THERE IS A WOMAN LIVING IN MY MIRROR

University of Tampa

It was a late winter morning; white-gold sunlight dripped into the room from the tall windows against the eastern-facing wall. The walls of Violet’s studio were made of exposed brown brick that smelled of cigars to her, though she did not smoke. She had hung sheer curtains the color of fresh cream over the windows because she liked the way the light diffused into her house and enveloped everything around her in a haze, as if she were living in a cloud. Clouds made her feel safe. She found the curtains on the side of Bushwick Avenue piled in a shimmering heap on the curb, and as soon as she laid eyes on them she thought they were the most beautiful curtains she had ever seen, but she almost did not take them because she was worried that someone might see her and find her strange or look at her funny out of the corner of their eye. Violet stood in front of the pile for a few minutes in a long black puffer coat that zipped up from her knees to her chin before she unzipped her coat, closed her eyes, stuffed the curtains into her jacket, and walked away briskly. In the center of her living room was a large couch made of green cotton that felt good when she ran her hands over it. She liked to eat her dinners on the couch facing the windows instead of at the round dining table because of the empty chair. She hated having to stare at the empty chair across from her while she chewed her food. Each night, Violet set her plate down at the table with a folded napkin and a glass of pinot grigio and sat in her chair. Each night, she placed her palms face down on the tops of her thighs for a few moments, staring at the empty chair with menace—that goddamn chair, dusty and quiet and cold from the lack of warm bottoms, mocking her with its silent laughter. Giving up, she would grab her plate and her napkin and her wine and plop down on the couch to stare at her curtains. Off to the left of her spot on the couch, right in her periphery, was Violet’s vanity. It was a beautiful vanity, an old gilded thing that belonged in a Baroque painting. The top of the vanity where Violet did her makeup every day was worn with chipped gold paint that exposed the plain wood underneath. Each leg slithered under it in smooth curves, like paintbrush strokes in the air, and terminated at a dove claw spread wide. The mirror was the shape of an hourglass. In the mornings, Violet sat on the matching claw-footed stool to apply her blush and creams and loose powders. This morning, she leaned in towards the mirror and rested her elbows on the vanity’s surface to stabilize her graceless hands. The woman in the mirror mimicked her, tugging the mascara wand through her eyelashes just like Violet. Peering closer, Violet noticed a small black smudge.

“Damn it,” Violet said. She licked her right pinkie finger and scrubbed at her eyelid. “I was going to tell you if you didn’t notice,” the woman said back, scrubbing her eyelid just the same. The woman sat up straight and cocked her head to the side. “I think you got it.” Violet cocked her head in the other direction. “I think so, too.” She ruffled the hair on her crown and scooted the chair out from underneath her legs to grab her things and head to work. She found her purse and her keys and her wallet, her notebook and blue fountain pen and, thankfully, she remembered to grab the shade of lipstick she was wearing. She swished out the door in her long black coat and thick black heels. The woman stayed in the mirror.

On her way to work, Violet liked to stop at a coffee shop at the exact midpoint of her commute. She walked three blocks east and four blocks north then turned right to descend the small flight of stairs off of the sidewalk that led directly into the café. The swinging glass door had one of those cheesy bells at the top of it. It was one of Violet’s favorite sounds. The inside of the café was temperate and light, and the black and white tiled floor made her feel nostalgic for a time she did not live through. She had perfected the art of removing her coat as soon as she walked into the café and draping it over her left arm so that she did not get funny looks for wearing a puffer indoors. Violet absolutely did not want to be that woman who wears a giant black puffer indoors and does not know her order when she reaches the counter and asks the barista what variety of milk they recommend, the one who holds up the line to give exact change at the register for her coffee while everyone whispers to each other, “look at that woman,” so she always removed her jacket while kicking the swinging glass door with the toe of her boot, and she never carried cash. She ordered a cortado with cinnamon, her usual. After ordering, she wandered idly over to the bulletin board on the far wall, the one covered in lost dog posters printed in low-resolution and tutoring advertisements with a papery, tornoff fringe. Sometimes there was a flyer for a local art pop-up or some live music; if it looked worth going to, she noted the date and time and location in her head and then she went about her day with lazy thoughts of attending the event, how nice it would be to go, maybe meet some new friends. She liked to imagine that her friends would be very tall and wear stylish, cropped pants to accentuate their nice-looking ankles and tasteful shoes. They might like to walk barefoot on the beach at dawn or admire the silk dresses in the Renaissance oil-on-canvas paintings at the Frick, just like she does. There was actually an art show happening on Saturday that seemed worth going to. There might be some nice people there. It would be nice to meet some people. She scanned the board. In the bottom left-hand side of the bulletin board was a job posting:

