Lake Effect

By Nicole Tone

After the death of her fiance, Sophie Daniels is struggling to keep herself together. Painting is the only way she’s able to clear her head and stay grounded. For her art isn’t a hobby—it’s her religion. With a semester away from finishing graduate school, she knows that, despite her loss, things are going to get better. In fact, her thesis advisor has even taken a special interest in her. Sophie’s convinced that she’s found the mentor that she’s been looking for. When he shows he’s interested in her in more than just a student/teacher way, she obliges him. Until his wife leaves him.

Sophie learns the hard way what happens when a man cannot take responsibility for his own actions.

Now she’s back to square one in pulling herself back together. She hasn’t just lost her fiancé anymore: she’s lost parts of herself she’s not sure she’ll ever get back.

Like her ability to create.

Lake Effect is a raw exploration of human emotion and what it takes to save your own life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Magnolia Press
• Release date: Jun 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463542507

Nicole Tone

Hailing from Buffalo, NY, Nicole has had multiple short stories published over the years through various university literary journals such as Clamor and The Penman. Recently, she has had personal essays published through HelloGiggles and xoJane. She has her BA in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University and is pursuing her MFA in Writing through Savannah College of Art and Design.When she’s not writing, reading, or improving her craft she’s traveling around the country or spending time with her two large dogs, three needy cats, and one supportive husband. Nicole is a self-proclaimed coffee snob and has a soft spot for a good red wine.

Book preview

1

Everything turns to dust in the end.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we all fall down. Isn’t that how the nursery rhyme goes? Ring around the daisies, pockets full of violets, fennel to pansies, we all fall down. Artists try and cheat death, making their lovers immortal in pictures and paintings, in stories and poetry. None of them ever told the whole story: just what he saw. What he wanted you to see. White dress, crown of flowers — floating, dead. Forever remembered as who she was when she fell down. And there was where the story always ended, especially if he couldn’t save her in the end. If she was too much work to save.

But what happens when she picks herself back up?

Sophie wanted to tell the other side of the story. Wanted to see the dead come back to life like it was all some Shakespearian plot to trick everyone else into thinking you were crazy, or dead. Or both. Instead, she was the one stuck in the story being written by someone else — the one being cut into tiny stars, being painted onto canvas, being printed out from a digital file. Becoming immortal, remembered in a way she never saw herself.

---

She brushed her hand over the smudged charcoal marks on the canvas. Could you paint someone into immortality, even after they died? If she filled her blank canvas with those bright blue eyes that haunted her, if she hung them on her wall, maybe she wouldn’t feel so alone. So empty. So tempted to keep returning the text messages of the man who had given her the power to get him fired from his tenured university position.

Maybe that was better than being a muse.

Maybe she was worse off than she thought.

Sitting back down on her living room floor, knees to chest, arms crossed, she stared at the canvas. Finishing graduate school was something she had to do at this point. It was the final semester. She just had to turn in her thesis and she was done, free from academia and the politics and bullshit. To get through her thesis project, she needed guidance. She couldn’t just paint pieces of a man rotting in the ground, no matter how vivid he was in her dreams. That was clichéd. Something a male artist could get away with. Not her.

Her phone went off again. Professor. Laziness, lack of imagination — that’s what he’d tell her about how she stored him in her phone. What he’d tell her about the faint whisper of the drawing she’d started tonight. Sophie didn’t want to need his help. Didn’t want to even want to be near him because every time she saw herself in his eyes, her reflection fractured: student, muse, mistress.

Drumming her toes on the cold wooden floor, she looked at her phone out of the corner of her eye. A chill was filling the small apartment. Perhaps it was the cold leaking in through the old windows she forgot to put plastic over, Buffalo’s winter seeping in. Or a reminder of the emptiness of her bed, and how easy it would be to fill that void. All Sophie had to do was text him back. She picked up her phone and pressed her thumb against the circle to unlock it. His latest message made her roll her eyes.

Let me come over. An order, not a question.

Would rather meet you on campus. No way in hell could she actually have him here.

See you in the studio.

Sophie set her phone back down on the floor. If he’d been a classmate, or even an undergrad in the classes she was a TA in, she might’ve given him credit for trying. If, whenever she saw him, he was ripe with testosterone and too much hope from watching too much internet porn. But Franz — the Professor — wasn’t any of those things. Even if he was a peer or a student of hers, there’d be no appeal. Not tonight. Her only goal, only hope, was to finish this degree. To get through these next few months so maybe, just maybe, she’d finally be able to process her grief.

