Perfect Strangers

9

He exhales slowly, his jaw working, his gaze locked onto mine with such force he could pick me up and pin me against the wall with it.

“If you want me to leave you alone, I will. I don’t want to bother you—”

“You’re not bothering me,” I blurt. “You’re bothering me.”

When he moistens his lips, I almost collapse. Thankfully, Edmond arrives to rescue me.

“My dear! You’ve met James! Wonderful, wonderful!”

I don’t know why he’s so excited about it, but he’s practically levitating at the discovery that James and I are already acquainted. Perhaps he senses all my invisible fault lines and assumes the blue-eyed stallion who is so “popular with the ladies” will help shore them up.

I’m telling you, single women of a certain age make people jumpy.

“Yes, we’ve met,” says James. “In fact, this isn’t the first time.”

“Oh?” Edmond’s ears perk up. He looks back and forth between us with open curiosity while James continues to gaze steadily at me, a faint smile playing around his lips.

Time to finish my drink.

“Yes. I saw her at Café Blanc yesterday and asked permission to draw her portrait.”

Edmond’s gasp is low and thrilled. He turns to me with his hands clasped to his chest, as if in prayer. “Oh, you must sit for him, my dear. You must. James is an incredible artist. Just incredible. It’s quite an honor to be asked to sit for him. Quite an honor, to be sure.”

His habit of repeating himself with more emphasis the second time is really starting to grate on my nerves. But I suppose I’m guilty of that with my crushingly awkward admission that James wasn’t bothering me, he was bothering me, so I really don’t have a leg to stand on.

I offer Edmond a pinched smile. “I’m sure he can find a much more interesting subject than me.”

“No,” Edmond replies solemnly. “You’re perfect. It’s in the eyes. They’re very arresting, if I may say so. Almost…” His gaze turns pensive as he looks at my face.

If he says “haunted” I’ll strangle him with his necktie.

I turn to James. “You didn’t ask permission.”

He lifts his brows.

Maybe my tone was a bit too tart. “What I meant is that you said you’d love to draw me. You didn’t ask if you could.”

“Is that why you ran away? Because I didn’t ask?”

He knows full well why I ran away. It’s written all over his face. In the knowing heat in his eyes. In the way he’s moistening his full lips again and good God why does he keep doing that?

Sweat breaks out along my hairline. My heart beats uncomfortably fast. I have the painful sensation of being a peeled grape, stripped of my skin, everything raw and achingly tender. Even the air hurts as I breathe it into my lungs.

But I refuse to be like those women clustered around him at the piano. The school of desperate minnows vying for his attention and longing for his smile.

I say, “The thought of someone immortalizing my likeness for generations of people to stare at long after I’m dead is about as attractive to me as contracting the Ebola virus.”

He says, “I’m guessing you’re not a big fan of selfies, then.”

“I’d rather be shot than post a picture of myself on the internet.”

“That flair for exaggeration must serve you well as a writer.”

“I’m not exaggerating.”

“Like you weren’t lying yesterday when you told me you were waiting for someone?”

His tone is neutral, but he’s pushing me. Challenging me. Scaling that wall I keep trying to build between us to keep him at a safe distance. Why is he doing that when he could have, with a snap of his fingers, any one of a dozen willing women in the room?

We stare at each other, unsmiling. My heartbeat pulses in the palms of my hands.

It’s Edmond who finally breaks the tension. “Perhaps you’d like to see his work before you decide if you want to sit for him?”

I’ve already decided I won’t sit for him, but this seems like a good opportunity to escape the tractor beam of James’s gaze, so I allow myself to be led across the room by the elbow by Edmond, who wouldn’t keep doing that if he knew how much it makes me want to trip him.

Then we’re standing in front of a row of easels lined up against the windows of the salon, and I temporarily lose the ability to breathe.

Edmond was right: James is incredibly talented.

The six portraits I’m looking at are done in pen and ink with such meticulous and lifelike detail they appear to be photographs instead of drawings. Each is of a woman from the shoulders up. The subjects are all facing forward. The backgrounds are left blank, which emphasizes the startlingly realistic quality of the faces and also adds an eerie three-dimensional quality.

And my God, their eyes.

I’ve never seen human misery so perfectly depicted.

What’s that cliché? A picture is worth a thousand words? Well, it’s inaccurate. I could write a million words and never come close to capturing the emotion I’m seeing here. The suffering I’m seeing. The black, bottomless pain.

In a hushed voice, Edmond says, “The collection is titled Perspectives of Grief.”

Like a key fitting into a lock, I understand why James is drawn to me. And why he would be moved to create these particular drawings of these particular people, their anguish so raw I can almost reach out and touch it.

Birds of a feather flock together, as my mother used to say. Water seeks its own level, and like attracts like.

Death has touched him, too.