Holy Mount had the trees and the basking anoles, but it also had a dress code and course requirements and a dishwashing job after lunch and dinner in the dining hall six days a week. Almost every other student was local, or at least from California, and had a car. My second week there, I bought a secondhand bike. It was lime green with a shopping basket and a banana seat, and riding it reminded me of summers in Cleveland before Grandpa’s heart gave out.

Most of the girls in my dorm wore ironed blouses and demure earrings and talked about wanting to get a good husband and a good education, like that was something radical. When I complained about spraying spaghetti off plates Monday through Saturday, they joked I could always “go to Clyde,” which one of them finally explained was the art school a mile away that hired live models for its life-drawing classes but required posing “in the buff.” When I asked if any of them had done it, they looked at me like I was asking if they’d screwed the pope.

The life drawing classes at Clyde School of Art occupied a room that was all dark wood and vaulted ceiling and mullioned window, with fifteen easels arranged in a wide circle. I had to stand still for thirty minutes at a time, while thirteen men and two women drew me from every angle. I went back and forth between feeling like an animal being inspected and feeling like a bowl of fruit. I wasn’t crazy about either, not to mention that holding a pose got uncomfortable fast, but it definitely beat washing dishes. Plus, since my body was my instrument, wasn’t this the acting equivalent of a musician logging scales? As a model, I had to be in complete control of my arms, my legs, my face; I had to banish my insecurities; I had to empty myself out and become a living lesson in contour and form. Also, I was good at it. In a previous life, in a previous body, I’d done a version of this before.

LETTER TO DEBORAH BRODSKY, APRIL 1974: It was as if he was keeping up appearances for Jane’s sake, because as soon as she left for school, he went downhill fast. Mother stuck to their usual routines as if nothing untoward were happening, but she couldn’t keep the fear from her eyes. By Jane’s Easter visit, Father’s feet were too swollen for shoes and he could hardly eat, but his face relaxed whenever she spoke. “Do you still want to be an actress?” he asked. When she nodded, he grinned. “I know better than to get in the way of a Preston girl who knows what she wants,” he said, “but for your mother’s and grandmother’s sakes, I wish California wasn’t so far.” “What about you, Grandpa?” Jane teased. “Oh, I don’t count myself,” he said. “When you’re in the next room, it’s too far for me.” Their love for each other is astonishingly uncomplicated. I know how hard that simplicity is on Jane. I know it comes from only showing her grandfather the parts of her he can find easy to love, but I’m jealous anyway. It’s hard to describe how she changes. A drawing inward, a slight dimming of her light. She’s been doing it for so long I’m not sure she notices anymore, but I’ll never get used to watching part of her go away and feeling torn between sadness and awe that she does it so often or so well.