Standing up, knees popping, she walked into the bathroom and turned the sink faucet on. Running her hands under the tap, the cold water somehow felt even colder. She cupped her hands and splashed the water against her face. Her phone started ringing, the sound as distant as a memory, and she flinched. The last unexpected call had broken her heart.

Heart pounding a ragged rhythm in her throat, Sophie reached for her phone, water still dripping from her face.

Soph? Where are you? I thought we were meeting up . . . ? Jenna trailed off.

Shit. I’m so sorry. I completed forgot we were supposed to hang out. I need to meet up with Professor U to talk about my thesis project. It’s the only free night I have this week. I am the worst friend.

Right. Sophie could hear the smile in Jenna’s voice. Because he totally just wanted to meet you to get work on your thesis done. At night. All alone on campus.

Yeah, I know how it looks. Sounds. Whatever. I’ve just been so blocked and I —

No, I get it. It’s okay. Go to your professor booty call, Jenna joked. I’ll just be doomed to be rejected from every grad school program I apply to because my best friend is too busy getting busy.

Sophie laughed. Getting busy? Is that even a thing?

It is now, Jenna said. Just be careful, okay? I don’t need to watch the news in the morning and find out your body was found in Hoyt Lake or something equally Netflix murder-show worthy.

I am overwhelmed by your love and concern, Sophie deadpanned.

As you should be. Text me when you get home, okay? Let me know how it goes. And spare no dirty detail!

Sophie rolled her eyes. There won’t be any dirty details to tell. Seriously.

Can’t blame me for wanting you to embrace a gross cliché because I’ll never get the chance.

I can and will. Sophie laughed. I promise I’ll text you later.

Okay. Good. Talk soon!

Yeah, talk soon.

The call ended with three beeps and Sophie put her phone back down. What she had said to Jenna wasn’t a lie, not really. She wasn’t planning on sleeping with him, no matter what the text messages she sent him on her loneliest nights implied. This was business, not pleasure.

Which was why when she finished toweling off her face, she did her face up simply: black liquid liner, mascara, and the lightest hint of pink lip gloss. She pulled her hair back in a messy bun and changed out of her university-logo sweatpants and into a black sweater-dress and thick tights. Grabbing a scarf, she triple-wrapped it around her neck as she reached for her bag that had her sketchbook and pencils. There was no point bringing the canvas. She already knew what he’d say.

Making her way down the flight of stairs, she passed the dark and silent dance studio her apartment was right above. The studio, and her building, were one of the few left untouched by the neighborhood’s recent and radical face lift. Her neighbors, too, were a nod to the way things used to be: an older couple whose cooking always made her stomach growl, a medical student who spent most of his time at hospitals she guessed, and a few friends who lived together and liked to stumble home from the various nearby bars.

Elmwood Village was the jewel that sat on the edge of Delaware Park, with the Albright Knox Art Gallery acting as the gatehouse. The side streets, much like the one her apartment was on, offered a darker, quieter option than the main thoroughfare provided. In the shadows of the too-large oak trees was where Sophie heard whispers of violence and danger — the things no one wanted potential residents looking at spending thousands of dollars a month in rent for a one-bedroom apartment to know about. When the cops came, their sirens were silent. If you watched the morning news you never found out what happened.

Getting into her silver Jetta, she made her way towards campus. As she drove, she passed those bars the village was known for: old staples and new microbreweries peddling their own, homemade labels. A bigger part of her than she wanted to acknowledge would rather be heading to those bars tonight, going shot for shot with some All-American stranger until she forgot her name, his face, and the weight of her impending failure out of graduate school in her final semester.

Instead, she kept drove on, made the left onto campus, and a right into a near-empty parking lot.

She jogged to the art building and pulled open the door, heart pounding in her throat. Each step up the dark staircase that led to the hall of studios added a new churn of nausea in her stomach. The stairwell was silent and black except for the red glow of the emergency exit signs at each floor: beacons of hope reminding her she still had a way out.

Her hand shook as she pulled open the solid oak door, stopping finally on the right level. The air was too heavy; even the heart of the building wasn’t safe from Buffalo’s oppressive winters. No one ever thought of humidity when they thought about winter. Tonight, the threat of snow filled the thick layer of purple clouds, their nearness to the orange glow of street lamps throwing strange colors across the window-lined hallway she walked down.

Pushing open the door to the studio, she was surprised to see such a transformation from when she had been in class earlier. A chaise, normally used for models, had been placed in the center of the room. The tables students usually sat at were pushed all the way to the far side of the room. Small candles had been placed around the room, forming flickering shadows against the thick shades that covered the windows. On the teacher’s desk in the corner closest to her, a bottle of red wine sat opened, cork resting between two wine glasses.

Well, Ms. Daniels. Franz smiled, standing up from behind the desk. You made it.

