A Note From an Old Acquaintance (13 page)

“I had a wonderful time. I also learned a lot; you’re a great teacher.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “It’s easy when you have such a willing pupil. Will you walk me to my car?”

“My pleasure.”

They began walking west on Newbury. The air had turned colder and the dense clouds overhead promised snowfall sometime during the coming night. As if reacting to the cold, Joanna slipped her arm through his and leaned against him. It made Brian feel ten feet tall, until he remembered that she was going home—to him.

When they came abreast of the Bookstore Café, Joanna stopped him. “Do you mind if I go inside for a moment?” she asked.

“Feeling literary?”

“In a way.” She gave him a coy smile. “I’ll be right out. I promise.”

“I shall await my lady with bated breath,” Brian said, giving her a mock bow. She laughed, gave him a peck on the cheek and disappeared into the store. She returned moments later carrying a plastic bag.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

Brian gave her a look.

“I won’t give it to you, if you don’t.”

“Give me what?”

“It’s a surprise, silly.”

Brian closed his eyes and felt Joanna slip something on his head.

“Okay, open up.”

Brian opened his eyes and stared at himself in the store window. He was now wearing a black baseball cap with the word: WRITER embroidered in white Courier typeface.

He turned to Joanna, who had an expectant smile on her face. “Do you like it?” she asked.

Brian’s heart swelled. “I love it.”

Joanna came into his arms. “I saw it here yesterday when I was having lunch, and I thought of you. I couldn’t resist getting it for you just now. You really like it?”

Brian nodded. “It’s the sweetest thing anyone’s done for me in a long time.”

“A sweet hat for a sweet writer.”

Brian laughed and they resumed their walk.

Joanna’s Mercedes was parked near the corner of Exeter and Newbury. She opened the door and was about to get in, when she turned and kissed him. It was as soft and as urgent as the first one, and it left him breathless.

“I’d like for you to see my art, Brian. Your opinion would mean so much to me. Would you come by my studio Monday night?”

“I’d love to,” he said.

“Great. Call me around six and I’ll give you the directions.” She reached into her handbag and took out a pen and another of her fiancé’s cards. “This is my car phone,” she said, scrawling the number on the back of the card, “in case you don’t reach me at the studio. Just means I’m on my way. I hope you like my work.”

“I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t.”

She smiled, gave the bill of his new cap a playful tug then kissed the tip of his nose and climbed into the Mercedes. A moment later, she waved, pulled out into the street and sped away. He walked home and spent the rest of the evening in a pleasant daze.

12

ERIK
RUBY
STOOD
AT
the wet bar in the corner of his office and refilled his crystal tumbler with the dark, smoky Macallan single malt whiskey, allowing himself a congratulatory moment.

You pulled it off you son-of-a-bitch, you really pulled it off.

The meeting with Old Man Wrightson had lasted two hours longer than planned, but it had all been worth it. The old coot was in the bag, literally and figuratively. Since the last disastrous meeting, Ruby had done some digging and found out the older man had a weakness for the rare highland-made Scotch. Having the bottle of Macallan
1926
on-hand had helped to break the ice and smooth over the rough spots in the deal. It had also helped that all the revisions to the design had been reproduced in the models and artists’ renderings, wowing the old man and his sycophantic entourage. Now, with the right palms greased down in Government Center, the construction on Wrightson Plaza would go forward, and Ruby & Associates would pocket a cool ten million in profits.

He turned from the bar and approached his desk, swaying in front of the enlarged photo of Joanna hanging on the wall, the same one he’d wanted to put into her mailer. How beautiful she looked in that picture. Why couldn’t she understand how much it moved him—how much
she
moved him? What the hell was wrong with wanting to show her off, anyway? She was as much a work of art as anything she created.

Ruby shook his head, and lifted the tumbler of Scotch in a mock salute. “For you, Joanna.... All for you....”

He knocked back half of the fiery liquor in one gulp, grimacing.

His father would have understood. Ruby sneered and swallowed another mouthful of the Scotch, barely noticing the burn this time. Oh, yeah, the old bastard would have understood, all right. He would have tried to steal Joanna away from him, as he’d done with Carolyn.

The haze caused by the alcohol did nothing to dim the memory of the time he’d paid a surprise visit to his father’s Fifth Avenue apartment, wanting to show off his acceptance into Yale, the old man’s alma mater. Ruby had known something was amiss from the moment he’d let himself in the front door with his key. It was too quiet. Yet it wasn’t. The farther he moved into the vast two-story penthouse, the more the alarm bells rang in his head and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. He climbed the plush carpeted stairway to the second floor, two steps at a time, stopping at the landing to listen. It was far less quiet up here. Moans, both male and female, emanated from the master bedroom at the end of the short hallway.

A part of him was embarrassed to have intruded upon his father’s privacy. Another part of him resented his father for having a girlfriend so soon after what he’d done to his wife—Ruby’s mother—in the divorce, yet the old man was someone he still loved and admired. Ruby turned to go; he had no business being there now.

