The Sentinel

by Konvitz, Jeffrey;

  There were other items she’d wanted, especially a coffee table for the living room, but she’d decided to give the matter more thought. She did not want to rush and buy the wrong piece. It would be her most important acquisition. It could wait until Michael had returned and the painters had finished the bathroom, kitchen and doorways.

  The other notable event of the week was the news of a booking. She’d learned of it on Friday. She’d be working with her favorite photographer, Jack Tucci. And her best friend, Jennifer Learson. She’d tried to contact Jennifer all week, but only on Thursday did she remember to call the agency and ask for her whereabouts. They told her that Jennifer was out of town on a job and would return late Sunday night. It seemed as if all her close personal friends had fled New York in prospect of her return. Undaunted, she’d called Sunday night, found Jennifer at home, talked for at least an hour, and then arranged to meet for lunch the next day before going down to the studio.

  So she was justifiably excited, as she exited the Park near the Plaza Hotel, walked to Third Avenue and entered the restaurant just as Jennifer was sitting down at the table they’d reserved in the front room next to the door.

  “Allison,” screamed Jennifer unabashedly, as she ground her cigarette into an ashtray.

  Allison maneuvered through the crowd, embraced her friend, and sat. “Still smoking too much,” she admonished, noticing the smoldering butt.

  “Too much for tuberculosis,” Jennifer replied, smiling, “but not enough for cancer or a heart condition.” She laughed, leaned back in the chair, and asked if it felt good to be back.

  “Excessively,” said Allison, as she removed her coat.

  Jennifer took another cigarette from the pack that lay on the table. “I give you two weeks and you’ll be complaining that you’re overworked and underpaid, that the photographers are lechers, and the agency executives are dullards, and that you must find something more creative and stimulating to do with your time.” She laughed. “I’ve never known a model whose sense of commitment didn’t resemble the flight path of a punctured balloon.”

  “I don’t doubt you’re right,” agreed Allison, “but for the time being let me indulge my fantasies.”

  “I wouldn’t conceive of introducing a note of reality. You’ve every right to delude yourself for as long as you can.” Jennifer looked up, as the waiter leaned over the red and white tablecloth. “Two Bloody Mary’s,” she ordered, glancing at Allison, who nodded accommodatingly. “And strong on the Worcestershire,” she added.

  Allison grabbed Jennifer’s portfolio and began to thumb the pages. “New pictures?” she asked after a pause.

  “The product of off-season hysteria.”

  Allison pulled out a contact sheet and held it to the light. “You worked hard.’

  “My lot in life.”

  “Didn’t you know?” Allison smiled. “Everyone works hard.”

  “The butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even Michael?”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “By whom?”

  “Michael.”

  Allison shook her head. “He’s looking for sympathy.”

  “Do you give it?”

  “I haven’t had the chance. I’ve been away, remember?”

  “Will you give it now?”

  “Depends.”

  “On?”

  “Just depends.”

  “Will he give it to you?”

  “I don’t want any.”

  Jennifer nodded. “It’s very romantic,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Separation. It makes the head grow fonder.”

  “Wrong organ.”

  “The liver?”

  They laughed.

  The two drinks soon arrived and sat untouched for some time, as they rehashed much of their telephone conversation of the night before.

  Then they ordered, finished quickly, left the restaurant, and hailed a cab on Lexington Avenue, heading downtown.

  The taxi crawled through the traffic to West Twenty-sixth, a crumbling block of commercial tenements.

  It stopped halfway between Fifth and Sixth.

  They stepped out of the taxi, got their bearings, and entered a dilapidated loft building.

  Another model was standing in front of the elevator.

  They introduced themselves…the model’s name was Lois…walked into the elevator, scrambled out on the seventh floor in front of Jack Tucci’s studio, and entered.

  They’d now been working several hours.

  “A few more,” Tucci finally announced in a clipped English accent that was tarnished by a slight New York inflection.

  The Hasselblad clicked, one, two, three.

  He shifted, altered his position, brushed perspiration from the perfectly barbered goatee that hugged his chin, then shifted again. His slender body moved like a breaking wave. Practiced. Sure. Egocentric.

  “A little to the left,” he ordered. He motioned with his hand to emphasize the command. “Raise your chins…too much…good!”

  The camera responded.

  “Okay,” he declared, “let’s break for dinner. Then we’ll do the black and whites.”

  Shielding their eyes from the hot lights, they stepped away from the backdrop and carefully negotiated the wires and light stands to the lounge area in the rear of the studio.

  Tucci placed the camera on a tripod and followed.

  “Have a cigarette?” asked Jennifer.

  Tucci removed a pack from his shirt pocket and tossed it on the Formica-topped bar, Jennifer took one

  Allison eased into an old armchair.

  “Anybody else?” Tucci asked, holding out the cigarettes. Receiving no reply, he placed them back in his pocket, circled the bar, reached into a cabinet, and removed a stack of photos. “Tell me what you think of these,” he commanded, handing them to Jennifer before disappearing through an open doorway.

