“I’ve never seen her.”
“Why do you want to find her, then?”
“Let’s stick with the long-lost heiress story,” Blackshear said. “I’m beginning to like it.”
“I always have.”
“You gave her the free consultation?”
“I did the usual thing, tried to put her at ease, called her by her first name and so on. Then asked her to stand up and walk around and watch herself in the mirror and tell me what she thought needed correction. Ordinarily the girls are embarrassed at this point, and sort of giggly. She wasn’t. She acted — well, odd.”
“In what way?”
“She just stood there looking into the mirror, without making a sound. She seemed fascinated by herself. I was the one who was embarrassed...”
“Walk around a bit, Evelyn.”
The girl didn’t move.
“Are you satisfied with your posture? Your skin? How about your make-up?”
She didn’t speak.
“It is our policy to let our prospective students analyze themselves. We cannot correct faults that the student doesn’t admit having. Now, then, would you say that you are perfectly happy about your figure? Take a good honest look, fore and aft.”
Evelyn blinked and turned away. “The mirror is distorted and the lights are bad.”
“They are not bad,” Miss Hudson said, stung. “They are — realistic. We must face facts before altering them.”
“If you say so, Miss Hudson.”
“I say so. I— How old are you, Evelyn?”
“Twenty-one.”
She must consider me a fool, Miss Hudson thought. “And you want to be a model?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“I want to pose for artists. Painters.”
“There’s not much demand for that kind of...”
“I have good breasts and I don’t get cold easily.”
“My dear young woman,” Miss Hudson said with heavy irony. “And what else can you do beside not get cold easily?”
“You’re making fun of me. You simply don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“I want to become immortal.”
Miss Hudson lapsed into a stunned silence.
“I couldn’t think of any other way to do it,” the girl said. “And then I saw your ad., and the idea came to me suddenly, suppose someone paints me, a really great artist, then I will be immortal. So you see, it makes sense, if you think about it.”
Miss Hudson didn’t care to think about it. She had no time to worry about immortality: tomorrow was bad enough. “Why should a young woman like you be concerned about death?”
“I have an enemy.”
“Who hasn’t?”
“No, I mean a real enemy,” Evelyn said politely. “I’ve seen her. In my crystal ball.”
Miss Hudson looked at the cheap rayon dress stained at the armpits. “Is that how you make your living, telling fortunes?”
“No.”
“What do you work at?”
“Just at the moment I’m unemployed. But I can get money if I need it. Enough to take your course.”
“You understand we have a waiting list,” Miss Hudson lied.
“No. No, I thought...”
“I shall be most happy to put your name on file.” And leave it there. I want no part of your immortality. Or your crystal ball. “How do you spell your last name?”
“M-E-R-R-I–C-K.”
“Evelyn Merrick. Age 21. Address and phone number?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I’m moving out of my present place tomorrow, and I haven’t decided just where I’ll go.”
No address, Miss Hudson wrote on her memo pad. Good. It will give me the perfect excuse for not calling her.
“I’ll phone you when I get settled,” Evelyn said. “Then you can tell me if you have an opening.”
“It might be quite some time.”
“I’ll keep trying, anyway.”
“Yes,” Miss Hudson said dryly, “I believe you will.”
“I’ll call you, say, a week from today?”
“Listen to me a minute, Evelyn. If I were you, I’d reconsider this modelling business, I’d...”
“You are not me. I will call you in a week...”
“The week was up yesterday,” Miss Hudson told Blackshear. “She didn’t call. I don’t know whether I’m glad or sorry.”
“I think,” Blackshear said, “that you ought to be glad.”
“I guess I am. She’s a real mimsy, that one. God knows my girls aren’t mental giants, not one of them has an I.Q. that would make a decent basketball score. But they’re not really screwy like her. You know what I wonder, Mr. Blackshear?”
“No.”
“I wonder what she saw in that mirror when she stood there half-hypnotized. What did she see?”
“Herself.”
“No.” Miss Hudson shook her head. “I saw herself. She saw somebody else. Gives you the creeps, doesn’t it?”
“Not particularly.”
“It does me. I felt sorry for her. I thought, suppose it was one of my kids — suppose something happens to me before they’re safe and grown-up, and they’re cast out into... Well, we won’t go into that. Very depressing. Besides, I’m healthy and I drive carefully. Also, I have a sister who’s perfectly capable of taking over the kids if anything happened to me...” In sudden fury, Miss Hudson reached out and slapped the fragile mauve-and-white desk with the palm of her hand. “Damn that girl! You go along for years, doing your best, not worrying about dying, and then something like this happens. Some screwball comes along with a bunch of crazy ideas and you can’t get them out of your head. It’s not fair. Damn her hide. I’m sorry I tried to help her.”
Blackshear raised his brows. “How exactly did you help her, Miss Hudson?”
“Maybe I didn’t. But I tried. I could tell she was broke, so I gave her the name of a man. I thought he might give her an odd job to tide her over until she came to her senses if any.”
“What kind of job?”
“Posing. He’s an artist, a good one too, which means he has to teach to make ends meet. He uses live models in his classes, not just pretty girls, but all kinds and shapes and sizes. I figured it wouldn’t do any harm to send Evelyn over there. He might take a fancy to her earlobes or her big toe or something. Moore’s a stickler for details.”
“Moore?”
“Harley Moore. His studio is on Palm Avenue, just off Sunset near Santa Monica Boulevard.”
“Has she actually done any posing, do you know?”
“She said she had. She said she’d done some work for Jack Terola. He’s a photographer, ten or twelve blocks south of here. I don’t know much about him except that he pays pretty well. He does photo illustrations for one of those confession magazines — you know, where the wife is standing horrified watching her husband kiss his secretary, or the young Sunday school teacher is being assaulted in the choir loft — that sort of thing. My youngest kid reads them all the time. It drives me crazy trying to stop her. Stuff like that gives kids the wrong idea about the world — they get to thinking all secretaries get bussed by the boss and all Sunday school teachers are assaulted in choir lofts. Which isn’t true.”