If I Were You-nook

by Lisa Renee Jones

  Thunder rolls overhead, jolting me momentarily from my absorption. Glancing at the window where rain is pattering on the glass, I absently curl up into the corner of the couch, thinking about what I’ve just read. I am so different from this woman writing the journals, yet I have an odd connection with her words. I love the kids I teach, but I feel the ache of encouraging them to follow their dreams and knowing I haven’t followed mine. Knowing my words to them are hypocritical. I understand what it feels like to have each day pass, knowing I’m no closer to my dreams. Jobs in the art world are just so few and far apart, and pay so little, that I cannot justify my passion as my job.

  A heavy breath of regret trickles from my lips, and my gaze returns to the page. I am lost in a world that isn’t mine and never can be, but somehow, right now, it is.

  Three hours later, the rain has calmed to a drizzle, and I am no longer lounging on the couch. Somewhere along the way, I’ve read all three journals, which have gone from erotic and thrilling to downright frightening. I’m sitting up now, hanging on the words of the final entry.

  I want out. This is no longer a rush anymore. No longer exciting. But he won’t let me out. He won’t let me go. And I don’t know how to escape him. He was at the showing tonight, watching me, stalking me. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. One minute I was talking to a customer, the next I was in a dark corner with him buried deep inside me. When it was over, he stroked my hair and promised to see me later. Tonight. The minute I was alone, I rushed to the camera room to take the tape, to keep him from possessing it, and me with it. But it was gone. He’d taken it before I could. And now…

  That was it. Nothing more. As if she’d been interrupted by something or someone and quit writing. I stare at the blank page, my heart thundering in my chest. Were these journals before or after the one I’d been reading the night before, I wonder again? Because if they were before, I would know Rebecca was okay. I dial Ella and once again am greeted by the fast busy signal I don’t want to hear.

  Frustrated, I jump to my feet and pace, wringing fingers through my already tousled hair. Rebecca Mason must have left town, that’s why her things were in that storage unit. But why hadn’t she come back for them? Or paid the storage fee? I ball my fists at my sides and then slowly force them to open, force my shoulders to relax. I will myself to calm down with logic. There is no reason to jump to conclusions. I’ll simply call the gallery and locate Rebecca, discover all is well, and return Rebecca’s things to her. End of story. Right. Perfect. Then I’ll get on with my summer tutoring.

  I snatch my phone off the coffee table, intending to make that call and immediately stop myself. It’s after midnight and I’ve tried to call Ella with no idea what time it is in Paris, and now I am trying to call the art gallery. So much for calm and collected.

  Something about Rebecca Mason has reached past the pages of that journal and become personal. I’d become Rebecca while I was reading those journals. I feel a connection so intimate to this stranger that it is downright eerie. Or maybe, I think wryly, my own life is just so darn boring I’m desperate for a little excitement. Like Rebecca had been, before she met him.

  With that thought, I hug myself, and head for bed. But not before I grab the journals and take them with me.

  Chapter Three

  “Rebecca isn’t in.”

  That is the same reply the man who always answers the phone at the gallery had given me the last time I’d called. And the time before that.

  “She’s on vacation,” I reply. “So I’ve been told all week. It’s Friday. Will she be back Monday?”

  Silence filters into the line. “I can take a message.”

  I’d already left several and I see no point in leaving another. “No. Thank you.” I hang up and sip my vanilla latte from the Barnes and Noble café where I’d just finished tutoring a football player hoping to impress colleges with more than his playing skills. This entire Rebecca situation is driving me nuts.

  I’ve already double-checked the time I have left to clear out the storage unit, considering Ella hadn’t exactly been a wealth of information, and it is a short window—one more week. After that, it would be two hundred dollars for another full month. A hard blow to my cash flow on an already tight budget. The manager has given me one extra week free for which I am grateful, but I have to deal with Rebecca and do it now.

  With my laptop already open and powered up, I key in the Allure Gallery website, intending to search the staff listing to be sure Rebecca’s name still appears. Sure enough, Rebecca is listed as Marketing Director. Hmm. Well, that’s good. That has to be a sign she’s okay. Doesn’t it?

