A click. The voice on the other end had had a long day:

“Thompson residence.”

Matthew had a characteristic habit of being lost in thought, even when on the phone.

“Uh, Pastor Thompson, this is Matt Freed. How are you?”

“Matthew!” The voice began resounding like a radio announcer through the earpiece. “I’m doing well. How about you?”

“Well, I’m well, thank you,” Matt heard himself intone. He was sitting on the bed in his room, gazing around him.

“That’s good, good. What can I help you with?” A long pause.

“Oh, well, nothing really,” which made a total of three times that he’d said well in only two sentences. “Actually, well, I needed to talk to you about your daughter.”

Perhaps not quite Caesar’s final oration, but only the pastor minded; thus, the next pause had a different flavor – one more of puzzlement and alarm.

“My daughter?”

“Yes, well… actually - yes.” Why had his mother painted the walls that nasty yellow? He had always wanted to redo the entire bedroom; the whole thing was just intolerable.

“All right. Hm. Is there something specific?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You see, what I meant was I’d like to paint your daughter.”

“Paint my daughter.” It was the poor fellow’s first quasi-declarative statement. There was another absent-minded pause.

“Yes, actually. Well, that is, if you don’t mind. I’m an artist, you see, and I need a model.” He wasn’t looking forward to doing it himself, though; painting a room wasn’t half the fun of painting landscapes or people. For a long time, he had been interested in painting a portrait. Just for fun.

“Er… model?” Parental anxiety was probably overwhelmed puzzlement. “I assume you mean a portrait model.”

“Oh! Yes, well, just the traditional face portrait, you know. You know what I mean?”

“Ah, I see!” Pastor Thompson was now sounding very relieved indeed. “Yes, well, I see. I’ll… I’ll have to bring it up with Katy first, naturally, to see if she’d be interested. It’s fine by me though - can I call you back?”

“Sure. Thanks Pastor,” the space cadet was saying. “Talk with you later.”

“All right son, bye now.”

A click.

***

“Matthew!” The screen door banged open with a regal flourish, and there was Mr. Thompson, leaning out over the stoop and hailing him with a kingly benevolence. “Matt, my boy, come on in! We usually use this back door to keep out all the muddy feet.” Matt, clutching a leaning tower of Ball jars, stumbled over thirty-seven pairs of rubber boots and made a clumsy entrance. The kindly pastor held the door.

“So, how is my young artist today? All ready to paint?” He sounded almost jovial, as if he expected Santa Claus. A slightly loopy Vincent van Gogh might have been more apt.

“I believe so. Thanks for having me. Nice house.”

The man led Matt into a well-furnished guestroom off the hallway. A bed, buried in folded laundry and some craft projects, was off to one side; on the other side there was a window, a table, and a few chairs.

“Martha figured this would be a good place for you to paint,” the pastor was saying, “what with the natural light and all. I think Katy’s in her room – she should be out in a few minutes.”

Matt nodded hazily. The light in this room sure beat the heck out of the light in his.

“Go ahead and get set up wherever you’d like.”

Matt dumped his jars on the floor and was mounting the board opposite the window when there was a rustle in the hall. Katy walked in, dressed well and looking interested; he looked up.

“Hi Matt. How are you?”

“I’m doing fine,” the Left-Brain said. He was bent over, simultaneously twisting the wing nuts on the tripod and looking sideways at her hair, which was braided into lovely, delicate twists around her head. “How about you?”

“Oh, just fine.”

There was a silence, but Matt was too busy taking in the girl in front of him, trying to decipher the different colors in the rich, sandy blonde. She broke the silence with some unease.

“So… um, I guess you need me to paint a portrait.” Whenever she dipped her head like that, the sun just caught the color of those braids and made them glow.

“Yes, if you don’t mind.” The brown eyes were looking at his. They were lovely eyes, and in studying them they seemed to draw nearer to him.

“OK, so would you like me to sit? Or should I stand?” She was actually standing quite still, casually awaiting his response. Quite forgetting her actual presence, Matt was completely engrossed in her appearance; his attention was on the color, the color of Katy – the color of her hair, the color of her dress, the color of her eyes, the color of the sunlight she swam in. It was incredibly beautiful – maybe too beautiful. Suddenly worried at the task before him, he turned his attention to the relationships between the different elements, only to find that they were equally magnificent and demanding – the little ear was so far from the fine jaw, the brown eye so far from the proud nose. It was all so enrapturing that it made her waft closer still. He became more nervous, looking in the general vicinity of her eyes to answer.

“Oh, if you could just… there, a little lower….” He was making small, jerky motions with an outstretched brush, watching her and watching the light. “A little more to the left, yeah, right there would be great.”

“Ok; uh, sitting or standing I mean?” She was uncomfortably near him now.

“Well, um, just sitting, sitting is fine. Thanks.” She had slid a chair and sat down to gaze absently out the window, her arm resting on the sill. Even as he turned numbly to staple the canvas, Matt could feel her form move silently nearer to him – it was there in his mind’s eye, every bit of it. The subject was overpowering, too beautiful to paint confidently.

Doubly unsure, he sat forward and tried to swallow the pain out of his throat. It was too much, and it was coming closer still. The hair was magnificent, as was her dress. And the lovely color of it all – it was beginning to be intolerable. It was too much – too much to handle. His face must have changed, because she looked back at him in a mixture of puzzlement and confusion.

“Are you all right?” the pastor asked. He had come in without Matt even noticing, and had settled himself into the corner behind him.

“Fine, just fine, thanks.”

He gulped, but was unable to escape the mesmerizing transfixion of the scene before him. The harder he gripped the brush, the harder his pulse pounded, and the more magnified the lovely face became. He could not tear his gaze from one particular bit of hair that fell just behind her left eye, one that trapped more sunlight than the others. Driven almost to desperation, he mixed the first rich golden tone to match it, almost without looking down at the palette. The time was coming, and sweat beads appeared on his face. This is way too much! The rest of the scene became insignificant, and the sunlight seemed to shine from the hair instead of the window. He felt like he could hardly breathe; the face was suffocating him. The brush seemed a million miles from the paper while she appeared to be about an inch away. Slowly he brought up the paint from below and set his palm to the white canvas, still riveted by the whole sight that almost enveloped him. The brush was now a mere inch from the paper, ready to make the first dot of pigment. His breathing had almost ceased, his sense of hearing had vanished, and now nothing existed save the magnificent face in front of his. But no – out of the corner of his eye, he caught it. A glance. He had caught her eye, and for the first time he looked helplessly across, straight down into those lovely brown eyes. It was too much, too much, and he was overpowered; the vision went up in glory, and there was a tremendous crash.

Voices called him, “Matthew? Matthew?” He had passed out on the floor.