by Laurel Brett
“A common enough sentiment,” I answered, slightly aloof.
She got a brown bonnet—a cone with vanilla ice cream and a hard chocolate coating. I didn’t usually eat ice cream, but I followed her lead and ordered an ice cream pop. It was surprisingly delicious. I walked her to the subway and watched her descend. She turned around for an instant, her pale face and green eyes giving nothing away. Her auburn halo illuminated her. I wanly waved. I’ll never see her again, I thought.
Chapter Three
* * *
Six weeks passed, and Daphne began to feel like a phantom. At first, I thought of her many times each day. Why was I so obsessed with this girl? When I had handed her my index cards at our last meeting I included the card I gave out at conferences and to publishers, encouraging her to contact me. She had nodded, and handed back my cards, saying, “You can have these back now that you’re not going to be hiding behind them.” She didn’t give me her phone number or ask me to call. I waited for her, and sometimes I saw her in my dreams. I felt foolish caring so much about a random encounter with a young girl, and I found myself surreptitiously staring at every auburn-haired young woman who walked into my classroom.
I resigned myself to not seeing her again, when one day, checking my mail after the spring semester had ended, I reached into my cubby in the busy mailroom of the psychology department. Professors’ names, arranged in alphabetical order, made my box first; my nameplate, Adams, above the box. I pulled out the usual department memos and reminders, a few very tardy student papers that would not receive consideration, publishers’ textbook advertisements, and a postcard. I took the mail to my office. I scanned the lame-duck memos and found nothing important. I filed the publishers’ detritus in the circular file, for once making my trash can basketball shot with ease. I glanced at the names on the student papers and finally got to the postcard. On the front was a picture of the statue of Columbus that stands in the middle of Columbus Circle. I read somewhere that all geographical distances from New York City are measured starting there. When I turned the card over the first thing I noticed was how it was addressed. It read: Garrett Adams, PhD, not Jr., Behavioral Psychology, Psychology Department, New Paltz College, New Paltz, New York.
Okay. Of course I immediately knew it was from Daphne. Her handwriting, spidery and artistic, indicated that she’d spent long hours perfecting the slant and formation of the letters. She used a purple fine-point marker. Her message was simple. The card read: Bored, lonely, need diversion. I have a book for you. Meet me at the luncheonette at our time, Friday, June 16. I noticed that she had not included a return address.
My pique at Daphne’s absence passed immediately. Although our meeting was only a week away, inspired by her singing along to the Beatles in the coffee shop, I visited the record store in New Paltz where I bought Beatles records and those of Bob Dylan, also in preparation for our get-together. The last time we’d arranged to meet I had tried to bring her into my world with all my note cards; this time I thought I’d try to enter hers. Since radio stations only played hit singles and bits of albums, I had to buy complete albums to learn the music.
I knew nothing about Daphne’s music. I know it sounds strange but I never listened to Buddy Holly or Elvis Presley or Chuck Berry. My father had loved music, and I learned to love it with him. Music was Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller. Sometimes when my mom and I felt blue we listened to “Sing, Sing, Sing” and “Moonlight Serenade.” My father had been a bit of a ne’er-do-well, and my mother had had a lot to put up with, but when we’d listen to his records I could tell she missed him too. I had almost felt disloyal in the record store, especially when I purchased Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which I knew was being touted as the greatest album of all time. I hadn’t made it past the surrealistic album cover before my meeting with Daphne.
This time I got to the café before she arrived. Our usual table was empty, and I had a momentary impulse to take her seat so I could escape the mirror and self-scrutiny. I stood by her chair, but finally I left the choice place for her. She was late. By two forty-five I decided she wasn’t coming, and then, suddenly, in a flash of activity, like a hummingbird, she glittered near me. Before I could completely register her presence she hurried past, knocking into my chair, taking her seat against the mirror. She looked just like herself—her hair disheveled and free. We nodded at each other. I let her begin.
