The Genius and the Muse (6 page)

She must have choked. Maybe she cried. But the girl’s eyes lifted toward hers, and Cody’s shoulders began to turn.

He only caught a glimpse of her wild hair as she disappeared into the night.

“Kate!”

Part Four: The Sculptor

CHAPTER EIGHT

Pomona, California

May 2010

“
H
ello?” Kate had to shout over the pounding punk music that roared out of the warehouse. She pushed the door open, stepping into the dimly lit industrial studio.

“Mr. Lugo?”

The music seemed to be coming from one corner of the warehouse, so she walked carefully in that direction, dodging sheet metal, rebar and various concrete blocks scattered haphazardly around the huge space. She swallowed nervously as she approached the source of the noise, thinking perhaps Dee had been mistaken in directing her toward the notorious sculptor.

As she walked around a seemingly random corner created by cinder blocks and a reinforced steel door, she saw the sputtering light of a stick welder and the hulking form of the famous sculptor, Javier Lugo.

He was reaching upward, welding a massive piece that resembled a ragged flame turned upside down. The music continued to blare as he worked and a shower of sparks fell across his leather-shielded legs. His face was covered by a riotously painted helmet, and his arms were encased in the cow-hide sleeves typical of a working welder.

“Mr. Lugo?” she shouted again as the song changed.

The welder shut off immediately, the flickering blue star disappearing as he lifted his helmet and glared at her with angry black eyes.

“Who the hell are you?” he shouted. “Get out of my studio. This isn’t a gallery.”

“Ow!” Kate stubbed her toe on a partially broken cinder block as she continued walking toward him. “Um… my name is Kaitlyn Mitchell,” she tried shouting over the song that had just started.

“What?” he yelled back. Setting his equipment down on a rolling cart next to him, he pulled off his thick leather gloves and picked up a remote control he used to turn the music off. The space echoed with quiet as he turned back toward her, scowling.

“Did Lydia send you? Are you from another fucking newspaper?” he asked, his deep voice echoing through the warehouse. Looking her up and down, from the toes of her canvas shoes to the Ray-Ban sunglasses that rested on her head, he grunted. “Shit, you’re a student, aren’t you?” He shook his head. “I don’t use assistants, little girl. Go away.”

He turned back toward the cart, picking up his gloves and flipping his helmet down.

“Wait! I’m Kate Mitchell, Dee’s friend. She said she called you?” Kate’s voice raised hopefully, though she was starting to doubt the cranky artist would tell her anything useful.

He paused, lifting his helmet again.

“Dee’s friend?” His forehead furrowed in concentration. “I thought you were coming tomorrow. Wait, what day is it?”

“It’s Saturday.”

“Well, shit. No wonder Mari was pissed off,” he muttered, throwing his gloves on the floor and pulling his brown sleeves off, revealing a sweat-drenched undershirt with no sleeves. He pulled his helmet off and set it on the cart. His hair was dark brown and closely cropped, and Kate watched him silently as he bent to remove the leather chaps that covered his jeans. He took a moment to stretch and rub his neck which had been kinked at an angle as he worked.

Javier Lugo was built like a bulldog, a massive one. His round head sat on a thick, muscular neck, and his broad shoulders were layered with the musculature he had developed from years of working with wood, metal, concrete, and stone. Though his hair and eyes were almost black, his skin was unexpectedly fair—and colorful, swirling tattoos marked his forearms and peeked from the back of his collar. He twisted his neck in either direction, and she heard it pop.

Kate winced at the painful sound, and he caught her out of the corner of his eye. A grim smirk crossed a face that would never be described as handsome. Kate saw the scar at the corner of his mouth turn up as he watched her. Javier Lugo may have been famous in art circles, but he would never be a celebrity.

“Not as pretty as O’Connor, am I?”

“Huh?” she asked, startled from her careful study of his square jawline. ”What? Pretty? No, you’re sort of… brutish-looking, aren’t you?”

He let out a biting laugh and wiped his face with a red shop rag. She realized, as she walked closer to him, that though he wasn’t much taller than her own five feet-four inches, his sheer physical presence and crackling energy dwarfed her. He walked over to a linoleum covered table with three mismatched chairs. Then he pulled out a Marlboro Red and lit it, finally sitting and gesturing to the chair across from him.

