Chapter 7

“TWO HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND?” I croaked. “I’ve never even seen that much money, let alone know where I can get it. How are we going to finance it?”

We were in our second favorite meeting place—the spa. The dining room where we held the board meeting? That’s like third or fourth on our list of meeting places, but we had Jack there. Now it was just the three of us, soaking in the tub. Melody still had her hair up and was wearing her glasses, which were fogged over. She’d proven to us that she was, indeed, wearing garters—and not much else—under her skirt, but we’d managed to get her out of them.

“Who do we know that we can borrow from?” Melody asked. “My dad probably has that money, but the chances that I could get it from him are between zero and none.”

“Not my folks,” I said. “I’m pretty sure they’ve got more than Social Security to live on when they retire, but Dad’s a school teacher and Mom makes dolls. I might be able to talk them out of some of my college funds since I’ve got a scholarship, but they just gave me a car.”

“I don’t think parents are a good funding resource,” Lissa said. “No more than I’d take the money from Jack, even though he’s already said he would front it. I just don’t think that’s a good idea. But we’ve got to come up with something.”

I reached over in front of Melody and drew hearts in the steam on her glasses. She had to take them off to see what I’d done, after which I got a big kiss. And then another. There was a lot of fumbling and groping that went on after that and ... well ... we never did get back to the issue of capitalization.

I walked into Carmine’s Cucina on Thursday at noon and a very reserved Wendy met me at the door.

“Usual, Mr. Ames?” she asked.

“Uh ... Wendy?”

She pointed at Clarice’s booth and I saw there was another person in the booth with her. I nodded at Wendy.

“Okay.”

She smiled and I went over to join Clarice.

“Is this a good time, Clarice?” I asked. “I can come back later.”

“Tony. We were waiting for you. Here, sit with me.”

She slid over on the bench to make room and I sat face-to-face with a middle-aged woman. She had coal black hair with a streak of white through it that reminded me of that late-night horror movie lady on television. She was wearing way too much makeup for any normal person and her eyebrows had been plucked or waxed and then drawn back on with a pencil. She was dressed simply, but her blouse was unbuttoned one button too far—make that two buttons—so her bra and cleavage were exposed. I suppose that if I thought less critically, the look might have been sexy on a woman half her age. But it looked kind of sad on her.

“Sharon Reeves, I’d like to introduce you to Tony Ames. Tony, Sharon would like you to paint her portrait.”

I recognized the name before the woman. She had sent me a picture. I was pretty sure now that the picture wasn’t recent. The woman snaked her hand across the table and I took it. At least she had a firm handshake.

“Nice to meet you Mr. Ames.”

“Please, call me Tony,” I said. “The pleasure is mine.”

Sharon looked at me, then at Clarice. She shook her head slowly side-to-side and lowered her gaze to the table.

“What a stupid fuckup,” she sighed.

What did I do?

“I’m sorry, Ms. Reeves...”

“No, no. Not you, Tony. Me,” she said. “I must look like a complete tramp to you.” She immediately started fiddling with her buttons and pulling them together. “I am not a cougar. Somehow, I imagined you would see me like you painted those glorious young women I saw at the exhibition. I can tell by your eyes that you just see a trashy old woman. I should have known better.”

Clarice gave me a nudge which I assumed meant that I should reassure the woman. What could I say?

“Um ... is that how you’d like to be seen?” I asked. “I find that sometimes we think of ourselves differently in our heads than in our mirrors. I had a model in class last fall who was a really old woman—I mean 80s at least—who loved the portrait one of my classmates did showing her with no wrinkles. She said it captured who she really was.”

“My god. Do you psychoanalyze all your clients? Yes, that’s how I want to think of myself. I want to see me as I was when I was twenty and fresh and had four fewer children and two fewer husbands. I need someone to Photoshop me, not paint me.”

“Well, let’s go back a bit,” I suggested. “Let’s say you’ve never seen me—in other words, like five minutes ago. How did you imagine me?”

“I imagined you had a beard,” she began. “I thought you would have long, narrow hands and an angular face. I thought you might have long hair, probably pulled back in a ponytail. You were taller.”

“Were you disappointed?”

“Perhaps. But not anymore. The artist I imagined was not very bright.” We laughed and the ice began to thaw. I reached into my pack and got a sketchbook. Sharon’s eyes grew wide as she realized I was going to sketch her right there at the table. “Oh no! Not looking like this. Please.”

“It’s not a camera,” I said. “Let me show you what I see.”

While I sketched, Clarice captured Sharon’s attention with contract details, explaining my working process. I didn’t know I had one, but Clarice told Sharon that I would always be accompanied by a chaperone, but that the chaperone did not need to be positioned where she could see my client if there were modesty issues. She said that the sitting would include reference photographs. We would work for a period of approximately two hours to do sketches. If Sharon did not see a pose that she liked, a second sitting of two hours would be scheduled. If we couldn’t agree on a pose, she would pay a cancellation fee that would cover my time and labor. If we agreed on a pose, I would take additional reference photos and then I would do the painting in my studio. The finished work would be delivered when completed and installed if desired, but the contract would specifically indicate that the painting would be used but not sold in the artist’s premier exhibition. Framing was at the client’s expense.

Sharon had become so attentive to what Clarice was explaining that she completely forgot I was drawing. And as her face relaxed, I began to see the woman she saw inside. I repositioned her eyebrows, emphasized the joy in her expressions while letting the frown lines disappear. I softened her lips and tried to imagine what they would be like in her husband’s or lover’s eyes. I dropped the white streak in her hair to just a highlight. As I drew, I felt myself begin to smile. I could paint this woman.

Clarice noticed when I’d stopped and re-directed the conversation.

“Now, Sharon, what remains is to see whether you believe Tony’s vision is compatible with what you would like to have in a portrait. Why don’t we take a look and see what you think?”

I handed Sharon the sketchbook and she looked at it intently. Her expression suggested to me that she was coolly receptive at best. But then it began to change. She traced parts of the drawing with her finger. She tilted her head to match the image. And as she laid the sketchbook down on the table, I saw a tear escape from her eye. She looked at me and simply nodded. Clarice filled in the blanks on a contract and pushed it over to Sharon. She signed it and then dug her checkbook out of her purse, quickly filling in the numbers and signing the check.

“We only require fifty percent at signing,” Clarice said.

“Oh well. I don’t mind paying up front,” Sharon answered.

We set a time on Monday to meet for our first posing session and Sharon excused herself. She shook my hand, then held it for an instant longer than was necessary as she nodded again. When she was out the door, my salad and Coke instantly appeared in front of me.

“Sorry it took so long, Tony,” Wendy said. “I didn’t want to disturb you while you were drawing.”

“Thanks Wendy. I really appreciate it,” I said. She beamed.

“Well, Tony? What do you think?” Clarice asked as she held out the check for me to see. Wow!

“Um ... I thought we agreed on $2,000 as the price,” I said. “This is for $2,300.”

“Well ... there’s really no reason for you to pay my commission if the client is willing to. You will get $2,070. Pretty close to what we agreed on.”

“But I can’t take it yet. I need to actually do the work.”

“Your name isn’t on the check, my dear boy. It will be held in escrow until the work is completed. Then the funds will be released to your bank account. You are now a working artist. If you don’t have a chaperone for Monday, by the way, I will arrange my schedule to accompany you. I wouldn’t mind being there for your first outing.”