Chapter 9

The next day, Mrs. James began her own portrait of Andrea as I added the finishing touches to mine. By the time the light began to fade on Saturday of the following week, I pronounced mine finished and signed T W Farris in the bottom left corner.

Andrea was anxious to look but I put her off again, saying, "Why don't we wait until Mrs. James is done and we can look at both of them together?"

Mrs. James scolded me. "Don't be so cruel, Terry! The poor girl has been waiting on pins and needles to see what you've done so let her have a look. But Andrea," she went on, "you need to stand back about ten feet to really see the whole picture. The style Terry used isn't designed to be looked at too closely."

I walked over and took Andrea by the hand and said, "Close your eyes." Then I led her across the room and positioned her about twelve feet from the easel and turned her around.

"OK, now you can look."

She stood perfectly still for a while. Then she cocked her head to one side, then the other. When I was pretty much convinced she hated it, she broke into a smile and asked, "Mrs. James, do you think I'll ever get this good?"

"It's certainly worth aiming at, Andrea, but you should understand that Terry is a rare talent. If he stays at it and works hard, his paintings are going to grace a lot of people's walls."

Then Mrs. James put an arm over my shoulder and hugged me to her side. "And you, young man should forget you heard that remark. You've still got years of study ahead before you reach the level of skill I think you're capable of. This portrait will be seen as one of T W Farris' early works."

We cleaned up the studio and went into the kitchen for some ice cream with blueberries to celebrate my first portrait. Over tea, Mrs. James took Andrea's hand and asked, "Dear, I wonder if you'd mind too awfully much if I kept Terry's painting for myself. I know we promised you could choose between them but I can promise your father will be happy with the one I'm doing."

At first, I thought Andrea was going to object but after thinking about it for a minute, she smiled and said, "I think I understand why you want it. I'll agree as long as I can bring friends over and show it to them."

"Agreed! But please call first."

Outside at Andrea's car, I kissed her and turned to head home.

"Not so fast, Buster! You get on your phone and tell your mom you've been invited out to dinner."

"Cool! Where are we going?"

"To my place. My parents are gone for the weekend and I'm planning to make you naked and fuck you 'til you beg for mercy!"