Figure Drawing Models Needed (no experience necessary) Inquire in person @ Williamsburg School of Art

There was a small water stain over the word “models” that made the ink bleed into the white paper so that the title really seemed to read, “Figure Drawing Moolds Needed.” What if she walked up to the receptionist at the school and told them that she was here to apply for the moold position? The receptionist would look at her like she was crazy! Then Violet would explain the joke, of course, and the receptionist would think she was so funny, quite clever. But she would never go and apply. She was not moold material, and she most certainly was not figure-drawing-model material. When the barista yelled Violet! she walked up to the counter, grabbed her warm cup, and kicked the swinging glass door with the toe of her boot. The outside chill made her shiver. She set her cup on one of the narrow concrete steps in front of her, swung her puffer over her shoulders, and zipped it up to her chin. She then reapplied her lipstick, smoothed her coat, picked up her coffee, and continued walking to work.

Violet was chopping half of a sweet onion for her dinner when the woman asked, “Are you going to go? On Saturday?” Violet slid her finger down the length of the knife and watched a couple of stray onion bits tumble onto the cutting board.

“No, I don’t think so,” Violet said. “Why?” Violet shrugged. The woman frowned. “Why?” she asked again. Violet did not answer. “You might meet some nice people,” she said. Violet rinsed her hands in the sink and wiped them on her dish towel, the one that had small flowers embroidered on it. “I suppose.” “It would do you some good.” “I suppose.” The woman frowned again. Violet was annoyed. God, why was she so… intrusive? Violet lit the burner underneath her sauté pan and drizzled a bit of extra virgin olive oil from a dark brown bottle onto the skillet. She poured herself a glass of wine.

“What’s stopping you?” Violet froze. She noticed how sweaty her feet had gotten inside her wool socks and how the wine glass in her hand felt heavy, as if it were filled with thick, dense sludge of saltwater and swamp moss. The oil in the pan sizzled softly. “I don’t know,” said Violet. She ignored the woman for the rest of the

night.