  An event banner on the side of the page catches my eye and I click on it. There’s a showing at the gallery the following Wednesday night and not for some unknown artist either. A thrill goes through me at the realization that the highly acclaimed artist, Ricco Alvarez, is doing a showing. I adore Ricco Alvarez’s depiction of his homeland Mexico, and though it’s rather well known in an artsy city like San Fran that someone of his stature owns a home here, he rarely makes appearances. But then, this is a good cause, a black-tie charity event with both ticket prices, and a piece of Alvarez’s art, being auctioned off as donations to a local children’s hospital. Surely, with such an event, Rebecca will be at the helm.

  Tapping my nails on the wooden table, I consider my options. If I can’t reach Rebecca before the show, I’ll attend the event. Silently, I laugh at myself. Who am I kidding? I’m going to see Ricco Alvarez, even if I have to eat Ramen noodles for two weeks to do so, and since the tickets are a hundred dollars a pop, I will. But I never, ever splurge. I bite my bottom lip and fret, and then before I can stop myself, click on the “buy tickets” button and claim one of the last available tickets. I won’t be able to get a refund if I reach Rebecca before then, but I’ll just have to rough it. I can’t stop the smile from sliding onto my lips. It will be torture to have to meet Ricco Alvarez. I feel better with a plan. Now, if I can just get through to Ella and hear she is okay, I might actually sleep tonight.

  ***

  Wednesday evening arrives and Rebecca is still “not in” per the Allure staff. So, I am off to the Alvarez event, but my excitement over the showing has been doused quite effectively by the feeling something is really wrong. The entire situation makes me anxious, and while I would have preferred some moral support, as in a friend to join me at the night’s event, I had dismissed the idea. I wasn’t about to try and explain why I was hunting down Rebecca Mason, whom I didn’t know, and who I feared had met an untimely…something. I’m not going to even let my mind elaborate on that thought. And I won’t justify my worry by letting anyone else read Rebecca’s private thoughts.

  I pull my car into a parking spot several blocks away from the gallery, by both necessity and preference. The chilly evening wind lifts off the nearby ocean, blowing loose strands of my long hair astray with it. Goosebumps form on my arms and I gather my cream-colored shawl over my matching simple but elegant knee-length sheath dress. Okay, Ella’s dress and shawl actually, but we were always borrowing each other’s clothes. As a formality, I’d have asked if she minded, but I still can’t get her phone to ring through. I click my lock into place and slide my keys into the dainty, cream-colored shoulder purse that I’d bought on the pier last summer.

  I inhale the air, embracing the sounds and sights, the action of the SoMa Art District, bustling with people enjoying the stores, museums, and array of art galleries. I don’t come down here often. I just can’t. It reminds me of those dreams I’ve never chased. It’s been too long though, I realize, nearly a year since I’ve enjoyed the market street scene. The architecture, ranging from newly developed shiny glass structures to old warehouses converted into home and work spaces, was as much art as the sculptures and drawings on the concrete walls of the random buildings. I feel something special here. I feel alive here. It’s what I feel when I leave that I dislike.

  Bringing the
gallery into view, I pause to watch a group of elegantly dressed visitors pour through its double glass doors lined in shiny silver for the black-tie affair. Artsy swirls of red letters, displayed above the entry, spell “ALLURE.”

  Nerves flutter in my stomach, though I can’t say why. I love the contemporary art Allure specializes in, love their mix of local, new artists who I can discover, as well as the established names whose work I already appreciate. Nerves are ridiculous. I’m uncomfortable in this world, but then, this isn’t my world. It’s Rebecca’s, and Rebecca is the real reason I’m here.

  A glance at my dainty, handmade, gold wristwatch, also bought at the pier, confirms I have plenty of time to spare. It is seven forty-five, fifteen minutes until Alvarez will be unveiling a new painting that will be displayed in the gallery and up for silent auction through the end of the week. Oh how I’d love to have an Alvarez original, but they don’t come cheap. Still, a girl can dream.

