So Much Fire and So Many Plans

by Aaron S Gallagher

  He bit his lower lip and said in Portuguese, “Tanto fog e tantos planos.”

  She considered him for a moment, studying the face she loved so well, knew so well. “Why?”

  “Because it is,” he said. “Because it is what I had. What I wanted. It is what it is.”

  She squeezed his hand. He seemed on the verge of tears, which she hadn’t seen for decades. “It’s okay,” she soothed.

  “It isn’t. But it will be. Might be.”

  Before she could ask another question, Toefler poked his head into the small space. “Shall we dine, my friends?”

  His voice was happy, boisterous, and he seemed desperate to impart his cheer upon them.

  “Are you hungry, my Muse?” Ossirian asked.

  Her stomach growled. “Apparently.”

  Toefler held out both elbows. She tucked her arm into one, and Ossirian took the other. Toefler grinned at them each in turn. “Come. There is a beautiful twelve-course meal awaiting us with luminaries of every stripe and aristocrats of every color awaiting our arrival, not to mention he hordes of reporters and cameramen that follow. We should keep them waiting and go get a drink.”

  “I’m not dressed for a social function,” Carolyn said.

  “You are as you are, and should be nothing less,” Toefler assured her. “Come; let us drink!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Two months later she was in New York once again, trying to clear up some legal issues in regard to the paintings in New Zealand. She tried three times to focus and found she couldn’t. She needed a nap. Perhaps a breath of air. Something. She buzzed Harper.

  “I’m stepping away. Can I bring you anything back?”

  “No thank you, Ms. Delgado. Shall I ring the car?”

  “Ye… no. I think I shall walk a while. Perhaps go to the museum. Thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  She gathered her things, slung her purse, and walked to the elevator. She found herself thinking about that beach Toefler and Ossirian had met upon. Her skin ached for the bright sunlight, the throngs of people, the smell and taste of home. New York City was bountiful and pressed upon her, but not in the same way that São Paulo did. She needed to feel the particular flavor of sunlight, humidity, and excitement that the air held during Carnival. She wanted to feel shoulders against hers as she walked along the streets. She wanted a real drink, with fresh lime and salt, and with the bottle alongside, smoky and delicious.

  The sights, sounds, and scents of home.

  She walked five blocks, no mean feat in her heels, to the Museum of Modern Art. After putting a fifty in the donations box she lost herself in the impressionist wing, spending time just drifting on the current of interest.

  The vivid colors, the energy of the paint. The emotive expression of the work always cheered her up. Today it seemed to be less helpful. She couldn’t lose herself in the art as she often had. All she saw were the brushstrokes, the creation, the way it was brought to life.

  She left the museum and walked south with no real destination. She looked and listened, experiencing the city for what it was. The ebb and flow of people were like blood through veins as she walked, surrounded and alone, down the sidewalks. The streets were cleaner than ever. She’d been coming to New York since the seventies, and in the intervening decades the city had decided to get clean, to be brighter, to not just hide the underbelly but purge it altogether. Every year the city gained another block or two, cleaned up another street, banished a vice. It cradled the new world of society, cast out the old. The street was quiet, she realized with a surge of something like terror. The traffic. There are no horns, she thought. No one impatiently leaning on their horns. No one angrily yelling or gesturing. When did New York become so… civilized?

  A wave of nostalgia for the old days, the dim, dead days when you couldn’t walk down the streets of the heart of the city without kicking up a torrent of flyers, without a thousand voices beseeching you to give in to temptation, without being propositioned by a hundred desperate men and women seeking salvation in the form of a twenty-dollar bill. The offer of vices legal and illegal. In her memory, Times Square was around her, crowding her with neon and flash.

  It became intolerable. She stopped in front of a hotel. She was finished. Finished. She wanted the city to swallow her whole, to catch her unaware and take her. All it would take is one second of-

  “Ma’am?”

  She turned to the voice, heart racing.

  “May I get you a cab?” the doorman asked. His uniform was impeccable. He had a look of concern on his genial, clean-shaven face.

