Look.

In this late 18th century oil painting, the central figure is an aristocratic woman, Lady Julia Coe. She is poised on the very edge of the middle cushion of an uncomfortable couch of cherry wood and gray damask upholstery. The feet of this couch resemble horses’ hooves; the woman’s husband, Captain Coe, had a whinny-like laugh and was a famous equestrian and adventurer. The feet of this couch symbolize both the Captain’s presence and his absence.

Lady Coe was a woman of careful birth, traceable blood. If she had learned how to add and subtract, how to play simple fugues on the harpsichord, how to recite poetry, she understood as well how to be effectively useless (she chided her only sister, Betsy: pout, tease, Betsy, submit, deny, become a devil). Lady Coe is beautiful; her skin is slightly pink, unblemished, and her hair, brick red, is a relaxed mass of brush strokes cascading over bare shoulders. Her hands lie loosely cupped in her lap (symbolic of a nest?, a womb?, sex? Art historians clash over the meaning). Her indigo blue eyes stare straight at the viewer and in them are sadness and mettle. Lady Coe wears no jewelry, not a trinket, not a bauble, even though the London society columns always commented on her jewels, a sapphire the Captain had unearthed in India, a ruby tricked out of a sultan. But jewelry would too badly clutter the gown. The gown itself is plenty; its fabric is a luxurious, butter-yellow silk and its fit is precise, its cut is less this lady’s costume than natural surface, a hide, rind, bark. And in the section of knees to floor, within the folds and shadows of the fabric, there are slender and subtle letters which spell the word MOVE.

Look.

Other objects in the painting include: a hinged screen, dainty cranes in flight on its taupe-colored panels; a pair of ceramic urns glazed blue and white, ferns potted in them; an Oriental rug, murky blue and blood red. In the background is a heavy, wooden door, shut, and in front of this door stands Lady Coe’s African manservant; his skin is inky black, his irises gem-like, his mouth awfully sensual; he wears a robe and a turban of creamy cloth, liquid ivory, and an emerald-green waistcoat embroidered with gold thread: within this gold stitching can be found the word STAY.

A bit crooked yet. Captain Coe pointed with the stem of his pipe. There. Perfect. A lovely likeness, Julia. He directed its placement above a mantle where it would hang until 1925 when a bankrupt descendant (a rapscallion!, a vegetarian!) would sell it. It now belongs to a collector in Pittsburgh who frequently loans it to American museums.

The artist was C.H. Owen, academy-trained, but an undisciplined dandy; he completed a few dozen inferior landscapes that hardly filled his purse, and one self-portrait, now lost. Owen succumbed to venereal disease on his twenty-eighth birthday and was buried in a pauper’s grave on the outskirts of London.

How I describe the sound: it was like a heavy door slamming. And then the whole world turned bright orange, but we were safe. It could have been very different. What if we had stayed one more minute? Stayed because of our despairing father, his heart thrust at anyone.

I was twelve and Toby was ten. We used to be kids, Julie and Toby. I’m still Julie, but he’s Tobias now. Important Tobias with his shiny Lexus and his political influence. He’s a hotshot lobbyist; he twists arms and trades favors and he collects buckets of money. And he says to me, in his sincere, lobbyist voice, If you get into trouble, don’t hesitate to call. He means, If you need money. He means, If you’re abandoned in Paris (again). I bite my tongue (I needed that money wire). But he used to be Toby, a kid, a boy, a little brother.

We spent a week in August with our father when I was twelve and Toby was ten. We cruised the bottom of Utah, toured its canyons, Bryce and Zion. Toby and I helped navigate from the back seat. We had a road map with dark yellow stains in the creases; the stains were perfume stains and the map reeked. The stink wasn’t floral, but spicy and illicit-seeming. (a laughing woman’s elbow knocking a bottle of perfume across a countertop, the perfume seeping into this map, and our father not caring) Now all maps evoke this smell for me and maybe for Tobias too. If I asked him, he would lie. No, Julie, and I don’t get lost anyway.

