The Color of Light

by Helen Maryles Shankman

  Now they had to be discreet. With the holiday season over, he had returned to work, which for him meant meetings at school, the board, various committees. Tessa became adept at coming up with reasons to wander down the hallway that led to the offices of the Deans, developing a sudden interest in the work in the nearby display cases, a ruse that had paid off yesterday, when Rafe emerged from Giselle’s office, a too-skinny first-year student named Allison clinging to his side. As she bubbled animatedly away about an upcoming committee meeting, he had breezed smartly past Tessa, smiling politely while managing to brush his fingertips against her hand. The hairs had stood up at the back of her neck, and an electric current hummed up and down the entire length of her body for the rest of the day.

  What she really needed was to find a job, and she made a lackluster stab at it, dutifully calling a few listings she saw in the back of the Times, mentioning casually to Giselle that she could use some assistant work. Truthfully, she wasn’t trying very hard. A job would have meant being less available for Rafe, and if she didn’t mind living on macaroni, and met the minimum payments on all of her bills, she could stretch out her money, just a little bit longer.

  “Tell me something about yourself,” she said.

  “All right,” he said agreeably.

  “Where are you from?”

  It was midnight. They were sitting across from each other at a small table in Florent, a funky little all-night bistro in the Meatpacking District, a seedy, nineteenth-century neighborhood of low buildings and cobblestoned streets on the far west side of Manhattan that even smelled dangerous. At some point she noticed that all the other customers seemed to be club kids or transvestites.

  He ordered the mousse au chocolat, just so that he could watch her lick it off the tip of a spoon. “How is it?”

  “Incredible.”

  “Tell me.”

  She closed her eyes. “The texture. It’s light and fluffy.” Another taste of what was on the spoon. “Dense and silky. All at the same time.” She thought some more. “Bittersweet chocolate. Not too sweet. And the aroma…I wish you could taste it.”

  He leaned forward, licked a trace of mousse from her upper lip. “Lovely,” he murmured. He slid his fingers across the table until they touched hers. “Cambridge,” he said. “Originally. Then I spent some years in a boarding school in East Anglia. Moved to London in my teens.”

  “Where is East Anglia?”

  “Northeast of London. Very rural.”

  “It sounds pretty.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  She smiled. “I wish we could have been in art school together. That would have been fun.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Do you think you would have been attracted to me?”

  “I would have to be dead not to find you attractive.” He frowned. “Technically, I am dead.”

  “I think I would have opened with, ‘Wow, you have beautiful eyes. Would you pose for me sometime?’”

  His smile deepened. “I would have said yes.”

  “I’d start off very professional. Do a few quick sketches. And then I’d ask you to take your shirt off.”

  Now he laughed. “I would have said yes to that as well.”

  “I’d have the studio next to yours. I’d keep coming over, asking for your opinion.”

  “There would have been a lot of late nights.” He reached under the table, rested his hands on her legs, just above her knees. “One day, we would be riding the elevator to the fourth floor. As the other students stepped out, and the doors closed, I’d press you up against the wall and have my wicked way with you.”

  She laughed with delight. They were quiet for a moment, happy together. She sought out his eyes. He found he could not meet her gaze for long; he glanced away. She reached out, took his face in her hands. “Hey. I was looking at those.”

  He tried, stared down into her lovely brown eyes for a moment. Flecks of green. Faith and trust. A man in a fedora.

  She took out her sketchbook, began to draw. He tried to peek, but she covered it with her hand. Finally, she tore out the page, folded it in three. Pushed it across the table.

  “Your turn,” she said.

  He stared at it as if it were a dead thing. Picked up the pencil, put it to the paper, then put it back down again.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  She was surprised. “What do you mean? I thought you were an artist. You said you went to art school.”

  “I can’t draw,” he said abruptly. “I lost the ability, the talent, whatever you want to call it, when I, ah, when I.” He fell silent.

  “Oh, God.” she said awkwardly. “I’m so sorry.”

