The Color of Light (57 page)

“This head.
We Rate the Lubricants.
It’s not very clever. Can we do better?”

“How about Slip and Slide?” suggested Anastasia.

Leo shook his head no.

“Gentle glide,” said Gaby.

Anastasia dismissed it. “Sounds like an advertisement for a new brand of tampon.”

“Jiffy Lube?” suggested Ram.

Leo raised his eyebrows. He turned to Tessa. “How about you, my dear?” he said courteously. “Any thoughts?”

“Um…Smooth moves?”

He nodded, smiled. “Very good.
Smooth Moves
it is.”

Leo took up one of the lines of type Tessa had xeroxed, tore off the extra words to approximate the length of the new title, laid them across the photograph. Stood back to view his work.

“Yes,” said Anastasia nodding. “Perfect. Frame,” she said. Gaby took a flat black plastic frame from a drawer, set it down around Leo’s layout. Without the distraction of the extra lengths of paper fluttering off the edges, the intelligence of the design sprang forth.

“Tape,” said Ram.

Gaby held up her hands. A piece of scotch tape was stuck to the end of each of her ten fingers. Ram peeled off the pieces one by one, taped down the collage of paper and photographs while Leo and Anastasia chatted amiably in French. When it was all secured, he handed it to Gaby, who whisked it away to the production department, where the fake copy would be replaced with real words.

“Thank you all for staying so late to indulge an old man,” said Leo self-deprecatingly, inclining his head. “Now go home! There is always tomorrow.” He directed a particular smile at Tessa, then floated back out of the art department like a gray ghost.

The moment he was gone, the electricity seemed to go out of the air. Tessa was surprised to find that her heart had been racing. Watching Leo lay down a magazine page had been akin to the magic of watching Lucian paint.

“You are right,” said Anastasia, as if she could hear her thoughts, her dark eyes fastened on Tessa. “He is extraordinary. There is no one else like him. A genius, a legend in his time.” She sighed. “But now, that time is passing. I don’t know how much longer he has left. The shaking is new.”

Then she smiled. “Did you know? He had a little crush on Sofia. Nothing like our Raphael
—
that was the stuff of epic romance—but still, enough to give Margaux some restless nights.”

She was quiet for a moment, almost sad, recollecting something in their shared past; and then she brusquely shook it off, smiled in a way that was friendly and condescending all at the same time, and said, “But I despise nostalgia; that was all a long time ago.”

“You were marvelous, my dear,” she added. “He is quite impressed with you.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“The way you came up with that title,” she said. “You are a natural.”

“Jiffy Lube would have made a
fierce
headline,” grumbled Ram. “I even had a subhead. When a quickie just isn’t quick enough.” Anastasia burst into laughter. “Smooth moves. Crumpet, you little slut. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I know all about you. You’re a big slut. You even have slut hair.”

Tessa froze, stupefied. For her part, Anastasia was delighted. “Ram, you are shocking her,” she admonished him, in a reprimand that wasn’t really a reprimand. “Sweet little Tessa,” she cooed persuasively. “We are just having some fun. Let us make it up to you. Why don’t you join us for dinner tonight?”

She was moving forward now, a crimson light leaping and dancing in her eyes. The hairs prickled up on the back of Tessa’s neck.

“I have to get to my studio,” she said guardedly, taking a step backwards, out of the narrow office. “Lot of catching up to do.”

To her immense relief, Anastasia halted at the doorway. “Just like Raphael,” she said, bemused. “Always running off to his little
atelier.”
A Gallic shrug. “All right, my dear. This time we will let you get away. But next time, you are ours. Tory!” she snapped. Behind Tessa, an assistant editor hurrying by on her way to the elevator stopped dead. “A double cappuccino, please. Tell them it’s for me. They know how I like it.
Vite, vite!”
she snapped. Tessa forgotten, she turned on her Manolo Blahnik heel and shut the door behind her.

2

W
hat the
fuck,
man,” said Levon, and that was just for openers. Rafe tensed, bracing for the rest of it. God knows, he deserved it. “Is it possible you just didn’t hear me all the times I told you to stay away from her? There weren’t enough women in New York City?”

“She needed me,” he said. They were in Levon’s office. It was early in the evening; the remains of a red sunset seethed on the horizon.

