“Wait, wait, wait,” I cut in. “You said you’re not even nineteen, and I know for a solid fact the drinking age here is twenty-one.”
She looked away, shrugged, hiding a smirk. “I don’t look eighteen, and I have an ID that says I’m twenty-one, and it’s nearly perfect.”
“I see. Naughty, naughty.”
“I didn’t use it much. Mostly one of our friends who was of age would buy for us and we’d hang at someone’s dorm or apartment. But sometimes my friends would go out and the hell if I’d let something as pesky as my age keep me from the fun.”
“Well, I can’t say much on that, I’ve been drinking since I was fourteen or fifteen.”
“Sounds like a story there, too.”
“Yeah, but that one’s got sad bits, so let’s focus on yours.”
“Right. So, it’s way late. I’m sloshed. I lost my friends, I took a cab there so I have no idea where I am, and I used most of my cash at the bar. Guys are hitting on me left and right, trying to get me to go home with them, into the bathroom, you name it. I know I’m way too far gone to be doing anything like that, so I need to get home. Only, we’re in a dead zone as far as cabs go, and I’m nearly broke besides, so I figure I can find a bus. Right? Wrong.”
“This sounds sketchy.”
“Ohhhh boy, so sketchy. I leave the bar. Start walking. I figure I’ll find a bus, a subway station, something. I got an MTA pass when I first moved to New York, because I did my research on living there before I got there, thinking I’d be this enlightened, sophisticated Manhattan socialite in no time, right? I was a sixteen-year-old girl with her head in the clouds, thinking living in New York would be the start of my rising star.”
“From what I hear, New York eats up and spits out those dreams a dozen at a time.”
“You have heard correctly, my friend. It’s a ruthless place. It’s everything you’ve heard and more, good and bad.”
“So where’d you end up?”
“I passed out on the subway. Ended up in Coney Island at six in the morning when a conductor realized I was still on the car and woke me up.”
“What does that have to do with you being a painter instead of a photographer?”
“Huh?”
“When you started the story, you said the first thing I should know is you’re more of a painter.”
She laughed. “Oh. Well, I was going to tell a different story.”
“So tell me that one.”
“Nuh-uh. It’s embarrassing.”
“I’ll trade you for an embarrassing story of mine.”
“Fine. But this is, like, true mortification.”
“Mine involves involuntary public defecation in a very conservative country.”
Her eyes widened. “Wow, I think you’ll win. But okay, here goes. You know the old trope about art students having to do nude portraits, right? It’s a thing. And it is real. It’s not like in the movies, usually, but you get to a point where you do end up drawing someone nude. Usually it’s all very professional, and not really that exciting or titillating, after the first few minutes of your first one, at least. So, I was in this private studies track, me and a handful of other students selected by the department head. The assignment was to do portraits of each other. But it was a competitive thing. The winning portrait, as selected by our advisor—the same woman who gave me the camera, by the way—and her colleague who owned an art gallery, would be displayed for purchase in a showing. Big time bragging rights, huge for your portfolio, huge for your resumé as an artist, plus the chance to get real money for a piece of art you made. A big deal. So, you couldn’t just do any old portrait, like a typical bust portrait or whatever. You had to have an angle; you had to demonstrate your voice as an artist. And you also had to pose for a portrait of you, right? Took the competition to this whole other level, because you were competing with each other, but also posing for each other.
“And let me tell you, sitting for an oil portrait? It’s a very intimate process, especially when it’s a one-on-one thing rather than a classroom setting. You don’t just sit once; you sit for hours, several times. There was no stipulation about what kind of portrait, just that it had to be a portrait of someone in the class. So we all spent days figuring out what we were going to do, who we were going to have sit for us, and then scheduling things so we all had time to sit and to paint.”
“When does this get embarrassing?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes at me. “Momentarily, trust me. So, there were two girls in the class, me and Avril Galloway, and three boys. We’re none of us professional artists, but we are art students. Nudity in art is a whole different thing. Because, like, it’s art, you know?”
