A Portrait of Two Women

Prologue: A Portrait of Tara

"Oh Gina, it's beautiful!" Mark exclaimed in awe.

"No, it's, it's... I mean..." he's stumbling for words now, which is kind of flattering, "it is beautiful, but it's more than that, it's just so brilliant. The raw emotion in her face is mesmerizing. How did you ever capture that?"

So, Mark was one of my two best friends growing up. I say "was" because after we both graduated from art school, Mark took a job out east as a graphic designer while I stayed here, pursuing my dream of being a starving artist, destined to have my paintings discovered and praised long after I was dead. Well, really I had just hoped to be able to make a modest living selling the odd canvas and prints at local art fairs while my boyfriend (and fiancée) was finishing law school.

Actually, the last time I saw Mark in person was at Dan's and my wedding three years ago. Until today, we'd only communicated sporadically via social media. So I was pleasantly surprised last week when he called and told me he had taken a job back here and was coming in this week to look for an apartment. He arrived at my house about an hour ago and I'm giving him a tour of my art studio.

Funny thing, my life as an itinerant painter came to a sudden halt when a local collector bought one of my paintings. I had made prints of several of my oil portraits of various women I had painted (mostly of friends and a couple of relatives who modeled for free) and they were selling reasonably well. In my little booth at an art fair out in one of the city's ritzier suburbs, I had a few of the originals hanging on the tent walls with outlandish prices on them because, you never know who might be dumb enough, I mean, sophisticated enough to appreciate them.

This man pulled out one of my prints and asked if the original was for sale. It wasn't one of the canvases I had on display because it is quite a large work. It was also one of my favorites because it was of my other best friend and a person very special to me. So when this guy asks the price, I blurt out the first ridiculous amount that enters my head, "ten thousand" and he smiles and tells me, "if the original looks as good in person, then you have yourself a sale". A few months later he sold it in his downtown gallery for fifteen thousand.

Since then, my friend has become my principal model and the reason I have a backlog of commissions. Yet she refuses to take any money from me. She says our friendship is too valuable.

As Mark stands here looking at my latest painting of Tara, our childhood friend, I am pleasantly amused when he asks, "Who is she?".

Chapter 1: Meeting Maeve

"Just a woman I occasionally hire," I lied.

"I don't suppose I could meet her sometime," Mark said hopelessly with a little laugh.

"I get that question all the time, but she is a very private person, and I've promised to never violate her trust," which is not a lie. I promised Tara that I would never reveal her identity to anyone.

When Mark first arrived, I was shocked at how much he had changed in three years. As kids, the three of us were outcasts, teased and bullied. Mark was short, pudgy, and always drawing cartoon characters. Perhaps his decision to retaliate by drawing unflattering caricatures of our classmates and post them around the school was not properly thought through, but I did admire his creativity. I was a bit reclusive, constantly drawing, and not terribly eager to socialize. Now that I think about, I can see why I was an outcast. I wasn't the friendly type back then. Tara? Well Tara was not exactly Tara back then.