"A great city is nothing more than a portrait of itself, and yet when all is said and done, its arsenals of scenes and images are part of a deeply moving plan. As a book in which to read this plan, New York is unsurpassed. For the whole world has poured its heart into the city by the Palisades, and made it far better than it ever had any right to be."
-Mark Helprin in "A Winter's Tale"
Chapter I. sketch.
Manhattan, New York. October. Present Day
The reflection in the window of Charley's Streetside Café stared wild-eyed back at the girl who stood before it. Removing her headphones, she ran a hand through her windblown disheveled hair and tucked a lock of it behind her ear. She shook her head, the long fringe falling cut across her forehead falling into her eyes once more and sticking to the droplets of sweat on her skin. Raising a hand to push open the door, she noticed a smear of paint streaked across her knuckles. Prussian Blue. She laughed softly and traced the outline of her reflection with her index finger, pausing to graze over the scowl formed by her downturned mouth. "You're a mess," she told herself and sighing, pushed open the door.
Ting.
A violet haired girl with a nose stud at the counter raised her eyebrows questioningly. "Well, you look flushed," she said.
The newcomer touched her hot cheeks self consciously. "I got out of class late and missed the train," she explained.
"Again?" the girl at the counter said.
"Yes. It's quite a trek from NYU to here, you know. I am a glutton for punishment, I guess….going to school there and working all the way down here." She slipped under the counter and tossed her backpack against the wall before biting her bottom lip and hesitantly adding, "And I almost died a tragic death while crossing the street again."
"Audrey, really…" violet-haired returned exasperatedly, rolling her eyes.
"God, April, it's not as though I asked for it…I didn't say to the car, 'please hit me now.' Hand me my apron."
April did as requested and took a black apron off of its nearby wall hook and handed it to her friend. "How long have you been here? Four months? You should know how to cross streets by now. It's a simple concept. You stand on the corner, push the button on the post and wait. If the sign says, 'Walk,' then you go. If it says 'Don't Walk,' then don't cross the street! I don't know why you find that so hard to understand."
"Well, when I went to Uni in London, you would just walk out and keep walking. The drivers there know to stop when they see someone bloody walking in front of them. And back home in Brighton, we didn't have that problem either." She tied her apron around her waist, plucked a pencil from its pocket and slipped it behind her ear. "There weren't vengeful cars at every turn just waiting to run you over at any given moment." Audrey sighed, "I suppose I'm just used to that. My brain keeps reverting back to what's familiar. I guess this transition period is going on longer than I expected." Shrugging, she changed the subject and asked, "Busy in here today?"
April scoffed. "No. Completely dead. I could probably count the number of customers on two hands."
"Good, I've got work to do," Audrey said, and fumbled through her backpack until she produced a black covered, hard bound sketchbook and a drawing pencil. 4B. Freshly sharpened. She opened it on the counter, looked over the work before her. Sighing, she absentmindedly chewed on the end of her pencil and stared out of the window. Her attention span was short and she a notorious daydreamer. She watched the passersby and waited. For what she didn't know…but she had made a habit out of waiting. Her life was passed by in expectation and anticipation of something great to happen. She never knew when it would come or if it would, but she would be ready for it. After gazing out of the window for nearly twenty minutes solid, she sighed deeply, stole a quick glance at the clock, and then reluctantly set about diving into the work before her.
"this (let's remember) day died again and
again; whose golden, crimson dooms conceive
an oceaning abyss of orange dream
larger than the sky times earth: a flame beyond
soul immemorially forevering am-
and as collapsing that gray mind by way
doom disappeared, out of perhaps (who knows?")
A painting. A painting based on poetry…another assignment from Professor Malveto that only furthered Audrey's resentment of him. She sat at an empty table near the kitchen for over an hour while she attempted to read over the twenty two E.E. Cummings poems that she had printed out and pasted into her sketchbook the previous night. Haphazardly, she lazily made drawings comprised of line and smudge, but void of soul or promise. She was lost again...hopelessly uninspired and angry at herself for it. She had come to loathe these dry spells more as they came to plague her more frequently. Biting her lip, Audrey erased half of the scrawling on the page before her and continued to make her way through the rest of the seventeenth of the twenty two poems.