I nodded. “Sure. I’ve done some portraits. I’m not formally trained, so I’ve never done any classwork, but I know what you mean.”
“Wait. You’re not formally trained?”
“I also don’t have a degree. Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t be able to work for them like I do. How I got in is a whole other story, and—”
“That part has sad bits in it too,” she surmised.
“You guessed it.”
“Short version?”
“My mum was a photographer. Did work for Nat Geo, Getty Images, AP. One of her best friends was an editor at Nat Geo. My mom, uh…well, she was in a position to ask this friend, this editor, for a favor that he could not refuse, because of…circumstances. Her favor was that he look at my photography. He did. But I was just a kid at the time and had nothing but stuff I’d shot around the house and neighborhood on her old Leica. Nothing even close to good because shit, I was twelve, but he was a good sport and looked. Was very encouraging. Gave me some real gems of advice on pro shooting like he was taking a likely young buck under his wing, things I’ve never forgot to this day. So then, fast forward six or seven years, I was in a bar in the Netherlands, and I was real pissed, like way deep in the bag. Meaning, drunk as a skunk.
“And who do I run into but my mum’s old mate, the editor? I had my camera, and my laptop full of photos I’d taken over the last few years on tour with my dad’s band, right? I’d gotten good, and I asked him to look. He knew me, knew why I was traveling with the band, he’d been there with Mum at the end, and he was the best sort of sport there is, so he looked at my stuff again. And this time, I had stuff worth looking at. He said publications have rules and regulations as for needing college degrees and a minimum experience requirement and specialization and all, but I had something that can’t be taught in college and can’t be learned in any amount of experience…that being raw golden talent.”
I sighed, thinking back to those days, fondly but also with a heavy patina of bitter pain. Poppy was rapt, so I continued.
“I’d already developed a specialty—the adrenaline shots. We traveled all over Europe—we being my dad and the band he was in—and I’d hang off railway trestles to get the steam off a stack as it passed under me, climb up the outside of a high-rise to get the sunrise off a particular window at a specific angle. I was crazy. I liked the danger. I figured I had no reason to be careful, so fuck it, right? Get the shot. If I cark it, I cark it, so what, who the fuck cares. Right? And my portfolio showed it. Jerry knew it, and he remembered the promise he’d made to Mum, and he knew it wasn’t to humor a twelve-year-old boy who liked to play with cameras. He knew Mum had seen my natural eye even then, and so old Jerry took me in. He used seniority or some corporate shenanigans to get me on salary despite being eighteen with not even my level one qualifications, much less any higher education. He says he just showed them my amateur work and it spoke for itself, but the corporate world doesn’t work that way, which means the old bugger pulled some very serious strings to keep his promise to Mum.”
She was quiet a while. Eyed me seriously. “There is a whole hell of a lot to pull out of that story, Errol.”
I focused on the road. Shrugged. Studied the way the yellow lines flashed past in dot-space-dot rhythm, the trees here and there, a clust
er of cows browsing, an underpass…anything to avoid seeing her work through to the realizations of what I’d hinted at—the ugly tragedies which had shoved me out into the world alone as a kid posing as a man.
I didn’t want sympathy or understanding. That led to people thinking I needed to be healed. Thinking I needed help. Thinking I was this poor damaged thing that needed to be given sweet succor. Nah, mate. Bullshit. I made it through. I like my life. Sure I’ve got shit that keeps me awake some nights, but who doesn’t? And the problem with sharing the sad bits is people stop seeing you as you, they just see you as you-plus-tragedy. Then the you-plus disappears and, in their eyes, you’re just the tragedy that defines you.
I refuse to be defined by my tragedies.
Keep your sympathy and your succor, thanks, and fuck off.
That’s where the stories come in, the cool, swashbuckling tales of embedding with special forces and skydiving into volcanoes with a high-speed camera machine-gunning and hanging off the side of a freight train as it barrels along a mountainside in remote, rugged China.