  Beautiful Tessa Moss, a remnant of Sofia’s blood running through her veins, her extraordinary eyes sad on his account. Under the table, he took her hands, laced his fingers through hers. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s walk.”

  The school building was darkened, empty. She turned on the reflector light in her studio as Rafe stopped short, staring at the painting on her easel. She whisked it away, replacing it with what looked vaguely like a family saying grace. “Wylie likes this one.”

  Good. The image of Tessa, hiding under a bed, Nazi bootheels inches from her head, had shaken him.

  “So, how is it going with the great Wylie Slaughter?”

  “You know, for a postmodernist, he’s not such a bad guy. He really likes what we’re doing here.”

  “Hm. What else did he say?”

  “He said I’m very talented.”

  “Did he now.” He sat down on the frivolous red velvet couch, patted the tufted cushion next to him, beckoned with one finger. She sat, instead, across his lap, leaned her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes. He enclosed her in the circle of his arms.

  “Tired,” she said.

  “You should get to bed earlier.”

  “I should.”

  Leaning his cheek on her hair, he let his gaze play over the maze of images on her wall. Her studio stirred up memories of his own student days. When he was with her, they were pleasant, not painful.

  “Have you done anything more on your thesis project?”

  “Who wants to know,” she said, her eyes still closed. “Raphael Sinclair, the founder of the school? Or Raphael Sinclair who comes knocking on my window every night?”

  “The first one.”

  “Then, the answer is, you bet.” She yawned.

  “Really. Tessa. What about canvases? Have you started building your canvases?”

  “I still haven’t gotten Josephine’s final OK on my sketches. She never showed up for our last meeting.”

  “What?”

  She felt guilty, now, for getting Josephine in trouble. Her eyes fluttered open. “She has two kids. She’s busy. Sometimes her babysitter doesn’t show up. Or the kids get sick. Or the subway gets stuck.”

  “Look,” he said. “I’m taking over as your adviser now. Three paintings.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “The grandmother lighting the candles. The whirlwind of bodies. The mother and child.” On the last one, his voice may have faltered slightly. “All right?”

  “All right.”

  The fingers of one small white hand came to rest in his lap, making it hard to concentrate. He settled back into the couch, closed his eyes. Suddenly, his eyes flew open, he caught her wrist.

  “Tessa. You don’t have to…I don’t want you to…”

  She bent a beatific gaze on him. Smiled lasciviously.

  His lower lip caught between his teeth.

  She reached up and turned out the light.

  Afterwards, she stood up, stretched. It was cold in the studio. She wrapped herself in a length of cloth she kept for draping models and eased away from him, over to her easel, turned the reflector light back on.

  Drawn in by the world she had created, she picked up a scarf and absentmindedly tied back her hair. Her eyes narrowed; in a kind of trance, she picked up a bristle brush, daubed it in a pile of burnt umber left on her pale
tte. Unnoticed, the drape slipped to the floor, as she began to fill in the background.

  Drowsily, Rafe opened his eyes, looked at his watch. Five a.m. Outside her window, the sky was still a deep, wintery blue. Fluffy flakes of new snow were falling, gathering on the windowsill. He had dozed off; soon he would have to dress, brave the snow, get home before daylight. Tessa was standing in front of her canvas, wearing only a skimpy camisole and jeans. He came to stand behind her, watched her paint, inhaled the turpentine as if it were air. His hands lit on her hips. She paused for a moment, went back to work.

  “How did you find out you couldn’t draw anymore?”

  “I was on the terrasse of a restaurant in Antibes, the south of France…I asked the waiter for a pencil. I was going to draw the couple at the next table, the sea…the woman I was with. The pencil came. I held it between my fingers, just as I always had, every day since I was five. I knew exactly where to start, what to do.”

  He brought his hands close to his face to scrutinize them in the low light, turning them over to look at the palms, the slender fingers, as if the answer were still to be found there. “Phhht. Gone. Whatever small talent I had died with the man I used to be.”

