“And what I wouldn’t give for my Nikon right now …” she muttered under her breath. Today was the first hair day. Angelina had spent nearly two hours under the hands of Savannah’s most popular hairdresser, emerging at last under a cloud of painstakingly engineered curls and ringlets, these powdered to a fare-thee-well and further decorated by a dozen or so brilliants stabbed in at random. The whole construction was so vast that it gave the impression that Angelina was carrying about her own personal thunderstorm, complete with lightning flashes.

The notion made Brianna smile, and Angelina, who had been looking rather apprehensive, perked up in response.

“Do you like it?” she asked hopefully, poking gingerly at her head.

“I do,” Bree said. “Here, let me …” For Angelina, unable or unwilling to bend her bedizened head enough to look down, was about to collide with the little platform on which the sitter’s chair was perched.

Once settled, Angelina became her usual self, chatty and distractible—and always in movement, with waving hands, turning head, widening eyes, constant questions and speculations. But if she was difficult to capture on canvas, she was also charming to watch, and Bree was constantly torn between exasperation and fascination, trying to catch something of the blithe butterfly without having to drive a hatpin through her thorax to make her be still for five minutes.

She had had nearly two weeks of dealing with Angelina, though, and now set a vase of wax flowers on the table, with firm instructions that Angelina should fix her eyes upon this and count the petals. She then turned over a two-minute sandglass and urged her subject not to speak or move until the glass ran out.

This procedure—repeated at intervals—let her circle Angelina, sketchpad in hand, making rough sketches of the head and neck, with quick visual notes of a ringlet coming down the curve of the neck, a deep wave over one of Angelina’s shell-pink ears … the morning sun was coming through the window, glowing sweetly through the ear. She wanted to try to catch that pink …

There was time, perhaps, to work on the arms and hands …. She had as much as she needed of the hair for now, and Angelina was wearing a soft gray-silk wrapper that left her arms bare to the elbow.

“Ooh! Are you painting me now?” Angelina sat up straighter, wrinkling her nose at the smell of fresh turpentine.

“I will be, soon,” Bree assured her, setting out the palette and brushes. “If you want to stretch for a few minutes, though, this would be a good time.”

Angelina made her way down to the floor, one hand minding her swaying hair and the other fanned for balance, and vanished without urging. Brianna could hear her clattering out into the sunshine at the back of the house, calling to Jem and Mandy, who were playing ball in the yard with the little Henderson boy from next door.