And then she turned to Tessa.
“Hey there,” she said brightly, with a big artificial smile. “Great party, huh?” Her candy-apple-red lipstick made her look vaguely wolfish. “I had no idea you could move like that. You were hot, girly.”
“It was all Mr. Sinclair,” she responded politely. “My talents lie elsewhere.”
“No, kiddo. It was you. You were sizzling.”
There was a moment of silence. Tessa thought she was studying her composition, but apparently, the painting instructor had other things on her mind.
“It was a bummer about the Cape,” she continued affably, as if they were friends. “It’s so romantic there, especially during a storm…you should go there sometime, when you have a boyfriend. After the party, Lucian wanted to drive out to Coney Island to hear the waves crashing on the beach… you know Lucian, he’s such a romantic. Then we picked up Chinese food and went back to his place and played Strip Trivial Pursuit. I let him think he won.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Get this! Four times in one night…I could barely walk the next day. Someone should have warned me. Anyway, I was just cleaning out some drawers over at his place. Are these your things?” She slipped a Balducci’s bag under the easel.
“Okay. Let’s have a look.” April stepped back to view her work. Her lips drew together as she shook her head. “Oh, no. This is a disaster. A dis-as-ter.”
Tessa looked at her painting, confounded. “What’s wrong with it?”
“What’s right with it, you mean.” She took a wad of paper towels and wiped everything on the canvas into a greasy brown smear. Then she moved on to the next student.
Tessa stared at the ruined canvas in disbelief. She felt like she’d been assaulted. Putting down her brush, she retrieved the bag April had left under her easel. Inside were a couple of back issues of Vanity Fair, a dried up Maybelline Great Lash mascara that could have belonged to anybody, an old toothbrush, a half-empty bottle of Crabtree and Evelyn almond massage oil. Her nightgown, balled up like a rag at the bottom of the bag. A single Polaroid picture.
Curiously, she pulled it out and turned it over. There she was, kneeling on the floor of Lucian’s studio in a black teddy and cowboy boots, trying to look sexy. A black-and-white self-portrait taken six months ago. She ran her fingers over her miniature image. She had sent it to Lucian when he was away in rehab, along with extra socks. Scrawled on the bottom were the words, This is waiting for you. Come home.
She looked furtively to the right, then left. Her heart pounding like a hammer, she slipped the photo into her art box.
When it was time for the critique at the end of class, Tessa was the last to come forward. She propped her canvas up next to Clayton’s, and melted into the back row, trying to hide behind the burlier sculptors.
April put on a pair of glasses and stepped up to the stage to survey the day’s work. She moved slowly, from left to right, as if she were reading. At Clayton’s painting, she came to a stop. There was the model, sensitively drawn, richly painted. Everything was lovingly, exquisitely rendered, except for one thing.
“Whose is this?” April demanded.
“That one’s mine, Miz Huffman.” Clayton said.
She consulted her clipboard. “You are…”
“Clayton El Greco, ma’am.” he said, stepping forward with a dazzling bad-boy smile. Tessa glanced at him. With his shirt tucked in and his hair combed back, he looked just like Elvis.
“That’s quite a name to live up to,” she said, smiling back at him, putting her clipboard down. “Any relation to the painter?”
“That is what they say, ma’am.” he said, disarming her with his raspy Mississippi drawl and winning smile.
“Traitor,” Ben whispered to him.
She peered at her clipboard. “It says here…you’re a sculptor.”
“That’s right, ma’am. Please go easy on me.”
“No, no,” she said encouragingly. “It’s very good. Don’t sell yourself short.” She turned her attention back to the painting. “So, Clayton El Greco…what happened?”
He frowned. “What do you mean, Miz Huffman?”
April gestured at his canvas. “The model. When I saw this painting earlier, it was pretty much finished. Then you scraped off her ass. What happened?”
He rubbed his chin. “Huh. You might say…I dis-assed-her. Get it? Disaster? Dis-assed-her?”
