Work of Art ~ the Collection

by Ruth Clampett

  When I get to the bottom of the road, I stop in the driveway. There’s a rental car parked behind Max’s Porsche. A surge of panic shoots through me. It hadn’t occurred to me he’d have company. The desire to turn around and head home has weighed on me the entire drive over. Now, I just want to get this over with. I’ll give him the book and leave. It’s still early evening, so I figure the worst is I’ll interrupt a dinner.

  As I walk along his garden path, I notice the front door is wide open. I look in, but don’t see any sign of Max. I do notice an open bottle of tequila on the side table along with an abandoned shot glass on its side. There’s a sweater on the floor just beyond the table.

  This type of foreshadowing is heavy-handed and irritating in stories I’ve read and movies I’ve watched. In those cases, I turn the channel quickly or close the book and push it onto my nightstand. But tonight seems ripe for a train wreck, and I’m troubled enough to not be willing to turn away.

  I take cautious steps into the foyer. What hits me first are the sounds. The moaning and indecipherable words slam into me, rendering me breathless.

  ‘Oh no . . . anything but this, Max,’ my mind wails. I clutch the folder tighter to my chest and try to contain my exploding heart.

  I continue forward until I’ve entered the main room. A tableau from a European porn film unfolds before me. The French doors are wide open with the ocean crashing just beyond. The sun, sharing its last rays of the day, skims over the scene, casting sharp outlines of light and darkening shadows.

  The girl is blonde, the palest of yellows, which is striking against her tanned skin. I marvel at the way she’s folded over the table, her ample breasts pressed almost flat while her head is arched back. Words fall out of her mouth, and in my stupor she could be speaking Swahili or Albanian for all I know. The fact that her skirt is pushed up over her hips and her panties are missing is not surprising, but expected.

  The first thing I notice about him are his hands. One has her peroxide mane wrapped around it, and he’s pulling hard, as evidenced by how far her head is jerked back. The other hand is halfway between her hip and her ass, and the shadows indicate that his fingers are digging into the flesh.

  My gaze travels up to his face and I gasp quietly.

  He’s ugly. I didn’t think it was possible, but his beautiful features are twisted with hate and anger as he looks down on his golden goddess.

  His jeans are pushed down low on his hips and the gathering of fabric around his knees is a symphony of folds and shadows. I’m angry that he doesn’t wear a shirt, as if the thin layer would provide a shield of armor in case the whore pressed up against him.

  I’m stunned to finally hear his voice. “Fucking say it, Sheila. What in the hell do you want from me?” I can hear the tequila in the slur of his words.

  “I want you, Max! Fuck me hard. I need it so bad!”

  He lets go of her and starts to undo his belt buckle, but he pauses.

  “What are you waiting for, Max? Fuck me already!” the blonde goddess yells.

  Okay, I’m done here. Yes, completely done. I’m shocked and numb. I really understand the potential benefit of the depressive shutdown thing right now. But that would not be good. I need my legs moving to get me out of here immediately.

  I’m in the shadows, so I take a silent step just far enough forward to deposit the folder on the table. I’m not even sure it’s a good idea to leave the book now. I just know I can’t have it in my possession another motherfucking second.

  I step back and turn to my prize, the front door, my gateway out of this hell that’s burning me more with each second’s passing.

  A fierce wind slams one of the French doors hard into the wall and I automatically turn toward the sound. The curtains whip up. For a moment, they are white flags suspended over the room.

  Goddamn the Santa Ana winds.

  And in the final act of my humiliation, the folder peels open in a horrific slow motion, and the pages take flight, dozens of slender white birds furiously soaring all over the room. Several of the pages fly up against me and wrap around my waist and legs, and I reach down to tenderly peel them off and set them free.

  The ugly face now turns toward me, and the expression morphs to a deeper shade of fury. His displeasure that I’m an audience to his tawdry show is quite evident. I quickly calculate that timing-wise I’m at an advantage being mere steps from the door, where he’s on the far side of the room and has the blonde one to deal with. She doesn’t look like she’s in the mood to share, so any attempt he makes to move toward me could be greatly compromised.

