“I’ve already made plans,” she said.
Tom nodded. “I sort of thought you might have, but it was worth a shot.”
“But I’d be free for lunch tomorrow,” she added.
Lunch would be safe. She’d just stay away from alcoholic beverages and keep her wits about her for a change.
“Should I pick you up?”
Izzy shook her head. “Why don’t we meet at The Dear Mouse Diner at twelve instead?”
“Sounds good. I’ll see you there. I’m going to take another turn around the show.”
“Thanks,” Izzy said as he turned to go. When he raised his eyebrows questioningly, she added,
“You know, for being supportive.”
Tom smiled. “Working with who we have, we’ve got big boots to fill,” he said. “We’ve got to stick together because other people don’t understand that.”
And then he stepped away into the crowd. Jilly came up to her once he was gone.
“What were you doing talking to him?” Jilly wanted to know.
“Oh, he’s not so bad,” Izzy said.
“The way he’s always on about the professor ...”
Izzy had to smile, thinking of how nothing ever seemed to faze Professor Dapple—especially not adverse criticism. He seemed to have been born with thicker skin than anyone else she knew. And the truth was, she thought he rather liked to be the center of an argument, even if he wasn’t there. “I don’t want you to stop thinking as soon as you leave this classroom,” he’d said on more than one occasion.
“Apply what we’ve talked about to the world at large. Discuss it amongst yourselves. Argue, if you must.
Just don’t commit the crime of complacency.”
“I don’t think it ever bothered the professor one way or the other,” she said. “But still.”
“Oh, July. Lighten up. It’s not like I’m going to many him or anything.”
“This is true,” Jilly allowed. “And he is a handsome devil.”
“I don’t even want to hear about that,” Izzy said. “I’d rather hear about this album jacket that Sophie says you got commissioned to do.”
“I can’t believe she told you. That was supposed to be my big announcement for tonight.”
“You’re supposed to tell people when you want something to be a secret,” Izzy said, leading Jilly back to where the rest of their friends were waiting for them. “Then we’d know to keep it to ourselves.”
“Fat chance with this lot ....”
VII
May 1976
The day after she received the fat envelope containing Rushkin’s critique of her Your Streets Are Not Mine show, Izzy made her way down to The Green Man Gallery. She spent a few minutes browsing through a mixed-media show by Claudia Feder before agreeing to Albina’s invitation to have a cup of tea in the back room.
“Taking a bit of a break?” Albina asked her.
Izzy nodded. She tended to work such long hours during the day that she rarely took time off to go visiting. Most of the artists she knew relaxed after a major show—for a few days, at least—but hanging a show always inspired Izzy in new work. She did some of her best paintings in the weeks immediately following a show.
“I’ve got to stretch some new canvases today,” she explained, “and you know how much I love doing that.”
“Well, you deserve a bit of a holiday. You’ve been working very hard lately.”
“It’s not like work for me,” Izzy said with a shrug. “Which isn’t to say I don’t find it hard. It’s just not work—not the painting, not any of it.”
“Except for stretching canvases.”
Izzy smiled. “And measuring frames.”
“I often wondered why so many of your pieces were of a set size.”
The tea was ready to be poured then. They spoke a little of the Feder show that was in the gallery at the moment as they added their milk and sugar to their cups. Izzy didn’t bring up the real reason she’d come to see Albina until just before she left.
“Did you ever meet Rushkin?” she asked, keeping her voice casual.
“I don’t even know what he looks like,” Albina admitted. “He was the original mystery man of the Newford art scene. I can remember hearing that he didn’t even attend his own openings—at least not as himself “
“Who did he come as?”
“I’ve no idea. I was told that he’d come in disguise so that he could see the reaction to his work without having to actually speak to anyone.” Albina laughed suddenly. “Although why he’d have to disguise himself when no one knew what he looked like anyway is beyond me.”
So much for trying to find out when he’d seen her show, Izzy thought when she was back at the coach-house studio. But at least he had gone to see it and his critiques were as helpful this time out as they’d been the first time he’d written to her. There was more praise in his most recent letter; he seemed to be able to find fault with less in these new paintings. When he did have a criticism, it dealt mostly with arcane bits of technique that no one else would probably notice, or compositional elements where he suggested alternate viewpoints, not because they were better, he wrote, but so that she could see the other possibilities and perhaps utilize them in future work.
Needless to say, Izzy was pleased with his praise and the fact that, wherever he was, however he did it, he still managed to fit in the time to see her work and comment upon it.
She wondered if John ever went to her shows. Maybe he didn’t have to. Maybe meeting his fellow numena in the streets of Newford was enough for him.
VIII
July 1976
On a hot muggy day, with both the temperature and humidity climbing into the nineties, Izzy ran into Jilly at Amos & Cook’s when she took a break from her current painting to pick up a few art supplies.
Jilly was as preoccupied as she was, and they only noticed each other when they both reached for the same tube of viridian.
