Vivienne wanted four erased words, and for once she could get them without leaning over Vera's shoulder. She made a small performance of the opportunity she was surrendering: an illegible inscription, a chance to look exceptionally attentive, perhaps a magnifying glass carried to supper. Underneath the teasing was a careful distinction. Vera could say what she had written without handing over the drawing. The title could belong to one evening instead of becoming a label that followed its maker into the next.
“Before Anyone Arrives,” Vera said. Against the portrait's enormous earring, the four words had initially seemed restrained. Afterwards they had made the empty room look provisional, as though getting dressed and drawing herself were merely occupations until the proper evening began. Nobody had been coming. She had known that and enjoyed herself. What troubled her was the word she had nevertheless chosen: before, with its quiet expectation of a sequel. She had rubbed the title out rather than let that implication stand. She especially disliked the thought of it reaching tomorrow's supper ahead of her.
Vivienne could appreciate an enormous earring worn without arranging anybody else's entrance. But she wanted to know how the phrase had arrived beneath the face. Had Vera seen something in her drawing, or enjoyed the sound of an attractive title? Vivienne admitted her own capacity to manufacture tragedy with a lamp. It gave the question a useful modesty. She was interested in whether Vera had surprised herself, rather than proposing that the erased words knew more about the evening than the woman who had lived it.
The face had looked as though it had heard something. Vera's first impression was that simple; admiration for the phrase came later. She had drawn eyes turned aside, then supplied a visitor to explain their direction. She could call that economical and still admit the part that resisted her tidy account: she had liked imagining an arrival. She had also liked being alone. Neither fact cancelled the other. The difficulty was deciding whose circumstances the title described, the woman on the sheet or the woman making it. Erasure had left the question open rather than answering it.
Vivienne thought that uncertainty could stay. Enjoying one's own company need not make a knock unwelcome. An imaginary visitor did, however, have conspicuous advantages over the kind who needed bread and somewhere to put a coat. Had Vera imagined any words spoken at the door? Vivienne called the visitor a woman, then acknowledged the guess with sufficient elegance to invite correction. Her curiosity had become more particular. She wanted to know how much company Vera had actually pictured before a title turned possibility into waiting.
A woman, Vera confirmed, but without a particular face or an opening speech. The scene she had imagined required a practical alteration: moving the other chair nearer the desk. Her visitor could sit there while Vera kept drawing. Then Vera had caught herself smiling at the mirror again. Vivienne's guess could take a modest bow, but it could not claim the chair retrospectively. This had happened before they met. What had pleased Vera was company that allowed the evening already under way to continue. Whether an actual interruption would have pleased her was another matter, and she did not pretend the answer was equally attractive.
Vivienne declined to have her name engraved on the furniture. She also declined, more playfully, the qualifications that seemed necessary to occupy it. If she came, she might want Vera to put down the charcoal long enough to look at her. A real visitor brought preferences, including an opinion about where to sit, and an evening of her own. The imagined arrangement had allowed Vera to remain at her desk; Vivienne's answer gave the other chair someone capable of asking for attention. There was warmth in that possibility, and a small disagreement neither woman needed to polish away.
Had Vera tried another title? Vivienne returned to the sheet, allowing the question to stand without demanding a flattering conclusion. Vera had already promised to admire her mustard spoon. They could afford an answer that did not make either of them look particularly accommodating. Vera had left the space blank. She had done something else instead. After putting away the charcoal, she had moved the chair beside the desk. It stayed there for several days, close enough to make opening the drawer awkward. The imagined woman had acquired a real inconvenience before she had so much as knocked.
Vera gave Vivienne permission to enjoy that detail. She also answered the more immediate possibility: if Vivienne came, she would look up. But the chair had another history that its position alone could not tell. One evening, while it was still beside the desk, somebody really had knocked. Vera had left the door unanswered. She offered no identity for the person outside, and no explanation that would settle the difference between the welcome she imagined and the door she kept closed. Instead she gave Vivienne the next question. Ask whom she had thought it was.