"eternity floated, a blossoming
(while anyone might slowly count to soon)
rose – did you see her? darling, did you (kiss
me) quickly count to never? you were wrong.
-then all the way from perfect-"
Ting.
Audrey's gaze swung to the door. In walked a tall man clad in a black jacket and jeans. Her eyes followed him as he walked over to a table – tracing over his messily tousled sandy brown hair that his long fingered hand pushed out of his eyes….his down turned mouth….his wide shoulders. His head turned toward her slightly as he passed and she quickly looked back down to her papers to avoid his gaze. She skimmed over the last line of the poem once more.
"-then all the way from perfect nowhere came"
Biting her lip again, she hesitantly looked up from the table and allowed her eyes once more to fall upon his welcoming features. He sat in a booth towards the back of the café, easily lounging in his seat and perusing the menu. Audrey forced her self to continue reading the poem, her mind still tripping over the first line.
"-then all the way from perfect nowhere came
(as easily as we forget something)
livingest the imaginable moon"
He was sitting in April's section and Audrey looked around the room for her. When she located her near the counter, April caught her gaze and tilted her head towards the man at the table. "Get that for me," she mouthed, and Audrey nodded in response. Strangely and suddenly acutely aware of herself and her movements, she slowly rose from her sleep, careful not to make a wrong step, and walked towards the table. His menu was closed, and he had begun to tap it against the table absentmindedly.
"Can I get you something to drink?" she asked upon approaching the table.
As if brought back to reality from a daydream, he turned his head toward her suddenly and smiled. It was a warm smile that made his eyes sparkles as they crinkled around the edges. A grin tugged on the corner of her lips…something about his smile infected her and rendered her unable to not return the gesture. "How about an iced tea?" was his answer.
She nodded slightly and then turned to walk away. Her skin prickled. Those eyes. They were so warm. Soulful even. No Nellwyn, she told herself firmly. God, stop swooning over a silly boy with pretty eyes.
She returned to the table with the drink in her hands. As she placed it before him, he softly touched his index finger to her knuckles. "You paint?" he asked her.
She laughed slightly, startled from the touch of his hand to hers. "Um, yes. Yes, I do."
He chuckled softly in response and ran a hand through his hair once more. "I suppose you think that's a weird thing to just ask someone…if they paint. I should explain. My best friend paints…so, yeah, I notice that sort of thing." She opened her mouth to return something, but when she did, the man's eyes left her face and looked over her shoulder expectantly. Audrey turned to see where his gaze fell and watched another man slide into the booth. "Professor Denton," the man addressed the newcomer. "How are ya?"
"Just fine," the professor answered. "Have you been waiting long?"
"No, no," the man responded, and then both men turned their attention to Audrey.
Remembering her place and that she was, in fact, working, she was jolted back to reality. "Oh, I'm sorry…what can I get you to drink?" She took the professor's drink order and then went to retrieve it. While she was filling the glass, April came up behind her. "Tasty," she remarked, nodding her head in the direction of the man at Audrey's table. Audrey nonchalantly shrugged in response. "Well, I think so, anyway, " April continued. "Tonight? You still up for it?"
"Yeah, yeah," Audrey answered, but she was distracted. She'd made a vow to herself upon arriving in the city. New York was her chance to start over: her chance to be rid of the mess she'd left in Sussex. She intended on not becoming involved with any men until she'd been in New York for at least five months. Having arrived in June, she wasn't due until at least November. Although it was not technically so, in Audrey's mind, admitting just how "tasty" she thought the handsome stranger to be was allowing herself to become involved. It was a small involvement, a centimeter of involvement, but it was a centimeter farther than she wanted to go.
"Took you long enough." Audrey's roommate Raven stood with her head cocked to the side and one hand on her hip and glared as she approached. NYU's Student Housing Department had paired the naïve, eager Audrey fresh off the plane from Sussex with the street smart, worldly, "New York born and bred" Raven in a too-small dorm room. Audrey's first impression of Raven was one of holy terror and reverence. Raven took one skeptical look at the flush-cheeked girl with a messy bun held in place with a 4B sketch pencil and her mismatched outfit of stripes and plaid and immediately thought her hopeless. However, once she opened her witty, sarcastic mouth, Ray knew she was in love with the little "import." They had been inseparable ever since that moment.