As I said I would.

Can I take your coat?

He took a step towards her and she was able to get a better look at him. Franz, especially in the harsh shadows of the candlelight, was not handsome. His features were too large, nose round and jaw edge sharp — traits she knew to be Eastern European. His dark hair was in short waves around the base of his neck and the top button of his shirt was undone, showing a glimpse of white t-shirt underneath. His sleeves were rolled up, his fingertips already dark with charcoal.

I’ll hang it up. Thanks.

If she had mistaken what he wanted tonight to be, any confusion cleared as she heard the unmistakable sound of wine being poured into a glass while she draped her coat over a chair at the room. Turning back towards him, he held out the glass to her, not looking up as he poured one for himself.

Here. Try. A favorite of mine. What I always have open when I am working. You’ll like it. His accent was thicker as it mixed with the smell of the wine. The rumor was he was from Prague, but that he’s spent a lot of time in France with his wife, a semi-famous poet.

Sophie only a knew a few things about him for certain: how he moved paint across canvas, the way he manipulated charcoal to look like fabric on paper, and that he wanted her. Like the postmodern paintings she admired so much, she liked him better without knowing the story behind him.

Thank you. She took a small sip of wine, more out of politeness than thirst. Your plan to help finish my painting thesis involves the model’s couch, I see. Am I drawing you again?

They’d met a few times previously — during normal, daylight hours appropriate for teachers and students — he had asked her to focus on parts of him: his eyes, hands, profile. She’d been working on an idea of taking the pieces of him, or of someone, and arranging them so they were chaotic on the canvas, like seeing the world in a broken mirror. Franz had turned the idea down, saying it wasn’t good enough. She wasn’t good enough yet.

I was thinking something different tonight. Come. Sit.

He motioned towards the ancient chaise. It was mauve, and smelled of stale old books with the faintest hints of sweat from the models paid by the hour to drape themselves on it for the art students. Sophie never saw the person as anything sexual, but as a challenge: light and darkness, curves and sharp angles where arms cross or elbows bent. There was nothing sexy about a model on the couch in art class. But now that it was just the two of them, there was no clinical or analytical barrier between them. It was tortured poetry, this tension between them.

You’re drawing me? Sophie asked as she sat, taking another sip of wine. The swallow was bigger this time, but the taste still bitter.

For now. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this series. When we were talking earlier, I was very inspired.

She raised an eyebrow. I’m glad our conversations are . . . productive.

Ah, yes. He chuckled as he grabbed a smaller sketch pad and pencil. Pulling a stool up next to the chaise, he reached out to touch her face, positioning her head a certain way. Sophie held her breath as he manipulated her, her skin burning in the wake of his touch. After weeks of texting about touching her, this was the first time he had actually done it.

Good. Look towards those windows. Put your arm back over the edge here, perhaps a leg too.

She did as she was asked.

I had this idea for macro paintings in order to maintain my model’s anonymity but it also —

Leads to ambiguity of gender, about circumstance, Sophie said, cutting him off. The original idea he had turned down, but now spun as if it was his idea. Maybe she hadn’t explained her idea as clearly as she thought. Hadn’t her proposal included wanting to explore what identity was, especially in terms of body parts that were always under attack? She’d wanted to do a series after the initial painting due for her thesis; a collection of natural versus man-made, trans versus cis, man versus woman, as a way of showing how damaging the mirror — an actual mirror, or society — can be.

He found the idea too controversial.

Art, she had argued, was supposed to be controversial. Otherwise what was the point?

Yes, he said, pulling her back to the present, but we will look forward as to make even the body part itself ambiguous. It can be a way to use your original idea, since you are getting so close to the deadline. It’s just going to have to do.

He was looking at her, but wasn’t seeing her anymore, his forehead wrinkled with deep lines as he judged his own work, her body: lines, space, shadows and light. His stare was an intrusive one, as if he was sketching her naked instead of clothed.

Silence passed between them for what felt like an hour or so. Sophie could never judge how fast or slow time actually moved when she was in this room. When he finally spoke, she flinched.

Your outfit, it looks nice, but it’s hindering me right now. He slipped his pencil into the rings of his sketchbook and crossed his arms in front of him. Take it off.

Relaxing from the position he had put her in, she took a long sip of wine. He had never asked her — in person — to take her clothes off. She’d imagined it being different than this: less clinical, less like he was renting her body by the hour, less like she was just another piece of a still-life.

I want to see what you’ve done so far. I’d like to get started on my own work. That is, after all, why I came here.

