The Genius and the Muse (10 page)

They walked in silence for a bit longer, then Javi nodded toward a food stand on the corner where an old woman flipped meat on a grill.

“This place has good tacos. You like tacos, right?”

“Who doesn’t like tacos? That’s like saying you don’t like sandwiches.”

“Exactly, but you should get the
tacos al pastor
here.”

She squinted at him. “Are you always this bossy?”

Javi thought for a moment. “Probably.”

He bought two tacos for both of them and brushed her away when she offered to pay, so she bought their drinks. They found a clean section of curb to sit along and she watched the passing foot traffic, wishing she had brought her camera.

“Wish you had your camera right now, don’t you?”

Kate stared at Javi mid-bite, amazed he had read her so accurately.

“Yeah.”

He grunted and muttered, “Just like Reed.”

They finished eating in silence and she was surprised to find herself completely relaxed with the quiet man sitting next to her. She didn’t feel the need to make conversation with Javi, because he clearly didn’t want it, and Kate found the peace in the midst of the surrounding noise soothing.

“People aren’t always the way they seem at first, Kate.”

She looked at him, thinking about the surly sculptor she met at the warehouse, and about a reclusive photographer and a mysterious love. “No, I guess they’re not.”

“Did you love him?”

She coughed a little in surprise and took a drink of her soda. “The douchebag? Why do you want to know?”

He shrugged. “Just curious, I guess.”

Kate smiled reluctantly. “Fair enough.” She paused. “I thought I did. I thought I knew who he was. I thought he was a nice guy.”

Javi snorted and shook his head. “The last thing
you
need is a ‘nice guy.’”

She looked at him in shock and set her drink down on the sidewalk before she stood up. She didn’t need a ‘nice guy?’ What the hell? Javi looked up in confusion, frowning at her suddenly angry eyes.

“You don’t know anything,” she choked out before she walked away.

She didn’t hear him call her name.

Part Six: The Assistant

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Corona, California

May 2010

F
inding Brandon Wylie, Reed O’Connor’s former assistant, did not prove nearly as difficult as Kate had imagined. In fact, after getting his full name from Vanessa before she left Los Angeles, a quick internet search provided her with his phone number, e-mail, and the physical address of Wylie Exclusive Photography in Corona, California, only thirty minutes from her apartment in Claremont.

He agreed to meet her for an interview as long as she bought him dinner and “enough beer to erase all memories of the Gonzalez quinceñera” from his mind forever.

And that was how Kate found herself sitting in a booth at the Outback Steakhouse with Brandon Wylie, alumnus of Foothill Art Institute and former assistant to acclaimed photographer Reed O’Connor. The years had invested Wylie with a sense of unfulfilled greatness, and he spent most of the dinner talking about his genius being wasted in wedding and family photography.

“Another ‘Big Bloke,’ sir?”

The friendly server looked at Wylie as the portly man shoveled another bite of steak in his mouth. He grunted in affirmation before quickly finishing the last few gulps of his enormous mug of beer. Kate stared wide-eyed and wondered just how much he would be able to eat.

“Miss?”

Kate tore her eyes away and looked at the young man waiting on them. “Another Coke when you get the chance?”

“No problem!” He hustled off to refill Wylie’s beer and hopefully get another drink for Kate. So far, the meeting with Wylie had gone surprisingly well. He nodded appreciatively along with her as she explained her thesis project and drank his first beer. He peppered her with questions about the current happenings at his alma mater while he ate his dinner and drank his second beer.

While reminiscing with Brandon Wylie about Professor Potter’s notoriously boring lectures or the finicky vending machine near the darkrooms was somewhat amusing, Kate was more eager to discover what insight he could give her into the enigmatic relationship between Reed O’Connor and Sam Rhodes. She felt a growing urgency to unravel the mystery of why the once devoted couple was no longer together.

