The Color of Light

by Helen Maryles Shankman

  “Hey, Tessa. What did the great Lucian Swain give you for your birthday?” said Gracie, with a wink.

  “Yeah, girlfriend!” Portia laughed. “Anything you can show us?”

  She smiled tentatively. Lucian had forgotten her birthday. “No, nothing I can show you.”

  Amidst the hooting, Clayton looked concerned. “Tessa, please,” he said. “Whatever’s going on between you and Lucian Swain, just don’t get Mr. Sinclair angry. You know. Vampire and all.”

  Tapping Page Six, she said, “I don’t think we need to worry about that.”

  The food came. To her vast relief, the subject of conversation turned to other things; plans for the holidays, meetings with advisers, galleries they had visited, breakthroughs in their work. In the storm of events that had followed her catastrophic visit to Chicago, she had forgotten the peculiar conversation in her studio last Wednesday night. She leaned forward and opened her mouth to tell them, but as the words formed on her lips she thought the better of it. She was beginning to feel sleepy. It was very warm in the room. And then the waiter was wading through the tables, carrying a jiggling flan with a candle in it and singing Happy Birthday, and the whole restaurant joined in. Somehow, David ended up walking her home on his way to the subway, and in the warm amber glow of the beer, his eyes met hers, and his hands lit on her shoulders as he pulled her towards him for a kiss.

  19

  Tessa was late to class the next day. For the first time in her life, she had a hangover; that morning, as she got out of bed, she staggered, gripping the side of her dresser for support. She had to sit back down until her room stopped revolving.

  As she walked the three-quarters of a mile from her apartment to school, gusts of December wind threatened to loft her canvas into the wind like a kite at every street corner. Her head pounded with every jarring step. Maybe someone in the office would have Advil. Guiltily, she remembered kissing David last night under the awning of her building. What had she been thinking?

  She hurried down the hall towards the classroom, burdened with the lamps and heaters. Her heart gave a little twitch when she remembered whose class she was headed for. She dreaded confronting April after the events of this week.

  A first-year student stared at her as she passed, a tall, gangly printmaker with blond dreadlocks. Self-consciously, she raised her hand to her head, wondering if something had blown into her hair on the way over.

  A group of sculptors lounging on the couches near the office followed her with their eyes as she hustled past them towards the classroom. A pair of first-year painters who had been chattering near the display case fell silent at her approach. Puzzled, she checked her reflection in a glass case before she swung into the classroom. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the usual unruly hair. Maybe her eyes were a little puffy .

  The room was dark. No one had thought to open the shades. The class skeleton, swaying gently on his stand in a dusty corner, had a cigar stub clenched jauntily between his teeth. Today he was also wearing a sporty-looking driving cap, a mordant caricature of Levon.

  The model was leaning against the stool on the low stage, reading a newspaper, still dressed in his robe. She dropped her bag on a painting stand next to Graham. It was the spot nearest to the door, belonging to the easel with the worst view. She was the last one to arrive. The rest of the class was already there, bent over their palettes.

  A few minutes went by before she realized that it was unnaturally silent, devoid of the usual back and forth of classroom chatter. Something big had blown through before she arrived. Her pulse quickening, she wondered if it was possible that someone had seen her kissing David. He was on the other side of the room, making a point of not looking at her, carefully mixing his paints. Even Ben was studiously avoiding her glance, taking a great interest in arranging his tubes of paint. Harker had his earphones on, deep in his music. But Clayton lifted his head to meet her gaze, and there was an unfamiliar look on his face, something like desire, and hunger, and a kind of surrealistic awe.

  Graham leaned over to her and whispered, “You’ve been outed.”

  Clayton put down his palette knife and came to hover near her, his hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans. For the first time since she had known him, he seemed tongue-tied, searching for the right words.

  “Tessa,” he said in his soft Southern accent. “When the time comes, I hope you’ll consider me. I respect you so much, as an artist, and as a woman. It would be an honor.”

