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On her way home, she stopped to talk with AhnRee who was seated in a director's chair on his lawn. He was sketching an apple tree. "Nice day, huh, AhnRee?" "Mmm, yes, Willow." "Pretty." She pointed at the drawing. "I thought you only painted women." AhnRee looked up from his labor. "One must take a break occasionally. It is good for the eye."
"A short drive up the mountain. An easy ride on a bicycle. In fact, I have several bicycles if you don't mind the old fashioned kind with baskets on the handlebars." "And what do I have to do?" Amber kicked her again. AhnRee considered. "You may mow the lawn around the studio. And, if you wish, attend a little to the flowers." Willow had given in, and it had been fine. AhnRee had left them alone.
"You will find it most private," AhnRee said. "It is some distance from the main house. In return, a bit of modeling, say, once a week? Say you will," he pleaded. "Only if it is all right with Willow," Amber said, kicking Willow in the ankle. "Ah, Willow," AhnRee said, wrenching his eyes from Amber who was becoming ever more elusive, more of a muse. "Where is this place?" Willow asked.
"It is an honor, such a name. A curse . . . But never mind." He smiled gallantly. Gigi, Willow said to herself. No one should copy Maurice Chevalier. They get the eyes and the teeth, but they don't have the engine. No fire engine inside the doors. "No fire engine," she said to Amber. "Huh?" AhnRee had said something to Amber and Amber was asking why they shouldn't try living in his studio.
"I am," she said emphatically. "I love the flowers. It is a wonderful place." "Pour l'amour." AhnRee smiled. God, this blushing had to stop. "Right. L'amour," she said. "Patrick," she added. "Ah, Patrick . . . Is he the one with the red hair?" "Yes." "Marvelous," AhnRee said, looking back at the apple tree. "AhnRee?" He looked back at her.
"Night, Baby," he said and fell asleep. Willow brought home strawberries and made a shortcake. "Real whipped cream," Amber said. "Of course." Willow reached into the refrigerator. "Trumpet flourish, please." "Ta da, teedle-oop tee tooo," Amber obliged. "Champagne?" "A modest vintage, as AhnRee would say. I celebrate. We celebrate." "You got laid that's obvious." Willow poured two glasses.
He selected another colored pencil and rubbed a few darker patches into the ground beneath the tree. "Tone, Willow." "Yes, tone." Normally, she would have continued on her way at this point. Hell, normally, she would have waved and not stopped in the first place. AhnRee put down his pencil carefully. "And are you content here, Willow?" A bit surprising, sometimes, AhnRee.
"I wish," she said. "You got any Coltrane?" The guy was full of surprises. "We do." She rose slowly and flipped through the albums that Amber had borrowed from AhnRee. "Night music," she said, putting it on the stereo. Amber was smiling broadly and wiggling her toes. "Ice cream," she said. Willow remembered that she had to work in the morning. "Bedtime for me," she said.
They ate at a large table in the kitchen, the room through which one entered the house. AhnRee explained to Amber that skylights faced north so that the light for painting would be more even, the changes more gradual. Painters had been settling in Woodstock for generations.
Even AhnRee with his tan and those big white towels he wraps around his belly at the pool. He's old God, do you think he's fifty? but he has those big round dark eyes." AhnRee had picked up Amber the second day they were in town. "When I see someone so special, I know! I must paint you. My name is AhnRee," he had said with great dignity. "AhnRee?" Willow asked. "As in Matisse," he said.
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