While Daphne unpacked, April banged around the room, slamming drawers and the closet door and stomping over the rough hardwood in her big black boots. Daphne had no idea what had gotten her so irritated—maybe the fact that April’s cat liked her?—but Daphne simply kept her head down and organized her own clothes and possessions as best she could.
“We should head to the studio,” April said as she zipped her last suitcase closed—she had two—and slid it under her bed. “See what we’re dealing with there.”
“You haven’t seen it?” Daphne asked. She slipped her favorite sundress on a hanger—kelly green with thin straps; she’d worn it on her last real date with Elena. She remembered because Elena loved to slowly undo the buttons in the front, one by one, until—
Daphne hung the dress in the closet, a sudden knot in her throat. She surveyed her other clothes, and every single garment seemed attached to some memory with Elena. If she had the money, she’d burn everything, buy a whole new wardrobe.
“No, I haven’t,” April said curtly.
Daphne turned to look at her. “I just wondered since you were local.”
“I’ve been busy.”
Daphne said nothing to that. Said nothing as April grabbed her silver laptop and an iPad from the little desk by the window and tucked them both into her dark blue canvas bag, the fabric covered with white and yellow stars and moons. Daphne said nothing as she slipped her sketchbook into her own bag—her iPad had died a year ago, and she’d been using Elena’s ever since, because of course she had—and followed April out the door. Said nothing as they walked the gravel path to the main lodge. And she said nothing when April opened the side door, then nearly let it close on Daphne before she’d walked into the building. Luckily, she seemed to have expended all her tears with Bob, so she didn’t cry, which at this point, she’d take as a win.
Clearly, she needed tougher skin if she was going to work with April all summer, and she’d already established herself asthat girl who cries.To be fair, if she’d been in April’s shoes and a woman she’d just met started sobbing into her cat’s fur, Daphne would be a bit put off as well. Still, she’d at leastaskthe poor soul what was wrong, or if there was anything she could do to help, but maybe April wasn’t a very warm person.
Fine.
Neither was half the art world in Boston. Daphne could deal with this. Shehadto deal with this.
She straightened her posture as they walked down a hallway that hugged the edge of the lodge, huge windows letting in the June sunlight all along their right side. The floors were a lovely honey-colored wood, the walls adorned with paintings and sketches of the lake, all done in different styles and colors.
“Here it is,” April said, consulting the map Daphne had alsoreceived from Mia when she arrived, then stopping in front of a wooden door.
“What gave it away?” Daphne said, smiling as she pointed to the intentionally rustic wooden sign next to the door that readArt Studio.
April just stared at her, and Daphne cleared her throat, cheeks burning red. Clearly, April Evans was not a jokester.
Noted.
Inside, the studio was lovely. A dream, really.
“This is gorgeous,” Daphne said, taking in the space.
April said nothing. She simply walked to the front of the room, where there was a projector screen affixed to the wall with an instructor’s easel set on either side, and took her iPad out of her bag.
Daphne made a slower journey. Two walls were nothing but windows, and the natural light streaming into the room shed beautiful hues onto the fifteen or so stools and student easels, already set up with blank 8x10 canvases. Near the front in one corner, there was a sink and a table covered in different paints and brushes, as well as cabinets above that Daphne assumed were filled with supplies. There was also a tan leather love seat in another corner, two green velvet throw pillows perched primly on the cushions.
Daphne’s fingers tingled. She hadn’t painted anything in a month—she had no way to do so anymore, as she’d used Elena’s spare room as her light-filled studio, paints and canvases and brushes just a click away on the internet via Elena’s AmEx. Granted, it wasn’t as though anything she’d produced over the last three years was all that inspiring anyway. Elena was never very moved, always tilting her head at a new piece, mouth only just pursed. Her brows didn’t lower or lift, her expression rarely changing much past a simple observation that she was looking at a canvas with some paint on it.
Boredom.
That’s what her expression communicated. Of course, shenever said as much, always encouraging Daphne to dig deeper, but she didn’tnotsay it either. Elena’s reactions built up in Daphne, that apathy toward her own work, like cholesterol in the arteries, a slow hardening. Elena was an honest-to-god curator of art—it was difficult to feel passionate about her own pieces when they seemed to inspire nothing more than a metaphorical yawn.
But right now, walking into this beautiful space—a space Elena had never been in, never touched—Daphne felt something long dead inside her flutter, as though shocked by a defibrillator. She walked to the table full of acrylic paints, drifting her fingers over the array of colors. Vibrant images danced in her mind. Nothing concrete, just dreamlike flashes, but even that felt monumental after the last month, which replayed in dull black-and-white in her memory.
“Are you here to work or daydream?”
April’s curt voice slugged through her thoughts. Daphne glanced up, but April wasn’t looking at her at all. Instead, she tapped on her laptop, which she’d already connected to project on the screen.
Daphne wasn’t prone to anger or temper, and growing up the way she had, she was an expert at stuffing her emotions down so deep one would need a bulldozer to unloose them. Right now, however, her chest warmed with irritation. Whatever April’s problem was with her, she was positive she didn’t deserve it.
She lifted her chin, then walked over to the desk and sat down before taking out her sketchbook and pen, slapping them onto her lap in a show of annoyance.
April didn’t even react, stoically tapping around on her iPad. “So we have three classes—illustration, watercolors, and acrylics.”
Daphne nodded, scribbling into her sketchbook. “What’s your medium?”