  “Shut up, Clayton,” said Ben.

  Tessa swung around, looked to Graham in confusion.

  “April’s been here already,” he said, his lip curled. “And, boy howdy, is she pissed. She filled us in about her painful but necessary breakup with her precious Lucian Swain. Incidentally, it seems that all the rumors about his legendary equipage are true.”

  He cleared his throat before he went on. “More of interest to you,” he continued mildly, “she mentioned, shall we say, the state of your maidenhood. I believe her exact words were, ‘Tessa’s a virgin! Can you believe it? What is up with that, anyway?’”

  “People were staring at me in the hallway,” she whispered.

  “Well. The door was open. And she was pretty loud. Whatever medication she’s on, they need to jigger the dose.”

  Tessa was dumb with shock. She knew what every man in the room was thinking, imagining, picturing, even if they had never thought of her in that way before.

  “Her last words as she left the classroom were, ‘Now they can finally have each other.’”

  Tessa reached inside her knapsack and pulled out the photograph of April spread-eagled on Lucian’s bed. Without a word, she walked over to Clayton and handed it to him. Then she left the classroom, her head ducked down inside the collar of her coat, not looking up until she was safely inside her apartment.

  It was late on Friday afternoon. The sun had made a great show of setting among stacks of fluffy purple evening clouds. Levon was just putting away his files when there was a soft knock at his door. “Come on in,” he called, slipping the last one into a cabinet behind his desk.

  When he turned back around, Raphael Sinclair was in his office, watching him. At six foot two and two hundred and fifty pounds, Levon Penfield didn’t startle easily, but he took an involuntary step back into a cardboard box full of office supplies.

  “Man!” he said, shaking his head and grinning. “Gets me every time. Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you since Monday’s meeting.”

  “Prague,” he replied, removing his fedora and picking a speck of city soot from the crown. “Flew over to talk to an artist out there. Got back at five o’clock this morning.”

  “Phew. You must be tired. Was it worth it?”

  “Regretfully, no.”

  “I hear Prague is beautiful,” said Levon. “All that Art Nouveau and crazy Gothic architecture.”

  “It is,” he agreed. “It’s changed a lot. Lots of cafés, tourists, students. You should go sometime.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been there before. Were you there when it was still under communism?”

  “Something like that.”

  He’d been to Prague, yes, but it was to chase down a lead, not an art teacher. For years after the war ended, he’d checked the Red Cross lists, looking for a Sofia Wizotsky, a Sofia Weiss. He’d even been vain enough to seek a Sofia Sinclair. A private detective he paid to look for just this sort of thing found one in Prague. She was even an artist this time. He’d spent the better part of the past weekend lurking outside a wildly ornate apartment building on Parizska Street in the old Jewish Quarter, wondering what he would say when he saw her. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on which way he chose to look at it—Sofia Sinclair turned out to be an expatriate art student from the UK, with a spiky blond updo and an East End accent.

  “Did I miss anything while I was away?”

  “I don’t know if you heard out there in Prague, Lucian Swain and April Huffman broke up over the weekend.�
��

  “Pity,” said Rafe, smiling slightly.

  Levon lifted his glasses, rubbed his eyes. “We lost another teacher. Inga has been hired away by RISDI.”

  That was a blow. Inga was the head of the drawing department. “She was so excited about what we’re doing. Did she say why?”

  Levon shrugged. “Benefits. More money. Better connections. Looks grander on her resume. Take your pick.”

  He sighed. Art teachers were a dime a dozen. Finding one with Inga’s inborn ability to draw like an Old Master…well, that was something else.

  A gust of wind rattled the window, a draft penetrating the old sash, blowing a couple of typewritten pages across Levon’s desk.

  “We should look at hiring one our graduating students,” he said, thinking of Gracie’s column of figures. “A number of them would fit the job description nicely.”

  Levon grimaced. “You know Whit’s policy on hiring ex-students.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said irritably. “I really should do something about that.”