It was a particularly balmy day for February, as if spring had stopped in briefly for a bite to eat. The sun dusted the buildings and the sidewalks in a sweet tangerine light that felt buttery on Violet’s skin. She walked out of her front door onto the street, felt the divinity in the air against her cheeks and the knuckles on her smooth hands, and immediately turned around, walked into her building, walked up the flight of stairs and through her apartment door, shimmied out of her puffer, turned around, walked back through her apartment door, back down the flight of stairs, and back out onto the street. She stood on the sidewalk with her arms hanging at her sides; the sun wrapped around her sleepily. She took the long way to the supermarket because the long way dipped and wove in and out of beautiful narrow streets lined with flowerbeds and iron streetlamps and stucco townhomes the color of granite and mahogany. Violet liked the way the heels of her boots sounded against the smooth concrete, and she made sure to scrape and drag her boots slowly, shuffling, enjoying the way the air smelled, the way the breeze felt in between each strand of her hair and each eyelash, the way the sunlight tasted on her upper lip as she licked away the small beads of sweat. The long way was nice. Comfortable. In fact, the walk was so nice that she decided to ditch the supermarket and stay outside in the shade of the oak trees. Normally, at the fork at the bottom of 5th Street, she would go to the left, heading towards East River to sit on a bench and stare across the water at Manhattan before she bought her groceries. That day, she followed the breeze to the right. Violet found herself in front of a large white building that reminded her of the photos of ancient Greece from her old history textbooks: the Parthenon and the Pantheon and the temples of Aphrodite. The letters that sat above the front door read Williamsburg School of Art. She noticed how nice the font was. The street was quiet, nearly abandoned; she felt bare, watched by a flock of starlings that gazed at her from their perch on one of the power lines. The cables hummed. Violet scuffed her heels against the pavement and walked through the front door. The hall was cavernous with high ceilings of marble and white brick and brass light fixtures that hung down on long cables; it smelled like cedarwood candles and floor wax. The receptionist’s desk was in the center of the room underneath the highest point of the ceiling, and its dark, lacquered surface was as shiny as a mirror. Violet did not like how large the room was because the desk was so far away from the front door that it took Violet quite a long time to reach it; each footfall echoed so obnoxiously into the grand stillness that it made the back of Violet’s neck erupt in blooms of crimson. “What can I help you with?” said the receptionist. His fingers tapped a keyboard and he peered up at her over the bridge of his metal frames. She did not think he would laugh at her joke. “Um,” she said as she placed her palms face down on the surface of the desk, “I am here for the, for the modeling ad. The figure model—figure drawing… ad.” Her ears burned. The receptionist picked up the black phone off of its plastic receiver and

dialed three numbers with his ring finger. He cradled the phone in the area where his neck became his collarbones and smiled up at her with a look of kindness and pity.

“Hey,” he said. A pause. “Mhm.” A pause. “Yes.” A pause. “In ten minutes?” A pause. “Would you like me to send her back?” A pause. “Okay. Mm. Bye.” He hung up and tipped his chin back to see her fully and clearly. “There is a class in ten minutes. The professor was wondering if you would be willing to model for it,” he said. “Think of it like an audition.” Violet’s breath caught in the space between her throat and her teeth, and her tongue became so dry all of a sudden that it stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her palms left a halo of condensation on the surface of the desk when she lifted them off to wipe them on her jeans. She watched her handprints shrink away, embracing their impermanence, and saw the woman gazing back at her in the polished wood. The woman tilted her head to the side and blinked slowly at Violet. They stared like this for a moment, then two. Violet scrunched her brows together above the bridge of her nose. What? she said to the woman. Nothing, the woman replied. I wanted to wish you good luck. She looked into Violet’s eyes with a deep love, that of a mother or an old, old friend. What’s stopping you? The woman looked beautiful. Violet had never thought of her as beautiful

before.

The receptionist cleared his throat. “Ma’am?” Violet let her eyelids flutter shut. “Yes,” she said. “Sure. Where do I need to go?”

She stood at the edge of the room in the dark while the students walked in quietly and settled into their chairs in front of their easels. They all carried large pads of newsprint and drawing paper and small pouches filled with charcoal and graphite and oil pastels and kneaded erasers, permanently black from mistakes. They did not notice her. The professor told her that she was to remove her garments completely, and that she was more than welcome to leave them on the chair at that empty desk over there if she pleased, and then she was to sit down on the stool in the center of the podium in the center of the room underneath the fluorescent lights for one hour while the students drew her lounging. He said it was

a beginner class, very low pressure. If she did a fine job and sat still enough, he would offer her a regular seat on the podium once a week. She stood at the edge of the room in the dark for six minutes before her hands began to unbutton her wool cardigan and unbuckle her belt and remove her socks and her thick black boots. She was supposed to be getting groceries. She slid out of her jeans and stepped her bare feet on the tiled floors. The fuzz on her legs stood upright; she was standing underneath an air vent in her underwear in public. Not again. She folded her arms across her chest. The professor walked up onto the podium and said a few words to the class. Her cotton briefs hit the floor silently and she walked to the edge of the light.