“You inspired me,” she said in a rush of words, hanging her coat on the hook by the table. “I started reading psychology—Watson and Skinner, but Freud, Jung, and William James too. I don’t think I’m a behaviorist. All the things you’re not supposed to talk about? That’s what I want to talk about. The self. And how a self is made. And what we feel. Don’t you want to talk about them?”
“I’m more interested in what we do and how we’re taught to do it.”
She didn’t seem to register what I said, but went on: “Anyway, I brought you this book. You’ll probably hate it.” She put a paperback on the table. “I really liked it,” she underscored.
The title read The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. It was by R.D. Laing, a British psychoanalyst who had very political theories about psychosis. I had read a brief review of it in a psychology journal, but hadn’t gotten around to reading the actual text.
“That is very thoughtful of you,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” she replied, “I still have my own copy. We can talk about it the next time we meet.”
Is she this confident about everything?
The waitress approached, smiling as if she remembered us. When Daphne was about to order, the waitress asked, “Grilled cheese?” and Daphne nodded. I ordered a classic New York Reuben.
We ate quickly. We didn’t talk about intellectual matters. She talked about learning how to water paint, a new pastime. She held up her hands, which were a bit stained by color.
“I thought watercolors were water soluble,” I said.
“They mostly are, but sometimes they leave a trace behind.” The tips of her fingers were a subtle aquamarine.
“What is your favorite subject?”
“The sea. I am from Long Island after all. I love all the beautiful watery places.”
I began putting words to the song that had just miraculously come on the radio, eerily echoing what she was saying. It’s funny how these coincidences often happen. I didn’t have a bad voice, just a bit deeper than the Beatles’ tenors, but I could manage, “But of all these friends and lovers there is no one compares with you . . . and these places lose their meaning when I think of love as something new.”
“Rubber Soul? Did you buy it and listen?” The expression of delight on her face and the lilt in her voice as she asked me this was thanks enough.
“Yes. I’ve been listening to the Beatles.” As I said this I realized that I really liked the group. I may have begun listening to them as a way to share Daphne’s world, but with repeated listening I’d become a fan. Doing a little research had revealed that even Leonard Bernstein made admiring comments about them, though maybe this shouldn’t have mattered to me. “In my life I love you more,” I concluded the song. I didn’t feel romantic love for the pint-sized philosopher in front of me, but she was my guide out of the past I’d been living in, right down to her stained fingers. “How do you do your seascapes?” I asked.
“Pale. Lilac and turquoise.”
“I have a friend who runs an art gallery. They had an exhibit of watercolors that I read about in the Times. The gallery is only about a block from here. Let’s go.”
The West 50s hosted a gaggle of galleries, and we could visit several. I knew a woman, Caroline, who worked at the Forester Gallery. She was actually someone my friend Jerry had introduced me to. Caroline and I had gone on one lackluster blind date and then decided to pursue only friendship, but neither of us had called the other since then.
My Schrödinger girl promptly got up from the table and lifted her pl
um-colored crocheted shoulder purse from the hook. The rich shade enhanced the red glints in her hair and the deeper emerald glints in her eyes.
We walked several blocks. I had to slow my pace to allow Daphne to keep up. I had forgotten how small she was. She trailed me by a few steps no matter how much I slowed down. When we arrived at the gallery, and I held the door for her, I could see that the sun and heat had reddened her cheeks. She presented a canvas of jewel hues: emerald eyes, auburn hair, purple purse, and reddening cheeks.
Caroline saw me immediately. In contrast to Daphne, she wore elegant black. Her slim-cut, mid-thigh minidress showed her endless slender legs. Her black hair was twisted into a casual updo, held in place by a sterling silver hair ornament. Caroline, a woman at her peak, appeared to be working hard to stave off a creeping disappointment in life. Our one date had revealed that we were fundamentally mismatched. Caroline tried too hard, laughing at all my jokes, telling stories in a rush of forced intimacy, whereas I didn’t try hard enough. I was detached and impassive. What was Jerry thinking? I had wondered. Or maybe I resisted connecting to anyone. I carried around the failure of my early marriage, and I hung onto things too long.