  They were both quiet for a minute. Reflexively, Levon straightened the objects on his desk, adjusting his stapler, Rolodex, memo pad, ruler and photographs of his children so that they were at right angles to each other.

  “Oh, yeah,” Levon said. “Whit finally clued us in on who he picked for guest instructor over Intersession.”

  Rafe drew closer, his eyebrows lifting. “And?”

  “It’s Wylie Slaughter.”

  A thunderstorm threatened to break across his even visage. “Slaughter? The progenitor of all those poorly-drawn saucy suburban housewives and school boys?”

  Levon put his hands up in surrender. “I know. I know. What can I say? He’s another name brand artist. He says he loves what we’re doing here. He’ll attract lots of media attention, which is what we’re looking for. Also, I think it’s only fair to tell you, I kind of like those paintings of saucy suburban housewives.”

  Rafe threw himself down in a chair. “Has anyone told the students?” he said gloomily.

  Levon shook his head no. “Giselle is announcing it on Monday.” He pursed his lips, ran his fingers along the surface of the desk. “Listen. A monitor walked out on a class this morning.”

  “Really,” said Rafe. “Whose class?”

  He hesitated before continuing. “April Huffman.”

  The strange eyes sharpened, held him. “What happened?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, as if it was sore. “Well…April’s been inappropriate. Abusing personal knowledge. It’s been an ongoing problem.”

  “Personal? Like what?”

  “Well…she told the entire class that the monitor is a virgin.”

  Rafe unfolded himself from his chair, got slowly to his feet. “Is Tessa all right?”

  “She walked out at the break. Hasn’t been seen since. Left her paints and everything. Some of her friends were going to check up on her.”

  With one gorgeous motion, a fluid sweep of his arm, Rafe settled his hat back on his head. There was a murderous gleam in his eye.

  “I’m just on my way out,” said Levon. “Do you mind handing me my cane?”

  “That’s new. Everything all right?” There was a knobbly, walnut-colored walking stick in the umbrella stand. He handed it across the desk to Levon, who was already on his feet, pulling on his coat.

  “Oh, yeah. Fine. Old sports injury’s been acting up. I ought to see a doctor about it, but you know how that goes.”

  “Track, wasn’t it?”

  “You remember. I’m touched. The joys of getting old. Well, I guess it’s better than the alternative.” He shut the lights and closed the door behind them. The two men walked down the semi-darkened hallway, plaster busts of Roman emperors glowering at them in the gloom from behind blank eyes.

  “How long has this been going on?” Rafe said.

  “Since her very first day,” he admitted grudgingly. “April’s been whispering in her ear all kinds of nasty about whatever it is she does with Lucian Swain, sending her out of the building on all sorts of errands that have nothing to do with lights and heaters. I said something to her, but… well, you can see how well that worked.”

  They took the elevator. On the sidewalk below, a biting wind blew a tumbling newspaper against Levon’s legs as he put his arm out to flag down a taxi. “Where are you headed?” he said as a yellow cab screeched to a stop beside them.

  “Holiday party for Anastasia,” Rafe said, looking at his watch. “I should be getting over there now.”

  “I still remember reading about those naked waiters. What’s she got planned this time?”

  He smiled faintly. “All I know is that it’s at the Convent of the Sacred Heart.”

  “Ooh,” said Levon, from the warm interior of the taxi. “Sounds naughty. I’ll be looking forward to hearing about that. Can I offer you a ride?”

  “No, thank you. Look after that leg, will you?”

  He shut the door on the cab. It wheeled back into traffic. He pulled his collar up around his neck, pulled the brim of his hat down against the cold and started striding purposefully uptown.

  All his instincts told him that he should head straight for wherever it was that April lived and tear her throat out. The thought of Tessa showing up for class every Friday to be tormented by one of his teachers made him physically ill. He felt responsible; after all, his signature was at the bottom of every one of April’s paychecks.