“Your
school
needs you, Rafe.
She
needed a
doctor.”

Levon turned his back on him, stared out the window, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Rafe had never seen him angry before. Feeling chastised, he slipped lower into his chair, wrapped defensively in his overcoat.

“I mean, what the fuck,” he said again.

“It’s not what you think,” Rafe said mildly.

“We can talk about what
I
think, later. That board meeting you missed last night? Whit told them all about you and Tessa, starting with your sexy little Tango on Halloween and ending with your heroic performance on Monday morning. He strongly recommended that your fool ass be kicked off the board.”

Wearily, Rafe put his head in his hands. The meeting. He had forgotten about the bloody meeting.

“You know, I’m not the criminal here,” he said irritably. “What about Whit? Telling a student to clear out, on a Sunday night at the end of vacation when he knew nobody else would be around. Why isn’t
he
on trial?”

Levon put his hands flat on the desk. “Is he an asshole? Absolutely. But there’s no law against what he did; the Chairman of the Painting Department can’t be dismissed for giving a student bad news.” He sighed,
sat down heavily. He looked thinner, harried. “It’s not just about you and Tessa, Rafe. The staff needs you. The
students
need you.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

“You’ve got to end it with her.”

“I can’t. I love her, Levon.”

“Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to hear it.”

“You know, I haven’t…we haven’t…she’s still, ah…” He lapsed into uncomfortable silence.

“It doesn’t matter, Rafe. Everyone knows you’re together.” Then, curiously, “Really?”

“Really.”

“Wow.” Levon massaged the back of his neck. He sighed. “When I saw her like that Monday morning…I thought we were going to have to call Bellevue.”

“Have you met with her yet?”

Levon lifted his cap, ran his hand over his shining bald pate. “Yes. Her sketches look great. Now all she has to do is get it all done in time.”

Rafe sighed, drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Okay. Tell me where we go from here.”

He stared glumly out the window at the oncoming night as Levon told him how to repair the damage. Show up at meetings, seduce the board, remind them of why they got involved in the first place. Be cool and clever and charming at every ball, soiree and charity function from now until the end of the year. Bring in more celebrities and socialites, the money would follow. Giselle was going to a thing at the Guggenheim tonight. He could start there.

Rafe’s attention wandered. What was Tessa doing right now? What was she wearing? He was thinking of a particular satin bustier he had seen in the window of a pocket-sized lingerie shop in the Village, and how she might look in it as he undressed her, hook by hook, ribbon by ribbon. He thought of her doe-soft eyes, starry with love. Her arms around him, creating a safe haven. The drama of her expressions as she listened to the story of his day. He could still feel the impression of her warm body where it had dovetailed with his, a few hours earlier.

There had been a single blip, one solitary bad moment to mar his happiness. Together in her apartment, both of them shirtless, the desire for
blood had suddenly reared up and overwhelmed him. There was no warning. The muscles in his jaw began to swell, his eyes to change, and suddenly the predator was already there, taking over his brain. Rather than risk hurting her, he’d grabbed his coat and stumbled out into the night.

But he could handle it. Perhaps he couldn’t have managed a relationship with an ordinary girl when he was still new at this vampire thing, but he was older now, he had more control, more resources. There were other ways to get what he needed.

Levon was winding down. Rafe knew the drill. Meet the people, shake out the money. He stood up to leave, apologized for his appalling error in judgment, promised he would get right back on track. Levon smiled in relief, apologized sheepishly for calling him out, clapped him on the back, shook his hand like a friend.

Alone in the hallway, he looked at his watch. Seven o’clock. An excited tingling in the pit of his belly. Tessa would be in her studio. He took the stairs two at a time.

“Superpowers,” said Clayton.

“How many?”

“Just one.”

Harker licked the rolling paper, gave a final twist to the end of a skinny little cigarette. “Flying. No question. What about you?”

“Mind control,” said Clayton, without hesitation. “Over the ladies. For obvious reasons.”

Ben blew smoke over his head in a long, steady stream. “Today?” he said. “Super speed. Then there would be a remote possibility that I might finish my thesis project in time for the show.”

“What about you, Graham?”

“Shapeshifting,” he said, squinting moodily into his empty wineglass. “I like the idea of being able to eat whatever I want and still look like Richard Gere.”

