Fire & Water (13 page)

I couldn’t bring myself to say that we’d essentially been living together since we’d met. “I know Jake. And just five minutes ago you seemed to like him fine.”

“He seems like a nice lad. That’s different than trusting him to take my daughter a world away.”

“I’m ten years older than my mother was when you married her.” I looked to Alice for backup, but her face seemed frozen in a shocked expression.

“He comes from a world you know nothing about, Kitten. Money and private jets. His father is—well, a different breed from people like us. People that don’t know what it is to wait for what they want, put their shoulder to the wheel.”

“He’s got nothing to do with his father,” I whispered, not wanting Jake to overhear. “He’s not like that. And if you want to know the truth, it was Jake that talked me into reconnecting with you in the first place. He said I was being stubborn and judgmental. I can’t imagine where I learned that.” I wasn’t asking permission. This seemed like an argument a teenager would have with her parents.

“Katie,” Alice said. Her voice stopped me. “You’re acting like a child.”

“I didn’t act like a child when I was a child. Don’t you think it’s about time I actually had a little fun?”

“This is more than fun, I can see it in your eyes,” Dad said.

“Angus!” Alice’s voice was as sharp as a shard of glass.

Dad looked up at her and let out a sigh. “I’m sorry. Your choices are yours to make. This one just isn’t like you.”

“I’m happy, Dad. Be happy with me.” I ached to have my family fall in love with Jake as I had. “I know it seems fast. But we’re not children. Haven’t I earned the right to have you trust my judgment?”

“I’m always happy when you are, darlin’.” He looked back at Alice. “It’s your family’s job to worry about you. That’s all. I suppose it’s time for us to respect you as the grown woman you’ve become.”

“Don’t worry. I’m fine,” I said.

Alice placed her warm hand on my shoulder. “We are happy for you, sweetheart.”

We moved over to where Jake and Dr. Schwartz faced off across a backgammon board.

Dad put his hand out to shake Jake’s. When Jake clasped his hand, I saw my dad’s thick hand squeeze Jake’s thinner one and hold on. His voice softened to a whisper. “You’re taking some precious cargo on this trip and it’s a mighty long way from home. You’ll take care of our Katie now, won’t you, Jake?” It was clear that my father was not making a request but issuing a threat.

Jake returned my father’s handshake. “Don’t worry, Mr. Murphy. I work with priceless art every day. I know precious things require great care.”

Dad gave a single nod. “There it is, then.”

“When do you leave?” Alice asked.

I cringed. “Day after tomorrow.”

Dr. Schwartz lifted his glass of cognac. His voice was feathery thin. “Then we barely have time to raise a glass and wish you well,” he said. He stood, leaning on his cane. His head came only to my shoulder now that he had grown so hunched. “To our Katherine, all grown up. And to our new friend, Jacob. A wonderful adventure to you both.”

My dad looked at me from across the group, his lips smiling but his eyes wearing worry. His brows twitched a little as he raised his mug. “And here’s to coming home,” he said. “The most precious part of every journey.”

“Well said, Angus,” Dr. Schwartz said, patting my dad’s shoulder. “Well said.”

Love Nest

Jake was to have three installations in Japan. One was a simple ceremony, unveiling an enormous bronze piece commissioned by the Japanese Arts Council. It had been cast from one of his original sculptures back in the States, completed over a year before, and shipped to Tokyo. This work was inspired by one of Jake’s nature sculptures that a senior executive at Sony had seen Jake create in Australia. Jake dismissed it as “a tombstone for an already dead piece of art.” The second installation was to be a more organic, temporary sculpture in the tranquil gardens near the Great Buddha in Kamakura. About this installation, Jake talked almost nonstop. Burt’s negotiation and Jake’s reputation had created an unprecedented opportunity to create an art experience near the holy shrine. And then there was the third installation, about which I knew virtually nothing. All I knew was that it would be far off in the remote Japanese countryside.