We stopped at a Texaco station in Kanab, Utah. Time to pee? Yes, Dad! Toby and I took in vats of soda pop and always had to pee (unlike our father, he of the hardy bladder). The gas station clerk gave me the keys to the restrooms; the keys were attached to either end of a wooden baton, one end painted blue, the other pink. I unlocked the men’s restroom for Toby, then let myself into the other. It was like any gas station bathroom: dirty, cold, with a sense of wrong and haste in it. I tinkled and then turned on the faucet of the metal sink; I used a dollop of pink liquid soap out of a squeaky dispenser and I rinsed my hands under the milky tap water. I shouted, Wash your hands and I’m not kidding! My shout echoed; Toby heard me. I waited for him outside; when he came out, his hair and neck and collar were wet and I asked why. My head was hot. What a runt! What a dumb little kid! Now he’s fussy about Italian shoes and thread count and junket loopholes! I embarrass him every chance I get. I talk loudly about what a twerp he was, how he snotted all over the place all the time! And his guests sort of smirk at me, like, oh, you poor thing, and they smirk at each other, like, yes, this is the sister he warned us about. I can’t read Tobias’s reaction, if he’s annoyed or amused; he has a totally blank face now, he’s emotionless now, though he used to blubber at anything. He says, Isn’t she a riot? But his tone is blank like his face. He tongs another ice cube out of his silver ice bucket and winks at someone’s empty drink. His ultimate casual manner now. How he talks about his inability to drink immature Scotch. Toby! Who was terrified at the zoo if a lion roamed too close to its cage bars.

I like important Tobias. But I liked Toby better. It’s not nostalgia, a yearning for innocence (okay, maybe it is a bit). I think of that hot August in Utah, of our adventure, of our father trying hard, it’s not all peaches and cream out there, kids, but people are basically good. I’m basically good.

My name is Julia. Why not call me Julia?

It seems impertinent.

Ha! I watched how you mimicked Sir Joshua.

The Almighty.

Yes. One even senses Judgment in his sneezes. I prefer mere, poor mortals. You, Mr. Owen. And myself. And George here. Now you call me Julia.

Julia.

Be impertinent. Have an impertinent brush too. I command it. And I get my way.

Can you blush, Julia?

Rosy red! I have obedient blood. But I’ll blame the heat. This awful summer weather.

Your African has an advantage here. His skin can’t betray him.

His name is George. After our king.

George.

He was a savage warrior. Captain Coe rescued him. He was half-dead on a river bank. With a spear through his chest. An enemy tribe had tried to kill him. Is that correct, George? Is that what happened?

Yes, Lady Coe.

He became William’s boatswain and navigator. Fixed that leaky boat with sap or gum, then steered William out of the jungle. You should hear William describe it all. It’s terribly amusing and frightening. How he imitates the noise of jungle drums.

And where is Captain Coe now?

Who knows. Plundering a Greek island maybe. Or he’ll bring home the pelt of a tiger. Or an elephant’s tusks. I won’t allow those things in the main house. And then he’ll dedicate time to the salvation of George’s soul. George practices the religion of Islam. I am not in the business of preaching The Gospel. George is what he is and I am a modern-thinking woman. I’ve been skipping church on Sundays. Those sermons! Did our Lord Jesus intend salvation through tedium? I doodle in the hymnal. I’m an artist too! Caricatures of the fat parson. My pew mates gasp or snicker. It’s my only churchly pleasure. I’m letting my soul tumble a bit. Why waste a beautiful Sunday? I like a picnic instead. We picnicked in the woods this Sunday. Before your arrival.

We?

George and I. Watercress sandwiches and grapes. George quoted the Koran. It’s their holy book. He has it memorized. Not in English, of course. In Arabic! I can’t understand a word! Maybe it’s hypnosis! I’ll become a veiled damsel in a harem! And I quoted Shakespearian sonnets. At last, Shakespeare is useful.

Scandalous.

Wicked! But George is the epitome of discretion. I weary of the gossip-mongers in London. It’s true! Even though I join in. It’s a social duty. No, an infection. This duke’s new mistress, that earl’s unlawful child. Then I bounce home in the coach. The joy is here. The trees, the air.

