Intimate Portraits (4 page)

Chapter 3

Waiting for Autumn, Rennie idly
clicked through the TV menu.

Hadn’t his mother emphasized
Autumn specialized in sexy photographs of women? So why was that explicit picture
of Francisco in her bedroom? Arrogance? No, she was too modest.

If she’d taken it, she was as
good as everyone said. The photo projected the smoldering carnality that
intrigued any female foolish enough to venture within ten feet of Francisco.

Autumn should be too smart to
fall for his overbearing brother, but that picture was too intimate, too
revealing.

Nope, he had to be wrong. Francisco
and Autumn didn’t belong together.

Like he and Jane hadn’t belonged
together.

Disgusted, he switched off the TV
and lay back into the squishy sofa.

Seemed he was good at choosing
women wedded to their careers. Maybe this time he’d learned his lesson. He laid
his head back, clasped his hands on his stomach, and stared up at the ceiling.

Pointless to dwell on the past.
The future would keep him busy enough. He’d have to find a place to live in
Athens, put down utility deposits, give notice at his job, sublease his LA
place, get his things packed and shipped…

Not today. All that could wait.
He had a whole week off to relax, get his head together.

He stretched, edgy in the condo despite
its soothing blues and greens, its precise placement of furniture.

Such tidiness contrasted with the
Degardoveras’ constant state of chaos. His mother, who cleaned for other people,
kept her own carpets vacuumed and floors mopped, but with nine children, nothing
got put away. He was used to clutter.

Face it, man, you’re thirty-five
years old. Time to admit you aren’t going to change. Once a slob, always a
slob.

Unlike Autumn.

The first time he’d seen her, she
was five. She wore a pink dress with a matching hair bow and shiny black shoes,
and looked like a child model. When later, the kids ate snacks, her place at
the table was, unlike everyone else’s, free of crumbs.

She’d been fastidious then. From
what he could see, she still was. Everything out of place here belonged to him.

And that was why her being with
Francisco irked him. She was too structured, too trusting. Francisco would
break her heart.

Not that Autumn’s love life was his
affair.

And wasn’t there some compulsive
disorder associated with excessive neatness?

He snorted. “Your envy’s showing.”
Getting up, he slipped on his scuffed loafers that needed replacing. One of
these days, he’d get around to it.

Over the fireplace, a Richmond
Stubbs watercolor, full of peaceful blues, graced one side of the mantel. On
the other stood candlesticks he’d given Autumn for her seventeenth birthday,
his last spring at home. Mom had asked him to take her to an estate sale where
he’d spotted them. Graceful, on marble bases with curving pewter tops, they
reminded him of Autumn.

They’d been buds back then. No
stand-offishness like today.

What was up with that? She was
reserved even as a child, but after that warm welcome today, she’d cooled
noticeably.

Because she was disappointed? Maybe.
Unlike him, his brother fascinated women, in particular standoffish women like
Autumn. Those types fell all over themselves for Francisco.

He’d hate for Autumn to be one
more conquest.

Light quick steps flew down the
stairs.

The slacks and knit blouse showed
she was still willowy, but she’d changed her hairstyle. Close on the back and
one side, but long and clinging to the other jaw in a trendy cut that accentuated
gold highlights and set off delicate bones.

“I like your hair like that.”

“Thanks. It’s easy to take care
of.”

Like she was easy to look at.
Autumn had always been pretty and still was.

She dropped a duffel on the
varnished foyer floor, barely missing the skulking cat. “What did the garage
say about my car?”

“Not ready yet. A belt hasn’t
come in. Maybe Tuesday.”

“Drat. They sent for that belt a
week ago. I guess it can’t be helped. Good thing I have a ride.” She smiled at
him, a natural smile but not radiant like earlier.

What made the difference? Emotion.
Or its absence. Perhaps spontaneity. Sure, that was it. Autumn hid her feelings,
but for one brief instant on seeing him, delight had won out.

She was happy to see him.

Not that you could tell now. She
was as restrained as ever.

“I’d hate to miss Laney and John’s
party.” She opened a closet door and pulled out a Dresden blue jacket which,
when slipped on, turned out to be a swingy cape-like affair.

A lot different from the tailored
blazers she used to wear. This coat was flamboyant enough for one of his
sisters. It didn’t look like Autumn, but what did he know?

“Nice jacket.”

She started to close the closet
door as the big orange cat streaked inside, left it cracked. “A little dashing,
maybe.” She flipped the cape sides and twirled. “But Aunt Laura bought it for
me after my uncle died, when we went to Europe to recuperate. It’s wool, warm. The
weatherman says Helen will be cold this weekend.”

“Cold, but we’ll enjoy it.”

“Uh huh. Helen’s a fun place.” Her
fingers, ringless with short nails, fastened buttons with unhurried efficiency.

No longer plump and dimpled, her
hands were thin and agile. A woman’s hands. He’d been thinking of her as a girl.
“I haven’t been up to Helen in years. I might not recognize it.”

She was, what, twenty-seven,
twenty-eight? No. She was between Laney and Norma. Laney was thirty-one and
Norma had turned twenty-nine last February so she’d be…

Thirty? Could that be right? Yeah,
when he’d left home she’d been barely seventeen. He’d sure changed in the
intervening years so how could he expect Autumn to stay the same?

She set a camera bag down beside
the duffel.

He walked over. “Want me to get
those?”

“I’d rather you pull the minivan
inside my garage. I don’t want to leave it out while I’m gone and there’s no
need to take it back to the studio since my car isn’t ready.”

“Sure.”