After a nine-hour flight to Tokyo, my eyelids felt like they were lined with sandpaper. Each time I blinked, the scrape was nearly audible. Burt was to meet us at the hotel. He’d arrived weeks before to hire the art students and machinery operators necessary to get the Kamakura installation preparations in place. I later learned that whenever a Jake Bloom exhibit was scheduled anywhere in the world, artists, fans, and students lined up to volunteer to be part of the experience.

Japan, at first glance, seemed more like another planet than another country, and I was an alien species. As we walked through the airport, Jake and I drew stares; the breezy sound of whispers followed us. I felt conspicuous with my pale skin, light eyes, and curls. Jake showed no signs of self-consciousness, moving like a native among the people and even conversing in seemingly fluent Japanese. We rode in a chauffeured car through congested Tokyo. San Francisco was a quaint village by comparison. Hundreds of slate-gray towers reached skyward for the only space to be found. Clotheslines between balconies formed a multicolored spider web. The city boulevards flowed with tiny cars and an ever-flowing river of black-haired pedestrians.

Jake sketched with fury as we rode, just as he had throughout the flight. With his drawing undeterred, he talked and filled me in on the many hats Burt wore as his friend, manager, and partner. Burt was road manager and worked with administrative help in New York to take care of all things logistical: equipment, permits, promotions and PR, visas, money—in short, everything but the actual design of Jake’s pieces. More importantly, he was also the sole photographer of Jake’s work. Fluent in six languages, functional in several others, Burt was the master communicator who negotiated the way into whatever impossible opportunity Jake dreamed up.

“I can’t wait for you to meet Burt. I can’t wait for him to meet you,” Jake said when we rode the train from Tokyo to Kamakura.

When we stepped out of the car in front of the hotel, no introduction was needed. The enormous Australian was a redwood among bonsais. Among the slight, dark-haired Asians on that city sidewalk, Burt Swift was an explosion of color. His sun-bleached hair and ginger beard gave him fiery pirate look, while his beak-like nose appeared sunburned despite the season. “Jake-O!” he shouted. The two men embraced as men do, with vigor and slaps on backs, the brotherly bond they shared emanating from them.

“And this,” Jake announced. “This is the wonderful woman I haven’t been able to stop talking about.”

The Aussie’s wide smile narrowed as he looked at me. “Kat, is it?” He extended an enormous hand. I could not remember feeling so small next to anyone before.

“That’s what Jake calls me. Actually, it’s Katherine. Kate Murphy. I’m glad to meet you.”

“Isn’t she as beautiful as I said, Burty?”

“Jake, stop it. You’re making Burt feel uncomfortable.”

After the fiasco with Mary K and Jake, I so wanted Burt to welcome me. I instantly liked his big bear presence and the flat Australian pinch of every vowel he spoke.

“What do you have there?” Burt asked, grimacing toward the pad Jake carried. “What have you done to complicate my life?” Gone was the friendly tone in Burt’s voice, and despite his shining eyes, I could see his frustration with Jake. Jake seemed oblivious to the weather change in Burt.

An icy chill drifted over me. “Wait until you see,” Jake said, opening his sketchpad. “It all came to me on the flight. It’s all right here. You’ll see what Kat’s inspired. She’s my muse, Burty.”

Burt looked over at me, then took the sketchbook. “Did you get any sleep on the plane?” he asked Jake.

“I’m too excited to sleep.”

Burt looked down his aquiline nose at me, then flipped through the pages. Jake fidgeted while Burt studied the drawings.

“This is nothing like what we put in the proposal. We had wood and small stones in the garden. This is right in front of the Buddha. They’ll never allow it.”

“But this is way better than what we proposed. They hired
me
, right? They want my best ideas. How can they not love this?” Jake insisted. “Kat thought they were great, too,” he said, winking at me.

Deep lines formed around Burt’s eyes and he combed his fingers through his beard. “I’m afraid Kate’s endorsement won’t mean a lot to the Japanese Arts Council. She’s not the one who’s got to negotiate an entirely new contract with a bunch of tradition-bound Japanese about their holy shrine.”

“Oh come on, Burty. Don’t get so worked up. Anyone can see these are better designs. Just work your magic. They’ll love it. Don’t they always love it?”

