One of Those Faces (9)

He raised his eyebrows. “So you have to close up alone tonight?”

I nodded past him to the last two students as they drifted out. “Yeah, since Erin ditched me.”

“Do you want to go for a drink after you finish?” He had that slightly nervous smile on his face, mirroring the one he’d worn in the bookstore earlier. “I can wait.”

My heart clenched. It was an innocuous enough invitation, but I didn’t love the idea of walking through dark streets with a man who knew I was on my own tonight. “I still have to work after this. Maybe some other time.” I turned and walked toward my easel and began gathering my brushes.

He didn’t follow me. I glanced over my shoulder, and he was back at his station grabbing his painting.

My whole body stiffened. You’re blowing it. “Your painting looks great.”

He looked up, canvas in hand. “Thanks. This was fun, actually. Have a good night.” He grinned over his shoulder before walking out the door, the chime dinging as it closed behind him.

I stood there with my brushes clenched into my palms and watched him leave. His wineglass was beside his easel, untouched. As I walked to the front door to lock it, I saw his Jeep pulling out of the parking lot.

Starting with Iann’s station, I picked up all the used brushes and worked my way around the room, gathering the dirty wineglasses. I dumped his leftover wine into the sink last, wondering if he hadn’t drunk because he was lost in his painting. Every time I had peeked at him, his eyes had been narrowed and determined. Calculating, almost.

I flicked off the front studio lights and ducked into the back room. Normally I would have walked home after closing up, but the memory of the haunting sound made my hands tremble at the thought.

I sank onto one of the stools next to the shelf of wine and pulled the break-room table closer toward my waist. I reached into my bag and fished out the completed illustrations I had for the children’s book so far. I liked to keep my entire project with me until it was complete so everything turned out in the same style and somewhat cohesive.

I laid out the drawings to the side and tore a fresh page from my sketchbook. I dug out my page full of thumbnail drawings and placed it at the very top of the table. Instead of starting on the next illustration, I flipped over the page of thumbnails and began sketching two sideways ovals, which soon became eyes on the page. Iann’s eyes.

I opened my worn leather bag and surveyed the color choices before extracting four pencils from within. Black cherry. Burnt ochre. Bronze. Gold.

I hastily layered the colors, the gold flecks dancing among the richer brown of the iris. I took my charcoal pencil and filled in the pupils, careful not to smudge.

I leaned away from the paper and peered at the disembodied eyes before turning over the page again. If he had missed his friends coming the previous night, why did he want to come alone rather than reschedule with others? And what were the chances in this enormous city of him coming to my work after our chance encounter?

Stranger things have happened.

Without examining the next thumbnail in my storyboard, I doodled the hero mouse from the story, Arnie. I sketched a quick outline of the cat, Harold, standing behind him menacingly.

When Erin and I had first met, she had been surprised to see my artwork. She had described it as “playful” and “innocent.” From my demeanor, she had expected the disturbed art of a tortured soul. In interactions, I didn’t come across like most imagined a children’s book illustrator would, between my dark, baggy clothes and my reluctance to smile or make eye contact with most people. The events in my life that had made me this way were exactly what drew me to illustrations. My imagination was the only thing that had helped me survive my father’s sharp cuffs across my face, the broken bones. All those years I had felt the other, truer part inside, screaming to get out. I’d hidden what art supplies I could scavenge in small corners of my room, playing piano to appease my father and stealing moments to draw when I could.

I had always preferred drawing to playing music, even before Issi’s death. But especially after, I came to view the piano as the silent accomplice to my abuse. Well, maybe not so silent. I still dreamed in the notes of the piano from songs I’d played over and over during that time.

My strokes had become darker and harsher as I got lost in thought. I eased up on the pencil and moved on to outlining the next drawing on a new page. Throughout my childhood, my art had been the only way to keep those I had loved and lost close to me and to create new realities to escape mine.



Identical blue eyes pierce through the water into mine.

I stare back, motionless, suspended under the weight of the water above. Her eyes cut through the green-and-brown murk between us.

She drifts toward me, moving right through the moss and leaves in the water.

As she comes closer, pieces of the flesh on her face disintegrate and float into the water as she moves.

Her arms stretch out toward my neck.

I open my mouth to scream, a violent torrent of bubbles erupting into the water in front of me.



My face was frozen on the marble tabletop in the break room.

My eyelashes fluttered against the hard surface. I lifted my head and heard a sharp crack. My jaw was still clenched.

Only when I heard the buzzing of the fluorescents above did I realize I was still in the studio.

I looked down at the paper I’d fallen asleep on. All my illustrations were ripped into quarters on the table, some pieces littered on the floor. The page directly under me was not of my mouse and cat characters but of two young girls with their backs to me, the paper covered in bright-red blood, still wet.