According to Vanessa Allensworth, Wylie was the only assistant that O’Connor had employed on a regular basis, and the only one he had used at all once he started doing portraits full-time. Kate was curious why the reclusive photographer had hired the ruddy-faced man to begin with and equally curious why he had fired him. According to Vanessa, Wylie was around the same age as O’Connor, but Kate thought he looked at least a decade older.

“So, Mr. Wylie—”

“Nah, you’re buying me beer. You can call me Brandon.”

“Thanks. I just wanted to let you know I’m not publishing anything about Mr. O’Connor’s personal history in my thesis. This is purely for research and my own understanding of his work. I have absolutely no plans to write anything—”

“Oh,” he interrupted her, shrugging. “You can publish anything you want, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve got no loyalty to that asshole. What do you want to know?”

“Oh… okay. So, how long did you work for him?”

He sniffed noisily. “It was almost a year and a half, I guess? It was sort of a job-to-job thing at first, with the fashion stuff, then I worked for him full-time when he started doing portraits. I pretty much got stuck as O’Connor’s errand boy. He didn’t need my help with the portrait work as much as the fashion, but he kept me around to clean stuff up in the studio, get rid of curious people, run errands. Stuff like that. Then, after he got weird, he kicked me out of the studio altogether, and I just answered phones and did what Lydia—that’s his agent—told me.”

Kate leaned forward a little, one phrase catching her attention. “What do you mean ‘after he got weird?’”

“Oh, come on,” he snorted. “You must know his reputation. Trust me, it’s well-earned. At first he was an okay guy. I mean, he was always an asshole, especially when he was working, but he kind of had a sense of humor about it. Then he…” Wylie trailed off, suddenly looking uncomfortable.

“What?”

He finally looked at her. “Fuck it. I don’t owe that guy anything. He was totally messed-up over a chick. Not that you could tell by the company he kept, you know what I mean?”

“Not really. I’ve never heard about him having any company. All my research indicates the man is pretty much a loner,” Kate said calmly, though inwardly, she was practically bouncing in anticipation at the unexpected treasure trove of information the former assistant had turned out to be.

“Oh, he doesn’t anymore. That’s probably true. No, when I first worked for him, he actually had a normal—well, sort of normal—girlfriend, if you can believe it.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. Uh… Sam was her name. She was from around here somewhere, and they went to school together. She was a painter. Not that I know much about painting, but she was around. She worked in another part of the studio and was real private about her work, so I don’t know if she was
really
an artist, you know?” He smirked as if sharing an inside joke.

Kate smiled back, amused that the photographer seemed to be unaware that one of the state’s foremost landscape artists was the subject of his musing. She prodded him a little.

“So, this painter… was she the one O’Connor was messed-up about?”

Wylie nodded, frowning before he took another large bite of steak. He hadn’t finished chewing when he continued. “Yeah. I never really got it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she was hot. Blond, pretty brown eyes. Total girl-next-door hot, if you know what I mean.”

He took a gulp of the beer the server had just set on the table. “She had a nice ass, too. No offense or anything.”

Kate fought the urge to kick his knees under the table. “So she was hot? What was the big deal? I mean, O’Connor did fashion photography. He must have been surrounded by gorgeous women all the time.”

Wylie nodded. “That’s part of the reason I took the job. His agent is the one that hired me, to tell the truth. He didn’t want an assistant, but she insisted. She said O’Connor didn’t want ‘a little New York shit.’ Said he wanted someone normal. I’d just graduated from Foothill and moved to New York. I guess someone at the college told her I was around.” Wylie shrugged.

“So you got the job because… why? You were a Foothill grad?”

“Probably. The guy’s fucked up, but he’s got school spirit or some shit. Lydia told me once he set up this huge scholarship at the college with some money his dad left him. Totally anonymous. He didn’t live rich, so I guess you’d never know, but I think he was pretty loaded.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. And I bet he’s
really
loaded now, with all the celebrity portraits. Those have got to pay good. But for the first year I worked for him—before he broke up with the girlfriend—he was like a hermit. He had a few people that hung around, but it was mostly just him and her… and his agent, I guess. But they never went out, or at least, not much. Openings every now and then, when one of their friends was showing and they had friends visit from California sometimes.”