It’s all real.
It’s no smoke screen.
But if it distracts from the shit I don’t want you to know about? Great.
So why the fuck was I getting into that shit with this girl?
Poppy
God, he was fascinating.
Hot as fuck.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m all stuck-up and snotty about what I look like, but let’s just say I’ve gotten into some pretty highbrow, high society Manhattan parties simply because I look like I belong there—I’ll splurge on a blow-out, have my friend Zeke, the makeup artist, do my makeup, and put on my trusty LBD, and I can bluster my way into just about any party. Point of this little aside is that I’ve rubbed elbows with some wealthy, fascinating, famous people. Some of whom have in fact graced the covers of magazines, and been named sexiest men alive. So, when I say Errol Unknown-Last-Name is hot as fuck and interesting as hell, it is with some level of objective authority on the subject.
He’s a golden god, of the devil-may-care surfer variety. Tall, over six feet for sure, lean and hard. What he’s said of his profession makes sense of his build—he’s not bursting with gym-rat muscle, he’s not some skinny-fat pud, nor is he an ultra-shredded IG fitness douche. He’s powerfully built, with broad shoulders and a thick chest and strong arms, but it’s the kind of power and strength you can only get by living hard, being outside, and doing hard physical things. Like climbing mountains, rock climbing, hiking for miles on end with a backpack full of gear. His is functional power, not simply aesthetic muscle. And maybe it’s just me, but damn is it sexy.
His hair is longish, not quite to his shoulders but long enough he could tie it back or put it in a man-bun, wavy and messy and curly and a sun-bleached dirty blond. At the moment he had it down and loose, and strands stuck to his beard, which was somewhat less than a real beard of the lumbersexual variety, but not just heavy stubble. It’s the short beard of a man who rarely cares or has the time to shave, but also has neither the time nor the interest in maintaining a fancy beard. It’s masculine, and sexy. Run your fingers over it and it’d be soft and scratchy at the same time. I bet it would tickle if he kissed me, and burn so good if he went down on me.
His eyes, the glimpse of them I got from behind his care-worn Wayfarers, were blue as…well, honestly, metaphor fails me. The Greek island of Santorini is famous for many reasons, chief among them being the white houses with vividly blue domed roofs. Errol’s eyes were the exact shade of those rooftop domes. The color of the Aegean at noon on a cloudless day.
I wonder if he’s been there.
“Have you ever been to Greece?” I asked.
Because that seemed a hell of a lot safer than diving into the details of that story he just told, which was just brimming with untold tragedy.
He blinked at the unexpected conversational shift. “I…yeah. I did a piece on the locations of Greek mythology, like the actual mountaintop said to be Olympus, and where the oracle of Delphi was said to be, stuff like that. I worked a cool angle, too, because I found these guys who built wooden boats in the style of the ancient Greeks, and we went from location to location in that boat, and I did some features on locations from the Odyssey and the Iliad, using the latest archaeological data. It was a fun piece to do, actually. There’s just heaps of fascinating history in that area. I’ve had an idea of doing a piece on the actual route taken by Philippides, the soldier who ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver the news of the victory of the battle at Marathon, creating the sporting event. I just can’t get Jerry to sign off on it yet.”
“That sounds cool,” I said. “Why won’t your boss let you do it?”
“Because he said my job is the high octane stuff the sissy old fart photographers are too scared to do.” He laughed. “Nah, I’m just kidding. They’re all wicked talented and manage photos I couldn’t even dream of. Jerry just likes to assign me the wild stuff that takes a certain amount of ‘don’t give a shit adrenaline junkie bravado,’ and figures that piece is too fluff for a man of my specific talents.”
“So, then, what are you working on here in the States?”
He passed his hand through his thick mop of messy hair, pulling it away from his cheekbones and jawline, checking traffic as we reached a junction where the highway we were on crossed paths with another. He gestured at the intersection. “Straight, left, or right? Up to you.”