  “Oh,” she said. “I-I suppose you had better. And thank you, sir.”

  He stepped into the street and whistled sharply. A yellow cab separated from the genial flow of traffic and stopped in front of her. The doorman opened the door of the cab for her. She handed him a ten-dollar bill.

  “That’s not necessary, ma’am,” he said, waving it away. “You appeared lost.”

  “Lost?” she asked. “No. I’m not lost. It’s just that I don’t know where I am.”

  “Oh… well… do you know where you’re going?”

  “I haven’t the faintest. But I have a place to start, I believe.”

  He frowned a little. She held out the bill. “Please.”

  He accepted it, reluctantly. He ducked his head. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She nodded and slid into the cab. He closed the door gently and tapped the side of the cab twice. The cabbie pulled into traffic with nary a honk.

  “Where can I take you, ma’am?” the cabbie asked. He had a slight accent. She looked up at him. The skin of his face was dark, he wore a tight turban over his hair, and he was smiling in the mirror with impossibly white teeth.

  She gave the ghost of a smile. Some things never change, she thought. Thank God for that. She opened her mouth to speak, unsure what she would say, and what came out was, “JFK, please.”

  “No problem.”

  He accelerated smoothly, and they were soon on the way to the airport. She took a cellular phone from her pocket and called the office.

  “Muse, Incorporated. How may I direct your call?”

  “Harper, it’s Carolyn.”

  “Yes, Ms. Delgado?”

  “Can you have the jet ready? I’m on my way to the airport.”

  A moment of silence, and then Harper said, “Right away, Ms. Delgado. Destination?”

  “I need to go home. São Paulo, please.”

  “I’ll have the flight plan filed. Will there be anything else?”

  “No,” Carolyn said. “If anything comes up, have it sent to the house. I don’t know when I will be back just yet.”

  “Very good, Ms. Delgado.”

  “Thank you, Harper,” Carolyn said, and started to hang up.

  “Ms. Delgado… Carolyn,” Harper said almost hesitantly. “Are you all right? You sound upset.”

  Carolyn smiled fleetingly. “I’m fine. I just… I couldn’t take another day in the city. I need home for a while. I have to… to recharge.”

  “All right,” Harper said. She didn’t sound convinced, but she wouldn’t argue. If Carolyn had addressed her as ‘Har’, the nickname she used when she and Harper were being friends, it would have been different. Their private coded speech held many cues that outsiders never picked up. Terms of address were one of the simplest ways Carolyn communicated her mood and meaning to her assistants. But as she hadn’t signaled the all-clear to be a friend instead of a well-meaning assistant, Harper could not press. “I’ll have the jet ready, Ms. Delgado. Have a good flight.”

  “Thank you, Harper. You’re in charge until I get back.”

  “Oh?” Harper said, a teasing lilt frosting the words. “You mean as usual?”

  Carolyn chuckled. “You know me too well. Sign my name if you have to, let me know what I agreed to afterward, absorb and deflect.”

  “Will do,” Harper agreed.

  They broke the connection.

/>   When they reached JFK, she directed the cab to the private terminal. She showed her passport and thee gate guard let them through. She gave the driver fifty dollars for a twenty-dollar fare. He raised his eyebrows.

  “You were a very pleasant companion,” she said. “I appreciate that.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” the driver said. “Have a wonderful day.”

  “And you as well.” She went into the private terminal building. Louise and Helen waited for her at the desk. She greeted them both.

  “Luggage?”

  “None, thank you.” She handed her passport to the desk guard, who gave it a cursory check and stamped it. He said, “Pleasant flight, ma’am.”

  “One fondly hopes. Thank you, Michael.”

  “You’re welcome, Ms. Delgado.”

  They were aboard and in the air in less than half an hour. She lunched on the olives and onions that Louise served her in the martinis she drank. She turned down the lights around five P.M. according to her body, eschewed an evening meal, and curled up to sleep in the wide, empty bed.

  She woke in the dark, showered, and was dressing when Louise knocked at the door. Carolyn paused.

