The Genius and the Muse

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “I think it might have been four.”

  “It’s impressive in an obnoxious way, I guess.”

  He looked over his shoulder at the painting she had been working on. “Do you usually do landscapes? You’re good at them. I like the way you used the light in that one.”

  Sam was working on a painting of an old cabin surrounded by soaring pine trees, set on the edge of a lake. The front of the cabin was shaded by an old porch, and a wooden dock stretched out into the water. A small boat bobbed in the foreground.

  She answered as her eyes examined the painting from across the room. “No, not usually. I’m more interested in people. But I got an assignment to do a landscape in oils, so I decided to paint my grandfather’s cabin.”

  “I’m sure he’ll love it.”

  She shrugged. “He’s dead, so I kinda doubt he’ll care. My parents still live around there. They’ll like it.”

  Sam caught him studying her out of the corner of her eye. “Oils are a good medium for you.”

  She snorted. “Hardly. They take too much time. And I hate the smell. I like watercolors some, but acrylics are what I prefer.”

  “I don’t actually know that much about painting. I sketch some.”

  “Post-coitally?”

  Reed grinned. “Of course.”

  Hearing a commotion in the stairwell, they turned toward the sound of labored footsteps trudging toward the apartment. Deepali Mehra, loaded down with camera equipment, panted as she made it to the door of the third floor walkup. She took a moment to glare at Samantha.

  “Light, my ass! Why are you my roommate, again?”

  Sam shrugged and rinsed her glass out to set it in the strainer on the counter.

  Reed jumped up and stepped over the coffee table. Dee spotted him. “Goliath!”

  “You look like a miniature pack-mule, Deedee.”

  The tiny woman puffed, her face red from exertion. “I missed you too. Well, I missed your strong back and ability to carry all my shit, anyway.”

  He grinned at her, snickering as he helped her situate her tripod and camera case. When she was finally free of her equipment, Reed enfolded her in a long hug. Sam watched the friends as they whispered back and forth, laughing quietly as they shared some inside joke. She tore her eyes away to mix a pitcher of lemonade. Her roommate finally wandered into the kitchen with Reed trailing behind her.

  “So, Sam, you and Reed haven’t killed each other yet. This bodes well.” Her voice was dripping with amusement.

  Sam winked. “Give it time, Dee. He just got here.” She finished filling the pitcher. “Plus, he says this is him in a good mood.”

  She stirred the lemonade and set it in the old fridge before she walked toward the door to grab her keys, purse and sunglasses. She looked down, absently noticing the paint splattered on her shirt and jeans. Whatever. She didn’t feel like changing.

  “I’m meeting Chris for lunch, so I’ll be back later this afternoon. Reed… “ Sam trailed off, at a loss for something to say.

  “It was a pleasure,” he said, smiling at her.

  She smiled back. “It was something, all right. See you later.”

  Sam walked out, but before she could run down the stairs, she heard Reed say, “I think she likes me.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Laguna Beach, California

  March 2010

  “Come on, babe, you have to come with us.”

  Kate sighed and looked at her boyfriend’s adorable, pleading face. “I’d love to go, but I’ve got to finish this part of my thesis, Cody! Plus, there’s an exhibition of O’Connor’s work—”

  “Not this shit again.” He rolled his eyes at her. “When are you going to be done with all that stuff, Kate? You’ve put so many hours into that project already, and you totally don’t have to. Didn’t your advisor say you had enough for your degree already? You’re doing extra work. Plus, you could get paying jobs right now. That guy from the magazine called the shop again last week asking about you, and—”

  “I told him before, I’m not interested. I don’t want to be taking pictures of surf competitions and doing family portraits as a career.”

  He looked at her cautiously. “So, what? That stuff’s not good enough for you now? You’ve been photographing competitions for years. It was good enough to pay the bills in school, but not anymore? I thought that’s what photographers did.”

  “It’s not that. You know I’m going to keep taking pictures for the shop, and you guys—and I’ll always do portraits for family. I just… if I went on staff full-time for that magazine, that would be all I’d have time for. And I think I have a lot more to say with my photography on an artistic level.”

  He shook his head and went back to sanding the board he was working on. “Whatever.”

  “Plus, I’d be traveling a lot with that job. Do you want me out of the country that much? We hardly ever see each other as it is.”

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  She stared at him for a few minutes, lulled into relaxation by the repetitive shush of his sanding and the hum of traffic along the Pacific Coast Highway. Searching for a change of subject—something they wouldn’t fight about—she remembered what she wanted to ask him.

  “Professor Bradley and Dee invited us for dinner next week. Do you want to go?”

  “Are you three going to be talking about your art and making me feel like an idiot again?” he asked, continuing to work the sander up and down the longboard.

  “Cody—”

  “Just tell me what day. I’ll see if I can get away.”

  Kate stared at his sullen expression. “Okay, I’ll ask and give you a call.”

  “Okay.” Cody glanced at her. “I really need to finish this board up, babe.”

  Kate watched him quietly for a few more minutes before she got up and left the dusty work room, waving at one of his partners, who was surrounded by the typical gathering of beach bunnies that had wandered in from trolling the beach.