“Oh, Lucius, fuck me! Fuck me, harder!”

His feet had frozen mid-step, a chill running up his spine.

That voice.... He knew that voice.

He crept nearer to the half-closed door and peered inside. There on the bed was his old man, Lucius Fulton Ruby III, eyes closed in ecstasy, razor-cut salt and pepper hair askew, grunting like a pig as his droopy old butt slammed the salami into Carolyn Duprée, Erik Ruby’s curvy seventeen-year-old girlfriend. Her graceful tanned legs were wrapped around his father, her crimson-taloned fingers raking down his back, and she screamed his name over and over again with every brutal thrust. Her moans of pleasure and breathless endearments to his father were like knives in Ruby’s heart. He wanted to kill them both. Instead, with tears flowing down his face, he left the apartment and went home to the smaller, less elegant one he shared with his mother. He said nothing to her; went to his room and brooded. It was bad enough seeing them together like that, but what really cut him to the quick was that he and Carolyn had gone out only the night before, and ended up in a make-out session on her living room couch. She’d pushed him away when he’d tried to go further, telling him that she wanted to wait for a “special moment” before they had sex the first time. The little bitch wanted to
wait
!

Sighing, he went back to the bar and poured himself more of the Macallan then walked back to his desk, picked up the phone and dialed. It was picked up on the second ring.

“Wunderkind Graphics.”

“Burning the midnight oil, I see,” Ruby said.

“Erik, is that you?” Nick asked.

“Of course it’s me. Who the hell else would be calling you this late?”

“Are you all right? You sound like you’re wasted.”

“I
am
wasted. Sealed the deal with Wrightson. The old duffer is happy as a lark.”

“You don’t sound so happy,” Nick said, his voice edged with concern.

“Why shouldn’t I be? Closed a fifty million dollar deal with a good chunk of it destined for my pocket, I’m engaged to a beautiful woman who adores me, and I see your friend Weller everywhere I go.”

“What? Wait a minute. What are you talking about? You’re seeing Brian?”

Ruby took another sip of his drink and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his cashmere jacket. “I don’t know, maybe I’m losing my marbles, like my old man finally did, drooling away the rest of his days with a twenty-four hour nurse. I could’ve sworn I saw the guy in this gallery where I left Joanna today, hiding behind a partition. Crazy, huh?”

Nick’s sigh sounded wheezy through the phone. “Listen. I’m sure it wasn’t him. You’ve been sweating this deal for months. That kind of pressure’s likely to do things to your head.”

“Yeah, I can understand that, but why him?”

“Who knows? It doesn’t matter.”

“What if it
was
him, Nick, what am I supposed to think?”

“Coincidence, Erik. Just a fluke.”

“There are no coincidences, old friend, just greater patterns yet to be divined.”

“Well, last time I looked I wasn’t Einstein, and neither were you. I think you’d better cork that bottle and go home to that beautiful fiancée. What do you say?”

Ruby shook his head and laughed. For once, Nick was talking sense. “When you’re right, you’re right.”

“For once.” Nick laughed then coughed.

“You don’t sound so good yourself.”

“Same old story, workin’ my fingers to the bone.”

“Oh, before I forget, those people from the Paragon Group call you?”

“Yeah, thanks for the referral. Looks like I’ll be doing their annual reports.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Anyway, Erik, just go home and relax. I’m sure everything’s fine.”

“Thanks, talk to you soon.”

Ruby dropped the phone back onto the cradle and turned his gaze back to Joanna’s photo, her smoldering eyes burning into his soul.

With a wordless cry, he hurled his tumbler against the wall, shattering it right below the picture frame. Rivulets of the expensive whiskey rolled down the wall, staining the Berber carpet.

“All for you....”

13

THE
DRIVE
INTO
BOSTON
from Newton was a slow, agonizing crawl. And while the plows had cleared the four inches of snow that had fallen the night before, her fellow drivers this morning seemed to want to take things slow and easy. Joanna glanced at the dashboard clock and frowned.

7:35.

Damn. If things didn’t get moving soon, she’d be late for her eight o’clock class, not that her students couldn’t handle things in her absence, but it galled her nonetheless, as if the latter part of her weekend hadn’t been bad enough.

Erik had come home Saturday evening smelling of liquor and high on his deal with Wrightson. She’d tried to be happy for him, but the way he kept looking at her with those dark, hungry eyes of his had unsettled her. She knew what was coming. And a part of her wanted it, as she’d wanted his lovemaking in the past, so heated and passionate.

But something felt different this time. His passion seemed desperate, his caresses possessing an urgency that alarmed her. It took all her efforts to pretend that nothing had changed.

But everything had changed.

All during the act her thoughts had strayed to Brian. His soft lips, the firmness of his touch when he’d held her—God, she was turning into a romance novel cliché! And yet, it was true. She’d let herself fantasize that it wasn’t Erik, but Brian making love to her. She felt a guilty rush of heat even now sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Mass Pike. What was she going to do?