  Excitement filters in with nerves as I rush toward the door. A young brunette woman in a simple black dress holds it open for me and offers me a smile. “Welcome.”

  I return the smile and enter the gallery, noting the nervous energy bouncing off the twenty-something girl as I pass, an energy that seems to scream “I’m new and don’t know what I am doing.” This isn’t Rebecca, who I know will be daringly bold and confident. In fact, the hostess brings out the schoolteacher in me, and I fight the urge to give her a hug and tell her she’s doing fine. I’m a hugger. I got it from my mother, just like I did my love of art, only I wasn’t talented with a brush as she had been.

  The girl is saved from my mothering when the sound of a piano playing from a distant corner filters through the air and draws my attention to the main showroom. I am in awe. This isn’t my first time visiting the four-thousand-square-foot wonder that is the Allure gallery, but it doesn’t diminish my excitement at seeing it again.

  The entryway opens to the main showroom of glistening white wonder. The walls are snow white, the floor glistening like white diamonds. The shiny divider walls curve like abstract waves, and each of them is adorned with contrasting, eye popping, colorful artwork.

  I turn away from the showroom, attending to business before pleasure, and present my ticket to a hostess behind a podium. She is tall and elegant with long, raven hair. “Rebecca?” I ask hopefully.

  “No, sorry,” she says. “I’m Tesse.” She holds up a finger as she glances through the glass doors at an approaching customer she needs to attend. I wait patiently, hoping this young woman can connect me with Rebecca. I listen attentively while she directs the new guest to a short stairway that leads toward the music, and apparently, the location where Ricco Alvarez will be unveiling his masterpiece.

  “Sorry for the interruption,” Tesse finally says, giving me her full attention. “You were looking for Rebecca. Unfortunately she isn’t attending tonight’s event. Is there something I can help you with?”

  Disappointment fills me. To miss an Alvarez event is not something someone in Rebecca’s role would likely do. I just want to know, for certain, that Rebecca is safe. Painting myself as a stranger doesn’t seem the way to do that. “My sister’s an old friend of Rebecca’s. She told me to be sure and say hello to her and pass along her new phone number. She seemed to think Rebecca worked big events like this one. She’ll be disappointed I missed her.”

  “Oh, I hate that you missed her,” Tesse says, looking genuinely concerned. “I’m not only new, I only work part time, on an as-needed basis, so I don’t hear much of what’s going on internally, but I think Rebecca took some personal time off. Mark would know for certain.”

  “Mark?”

  “The manager here,” she says. “He’ll be tied up with the presentation soon, but I can introduce you to him afterwards if you like?”

  I nod. “Yes. Please. That would be perfect.”

  The piano stops abruptly. “They’re about to start,” Tesse informs me. “You should grab a seat while you still can. I’ll be sure to help you connect with Mark after the presentation.”

  A thrill shoots through me. “Thank you so much,” I say, before I head toward the seating area. I can’t believe that I am about to see an Alvarez original presented by Alvarez himself.

  A tuxedo-clad usher greets me at the bottom of the stairs and offers me some help finding a seat. And boy did I need help. There were at least two hundred chairs lined up in front of a mini stage, set in front of a bay window that was essentially the entire wall, and almost every single chair was taken.

  I squeeze into a center row, between a man that has artsy rebel, written all over him from longish light-blond hair to his jeans and a blazer, and a fifty-something woman who is more than a little irritated to have to let me pass. I can’t help but notice the man is incredibly good looking and I’ve never been one to be easily impressed. I know too well that beauty is too often only skin deep.

  “You’re late,” the man says as if he knows me, a friendly smile touching his lips, his green eyes crinkling at the edges, mischief in their depths. I figure him to be about thirty-five. No. Thirty-three. I am good with ages, and good at reading people. My kids at school often found that out when they were up to no good.

  I smile back at the man, feeling instantly comfortable with him when, aside from my students, I’m normally quite reserved with strangers. “And you forgot to pick up your tux, I see,” I tease. In fact, I wonder how he pulled off getting in here dressed as he is.