"I suppose you're Mia Tortulo?"
"I'm Raven. Nobody calls me Mia except my father, and he's lucky I let him get away with it."
"Well, I'm Audrey, and I go by no other name. I know it's a formal, stuffy thing to do. But I am English….and I couldn't think of anything more clever to call myself, so you'll have to forgive me."
Even on her worse days, Raven Tortulo always looked complete. Finished. Standing next to her, Audrey couldn't help feeling inferior. She even had to raise her head to look the girl in the eye. In contrast to Raven's perfected togetherness, Audrey Nellwyn's look was always seemingly haphazard. She was always coming undone in one way or another. Hair in her eyes and in need of a good trim. A hole in her pants. Left shoe held together by safety pins. Paint on her hands. Black eyeliner smudged into the crease of her eye. A run in her tights. Audrey always gave off the impression that she were coming apart and being held together only by patches, quick stitching, and safety pins.
"I'm sorry," Audrey apologized looking at her bare wrist. "Well, it seems I've forgotten my watch, but God. I'm sure it's only by just a few minutes. Nothing to get upset over."
"It's not that you're a few minutes late, dear," Lute said with a crooked half smile, tipping her fedora up slightly. "It's that you're always late. Consistently." Lute McDonaghey. Lute was, in fact, her given name. "My parents were hippies," she'd always maintained and shrugged whenever asked. Quick to voice her opinion and never missing a chance to take a teasing stab at someone if the situation permitted. Yes. Lute was a living, breathing reality check.
"Can we just go?" Audrey asked, frustrated.
"Knock me more of your cheerfulness, why don't you doll?" Lute rolled her eyes and bent over to pick up and inspect the hem of Audrey's striped skirt. "Some drape you got there," she said. "What's the line on this one….or did you make it yourself?"
"God, Lute, enough of your swing talk. Sometimes I wish you'd just speak English!" April growled.
"What are you always so grouchy for, kid? Huh? What's the matter with you?" Lute asked in her own defense. "You've been in a bad mood all day."
"I haven't been in a bad mood all day," April countered.
"Well, since you got here, at least," Ray interjected.
"No, no, no," April said. "That is so not true. Is it really such a horrible thing if I get a little annoyed that Lute always insists on using that jabbering nonsense that none of us can understand? Couldn't she just put her native language to use and speak English?"
"Actually," another quietly interjected, "Lute would have to speak American. Audrey's the only one of us who really speaks English." Audrey was at first not quite sure where the voice had come from. Nicole Burleigh had been standing on the edge of the group, acting as a silent spectator, yet taking in every detail of every movement and every word of the others. She wasn't one to mince words or waste them. She spoke when necessary and when she thought her statements would count for something. Lute mouthed a thank you her way, and Audrey caught her eye to smile gratefully. It was true. Nicole and her tireless mind for detail had come through again, silencing April with blatant accuracy.
"I don't know about that," Ray spoke up, inspecting her nails with intense interest. "Sometimes, when she gets going really fast, I'm not sure what language she's speaking."
"Ha, ha, Ray."
"Oh you know I love you," Ray said, taking Audrey's hand in her own, "Even if I can't understand what you're sayin'."
"You should pick on yourself madam," Audrey retorted. "Queens…..Gawd….Mutthah.. Hehspray…"
"Alright," Ray said, sporting her 'I'd kill a man for doing what you're doing but you're lucky that I love you' grin, "I'm gonna pretend that you're not sayin' that. Cause that's one horrible imitation of me, if I do say so." A cold wind rose suddenly. All of the girls except for one shivered and pulled their coats around them and adjusted their scarves. Audrey smiled as the breeze blew threw her, and opened her arms to greet it. She twirled around as she walked, closing her eyes. The voices of her friends faded away as her mind remembered England and frost on the window of her little house in Brighton. The imaginary rains swirled around her and turned into sleet under her step. Her mother was calling to her to come out of the dampness before she caught her death, but she only laughed in response.
"What's wrong with you?" April asked jarring Audrey from her reverie.
"You're one odd duck," Ray said and rolled her eyes.