“I don’t know. Which way are you going?”
He glanced out the window at the sun, which was to our left and behind us a bit. “North, maybe? I don’t know. I’ve not really been paying super close attention, to be honest. I just sorta go where the road goes until I find a new road that looks like more fun driving.”
I perused the options—ahead, more open highway, cow pastures and cornfields and silos; left, more of the same; to the right, a sign cautioning that the road became winding, and the promise of something like hills. “I’d say right. No idea where it’ll take us, but it looks more interesting.”
Errol nodded. “Woman after my own heart, you are. Exactly what I’d pick.”
God, that fucking accent. Could it get any hotter? If I were to be wearing underwear under this skirt, that accent would make them all wet. I wasn’t, though, so I just got all squishy and warm between my thighs every time he spoke.
He turned right, and within a mile we were winding through a forest of rolling hills, sunlight dappling us in staccato flashes of brilliance.
“You never finished your story,” he said, smirking at me. “Don’t think I forgot. The one about the portrait.”
I winced. “I had hoped you’d forgotten.”
“Not even almost.”
“Fine. But your story had better be seriously embarrassing, if I’m telling you this.”
“Oh, it is. And it ain’t the only one. There’s the time I spent two weeks in a Malaysian jail over a situation involving a prostitute, a poor translation, and me being a right cad sometimes.”
She blinked. “I don’t even know where to start with that.”
“All’s I can say is, it’s not what you think, which is why I landed in jail.” He chuckled. “I’d have to be a mite more pissed to tell that story, though.”
“Pissed meaning drunk?”
“Yeah, ’xactly.” He jerked a thumb behind us. “There’s a little white chilly bin back there with cold drinks in it, if you’re thirsty. And one of the cabinets up top has snacks in it, nuts and crisps and the like. Help yourself.”
I unbuckled and moved carefully to the rear of the van, found the cooler and fished two bottles of water out of it—it was more water than ice at that point, but it kept the bottles chilled. In the cabinet I found a box of prepackaged mixed nuts, and brought some of those forward as well.
“What was it you called it? A chilly bin?”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, chilly bin. Cooler bin, if you like. It’s what it is, ain’t it, a bin that kee
ps things chilled?”
“Well, yeah. It’s just funny to me for some reason.”
“What would you call it? A cooler?” He faked an American accent, making the final -er syllable exaggeratedly pronounced.
“I mean, it’s a Yeti. If you have a Yeti, you call it a Yeti.”
“You Americans are weird, bro. Who gives a shit what brand it is? It’s a chilly bin, just call it what it is.” He twisted the top off his water and sipped at it. “Now. Story time. Embarrass yourself, if you please.”
I popped a salted almond into my mouth. “Well.” I chewed, swallowed, washed it down, and continued my story. “There was this guy in the class with me.”
“Ahh, now we come to it.”
I snickered. “You have no clue. Just wait. But yes, like all good embarrassing stories, it was brought on by my own thirst. His name was Teague, and he was from this super-wealthy Upper West Side family, and he literally could have walked off of the set of a Hollywood teen rom-com as the pretty asshole villain. He was actually a nice guy, though, and a crazy good painter. His work with chiaroscuro was damn near genius, but he couldn’t do hands for shit. Anyway. I had a stupid crush on him, as in I’d maneuvered myself into that particular track not entirely for him, but partially. And I had it on good authority that he was just over a breakup, so I figured it would be a good time to make my move. We agreed he’d sit for me first, and since I didn’t have a swanky penthouse condo like he did, I had to reserve a studio at the college. My portrait of Teague was in the style of the grand old portraits of kings and generals, I had him wearing a full French army uniform from the Napoleonic Wars era, with his hand in his shirt and a big ol’ codpiece and the cavalry sword and all that. It was so fucking cool. Then it was my turn to pose for him. He’d said he hadn’t decided what he wanted to do, so just come ready for anything.”
Goode Vibrations Page 6
