Lake

 

 

My eyes snap open.

Sunshine streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows. My eyes latch onto the painting on the wall next to my bed. There’s something about it that gives me the courage to believe I can do anything—which is odd, because it’s an abstract. I wish the artist had signed it so I can locate more of their work. I still don’t know who sent it to me. It showed up a few months ago without a note or return address.

I stretch and think through my day. My Mathematical Methods of Physical Chemistry class isn’t until eleven, so I have time to pick up a bagel and enjoy it in Central Park. Since moving to the City, it’s become my favorite thing to do.

On the way to the shower, I stop to pet Watson and Crick, my octopuses, and watch their colors shift with my touch. At first, I’d been worried my cat Pasteur would hurt them, but he avoids them like the plague. I think he senses that the octopuses are undiscovered aliens, and he doesn’t want to risk one of his nine lives being abducted. I smile at the ludicrous thought, but a tiny part of me can’t help but wonder. One day, thanks to science, we’ll know the truth about how life started on Earth.

I luxuriate in the water raining down on me. I don’t take my loft for granted; I’m blessed to own it. Still, I’d barter my inheritance if there was any way to save Grandma Bee. I often wish I could ask her how she managed to squirrel away so much money, and why she chose to never spend any of it to follow her dreams. She always talked about seeing Rome. Why didn’t she ever go? Grandma Bee is in the late stage of Alzheimer’s, and her mind is too addled to provide me with the answers.

Dad might know, but we haven’t spoken in a while. He’s been on tour with his band and isn’t the best at staying in touch. The lawyer who manages Grandma Bee’s finances didn’t have any answers, either. It may always remain a mystery.

I stop on my stoop and look up. The nimbus clouds are my favorites. I’ve made it a ritual to always find a new shape, which is childish, but it makes me happy. I wait until the winds shift and spot a cloud that looks like a submarine. Satisfied, I head out. A few blocks from the bagel shop, a crowd has gathered. When I get closer, I notice everyone taking photos. I tap the shoulder of a black girl with intricately braided hair. “What’s going on?”

“It’s a new Orfyn.”

“A new what?”

“An Orfyn.” She starts talking rapidly. “He’s a super famous artist. He’s just a teenager, but he owns this gallery uptown that only sells art created by young people and—get this—he donates all the money to the City’s orphanages.”

“Isn’t graffiti illegal?” I ask.

“I hear the building owners pay him.”

That’s a first. I’m walking away when she calls out, “Don’t you want to see it? It’s gorgeous.”

That’s a bit generous for spray paint scribbles, but now she has me intrigued. I squeeze through the crowd to get a look. She wasn’t exaggerating.

The painting is of a girl seated on a park bench, and she’s surrounded by enormous red rose bushes. Weighty dewdrops cling to the petals, and the blooms look so real I’m tempted to touch the wall to assure myself it’s only paint. There’s a hopefulness to the girl. Almost as if she’s not seen someone in a while and believes this is the day they’ll meet again. I chuckle at my melodramatic thought. How would I know what the artist meant to convey?

“She looks like you,” the girl says.

I’d been so lost in what the painting made me feel, I didn’t look closely at the girl in the painting. We could be twins!

By now, people are starting to stare at me.

“Is that you?” a businessman with gray hair at his temples asks.

“No.”

But the girl has my blue eyes that I’ve always believed were too close together, my nose with the little bump on the bridge, my pale skin, and her long hair is the same color as mine. My breath catches when I notice her bare feet. Her toenails are painted with my favorite shade of purple. I pull out a stick of gum and begin chewing.

“Come on, admit it,” encourages a plump woman with blue hair and a ring in her nose.

“It’s not me.” They look at me in disbelief, but I’m telling them the truth. I never posed for this picture. I must have a doppelganger.

Without asking, the plump woman takes a photo of me in front of my eerie likeness. “I’m posting this one.”

I consider asking her not to, then stop myself. It’s one photo. What’s the harm?

I know the girl just told me, but who is the artist? Considering I’m supposedly brilliant, I have a terrible short-term memory. I lean in to read the name painted in green, the shade of a new leaf. Orfyn.

I need to meet him and learn who that girl is.