Eline Evans - Author
Excerpts
The Impossible Act of Georgia Cline
“I picked up the letter and took it to the window. Miss Georgia Cline, it said on the front, and below it our Richmond District address. I inserted my finger under the flap and ripped it open. A letter opener would have been neater, but I owned none. It wasn’t often I received mail.
There was only a single sheet inside. They hadn’t sent back my sketches. I unfolded it. It was dated just four days ago, on July seventh, 1938, but I supposed it didn’t have to come very far. Just from the other end of California. In the top left corner, in brilliant color, was a print of Snow White with a squirrel, a rabbit, and a chipmunk at the hem of her abundant yellow skirt. Next to her were the seven dwarfs—or their heads, anyway—while at the bottom was the evil witch bent over her poisoned apple. Surely, this was the most charming stationery in all the world.”
“She stood and came around the table and regarded my work over my shoulder.
I had drawn her not in the medieval-inspired costume of Snow White, but in an antebellum crinoline with an impossibly narrow waist and naked shoulders. Her hair, too, was something from the last century, all curls and ribbons. Her face was just a few lines, but I thought I had captured her beauty accurately.
She stared down at the paper, then blinked once, twice, and my throat dried. Just as I was about to apologize for whatever I had done wrong, her face softened. “Why is there an alligator?”
“He’s your sidekick. You’re from the South, aren’t you?”
She gave my arm a playful smack. “I’m from Charlotte, not some swamp in Florida.”
I erased the alligator and drew a skunk instead while she watched. “There,” I said. “A perfectly American princess.”
She was silent again, so I turned and looked up at her. “Do you like it?”
Her answer was to wrap her arms around my neck and kiss me.”
The Music Room
“I looked at the photo, which I had seen a hundred times before. As a child, there had been periods where I had looked at it daily, obsessed over it, tried to glean some memory from it. It was of Helene and I, two and four years old, holding a little suitcase each, holding hands. I was in a sailor suit—even then, I had been a contrarian. Helene had on a lacy dress, and our faces were graver than any child’s should be.
“You were so sweet,” Mom said with a quaver in her voice. “It was the best day of my life when you came to us.” The rest of us were quiet. It was always a strange thing between us all, that our tragedy had been their stroke of luck.
Mom leafed through the pages, pouring over pictures of us in the garden, lingering by a photo of us by the Swedish cabin. She loved to dwell on the past, on our childhood, when things had been simple and Helene a strange little girl, sure, but still hers to dote on.”
"Annemarie nestled her back into me, bending her legs so they followed the curve of mine. I put my arm around her waist and slipped the other under her head. She took my hand and placed it under her cheek. In the middle of winter in the middle of a forest in Sweden, dressed in rough wool and denim, after days of heartbreak, near sleepless nights, she still smelled like roses on a summer night.
She angled her head so she could look out the window. “It’s funny,” she said, “how the stars always draw your eyes. They’re impossible to look away from.”
I nodded against her hair even if I disagreed. I wasn’t looking at the stars. I was looking at her looking at the stars. Because this might be our last hours together. I might never see her again. Never kiss her again. Never hold her again.
“Annemarie,” I said, “if I don’t—”
She turned and put her finger across my lips. “Don’t say that. You will. We both will. And Helene too.”
Gold and Grace
“Mademoiselle Severin, Copenhagen must surely be exciting if Montmartre lulls you to sleep.” Aurelie’s voice pulled me from my daydream.
I opened my eyes to find her smiling at me. Again, my heart did that little trot. She was as lovely as yesterday in a violet dress and a fashionable lilac cloche.
“Nothing compares to Paris,” I said.
“Quite right.”
She took my arm and together we strolled north. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She strolled along as if she was in no hurry at all, like the most important woman in the world. Nearly every single person we passed glanced at us. Some craned their necks, even.
“What did you think of your debut as a model?” Aurelie asked.
“Ulla’s been very kind to me. I was only glad to help her friend. Have you known Gerda long?”
“A few years.” She winked at me. “We share a circle, so to speak.”
“I see,” I said with a smile that bloomed on my lips all on its own because I was pretty sure I did. Gerda’s paintings were all woman, which seemed to suggest exactly which circle. Back in Copenhagen, that particular circle had been mine too."
"She picked at a splotch of grass-green paint on her thumb. “Did you ever know your father?”
“I suspect he was already on the other side of some ocean when I was born. We lived close to the docks.”
“You’re lucky then.” She looked away and I studied her profile. She had one of those beautiful noses with a little bump on the bridge. There was something in her face, a pain I supposed, that kindled that same flame in me that Aurélie did. A desire to hold her close and make that pain leave her. How strange that on my second day in Paris I had met not one but two women who made my heart beat in a way it never had back home."
Anchor Heart
"A police car was parked down on Otto Mønsteds Gade and as she watched, two officers exited the building. Eva and her partner. He said something Charlotte couldn’t hear even with the window open. Eva laughed, then gave him a shove that made him do an exaggerated stumble off the curb. Charlotte caught herself smiling.
No. No distractions. Just the work. Still, she stayed at the window and watched Eva get in the driver’s seat, then watched the car drive around the corner. When they were gone, Charlotte sat down at her desk and opened the injury report. Krabbe had told her to get to it, so she would. She would prosecute the absolute shit out of this asshole."
"Eva kissed her cheek. “I’ll gladly spend the entire weekend between your legs, but for now, I want to just sit here with you.”
“And do what?”
“Talk. I want to know all the silly things about you.” When Eva bit her lip, Charlotte melted a little. “What’s your favorite cartoon character?”
Charlotte considered. “It’s Tinker Bell.”
“Really?”
“She’s a vindictive little bastard!”
Eva laughed. “I was hoping you’d say Roadrunner.”
“Why?”
“Jens likes to compare me to that dumb bird.”
Charlotte shrugged. “Roadrunner just runs. I’d turn around and eviscerate that fucking coyote with some of his own TNT. Be done with it and live in peace.”
“Roadrunner does that, though. Trouble is, the coyote just gets a sooty face.”
Bitterness tinged Charlotte’s own laugh. “And isn’t that just the perfect metaphor for life? Evil never dies.”