Wicked Muse

by Lexi Whitlow

  I pay the movers and take them back across town to the U-Haul place, then swing by Greg’s to load up the last of my things. Just as I’m about to call Scott with the news that I’m ready to leave town, I realize I forgot to drop the key in the box at Hayes’ door.

  I promised him I would. I should.

  I arrive at Hayes’ house at a quarter past noon. He comes home for lunch most days, and unless he’s avoiding me, I suspect he’ll show up anytime.

  I could just drop the key in the box, but I should wait awhile, just to see. I park the truck on the curb out front, then have a seat on his porch steps. I still haven’t read the texts he sent me yesterday evening. I haven’t been able to bring myself to. Now is as good a time as any. If I’m going to cry, I need to go ahead and work it out of my system before getting on the road.

  I open my messaging app and swipe to the most recent unread texts. They’re all from Hayes.

  Hayes: There’s a lot to say. Please, can we talk? Where are you?

  Hayes: Chloe, please don’t shut me out.

  Hayes: I know I screwed up. I’m so sorry.

  Hayes: I love you.

  What? No. No. Not that. I fumble for the key, still on my keyring, trying to unwind it from the loop with trembling hands. He can’t go there. He can’t lay that on me.

  I look up just in time to see Hayes’ car pass by, then slide into an empty parking spot halfway up the block.

  I should’ve just dropped the key in the box and left when I had the chance.

  When he approaches, it’s with caution. His skin is pale with circles under eyes darker and set deeper than just a week ago. He looks like he hasn’t slept. He regards me, then the moving van, as he walks up.

  “So… that’s it?” he observes. “You’re just leaving?”

  “That’s it,” I respond, the tears behind my eyes fighting to flood out. There are a hundred things I want to say, but none of them would change anything. I hand Hayes the key, squaring myself against a brisk, November wind. “Thanks for the apartment,” I say. “And everything.”

  He blinks, clenching his jaw, swallowing hard. “Chloe, please… just stay a few minutes and talk to me.”

  No. Because if I stay now, I’ll never leave.

  “I’m sorry, Hayes. I need to go.”

  I’m not sure, but I think I see tears in his eyes as I drop my head and pass by. I climb into the truck, turn the ignition, and pull off without looking back, choking on tears, swallowing bile before I’ve even made it six blocks.

  I stop at a BP to gas up for the trip, then I call Scott to let him know I’m on my way. He’s pleased to hear it, begging me to be careful and to call him when I stop again for gas or a break. I promise I will.

  Ending the call I resolve to myself, I’m going to put the dust and drama of this backward, pretentious little town behind me. I’m going to rock New York City and everything in it to the best of my ability.

  I pop my phone on the charger, slip my headphones in, queue up a playlist for the trip, and point the truck toward the nearest I-95 North on-ramp. I’ve got snacks, bottled water, and a thermos full of convenience store iced-coffee for the road. Waze tells me it’s a six-hour trip.

  Traffic willing, I’ll be in Chelsea before Danny and Scott have finished dinner.

  Chapter 16

  If it wasn’t for my students, I wouldn’t be here. It’s the end of term fête; a combination Christmas party, year’s end celebration in the University art gallery, with faculty, staff, and students. I grab a clear plastic cup filled with tonic and gin from the bar, then begin wandering through the crowd in search of a friendly face. These days, since the scandal, friendly faces are scarce.

  While standing alone, considering a piece of elaborate textile work hung on the gallery wall, one of the design seniors—not my student—approaches.

  “This is cool,” she says, her bright eyes beaming. “I wish we had the kind of time the fine arts majors do, to spend an entire semester on just one piece like this. The detail, the craftsmanship. It’s amazing.”

  I agree with the sentiment. Unfortunately, the real world of graphic design is an industry, not an art. It demands products churned out quickly and cheaply. Craftmanship and attention to detail are all too often an afterthought.

  Instead of sharing my cynicism, I nod silently.

  “Is that why you decided to teach instead of going to an agency, or freelancing?” she asks me. “Because it gives you the time to do non-commercial work like all your letterpress and 19th century photography stuff?”