  And I can tell from the look on his face that he’ll be coming after me. Of this I’m eerily certain . . . so I must plan accordingly. I must think clearly, even though I’m fairly convinced that I’m losing all semblance of sanity as each moment passes.

  I exercise my timing advantage as I bolt for the door, turning back only once to show him both the disgust and devastation shadowed in my eyes. And despite his alcohol-induced stupor, I hope he understands; one more unspoken truth shared between us.

  Chapter Twenty-Two / All that Matters

  When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again.

  ~Albert Einstein

  When another blast of the Santa Ana wind pushes me out the front door, some pages of the book follow me into the garden. One page careens into the koi pond, and it sickens me to see my efforts become fish food. My ridiculous miscalculation, where I bend down and retrieve the soggy page, gives Max just enough time to reach the front door before I’ve completed my exit. I’ve underestimated how fast he can move when properly motivated.

  “AVA!” His howl tears through me. His jeans ride higher up on his waist now. His expression’s wild and frantic.

  For a moment, I look at him. The limp wet sheet of paper caught in my fingers is steadily dripping water on my shoes. I let it go, hearing the faint slap as it hits the terracotta tile of the walkway. My bearings recovered, I bolt for the garden gate.

  He charges after me, catches my wrist and, just before I make it through the gate, he pulls me back inside. My heart pounds and I refuse to look at him.

  “Ava!” His voice is commanding, but as soon as he’s spoken it seems he has nothing to say beyond my name. He grips my wrist so tightly that my hand starts to go numb. I look at my car and will it to come to me. I’d really like to do a Batman move and fling myself inside my supercharged car and blast out of this fucked-up situation.

  I can hear his ragged breath as he waits. God only knows why he’s waiting or what he expects me to do.

  “Why did you come, Ava? Why did you come?” His tone is desperate and sounds remarkably sober.

  “Because I wanted to talk to you,” I reply, still turned away. My voice sounds lifeless.

  “What did you want to say?” he asks frantically.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore and don’t worry, I won’t be coming back.” You bastard.

  “Don’t say it doesn’t matter!” he yells.

  His fierceness scares me and I curl up inside.

  “It’s all that matters.” His voice cracks with emotion like it’s a revelation.

  “Max?” the blonde goddess says.

  I look over his shoulder at her calling out to him, and then look back at Max. He grimaces. I look away again as tears stream down my face and I refuse to look him in the eye. I won’t give him that.

  “Shut up, Sheila!” he roars.

  “Ava, please tell me why you came,” he pleads.

  “You shouldn’t tell her to shut up—she’s all that matters now. I’m finished here. Let go of me.” I swing my arm down, loosening his grip, and rush to my car.

  My hands shake so much I can’t get the key in the ignition, and as I fumble I hear an angry howl and a crash. There’s a shattered potted plant in front of his garage door now and he screams again.

  “It fucking matters, Ava!”

  I finally get the
key in, start the car, and quickly back out.

  CRASH! The sound of pottery hitting a wall is so dramatic and B movie that it’s jarring and I’m grateful his target is the wall and not me.

  “AVA!” There’s a pause and then more pottery, soil and plants crash to the ground. “It’s all that matters!”

  I floor the gas and tear up the driveway as one more crash and his howl echo around me.

  “AVA!”

  It isn’t until I’m on Pacific Coast Highway and accelerating straight ahead that I realize I’m not breathing. My lungs ache as I suck in as much air as possible. I’m sure I’m not steady enough to be driving. The sun has dipped below the horizon, causing the sky to quickly darken, but all I can think about is getting as far away from Malibu as possible.

  When I’m no longer gasping, I can focus again. The damage from seeing Max with Sheila and Max seeing my reaction seems irreparable. The rage-filled side of me is sure I never want to see him again. Yet, now that everything’s final, I have to face that not seeing him again is heartbreaking.

