Jack suppressed a livid smile. Gabrielle had told him about the difficulties Portia had been having getting over him, how she’d shut herself in. He rather enjoyed knowing that was the case.
Portia continued, “Gabrielle was supposed to join us, but she couldn’t decide if she wanted to go to your party or come with me. When she didn’t show up for dinner, I assumed she’d come here.”
Jack shrugged. “Can’t help you. Maybe she went to see a movie, or a play.”
“Maybe,” Portia said. She paused, looking up at him, adding another smile. “Well, I guess it’s time.”
“Time? For what?”
“Your gift,” she scolded. “Now stay right here.”
She turned, headed toward a black convertible sitting in the parking loop, and then leaned into its back seat, removing a large, camel-colored sleeve. She brought it back to him, unpinned its flap, and held it out. “Happy birthday,” she said almost whispering.
Jack put his hand into the sleeve, rummaged momentarily for a grip, and then pulled out what he already knew was a painting. He held it in front of him with both hands, turning it back and forth to catch the moonlight… and then became amazed by what he saw. There on the canvas was a seductive-looking woman in a bright red dress. She was lying on her stomach resting on her elbows, her arms folded over one another and her feet crisscrossed in the air behind her. Her hair was short, reaching only to the shoulders, and very dark. Her face, depending on which way he turned the painting, seemed to favor Portia’s.
Two men also occupied the frame, both flanking each side of the bed. They were well-dressed, although the attire of the man on the right, with his open collar and black slacks, seemed a bit dated. He was also clearly younger than the man on the left. Both had cold, almost stoic demeanors.
“It’s exquisite,” Jack said excitedly, all the while running his fingers along the woman’s dress.
“You really like it?”
“Yes,” he said, not looking up. “This piece must have cost you a fortune.”
Portia chuckled. “I didn’t buy it, Jack. I painted it myself.”
Jack looked up. “You couldn’t have.”
“What do you mean?”
He dropped his eyes back to the canvas. “I mean the image here… it looks… almost real. It’s extraordinary.”
“Well, thank you, Jack. My mother bought me an easel when I was five. I didn’t have many friends so I spent most of my time inside, painting. I’d stopped by the time I entered high school, but when I was eighteen I picked it up again—briefly anyway.”
“Eighteen?”
“Yes. That’s when this one was done.”
Jack mused a bit, still awestruck with the image. “This woman, is she…”, he looked up briefly, “Is this you?”
Portia nodded. “More or less.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I painted her during a very difficult time in my life. My emotions were… a mess. You might say she’s a part of me—or, at least, what I once wished I could be. She helped me get through it all.”
“Oh? And what were you going through?”
“Oh, no, we don’t need to go into all of that. It’s your birthday; this is supposed to be a happy time. We hardly need to drudge up my old memories.”
He tossed another glance at the woman in the painting, then gazed back. “Why are you giving it to me?”
“I thought it appropriate.”
“Appropriate? How so?”
“Well, you love art, and beautiful things, unique things, right?” She stepped closer and looked up into his eyes. “You do still like beautiful things, don’t you?”
Jack slowly dropped the painting to his side, sensing a note of suggestiveness in her tone—something unheard of coming from Portia. He replied, “That’s never going to change.”
“Good,” Portia said. “Then I’m sure you’ll enjoy her.”
“No,” Jack said, extending the painting back to her. “I’m afraid I won’t.”
Portia’s face took on puzzlement. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m giving it back.”
“You can’t?”
“I can’t?”
“No. You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I drove all the way out here in the middle of the night to give it to you.”
“You’ll have to do better than that, Portia. This painting is a keepsake. You’ve had it for twelve years now. It’s simply too personal for me to accept, no matter how much it impresses me.”
“But it’s your gift, Jack. I want you to have it.”
“I appreciate that, Portia, but I’ve already told you, I’m not taking it.”