  Tessa took his right hand, kissed it. Holding his hand in hers, she chose a brush. “Closer,” she murmured, turning to her easel.

  He moved behind her. She raised the brush to the canvas, then, their fingers grasping it together.

  Together, they drew the sable tip across the surface, as delicately as a skater gliding across a pond. Their hands swooped and soared. They moved across vast open expanses of snowy canvas, the hairs of the brush leaving marks in the thick paint. He could feel the liquid viscosity of the varnish under his fingertips, and thrilled to the smooth sensation of the brush glissading over the paint. Holding her hand, he made gestures small and large, edges soft and sharp. He felt the bones and tendons in her fingers jump and dance as they lingered tenderly over the features of a boy’s face, scumbled light falling over the mother’s hair, glazed a shadow over the father’s eyes.

  A mixture of smells and textures, freedom and discipline, just as he remembered it. He yanked her around to face him. He kissed her, ferociously, rapaciously. The brush dropped to the floor.

  She tore at his shirt, pulling it free of his trousers and up over his head. He slipped down the straps of her camisole, then kissed her breasts. She pushed him down on the couch. He reached for one bare arm, pulled her between his knees.

  “Tell me what you want,” he whispered.

  “I want you,” she whispered back. “In my studio. Just like this. For always.”

  She knelt on the floor between his legs, touched her tongue to the arrow of hair that ran down his abdomen and disappeared under the waistband of his trousers. He felt his muscles twitch, aroused.

  “How many girls have drawn you, over the years?” she said.

  “Just two.”

  She rose up through his knees to kiss the ridges of his stomach muscles, the finger-like projections of his serratus, the smooth rise and fall of his pectorals. He lay back on the couch, dug his fingernails into the tufted cushions. Warmed by the pressure of her breasts against his skin, he caught her face between his hands, kissed her. She bent her head to the tender and vulnerable hollow formed by the clavicles and the tendons at the base of his throat.

  “What is this?” There was a small, raised welt of white flesh to the left of his sternum, over his heart, about an inch in length. She touched it with a finger.

  “Don’t,” he said, capturing her hand in his.

  She put her tongue to it, then her mouth. Sucked lightly.

  Unexpectedly, he gasped, shuddered, cried out her name, clasped her to him.

  A great swell of emotions welled up, broke over her, penetrating her through and through. With some deeper feminine instinct, she knew. This was not the grasp of a lover, but the clutch of a drowning man.

  In one of those moments of perfect clarity that comes along perhaps once or twice in a life, she suddenly understood that she would give herself to him completely; love him, fight for him, cling to him, protect him with her life, if that was what it took.

  “I love you,” she breathed in his ear.

  He stopped, gripped her face in his hands, stared into her eyes. Immediately, she wished she could take it back. Portia had tried to warn her. This was Raphael Sinclair, wealthy bachelor, man-about-town, notorious cocksman. How many Lucians would there have to be before she learned her lesson?

  “Oh, thank God,” he said. “At last. Thank God.”

  On the last Thursday afternoon in January, Rafe received a disturbing phone call from Giselle, demanding to know why he had missed the party at the International Center for Photography the previous evening. The truth was, he had blown it off in favor of a nighttime visit to Tessa’s studio.

  Giselle went on to mention that April would continue as a painting instructor in the coming semester, and that Turner was about to hire one of her friends to fill an empty drawing instructor slot. When he tried to question her further, she suggested that he try coming to the meetings.

  Janina, who couldn’t help but hear the tone of Giselle’s voice as she lay next to him in bed, silently mimed. Tsk tsk tsk.

  That evening, as the sun set in her window, and Tessa put the finishing touches on her dream painting, the curtain was shouldered aside, and David Atwood stood there.

  Over the past month, she had forgotten how good-looking he was. He shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled casually forward.

  “Nice,” he said, looking at the canvas on her easel. “Look at those tones. This is different for you.”

  She warmed to him, happy for the praise. She put her brush to the canvas, whittling the edge of a shadow. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be having one last glorious weekend together before Sara goes back upstate.”

