Free Killer's Cousin by Nancy Werlin

asked finally.
    â€œExcept for school assignments, yes. I’m obsessed with faces.” My own face burned at that comment. Raina nodded toward the portrait at which I’d been staring. “That’s my best friend’s mother. Her name’s Georgia.”
    I couldn’t stop myself. I said, “She’s very sick, isn’t she?”
    â€œYes,” said Raina. She sounded surprised.
    â€œIt’s a good picture,” I said. I looked away from it, and the others. I met Raina’s eyes for an instant, until hers flicked away. I knew with deep certainty, then, that she did recognize me.
I’m obsessed with faces
. And I knew why she had invited me in.
    â€œI promised you tea,” said Raina. “And college advice. Come on.”
    I should leave now
, I thought. I could feel the portrait watching me. I wondered how that woman felt about being painted with her fate naked in her eyes.
    I wondered why people—Raina, that photographerwho shot the picture of my parents—wanted to capture such things. I wondered why people wanted to look at them. Did it make them feel safer somehow? Removed? Did it make them feel they could see the other side of the abyss that separated people like them from people like me? Did they
want
to see it?
    Or did they not understand what they were seeing at all?
    I followed Raina into the kitchen. There was some furniture there: a scuffed folding table and two mismatched chairs.
    â€œThat chair’s not so steady,” said Raina. She was running sink water into a couple of mugs, which she placed in the microwave. “Try the other one.” The oven roared into tinny operation. “Do you take milk in your tea?”
    I didn’t know. I never drank tea. “Black’s fine,” I said.
    She went rummaging in the refrigerator anyway, and emerged bearing a quart of milk and a plastic lemon. She tossed the lemon at me underhand. She sniffed the milk and then poured it down the sink. “Go on, sit down,” she said.
    I sat.
    The microwave beeped. Raina grabbed the mugs and plunked them down on the table. A second later she had teabags floating in them. She sat down on the rickety chair and looked at me while stirring her tea idly with a fingertip. Apparently her household goods did not extend to spoons. “So, right. College,” she said. “I guess my advice is to remember that it’s not as important as they make it seem. If you listen to other people,you’d think it’s all over if you make the wrong move. Well, it’s not—”
    â€œPlease stop it,” I said quietly. It just came out. I wasn’t angry at her for the stupid college talk. I just wanted her—wanted someone—to be honest.
    Silence. Finally I looked up. Raina was watching me calmly, curiously. I thought I should go. I wanted to go. And I didn’t. I looked at my tea. I sipped it. It tasted horrible. “You know who I am,” I said. “You invited me in because you want to paint me. Right? Just say it. It’s okay. I just—I can’t stand the small talk.”
    Raina still didn’t say anything. She picked up her mug. She sipped it and watched me, and oddly, it wasn’t so uncomfortable, not once I had spoken my mind.
    Then she said, “David Bernard Yaffe.”
    My family never used my middle name, but the newspapers did. “Yeah,” I said.
    She said, quietly, “Since you bring it up, do you want me to paint you?”
    â€œNo!”
    She looked at me with those eyes that saw death in her best friend’s mother and painted it so anyone could see. “That’s that, then,” she said calmly. “Let me know if you change your mind. More tea?”
    She smiled, and reluctantly I noticed again how beautiful she was. Not like Emily. No one was Emily, or ever again would be. But still beautiful.
    It was in my mind and I couldn’t help myself. My mouth opened. I blurted