"Oh, shut up. It's wonderfully delicious, isn't it?" Audrey said softly, "Makes you feel alive. I am in mad passionate love with cold weather!"
"I'll say it again, Audrey," Ray repeated, "You're one fucking odd duck."
"And you're so crude."
"Agh! Are we just going to stand here flapping our lips all night? Cause I am fuckin' freezin' my ass off, thank you very much," Raven yelled, gripping her coat around her and holding onto it as though her very life depended on it.
"Oh Ray, you're so dramatic," Lute remarked with a sigh as she took a few steps. "You even look dramatic."
Jack Kelly stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the flashing sign outside of Arc, and watching others descend the stairs that led the entrance. Having arrived a bit early, he had been waiting for his friends for nearly twenty minutes. He looked at his watch for the third time.
Nine fifty nine.
David would be there any minute. David Jacobs was hopelessly predictable: compulsively punctual – never early, never late. He always arrived at precisely the decided time. Jack smiled as he looked up to see David walking around the corner. He didn't bother to glance at his watch again, for he was certain that it would read ten o'clock. "Hey Dave," Jack called out when he was within earshot.
David nodded his hello. "So that's it? That's Arc, huh?" he said when he came in close proximity.
"Yeah," Jack replied, giving the building another once over. "Looks interesting, doesn't it?"
"Oh, sure it does. If you like that sort of thing. It's……..it's underground." David laughed nervously as his eyes scanned the structure's neon lit facade. "In more ways than one," he continued, clearing his throat. David Jacobs had never really partaken of any of the city's active nightlife. His family was Jewish. Strictly so and conservative to boot. The idea of mixing with a room packed full of drunken, gyrating strangers made him a bit uncomfortable, to say the least. It had taken a fair amount of persuading from Jack to convince David to even consider accompanying him that night.
Arc had a reputation for attracting those who were part of the underground scene: the liberals, the free thinkers, and the anti-mainstreamers - they were known to flock there in droves. David had had little to no interacting with these sorts of persons in his young life, and he was admittedly scared at the thought of going inside of the establishment and finding himself surrounded by them. He had dreaded going, but he'd told Jack that he would, and he was never one to break plans at the last minute. "So, what are we waiting for?" he asked Jack in an effort to convince his friend and himself that he was not as ill at ease as he seemed.
"What we are waiting for," Jack announce with a roll of his eyes and a flick of his cigarette, "is for the notoriously late Spot to grace us with his presence."
"Spot. Oh." David flinched at the mention of his name. Spot Conlon. David and Spot had managed to exist in each other's company well enough, but Spot intimidated him like no one he'd ever met before.
Jack continued, "I told him to be here at nine thirty instead of ten….." As David was habitually punctual, Spot was habitually not. "……..which means he should be here somewhere round ten oh five. He runs on a thirty-five minute delay, usually."
"Jo coming?" David asked, eager to change the subject. Josephine August was the love of Spot Conlon's life. She was held in high reverence among Jack and David's circle of friends. Despite the fact that any one of them would have readily slept with her should she ever extend the invitation, they respected her for taming the high strung, intense monster that Spot had been. He was fiercely devoted to her in ways that astounded everyone who had known Spot prior to Jo's coming. David felt comfortable around her – with her easy smile and quick wit, she was a nice alternative to Spot's intensity, and he enjoyed watching someone as small as her put the mighty and imposing Spot into his place. It brought Spot down a level and made him feel more human to David.
"Oh, you didn't hear, did you?" Jack asked offhandedly, lighting up another cigarette.
"Hear what?" David responded.
"Jo and Spot broke up. Spot's been sulking in his room for a week now. Drinking himself to death and painting like a madman…you know how Spot is. If he shows up tonight, I'll be fucking amazed."
"Well, you go ahead and be fucking amazed."
Jack whirled around to see a lanky, gray capped fellow standing before him. A hand was jammed into each side pocket of his paint streaked jeans and his head was cocked to the side as he scowled upward at Jack. "Heya Spot," Jack greeted him.
"Heya yourself Kelly," Spot responded and nodded toward David who smiled back rather tight-lippedly. He licked his lips. "Look Jack, this is the first time I've dragged my ass out of the house in weeks. And I didn't much feel like doing it. So, this place better be worth my effort. And give me one of those while you're at it."
