for the best.
For the last few days, they hadn’t spoken again about the Devon. April hadn’t asked her any more questions about her painting or plans for any future pieces, and Daphne hadn’t asked April about her own ideas.
Though she was dying to know.
Daphne had only seen April’s art on her Instagram, which was mostly shots of people’s arms and legs and torsos covered in ink.
It was all beautiful, and she loved April’s style, but she’d never seen anything on paper or any other medium, a medium that could hang in the Devon, and she was beyond curious.
Hang in the Devon.
Her eyes roamed over her own painting, trying to picture it in the Devon.
She’d never been there, of course—she’d never been anywhere; despite the few times Elena had gone to London for work, she had begged off taking Daphne, claiming she’d be too busy to keep her entertained—but she’d studied the museum enough online over the course of her life to be able to picture it clear as day.
Goose bumps erupted along her arms, thinking about how she might fit into that place.
Even the opportunity felt unreal and dreamlike.
The girl in this painting would never have believed it, that was for sure. Daphne tilted her head, trying to find the girl’s expression even under the blurry mess she’d intentionally painted.
Unseen.
That was what Daphne had named the painting.
It was done—the flowers were bright and full of motion, as though swaying in the breeze; the sky was packed with different shades of blue, deeply saturated and textured; the farmhouse in the background a fortress of white, the outline of a woman watching the girl in the field from the porch.
But the girl.
Her colors were less vibrant. Her blond curls were nearly gray, the white of her dress washed-out and dingy. And, of course, her face, a smeared slash of peach with a bit of green and pink right where her eyes and mouth should be.
Daphne stood staring at the girl, knowing the painting was finished, but still feeling unsettled.
She closed her eyes, saw the rustic sanctuary of the smaller chapel that stood on her church’s property.
It was old, built in the late 1800s as the church’s first gathering place.
When the congregation expanded over the decades and electricity and running water became available, a new sanctuary was built, which eventually became the bright white space the church used today.
But the little chapel, all rough wood floors and bench-style pews, remained as a history marker.
Daphne saw it now, saw herself as a slightly older girl standing in the aisle, that rugged wooden cross looming above her in the pulpit, and—
“Daphne?”
A voice yanked Daphne from her thoughts. She flipped her eyes open to see Nicola standing behind her wearing another cute pair of shorts and a black sleeveless blouse.
“Oh. Hi,” Daphne said. She folded her arms but then let them drop as the motion didn’t feel too friendly. But then she didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she tucked them behind her back. Cleared her throat.
Predictably, her cheeks went red and hot.
Nicola smiled kindly.
“Can I help you?” Daphne finally managed to ask.
“I didn’t want to bother you,” Nicola said, then tapped the sketchbook in her hands, the one the resort provided for the art students. “I was hoping to use April’s model to work on that bird drawing we started a few days ago. I cannot get the feet right. They look like desiccated worms.”
Daphne laughed as she walked to the back closet and took out the sketch of a bird in flight that April had modeled during their first illustration class.
It was a goldfinch, its feet curled up to its body, wings spread as though taking off or landing.
The shading was exquisite, and Daphne herself had learned a lot about working with pencil from the lesson.
She brought the thick paper to the front of the room to clip to April’s easel, but when she got there, Daphne found Nicola staring at her painting. She stopped short, her heart leaping into her throat as Nicola’s eyes roamed the canvas.
She wasn’t supposed to see this yet.
No one was, but certainly not Nicola Reece, who, after an extensive deep dive on the internet last week, Daphne had discovered was not only a curator at the Devon, but the youngest chief curator in the museum’s history, as well as the first Black woman to hold the position.
Daphne froze, waiting for the investigation to end, ready to play off whatever comment Nicola might have, but Nicola continued to stare, her brows lowered in thought, eyes a bit narrowed as she leaned closer, within inches of the paint.
Finally, Nicola straightened and turned to face Daphne. “Tragic,” she said, her eyes locked on Daphne’s before moving toward the painting again.
Daphne waited for more, for anything, really, because tragic could not be all Nicola had to say about this painting that felt like Daphne’s own beating heart on a canvas.
But the other woman said nothing else. She studied the painting for a few more seconds, her fingers on her chin, before she walked toward the chair and easel she utilized during class.
Daphne grabbed the sides of her canvas to move it to the back of the room to fully dry, facing away from any more analysis.
“Is there more?” Nicola asked when Daphne came back to the front of the room. The woman’s sketchbook was propped on her lap, and she wasn’t even looking at Daphne, instead scrutinizing April’s bird drawing.
Daphne paused, saw that preteen girl in the chapel again, her hair a little longer, her body developing in ways that made her feel excited and ashamed all at once.
She’d never quite understood her body’s place in the kind of church she’d grown up in—God’s temple, a man’s property, an evil temptation.
She remembered feeling confused and even scared, terrified when she saw that first red streak in her underwear when she was twelve.
“I think so,” she said quietly.
Nicola’s smile was brief, her eyes now on her own sketch pad. “It’s probably best to know.”
Daphne swallowed thickly, all that bravery vanishing like fog under the late-morning sun. Her throat ached, and suddenly, this entire thing—the Devon, her painting, her ideas—felt ridiculous.
Because Daphne rarely knew anything.
Daphne nodded, even though Nicola wasn’t looking at her, and was about to excuse herself to possibly go cry in the bathroom, when her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She fished it out of her jean shorts, then blinked at the name flashing across the screen.
Elena.
Daphne’s vision swam, the letters rearranging themselves as she stared at the phone. Elena loved a cold call, had hardly ever texted when they were together.
And of course, Daphne always answered.
So when her finger slid across the screen, picking up the call, it didn’t feel wrong. Didn’t feel strange or unwise. It simply felt like what Daphne had always done.
She pressed the phone to her ear, muscle memory taking over, but didn’t say anything. Everything felt suddenly dreamlike—Elena wasn’t actually on the other end after over a month of silence, Daphne hadn’t actually answered the call.
But then—
“Daphne?”
Elena’s alto voice, a bit of a Sophia Bush husk to it, a tone that had always made Daphne’s insides melt just a little.
And right now was no exception.
She sank down onto one of the student stools, her legs suddenly rubbery.
“You all right, love?” Nicola asked, pencil hovering in the air.
Daphne nodded, a reflex, but the truth was she had no idea. She knew she should hang up. Throw her phone in the lake, even. But then Elena said her name again—soft and familiar—and Daphne could barely think, much less take action on anything.
“Daphne, I can hear you breathing,” Elena said. “Are you going to talk to me?”
Daphne cleared her throat. “Hi. H-hello.”
“There she is,” Elena said.
“Here I am,” Daphne said, getting to her feet. She suddenly couldn’t stay still, couldn’t sit and talk to Elena at the same time. She walked out of the studio and into the hallway, one hand pulling at the ends of her lavender hair.
“How are you?” Elena asked.
Daphne leaned against the interior wall and faced the row of windows on the other side.
The lake sparkled like a sapphire in the distance, speckled with dots of color from swimmers and boats and sails.
She wasn’t sure how to answer Elena—truthfully, at this moment, she felt as though her skin were melting off her bones.
Her heart was pounding like she was in full fight-or-flight mode, and she was sweating.