  “That was the plan,” I admit, reluctantly. “Unfortunately, I haven’t had a lot of time to work on much of that since I got here. This job is more time consuming than it looks.”

  That is an understatement. Between classes, committees, faculty meetings, and student conferences, I’m lucky to have more than a few hours to myself on any given day. I spend most of that time in the gym, beating the frustration out of my system.

  “Maybe over break,” she says smiling. “You’ll have the whole building and studios to yourself.”

  I offer no reply.

  “A few of us who stay in town over break are having a party this weekend. You should come.”

  I’ve learned my lesson about socializing with students. I politely thank her for the invitation, then decline it. “I’m headed to New York for Christmas break. Won’t be back until the beginning of next term.”

  “What’s taking you to New York?” the girl asks.

  I shrug. “Family, friends.” I don’t say Chloe Harvey, because my intentions are no one else’s business. As far as everyone here is concerned, that drama is over and done with. The truth is—as far as I’m concerned—it’s only just begun.

  “Enjoy yourself in New York,” she offers, glancing past me. I turn and see Liza moving in our direction. The girl gives me a sad smile. “The Dragon Lady’s keeping you on a short leash. It’ll be good for you to get off it for a while.”

  With that she turns and wanders away just as Liza steps up.

  “What was that conversation about?” Liza asks.

  A short leash indeed.

  Liza appointed herself my faculty mentor. She’s taken the role of monitoring my interactions with students, especially female students, quite seriously. What’s more, she’s also taken to interjecting herself into every interaction I have with faculty and students whether they’re my students or not and she drops in on my classes regularly, just to observe.

  Not what I signed up for.

  “We were talking about the art,” I reply dryly, scanning the room, searching for an escape route.

  I’ve come to revile Liza more than I can express. When I first met her, I understood her to be a determined narcissist, but I underestimated her depths. Since Chloe was forced from school, and we’ve dropped into this odd routine, she’s become downright predatory. It’s gone beyond flirting and inappropriate attention. She behaves as if she has an ownership stake in me, wielding the perception of her power in a threatening manner, as if she’s attempting to intimidate me into an affair with her.

  “I should come to New York with you,” she says, half-smiling, reaching forward, touching the lapel of my coat. “I haven’t been to the city in a long time.”

  I have no response for this absurd idea except to simply laugh it off, taking a step back from her.

  “I’m serious,” she insists. “Where are you staying while you’re there?”

  I realize she is serious. That’s deeply unsettling.

  “With my mother and father,” I state emphatically, my expression communicating exactly how ridiculous her idea is.

  She’s not thrilled with my tone.

  “You know, I would love the opportunity to meet your mother,” she says. “I admire her work. Maybe next time you plan a trip to the city, you’ll invite me. We could make it a working trip. I’d like to be able to report to the Chancellor’s disciplinary committee that you’ve turned over a new leaf.”

&nb
sp; Good lord, she is out of her mind.

  I take a breath, then slug my drink.

  “That’s not happening—not ever,” I growl at her. “Just like nothing’s ever happening between us. It crossed my mind once. Briefly. But after what you did, I’d rather eat glass than spend a spare fifteen minutes alone with you. You’re pathetic. Leave me the fuck alone, Liza.”

  Let her threaten me. Let her rage. Fuck her.

  I think it’s time I put her on notice. I’m not taking her shit anymore.

  I crush my cup then toss it in a nearby trashcan as I walk past her to the gallery exit, then downstairs and out into the chill of damp air.

  Tomorrow I’m on a jet to New York City. Tomorrow I start correcting mistakes. Tomorrow I begin again.

  LaGuardia is crowded, but not as bad as it will be in a week. Holiday traffic is just ramping up. Thankfully, I’m ahead of it.

  Once out on the curb, waiting on line for a cab, I’m pleased to feel a genuine winter bite in the air. The skies hang low and heavy. It feels like snow. That’s fine with me.

  “Where too?” the driver asks, pulling off in a hurry, merging into the fast-moving airport traffic.