“Do you have any idea what it would require to get these changes approved? We’re supposed to be ready for an installation in one week. You’re talking bloody cranes here, and I don’t know how many laborers and tons of stone.”

“Just do what you do,” Jake said, his voice bright. Jake bounded through the revolving door while hotel employees bowed to greet him. He bowed in return and smiled back at us through the glass.

“Bloody baby,” Burt mumbled. “Unreasonable bloody baby.”

“He’s tired,” I said, feeling the itch of discomfort standing with the gigantic stranger and his fuming anger. “He’ll be more reasonable after he’s slept.”

“You’ve known Jake for what, a few weeks?”

“Yes, but…” I hesitated. “I feel that we know each other really well.” The crack in my voice betrayed me.

“You’ll have to pardon me for saying this, Kate”—when Burt said my name, it came out like
Kite
—“and I’m sure you’re a very nice lady. But just because you and Jake enjoy a shag, it doesn’t mean you
know
him. You’ll excuse me, but I’ve got an impossible job to do.”

I stood on the sidewalk, watching Burt clomp away like a Clydesdale through the crowd that divided to clear his path. Too jetlagged and stunned to feel embarrassed, I stood there wondering who would win in a fight, Burt Swift or Mary Kowalski. The answer wasn’t so obvious.

* * *

I awoke the next morning to find Jake madly scribbling on a sketchpad at the foot of the tatami mat we’d slept on. He lay on his belly with his feet on his pillow. “Hi,” I whispered.

He didn’t respond. I spoke a little louder. Still, he didn’t turn. I crawled down to lay beside him. He held his right hand up in a stop position while his left continued to sketch. I waited, fascinated by how engrossed he was. I peeked over his shoulder at the drawing of a stately Buddha. In the foreground was a trail of boulders of gradually ascending size that led up to the statue in a curved line. Each stone was oval, but severed by a jagged break that divided it into two pieces. Each half-stone sat beside its mate with a space between the two parts, which created a thin slice of black space, a void between the halves. The darkness between the winding rows of boulders became a line of its own which curved, snake-like, and flowed directly to the serene Buddha. The boulders’ path—on an enormous scale—was so clearly reminiscent of the trail of stones Jake had formed on my body the first night we were together that I felt heat rise to my face.

Jake sketched without speaking, then strode out of our suite, his eyes glued to his drawing. He banged on the door across the hall. I stood at our door.

“Burt!” he shouted. Then he banged again. “BURT!” he yelled with more urgency.

Unflustered, Burt opened his door, shirtless, wearing pajama bottoms and holding a cup of tea that seemed too dainty for his bulky hands. He was even more powerfully built than I’d imagined, his barrel chest thick and strong, covered with a copper hair. “Don’t get your boxers in a bunch. I’m right here.”

“Look,” Jake said. “Here it is. This is what we have to do.”

Burt examined the paper. “How big are these boulders, mate?”

“The biggest has to be at least six feet across, the smallest about four feet. But we’ve also got to have lots of stones to select from. The interval of size change must be identical between one pair of stones to the next. And the color. It’s got to have that green patina—like aged copper. They’ve got to look like they’ve coexisted for centuries, right along with the Kamakura. If I do this right, it’ll look like a jade river. Perfect. Minimal. Ancient.”

A smirk crossed Burt’s lips. “What about the wooden towers you planned—in the garden? This requires equipment, months of planning. And just where in bloody hell I’m I going to come up with—” Burt paused and pointed his finger at the drawing, “—nineteen giant green boulders on an island the size of my fucking forearm? Do you have any foggy idea what this would cost? Or how to crack the buggers open?”

“I don’t know. You’re the wizard. Work your magic. This is what I’m doing.”

The air had become charged with electricity; my stomach clenched.

“We’ve got PR meetings all week and the Uenu Park unveiling in Tokyo tomorrow,” Burt stormed. “I’ve already arranged everything as per original plan in Kamakura—and it didn’t include any giant sodding green rocks.”