Picnics.

Yes. Picnics.

Be quiet now, Julia. I can’t get your mouth.

I returned the key baton to the gas station clerk and Toby and I skipped back to the car. Dad was fueling his ivory-colored Lincoln, leaning his hip against it. He was gabbing with a woman in a grass-green silk dress and matching sling-back heels; her dress was all wrinkled and her armpits had circles of sweat. She was pumping gas too, into an ancient, yellow Datsun. Las Vegas?, our father said to her. You mean Lost Wages. You play blackjack? Best odds to beat the house. And a smart lady like you, well, and he shrugged. Talking to women, smiling at women. He had this talent, this charm, but it wasn’t slippery, it was weirdly frail. I’ve seen it since in other men, this frail charm. Women often bought our father’s charm, and if not, that was okay, other fish in the sea, you know. Alex had this same kind of charm and I surely bought it. On that flight to Paris.

The trigger popped; Dad clicked it, rounded the price, click, click, to the next dime, click, click. The woman’s tank wasn’t yet full and she focused on what it would cost, watched the numbers spinning. Dad said, I’m Richard. I didn’t catch your name. The woman smiled a thanks-but-no-thanks smile at Dad and now turned a shoulder towards him. He shrugged again, fitted the nozzle back into the pump, then strode away, spurned but jolly. Toby and I cleared the back seat of soda cans and candy wrappers, put the trash in a metal barrel. Our father paid the clerk and came back out, tucking his wallet into the back pocket of his khaki pants; he tossed packets of beef jerky at us and we all got in the car. We tore into the packets of jerky; the jerky’s masculine smell squelched the nasty stink of the road map. Ready? Here we go.

I straddled the velour armrest in the back seat (Dad had upholstered his Lincoln in plum-colored velour); I made-believe the armrest was a horse and I was a sheriff in the Wild West. I held invisible reins and I bounced, giddy up! I had to rescue pioneers, had to shoot savage Indians with my pistol. Toby was gnawing a strip of jerky, making a mess as usual, drooling as usual (the pediatrician in Albuquerque said he had abnormal salivary glands. I should share this with Tobias’s cocktail guests). Dad revved the Lincoln’s motor and we pulled away from the shade of the station’s aluminum canopy and onto the asphalt road, a black, steamy ribbon. That’s when the fuel pump exploded. It sounded like a heavy door slamming. Toby and I turned all the way around and stared through the back window. The woman in the grass-green dress was on fire; the flames on her short sleeves and in her hair looked like tropical birds flapping red and orange wings. Dad kept driving; I’ve never figured out why he didn’t stop. I glanced at him and could see his eyes in the rear view mirror, strange eyes watching the fire. I turned back to the scene. A mechanic rushed out of the garage; he had a fishbowl in his arms and he emptied the bowl onto the burning woman. It was pure panic and absurd. Goldfish, plastic ferns, a ceramic castle, and bright blue pebbles poured out with the water. And we kept pulling away.

It was one of those moments that lurks in my brain, one of those moments that happens to other people but becomes a part of one’s own memory. I think of when I fell hard in Paris and of the blood and my howl: there were witnesses, a tweedy, English couple. This couple lifted me and half-carried me into their hotel; they had a first aid kit and they took care of my skinned and bloody knees. And now, over tea and scones and jam, maybe she says to him, Remember that girl in Paris, dear? How she tripped and skidded? Yes, tripped and skidded over my stupid heart. How she thanked us a million times? I thanked the couple a million times, but I had to get out of there. I limped down to the lobby and just as I stepped outside, an ambulance scooted around the corner. I had this crazy idea that it was meant for me, but of course it wasn’t. Its siren seemed melodic, almost apologetic, totally unlike the loud authoritative sirens of the fire truck and ambulance that day in Utah. Get out of the way! Not excusez-moi. The gas station clerk, a girl chewing apple-flavored gum and reading a romance novel, must have ducked behind her cash register and dialed emergency. And now I wonder what happened to the burned woman at that Texaco station in Utah. Bluish smoke swirled around her and her mouth was a terrible, pained hole. Her silk dress had vaporized and her panties and the cups and straps of her bra were charred carbon; her skin was bleeding, her bare skull was bleeding. Maybe she survived and now lives in a melted, ruined body. She doesn’t look like anybody now, but friends and siblings pretend to recognize her, and she hates them. Maybe she dreams of goldfish flying at her.