I surprised myself at my happiness at seeing Caroline. She strode across the gallery, took my right hand, and in a musical contralto voice said, “How great to see you! And this is . . . ?”
Daphne glanced up, and I could hear Caroline’s loud intake of air. She stared at Daphne with an inscrutable expression. Did she think Daphne was too young for me? Well, of course she was. Did she assume we were dating? I had thought Caroline and my decision not to date was mutual. Now I could see Caroline was holding her breath, and I wasn’t so sure.
“This is Daphne, a young friend,” I answered. “And Daphne, this is Caroline, another friend. Is the Katagosha exhibit still here?” Daphne’s description of her watercolors had reminded me of the paintings of this Japanese artist who painted nature scenes in dreamlike pastels, straddling the East-West divide.
“No,” Caroline said. “We’ve hung a new show. Galen Green. Have you heard of him?”
Of course I had. He was a big deal. I had seen his photographs on the cover of Art News several times over the years.
“I’ve heard of him too,” said Daphne. Her cheeks had kept their ruddy glow.
Green’s work lined the walls: portraits, still lifes, some landscapes. We perused the back wall of the small gallery, where they had hung the larger paintings. We faced a canvas that was about four feet tall by three feet wide, large and commanding. We approached it, and stopped cold. Daphne let out a loud yelp of extreme dismay, and I could feel her fingers digging into my arm.
In front of us was a very appealing nude. Although the painting was somewhat abstract, Green had left enough shape to the features of the young woman to reveal that she exactly resembled Daphne: same heart-shaped face, small, straight nose, and profusion of auburn hair, though the strands draped in tiny plaits, not like the riot of tresses of the girl beside me. The nude in the painting startled me with both her beauty and her complete resemblance to the girl beside me. This explained Caroline’s odd glance. She must have recognized Daphne immediately.
Daphne wailed, “Garrett, I swear, I did not sit for that portrait, and I have never met Galen Green!” The artist had named his painting Daphne in Salmon and Green, punning on his own name I supposed. Daphne kept insisting, “I don’t know the girl in the painting.” Then she asked, “How can she look just like me and have my name too?”
Chapter Four
* * *
We both stared at the canvas. I wasn’t comfortable staring at the naked girl who so resembled Daphne, but I couldn’t take my eyes away. The figure reclined on a red divan near a well-set table in a room with peach walls. A small meal awaited, laid out on an apricot tablecloth, served on pale celadon green plates. On each of two plates were what appeared to be a serving of salmon and haricots verts. Everything had been painted in warm tones except the plates and the green beans. The artist had rendered the model’s skin a pink alabaster and her breasts with rosy areolas. Although some of the detail of the painting had been sacrificed to the abstraction of Green’s work, I couldn’t escape the resemblance of the subject to Daphne or the power of the portrait. Galen Green had created a remarkably successful painting.
Daphne hadn’t relaxed her grip on my arm. Several other gallery patrons sneaked surreptitious glances at the Daphne beside me and the girl in the painting, their eyes confirming what she and I saw. I could feel her discomfort growing.
I turned to her and asked, “Would you like me to ask Caroline about the painting?”
She nodded.
Caroline stood at the front of the gallery to greet incoming visitors. When I approached her, she said in an almost natural voice, “Your young friend is so lovely in her portrait. Green has captured her.”
“But she insists that she never sat for the portrait. She feels quite upset, actually. And mystified.”
“How can that possibly be?” Caroline asked. “Not only is the girl in the portrait her identical twin, but they share the same name.”
“I know. But she is so adamant.”
I asked Caroline a few questions. Yes, she had hung the paintings. The gallery had been planning a show with Galen for quite a while. He had so much new work. She confirmed that Daphne in Salmon and Green was the last canvas; it had been completed just a week or so before the show opened, brought down after the rest of the collection.