  He returned a moment later carrying a tray, which held several sandwiches, some Cokes, and a bottle of white wine. “The dark bread is tongue,” he announced. “The rye is roast beef.” He smiled and began to distribute the food. “Allison?” he asked, after the other two models had chosen.

  “In a moment,” she replied submissively, her arms dangling limply over the supports of the chair, her legs stiffly extended.

  “Well?” he prodded, gesturing to the pictures.

  “Quite good,” Jennifer observed. She removed a pair of glasses from her purse, placed them on her fine-boned nose, held the pictures to the light, and re-examined them closely. “Who’s the girl?”

  “You don’t know her.”

  “A model?”

  “No. Just a friend.” He winked suggestively.

  “I admire the quality.”

  “Natural?”

  “Very. How’d you get it?”

  “Ah,” he exclaimed, lasciviously. “Natural light and voyeurism. The camera is a remarkable voyeur. With nudes, the texture of the subject is most important, but with the knowledge of the camera’s presence, the normal serenity of the body is lost. Look at her face. I could never have achieved the subtlety you see there, if she’d known I was shooting her. The narcissism wouldn’t be as clearly stated.” He lifted one of the photos and held it to the light. “Remarkable realism,” he declared with a note of self-acclaim.

  He began to discuss the visual ramifications.

  Then it happened.

  Allison had remained seated in the chair, casually thumbing through a copy of Vogue. The headache came first. Almost instantly, as if it had been there all along, but had been held back by a dam whose ramparts had suddenly been torn away. It was centered at the base of thee skull. Her initial reaction was surprise, then consternation. She’d felt fine all week.
In fact, the last headache had occurred the morning Miss Logan had called with the approval. And that really wasn’t a headache, just a dull pressure that she’d attributed to a residue of tension. But now? There seemed to be no logical explanation, other than a reaction to the long hours under the hot lights. Yet, if it had just been a migraine, she’d have dismissed it summarily. There was also a sensation of constriction along her back that made her skin prickle, as if a slab of dry ice had been jammed against her body. Unnerved, she sat up, threw the magazine on the chair, walked to the closed skylight, and looked over the rooftops. There wasn’t much of a view. A few chimneys. The moon in its last quarter. She shook her head in a vain attempt to drive away the pain, then turned back toward the bar and listened. “Are you sure you couldn’t achieve the same effect with the right model?” she heard Lois ask. But was “hearing” the right word? The sounds were muffled, as if the vibrations were being projected through a sonic sponge.

  Then they ceased altogether.

  She stumbled back against the glass panes. They vibrated noisily; several cracked.

  Everyone turned, shocked, watching.

  “I…I,” Allison mumbled, as a tingling sensation coursed along the insides of her arms toward the shoulders. Quickly, she felt it spread through all her extremities and then give way to a far more alarming perception: a total deadness. Frantically, she began to rub her hands together.

  Tucci hurled himself over the bar, grabbed her as she was beginning to fall, then carried her over the wires to the armchair. Jennifer crushed her cigarette and squirmed in pursuit.

  “Allison,” Tucci shouted, “what’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know!” Allison stammered in garbled tones, terrified.

  “Get some ice!” Tucci ordered.

  Lois pulled several cubes from the ice bucket, wrapped them in a silk scarf, and handed them to him; he pressed the bundle against Allison’s forehead, after wiping off beads of sweat.

  Allison lifted her hands to her neck and rubbed the flesh. Her pulse slowed. She looked around the room and blinked unsurely; the shapes that had decomposed during the onslaught of the pain began to reassume coherency. She leaned forward in the chair and gripped her knees. She remained silent for several minutes, unresponsive to Tucci’s prodding. Then she looked up, breathed deeply, and sat back. “It’s gone.”

  “What’s gone?” Tucci asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she replied with a look that implied an absence of total consciousness. Yet, some of her color had returned and her eyes had steadied. “I had a migraine,” she said, “and this sensation, as if my sense of touch had left my hands and legs.”

  Tucci regarded her inquisitively. “Can you hold the ice?” he asked.

  She nodded and laid her hand over the scarf.

  “Do you want to lie down?”

  “No”, she said, shaking her head deliberately. “I feel better.”

  “Are you sure?” Jennifer asked, as she nervously leaned over the arm of the chair.

  “Yes,” Allison answered. She did feel better. Almost a complete reversal of her sense of being just moments before. She was understandably skeptical. Could the migraine and deadness have disappeared that quickly? It seemed impossible. But the pain had arrived almost instantaneously. So surely, it could have left the same way. That is, assuming there really was a headache and a polarization of her sense of touch, and not a psychological mirage brought on by the heat of excitement.

  “I want you to sit for a couple of minutes more,” said Tucci.

  “Yes, I think I will,” Allison responded.

  She did, as Tucci hovered over her, occasionally going over to the broken skylight window to comment on the excessive heat in the studio.