C.H. Owen had been invited to house himself in a cottage on Captain Coe’s country estate while he worked on Lady Coe’s portrait. The cottage was dusty and musty and smelled of animal. Lynx and red fox and a bear cub and a rare Saharan hare posed on squat pillars and all kinds of antlers, horns, tusks hung on the walls. A gentlemanly slaughter. C.H. shuddered, but he was glad to be out of London, away from his poisonous life there. Parties, whores, failure, and that delicate tip-toe towards poverty. Now this reprieve, now this chance.

Generic. Inexact. Sir Joshua Reynolds had stood before a landscape and a self-portrait of C.H. Owen’s. It was a hot and crowded exhibit; young artists cowered and the master strolled and judged. Sir Joshua smirked his killing smirk at C.H., then turned his back. At his back, C.H. mimicked the man’s pompous gait and added a belch. Few noticed in all the crush and noise, but C.H. heard a lady’s titter and a man’s horsy laugh. Captain and Lady Coe. The couple walked towards C.H. and the lady said, Indulge me, William. A portrait before I’m a wrinkled crone. I want this young man to paint me. C.H. thought of that night now as he petted the dead red fox. Sir Joshua was fox-like. A haughty fox. Include him in this collection of dead animals, complete with ear trumpet. Or make a coat out of him.

No farewells when he left London; C.H. had no real friends there. He boarded in a tiny room in a building packed with others of questionable professions; but a prize patch of sunlight slanted into the room and C.H. spent its hour sketching mouths, hands, a piece of cloth thrown over a jug. In this brief sunlight, he painted an oil of himself, brown and red hues, an adequate likeness, though he was unhappy with its eyes; after its exhibit, he folded it in eighths and used it to seal a warp in a jamb.

The chirp of songbirds, the moo of cows, how green and pure the countryside. A fresh start. Knuckle down, buckle up. He tossed his woolen knapsack into a cozy bedroom at the back of the cottage, yawned, rubbed the muscles in his neck, and planned a nap. But before he could stretch out, there was a knock at the door. C.H. had been told of Lady Coe’s African; here he was in the flesh, come to fetch the artist for tea. The man seemed politely menacing, or menacingly polite. C.H. had once glimpsed the king waving to his subjects from a balcony; the king seemed a dunce compared to this proud man. C.H. began a hello, but the hello died on his tongue as the African turned and indicated a path. The two of them took the path through a thicket of birch to the stone manor, then the African led C.H. into a garden. Mr. Owen! C.H. bowed slightly to Lady Coe who was lounging in a rustic throne, her bare feet propped on a teakwood footstool. What pink feet! Pampered feet. She lifted a wrist towards C.H.; he took her limp hand and kissed it gently.

A girl in a white cotton cap came out carrying a tray with a china teapot and teacups and ginger biscuits. Deaf mute, said Lady Coe, gesturing at the servant girl. A local peasant’s daughter. C.H. nodded at the girl and the girl slipped away. Be seated, Mr. Owen. C.H. sat on a low bench, its cushion red velvet, its legs the horns of a rhino. The African stepped back now and his shadow lay like a blade across Lady Coe’s body. A kick of breeze scattered a shrub’s white petals all over.