  “Yes, Louise?” she called, thread of worry tingling along her back. Louise had never interrupted. In the event of urgent news, she would have used the intercom. “What is it?”

  Louise opened the door and stepped into the lavish bedroom suite. Her eyes were red. She had been crying. Was still.

  Carolyn’s heart clenched. Her hands squeezed the fabric of the skirt she’d been about to step into in a desperate grip.

  “Louise?”

  “M-Ms. Delgado,” she choked. “There’s… we…”

  Carolyn dropped the skirt and sat on the edge of the bed. “Yes?” she asked. The look upon Louise’s face had run the strength from her legs.

  “Ms. D- Carolyn…”

  Carolyn stared, breath caught in her throat.

  Louise spoke, and the words were desolate, cracked and bleeding. “There’s been a car crash. In Long Island.”

  Her heart raced. “I-I don’t understand. Who-”

  “I got word from Harper. Ms. Delgado… it’s Ossirian.”

  Her vision narrowed, darkening until all she could see was Louise. She felt cold all over, and she started shaking. She had to clear her throat twice to speak. “I-I see. Please turn the plane around. I need to know where he is, what hospital. I need details, doctors. Get me Harper. I need to make-”

  Louise came to her and sat next to her. She took Carolyn’s hand. Carolyn stared at her. She stammered, “I-I need to call… I need…”

  Louise winced. Her eyes were filmed with unspilled tears. “It’s okay. It’s okay. There’s no need to… he’s not in hospital. He… he’s gone, Ms. Delgado.”

  Carolyn’s mouth opened, but no sound issued forth. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She blinked, shuddered, and seemed to retreat. Her eyes became dull as she stopped seeing Louise, stopped seeing the room.

  She found her voice. “T-turn the plane around,” she whispered brokenly. “I-I need to… I need…”

  Louise held her hand and shook her head. “It’s already being handled, Ms. Delgado. Just… don’t worry. Everything will be taken care of.”

  Carolyn stared at her feet, the life seeming to drain from her. “He…”

  Louise squeezed her hand. “He’s gone, Ms. Delgado. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Helen came to the bedroom door. She said softly. “I’ve filed the change in flight plans. We’ll be back in New York in eight hours.”

  “Thank you. I’ll join you when I can.” Louise gave Helen a look full of misery, and Helen swallowed.

  Helen gave Louise a nod, gave Carolyn a look of desperate sympathy, and returned to the cockpit.

  Carolyn stared into infinity as Louise folded her into an embrace. Carolyn burst into helpless sobs and she clung to Louise. Louise held her, stroked her hair, and let her cry. After all, what else could be done?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  They watched the sun coming up over the trees from the kitchen. In the early morning, with the dew and fog rising from the trees it seemed the whole of the jungle was turning to steam before their eyes.

  Tears ran down Carolyn Delgado’s face as she stared unseeing out into the world.

  Brent watched her, saying nothing.

  She cleared her throat, voice husky and clotted with loss. “We flew back to New York and held the funeral. People came from all over, artists, sculptors, musicians. As if a head of state had passed. The remains were laid to rest in the crypt in Green-Wood, between Basquiat and Bernstein. I think he would have liked that. Thankfully, his adopted parents were unable to attend. They managed to find the funds to attend the reading of his will, though,” she added with the ghost of a smile.

  “I remember,” he said. “I have a picture of their faces as they found out he died penniless.”

  She smiled, a grim, dark smirk. “I have that same picture. I commissioned it. There’s a copy on his headstone.”

  “Petty.”

  “Very.”

  “Funny, though.”

  “Very.”

  “And now here you are.”

  “For the moment. But the moment is almost over.”

  He felt a disquiet in the pit of his stomach. “Does this have to be? You could give it time.”

  She turned on him. “Time? Time is a great ravenous beast, Brent. It chases us all our lives. Some of us can evade for many years, some fewer. Some turn to face their predator, some cower. I’m looking that bastard right in the eye.”

  “You can’t win?”

  “No. But you can fight,” she said. “You can’t win, but you can fight.”

