As he began to sketch her, he breathed questions her way, indicating that she needed to take extra care as she answered.
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be eighteen in June.”
“And what’s next for you?”
“I wish people would stop asking me that.”
Alana shivered and then promptly forced herself to stop. She eased into the position he’d put her in, grateful to feel like she belonged somewhere after so much of feeling she belonged nowhere at all. For a little while, she made believe she knew more about Asher.Had her parents said he was from the east coast? The west? That he was nineteen or twenty?It all blurred together, a series of facts and fiction about a man who’d only begun his art career. In all likelihood, his career would sputter out by the time he hit age twenty-five, and he’d wait tables at a local restaurant somewhere and consider going back to college for marketing.
“And what about you?” Alana whispered midway through the session. “What’s next for you?”
Asher spoke with certainty. With a flick of the wrist, he adjusted something on the top part of the painting, probably where Alana’s face was.
“I’m headed to New York City next month to make it big as an artist.”
“Are you?” Alana had heard those same words from at least ten other people at her parents’ residency.
Asher’s eyes seemed to dig into her skull, tearing through the trauma of the past few weeks and demanding more of her than she’d ever demanded of herself.
“I am. Why don’t you come with me?”
Alana’s uproarious laughter at Asher’s proposition shook The Copperfield House. Only when Asher’s gaze continued to penetrate, ripping past her absurd noises, and forcing her to quiet, did Alana fully comprehend the weight of what he’d asked.
“You hate hearing it, I know. But you’re gorgeous, Alana. I’ve spent time in Paris, London, and New York City— cities with gorgeous women on every corner. You could compete with any of them.”
Alana wrinkled her nose, heavy with thought. So many images flashed through her mind: her father behind the beautiful baby grand piano, his eyes closed; her mother, slicing oranges for a traditional French dish; the sailboats, peppering the Nantucket Sound as the sun roared through the clouds.
Then: the accordion crunch of Jeremy’s truck as the bigger truck had blasted through it; the rage-filled faces of the other students, who blamed her for Jeremy’s loss of scholarship.
If she just ran away, wouldn’t everything get easier?
“I’ll need you to come down to my studio to sit longer for me,” Asher said excitedly, pulling a multi-colored towel over his paintbrush. “I’ll need at least three more sessions. Maybe more.”
Alana’s voice wavered. “Of course.”
With the manic rush of early summertime, it wasn’t so difficult to hide the simmering love affair between Alana and Asher. Alana had never fallen for anyone so swiftly, caught in the chaos of his brooding mind and eager to forget the tender memories of her past.
At the end-of-June Copperfield House art show, Asher revealed the painting that he’d created of Alana. Both Bernard and Greta eyed one another curiously.
“It’s extraordinary,” Bernard breathed, his eyebrows lowered as he struggled to make sense of it.
The painting itself had the weight of Asher’s previous darkness, along with something else, something personal and sacred— something that, in Alana’s eyes, preserved the love they’d built together in that art studio.
In fact, that night, several Nantucket residents offered Asher upward of ten thousand dollars for the painting. Asher refused each amount. “That painting leaves the island with me,” he said more than once, each time finding Alana in the crowd and giving her a secret smile.
Fortunately for Asher, an art journalist who was friends with the Copperfields stopped by during the exhibition and took a number of photographs of his display.
After a brief interview with Asher, he wrote an article called “The Doomed New Generation of East Coast Artists,” with a dramatic photograph of Asher, his arms crossed as he stood in front of the painting of Alana. The story broke in early July, only a week before Alana and Asher took off for New York City. By the time they reached the city, Asher had been contacted by numerous elite art collectors and multi-millionaires for a chance to either purchase his work or feature him in their galleries.
By the third day of Alana’s newfound life in New York City, one of Asher’s new contacts reached out to her instead.
“Alana, have you ever considered a career in modeling?”
And suddenly, Alana Copperfield’s new life had begun.