Mother mentioned on her visit that she had gone to see Jim Barnhill. He’d been one of the artists in the UNC-G art department back when I was a model. I remember him as a very handsome undergraduate, fair-haired, well built, and gifted, a realist frustrated about being a realist. He told me once he would have liked to create abstracts. As a portrait artist, he was talented to the point of mystery. You could not look at his graceful, perfect works he molded from clay or painted without wondering what he saw in light, shadow, shape, that everyone else was missing. My parents had years ago purchased from him a bust he done of me, looking rather severe and long-necked, my hair done up in two sternly pinned braids, my eyes blank, my lips pursed. Mother had always wanted to also buy a bronze he’d done of me.

She tracked him down recently in Greensboro and visited his studio. Jim, Mom told me, is quite successful now, with works commissioned for various cities. He’s married and has a twelve-year-old son. Jim showed them the head, offered it for a price they were unwilling to pay. He also told them he’d done “about five” of me, but wouldn’t say where they were.

Having the bronze head would have been a bit of overkill, given that Mom still has that other bust prominently displayed. Visitors to the house might assume I was dead.