“You want a beer?”

Kate curled her lip. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”

“Well, I’ve been working here for the last two days straight, so I don’t really give a flying fuck what time it is.” He puffed out a stream of smoke. “Do you want a beer or not?”

Her mind flashed to a dark room filled with scattered beer bottles and smoke. She shoved the memory back and shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

“Great. Get me one, too. They’re on the bottom shelf of the fridge over there.” He nodded toward a corner of the warehouse where there was a sink, a work table with a steaming crock-pot, and a toaster oven. Next to the sink sat an old avocado-green refrigerator missing a handle.

Kate rolled her eyes, but walked over to the fridge, prying it open to find a treasure trove of beer. Imported. Artisan. She spotted a local brewery that her friends had raved about. There were also random bottles of hot sauce, but not much else. She grabbed two longnecks and walked back toward the table. The sculptor opened one bottle on the edge of the table and handed it to her before opening his own. She hid a smile at the surprisingly gallant gesture.

“Wait… you’re twenty-one, right?” He squinted. “Hell, I don’t actually care. Drink up. Here’s to messed up pasts and old friends.” He raised his bottle and took a long drink, gulping down half of the beer in one draw.

“I’m twenty-four. And thanks for the beer. You’ve got some good stuff in there.”

“Yeah, well that’s the best thing about selling shit, isn’t it? I can afford to buy the good beer now. Never drink another Tecate, no matter what my uncle says about abandoning my heritage.” He finished one cigarette and immediately lit another.

Her eyes roamed the cluttered warehouse, searching for something to break the awkward silence. They landed on the worn equipment he’d been using in his work.

“That’s a nice welder. It’s a Miller, right?” She nodded toward the blue welding unit he had been using.

He paused for a moment, his eyes lit in slight amusement. “Yeah, it is. I thought Dee said you were a photographer. Do you work with metal, too? How do you keep from falling over with all the gear on?”

Kate smiled. “That’d be a sight, huh? No, my dad—before he got really successful—he would take me out to job sites. He was a contractor. There was this one guy my dad worked with a really long time. He was a welder. He had this truck and he would fix any broken equipment, stuff like that.”

The sculptor watched her in amusement, and a slightly indulgent look settled on his face.

“I remember Miller because that’s the kind of welder he had. It was mounted on the side of the truck and I could read the name. I called him Mr. Miller for years. My dad eventually told me his name was Mr. West. I was kind of disappointed.”

A wry smile twisted his lips as he shook his head.

“What does he do now?”

“Mr. Miller?”

He barked out a laugh. ”No, your dad. You said, ‘before he got successful.’ What does he do now?”

“Oh, he’s still a contractor. He just has a lot of different jobs now. He builds all over Orange County.” She shrugged. “I don’t think he ever goes to job sites anymore; he has foremen for that.”

He studied her for a few moments, finishing his beer. “Well, good for him.”

“I guess,” she said, glancing back at the blue welder.

“There’s nothing glamorous about breaking your back, you know.”

“Is that why you’re a sculptor instead of a mechanic?” she asked, remembering some of what Dee had told her about the thirty-six-year-old artist.

“Well, that and I like to buy the good beer.” He stretched and stood up to grab another. The cigarette dangled from his mouth. “It’s still not what my dad would consider a ‘real job,’ but it’s better than being a surf bum or an actor, you know?”

She snorted. “Tell me about it.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her, as if surprised by the bitterness of her tone. “I thought all you Orange County girls liked the surfers.” He smirked as he sat back down at the table. “Or was it an actor who made that pretty little mouth frown?”

“No one.” Kate gave him a hard look. “It was no one.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, their eyes measuring the other across the scarred table. Kate could tell that Javier Lugo knew she wanted something from him, but she had no interest in flattery and had the feeling the man wouldn’t be impressed with it anyway. He didn’t seem to care what she thought of him. Kate realized that she didn’t really care what he thought of her, either. And really, not caring about his opinion felt like a refreshing change.