The room exploded in raucous laughter. April Huffman’s smile froze on her face. Without another word, she grabbed her bag off of the model stand and stormed out of the studio. Hilarious laughter followed her, echoing wildly down the hall.
“Okay,” said Graham, when he was sure that she had gone. “Is there anybody in this room who didn’t hear how many times she came on Friday night?”
Tessa glanced at Clayton. He grinned at her, patted her shoulder. “I didn’t like the way she was treating you.”
“I hope you don’t get in trouble for this.”
He shrugged. “It seemed like the right thing to do,” he said authoritatively. “I don’t know why folks are so worried about pissing off other folks.”
Harker moseyed over to them, holding a can of Colt 45. “That was totally uncalled for,” he agreed.
“Are you drinking beer before noon?” Graham asked him.
“Are you drinking in school?” David said incredulously.
“Nah.” Harker flipped his long black hair back behind his ears. “It’s for my chewin’ tobaccy. I’m using it for a spittoon.”
They all took a step back.
Clayton followed Tessa around like a puppy as she gathered up the heaters. “Why don’t you transfer to another class? I know people like April. She’s not gonna give up until one of you is dead.”
“She can’t,” said Graham, rubbing down his palette with turpentine. “She’s on work study. All the monitor positions have already been assigned. If she’s not working, she loses her scholarship.”
For a moment her classmates halted in their activities, considering her predicament.
“Here. Let me help you with that.” Clayton offered, taking the heaters.
“I’ll do the lights,” said David. “Why don’t you just take your stuff and go?”
There were six more weeks of painting with April before the fall semester was over. Tessa wanted to run all the way home and bury herself under the covers. But she had to work; she had another class in an hour. She gathered up her coat, her palette, her brushes and her canvas. Mournfully, she weaved her way through the easels and paint stands.
On the way out the door, she stopped just long enough to stuff her painting in the trashcan.
13
The phone was ringing. Rafe opened his eyes, slammed his hand down upon it before he was fully awake.
“I had forgotten what a thing of beauty it is to see you at work, my darling,” purred Anastasia. “Your little tango has the knickers of tout le monde in a tangle! The passion! The drama! Everyone is calling.”
Rafe stifled a yawn, rolled over, squinted at the clock. “What time is it?”
“Three o’clock in the afternoon. I have a meeting in a few minutes, but I just had to know.”
“Know what?” He jogged the hump in the bed next to him. “Wakey wakey,” he whispered to Janina, covering the phone with his other hand.
“What happened after you left, of course.”
“Nothing.” He swung his legs out of bed and onto the kilim rug next to his bed. Janina yawned and stretched, pointing her toes like a ballet dancer. “We went up to her studio and talked. She was in a bad way after that Lucian Swain thing. Art students are like hothouse flowers. I gave her the benefit of my experience and then I made sure she got home safely.” Janina rolled over and nipped playfully at his back, baring her teeth, making little growling noises.
“I’ve had the benefit of your experience, my darling. Talking had nothing to do with it.”
“Not with this one.” He pushed Janina away.
&
nbsp; “Really! Not even a taste? A lick?”
“No.” he said shortly.
“Raphael, Raphael.” He could visualize her red lips, turned down with disappointment. “So bourgeois, with all your fine, delicate feelings. No one is going to believe your noble story. I’m going to have to make something up.”
“She’s one of my students, Anastasia. If there’s even a whiff of hanky panky, I’ll be thrown off the board of my own school. I’ve got to be as pure as the driven snow.” Naked, he went to the dresser, found his wallet and fished out a hundred dollar bill. He waved it at Janina, silently gesturing to her to go. She looked offended.
“Watching you dance with her…I thought you were going to bite her at any moment. Every time you drove her backwards around the floor, when you did that quebrada…the suspense! The anticipation! I really thought you were going to do it, and just make it look like it was part of the dance. That deep dip at the end, right down to the floor…the way you were looking at her neck with such hunger…” she was almost whispering. “It felt like the old days. Back in Europe.”