Jack handed his friend a cigarette and fumbled in his pockets for a lighter. "Where'd you pick up that hat, Spot?" His hand finally falling upon it, he pulled it out, struck it, and offered Spot its fame.
Spot sucked in as the end of the stick in his mouth ignited. He blew a few puffs before straightening the hat on his head and remarking, "It's new. You like it? I, uh, think it kinda emphasizes my image as the poor workin' artist."
Both Jack and David blinked and silently stared at Spot blankly for a moment. "Poor, my ass," Jack finally said, scoffing and emitting a small snorting laugh through his nose. "Now can we go inside before I freeze my ass off?"
Jack, Spot, and David walked through the doors and into a warm red haze of smoke and light. The room was throbbing, pulsating with sound, energy, and life. Spot tapped Jack on the shoulder to get his attention and then leaned over to shout into his ear. "Who's this chick you wanted to come here to see, again?"
"Her name's Ana," Jack yelled back over the loud music, "She's my lab partner in Chem. You know…Chemistry? School…..that thing that the rest of us have to go to 'cause we aren't painting prodigies?"
"Or have rich fathers with serious guilt problems," David chimed in.
Spot scowled.
"Well, she invited me to see her dee-jay," Jack added as he scanned the crowd in an attempt to find her. He stood on his tiptoes, craning his neck to look over the sea of heads. Finally he spotted her a girl in a booth to the far right holding headphones to one ear and a record in her hand, wearing a black tank that said "Trouble." "There she is!" he shouted over the music and pointed in her direction.
As if on cue, Ana looked up and spotted Jack. She flashed him a huge smile, put the record down and waved to him. Tucking the left side of her dark red -hued bob behind her ear, she leaned over and spoke into the microphone. "Hello, to all of you out there! This is Mischief, spinning the platters for you tonight…..this next track is one hot little number, but not nearly as sizzling as the hot number standing next to you, Jack."
Jack looked to his left to see a familiar arrogant smirk uncontrollably returning to Spot's mouth. He sighed, shook his head and smiled. Jack was certain Spot would catapult back into his habitual charmingly smug self once the first pretty girl paid attention to him. In the duration of their fourteen year friendship, Jack liked to think he'd learned at least that about his friend. Nonchalantly, he reached over and hit Spot on the back of the head, nearly knocking off the new cap Spot had been so proud of. "Would ya knock it off already Conlon?" he chided him, "Your over-inflated ego is gonna bust any minute now and spew nasty little Spot bits all over the room!"
"Hey! Hey!" Spot yelled. With meticulous attention, he carefully readjusted the hat to sit correctly on his head. "Hands off the hot number!" He pulled the cap low over his eyes and scowled at Jack, who stared incredulously at the pompous display and laughed. Unable to help himself, David soon chimed in.
"David! DAVID JACOBS!!"
David's laughing ceased and a confused expression came over his face as he whirled around at the sound of his name. His eyes scanned the crowd and searched the sea of anonymous faces for someone recognizable that could be calling out his name. Who could he possibly know here? Or rather, who knew him? His brow furrowed and finally his eyes lit upon a female figure with long violet hair jumping up and down and enthusiastically waving her hands. A "who the…?" softly fell from his lips. "Is that…. April?" he asked himself and began to push past bodies to make his way over to the other side of the room where she stood. Intrigued, his two friends followed, easily moving via the path David's wake had created.
"Well, of all the places in all the world, I never thought I'd see you here, David Jacobs," was April's greeting once the three had made their way over.
David nervously scratched the back of his neck. Of all the places in all the world, he never thought he'd find himself there either. "Yeah, it's quite a stretch from Speech class, ey?" he finally was able to muster.
April looked around David at the two others standing behind him. "Who're your friends?" she asked.
"My friends?" David responded in confused hesitation and turned around. "Oh, my friends! Yeah. Um, April, this is Jack Kelly and, um, that's Spot Conlon." Jack smiled hello and Spot nodded his head toward April who was wasting no time acquainting David with the group around her.