She got up from the chaise, set her glass of wine on the desk, and walked over to him as he held the sketchbook out to her — a child annoyed at having to have his homework checked. He had focused on her eye and the bridge of her nose, her lips, and the space where her chin met her neck. As she flipped through the pages, she saw some of the drawings were a loose definition of abstract. What she wanted to do was better than this. With each turn of the page, the idea of him being her teacher faded. Only the idea of the artist and married man to her muse and mistress remained.

Taking charge? He smirked.

I thought I was here to learn. Her face was close to his. She couldn’t tell who smelled more like wine: him or her.

You are. What will you have me do?

Sophie motioned for him to get off the stool and stand up. He obliged. Sitting down, she flipped to an empty page and took the pencil, the warmth of his hand still lingering.

Untuck your shirt.

He acquiesced, and a new type of adrenaline shot through her body. He would help her graduate. He would guide her as she finished her final project. She would listen to him and accept his every criticism. But right now, he’d have to accept hers.

Sit there, like I was, but put one arm behind your head and leave the other across your chest.

You like giving orders, he noted as he sat on the chaise.

Sometimes.

Sitting forward, he took the sketchbook from her and placed it on the chaise next to him. In which situations do you like giving orders best?

Hm. She smiled, a girlish blush blooming across her cheeks. When I’m at a restaurant. When I’m shopping online. When someone gets in my way.

Yes, of course. He smiled and placed his hands on her thighs, just above her knees. Is there any other time you would like to give orders? Or, are you the kind of girls who likes taking orders in some situations?

I suppose that depends.

On?

The boy. She could feel his hands moving up her thighs.

But a man?

Society tells me men are always in charge.

He chuckled. Ms. Daniels, have you ever been with an older man?

Sophie shook her head. The last man she had been with had been more boy than man. Adam. Her beautiful fiancé; her beautiful, foolish fiancé who told her he wanted to marry her and went and got himself killed in a motorcycle accident. He was going pretty fast right before he died, his mother had told her. They ended up cremating him; not even the magic of the mortician’s makeup could make Adam look like himself again.

Have you ever been with a student?

I have.

She was surprised by his honesty and couldn’t help but wonder if his wife knew what when on when she wasn’t around. The glamorous, ambiguous face of a woman clouded her mind, mixing with the taste of ashes in her mouth. A seed of guilt had been planted, one she hoped wouldn’t bloom — at least not tonight.

Is that a problem for you? he inquired when she didn’t say anything.

No.

His face was close to hers again but all she could focus on was the contrast between light and dark and wonder what color she would paint his lips.

When his lips touched hers, when his fingers wrapped around her wrists, she was still thinking about how she would paint him. But paint him, she realized, was all she wanted to do. This — being here not just with her professor, but with a married man — was wrong. Being here with him instead of with Adam was wrong.

I need to go. Sophie tried to pull away. Instead of letting go, he gripped harder, fingers digging into her skin as he pulled her closer to him.

Professor, please.

Being formal with hi caught his attention and he let go. I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong?

No. I just don’t feel well. The wine. The wine, the guilt, the taste of Adam in her mouth. They all mixed together, churning in the ocean of her stomach.

We can pick this up another time then. He pulled away from her and stood, putting the distance she was desperate for between them. To fantasize about about the man was one thing but committing to this was something different altogether. Something she wasn’t sure if she really wanted.

Please. Sophie smiled, slipping her arms into her jacket.

I will text you tomorrow then. He closed the distance one between them one more time, pulling her closer to him to kiss her cheek before letting her go again. She never understood what someone meant by a ‘wolfish grin’ until she saw his face before she walked out of the classroom. If it didn’t make her want to turn around run, it might have had a chance at making her stay.

Pulling back into her parking space on Ashland Avenue, the radio clock reminded her of the responsibilities that were mounting for the day. As it was, she’d only be getting a few hours of sleep before she had to be back on campus, sitting in class, functioning.

But she was too awake now. Snow began to fall, laying a new coat of white over lawns and on empty cars. Thick, heavy flakes swirled in the wind, Buffalo turning into a living snow globe. Lake effect snow, they used to call it: when an unsuspecting lakeshore gets buried. The lakes were still too warm, even in January.

There was still two hours before coffee shops opened, three hours before rush hour started. Sophie was certain school-aged children were already awake, eyes glued to the scroll at the bottom of their television screens, waiting to see if school was cancelled today. If only the new, adult-world she had stumbled into, like Alice down the rabbit hole, had snow days. Had tea parties and queens. Had a way to wake up from a drug-induced nightmare — because that’s what this was for her, something between a dream and a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. Instead of her own head being called for, Adam’s had been taken. It wasn’t the white rabbit late for a very important date, it was Sophie barely making it