Rafe was taken aback. Was he that transparent? “I’ve got to go.”
“Are you alone?”
“No.” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. He’d gotten to sleep at daybreak. “Isn’t it Saturday? Why are you at work?”
“You are the only person in New York City who doesn’t know it’s Fashion Week. Things are crazy. I am zigzagging from party to party, from one runway to the next. That Giselle woman, she was looking for you all night. You are going to have to do some fancy footwork to dance yourself out of this one. Luckily, there is that party at the Guggenheim tonight. Perhaps you can make it up to her.”
Rafe massaged the back of his neck and rolled his head. He had forgotten about that. “How do you stay up all day? Why aren’t you tired?”
She laughed. “You forget, I’m much older than you. I barely need any sleep at all. Listen. I have some information for you. I received a tearful phone call from Lucian Swain. He is beside himself. He wants his little assistant to stay right where she is. He’s terrified that she’s going to go off with you.”
“Good,” he said, scrounging through his drawers for a cigarette. Funny. He hadn’t smoked in years. “Then it worked.”
“It gets better, my darling. You won’t believe it. Lucian says our girl is a virgin. She’s religious or something. I know, I know, it is impossible. A virgin in New York! A virgin with Lucian Swain! He says that she is kind, faithful, trusting, loyal. The kind of girl you marry.” She sniffed contemptuously, as if it were in bad taste. “I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
Janina wasn’t leaving. She threw back the covers to show off her underwear-model’s body, still in the black rubberized bustier from last night.
“So, did you ask her? You had the perfect opportunity.”
“Ask her what?” He found a cigarette, lit it, inhaled deeply.
“Whether she knows what happened to your little friend from school.”
Janina wanted the cigarette. He passed it to her. “No. I still can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t know whether I want the answer to be yes or no.”
There was commotion at the other end of the line. Her tone of voice changed; he heard her issuing icy commands to someone in her office. Then she was back, warm throaty words pouring into his ear. “I have to go, my darling. I will see you later. Au revoir.”
He hung up the phone, took the cigarette back from Janina, who had rolled over on her stomach and was waving her legs around in the air like a school girl.
“You are in love with one of your students, eh? Someone you should not touch?” she said. “What are you, a teacher?”
“Yes,” he said. “No. I’m not a teacher. The student. I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Does she like you?”
“She’s with somebody else. Someone who’s not good for her.”
Janina burst out laughing. He looked over at her, his eyebrows raised.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, not looking sorry at all. “I don’t mean to laugh at you, but it’s funny to hear someone like you say that.”
Rafe sat back down on the edge of the bed and sighed. “You know what I am.”
She took the cigarette, rolled over on her back, clenched it between her teeth. “Yes.”
“A long time ago, before I was this way, there was this woman. We were in school together in Paris, right before the war. I’m pretty sure she…I’m pretty sure she died. But all these years, there’s always been this lingering shadow of a doubt. Ridiculous, really.” He took the cigarette from her. “It’s impossible, I know. There were no survivors from her family. Still, I can’t stop myself from feeling they must be connected. I could ask her. Then I’d know for sure. Though…” he inhaled, drawing warming smoke into his lungs. His eyes narrowed ruminatively behind the glowing tip of the cigarette. “There are parts of the story that are best not held up to the light of day.”
Janina nodded. “That was a bad time. My grandmother says that one day, the Nazis came and rounded up all the intelligentsia. The teachers, the doctors, the town officials, the professors. They took them to the forest and shot them.”
“Where are you from?”
“Ukraine,” she replied. “But my grandmother was from Lublin, in Poland. Right outside of town, there was a concentration camp. Maybe you heard of it, Majdanek. My grandmother says she used to go up to the fence when guards weren’t looking and give the prisoners food.”
“Really,” he said, thinking of the impenetrable double walls of electrified barbed wire, the guard towers. “She must have been a very brave woman.”
“Yes,” Janina agreed. “She was very surprised when the Russians liberated the camp. She says the people in the town had no idea what was going on in there.”
