Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

So, when Mr. Starr repeated his offer, Sybil said, yes, she was interested after all; she did need money, she was saving for college. “For college? — really? So young?” Mr. Starr said, with an air of surprise. Sybil shrugged, as if the remark didn’t require any reply. “I suppose, here in California, young people grow up quickly,” Mr. Starr said. He’d gone to get his sketch-pad, to show Sybil his work, and Sybil turned the pages with polite interest, as Mr. Starr chattered. He was, he said, an “amateur artist” — the very epitome of the “amateur” — with no delusions regarding his talent, but a strong belief that the world is redeemed by art — “And the world, you know, being profane, and steeped in wickedness, requires constant, ceaseless redemption.” He believed that the artist “bears witness” to this fact; and that art can be a “conduit of emotion” where the heart is empty. Sybil, leafing through the sketches, paid little attention to Mr. Starr’s tumble of words; she was struck by the feathery, uncertain, somehow worshipful detail in the drawings, which, to her eye, were not so bad as she’d expected, though by no means of professional quality. As she looked at them, Mr. Starr came to look over her shoulder, embarrassed, and excited, his shadow falling over the pages. The ocean, the waves, the wide rippled beach as seen from the bluff — palm trees, hibiscus, flowers — a World War II memorial in the park — mothers with young children — solitary figures huddled on park benches — bicyclists — joggers — several pages of joggers: Mr. Starr’s work was ordinary, even commonplace, but certainly earnest. Sybil saw herself amid the joggers, or a figure she guessed must be herself, a young girl with shoulder-length dark hair held off her face by a headband, in running pants and a sweatshirt, caught in mid-stride, legs and swinging arms caught in motion — it was herself, but so clumsily executed, the profile so smudged, no one would have known. Still, Sybil felt her face grow warmer, and she sensed Mr. Starr’s anticipation like a withheld breath.

Sybil did not think it quite right for her, aged seventeen, to pass judgment on the talent of a middle-aged man, so she merely murmured something vague and polite and positive; and Mr. Starr, taking the sketch pad from her, said, “Oh, I know

— I’m not very good, yet. But I propose to try.” He smiled at her, and took out a freshly laundered white handkerchief, and dabbed at his forehead, and said, “Do you have any questions about posing for me, or shall we begin? — we’ll have at least three hours of daylight, today.”

“Three hours!” Sybil exclaimed. “That long?”

“If you get uncomfortable,” Mr. Starr said quickly, “—we’ll simply stop, wherever we are.” Seeing that Sybil was frowning, he added, eagerly, “We’ll take breaks every now and then, I promise. And, and—” seeing that Sybil was still indecisive, “—I’ll pay you for a full hour’s fee, for any part of an hour.” Still Sybil stood, wondering if, after all, she should be agreeing to this, without her Aunt Lora, or anyone, knowing: wasn’t there something just faintly odd about Mr. Starr, and about his willingness to pay her so much for doing so little? And wasn’t there something troubling (however flattering) about his particular interest in her? Assuming Sybil was correct, and he’d been watching her... aware of her... for at least a month. “I’ll be happy to pay you in advance, Blake.”

The name Blake sounded very odd in this stranger’s mouth. Sybil had never before been called by her last name only.

Sybil laughed nervously, and said, “You don’t have to pay me in advance — thanks!”

So Sybil Blake, against her better judgment, became a model, for Mr. Starr.

And, despite her self-consciousness, and her intermittent sense that there was something ludicrous in the enterprise, as about Mr. Starr’s intense, fussy, self-important manner as he sketched her (he was a perfectionist, or wanted to give that impression: crumpling a half-dozen sheets of paper, breaking out new charcoal sticks, before he began a sketch that pleased him), the initial session was easy, effortless. “What I want to capture,” Mr. Starr said, “—is, beyond your beautiful profile, Blake, — and you are a beautiful child! — the brooding quality of the ocean. That look to it, d’you see? — of it having consciousness of a kind, actually thinking. Yes, brooding!”

Sybil, squinting down at the white-capped waves, the rhythmic crashing surf, the occasional surfers riding their boards with their remarkable amphibian dexterity, thought that the ocean was anything but brooding.

“Why are you smiling, Blake?” Mr. Starr asked, pausing. “Is something funny? — am I funny?”

Quickly Sybil said, “Oh, no, Mr. Starr, of course not.”

“But I am, I’m sure,” he said happily. “And if you find me so, please do laugh!”