  After several minutes, he asked how she felt. She said, “Fine.” He asked if she’d eaten. She said she’d nibbled a hamburger at lunch. He concluded that food would do her good and pulled her to the bar, where she began to eat one of the remaining sandwiches.

  She chewed slowly. She wasn’t hungry. Strange! She hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. And her appetite had seemed perfectly normal. Perhaps she was coming down with the flu. You could always count on the flu to arrive at the most inopportune time and bring with it the most peculiar set of symptoms imaginable. That might explain everything. Still, she should have started much slower. An hour booking, instead of a long session. And a staggered schedule, rather than consecutive commitments. She had a major commercial to shoot the next day, a national spot, which would probably require a few days’ work. Then she’d have to shop and cook dinner for Michael. There were several still sessions scheduled for Wednesday and a fashion show for Thursday. Rest? She doubted she’d have much time for that until the weekend, providing she didn’t become sick, in which event everything might have to be canceled.

  Tucci cleaned up the cellophane and napkins and placed the tray and discarded bottles under the bar. He walked around, gently laid his hand on her shoulders, and massaged the delicate, but tense, muscles with the tips of his fingers. She lowered her head. He ran his hand up her neck and over the back of her scalp, following the wave of her fine-spun hair. “You’re a right pretty thing, you know,” he said, reassuringly.

  She smiled.

  “I want to be sure that you feel all right before we begin. If not, we’ll wait.”

  She swiveled around and kissed him on the check. “I’m fine,” she said.

  He pulled her from the seat, slapped her on the rear, and led her back toward Jennifer and Lois, who were back on the set.

  Allison watched Lois and Jennifer turn the near corner onto Fifth Avenue and disappear.

  She glanced at her watch; it was late, eleven o’clock. The session had lasted longer than she’d expected. She was tired. Yet, apart from the “fainting spell,” it had been a good first booking. A triumphant return of sorts.

  She picked up her duffel, stepped out of the doorway, and looked toward Sixth Avenue, now a blotch of light in the distance. She began to walk slowly, acutely aware of the darkness, shadows, and dirt. She felt curiously uneasy. Strange, she’d walked this neighborhood at night many times over the past few years. And she’d learned to accommodate the terrors. But tonight, for some unexplainable reason, she felt threatened. Perhaps she’d been away from New York too long.

  Halfway down the block, she stopped. She could hear footsteps echoing between the grotesque overhanging buildings. Turning quickly, she strained her eyes, but there was not one around; the footsteps died. She squeezed her fingers into fists. The feeling again. It returned with the same suddenness with which it had hit her in the studio. She felt a surge through her arms, then a lack of sensation, as if all her nerve endings had been cauterized. Nervously, she looked for the source of the footsteps, hoping to see Tucci appear, explain away the intruder, and reassure her as he’d done before. Then, suddenly, the dull tingling was gone and she kicked at the ground, angered that she’d let the strain of past weeks do this to her.

  Steadying herself, she took several steps and stopped again. Footsteps echoed once more. Quickly, she crossed the street, huddled in the shadow of a garment factory, and looked back. The footsteps continued, but they sounded different now. They were no longer coming toward her; they were either moving away or turning into one of the side alleys. She remained frozen in place, sensing that she was still in danger, praying also that the horrible tingling sensation would not return to her arms. Then she bolted through the refuse toward the corner, running, gasping frantically, arriving under the streetlight just as an arm wrapped around her chest and pulled her to the side.

  “Hey.”

  She looked around, panic-stricken; there was a man behind her.

  “Slow down, my child or you’ll kill someone,” the man said softly.

  She stood shaking, holding onto a muscular arm that held her securely. She panted wildly, wound her fingers into the lit
tle tufts of white hair that dotted his freckled skin and focused on the diminutive nun, who stood close to him, holding her rosary and using his body as a buffer against the cold night wind.

  The priest released his grip, raised his heavy white eyebrows, and regarded her sympathetically.

  “Are you all right?” asked the nun.

  Allison nodded and turned.

  “What happened?” questioned the priest.

  She hesitated and, as a gesture of regained composure, tried to tidy her wildly scattered hair. She was relieved. Of all people to run into, a priest and a nun. How lucky could she have been? She quickly grabbed her crucifix, in deference to something, and held it tightly.

  Turning, she glanced down the block. There was nothing. She looked back at the priest, embarrassed. “I’m terribly sorry, Father. I thought someone was behind me. I was trying to get off the street.”

  “Let me see,” said the priest. He stepped away and looked down the barely visible sidewalks. “I don’t see anything,” he said, shaking his head. “Stay with the good sister for a moment.”

  The priest began to search the doorways.

  “Sister, I’m so sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about, my child,” said the nun. Her cheeks glistened under the shower of light from the streetlights; her eyes reflected her warmth and sincerity. “If something scared you,” she continued, “that is not your sin. You shouldn’t walk alone here at this hour of the night.”

  “But this has never happened before,” Allison protested.