Free This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith

neither bad nor good, and David made an appropriate comment, and asked her if she did much painting.
    â€œAll these,” she said with a wide gesture at the wall on the kitchen side of the room. “Well, not that one,” she added, indicating a rather competent portrait of a middle-aged man. “A friend of mine did that. That’s of my father.”
    Wes went about looking at every picture and finding something to say about each of them. David began to wonder how he could manage to leave before Wes, as he wanted to.
    â€œI’ll show you something really mad,” Effie said gaily. “I wouldn’t do it, if I hadn’t had two martinis.” From the top drawer of her slant-top desk she pulled out a large sheet of drawing paper. “Recognize it?” she asked, handing it to David.
    To David’s surprise and discomfort he saw that it was a portrait of himself.
    â€œIt’s Davy!” Wes cried, and laughed. “I didn’t know you’d sat for her, Dave.”
    â€œI didn’t.”
    â€œI’m enormously flattered that you recognize it. I did it from memory. Memory!” she repeated nervously and rolled her eyes. “Not that I had much. I mean—well, now I can see what I missed in the eyes.” She went back to her desk.
    â€œBut the hair and the whole shape of the face is great,” Wes said.
    And that was reasonably true, David thought. There was his thick, dark brown hair—the drawing was in brown charcoal—the straight eyebrows and the mouth. “I think it’s incredibly good, just to be from memory, Effie,” David said, smiling.
    She stopped in midmovement, there was a sudden silence in the room, framing his words in space. It was as if Effie had stopped to drink in his casual words of praise. Then she moved and stood before him with a crayon in her hand. “I don’t suppose you’d really sit for me for one minute and let me get the eyes right.”
    David nodded. “Of course I would.”
    Effie worked with a little pointed eraser, and scratched a point on her charcoal from time to time on a sandpaper pad.
    â€œThere!” she said finally. “I’ve even improved the eyebrows.” She set it up on a bookshelf for all of them to admire, though at everything they said she laughed deprecatingly. “Portrait of the genius as a young man,” Effie said, interrupting them.
    Shortly after that, Wes slipped out of the room, to the bathroom, David supposed, and he found himself with Effie, both of them as tongue-tied as adolescents. She told him he could have the charcoal drawing of himself, if he really wanted it, and he said of course he did.
    â€œI don’t know what you think of me. You probably think I’m silly,” Effie said, her eyelids fluttering, unable to look at him. “But I like you a lot. I wish you wouldn’t be so shy with me. I’m bad enough.”
    In an agony of embarrassment, David stood like a stick.
    â€œI mean, I really don’t see why we couldn’t see a movie now and then. Or you come here for dinner now and then. I’m not going to cook you and eat you.” She laughed painfully.
    David braced himself, thinking if he got it over with, everything would be easier. “To tell you the truth, Effie, I’m engaged and—even though the marriage is a little way off, I’d prefer not to see anybody else.” It was like revealing himself naked for an instant, then clutching his clothes about him again.
    But Effie did not look at all surprised. “Do you see her on weekends? Is that where you go?” she asked almost dreamily.
    â€œI see my mother,” he replied.
    â€œYour mother’s dead.”
    David’s mouth opened and closed. “And who told you that?”
    â€œYour boss. My boss Mr. Depew knows Mr. Lewissohn. He had some business with Mr. Lewissohn. So we were chatting about you, and I said to Mr. Lewissohn,