Thank you. Thanks a ton. Thanks kindly. I rid myself of that nice English couple and I fled their hotel and started along the street. I caught Parisian frowns (ah, une autre américaine maladroite), but I didn’t care. I didn’t know what was next and I was beginning to panic. I had lost my plane ticket (it had expired anyway) and I had about eighty dollars (not yet converted into euros and the exchange rate was lousy). This was all love’s fault. Or lust’s. I walked and walked, block after block. My knees hurt like hell, but no blood was leaking through, the scrapes had clotted. Paris? Lucky you! the ticket girl at the Phoenix airport had said to me. I reached a pretty park with lavish beds of flowers and a view of Notre Dame. I sat on a bench and I peeked under the bandages; what a mess! The iodine the Englishwoman dabbed on with a cotton ball was still stinging badly. I would have scars on my kneecaps. Would their narrative be drama or comedy? If someone ever asked. Oh, these? Funny story. I had to laugh a little bit, but I was crying too, baby-like and awful, and I couldn’t control it.

In my backpack, I had a wax paper pouch of cookies and I took these out. They were sort-of-round butter cookies with squirts of bright red icing. They were supposed to be Van Gogh’s severed earlobe. Gruesome but clever. I had bought these cookies the day before at a cart outside a museum. Alex and I had gone to an exhibit of Van Gogh’s works. The thing of almost two weeks that we had put together was coming apart; it had been a jagged, clawing whirl of thirteen and a half days, and it would leave a bruise on my heart (another narrative: oh this? Funny story). When it ended, I lost all balance (it was why I stumbled and skinned my knees, stumbled as I ran out of a café).

I had rocketed to Paris on a whim; I had quit my job as the Human Resources Assistant at a resort in Phoenix. I got tired of asking potential maids and janitors and banquet boys if they were legal. And Joshua, the boss, was a royal jerk who wouldn’t stop talking about his speedboat (he kept a snapshot of it on his desk: a glittery red boat on a tow trailer with his majesty at the wheel, bare chested and in electric blue swim trunks). I quit. And Joshua said, It’s too bad. Sure, Sir Joshua. In a week, it would be, Julie who? Backpack, passport, airport. All impulse. It is possible; nobody should believe it isn’t possible or right. Alex was on the plane I got on at the layover in Boston. We sat next to each other, we introduced ourselves, we chatted; halfway across the Atlantic I had my hand on his wrist.

I had to call Toby and have him send money. It was pathetic, but I had no other options. I lurched onwards! Brave me! Luck coincides with panic sometimes and soon I found a place that made wire transfers. There were other American girls there, stranded, giddy, hysterical students on a wall of phones, yes, I’m sorry, yes, I’ve learned a good lesson. I pleaded with Toby; he was at home in New York, having his morning granola and kelp blend (the boy whose nutrition used to consist of jawbreakers and Pepsi). I got a tiny lecture and then an hour later I had the cash I needed to spend one final night in Paris, to eat one final meal, to get to the airport, to buy a flight home. I have no regrets, not necessary ones at least.

Englishwomen. All prudes. What an English artist had to battle. How lucky the Italians—the female anatomy not shameful, not suspicious, but celebrated. C.H. yearned to travel to Italy, to that warm, liberating climate, but empty pockets prevented him. But there was this task, Lady Coe’s portrait. Was she vain? Naturally. But charitable too (that girl who served the tea and biscuits). Or was that charity selfish? Another lady nervous about her soul, needing a better tally to enter heaven, to prove her case at its gates. And what of Lady Coe’s African? Was she not afraid of him in Captain Coe’s absence? He would soon find out, no. His name is George. After our king.

C.H. slept deeply that first night. He dreamt, which was unusual, his brain was too soaked in London. He dreamt of the lioness rug in his room: he had tripped over its head earlier that evening after the African had returned him to the cottage. He dreamt of the lioness licking her chops and sharpening her claws on the bedpost like any alley cat. But he was not afraid and when he awoke, he was not tangled in the bedclothes. The songs of birds outside. The smell of hay.

Lady Coe was beautiful. C.H. wouldn’t need to subtract fat, moles, warts, wouldn’t need to adjust her bone structure. Flattery would not be a chore. Lady Coe had chosen an indoor setting, a salon with a couch and a folding screen and other objects C.H. could arrange. The African took him into the salon, then left him there alone. C.H. sketched preliminary ideas with charcoal pencils on plain paper, then shifted the ferns in their urns to one side, maneuvered the screen, angled it. He sketched again, focused on the couch, reinvented its feet as horses’ hooves, a hint at the horsy Captain Coe.