She gazed up at him, blinking several times. Then her face sank and she dropped her head. She seemed to struggle before looking up again. “Can I ask you something, Jack?”
“What?”
“Do you ever think about me?”
Jack’s answer was a quick, calmly assertive lie. “No.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
Portia studied his face disbelievingly, her eyes darting back and forth with desperation. She slumped, growing somber. “That was always my problem with you.”
“What’s that?”
“I could never tell when you were lying.”
Jack was stoic.
“I didn’t think you thought about me anyway,” Portia continued, “and that’s why I want you to have her. Because maybe if you take it, when you see her… you will think about me.”
Jack was about to speak, about to continue his refusal of the gift, but when he saw the pained expression on her face, he reluctantly retreated. “Okay,” he said sighing. “I’ll take it.”
Portia smiled, the pretty one again. “Spending tonight alone?”
“Yes,” Jack lied again. “As a matter of fact I am.”
“That’s not good.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s your birthday. You should never spend that alone.”
“No, I guess I shouldn’t.”
“Would you like some company?”
And there it was, Jack realized, the real reason Portia had come here. It had nothing to do with his birthday, or the need to deliver a present. She had come here to give herself to him. She was the real gift. But it was one he could not accept, because irony was wagging its bony little finger; Gabrielle was still sleeping inside.
“Company?” Jack said. “No, thank you. It’s already very late, and I have to be at the studio early tomorrow.”
Portia stepped even closer, almost brushing against him. She reached up and began straightening the material of his robe. “Are you sure? I promise you won’t regret it.”
Jack reached up and gripped her hands, stopping her, then forced them down. “Yes, I’m sure,” he replied, barely able to stifle the bitterness in his voice.
Portia forced a smile. “Oh. Oh, I see. Well, I guess I should let you get some sleep then.” She reached up again and adjusted one last area of his robe. She then made a slow, seemingly reluctant turn and began towards the car. As she reached it, she looked over her shoulder and whispered to him: “Sweet dreams, Jack.”
Jack stood there dumbly, every molecule of his being protesting her departure. He could only watch as she entered the convertible, brought its engine to life, and slowly drove away. He had the distinct feeling that he was never going to see her again. But that was only true in part.
CHAPTER 4 – THE RED
Jack entered his house and climbed the staircase, towing the painting at his side. He passed the darkened hollow of the bathroom, moved through the hallway, and reentered the bedroom. In passing he briefly cast an eye at Gabrielle’s semi-bare form. She still lay on her stomach sleeping, a palm turned upward, wholly oblivious to her best friend’s untimely visit. He came to a long wall at the far end of the room, the top half of which was covered almost wall to wall with framed photograp
hs.
One might easily have mistaken the collection for a proud display of Jack’s most prestigious models. Here hung an exquisite image of the Italian prodigy Marilyn Strayes, her face almost entirely obscured by a massive swath of jet-black hair except for one crystalline eye; a photo of Andrea Alpena, her famously full and shapely lips pressed together in a huge, inviting pucker; and perhaps twenty-five other women. Most were pre-pub cover shots for ELLE or VOGUE. However, the presence of these women had little to do with Jack’s pride in their success. They were actually a running tab, marks on a bedpost, a gallery of Jack Parke’s favorite lovers.
Recently he had added not one but two pictures of Gabrielle. The first was a dramatic, full-frame close-up, underscoring the woman’s perfectly smooth skin and swarthy Brazilian features. The Vanity Fair article in which the photograph appeared, titled Model Actress, said: “Not only is she an unusually bright starlet on the verge of becoming Hollywood’s next superstar, but a serious threat in her newfound role of international model.” The second photo was a smiling, near full body shot of the woman wearing an elegant blue dress. It was eventually selected for the cover of GQ with a caption that read: “The Brazilian Invasion!”, which referred to the current influx of talented Brazilian actresses suddenly gaining notoriety in Tinseltown. Jack had long planned to add the now world famous image of a white-faced Portia rising through a pool of creamy milk sprinkled with scores of rose petals, but that image, up to this point anyway, remained conspicuously absent from the gallery.