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know, he sounds pretty normal from the way you describe him. I don’t know why everyone thinks he’s such an asshole.”

“Probably 'cause of the way he is when he’s working.” Wylie paused to wave the server for another beer as he finished the one he was drinking. “He was in his own world when he got in that mode. Fucking brilliant, but he didn’t notice anything or anyone but the subject, you know? Maybe that’s why he kept Sam around.” He snorted a little. “She was like his guard dog—a little blond pit-bull!” Wylie laughed at his own joke before settling down again.

“A pit-bull, huh?”

“Yeah, she and I didn’t get along very well. She was usually a super-moody bitch. She’d act all stuck-up most of the time, unless O’Connor came into the room, and then it was all about him, you know?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. The sex must have been amazing or something, ‘cause she was super jealous, too. With all the models and shit?” He shook his head and looked down at his almost empty plate. “I guess she had reason to be. I mean, I’m sure he was fooling around on her.”

“Yeah? What makes you think that?” Kate asked with an incredulous snort, remembering Dee, Javi, and Vanessa talking about how dedicated and loyal the two were to each other.

“Maybe because he kissed a chick right in front of her after a photo shoot one time?” Wylie said. “Well, I mean, he didn’t know she was there. He was in his ‘work mode’ and I guess he must not have heard her come in the studio.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I saw the whole thing.”

“What?” She felt her heart plunge, and her voice was barely audible in the crowded restaurant. Her mind rushed back to Cody’s betrayal, and she swallowed the lump in her throat, determined not to lower her guard around the obnoxious man in front of her.

“Yeah, first time I ever really felt sorry for the moody bitch. She looked like she’d been punched in the gut. I thought she was gonna hurl on the equipment for a minute, and I’d have to clean it up.”

Kate sat speechless, fighting the unexpected tears that wanted to come to her eyes. She felt a sudden urge to rip up every complimentary word she’d ever written about Reed O’Connor. “So, what—” She cleared her throat a little before continuing. “What happened when she saw him?”

“O’Connor turned around after a second, saw her, and started yelling at the top of his lungs for everyone to leave.” He laughed. “Including the chick he’d just been kissing! I was the last one out, and I heard them start fighting. She was ripping into him, that’s for sure. I was tempted to stick around, but I wasn’t that interested in O’Connor’s love life, you know? I guess they broke up.”

“So, uh…” Kate swallowed thickly, determined to get as much information as possible from the interview. “You never saw her around again?”

“Nope. I turned up at his studio downtown the next day and everything was locked up. I kept coming by for a few days, but no one was ever there. I finally called Lydia, and she told me to just stay home for a while. Didn’t hear a word from him for like… six weeks? Kept getting my paycheck, so I couldn’t complain about that. Finally, he calls me up, tells me to be in the studio the next day for work and that was that.”

Kate paused, remembering what the man had said earlier. “And that’s when he got weird?”

He nodded dramatically. “Yeah, big time weird. He barely talked unless he absolutely had to. The fashion stuff sort of stopped. 'Course, maybe he just ran out of fresh models to screw, or after the girlfriend left, the thrill was gone. He did start banging new chicks about six months later, though.”

“And then?” Kate said, her lip curling at the man’s callous attitude.

“Then, if you can believe it, he got even weirder. He worked alone, mostly at night. I snuck in the studio one morning, and he was sleeping in the corner. Had the light kits set up at all these crazy angles. I could never figure out what he was shooting. 'Course, crazy must sell, because all the celebrities started showing up right after he and the painter broke up.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, Lydia sort of had to baby him at first, but for some reason, they all loved the guy. He was the hottest ticket in town all of a sudden. And the ironic thing was, O’Connor didn’t give a shit about any of it.”

Wylie smiled, but shook his head in confusion. “So, I worked for him like… half of 2005 and through 2006. Then right after New Year’s, he sat me down and said he didn’t really need an assistant anymore.”