One hand threw her key to him as
the other brought out a cell phone. A confident woman used to coping with any
and all situations. “While you do that, I’ll check in with the studio and then
make sure Squeaky’s got enough dry food and litter. Oh, and watch her. She’ll
dart outside if you aren’t careful.”

He wasn’t sure he liked this
poised stranger as well as the shy girl.

When he moved the van inside her garage,
a memory stick fell from an open dash pocket marked with an
SS
and today’s
date.

Inside, he said, “A thumb drive fell
out of the dash, but I put it back.”

“Thanks. I’ll take it to the
studio Monday.”

He couldn’t resist teasing. “Celebrity
shots, by any chance? Like maybe of the notorious Sarita Sartowe?”

Her blue eyes widened. “How did
you—? Oh. Fran, I suppose. He blabs everything.”

“The boy can’t help himself.”

Not that his brother would
confide anything to Rennie about Sarita. Not after last year’s full-fledged
quarrel. A quarrel that had nothing to do with Sarita but everything to do with
Francisco’s deep-seated, mystifying envy that made him try to outdo his big
brother in every way.

Rennie would never understand
Francisco.

Fair was fair though. “Actually,
the kid was the soul of discretion. Mom couldn’t help crowing about how she got
you the commission through Kaneka.”

Kaneka, Sarita’s mother, was
another of his mother’s housecleaning customers.

Autumn made a
moue
. “It
doesn’t matter, except I wanted to tell you myself and impress you.”

“Hey, I’m impressed, believe me. Mom
said you were taking the proofs to Sarita today. I gather she liked them.”

“I think so.”

“You think? You couldn’t tell? Knowing
Sarita, I’m sure she gave you some pretty heavy hints. She’s not the reticent
type.”

Not in the least.

If only he could forget the days
of hysterics and quarrels and laughter. The nights of biting and scratching and
name-calling. The screaming, shattering orgasms after making up.

Sarita could never be called
reticent.

Not that Autumn would ever know
anything about Sarita’s proclivities or his long-ago part in them.

One whole summer in thrall. He’d
been young but still… How could he have been so naïve? Those memories could
belong to another person.

He’d give anything if they did.

“Actually, Sarita was very
outspoken.” Autumn glowed. “She said she liked them, loved them,
adored
them. She’s going through the proofs right now to see which ones she wants.”

“Then why aren’t you excited?
Aren’t you happy?”

The glow vanished. “Sure. I’ve
never been one to jump up and down.”

He’d hurt her feelings. “Of
course not. You never get wound up about stuff. Are you going to do more
pictures for her?”

A tiny line creased her brow. “She
wants me to shoot publicity shots for her concert tour next summer. She says if
I move out there, I’ll have no trouble getting clients.”

“Move? To LA?” She’d never make
it in Sarita’s world. She’d be broken in six months.

He couldn’t say that. What Autumn
did was none of his business. “Big decision.”

She ran fingers brusquely through
her hair, a gesture that would have signaled nerves in anyone else. Her pacing,
true to form, was slow and dignified. “I thought I could fly back and forth at
first, see how it goes. Then later I might move. I don’t know. Fran says
California’s terribly expensive. Is it?”

Candid blue eyes fastened on him.
Maybe she was nervous.

“Yeah, it is pretty expensive.”

“Fran says that’s why he came
back, that the cost of living was so high he couldn’t stay. Is that why you
came back, too?”

Fran says
. Autumn couldn’t be so naive as
to fall for a womanizer like Francisco.

He chose his words. “Money was
part of the reason. But this opening at the University came up and I was sick
of—” No need to broadcast his failures. “Sick of working eighty hours a week.”

“I see.”

“Besides, California’s too weird
for me. I’m a straitlaced conservative at heart.”

 “I thought you were a liberal
Democrat.”

“No, ma’am. Not me. I’m one of
the dissatisfied, disenfranchised, disinterested independents.”

Thick lashes narrowed and nearly
converged into one black line. He’d forgotten the way her eyelashes bunched
together when she laughed. Autumn was a nice kid, even if she was a neat freak.

No, not a kid. A nice
woman
.
“Ready to go?”

“Son as I get the groceries I’m
taking up to the cabin.” When she passed by, her perfume wafted by, the same
rose scent she’d worn in high school.

It had clung to his shirt after
she cried on his shoulder the night before he left for graduate school, when she’d
begged him to take her with him. The poor kid was miserable at home, but he’d
pointed out that the next year she’d be going to college herself. He’d hated
leaving her with her aunt and uncle, but he’d persuaded her she could hack one
more year.

That was all he could do. And they’d
never again mentioned her lapse nor his inadequate response.

“Hey!” he called after her. “I
wouldn’t mind a preview of Sarita’s photos. Or any of your work. Mom and the
girls have been bragging like crazy about you, but I’d like to see samples.”

Over her shoulder, she made a wry
face. “The kinds of pictures I take don’t lend themselves very well to viewing
by third parties.”

“Oh, come on. I’m a good critic
of naked women. I’ve seen at least five in the flesh, counting my sisters and
Tia Alejandra.”

“When you were six? Sorry. Confidentiality
is something my clients insist upon.” She disappeared into the kitchen without
sounding the least bit sorry. Instead, she sounded like the successful
photographer his family claimed she was.

Oh, yes, the Degardoveras had
been delighted to fill Rennie in on Autumn’s mushrooming career.

When her uncle had died and she’d
dropped out of Ringling Brothers College of Art to join her aunt at the studio,
its trade had consisted of the usual family, business, and school shots. Autumn
had begun experimenting with intimate photographs, staged in the comfort of
women’s homes among familiar surroundings. According to Laney, the shots sexed
up the plainest female.