While half-listening to April's introductions, Jack took a swig of his beer and caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head slightly to see what had caught his attention, his eyes focused on a single girl dancing in a crowd of nameless faces and bodies. Jack wasn't sure if it were a product of his near-drunken state or if fate were sending him a sign which it wanted him to pay attention to, but his ears suddenly went deaf to the pulsating music and the roar of voices became a faint hum. He could still hear April droning on, but she sounded as though she were miles away. Everything in the room faded and blurred slightly: only the girl in red could be seen clearly. Watching her with unwavering attention, he became hypnotized by her rhythmic swaying of her body. She could have been doing a horrid splice of the polka and pop-locking, but he would have still been able to derive fluidity and grace from her jerking movements. The strobe lights gave her a strange, unearthly appearance, illuminating her solely in the darkness with a blue hued beam that glinted off of her dark hair and caused her skin to glow with an unnatural light. Jack felt his mouth curve into a slight smile as he watched her throw her head back with laughter. Watched her long hair fly around her as she twisted and turned. She looked so familiar. So very familiar. Where had he seen her before?
Time obscured and abstracted itself as seconds elongated into light years.
The world melted and swirled around Jack as he titled his head back and let his eyes fall to half-lid. She smiled a lopsided grin and pushed her bangs out of her eyes. Jack felt the blood rush to his head and he began to feel a bit dizzy. He glanced at the bottle of beer in his hand, scowled, and put it on the table nearby. As she turned to look behind her, he saw a crescent moon drawn at the corner of her left eye. It looked to him like some ancient symbol of mysticism, which further intensified the strange feeling he drew from her. It was as though she were something entirely foreign to him, something his eyes were never meant to discover. Something otherworldly and forbidden. In his altered state of being, she became Diana, virgin goddess of the moonlight. Jack felt as though he were Actaeon, intruding by gazing upon her, and sealing his doomed fate. Jack watched her with bated breath and waited to be transformed into the stag. When he tore his eyes away from her for a brief moment, he fumbled in his pocket for a pen and then reached across the table for a napkin. On it, he began to jot down in a scrawling slanted script a poem he knew he'd one day consider either grandly insightful or foolishly embarrassing:
"Hang the moon beneath your left eye.
Open your arms as far as they will go…take off your dress.
This was written when I was alone in love with you.
Before I knew your name.
Love is always best at first, unaltered. New lovers are tender and willing…but vastly alter the world you've worked so hard to maintain with a careless dash of their hand. But I never knew magic as crazy as this."
"What are you writing?"
Jack looked up from his frantic scribbling to see the very object of his hasty poetics standing across the table from him. Hurriedly, he crumpled the napkin in his palm and shoved it deep into his pants pocket. "Oh, nothing. Just a little reminder to myself."
"Oh," she said and gazed away into the crowd of dancers.
"Um…" At that moment, Jack would have done anything, said anything to regain her gaze. He stumbled through thoughts and broken words and phrases in his search for something that would have recaptured her attention. "Do I know you?" he finally asked.
Her head snapped back to face Jack, and his expectations were met by deep pools of black that seemed to stare through him. Her expression softened, and for an instant, he was convinced that he saw a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Yes," she answered simply, taking a sip of her drink. "I paint. Remember?" She then put down her glass and whispered into the ear of dramatically drawn girl standing next to her. The second girl laughed and linked arms with his Diana as both returned to the dance floor.
Click. Flashbulbs of realization went off in Jack's mind. She was his waitress from earlier that day. But how different she looked. How the light reflected off her let-loose hair and painted her face with sharply fierce softness. She was completely transformed in the smoke and strobe haze of the club. But Jack's fantastical daydream was interrupted by feminine giggling. "Ah, married life," an Asian girl Jack thought April had called Nicole remarked, raising her glass toward the two that had absented themselves from the rest. His brow furrowed in confusion. He had no idea what she had meant by such a statement, yet something in him was terribly afraid to ask.
"Ugh."