  She walked out of the surf shop and into the bright sun of Laguna Beach. Kate realized she had forgotten to put on sunscreen that morning, so she couldn’t walk along the water like she’d originally planned. With her pale, freckled skin—courtesy of her very Irish mother—she always fried within minutes.

  Kate could hear the laughter of the beach volleyball players in the distance and the sound of children laughing on the playground. Everything about the scene was achingly familiar and yet, she still felt out of place. She blinked in the bright light, turned, and walked to her car.

  Part Three: The Photographer

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Claremont, California

  March 2010

  A week after the meeting with Chris, Kate leaned back in her chair and stretched after a home-cooked meal shared at the Bradley’s table. She smiled at the small, dark-haired woman across from her and rubbed her tummy like a satisfied bear.

  “So good. I’ll never be able to cook like that.”

  “That’s because you have no desire to.”

  “That’s… completely true.”

  Deepali Mehra-Bradley smiled at Kate and leaned into her elbows on the table. Chris had taken baby Sabina upstairs to feed her and put her to bed, leaving the two women at the table to linger over coffee and talk.

  “I love having you over, Kate. I’m going to miss you so much when you graduate. You’re Chris’s favorite student, you know. He’s probably not supposed to have one, but I know you are.” Dee smiled at her. “Do you and Cody have plans to move? Where is he tonight, by the way? I thought you would bring him.”

  She shrugged. “He’s meeting the guys to talk about some promotion for the shop. I’m not sure. He knew I wanted to talk to you about O’Connor, and he’s sick of the whole topic, so he begged off.”

  “No apologies needed. I remember Chris when he was doing his master’s thesis on Adams. If I never heard another word about the revolutionary development of the Zone System, I would have been a happy, h
appy woman.” Dee rolled her eyes, but smiled fondly at the memory.

  “Is it nice, though, to be with another photographer? Sometimes I wish Cody had more interest in what I do.” Kate propped her chin on her hand as she studied the woman who had come to feel very much like a trusted friend over the previous years.

  Dee cocked her head and thought before answering. “It has its good points and bad, I suppose. There’s a level of understanding when you’re married to another artist. Chris understands when I get in a creative mood and want to lock myself away and work, because he feels the same way sometimes. It’s harder when you have a family. Since the baby has come, we’ve had to temper those impulses, so we don’t let each other get overwhelmed taking care of Sabina. I think he’s better at that than I am. I still get much more obsessive about things.”

  “See, I don’t think Cody really gets that.” Kate shook her head. “Sometimes I’ll be working on a project, and he’ll want to do something and want me to just stop and drop everything. He doesn’t understand why I can’t take a break and pick it up later.”

  “But that’s balance too, Kate. There’s value in that, because life isn’t always going to be about you and your art. It can easily become your whole life, and some artists choose to live like that, but you’ll end up missing out on a lot. In the end, I think your photography would suffer for not living a full life.”

  Kate mulled over what the other woman had said before she spoke again. “How much time do you have now, for your non-work stuff?”

  “What, the stuff that doesn’t pay the bills?” Deepali laughed. “Not as much, of course. Between the commercial aspect of my business and then having Sabina, it’s not as much. But… it’s important to remember that this is just a season of my life, too. I’ll always be a photographer, but my daughter won’t always be small and need me to take care of her like I do now. In fact, according to my grandmother, I’m going to blink one day, and she’ll be a grown woman.” Her dark eyes danced with laughter.

  “Your grandmother sounds like a wise woman.”

  “Yes, she is. I’m named after her, you know? I became ‘Dee’ later. In fact, Sam Rhodes gave me that nickname. Did Chris tell you? She’s the first person that ever called me ‘Dee.’ I never had a nickname before that. Well, Reed called me ‘Deedee’ sometimes, but only to tease me when we were young. Sam though…” Dee started laughing. “When we first moved in together, she warned me that she would get in moods when she painted, and she only communicated in monosyllables, so I needed a one syllable nickname because Deepali was too long.”

  Kate smiled. “She sounds like she had a great sense of humor.”

  “She did—still does, though we don’t talk as much now. I think…”

  “What?” Kate leaned forward in her chair.

  Dee just smiled enigmatically. “You know, I introduced Sam and Reed. He and I grew up together.”

  “I didn’t know you were so close, or I probably would have bugged you about him before. And weren’t you born in India? How did you and Reed grow up together?” Kate’s eyebrows knit together.

  Dee took a breath as if to speak, but then paused. “You know, that story is sort of his to tell. It’s nothing dramatic, but he’s a very private person. I hope you don’t mind if I don’t share that.”

  “Of course.” Kate squashed the feeling of disappointment. “Do you still talk with him regularly?”

  “Oh, I don’t know if he talks with anyone regularly, except maybe Lydia, his agent. We still e-mail occasionally. He was always like that, though. I’d go for years without seeing him or even hearing from him. Then he’d drop back into my life, and it was like we’d never been apart.”

  “Were you two ever involved?”