“Well, howdy, stranger,” Jilly said.
Izzy smiled. “It has been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Weeks and weeks. You’re turning into a hermit.”
“Not really. I’ve just been working on changing my priorities. Less partying, more painting.”
“Good for you. Just don’t overdo it.”
Jilly glanced at the palette-shaped clock that hung behind the airbrush counter. It took her a moment to work out that the paintbrushes that served as the clock’s hands were pointing to the equivalent of eleven-thirty.
“Do you have time for an early lunch?” she asked.
“Depends. Is the place you have in mind air-conditioned?”
Jilly laughed. “I take it your studio isn’t either.”
“I’m wilting.”
Because it was only a few blocks over on Williamson Street, they settled on The Monkey Woman’s Nest. They took a table by the window so that they could look out from their comfortable vantage point at all the people going by, who were less fortunate than they were because they still had to fight the heat.
Two iced teas and grilled cheese sandwiches later, the conversation got around to Tom Downs.
“You’re seeing a lot of him these days,” Jilly remarked.
Izzy shrugged. Her relationship with Tom had never developed further than friendship, but meeting him at the opening had marked a turning point for her in terms of how she related to men. There were no more one-night stands. There was no more casual sex, period. She focused all of her energy instead on her work and her friends and her numena.
“You make it sound like a crime,” she said.
“He just bugs me, that’s all.”
“He used to bug me as well, but he’s turned out to be a pretty decent sort. Have you seen much of his work?”
Jilly sighed. “That’s what’s so really infuriating about him. Unlike so many other people who’ll launch into a half-hour lecture at the drop of a hat, he can actually paint. Technically, he’s really good. A little reminiscent of Keane a
t times, but not so much as he used to be. And he really does practice what he preaches. I can’t believe how realistic his work is while still keeping its painterly qualities.”
“And he’s doing it with watercolors.”
“I know.” _Ally paused. “Well?” she asked when Izzy didn’t fill the silence. “Are you serious about him?”
Izzy shook her head. “No—or at least not in the sense that you mean. I’m serious about him as a friend. It’s nice to have a man to go to a film or an opening with and not have to fend off advances or worry about all sorts of strings being attached. And I like to listen to him go on. I don’t agree with him all of the time, but I still fmd what he has to say interesting.”
“Uh-huh,” Jilly said, as though she thought there had to be more to it than that.
“It’s true,” Izzy said.
Jilly studied her for a long moment.
“You still miss John, don’t you?” she asked.
“Not at all,” Izzy lied. “I can’t remember the last time I even thought about him.”
IX
March 1977
Izzy finished La Liseuse on the second anniversary of having broken up with John. She stood back from the canvas and was surprised herself at how well the painting had come out. She almost expected the red-haired woman to step gracefully down from the easel, book under her arm, that solemn look in her eyes counteracted by the warmth of her smile. Then Izzy had to laugh at herself. Well, yes. She would be stepping down from the painting, wouldn’t she? Crossing over from the before to here. That’s what numena did.
Her crossing over wasn’t the question at all. The question was, what would she be like?
Izzy had taken the inspiration for the reading woman from Kathy’s story of the same name. Rosalind was the character’s name; its numena would have the same. This was the first time that Izzy had deliberately set out to bring to life a numena whose genesis lay in another’s creativity rather than her own, and she had no idea what was going to happen. Would Rosalind be like the character in Kathy’s story, or would she be similar only in how both Izzy and Kathy had described her?
“Rosalind,” she said softly. “If you cross over, I hope you’ll be your own woman.”
“Whose else’s would I be?” a soft voice asked.
Izzy turned slowly to find the painting’s numena standing in the studio behind her. She had never seen one of her numena so soon after it had crossed over, and she studied Rosalind carefully, worried that she might feel disoriented and wondering what she should do if Rosalind was. But the numena radiated an aura of peace, just as Kathy had described in her story, just as Izzy had tried to capture on her canvas.
“Do you feel okay?” Izzy asked.
Rosalind’s smile broadened. “I’ve never felt better. Thank you for bringing me across.”
“You remember the crossing?”
“I remember I was in a story,” Rosalind said in that soft voice of hers, “but I don’t remember what it was.”
For a moment Izzy thought she was talking about Kathy’s story, but then she realized Rosalind was speaking of the before, describing it the same way John had. There were stories, he’d told her once. That seemed like a lifetime ago now.
“Can I get you anything?” Izzy asked. “Some tea, or something to eat?”
“I think I will sit for a moment.”
Rosalind crossed the room and settled in the window seat. She looked out over the snowy lane that ran beside the coach house, her face in profile. Izzy had painted her head-on, but only after much indecision and having sketched any number of alternate poses. She was surprised to see that Rosalind’s profile was exactly the way she’d imagined it to be, though why that should surprise her, she didn’t know. After a moment, she wiped her hands on a rag and went to join her visitor in the window seat.