Audrey curled her lip in disgust. She had been sitting in her chair staring at a blank canvas on the easel before her and sulking for nearly an hour. Monday. A finished, complete painting positively dripping with skill, meaning, and soul was due in class on Monday. Saturday was passing by rapidly, and still, she had nothing. Cocking her head to the side and squinting her eyes, she waited for either the God of creativity or the canvas to speak to her, and tell her what it wanted to be. Audrey groaned. Her head ached from last night's indulgence. Cradling it in both hands, she tried to ward off the pounding. Trying to decipher the painting's unspoken language was getting her nowhere, except maybe closer to an aneurysm.
In her hand, she held a slip of paper. On it, was Jack Kelly's number penned in black ink, hurriedly scrawled. His name above the slanting numbers in capital letters. A period after the first thee numbers in place of a hyphen. She quite liked him on paper, she thought and laughed softly to herself. She turned the paper in her hand and wondered what in the world she was to do with it. Fingering it between her index and thumb, she allowed her mind to wander to the previous night for a few seconds.
The words spoken between Jack and Audrey the previous night had been few. When Jack pressed the paper with his number written upon it into her palm, Audrey had only sighed and said, "You don't really mean to do this, do you?'
"Do what?" had been Jack's answer.
She sighed once more. "Oh come on, you and I both know exactly what I'm talking about. Raven's the beautiful one. I caught you staring at her earlier. And why wouldn't you? Just look at her. Not a hair out of place. As for me, well….I'm just a mess."
To this, Jack smiled and nodded. "You're right," he said and licking his lips, cast a glance toward Raven. Audrey bit at her thumbnail's cuticle and tried to convince herself that she hadn't believed for a second that he could actually be interested in her. No. There was no reason for him to be. Ray. Men always went for Ray. Audrey knew this fact like she knew the spelling of her name. She stared down at the floor and her shoes and began to consider for a moment that maybe if she wore six inch stilettos instead of patterned sneakers she would be more enticing.
"Yeah, Raven...." Jack interrupted her musings and Audrey looked up at him. "Well, she's a five act play." He paused for a moment and smiled, his warm hazel eyes crinkling at the edges just as they had done earlier that day in the first few moments of their acquaintance. "But you're meandering poetry."
"And you can tell all this by speaking to me for five minutes?" Audrey questioned, making a desperate attempt to hold back a tiny smile, but failing miserably.
"Yes," was his answer, "It's written all over you. I'm not blind. Or illiterate."
"Well, honestly you're wasting your time. What do you take me for?" she responded, "Some kind of easy mark?"
Audrey had long ago decided that she would never be a "calling" sort of girl. She preferred to not initiate or force anything. She would do nothing to lure him. If he found her somehow and talked to her once more…well, that was fate and there was nothing she could do about it. But for now, she determined not to call him. Tapping her paintbrush against her chair, another sigh escaped its holding place at the bottom of her heart and passed though her lips with an exhalation. She read over the poem once more….her mind still getting stuck on that one line:
"-then all the way from perfect nowhere came"
"Okay. Well, that's perfectly lovely. A smashing line indeed. Now, how does one paint nowhere coming forth from perfection?"
Raven pulled back the curtain and stuck her head inside of Audrey's space. "Still sitting there doing nothing, I see," she remarked stepping inside. "I left you here three hours ago, and you were still doing the same thing then."
"Yes, unfortunately. The painting will not let itself be painted." She tilted her head, shrugged, and waved her left hand defeatedly toward the canvas. "Blame my counter-productivity on it."
"Ah, that's too bad," Ray said, flopping down on Audrey's bed and sighing. "But you'll get over it. You always do." She gave the other girl a once over. "You're thinking about him, aren't you?" Ray knew Audrey far better than she should have with in their mere four months of acquaintance. "I don't know if it's the fact that I'm completely sloshed…or if it's that boy standing next to April's friend, but my head is reeling. And I'm having a bit of trouble breathing. Take me away before I lose my composure and do something I'll regret," Audrey had whispered into Ray's ear the previous night. "I can tell that you're thinking about him by the faraway look on your face that's mixed with just a touch of perplexity."
"I should just burn this and be through with it all," Audrey mused, holding the crinkled piece of paper up for Ray to see.
Raven twisted a lock of hair around her finger, groaned and slipped into her 'I know what's best voice' as she said, "Look Audrey, you can't go around burning perfectly good numbers and expect to get anywhere in the world. I wish you'd stop doing that. You should just call the damn boy. You never know. He may do something great….he may play the piano."