  Deepali belly laughed. “Oh, God, no! Oh, no no no. Reed—well, for one, he was almost like a brother to me. Also, he was just too—too big.” She broke into laughter again when she saw Kate’s face flush. “No, I don’t mean like that!”

  Her laughter died down a little before she spoke again. “He was overwhelming, Kate, especially when he was younger. His talent, his energy, his personality. I’m a pretty laid-back person. I think that’s one of the reasons Chris and I are so good together. We’re both very giving. He’s a very thoughtful man. If I was with someone like Reed—no.” Dee shook her head. “I would just disappear in the relationship. Eventually, it would have been all him. No me left.”

  “What about Samantha Rhodes?”

  Dee’s eye glowed. “Oh, Sam got Reed. From the beginning, even before they were really together.”

  “What do you mean, she ‘got’ him?”

  Dee paused before she continued. “She understood him. I think in a way that no one else ever did. And he understood her.” Her voice softened and a wistful look came into her eyes as she remembered. “They were a lot alike, in some ways. But different, too. Different enough that they could be together.” Dee took a deep breath and Kate could see her energy quiver at the rush of memories. “They had this way about them when they were in the same room. Reed and I could be working on something for a class or a project, and we worked very well together. But if Sam was there—especially if she was working—it was like his energy just flowed. But then it focused, too. Like they fed off of each other, but instead of draining the other person, it just built and built until it spilled over. It was almost like a contact high. Anyone that spent time around them would tell you the same thing.”

  Kate watched Dee gaze off into the distance, her eyes lit with memories.

  “I can’t really imagine that. It must have been extraordinary.”

  Dee looked back at her. “It was. I’ve never felt anything like it since. Some of my best work was done after spending time with them. You could ask any of us that lived in the building. We all noticed it when we were around them. Chris, Javi, Vanessa, Susan. Even Lydia noticed it, and she wasn’t even an artist.”

  “How—I mean, what happened to them? Chris said they broke up. How long were they together?”

  Dee took another deep breath, her gaze narrowing as she thought. “They must have been together… six years, I think? The last year and a half of school, and then Sam went to New York with Reed after we all graduated. They were there for four years, I think. They broke up, and then she moved back to her family home to work. She’s not that far from here, just up in the mountains on one of the lakes.”

  “Do you know what happened? Why did they break up?”

  Dee’s eyes were guarded. “Not firsthand. I’ve heard bits and pieces from mutual friends, but I don’t know the whole story. And, like I said before, that’s not really my story to tell.”

  “Of course.”

  Dee took another sip of coffee, still lost in thoughts of the past.

  “Did they ever model for each other?”

  Deepali smiled. “Oh, yes. They modeled for each other. Sam had sketchbooks full of him. And Reed?” Dee snorted. “Well, Sam told me once she didn’t know what was a more familiar sight, Reed’s cock or his lens.” Kate felt her face flush as Dee burst into laughter. She finally calmed down a bit. “Yes, Kate, they modeled for each other. But never together! And they were so beautiful together. His dark and her fair. Just gorgeous. Sad that there’s not more pictures of them.”

  “I saw the picture in Chris’s office.”

  “That old snapshot?” Dee smiled at Kate with a twinkle in her eye. “Javi took that. That’s nothing. Here, come look. I’ve got a better one.”

  She rose, and Kate followed her into the studio at the back of the house. There was a small darkroom in the back corner, and the walls were lined with shelves stacked with all the equipment two working photographers could collect. Dee walked to a stack of filing cabinets.

  “I don’t have a print, but I took a beautiful picture of them once. One of my best portraits. I had to sneak up on them. Reed hated getting his picture taken. Hated it. So you always had to sneak up on him. I have the slide here… somewhere.” She rifled through
her files at the back of one cabinet until she held up a slide page in triumph. “Aha!”

  Dee moved to one of the light boxes in the room and flipped it on. She retrieved a magnifying loupe and handed it to Kate. Moving to the side so she could look at it, a sad expression flickered across her face. “There they are.”

  Kate leaned down to peek at the small picture. It must have been a candid shot; neither of them was looking at the lens. Sam was sitting on Reed’s lap facing him, with her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his back. His long legs stretched out on the grass, and he leaned toward her as if to kiss her.

  He held her close, and his large hands, the hands from the photograph in the gallery, tangled in her hair as he drew her head toward his. Their bodies were pressed together, and their lips were only a whisper apart, but it was their eyes, which were locked on each other with a look of complete and total mutual adoration, that Kate couldn’t stop staring at.

  She stared at the slide, hardly noticing the tears that had come to her eyes. “So beautiful,” she whispered. “So…” She trailed off, unable to describe the feeling that the photograph evoked. Passion. Possession. Kate couldn’t say why the picture of the couple touched her so deeply, but when she saw it, she could almost feel their sense of complete and utter belonging.

  “They were,” Deepali said quietly, finally turning off the light box as Kate stepped away from it.

  “Did you ever show them the picture?”

  She nodded. “I gave a print to each of them. I never used it for anything. It’s too personal. I never even made a copy for myself.”

  “I wonder…”

  What had happened to them?

  The spark of Kate’s academic curiosity suddenly flared into something much more personal.