After the class, she walked back through the edge of the light as if she were living in a cloud. The students filed out, murmuring soft thank you’s to the professor as she stepped back into her jeans and pulled her cardigan across her shoulders. The professor said she did a fine job, a wonderful job. She had sat exceptionally still, the students got some fine drawing in, would she like to come back next week at the same time for a fee of $30? She said yes. She walked out of the classroom, back down the hallway, through the wooden doorway and all the way across the floor of the entryway. Passing the receptionist’s desk, she gave a a small wave while her boots clicked and shuffled and scuffed against the floor in loud, obtrusive echoes. She liked the way this sounded as she stepped back out into the gentle afternoon air.

• Violet went back the next week, and the week after, and the week after. She felt good. She did not think she would enjoy sitting naked in front of other people as much as she did. Once, when Violet was in elementary school, one of the mean boys with spiky hair and a front tooth missing and jeans that were too big for him pulled down her skirt at recess in front of everyone as a prank. She was not sure why he chose her to prank—she was not an exceptional person and really did not think anyone knew her name. She stood in the center of the playground with the sun beating down on her shoulders and her red gingham skirt around her ankles while everyone laughed. She was wearing a pair of pink underwear that said Saturday on it in curly embroidery, though it was only Tuesday. It was the most embarrassing moment of her life. Now it seemed so far away. She began to smile at people on the street, showing them her straight teeth and round lips that she had forgotten she liked so very much. She bought herself bouquets of rose and myrtle and placed them in a tall glass vase on the edge of her vanity so she could smell them in morning while she got ready each day. Her cream curtains ballooned in the breeze against her open window as she dug out the emerald green dress with the square neck and long sleeves—the one she absolutely loved to wear but always felt overdressed in. She held it out in the front of her, smoothed the fabric out, and put it on to run errands. Before she headed to

the train station on her way into the city, she walked three blocks east and four blocks north and turned to her right to descend the small flight of stairs off of the sidewalk that led directly into the café. A cold snap had come through the night before. Violet stopped before the door and thumbed at the zipper on her puffer. She decided to unzip it for comfort and practicality but leave it on inside for the chill. While the barista got started on the cortado, she meandered to the bulletin board and saw a bright yellow poster for a local band’s Friday night gig at a dive bar around the corner. Violet walked up to the counter and asked for a napkin and a pen. She scraped out the date and time and location of the show in black ballpoint ink against the fibers of the napkin. The barista called her name and she stuffed the napkin in her pocket, grabbed her drink, and pushed her way out the door and onto the sidewalk.

Later that night, Violet placed her baked potato and salmon filet on a nice clean plate and poured herself a glass of wine. She had put on soft, heavenly music that made her want to dance around barefoot on the pads of her big toes, so she did. She danced and swirled with her plate in her hand and her wine against her lips. She felt lighter, full of air and breeze and the sky itself. The music wrapped itself around her waist and hummed against her ribs and pulled her into the kitchen where she found a few old candles and a box of matches in her junk drawer. Violet took the candles to the vanity and arranged them thoughtfully around the hourglass mirror. She lit them with a single match and set her plate down on the paint-chipped surface and floated over to her light switch. Flick. She undressed in the dark and walked over to the vanity. As she sat down on the stool, she shivered—the seat was cold. The woman sat naked across from her, too. “Hi,” the woman said. “Hello,” said Violet. “Are you going to go on Friday?” The candles flickered from breeze coming in through the open windows. The flames cast shadows across the woman’s face that made her look like she was not real, but made of fragile porcelain. Violet thought she looked so incredibly beautiful. “I am,” Violet said. The woman smiled. Violet smiled back. The two dined together by candlelight while the curtains danced and shimmered in the young evening breeze.