  He turned up Broadway, gliding past the Gothic spires of Grace Church on 10th Street. Though Tessa had not held the answers to his questions, though she had not proved to be the direct link to Sofia that he had hoped for and dreaded, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was always on his mind, drifting in and out like background music. His thoughts returned to her again and again, caressing the memory of their moments together like a smooth beach stone some men might carry in their pocket to remind them of a pleasant vacation.

  Prague had been strangely cheerful, vibrant, a medieval town come to bustling life. Light and music spilling out of café doors. Drunken Scandinavian students with steins of beer. Sleek, dark-haired girls with portfolios under their arms hurrying to meet lovers in Old Town Square. The last time he’d been there, he’d purchased a Klimt from a furtive little man who was selling all his earthly possessions for next to nothing so that he could get himself and his family out of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.

  He turned onto Sixth Avenue, the cold wind hustling him forward. Now his mind turned to the information Levon had given him. So Lucian Swain had broken up with April Huffman. Rafe didn’t give a blessed damn. All it meant was that Lucian was back on the prowl again, looking for that next special girl, at a guest lecture, or a restaurant, or a club, or a meeting, but to Tessa, sweet, trusting, faithful Tessa, it would mean that he was coming back to her. And knowing Lucian, he would not be averse to letting her have another taste of his charms, his much vaunted and much practiced talents, to keep her trailing in his wake a little while longer.

  He tried to tell himself that she was just another student, well off bounds and entitled to her own mistakes, but it was useless, he felt the muscles in his jaw swelling, the fangs breaking through the gums and descending. Something was changing in his eyes, too; he could feel his pupils dilating, his vision growing more acute.

  He was crossing Herald Square now. Macy’s windows had been changed over to cheerful tableaus of merry Victorian winter scenes. Christmas shoppers laden with shiny red bags hurried along the wide promenades of Thirty-fourth Street and Broadway. Rafe stalked through the throngs, causing a dozen women to move aside with a little gasp, the hair along the back of their necks prickling straight up.

  At the garment district, he slowed. The crowd was thinner here, the lights dimmer, the skyscrapers older, the streets dirtier. His eyes raked east and west, searching out women lingering in subway exits or alone at bus stops, waiting for the right aura to strike him as he swept past.

  There. A woman sat in a gr
ay Toyota, parked halfway up Thirty-eighth Street, turning the key again and again on an engine that would not start. The buttons and trimmings stores were all closed now, their gates and shutters locked down for the night. He could feel her desperation grow as she sat there wondering what to do; how to get home, where to find someone to tow the car, what her husband would say. Her fear at being alone, stranded on this little-traveled street at night.

  The door squealed as she emerged cautiously from the safety of her car. She was peering fearfully towards Broadway, hoping to spot a phone booth. Rafe glided soundlessly alongside her.

  He smelled wool and sweat, a dimestore imitation of Chanel No. 5. Gently, so gently she almost didn’t notice it, he swept the hair away from her neck. By the time she heeled around, choked out an exclamation, he was ready. He drove his fangs into her throat.

  She gasped, struggled, made noise. He clapped his hand over her mouth and dragged her into a lightless loading dock between the buildings.

  Pinning her against a sign that advertised ribbons of all colors and widths, to the trade only, please, he sucked voraciously at the jagged hole he’d ripped in her flesh. She tore at him with her nails, but he just forced himself harder against her, hearing bones crack. It made no difference to him; he grew warmer, more alive, by the minute.

  Her body began to slide through his arms. Insatiable, he held on, fastened his teeth in a new place. He caught her just as her legs gave out, lowering her onto a bundle of flattened cardboard boxes.

  Whatever had made her human was gone; it was like looking at a broken department store mannequin. Her blouse was open, hiked up, and her skirt was twisted round the wrong way. One of her shoes had fallen off and was lying at some distance, kicked there during the struggle. Her eyes were partly open, staring at him.

  A police car squealed down the avenue, whee-oo, whee-ooh, whee-ooh. He searched his pockets for a cigarette, put it between his lips, doubled over with dry heaves. And then he sprinted down the street toward Broadway.