  “Manhattan,” I say. “Five, Tudor City Place.”

  He glances back in his rear-view mirror, dark, wiry eyebrows raised. “Local? Or just visiting?” he asks.

  “Both,” I tell him, not satisfying his curiosity. This is New York; you’re not supposed to inquire into people’s business.

  It’s a fifteen-minute trip into the city. When we emerge from the Queens Midtown Tunnel, crossing East 37th, the familiar aroma of my old neighborhood welcomes me home. Diesel fumes wrapped in the scent of forty different types of cooking food, a rising waft of garbage and used beer lingering on the edges. And the noise; car horns and garbage trucks backed by the rhythm of a breathing metropolis. The pavement, concrete and glass canyon walls amplify even the most mundane whisper to a chanting echo among the girded streets.

  We pass Pazzo Pizza on 41st and 2nd Ave, and I’m instantly hungry with the memory of my favorite pizza joint. God, I’ve missed this place. It’s good to be home. From this intersection I see my building looming ahead; Windsor Tower, in all its glory

  New York is in perpetual motion; cars, people, even places continuously coming, going, turning over. There’s a new restaurant where the old Tudor Café was, and the ground level of the building across the street is wrapped in construction scaffolding, getting a makeover. While some things change, many others remain. As I step out of the cab onto the sidewalk in front of the shiny brass and glass doors of the main entrance, a familiar face greets me.

  “Professor Chandler!” he laughs, taking my bag before I can gather it.

  Max Arendt, dressed in his elaborate doorman’s get-up, right down to gold threaded piping and shoulder epaulets, has been the head man at Windsor Tower for as long as I can remember.

  “Your mother said to expect you!” he booms.

  “It’s nice to be home,” I say, shaking his hand.

  We make small talk about the weather while he escorts me to the private elevator, reserved just for top flight residents. Before the doors close he shakes my hand again. “Your bags will be up in a few minutes. I’ll call Mrs. Chandler and let her know you’re on your way.”

  Once inside the elevator, I swipe my security key past the reader, then punch the button for the penthouse on the 22nd floor. It’s a swift rise to the top. When the doors open I’m greeted by another familiar face, James Baxter, the penthouse tenant’s concierge.

  “Mr. Chandler, I heard you were coming in. Good to see you. Is there anything I can help you with, now that you’re back in the city?”

  I shake his hand. “I’m going to get settled in,” I tell him. “But later on, I’m probably headed across town to Chelsea. Not sure yet. Are any of our drivers on today?”

  “Taylor’s on,” he replies. “I’ll let him know to be on standby.”

  I love New York. Yes, it’s expensive. It’s crowded. But there’s nothing that can’t be accomplished by a doorman or concierge working on your behalf.

  James opens the apartment door for me, and as I pass over the threshold, I hear Mom’s heels clicking on the hardwoods in a rush.

  “Oh, my lord, look at you,” my mother swoons, her arms out, a smile beaming. She throws herself into me before I’m even in the door, hugging me tight. “You look taller, and tired, and thin. You’re working too hard. I can see that.”

  Kendall Chandler is a diva. And a business woman, and a gifted fashion designer, and a loyal, loving wife of twenty-six years, and probably the best mother any precocious, slightly OCD kid ever had. She’s beautiful and warm, and she loves me.

  “God Hayes, what in the hell are you wearing?” she asks, standing back, aghast, looking me up and down.

  I dressed for Richmond, not NYC. Levi’s and an Oxford cloth with loafers is great for traveling, but not quite up to the snuff of her couture, Haus Chandler standards.

  “I’ll change,” I promise. “Richmond’s conservative. Gotta fit in.”

  She waves a hand, dismissing that notion. “Oh, darling, fitting in is for the rabble. You’re not rabble. Shake them up. Whatever you need to do, just please don’t let anyone I know catch you in that Reagan Youth uniform.”

  I roll my eyes. “Yes, Mother,” I reply teasing as my dad appears on the stairs, coming down.

  We hug and I tell him my trip was fine.

