Page 30 - WTPO Vol. VII #5

The Freckled Woman (continued from preceding page)
reality on her own terms.”
The critic then stopped and looked out into the audience.
“Is there a woman named Victoria here?” the critic asked. “Could you come forward?”
Victoria joined him at the front beside the sculpture and removed her sunglasses.
Many members of the audience gasped.
“Hi, Victoria,” the critic said. “It’s remarkable, looking at you and then at the sculpture. You’re identical, and yet you’re so different.” He asked the audience: “Isn’t she?”
The audience indicated that they agreed. “What do you do, Victoria?”
“I work part-time for Amnesty International and am trying to put myself through law school.”
“What do you think of this sculpture? Does it irritate you, on some level?”
“Yes on some level, because it’s in my image and that’s not how I want to be seen. The artist has taken my per- sona, manipulated it, and offered a brilliant statement.”
“Did you pose for the sculptor?” the critic asked.
“Not directly, but yes, I suppose I did,” Victoria confessed.
As she was talking, Victoria was looking for Andrew in the audience but could not find him.
~
Later that evening, not too long before the gallery closed, Andrew stood again directly in front of the sculpture.
“You didn’t come to the discussion,” Victoria said, walking up to him.
“I don’t care what he says,” Andrew replied. “I have established my own...connection with the ‘Freckled Woman.’ None of his words could make a difference, one way or the other. I trust my own feelings.”
“What do you feel?” Victoria asked.
“That she’s entombed in there, chained, and we see the effects of that imprisonment in the way her body poses and her general demeanor. That poor creature is screaming out at us: Don’t let them take me! Let me speak! Free me from this empty shell.”
For a few moments, they both stared at the sculpture, and Victoria reflected on what he said. His view did
not seem that different from what the critic had said. “What do you think?” Andrew asked.
Victoria had difficulty separating the sculpture from herself. The words of both the critic and Andrew were nudging her away from that identification, but the nakedness of her being was very strong.
“The more I see her,” Victoria continued, “the more I see myself, or at least what I think I was. I hope she won’t be my future and what I hope to do in my future.”
Victoria began to walk away, thinking that Andrew was a lost cause. She could not compete with the sculpture or with how he felt about it. But then an idea occurred to her.
“Look at this,” she said, showing her back, which showed the exact mole in the same location as the “Freckled Woman.” She also pointed out how her small toe on the right foot curled.
Andrew fell back upon the bench that faced the sculpture.
“You are...?”
“Well, no, she’s a work of art.”
He could not respond.
Victoria gently placed her hand on his bare arm, said good-bye, and walked away.
~
As they were preparing the “Freckled Woman” for shipment, Andrew was there for a final glimpse. The workmen left the sculpture on its back while they went to load other parts of the exhibit on to the truck. Though many times Andrew had wanted to touch the sculpture, he had resisted. Now, knowing it would be gone forever, he reached over and touched the sculp- ture’s arm. It was hard and cold. As he did, he recalled how Victoria warm hand had touched his arm. An odd change in him happened. Now when he looked at the “Freckled Woman,” he saw Victoria. His vision from the sculpture had vanished.
Renforth has published over twenty short stories, in Burningwood Literary, Ponder Review, Mused - the BellaOnline Literary Review, Months to Years Magazine, Straylight Literary Journal, Edify Fiction Magazine, Ekphrastic Review, Fiction Magazine, Swept Magazine, c c & d Review, The Ocotillo Review, Indian Review, Microfiction Mon- day Magazine, and the Storyteller Anthology, among others. A native of Rochester, NY, he resides in Toronto, Canada, and received a PhD from the University of Toronto.