A rustling at his back now, Lady Coe entering in a yellow silk gown. She pivoted, giddy model. She was weighted with bright jewels. C.H. said, Stop. Lady Coe spun towards him and did not protest as he unlatched the plum-sized sapphire at her throat; she let him remove all the rest of it too and the African took the fortune into his huge, dark hands, cupped together into a bowl. Lady Coe had not flinched as C.H. touched her neck, her wrists, her earlobes, and now he boldly took the pins out of her hair, let her rust-colored hair loose over her shoulders. Ravaged, she said, then she sat on the edge of the middle cushion of the couch.

The morning sun lay in soft sheets through the windows. C.H. penciled the woman into the sketch, the scratch of his pencil the only sound in the salon. Dense silence until Lady Coe said, Can you put him in too? She pointed to her African lurking. Yes. C.H. indicated to the man to stand at the back corner of the couch, in front of a door; he was a fine and solemn figure in his turban and robe and vest. What of this man’s heart? What ferocity in his veins? C.H. added him to the sketch: the lines of his strong jaw and excellent mouth caught in the tip of the pencil. C.H. tried not to think of the man’s body underneath that robe.

Thank you.

Yes, Lady Coe.

My name is Julia. Why not call me Julia?

We drove back across the bottom of Utah in Dad’s ivory-and-plum Lincoln, then we turned southeast into New Mexico. Albuquerque was where we lived with our mother in a concrete house. We had a zucchini patch and a sunflower jungle in the back yard and a vicious terrier named Cutie. Toby and I shared a room and this was special torture. I had to endure his boyish odors and boy nightmares. If Toby had done something particularly gross during the day, I would coax out the monsters under his bed, I would whisper loudly, He’s almost asleep, now’s your chance, but he won’t be very tasty, better add a pinch of salt. Toby would punch me in the gut the next morning, even-steven, Julie. I would refer to him as a moron or a retard and the day would begin.

Our father wasn’t welcome in Albuquerque; he dropped us at the front door and then our mother scolded him about money and deceit and his latest mistake. He nodded, waved at us, sped away to El Paso (there was a woman in El Paso and it was her perfume that had stained the road map; I never met her, but I pictured her slender, witty, the opposite of our mother, plump, humorless). We hadn’t had breakfast. Mom spilled Captain Crunch into bowls and filled plastic cups with watery Tang. I thought about the explosion at the Texaco, about the mechanic, how he had slung the water out of a fishbowl, how he had knelt on the cement and one oily knee crushed a flopping goldfish. I thought I could hear the subtle squish of its little fishy body.

The school semester started and school was grim agony, of course. Toby was sullen and neurotic and a teacher’s pet. I only saw him during the pledge of allegiance and on the bus; at home I ignored him, or tried to. We had chores and homework and I read Nancy Drew and Judy Blume and the neighbor’s discarded Vogues (hot summer lipsticks!).

In the middle of the semester we had a school play. It was about beavers and lumberjacks in a forest; it was about harmony. The coordinator of this was the art-music-P.E. teacher. She wore crazy hats and smoked menthols behind the gym. She wanted the kids in the sweaty beaver suits to show more emotion! Lumberjacks were threatening their crappy plywood dam! The lumberjacks were kids in plaid shirts with fake mustaches and cardboard axes. I got the part of a shrub. Leading shrub or supporting shrub? Ordinary shrub, now be quiet.Toby had the chicken pox and he wasn’t anything.

C.H. mixed three faultless yellows. He had hiked with supplies to a picturesque slope and he sat on an oak stump and bladed pigments on his palette. Three yellows: mustard, butter, lemon. Hours flew into noon and hunger struck. C.H. had gained weight, had put meat and fat on his starved bones. All the rich foods, creams, roasts. He took an apple out of a pocket and crunched into it. The crunch coincided with a wild, happy scream in the distance. C.H. spied Lady Coe and her African man. Lewd frolic maybe. He glimpsed a pink parasol through the trees. Permission, conspiracy. And her husband in a foreign forest skinning a tiger.