Tessa had coerced her friends into posing for the third of her three paintings, the whirlwind of bodies rising up into the sky, offering free wine and a shot at immortality. They were sitting wherever there was space; piled together on the couch, more on the cracked Danish modern chairs. The
Moroccan table stood at the center of the room, bearing an open bottle of wine, a little wooden crate of clementines, a half-empty pan of brownies Harker had brought in. A ribbon of sweet-smelling smoke wafted up into the air; Clayton had anchored an incense stick in the pliable greenish buttocks of Tessa’s écorché sculpture.

“These brownies have kind of an interesting aftertaste,” Portia remarked.

“Katie has a new job,” said Harker. He hefted his guitar higher up on his lap. “She’s working at Magikal Childe, you know, the witchcraft store over on Nineteenth Street. She put in this herb that’s supposed to boost creativity.”

“Tastes like basil,” said Portia, putting down what was left of her brownie.

“Basil that’s been shat out of a skunk,” said Graham.

Tessa leaned over her work table, gazed at the photos she had taken for her project. The odd-tasting brownie lay forgotten on a paper plate.

Her friends’ reactions to the revelation that Rafe was a vampire had been mixed. Clayton had leapt up from his seat at the Shabbos table, pounded Ben on the back, howling, “What’d I tell you. Ah
knew
it. Ah
knew
it.” Ben, on the other hand, paled and pushed his seat back from the table, stunned into shocked silence. Harker had slowly nodded his head up and down, firing off the opening riff to
Don’t Fear the Reaper.
Gracie had arched her eyebrows and tossed back her glossy bronze curls, breathlessly admitting that she actually found it kind of sexy. Graham simply shrugged and reached for another brownie.

But Portia, decent, right-thinking Portia, had a stiff, scared look on her face, just as Tessa knew she would. Guiltily, she wondered if Portia would ever feel safe on the streets of New York City again. And David…well, David.

He had been the last one to leave. As she was closing the door behind him, he wheeled sharply around, blocking it open. “Tessa,” he said levelly. “It’s sad, I know. And I understand your connection to him, and why you feel responsible. But Tessa, ask yourself this question. If what he says is true, this guy was a killing machine. Do you feel safe with him?”

She frowned at her photos. The model had posed in a vintage 1940s dress Tessa had purchased at a thrift shop. In the photos, she looked
believably frightened as she hung onto a squirmy toddler. It was exactly what Tessa had asked of her. Still, the picture didn’t sing; something was missing. What was it?

“Can we turn off the fucking music, please?”

Donna Summers was sobbing that someone had left her cake out in the rain. Tessa looked up. “Sure.”

Harker popped the tape out of the boom box, read the label out loud
. “Please Mister Please,
Olivia Newton John.
Could It Be Magic,
Barry Manilow.
Le Freak,
by Chic. Where did you get this?” he said, not without awe.

“Guy on Astor Place sells mix tapes for a dollar,” replied Tessa. “He looks like he needs the money.”

“Don’t buy stuff from those guys,” said Clayton. “They just use the money to buy drugs.”

“He said he was hungry,” Tessa said absently.

“Why are you dressed like that?” said David.

She was in a short black skirt, an elaborately starched white blouse, black ballet flats, black stockings that stopped somewhere around mid-thigh. She’d found the clothing folded neatly on her desk at
Anastasia
yesterday. The directions had been implicit.

“Standard issue magazine-girl uniform. I came straight from work.”

“How’s that going, anyway?” The men were passing around one of Harker’s handmade cigarettes.

“I’ve learned lots of new ways to work the word ‘fabulous’ into a sentence.”

“Have you met any models?” said Graham.

“I see them around.”

“Are they as gorgeous in real life as they are in photographs?”

“If you find skinny teenage girls with flat chests and tiny heads gorgeous, sure.”

“I was talking about the boys.”

The curtain was drawn aside, admitting Raphael Sinclair. He stood within the pool of light from the reflector lamp, regarding Tessa at her work table. Where it touched her, the light turned her tawny hair into a river of gold. Rafe moved forward as if no one else was in the room,
brushed his fingertips across her shoulder. Absorbed in her photographs, it took a moment before she turned her head. When she saw who it was, she smiled in a way that made the other men a little envious, even the ones who had girlfriends.