“It’s good, don’t you think?” she said. “Matisse through the lens of abstract expressionism.”
“I do think it’s good,” I answered. I asked her about Galen’s model.
“I don’t know anything about her,” she said.
“Do you think that’s her real name?”
“It could be,” she mused. “But in the history of painting there have been many other Daphnes. Pollaiuolo, Trevisani, Tiepolo, Albani, and Waterhouse each have a Daphne painting, for example. And, of course, the most famous is Bernini’s sculpture.”
I forgave Caroline for showing off a little. Not only was she trying to get her bearings in an unusual situation, the memory of our date seemed to have added to her unease. I didn’t recognize any of the artists’ names, and I didn’t think I had ever seen those works. My mother liked to take me to museums and galleries as a day out, but I had never made a study of art. I did remember that in April when I’d met Daphne, she mentioned a myth concerning her name.
“I saw Galen when he came to inspect his show,” Caroline volunteered. “He didn’t say anything about this painting or its model.”
“So you have never seen the girl in the painting?” I asked.
“No, never.” She shook her head no for emphasis. “Although I would swear that I have seen her today.”
“Maybe I should talk to Galen Green because my Daphne is so upset. Could you put me in touch with him?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” she replied gently but firmly. “I’d risk my job. We protect our artists.”
“Of course. Excuse me, Caroline.” I turned away from her to go find Daphne, but she was no longer standing where I’d left her, in front of the painting. I shouldn’t have expected her to be—the portrait was very unsettling to her. I began to survey the space, but she was nowhere to be seen. She had effectively vanished.
I went out to the street, but after looking as far as I could in both directions I could find no trace of her. She had had too much of a head start. I walked all the way back to the bookstore at Columbus Circle, but there was no sign of her there either. I even checked back at our café, but our table stood empty.
I sat down and ordered a coffee to figure out my next move. I worried about Daphne having to get home by herself in such a state of agitation, but I satisfied myself with the knowledge that she must have taken the Long Island Railroad many times. After waiting for forty-five minutes, I drove home, but even the picturesque Hudson River failed to distract me or calm
my agitation.
If someone had asked me, I wouldn’t have been able to say why I believed Daphne, yet I did. That girl was not acting. I did not believe she had been the model for the painting, although I had never seen two people more alike. Caroline had seen it immediately too, and reached the simple conclusion that we were looking at the same girl. I couldn’t agree because of Daphne’s reaction. I cataloged many possible explanations—that Daphne had a lost twin, that she had amnesia, or simply that she had a doppelgänger. Her embarrassment and anguish, as well as her mysterious departure, left me troubled and exhausted as I drove north. It was like a mystery from an old Hollywood movie, a Hitchcock, or Laura.
When I finally arrived home I fell into bed and into a dreamless sleep.
* * *
I woke up the next morning in a more resolute mood. I decided that I would find Galen Green on my own. Of course, the possibility existed that Daphne had posed for the portrait and had just been too embarrassed to say. She may have suffered from some psychological or neurological condition, or this painting might be a portrait of some random auburn-haired girl who happened to bear an extraordinary resemblance to Daphne; perhaps Galen just happened to name his painting Daphne in reference to the myth. As I had contemplated the night before, Daphne could have also had a twin she hadn’t told me about, or even one she didn’t know about. If that was the case, the painting could be named for her, or the twin could have been adopted separately, or . . . I was spinning out possibilities. Now I had even more reason to be captivated by the teenager I’d met.
I visited the college library to find out all I could about Galen Green and his model. I thumbed through all the recent periodicals and newspapers, and the only fact I was able to glean was that Galen Green not only painted, he taught art at Sarah Lawrence College. It was an easy ride from New Paltz, just an hour and half down the Taconic. Since it was summer, I had no classes, though I had called the school and discovered that Green was teaching a special studio class that summer. From the words of the art department secretary, I gathered that being admitted into the class was quite a coup. The secretary told me the room and building where the ten a.m. class met.