  “What’s that get you?” he asked. His own eyes were prickling now.

  “A grand death,” she said.

  “I can’t believe that’s all there is to life,” he protested.

  She shrugged. “You either get what you wish for, or you get what you deserve.”

  “But there’s no reason for-”

  She hurled her glass against the wall, and it shattered like a bomb. She balled her fists and screamed. He lurched back from her. Red-faced, she snarled at him, “You can say you love someone for a reason, but it’s all bullshit, Brent! Love isn’t rational. Love doesn’t reason! Love is.”

  She swallowed her fury, controlled herself, and took a breath. “Love is,” she whispered. “Ossirian-”

  He’d finally had enough. He was supersaturated with knowledge, supersaturated with Ossirian, Toefler, with her. All it took was her saying his name for everything to coalesce within him. The catalyst. The reaction. And then it had to come out. “Fuck Christoph Ossirian!” Brent snarled.

  Carolyn’s head snapped up, her eyes wide, startled. She said nothing.

  Brent balled his fists. He felt like he had tried to swallow something noxious. His body wouldn’t accept it, couldn’t live with it. His face twisted up, and he shook with the effort. But he couldn’t beat the impulse, the explosion of anger and fury and desperation. Of hopelessness. “Fuck him! He never loved you! Not as you deserve. Not as much as he should have. Not as much as his painting. As his paintings.”

  He drove a fist into the countertop, and again. She raised a hand to stop him, but the expression on his face stilled her. She looked afraid of him.

  “You deserve to be first,” he snapped. His eyes rose to the ceiling. “She deserved to be first, you selfish prick!”

  She put a hand to her mouth as his eyes, blazing with fury, found hers again.

  “You deserve to be first. We both know what you’re planning. What you’re going to-” He shook his head, eyes squeezing shut. He fought for control. She stared at him.

  He looked at her, and his demeanor changed utterly. The fury that had possessed him seemed to ebb, his shoulders slumped away from his neck, and his hands opened. He examined the knuckles of his right hand. They were red; one was split. The blood seemed strange to him.


  “You don’t deserve that. He doesn’t deserve that. To take that from you. To have the gift of your devotion. You should be loved most. He couldn’t-”

  He choked on the words, and she stared, alarmed, at the tears forming at the corners of his eyes.

  “He… he never loved you properly. Not like you need. Not like I-”

  With sudden, surprising anger he drove his bleeding hand into the top of the counter once again, a single strike. The pain flared, helped him focus. Helped him not spill the wrong words. Helped him gain control of the driving need to save her.

  Because she was Carolyn Delgado. She didn’t need to be saved. If it were possible, she would do it herself, of that he was certain.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he ground out, voice hoarse and rough as the gravel drive outside. “It doesn’t matter. But you need to know that there’s a choice. An option. That you have a choice. Maybe it’s not him, but-”

  She made a soft noise and he looked up in horror. She had sobbed, just once, and her hand was pressed over her mouth as if to catch any further sounds before they could escape and betray her.

  He slumped against the counter on his elbows, head in his hands, massaging his temples. His head pounded, his vision pulsed, and he struggled to take hold of himself mentally. He reigned in the passion and fury, and crushed it down inside himself where it belonged, unbared, unspoken.

  “I-I’m sorry,” he whispered in a broken voice. “That was unfair. I just- I’m sorry.”

  “Brent-”

  He cut her off with a shake of his head. He stood up and took a deep breath. After another breath he spoke. His voice was calmer, more his normal cadence and rhythm.

  “I’m sorry. It’s okay. You don’t need guilt. You don’t need pressure, and it’s wrong of me to do that. I just… I just wanted you to know. Needed you to know. Before you- before.”

  She wiped her eyes, the ball of each thumb cleansing the corner of them, first right, then left. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  He nodded, stood up straight, and squared his shoulders. He went to her, stopped in front of her. He wouldn’t press her if she didn’t want him, but he held out his arms. She stifled a sob and went to him, into his embrace. He kissed the top of her head.