The Genius and the Muse (7 page)

Kate sat up straight. “I only get one?”

“Maybe. It depends on what question you ask.”

“Fine. Who was Samantha Rhodes to Reed O’Connor?”

A slow smile grew on his face. “Now
that
is a very good question.”

“So, what’s the answer?”

“Which one do you want?”

“If it’s a good question, I want the good answer.”

Javi chuckled. “You do remind me of him, a little. I see what Dee was talking about.” He exhaled another stream of smoke. “What was Sam to Reed? Hmm. The short answer would be his girlfriend, but the
good
answer would be, what wasn’t she?”

“What do you mean?”

Javi’s eyes started to drift around the studio. “Before he met her, Reed was brilliant, just… fucking brilliant.” He frowned, shaking his head a little. “We met at an art show in L.A. before he started at Foothill. He’s a couple years younger than me, but I liked him. He wasn’t part of the ‘in-crowd,’ so to speak. He could’ve done anything, really. He downplayed all his other talents because he liked photography so much, but he was good at almost everything. He could draw; he could sculpt. Not as good as me, but he was pretty damn good. Surprisingly good at ceramics, of all things. And that was before he met Sam.”

“And after?”

He took another draw on his cigarette. “After? Shit, that’s when he found his genius. That perfect vision married with his technical skills and focused by this incredible passion. What was Sam to Reed?” Javi shrugged, shaking his head back and forth. “His muse, his passion… Probably the love of his life—not that we had any idea what that meant when we were that age.”

“What do you mean?”

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “We were so young; we just took it for granted. How the hell were we supposed to know we would never feel anything like that again?”

“I don’t—feel what?” Kate frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“That crazy energy they had.” He leaned forward. “Both of them were brilliant separately, but then put them together? They were like a—a battery or a reactor or something. They charged us all. Our whole damn group: me, Vanessa, Dee, Suz, even Bradley’s work got better. And their own stuff? Pure genius. I can’t—”

He broke off, leaning back in his chair as he collected himself, shaking his head with regret. “There’s no way to describe it, Katie. It’s impossible.”

Kate sat back in her chair, consumed with regret for a loss she could feel down to her bones. She had to clear her throat before she spoke. “What the hell happened to them?”

A flicker of pain crossed his face. He took another drink of his beer. “Human,” he said hoarsely, glancing up into her eyes again before staring at his feet. “They were just… human.”

Kate stared at him, but he didn’t look back. Finally, she stood and walked to the fridge, helping herself to another beer and wiping the unexpected tears from her eyes. She grabbed one for Javi as well and walked back, sitting down as he opened them on the edge of the scarred table.

“So, what’s this you’re working on?” she asked, gesturing to the inverted flame which seemed to burn in the background.

He watched her for a moment before he smiled. “Beer money.”

Kate and Javi launched into a hesitant discussion of his work, but eventually they relaxed. After a couple of hours sharing jokes and stories about Chris and Dee in college, he even offered to show her his personal gallery.

“Every artist has one, you know,” he said over his shoulder as he led her toward the back of the warehouse. “Whether they do it deliberately or not. We all have pieces that are too personal to sell or even give away.”

“Thanks.” She smiled at him. “For showing me your stuff, I mean. I really appreciate it.”

He shrugged, turning on the light in what was once a small office. Scattered around the room were small sculptures in marble, wood and a few metal pieces. In one corner was a case of delicate gold and silver jewelry. Kate slowly walked around the room until one sculpture caught her attention.

“Wow, that’s—is that based on Dee’s photograph of them?” She pointed to the wooden sculpture done in a fine grained, golden wood. The curved figures were abstract and the faces indistinct, but the figures’ position was exactly that of the revealing picture of Reed and Sam she had seen in Dee’s studio.

Javi looked at her in surprise. “Oh, you’ve seen that? Um… yeah. I have to put this one away on the rare occasions Reed comes back to town. I did that one years ago. He had that picture hanging up in his apartment for a while, and I remembered seeing it.”