He held the painting up, passing it along the wall, searching for a suitable spot in which to hang the piece. There were no paintings in the gallery, and on any other occasion he would not have considered adding this one, but the artistry of Portia’s creation (if indeed it had really been she who painted it) was so detailed, so masterfully produced, that it could easily be mistaken for a photograph.
Finding no room, Jack put the painting atop the dresser, which sat just below and slightly right of the gallery’s center. He stared at it, the striking color of the woman’s red dress summoning all the attention of his eyes. It was gnawingly familiar. He let his mind roam, sifting back through folds of memory... and then it came to him. Portia’s house. The closet. The red he’d seen there.
He extended both hands, leaning them against the dresser, and remembered.
The door stood before him like some queer idolatrous totem. It was ominously large, intimidating, a tyrant carved from beautiful brown mahogany.
He swung a flask of bourbon to his lips and emptied it with a prolonged tilt of his head. He stumbled a bit from the movement, taking a step back to keep from falling. He set his bloodshot eyes on the door and cursed it, as if it had reached out and shoved him.
He crammed the flask into his rear jean pocket, then stood up straight. He took two steps forward, reached up, and grasped the door’s knob. He immediately let it go. Something strange had gone through him, like a wave of dark light. He stared up at the door again. He felt… warned. Like he should simply turn around and go back home.
For a moment, he considered doing just that: turning around and going back home. But then he saw it again, the vision that had led him here: those soft, staring eyes, that delicate hand taking hold of his, and he forgot all else.
He turned the knob slowly. Only a thin black slit had formed in the door when he found himself hesitating again. Once more he suppressed a guttural urge to go home, and gave the door a rebellious push. It swung open effortlessly, without the slightest creak, as if carried along by a gentle wind. Slowly, gradually, the bedroom peeled into view.
It was dampened by soft shadows, here and there broken up by the blue-gray glow of moonlight. There was a closet on his left, the door of which Portia had apparently neglected to fully close. A tall thin window toward the room’s rear stared at him like a lone rectangular eye. Nearby was a sizeable vanity, and finally, all the way on the right, opposite the closet, was an image so wondrous it literally took his breath away: Portia, sleeping soundlessly on a large and opulent bed.
A sly, intoxicated grin creased his face. He let his eyes drop to the door’s threshold, then excitedly prepared to step inside.
What Jack was about to do had been forbidden. From the very beginning of their courtship, Portia had strictly warned him to never enter her bedroom. It was a dictum he had never understood, but he wasn’t going to lose sleep over it (in his experience, most wealthy people had their share of idiosyncrasies). But gazing into Portia’s bedroom, he now understood it even less. There was nothing to fear here, no cause for alarm. No hidden corpses or ghosts roaming within. It was just a bedroom, an apparently lavish one, yes, but a bedroom still the same.
He eased a foot over the threshold, and quietly stepped inside. He waited there, staring around. No thunder. No lightning. No boogeyman. Portia was lying on her back beneath a dark blanket at the far end of the bed. He made his way over and stood above her. She looked, very much so, like an angel.
He had seen it almost exactly this way. Just over an hour ago, around 3:30am, he had been at home using a bottle of bourbon to sooth the sting of yet another of Portia’s rejections. Earlier, during one of their infamous kissing sessions, he’d become extremely aggressive and she’d been forced to send him home. He’d brooded there for hours, his body still aflame with passion, and his mind unable to push her out. Then he saw it, a vision passing before his face. It was Portia. She was lying in her bed, gazing up at him with those large and seductive blue eyes. She raised a hand, soft and delicate, and extended it toward him, clasping his own. Then she pulled him in, where finally, mercifully, she extinguished his flame. She wanted him. Needed him to return to her. And somehow Jack’s drunken mind actually believed this.