And even though her heart’s desire was clear to her now, she still felt torn. But that hadn’t stopped her from spending all day Sunday cleaning her studio and arranging some of the new pieces in her display area. She wanted everything perfect for when Brian came over.

The traffic began to move and picked up speed. Joanna gave an inward sigh of relief. She would be on time for her class after all.

By noon, with her morning classes and the Monday staff meeting behind her, she unlocked the door to her office and spent the next hour writing out student evaluations. This was the part of her job she hated, having to tell a student that he or she needed to improve or risk failure. Sometimes her comments bore fruit, other times they fell on deaf ears.

Her phone buzzed.

“This is Joanna.”

“Excuse me, Professor,” the receptionist said, “there’s a delivery here for you.”

“For me?” she said, frowning.

“Yes, ma’am.”

It was a short walk from her tiny cubicle of an office to the reception desk near the front door. The receptionist, a chunky peroxide blonde with multiple piercings in one ear, the latest one in an endless line of front office personnel, and whose name she couldn’t remember, pointed to a large white oblong box leaning against the wall.

Flowers.

Joanna shook her head. “Erik, you shouldn’t have.”

“Fight with your man?” the receptionist asked. “I always love it when me and my old man fight. Buys me a dozen long-stems regular as clockwork.”

“Sounds like we have the same guy.”

“Now, wouldn’t that be a hoot?”

Joanna grinned, picked up the box and took it back to her office. Yes, regular as clockwork. That was Erik and his flower buying habits to a tee. And it was almost as if the young blonde had read her mind, as Erik always bought Joanna a dozen red long-stem roses whenever they had a disagreement. The box felt lighter than it should, though. Could he have gotten her something different? Unlikely.

Placing the box on her desk, she untied the yellow ribbon and pulled off the lid, spreading apart the tissue paper.

Inside was a single white rose, one of the loveliest she’d ever seen. Nestled among its leaves and thorns was the little envelope containing the obligatory card. She tore it open and read it:

For my favorite artist.

A perfect rose for a perfect kiss.

—Brian

She felt a rush of heat to her face, a tightening in her throat. It was such a romantic gesture—so unexpected, so subtle, so...right. She pulled the flower from the box and brought it to her nose and inhaled its heady fragrance. It
was
a perfect rose. And the kiss....

Joanna trembled, recalling the taste of him. And then Erik’s face blotted out that image, and her eyes flooded with tears. Placing the rose gently back into the box, she covered her face with her hands and let all the pent up emotions well up. The tears came unbidden; tears of joy and of despair, of hope and of desperation.

It took a full ten minutes for her to regain control of herself. Drying her eyes with a handful of Kleenex, she grabbed a vase off her shelf and dumped the bouquet of dried flowers it contained into her trash barrel then took it to the bathroom and filled it with water. Back in her office, she trimmed the stem and placed the rose in it, arranging the vase on the edge of her desk.

It was so noble and pure, so beautiful—and so fragile; she wondered how long it would last in this tight, windowless room, then realized it didn’t matter. The gesture and the precious thought behind it would last forever.

She reached for the phone and punched in 411.

“City and listing, please.”

Joanna cleared her throat. “Yes, can I have the number for Newbury Productions, please? I believe it’s at 342 Newbury.”

“Hold for the listing....”

A synthesized voice took the place of the operator. “The number is area code 617-555-0555.”

Joanna jotted the number down, pressed the hang-up button and chewed her lip, her heart hammering against her ribs. She felt as giddy as a schoolgirl. Before she could change her mind, she punched in the numbers and waited. It was picked up on the second ring.

“Newbury Productions.”

It was that honey-coated voice of his.

“Hello? This is Newbury Productions. Anyone there?”

“So, how’s my favorite writer?” she asked.

His laughter was warm and inviting, immediately dispelling her nervousness.

“I’m well, but you’re the last person I expected to call.”

“Really?” she said, putting a coy edge to her voice. “The very last?”

He laughed again. “Did you like my little care package?”

“Yes, very much,” she said, a lump in her throat. “It was very sweet of you. You didn’t have to—”

“Yes, I did. But the hardest part was finding the rose that would measure up to that kiss.”

Joanna’s eyes grew moist again.

“Are you okay?” he asked when she didn’t respond right away.

“I’m fine,” she said, grabbing for the box of tissues again. “It’s just you always know the perfect thing to say.”

“It’s easy when you have the perfect inspiration. As an artist, I’m sure you know how fickle the Muses can be.”

“I do, indeed,” she said, regaining control.

“So, how do I get to your studio?”

“Have you ever been to the Channel Club?”

“I practically used to haunt that place, and I have the hearing damage to prove it. Are you near it?”

She spent the next five minutes giving him the directions to her building on Melcher Street. “I’m on the top floor,” she said. “The directions for the elevator are posted, but if you get into any trouble just holler. I’ll hear you. See you at six.”

They hung up a moment later and the butterflies returned to Joanna’s stomach with a vengeance. In her heart, she knew this step was not a mistake, but she also knew in the deepest recesses of her being that there was no turning back.