  Max has broken my heart. And perhaps through all of the events that led us here, his heart is broken as well.

  This hits me full-force as I drive up the canyon. When I get to the highest point of the hill, my tears turn to sobs and I pull over on the desolate road, too devastated to drive. My car feels like a cage, and I throw open the door and jump out, wanting to feel the solid ground under my feet.

  I step over to the edge of the canyon and look at the inky black sky, moonless and calm now that the winds have died down. The stillness and silence make me feel completely alone in the world, which only amplifies my agony. Despite my fury over what I left behind in Malibu, I torture myself by allowing better memories of Max to seep into my mind.

  The times he took me to his favorite places are when I saw glimpses of the real Max. We seemed to grow closer with each experience, which lead to that fateful night in the print studio. I’ll never forget his passionate expression and his whispered words as his body and his heart leaned toward mine.

  “I’ve really tried Ava, God only knows how hard I’ve tried. But I can’t fight it anymore . . . I don’t have it in me to deny how I feel anymore.”

  I’d never felt such passion, and as my fingers skim over my lips, I relive what followed . . . the kiss that I’d waited my whole life for. I let out a deep sigh. I thought we were destined for a great love, not a showdown on an emotional battlefield.

  My tears continue to fall as my gaze trails down to the canyon below. Void of light, it’s a black abyss, much like my heart in this aftermath. If only I could float down and surrender to the darkness. Surrounded by silence, perhaps I would be spared the ugly voices in my head and the ragged stutter of my broken heart.

  Feeling pathetic, I sink down on a nearby rock and cry until my tears run out. I wonder if I’m capable of holding it together long enough to drive home. A rustling in the nearby brush, followed by the sorrowful cry of a small animal, snap me out of my stupor. I’m not the only creature suffering in the universe.

  My grandmother used to tell me that no matter how our rough circumstances are—large or small—life moves forward and we have to figure out how to carry on. I find the strength to climb back in my car and drive home.

  Two horrid and hazy days later, I’m lying in bed, staring at the wall and willing myself to get up and make coffee. The phone rings. It’s Jess, which is a surprise, considering she never gets up early on Sunday.

  “Hey, Ava.” She sounds tense, and I hear another muffled voice in the background. “Listen, when was the last time you talked to or heard from Max?”

  “Friday night. Why?” A bad feeling settles in my stomach.

  “What was his mood like when you talked last? Was he okay?”

  She’s scaring me. “Why, Jess? What’s going on?”

  “Answer me, Ava,” she snaps. “Was he okay?”

  “No.” I take a deep breath.

  “Fucking hold on.”

  “Dylan!” she yells. She’s louder than I expect, even though it sounds like she moved the phone away from her mouth.

  “Please, tell me what happened,” she asks me.

  “We had a fight and I left.”

  “Fuck! That’s just what I was afraid of.”

  She speaks to Dylan again. “They had a fight. She hasn’t heard from him either.”

  “How upset was he? I really need to know.”

  “Very upset, and I’m getting very upset now too because you aren’t telling me what’s going on. Is Max okay?”

  “Listen, can you come out here?”

  “Come out where . . . Malibu?” I’m freaked out. What the hell’s going on? My heart sinks. Max’s house is the last place I want to go right now.

  “Yes.” Jess sounds frustrated. “No one’s been able to reach Max since Friday night. He didn’t show up for a lunch meeting with Dylan yesterday. When Dylan still hadn’t heard from him, he drove out to Malibu. There’s no sign of him.”

  “When I got to Max’s house on Friday evening, he was with that blonde, Sheila. Maybe you should call her?” I know it’s not likely they’re together, considering his reaction to her that night, but it’s worth a shot.

  “Sheila?” she snaps. “He was with that idiot? Okay, we’ll try to reach her, but could you still come out here?”

  “You know, Jess, I’ve been through enough crap with Max. I’m done. I really don’t want to come out to his place when I’m trying to forget him.”

