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

Crouched in front of Sybil Blake, eagerly sketching her likeness, Mr. Starr was saying, in a quick, rapturous voice, “Yes, yes, like that! — yes! Your face uplifted to the sun like a blossoming flower! Just so!” And: “There are only two or three eternal questions, Blake, which, like the surf, repeat themselves endlessly: ‘Why are we here?’ — ‘Where have we come from, and where are we going?’ — ‘Is there purpose to the Universe, or merely chance?’ These questions the artist seems to express in the images he knows.” And: “Dear child, I wish you would tell me about yourself. Just a little!”

As if, in the night, some changes had come upon her, some new resolve, Sybil had fewer misgivings about modeling for Mr. Starr this afternoon. It was as if they knew each other well, somehow: Sybil was reasonably certain that Mr. Starr was not a sexual pervert, nor even a madman of a more conventional sort; she’d glimpsed his sketches of her, which were fussy, overworked, and smudged, but not bad as likenesses. The man’s murmurous chatter was comforting in a way, hypnotic as the surf, no longer quite so embarrassing — for he talked, most of the time, not with her but at her, and there was no need to reply. In a way, Mr. Starr reminded Sybil of her Aunt Lora, when she launched into one of her comical anecdotes about the Glencoe Medical Center. Aunt Lora was more entertaining than Mr. Starr, but Mr. Starr was more idealistic.

His optimism was simpleminded, maybe. But it was optimistic.

For this second modeling session, Mr. Starr had taken Sybil to a corner of the park where they were unlikely to be disturbed. He’d asked her to remove her headband, and to sit on a bench with her head dropping back, her eyes partly shut, her face uplifted to the sun — an uncomfortable pose at first, until, lulled by the crashing surf below, and Mr. Starr’s monologue, Sybil began to feel oddly peaceful, floating.

Yes, in the night some change had come upon her. She could not comprehend its dimensions, nor even its tone. She’d fallen asleep crying bitterly but had awakened feeling — what? Vulnerable, somehow. And wanting to be so. Uplifted. Like a blossoming flower.

That morning, Sybil had forgotten another time to tell her Aunt Lora about Mr. Starr, and the money she was making — such a generous amount, and for so little effort! She shrank from considering how her aunt might respond, for her aunt was mistrustful of strangers, and particularly of men... Sybil reasoned that, when she did tell Aunt Lora, that evening, or tomorrow morning, she would make her understand that there was something kindly and trusting and almost childlike about Mr. Starr. You could laugh at him, but laughter was somehow inappropriate.

As if, though middle-aged, he had been away somewhere, sequestered, protected, out of the adult world. Innocent and, himself, vulnerable.

Today too he’d eagerly offered to pay Sybil in advance for modeling, and, another time, Sybil had declined. She would not have wanted to tell Mr. Starr that, were she paid in advance, she might be tempted to cut the session even shorter than otherwise.

Mr. Starr was saying, hesitantly, “Blake? — can you tell me about—” and here he paused, as if drawing a random, inspired notion out of nowhere “—your mother?”

Sybil hadn’t been paying close attention to Mr. Starr. Now she opened her eyes and looked directly at him.

Mr. Starr was perhaps not so old as she’d originally thought, nor as old as he behaved. His face was a handsome face, but oddly roughened — the skin like sandpaper. Very sallow, sickly pale. A faint scar on his forehead above his left eye, the shape of a fish hook, or a question mark. Or was it a birthmark? — or, even less romantically, some sort of skin blemish? Maybe his roughened, pitted skin was the result of teenaged acne, nothing more.

His tentative smile bared chunky damp teeth.

Today Mr. Starr was bareheaded, and his thin, fine, uncannily silver hair was stirred by the wind. He wore plain, nondescript clothes, a shirt too large for him, a khaki-colored jacket or smock with rolled-up sleeves. At close range, Sybil could see his eyes through the tinted lenses of his glasses: they were small, deep-set, intelligent, glistening. The skin beneath was pouched and shadowed, as if bruised.

Sybil shivered, peering so directly into Mr. Starr’s eyes. As into another’s soul, when she was unprepared.

Sybil swallowed, and said, slowly, “My mother is... not living.”

A curious way of speaking! — for why not say, candidly, in normal usage, My mother is dead.

For a long painful moment Sybil’s words hovered in the air between them; as if Mr. Starr, discountenanced by his own blunder, seemed not to want to hear.

He said, quickly, apologetically, “Oh — I see. I’m sorry.”