He stood in front of the sculpture, leaning his head to mimic the slant of the piece. ”I loved the angles in it. Two perfectly melded into one, you know? And the way their arms were… This is an old one. I was doing a lot of wood carving back then.”

She gazed again at the figures as she walked around the piece, imagining she could see the two lovers in the three dimensions not captured in the photograph.

“It’s stunning,” she said wistfully.

Javi cleared his throat. “I should probably…” He shook his head and turned to the jewelry case, waving her over. “Come here.”

Kate smiled. “You do silver and gold-smithing, too? That’s amazing.”

“Why?”

“Be—because of… Well, the sculpture stuff is so big and this—” She waved her hand at the intricate jewelry. “It’s just so small and delicate. How do you do it?”

Javi looked at her for a moment before he shrugged. “Most sculptors study metal-smithing. It’s just another form of sculpture. Did… did Dee mention you were going to see Vanessa this week?” Javi looked at her sideways, rubbing the tattoos on the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I am. I’m meeting her at her studio in Hollywood tomorrow.”

He cleared his throat. “Could you deliver a piece to her for me? I did some work for her a while back and never got a chance to give it to her. I’d appreciate it if you could.” He smiled a little. “Pay me back for the beer, you know.”

Kate shrugged. “Sure. No problem.”

He nodded and opened a drawer in the bottom of the case, taking a small, cloth-wrapped package from it and quickly handing it to Kate. She took the piece and put it in her pocket before they returned to the kitchen.

Kate gathered her things to go, and Javi walked her out through his maze of a studio.

“You could get lost for days in this junk pile, little girl.”

“I actually think it’s kind of cool.” Kate looked around. It was cluttered, but not dirty. The whole building was a riot of texture and angle, a mess of parts that added up to a surprisingly intriguing setting. Then her eyes fell on Javi, who was watching her with an inexplicable frown.

“You think this place is cool?”

She suddenly felt shy, so she kept walking. “Yeah, kinda.”

When they reached the door to the outside, he put his hand out and she shook it.

“Javi, thanks for… just thanks. I appreciate you talking to me.”

“No problem.” He shrugged. “Well, yeah, it was sort of irritating, but not as bad as I thought.”

Kate just smiled and walked to her car, glancing at him as he stood in the dim shadow created by the door of the warehouse. She realized she must have driven by his studio a thousand times and never looked at it, never realized that an artist of his stature lived so close by.

She stared at him. “I guess…”

He leaned forward as if he was about to step into the sunlight. “Yeah?”

Her eyes met his and she felt a sudden pull, but she carefully took another step toward her car. “I’ll see you around.”

His mouth twisted into a smile. “Yeah. I’ll see you.”

CHAPTER NINE

Claremont, California

May 2000

“
P
lease, Dee? Please, please, please? I’ll make you whatever jewelry you want,” Javi whined and wheedled, trying to persuade his friend to take the pictures he so desperately needed for his portfolio the next week.

Dee huffed impatiently and went back to cooking the chicken biryani everyone had clamored for earlier. “What kind of jewelry?” she asked, glancing at Chris who sat at the table with Susan and Vanessa, waiting for dinner. Chris winked at her, eliciting a small, rueful smile.

The sculptor continued, “Remember that turquoise I got? I’ll make something out of that for you. A necklace. Or a bracelet if you want. Just please take the pictures. I don’t trust anyone else.”

She sighed. “Really, Javi, I’m not joking about this! I’m
so
swamped this weekend. Why don’t you ask Reed?”

Javi snorted in disgust. “Reed?”

The man in question walked into the open apartment, stopping in the kitchen to snag a piece of chicken out of the pan. “What about me?” he asked as Dee slapped at his hand.

Javi curled his lip. “I was just about to tell Dee how you don’t have time to do anything for your friends anymore.”