He raised his hand and brought it toward the rim of the blanket. It eased through the air, shaking gently from the bourbon. He swallowed hard as it neared, his mind exploding with the vision of what lay beneath the blanket: a body carved from a pearl, white, warm, and sensuous.
His hand was just falling to the blanket when a loud thud, like a bowling ball falling to the floor, rapt the air. He jerked badly, instinctively yanking his hand away, and turning toward the closet. Its door was just swinging open to a stop, now yawing at him like the unhinged jawbone of a skull.
He gazed confusedly at the blackness inside, his mind only half-comprehending what was taking place. He cut his eyes toward the window, believing a draft might have drawn the door open, but it was sealed shut. He wondered if the door might have been more open than it first appeared, and, that explanation seeming to fit, he turned back to Portia and once again advanced his hand toward the blanket.
A soft moan erupted from the closet, sending a sharp chill through him—or had that been Portia? She was now writhing beneath him, stirring from sleep. He cut his eyes back to the closet… and balked when he saw something moving within, a peculiar red hue roaming at the base of the blackness. It seemed to expand, spreading out and up, parts of it becoming more and sometimes less bright. For a moment, he thought he caught a peek-a-boo glimpse of something even deeper within, something ashen in color. A face. A woman’s face, watching him steadily.
Jack reacted as if hot coffee had been spumed to his face. Someone was watching. As unbelievable as that seemed, someone could see him. And as that thought continued to fester, he found himself feeling the way any sane man should in a situation such as this. Like an intruder.
Bristling with anger, he slowly backed away, and departed the bedroom.
Jack Parke blinked away from the painting, then turned and faced the bed. Gabrielle still lay there sleeping silently.
It was clear to him now that the spook in Portia’s closet had really been nothing more than an article or two of clothing—and quite a bit too much bourbon—but the false entity had nevertheless served a very important purpose. It showed him the disturbing depths of his obsession. God knows what might have happened had it not appeared.
Afterward, he could remember
sitting in his car, watching the colors of dawn breaking on the horizon. Yes, he was obsessed. That was clear. But he had not arrived there on his own. She had driven him to it. Portia had made him the monster he’d now become.
He began to hate her then. He hated her almost as much as he desired her.
He knew he needed to end things. But he wasn’t merely going to bow out gracefully, taking his lumps and then like a dog, tucking his tail between his legs and wandering off. Portia was going to pay for what she had made him. He’d see to that, though nothing could have prepared him for just how easy it would be.
While sitting in the car, he’d blacked out, a full night of drinking finally taking its toll. His next cogent thought was of how high the ceiling above him seemed to be, how white, and also, how unfamiliar.
He was lying on a couch. He stared around: teal walls, modernistic sculptures, an expansive living room of neat, brown and black décor. He rolled his head left, and noted a large kitchen sitting just beyond a breakfast table. And at that table, perched before a steaming cup of coffee, was none other than Gabrielle Saltair. Portia’s best friend.
She said nothing at first, only kept staring at him with that What the hell are you doing here expression.
It was a good question. A damned good question, because he had no answer.
He lay there for some time, trying to clear his mind. Gabrielle had brought him the coffee. “Drink,” she had said, extending it to him. He took a sip, politely sat it down, and then gazed up at her.
What happened next was prompted by one part impulse, one part revenge, and one part because he simply knew that he could. He reached up and began toying with Gabrielle’s hair, twirling it in his fingers. She gazed at him confusedly, then brushed his hand away. She questioned him as to whether he was still drunk. He was not. He knew exactly what he was doing.
He reached up again, this time caressing her cheek with the back of his hand. This brought a sharp blush—or was that anger. She made a more dramatic attempt to push his hand away but he abruptly grabbed her neck, pulled her face to his, and began to kiss her. He could feel her shoulders tense in surprise, the tug of her body as she tried to pull away. The struggle became furious, but he would not let go. He knew she wanted this. He knew it, even if she didn’t.
The Glimpsing Page 3