Autumn swallowed summer and the portrait was almost finished. It would stay here, it would become another possession of Captain and Lady Coe’s to forget about. But it was a good job for C.H. It was money out of the Captain’s bank and into C.H.’s purse. And it had not been too terrible, these months of celibacy, sobriety; his mind was clear in the morning, not as if thick with burlap and thorns, and there had been no slimy film in his mouth. Tea and chats. Lady Coe letting a ladybug crawl along her thumb and onto C.H.’s elbow. That icy brook to dip his toes into, the tickle of little fish. The genius of hawks borrowing currents. The usefulness of quiet. But he would return to London soon, to thin soup and stale bread and gin, to loud nights, to a syphilitic whore named Polly. Where he belonged. But this had not been terrible, all this sky, all this sunlight.

Lady Coe asked about the yellows; she told C.H. to call her Julia. C.H. understood her melancholy, even if it was tucked under flippant, devious glee. He tried to paint this contradiction into her dark blue eyes. And in this work, too, George, namesake of their lunatic king. C.H. put a coolness in his eyes, and gave him the mouth of a man who had just devoured a delicious meal. George. C.H. They greeted each other informally now, but George had obviously wearied of the artist’s intrusion and whenever he entered or exited a room, he slammed the door. Or maybe this door slamming was aimed at Lady Coe, a message of sorts. My infidel, Lady Coe had said. And I’m his infidel.

C.H. walked back to his cottage. These final nights. He had noticed and not noticed the mute servant girl trailing him. The rattle of keys on her belt. He let her in. Not a pretty girl. Dead fox, dead cub as witnesses: the girl lifted her skirt. Inept, tender seduction. C.H. shook his head no. But he looked at her thighs: raw, burned, a kitchen accident maybe, a blast, or like she had straddled a fire. She lowered her skirt and left him. He relaxed in candlelight, rinsed brushes in a pan, mused.

Alone in the salon the next day, C.H. added a final touch to the portrait, a concealed note: within the mustard, butter, lemon folds of Lady Coe’s gown, he fitted, thinly, the word MOVE; and within the golden embroidery of the African man’s waistcoat, he hid the word STAY.

Look, Captain Coe. With keen hunter’s sight. And you, Julia. Love and watch out.

I love the museums in New York and I’m hitting all of them. It’s Friday morning and I’ve called in sick again (oh, that useful theatrical training, what convincing shrubbery I had been in the school play!). I’ve got a job over the river in Brooklyn. I’m in sales at a new condominium complex. I wear a suit and I carry a briefcase and I look very professional. Tobias says he’s proud of me and I smile sweetly at him, but it’s an awful thing to hear (runt!, rat!, but I love him). I’ve promised Tobias that I’ll move out of his apartment soon (he has a sexy and chic girlfriend and I am in the way). But I like living in Tobias’s apartment. Manhattan! Tobias protects me and feeds me and maybe he, too, knows that I won’t last long at my new job.

I enter the cool, dramatic hush of the museum and climb marble steps to a gallery of 18th century paintings. I’m clearer in this place and my pulse stops rushing. I stroll behind students and tourists and now I pause in front of a painting, Julia, Lady Coe. It’s a portrait of a woman sitting on a fancy couch, her hands cupped in her lap, her dark blue eyes shy, but with a hint of defiance. She wears a fabulous yellow gown and her hair is pretty, loose, russet-red. In the picture with Lady Coe is a black man in a whitish robe and turban and a green vest; he stands sentry-like and has an inscrutable expression, but he surely belongs there.

I’ve been looking at this painting several minutes when somebody puts a gun in my back. Or at least that’s what it feels like, like the barrel of a pistol pressed between my shoulder blades. It’s the tip of somebody’s index finger and now that somebody moves closer to me. I don’t turn around. I know who it is. This is no stranger, this is the guy who told me, over niçoise salad at a café, Sorry, but I love my wife, you’re great though. Alex drags his fingertip up the nubs of my spine to the nape of my neck and he says, Don’t move.