  “She went back early,” he said. He came closer, stopping just a short distance away from her. Close enough for her to see him breathing, to smell his aftershave, close enough for her to admire the clear china blue of his eyes. “Tess,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  Tessa never heard the conclusion of what was actually the opening volley of a carefully prepared speech, because at that moment, the curtain moved aside again, and Raphael Sinclair stood there.

  He looked at her, and she at him, and instantly, David Atwood knew exactly what else Tessa had been up to during Intersession, and his mouth dropped open in shock.

  “Excuse me,” said the founder of the school, and vanished through the curtain. It swished soundlessly closed behind him.

  She turned to him and smiled, but now every nerve in her body was humming, he could feel the heat, standing a foot away from her in the confines of the studio. He could see it slowly come to her, the meaning of his words, and as the heat around her faded to a faint warm glow, he thought she had never been lovelier or more desirable.

  “Oh, no,” he said earnestly. “Not him.”

  “What do you mean?” she said, but he could tell she knew exactly what he meant, and she found a reason to break eye contact, putting one final streak of paint to a lock of hair falling over the older daughter’s forehead.

  “So…I guess it’s over with Lucian Swain. You don’t still work for him, do you?”

  She laughed. “No. Know anybody who needs an assistant?”

  “Tess,” he said again, then fell silent. She focused on his hands, nice hands, his skin a deeper shade of ochre, the nails square and neat. Hands capable of creating subtle tones of color richer than in real life. She herself would never be able to mix color like that, it was a gift, like a photographic memory, or an intrinsic ability with math. She should have met him years ago, she thought, before Lucian. Life was funny like that.

  They chatted for a few more moments, about this and that, the news, the weather, the progress of her thesis project, and then, tactfully, he was bowing himself out.

  At the curtain
, he hesitated, half-turned to her. “I really think we could have something,” he said quietly. “Whatever happens. I want you to know. I’m there for you.”

  In the darkened studio next to hers, with the curtains drawn, Rafe listened to the entire conversation. He could find no flaw in Tessa’s responses or in her behavior, yet he felt an underlying unease.

  Later that night, as he fed from a barely-conscious club kid of indeterminate gender before heading over to her apartment, he realized what had made him uneasy. David Atwood was a good man and a good painter. And he, Raphael Sinclair, was a blood-sucking vampire.

  Alone in his office, Turner cursed. Luckily, it was too late to do anything about April—she had already signed a contract—but Raphael Sinclair had just stopped in to chew him out, icily informing him that he would not be rubber-stamping the hire of the new drawing teacher, an emerging artist April had suggested. Her contract sat in front of him now, awaiting only her signature. True, she worked in photo collage, but she had an MFA from SVA, she was equipped to teach Life Drawing 101, for God’s sake. He sat at his desk and fumed. He had been hoping that Rafe would be too busy sneaking around with his hot little art student to notice the hire of a new teacher. He reached for the black office phone, dialed Blesser’s extension.

  “Hiring her would be a step in the right direction,” Bernard agreed cautiously. “I hate to be the one to say this, but…is there any way around him?”

  Arletta, the front office secretary, swept through, dropped a pile of old-fashioned computer printout paper, the kind that was connected by perforated folds, into his inbox. “Grades are in,” she called back over her shoulder as she hurried out.

  Whit lifted the heavy sheaf of paper, set it in front of him. Flipped through the pages. Stopped somewhere in the middle, ran his index finger across the page. Tapped a letter in the third column. Smiled.

  Rafe strode up Sixteenth Street towards Tessa’s apartment, letting the anticipation of the evening ahead slowly overtake him. One by one, the muscles in his lower belly tensed or tightened as he thought of certain places on her body; the small dip above her clavicle; the color of her skin, pink and cream, like the edges of rose petals; the valley of her spine where it deepened and disappeared under the waistband of her jeans; the place between the cups of her breasts when she wore a particular black lace bra. The white of her neck when he pushed away her hair.