“A boy wouldn’t like that.”
“He will when he’s homesick.” Jean opened her folio and began turning over her art school studies, mostly conventionalized designs from her beginnings in textile design. After her talk with Beth they only dissatisfied her. Suddenly she glanced up at the figure across the table, Kit with rumpled short curls, her bangs in disarray, and an utterly relaxed posture, elbows on the table, her feet sprawled in front of her. Jean’s pencil began to move over the back of her drawing pad. She was pleased to see how easy it was to catch Kit’s expression. It wasn’t so hard, the ruffled hair, the half-averted face. Kit’s face was such an odd mixture of whimsicality and determination. The rough sketch grew and all at once Kit glanced up and caught on to what was going on.
“Oh, it’s me, isn’t it, Jean? I wish you’d conventionalized me and embellished me. I’d like to look glamorous and sophisticated. That’s lovely, specially with the nose screwed up that way and my forehead wrinkled. I like that, it’s so subtle. Anyone getting one good look at the helpless frenzy in that downcast gaze—”
“Oh, Kit, be good,” laughed Jean. She held the sketch away from her critically. “Looks just like you.”
“OK, hang it up as ‘Exhibit A.’ I don’t mind. There’s a look of genius to it at that.”
“Naturally, I had to include that too,” replied Jean teasingly. Just then Mrs. Craig came into the room.
“Mom, look what my sister has done to me,” Kit cried tragically. Jean said nothing, only the color rose slowly in her cheeks as her mother stood looking at it.
“It’s the first since I left school,” she said, half-ashamed of the effort and all it implied.
“Finish it up, dear, and let me have it.”
“Oh, would you really like it, Mom?”