  “Please? I’m scared something bad has happened. When Dylan showed up, he thought Max had been robbed. His front door was wide open, and there was broken shit like the place had been trashed. But all the stuff robbers would take like TVs and cameras were still here.

  “Dylan couldn’t find him, but his car is parked outside. And the paintings . . . Ava, I’m so worried. I’ve never seen anything like this. You have to come here and see what I’m talking about.”

  My heart pounds in my chest. The fear in her voice compels me to set my own reservations aside. “Okay, Jess. I’m on my way.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three / Missing

  When painting, an artist must take care not to trap his soul in the canvas.

  ~Terri Guillemets

  When I pull up to Max’s house, the state of his house is even worse than I imagined.

  There’s broken pottery, dead plants and potting soil everywhere. Max’s garage door and walls are dented and scratched from multiple impacts. There’s considerably more damage than I remember from before I drove off Friday. In the heat of his fury that night, Max must’ve kept throwing things.

  I gingerly step over the shards and enter the front garden. Even though the sun’s burning through the fog, it’s still quite cool, and I shiver as I look around.

  More pages from the book have blown into the yard, decorating the garden with the wandering pages. Several are perched in the trees, captured by branches. A few are in the flowerbeds and others float on top of the koi pond like a fine layer of snow. The sight of it humiliates me and fills me with hopelessness.

  One of the dining room chairs is on its side on the lawn, a fallen soldier undoubtedly surprised to be part of the melee. I breathe a sigh of relief to see it’s nowhere near the tree as the image of a noose dangling from a branch comes to mind.

  Jess stands in the doorway to the house and looks battle-worn. I’ve never seen her expression so bleak and my nerves instantly fray.

  “Where’s Dylan?” I ask, not knowing what else to say.

  “He’s in the studio. We’ll go see him in a minute. Come on.” She motions me into the house.

  Broken glass litters the floor and the stench of alcohol permeates the air.

  “Watch your step,” Jess warns.

  There’s a scar where the glass hit the wall—probably the bottle of tequila. The sweater that’d been tossed on the floor is no longer there. White pages are scattered all over the room.

  The dining room table is on i
ts side and the remaining chairs are askew. One of the sheer white curtains has been ripped off the wall, the rod hanging at an odd angle from its uprooting. It’s as if a savage animal tore through the house.

  Could Max have that much rage?

  A framed picture is smashed on the floor and there’s a dent in the plaster where it collided before falling on the tiles. Jess carefully picks it up. It’s a photo of Max accepting an award amid the shattered glass.

  “The Whitney Biennial. Damn, Max,” Jess whispers and narrows her eyes as she stares at the broken mess that framed one of his successes. She gingerly sets it on a nearby side table.

  “I don’t even know how to process this,” I say.

  Jess shakes her head. “It’s complicated. Let’s go to the studio. I want to warn you . . . Dylan’s really upset, so take anything he says with a grain of salt.”

  So he’s going to blame this all on me? I wonder.

  To avoid facing the chaos inside, we weave between the palm trees along the side yard until we reach the front of the studio.

  Jess grabs my arm to stop me before I go in. “I have to warn you . . . this may freak you out. But I’m here, okay?”

  Am I wearing my heart on my sleeve? She’s scared for me. Am I that transparent? I take a deep breath, ready for more chaos, and slowly step inside.

  At first, I’m surprised by the quiet cleanliness of the studio. Nothing’s smashed or overturned, and it’s as pristine as I remember it. But the look of accusation on Dylan’s face just before he turns away is intimidating.

  What?

  I look around the studio again, searching for the piece of the puzzle I’m missing. And then it hits me like a ton of bricks. Three large paintings are leaning against the wall. Are those the paintings that were supposed to be on their way to Barcelona? They’re gorgeous—all color and emotion. Or at least they were gorgeous until Max defaced them.

  Across each canvas, a large letter has been slapped across the face in dripping black paint. It’s savage—the most brutal form of graffiti to deface something so beautiful with so little regard.