“What? I’m just on a productive streak right now. Don’t mess with it, asshole.” Reed kissed Dee on top of her head and walked back toward Sam’s room. He knocked on the closed door. “You ready?”

Sam answered the door in a loose outfit of shorts and a t-shirt. She was wearing flip-flops and her hair fell loose over her shoulders. “Yeah,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The two waved at the group sitting at the table and walked out the door and down the stairs.

Susan piped up. “Who else saw that one coming?”

“She had the ‘friends’ talk with me over two weeks ago. I bet that’s when it started,” Chris said from the corner of the kitchen table, eyeing Dee as she plated the food.

“You all assume…” Vanessa murmured. “Sam’s sat for me dozens of times; she’s beautiful and a great model.”

“‘Sitting for him,’ huh?” Javi walked past Vanessa, stooping down to give the statuesque brunette a flirtatious kiss on the cheek. “Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?”

The five friends dug into dinner as Reed and Sam walked silently to his small apartment. Their hands brushed each other’s as they walked, and they cast lingering glances in the late afternoon sun.

As they entered the room, Reed shut the door and swung around to pull Sam against his chest, kissing and lifting her as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He moved them to the small bed and leaned over her, ridding her body of the loose-fitting garments as his full lips traced her curves, tasting each hidden corner while her hands worked to unbutton his jeans.

Sam pulled at his shirt, almost ripping it in her desperate hurry to feel his skin against her own. He pushed her farther onto the bed before he drew back, staring as the setting sun spilled over her breasts. She caught his look of concentration and lay still as he reached for the camera that lay beside the bed. He quickly captured the image of her skin, stained by the afternoon light, then he leaned down and placed the camera on the floor before he returned his attention to Sam. His mouth slicked over her warm skin until she moaned in impatience, finally shoving his pants down and pulling him closer.

They moved together, a sinuous tangle of limbs, crying each other’s names into the afternoon air, consumed with each other as they made love and the sun painted the walls gold.

CHAPTER TEN

Claremont, California

May 2010

“
K
aitlyn, for the last time, will you answer the boy’s calls? This has got to be some sort of misunderstanding. Barbara and I are both just sick about you two breaking up. I know what a good boy Cody—”

Kate pressed delete on her phone before her mother started reciting her ex-boyfriend’s many virtues… again. She should probably call and finally tell them why she broke up with Cody. After all, it had been two months.

She’d gone over and over why he had cheated on her. Once upon a time, they’d been in love. At least, that’s what it had seemed like to her. He’d been encouraging. Enthusiastic about her work, even if he’d never really understood it. Cody was a good guy. The kind who called his mom and helped old ladies load their groceries into their cart. He’d helped Kate, too.

What had changed?

Had it been that fact that he’d wanted to move forward and she hadn’t? What had been holding her back? Maybe there was something wrong with
her
. After all, Cody was a
really
nice guy.

“Before he was a cheating douchebag,” she muttered.

She sat in the small breakfast nook of her apartment, ridiculously glad she had never agreed to leave it and move in with him, as she continued to listen to her messages.

“Kate, babe—”

Delete.

“Katie girl, it’s Dad.”
She smiled at her father’s welcome voice.
“I have a feeling I know what might have happened considering I saw a snot-nosed kid that used to be lucky enough to date my daughter having lunch with some bimbo in Laguna yesterday.”
He paused, and Kate held back the tears threatening to leak down her face.
“I’m sorry, kiddo. For what it’s worth, I think he was too boring for you, and I know you were always too smart for him. He probably knew that better than anyone.”
Her dad cleared his throat on the recording.
“Also, I always thought he used too much shit in his hair. Call me when you want to talk, bye.”

She snorted at her dad’s mention of Cody’s elaborate hair rituals. She thought about it, deciding it
was
annoying that her ex-boyfriend spent more time getting ready in the morning than she did. She noticed one more message from an unknown number in her voicemail. She touched it and listened, waiting over a long pause at the beginning of the message. She thought for sure it would be a junk call and was about to delete it when she heard his voice.