Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [64]
Eli gave up and left me to the business of tormenting my hair into submission. The Straightener straightened, but the quality of the final result was questionable. I went to him for a verdict.
He was in Zoë’s room, sitting at her vanity, her curling iron in hand and the entire left side of his beautiful black hair sprung into a bouncy Shirley Temple bob.
“You’re a stupid man,” I said.
“You don’t like it?”
“I think you look ridiculous.”
He turned toward me slowly, careful not to upset the curling iron hot near his cheek, and informed me he wasn’t washing his until I washed mine. I said that was fine with me, because I didn’t believe him for a minute.
When I saw him at The Brewery the next morning taking orders and serving coffee, his hair still wound in loose but persistent curls, I laughed loud enough to turn heads. Everett was at the bar working his way through a stack of books and a bottomless mug. He looked from my hair to Eli’s.
“What is this?” he asked, exasperated. “Performance art?”
From the other end of the counter, Eli winked.
That night I washed my hair. I Googled Pre-Raphaelite.
The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood comprised a group of nineteenth century English poets, painters, and critics who believed the art of their day was polluted by academic standards. There was mention of the compositions of Raphael, the purposeful mimicry of Quattrocento Italian and Flemish art. But I didn’t have the vocabulary to understand the essays I’d found. I took, like Eli, to studying the pictures.
I recognized The Lady of Shalott from a print framed and hanging in my aunt’s living room, but the other images were only familiar inasmuch as they alluded to classical stories and mythology. My favorite was Proserpine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In the painting, a tall woman wearing pale green robes stands before a square shaft of blurred light. Her dark hair falls in heavy plaits down her back.There’s an almost masculine strength to her brow. Or maybe it’s her stern gaze, shaded with mourning, that lends her face the appearance of a man’s hardened features. She looks down and into the distance. In one hand she holds a pomegranate. Her other hand clasps the wrist of the first, as if she is torn between taking a second bite of the fruit or leaving it to drop to the ground. In her indecision, she reminded me of Eve, sorrowfully cradling the remnants of a forbidden fruit.
According to one source on classical mythology, Proserpine was the daughter of Zeus, king of the gods, and Ceres, goddess of agriculture. Struck by Cupid’s arrow, Hades fell in love with Proserpine and carried her to the underworld to be his wife. When Ceres learned that Zeus had conspired to marry his daughter to Hades, she stopped the growth of all crops. She searched for her daughter, leaving deserts as footprints. Finally, Zeus intervened. He and Hades reached an agreement: Proserpine was free to go providing she had not eaten during her captivity, for those who ate the food of the dead cannot return to the land of the living. Unfortunately for Proserpine, she had eaten the nectar of four pomegranate seeds. Abiding by the terms of the bargain, she was condemned to the underworld four months of every year, to serve as the wife of Hades. The painting portrayed a period of her captivity.
More interesting: According to historians, Rossetti was in love with his model, Jane Morris, who was already married to a fellow artist. It was left for debate, then, whether he