You seem to think I am some kind of satyr. I assure you I am not. I have no designs on you, only an admiration that borders on veneration. Can you please have a little pity for me? At least return my glance when we pass in the hallway, so I know I still exist for you. A smile, I suppose, is too much to ask for, though I admit I harbor a secret hope that you are only saving one for Christmas. Listen to me. I am an idiot. I have never written notes like this before, and I’m afraid I don’t know how it’s done. I have been working on my sketch of you, but I can’t seem to get the way of your eyes anymore. You are slipping away, and I don’t know what to do. Except hope.
Not that she had memorized it, or any of the others. Not that she could picture his quick handwriting, or hear the sound of Harry Pratt’s voice as he ate with the family in the massive paneled dining room a few yards away from her, a world away from her.
Not that she remembered each time they had passed in the hallway: the flash of the electric light on his wheat-colored hair, the brightening of his face—like Mr. Jungmann, only lit by a thousand more watts—and the glimpse of his smile before she looked down at the rug and hurried on, and on, and on, usually forgetting where she was going.
Hoping he would touch her arm and stop her.
Praying to God that he would not.
He never did, and sometimes she wondered if she had imagined the whole thing: the quiet star-filled night in the room at the top of the stairs, the pencil that moved in eager little jerks, the expression on Harry’s face, the things he had said. The way he had looked at her, as if she were a goddess instead of a housemaid. An angel, instead of a bitter young woman contemplating a sordid revenge on the family under whose roof she lived.
But it was better this way, wasn’t it? Better that she pretended it hadn’t happened. Better that the door to the room upstairs remained shut, because what beckoned beyond it—she had a vague impression of colors and vibrancy and imagination and laughter, something extraordinary and never ending—was nothing more than a fairy tale. Medieval allegory, that was what Harry called it, but what was medieval allegory except a fairy tale?
The kind of fairy tale her father used to read to her at night, before he died.
Olive crossed Fifth Avenue, dodging a pair of clattering half-empty omnibuses, and turned to walk northward with the park at her side. The basket was heavy now, but she didn’t care. She gazed over the wall and across the brown thicket of winter trees, the distant towers of Belvedere Castle. Above them, the sky was gray, contemplating snow. For a moment, she imagined walking through that empty demi-wilderness next to Harry, not saying anything, simply existing in a tender equilibrium in which there were no such things as housemaids and mansions and—
“Olive.”
A figure rose from the bench ahead, and Olive had just enough time to gasp before Harry Pratt appeared before her under a peaked wool cap, smiling and woeful at once, his jaw square against the folds of his India cashmere scarf, looking so much like he had in her imagination that she hovered, for an instant, in a kind of delicious netherworld of hope. A medieval allegory.
“Mr. Pratt! What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you. Freezing to death.”
“But that’s ridiculous.”
“Yes, it is, isn’t it? You haven’t left me any choice, however.” He slapped his gloved hands together. “Haven’t you read my notes?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m going to be late.”
He laid his hand on her elbow. “Please, Olive. Only a moment. We’ll go into the park, if you like.”
She glanced at the world to her left, and back at Harry’s pleading face.
“Say yes,” he whispered, lifting the basket from the crook of her elbow.
She heard herself break in two. “Just for a minute.”
What a smile he gave her, what a reward for giving in. He held her basket with one hand and took her arm with the other, and they slipped through the gap in the wall and into the artificial urban forest, all by themselves, and Olive thought, This is so foolish. What am I doing?
Harry said, “You’re going to model for me again.”
“What?”