Javier leaned back, stretching his stocky legs in front of him as he took another drink. “When I was in school, we were all so incestuous. We always dated other artists. Usually visual artists. Musicians were okay. Dancers
weren’t
. Strictly speaking, photographers were a little looked down on.” He grinned and winked at her shocked expression.

She shifted in her seat and rolled her eyes a little. “Well, moving past odd dating trivia, Mr. Lugo—”

“Oh fuck!” He snorted beer through his nose as Kate dodged the spray, visibly disgusted. “It’s just Javi, all right? Everyone calls me Javi. Even stick-in-the-mud Bradley doesn’t call me Mr. Lugo. My sister would laugh her ass off.”

“Professor Bradley’s not a ‘stick-in-the-mud.’” Kate defended her advisor.

Javi looked at her sympathetically. “Yes, he is. Of
course
he is. But he’s a nice stick-in-the-mud, and that counts for something.” He paused to light another cigarette. “Most importantly, he adores Dee, so that gives him points in my book. Thank God the baby looks like her, though.”

Kate snickered, but quickly tried to rein back the artist’s wandering narrative. “Did Dee tell you why I wanted to talk to you?”

“Yeah,” Javi said as he exhaled a long stream of smoke. “Sort of. Seriously, though, I don’t know if anything I tell you is going to help with your thesis. If Dee didn’t ask me, I wouldn’t give you the time of day.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“What?” He coughed and scratched at the back of his neck. “You think your idol would? Reed’s a bigger asshole than me. And a hermit. He’s just a good-looking one, so people let him get away with it. They call him ‘mercurial’ and ‘enigmatic’ instead of ‘pissy’ and ‘rude.’”

“You don’t sound like you like him very much.”

“Of course I like him. He’s one of my best friends.” He took another draw on his Marlboro. “Doesn’t mean I think he’s particularly nice, though.”

Kate raised her eyebrows in amusement. “So, does Reed O’Connor have any good qualities?”

Javi looked her in the eye. “He’s brilliant, and he’s not cocky about it. He’s generous—way more than he would ever let on.” He paused to take another swallow of beer. “To the people that matter to him, Reed O’Connor one of the most loyal people you will ever meet. Ever. That’s what made the whole thing so nuts.”

“What thing?” Kate asked quickly.

Javi waved a dismissive hand. “Dee says you remind her of Reed. I’ve never seen you work, so I can’t say one way or another, but since she practically walks on water, in my not-humble-at-all opinion, I’ll take her word for it.”

Kate sighed in disappointment before she shrugged. “I admire O’Connor’s work. I think it says a lot about the twisted concepts of beauty in our society.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” She met his gaze unflinchingly.

“So, little girl—”

“I’m not a little girl. My name is Kate.”

His mouth twisted in a smile. “So, Katie… if you were O’Connor—which you’re not, but let’s pretend—what part of my face would you photograph? Remember”—he lifted his chin in challenge—“never the whole face. That gives too much away.”

“One frame?”

“One frame to capture who you think I am.”

Kate cocked her head at him, studying him for a few moments as they sat in tense silence. She reached over to pull his chin down a little and tilt his head forward. His chin was covered in a course stubble, and his black eyes studied her face as she concentrated.

“Here,” she said softly, making her fingers into a rectangle and leaning back. “Your jaw from the side angle, encompassing your neck and the top of your collarbone.”

“And why is that your frame?” he murmured.

“Your jaw is the most prominent feature of your face, except your eyes” She glanced up to meet them. “Which are too revealing. Your neck is thickly muscled, indicating the physical nature of your work, and there’s a slight scattering of tiny scars along your collarbone from where I imagine you started welding on something without your helmet. You had an idea. You couldn’t wait to put on your safety equipment. Maybe you were just wearing glasses, or holding the helmet to the flame.”

Her eyes lifted, and their gazes locked for a moment. Kate was stunned by the spark that jumped between them.

“I mean… that’s what might have happened,” she whispered.

Javi broke away first and leaned back, reaching for another cigarette. After he lit it, he inhaled deeply before blowing out a line of smoke. “What’s your question?” he asked quietly.