  He runs his hand over his sandy blond, one-day stubble that bordered on two days. “At least I shaved.”

  My smile widens and I intend to reply but a screech from a microphone fills the air. A man I recognize from photos as Ricco Alvarez claims the stage and stands next to the sheet covering a display, no doubt his newest masterpiece. Suave and James-Bond-esque in his tuxedo, he is the polar opposite of the man next to me.

  “Welcome one and all,” he says in a voice richly accented with Hispanic heritage, as is his work. “I am Ricco Alvarez, and I thank you for sharing my love of art, and children, on this grand evening. And so I give you what I call Chiquitos, or in English, Little Ones.”

  He tears away the sheet, and everyone gasps at the unexpected piece of art that is nothing like anything he’s done before. Rather than a landscape, it is a portrait of three children, all of different nationalities, holding hands. It is a well-executed work appropriate for the occasion, though secretly, I had wished for a landscape where his brilliance shone.

  The man next to me leans an elbow on his knee and lowers his voice. “What do you think?”

  “It’s perfect for the evening,” I say cautiously.

  “Oh so diplomatic,” he says with a low chuckle. “You wanted a landscape.”

  “He does beautiful landscapes,” I say defensively.

  He grins. “He should have done a landscape.”

  “And now,” Ricco announces, “while the bidding begins, I’ll be circulating the room, answering questions about my many works displayed tonight, and hoping to have the pleasure of meeting as many of you as possible. Please feel free to walk to the stage for a closer look at Chiquitos.”

  Almost instantly, the crowd is standing.

  “Are you going for a close-up?” I ask the man next to me.

  “Not much on crowds,” he said. “Nor Ricco’s attempt at portraiture.” He winks at me. “Don’t stroke his ego when you meet him. It’s big enough as it is.” He starts moving down the row toward the exit. I stare after him, feeling this odd flutter in my stomach at his departure, curious about who he is.

  I frown as I repeat part of our conversation in my mind. Ricco. He’d called Ricco Alvarez ‘Ricco’ and spoken of his ego as if he knew him. It’s too late now to find out how he knows Ricco, and portrait or not, I am eager for an up-close look at the featured painting. I have not met Ricco and it is disappointing, but I am still thrilled at the opportunity to see his work.

  Sometime later, I am enjoying a lingering walk through the
gallery, exploring the full Alvarez collection on display, when I spot a display for Chris Merit, whose work I studied in college. He too had once been a local, but I seem to remember him moving to Paris. Excitedly, I head toward his work. His specialties are urban landscapes—-mostly of San Francisco, both past and present-—and portraits of real subjects with such depth and soul they steal my breath away.

  I join an elderly couple inside the small room, where they debate over which of several landscapes to purchase. Unable to stop myself, I join in. “I think you should take them all.”

  The man scoffs. “Don’t go giving her ideas or you’ll both put me in the poorhouse. She gets one for above the fireplace.”

  “Stingy man,” the gray-haired woman says, shoving his arm playfully and then eying me. “So tell me, honey.” She motions between two pictures. “Which do you think is a better conversation piece, of these two?”

  I study the two choices, both black-and-white, though Merit often uses color. One is a downtown shot of San Francisco in the midst of hurricane-like weather. The other is of the Golden Gate Bridge shrouded in clouds, the skyline of the city peeking out from behind it.

  “A tough choice,” I say thoughtfully. “Both have a bit of a dark edgy feel to them, and both have the ‘wow’ factor.” I indicate the stormy downtown scene. “I happen to know that one depicts the impact Hurricane Nora had on the city back in 1997. To me, that makes for a conversation piece, and a little bit of history to boot, right there in your living room.”

  “You are so right, dear,” the woman says, her eyes lighting up. “This is the one.” She casts her husband an expectant look. “It’s perfect. I have to have it.”

  “Then have it you shall,” her husband declares.

  I smile at the woman’s joy, but not without a bit of art envy. I would love to be going home with the piece she will be tonight.