  With a drink in my hand an hour later, I tell him and Mom the truth; that I hate my job, and I hate my boss, and I’m struggling to make it work at the university.

  I’ve prepared this speech. It’s not an easy one to deliver. In twenty-five years they’ve never heard me say anything’s too hard, or I don’t know how to solve it. They’ve never seen me fail without persevering and ultimately succeeding.

  I tell them about Liza. I tell them about Chloe Harvey. I tell them everything.

  It’s not easy because my mom and dad have always been my greatest advocates. They taught me everything I know about making a plan, seeing it through, and dealing with the bumps in the road. They also taught me everything I know about what a real, working partnership looks like. They’ve been happily married for twenty-six years, and they support one another completely. They’re a perfectly matched set. Dad is the behind the scenes, numbers guy. The one who keeps all of Mom’s balls in the air. Mom is the face of the business, the brand. She’s the one with her lovely countenance on the front of Women’s Wear Daily and inside the covers of Cosmopolitan and Vogue.

  Mom looks at Dad, then back at me. She shrugs.

  “I don’t know Chloe,” she says. “I haven’t seen her since she was a teenager. Her father was a brilliant artist and a decent human being who I loved dearly, so I’m going to trust your judgement and assume the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

  She looks to my father before continuing. Dad nods for her to go on.

  “I will say this; her mother is a real piece of work.”

  “Okay,” I say. “From what I know, I’m generally inclined to agree with you. What do you know?”

  Mom scowls. “Hayes, I have to go back thirty years to count the ways. I hate long stories. The short version is that about the time we were launching the first Haus Chandler line, Tess—who eventually became Guy Harvey’s wife and Chloe’s mother—was a young model, just starting out. She was stunning. I’ve told you that. And also, a giant pain in my ass because she was coked-up, starving herself to the point of hospitalization, and basically the most passive, aggressive, needy little attention-whore I’ve come across, before or since.”

  Sounds about right. I remind Mom what Tess did with Chloe’s college fund, and with Guy’s trust. She not surprised.

  “She’s selling his studio work off in batches” Mom says. “There’s an auction house in Soho handling it. Every six months, another cache of his work comes up for bid. That’s all Tess’ doing, selling his life’s work off to pay for he
r latest addiction, whatever it is.”

  I wonder if Chloe knows this. Part of me hopes not.

  “No matter,” Mom says. “I don’t care if she is putting it up her nose, I’ve been buying everything I can as it comes up.”

  “Why?” I ask. I can’t imagine what motivated her to do such a thing.

  Mom smiles. “Guy and I were friends. When I was a kid and had no idea what I was doing, Guy was there. He was a kid too—but there was something about him. He told me to forget what people were telling me I needed to do, and do what I needed to do. He reassured me that I was talented. He was as dead broke as any college kid I ever knew, but he still managed to scrape up fifty dollars to buy one of my water colors.”

  She smiles wistfully. “Guy kept that simple little water color in his office, hanging on the wall, until the day he died. He honored it like an icon, showing it to everyone, saying he knew me when.

  “And Guy introduced me to your father, so… I guess I’m just sentimental. I think his work deserves a better fate than being scattered to the four winds.”

  Indeed. Especially since Chloe probably hasn’t even seen the bulk of it.

  “Hayes,” the familiar voice of Scott Brandt answers my call. He dared not avoid me anymore. I know where to find him and he knows I’m in town. “What’s up?”

  “I’m in the city,” I say. He’s dodged calls and emails from me for weeks. “I want to see Chloe. Where is she?”

  Long pause. “Hayes, you know sometimes it’s just better to let things play out…”

  “Fuck that,” I interrupt. “It’s been a month.”

  “A lot has happened in a month,” Scott says. “She’s just getting settled.”

  “Goddammit Scott, I’m going to find her, talk to her, one way or another. You can either help me or obstruct me, but either way, it’s happening.”

  Another long pause. “We’re going to the Mary Boone Gallery in Chelsea tonight. Hayes, I’m warning you, if she doesn’t want to see you, you need to back off. She’s been through hell since Guy died, and the stuff that went down with you in Richmond…”