He remembered the unmistakable stench that had permeated clothing, hair, everything it touched, the greasy ash that had to be washed off the car windows every morning. “Of course not.”
She came to sit next to him, rolling on her stockings, her knee not quite accidentally touching his. He slid his hand up her thigh. “Very nice,” he said, stubbing out the cigarette.
“Do the Jews still use the blood of Christian children for their holidays?” she asked him as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail.
“What?” he said, staring at her in disbelief. “Good God, no. Where did you hear that?”
“From my grandmother,” she said, surprised at his reaction. “Everyone knows.”
“It’s not true,” he said, his face hardening. “It was never true. It’s a stupid peasant superstition.” He removed his hand from her thigh.
“Oh, look,” she said, genuinely contrite, pulling a sad face. “I have upset you with my silly questions. Let me make it up to you.” From an array of small colored bottles on the nightstand, she chose three, one blue, one brown, one chartreuse. Her long fingers made smooth, lazy circles over his body, starting with his chest, expanding to his back and shoulders. Despite himself, he found himself yielding, letting her skilled hands assuage his anger.
“Mmm,” he said. “What are you using?”
“Sweet orange, ginger and ylang ylang for stimulation,” she said, following the convex curve of his lower back. “Eucalyptus and rose for relaxation,” she slid to her knees on the floor in front of him. “Jasmine and vanilla for sensuality.”
She touched her scarlet lips to his throat, his chest, his flat belly, working her way down. “What’s this?” she asked, touching the inch-long scar near the center of his chest.
“Old war wound,” he said, gently removing her hand.
As she went to work, he leaned back on the bed, visualizing Tessa as she had looked at the Naked Masquerade last night. Lightly, he rested his hand on his chest, picturing a tumbled mass of red-gold curls a man could get lost in. It was Tessa’s hands massaging scented lotions over his body, Tessa’s skin the color of a peeled twig
under the laces of her black camisole, Tessa calling out his name as she arched her back beneath him.
And then Janina did something with her mouth that drove all such visions from his head, and he closed his eyes and fell into a deep but uneasy sleep, where he dreamed that Tessa hid under the floorboards in Sofia’s kitchen as he forced the door shut to keep out the Nazis, while Janina offered them lotions from outside the kitchen window.
14
The clocks had been turned back to daylight savings time the previous Saturday night. White Street was dark and deserted, with deep, shadowed doorways that made Tessa stay a safe distance away from the buildings.
Perspective 101 wasn’t going well. One-point perspective was a revelation, the way it made furniture and buildings recede believably into an imaginary vanishing point; but today Whit had introduced Brunelleschi’s system of transferring a plotted floor plan to elevations and two point perspective by a confusing system of rays and vators, and the math, never Tessa’s favorite subject, was becoming more complex. Whit had been annoyed by her request to go through the calculations again. Everyone else seemed to get it the first time around.
Tessa ascended the three flights of stairs up to Lucian’s loft as if she were going to her execution, sending a little prayer up into the stratosphere; Please, Lord, let them be at a meeting or something. Anywhere but here.
She pushed open the heavy door. It was blessedly silent. Relieved, she dumped her knapsack on the table and went into the studio.
“Hullo, Tess,” said Lucian.
He was alone, hunched over the drawing table. His pencil made a scritch-scratching sound as he sketched away, magnified by the echoey silence in the studio. Tessa went to her customary place, a tatty mustard-colored hydraulic chair clawed to shreds by his cat, at a long work table covered with piles of photos and magazine clippings.
“What’s all this?” asked Tessa, rolling up her sleeves.
“Wizard of Oz, Behind the Green Door. There’s an envelope of snaps in there somewhere as well. I rented The Devil and Miss Jones and took some pictures. Very educational. Say, have you seen my August Vanity Fair? You know, the one with Demi Moore preggers on the cover. April keeps rearranging my stuff and I can’t find a bloody thing.”
The Color of Light Page 14