Audrey twisted her mouth into a contemplative scowl and shook her head. "Boys like that never play piano. They aren't as real as they look or I've made them to be in my mind….and they've got scores of issues that they'll try to pile upon you if they linger long enough. And suddenly before you know it, you're not painting or doing any productive. You're spending every free moment at his apartment being his sex slave and fixing him sandwiches and tea because he's too busy doing…whatever it is…that…he…does."
"God, you're babbling again," Ray said with a laugh. "Here's what I think…one – stop babbling. Two – call him and find out for certain what he is. Three – ask him if his friend is single for me."
"That's Spot Conlon, you know."
Ray, "Yeah, I know. I met the boy last night, if you weren't too drunk to remember. I know it's Spot Conlon. Believe me, I know!" Raven reached into the top drawer of Audrey's desk and plucked a cigarette from it. She held it between her lips and was attempting to light it when Audrey finally took notice of what she was doing.
"No!"
In one clean, swift, and utterly graceful movement, Audrey leaned over and snatched the cigarette from a startled Raven. "What are you doing?" she asked waving her hands about the room. "Flammable! All of this is very flammable!"
"Oh, sorry," Ray responded in careless monotone. "I forgot."
"Yes, I know. You're always forgetting. If you want to smoke, do it in your own room. But stay away from my paintings. I worked too bloody hard on all of them for you to dash them into nothingness simply because you need your nicotine fix." Audrey sighed. "As I was saying, no, you don't know. The object of your lust? That's the fucking Spot Conlon. The painter. In all the art mags that I read. Him."
"Ohhhh! That one you're always going on and on about? The one that "didn't earn anything, didn't work for anything that he got?" The one that "charmed the entire art world into thinking he was grand" and "seduced the gallery owners so that worldwide recognition and sold out shows fall into his lap?" That one?"
"Yes. That very bastard," she said through clenched teeth. "Loathsome, contemptible bastard."
"Hmmm….interesting. But no. Still don't care." Ray grinned. "Bastard or no, he's fucking gorgeous and I want him." She stood and stretched. Through a yawn, she said, "And Audrey, get painting. You've gotta sell another one cause we need rent money."
"Pawning my art off for money," Audrey muttered under her breath. "God, I hate this."
"Well, it's the price you pay for living la vie boheme…and don't make me sing Rent to you because you know I will. Besides, what do you want me to do? Get a job waiting tables? Cause I can't do that."
"Oh, shut up you. Would it kill you to wait tables? Would it?" Audrey lamented. Ray depended on her acting for money. When she was working, the money came in a steady flow and at times was more than enough. But Raven was a horrible spender and did not know her limits. She'd misplaced them somewhere and had not bothered to discover where they rested. Therefore, when she had no part, times were hard and she depended on loans and her room mate's generosity with the promise that she'd pay her back later. And though she always did, Audrey did not enjoy the way she had to hold her breath in hopes that they'd make it by that month. She did not enjoy the suspense.
To this, Raven only shrugged as she excused herself. Audrey watched her leave and thought for a second about throwing a paintbrush violently in her direction, but dismissed the thought. She felt somewhat lightheaded and optimistic thinking about the night before and Jack and entertaining the notion of calling him. Now, as she looked around at the unfinished ends of things hanging around her, she felt unbearably heavy. Burdened and trapped. Amazingly overwhelmed. Surrounding her were stacks of half finished paintings. Mixed into her own, self indulgent, serious pieces were the commissioned works: Landscapes and bowls of fruit. Flowers. Audrey took on these jobs because she was near brilliant at translating reality into paint. She churned them out almost effortless and quickly. Yes, she was consistently disgusted with them. Disgusted that she must waste her time such cliché and conventional generic subject matter. Disgusted that she was able to do such things so well, but could not seem to do a bit of good in her own work. She closed her eyes and sighed, her heart slightly sinking into her stomach. With three quick motions of her hands, Jack Kelly's number lay torn in shreds on the floor. Taking a brush in her hand, she stood up from her chair and marched over to the easel. "No distractions," Audrey told herself sternly, yet somewhat forlornly.
"No distractions."