“What’s the book about?” she asked.
She’d painted a book because in the story, Kathy’s Rosalind had always been reading. It had been the character’s connection to herself, a lifeline that helped her through the bad times, then a pleasure that she’d continued when her life finally turned around and she was able to have hope for the future once more.
Rosalind smiled at her question. “I’m not sure. I haven’t begun it yet.” The smile reached her eyes as she added, “But I have the feeling that it will be different each time I read it. That’s the way it is with enchantment, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Rosalind turned the book so that Izzy could see the one-word title on its spine—Enchantment—then brought the book back to her chest and folded her arms around it.
“I think I might take a walk,” Rosalind said. “I’d like to explore the city a little before I go.”
“Go?”
“To the island,” Rosalind explained. “I have this feeling that I will never be as comfortable indoors as living out among the elements. I will make myself a home there in a birch wood. There is a birch wood, isn’t there?”
“Where?”
“On the island.”
Izzy gave her a confused look. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
“Wren Island. It was your home, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. But ... how do you know that?”
Rosalind considered that, then finally shook her head. “I don’t know. It simply feels as though I always have.” She laughed lightly. “But then always is a rather short time when you consider how long it’s been since I crossed over.”
She rose from the window seat. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“That you live on the island? Of course not.”
Rosalind shook her head. “No, that I go for a walk. I know it’s rude to leave so soon after we’ve met, but I feel as though I need to look for somebody.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know that either. I’m living on intuition at the moment.”
“Let me get you a coat,” Izzy said.
“Oh, the cold won’t bother me.”
“Yes, but everybody else is wearing one. You don’t want to stand out, do you?”
“They will only see me if I choose to let them.”
Izzy nodded slowly. “How come I can always see you—I mean, you know, those who have crossed over? It doesn’t matter where I am, here in the studio or out on the street, I can always see you.”
“You’re a maker,” Rosalind said. “Makers can always see those who have crossed over through the objects that they have made.”
She stepped closer to Izzy and touched a hand to Izzy’s cheek, the way a mother might touch her child; then she glided more than walked to the door of the studio, stepped out into the snowy night, and was gone. Izzy stood looking at the door for a long time. She remembered what Rosalind had said earlier about why she was going for this walk and couldn’t get it out of her mind.
I feel as though I need to look for somebody.
Izzy had the feeling that Rosalind wouldn’t find who she was looking for out on Newford’s streets.
Nor would she find it on the island. Izzy turned slowly to regard her easel. She took Rosalind’s painting from it and put up a fresh canvas that she’d primed earlier in the week. She didn’t even have to think about what she was doing as she began to block in the composition, because she was remembering another conversation now, something Kathy had once said:
“Sometimes I like to think that my characters all know each other, or at least that they could have the chance to get to know each other. Some of them would really get along.” She’d paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. “While some of them need each other. Like the wild girl. I think the only thing that could ever save her in the end is if she was to make friends with, oh, I don’t know. Someone like Rosalind. Someone full of peace to counter the wildness that the wolves left in her soul.”
“Are you going to write a story about it?” Izzy had asked, intrigued with the idea.
But Kathy simply shook her head. “I don�
�t feel that it’s my story to tell. I think they’d have to work that one out on their own.”
Except first they had to meet, Izzy thought as she continued to work on the new canvas. The underpainting was still all vague shapes of color and value, but she could already see the wild girl’s features in it. It was only a matter of translating them from her mind to the canvas. Because of what Rosalind had said about moving to Wren Island, Izzy didn’t plan to put the figure of the wild girl on a city street the way Kathy had in her story. Instead she meant to surround her with a tangled thicket of the wild rosebushes that grew on Wren Island. She hoped Cosette wouldn’t mind.
X
Izzy worked in a frenzy, finishing The Wild Girl in less than a week. The piece almost seemed to paint itself, translating itself effortlessly from her mind to the canvas, pouring out of her in a way that she’d never experienced before with her art. Jilly and Sophie had both tried to explain to her how it felt, those rare occasions when the process itself seemed to utterly possess them and they couldn’t put down a bad stroke if they wanted to, but she’d never really understood what they meant until she began work on Cosette’s painting. She also understood now how frustrated her friends felt that the experience wasn’t one they could call upon at will.
Rosalind was a regular visitor to the studio during that time, spending long hours in conversation with Izzy when she wasn’t exploring the city’s streets and meeting with her fellow numena. Rosalind liked both well enough, but she still spoke of moving to the island. By the third day of her company, Izzy realized that she was going to miss Rosalind when she did move. She was like a perfect combination of mother and friend, a relationship that Izzy would have liked to have had with her own mother. Rosalind was everything Izzy’s mother wasn’t: supportive, even-tempered, interested in not only the arts, but in everything the world had to offer. She radiated such a sense of well-being that in her company, worries and troubles were as impermanent as morning mist before the rising sun.
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