Jill tried to turn her mind away from Chris and Kansas City as she headed towards The Cannery. She reviewed her life in San Francisco as a fine arts student at the Art Institute. She had been naive back in Kansas City. Sure, she had talent, more than anyone in her class at high school. But in San Francisco, where so many aspiring artists come to study and paint, she was just one of many talented young people, and certainly not the best, she had to admit to herself. Some of her classmates were intimidatingly gifted, others, appallingly ordinary. There was a lot of hanky panky going on, too. And she found that the females who put out for their instructors got the best grades and the most "assistance". Well, she was not going to get ahead that way!
At first, she had stayed at a student residence club, but she got hassled there, too – not only by the manager, but by several other residents… both guys and girls! So, she answered an ad posted on a laundromat bulletin board and wound up with Josephine. The old lady was slightly balmy, but at least, she was safe! It was all far from the fantasy she had had back in Kansas City, and far from the glamorous life she glowingly portrayed to Wendy and her parents. But she had too much pride to admit the truth to them, and she especially didn't want Chris to know how lonely she was. At times she chided herself for the folly of her determined flight to San Francisco, trying to play the liberated "woman" when she was really a vine-covered-cottage and picket-fence girl at heart. You've come a long way, baby! she thought ruefully, then added, Yeah – and you've still got a long way to go! But there was art, and her career, and this was San Francisco – "Everybody's favorite city" – and she was determined not to go back to Kansas City with her tail between her legs… or anybody else's! She had persisted in her fantasy that she was going to be discovered, and this felt somehow like the day it would happen. This was not going to be another of those days where she would make a few bucks doing quick portraits, as she had taken to doing in the last several weeks, then pack up her supplied and trudge back to Josephine's with no more prospects than the lewd propositions she got from wise-cracking teenagers and dirty old men.
Jill found a sunny spot facing the fish stands across the street and set up her chair and stool outside one of the arcade entrances to The Cannery, where the tenants paid very fancy rents for their plush and attractive shops. Jill and the other street artists, musicians and vendors capitalized on the advertising those tenants footed the bill for to bring thousands of tourists to their doors. Some of those tourists were art dealers, people who were always on the lookout for fresh talent.
Jill laid out her portraits and some of her smaller acrylics. She tacked a discreet sign to a nearby tree which read: 5-Minute Color Portrait – $2.00… and waited for her first customer.
A middle aged couple sauntered by, he wearing a double knit cranberry jacket and plaid pants, she with a knit pantsuit and flat-heeled, patent leather loafers. She was carrying an oversized fake leather tote bag – they reeked of "tourist".
The man, who was smoking a foul-smelling cigar, grinned sheepishly at Jill, the corners of his eyes furrowing into a thousand wrinkles. She smiled back shyly. The wife gave Jill a cautious sniff and started to move on.
"Merle, wait a minute. Let's have the little lady do your picture," he said, winking at Jill.
"Now what in the world would I want with my picture?" she stated rather than asked. "Nobody's given me any beauty prizes lately."
"Well they're even less likely to next year," he persisted. "'Sides, I'd kinda like to see what the little lady does for an old bat like you in just five minutes," he grinned. Jill gave him a hip smile, knowing that the wife must have heard these good-natured jibes for years.
"Well I wouldn't. You know I wouldn't like it anyway. If you're so int'rested, why don't you get that ugly mug of yours preserved for posterity – if she can stand to look at you for five minutes!"
The wife meandered on. The man hesitated on the brink of indecision. Jill made a gallant gesture towards the chair, motioning the man to sit down. "My pleasure, sir!" she said, flashing him an irresistible smile.
"You got yourself a deal, little lady," the portly man said, seating himself in the chair. He started to remove the cigar from his mouth. "No, please… leave it there. It suits you," Jill encouraged.
She worked quickly as she sat on the stool, a large clipboard propped on her thighs. She carefully selected colors from her extensive assortment of oil pastels. She liked working in this medium actually; Craypas had the depth and durability of crayons with the translucence of pastels, and without the mess that ordinary chalk pastels created. She studied the man's face for several seconds. To her credit, Jill did have an unerring eye and the ability to faithfully reproduce the essence of things, and since studying at the institute, she had evolved from a rather sophomoric photographic rendering technique to a looser, more sophisticated one. Her quick sketches had a Matisse-like quality, and she was able to capture, at times, some facet of personality in an uncanny way. This ability set her apart from so many of the other portraitists who lined the sidewalks. Their work seemed to reproduce people who were stilted effigies of human beings.
A crowd was gathering. She could see people out of the corner of her eye, and hear some of their hushed comments. She had grown accustomed to being watched, and she felt a particular excitement now. She knew her sketch of the tourist in the cranberry jacket was an exceptionally good one.
The crowd of onlookers was growing now, many of them far more interested in the beautiful artist than they were in her sketch pad.
Her subject was enjoying every minute of it. He loved the attention he was getting from the crowd, and he loved being able to stare unabashedly at the gorgeous brunette who was caught up in her rendering of him. Damn, what he wouldn't give for a hot little piece of ass like that! Hell, she was far and away better than any of them topless broads he had seen at those clip joints on the Broadway strip – and some of them were knockouts. But this little girl had them beat by a country mile. Damn, it made his cock twitch just to think about her – and that wouldn't do it at all! Not here!
"Don't forget to sign it now. I'm gonna put this in a frame and hang it in my office," he said jovially as he chewed on his cigar. Some of the gapers chuckled and Jill smiled warmly as she put the finishing touches on the portrait with a soft lead pencil. She took one last, searching look at the man, added a little touch of color here and there, made a few more lines with her pencil then scrawled "Conklin – 5/14/76 S.F." on the bottom. She was very pleased with her efforts. She felt she had truly captured the man on sketch paper.
"I hope you like it, sir," she said as she handed his likeness to him. The crowd was almost hushed with anticipation, and the big man played his scene for all he was worth, studying the portrait critically from every angle as he chewed on his cigar. Finally he smiled, and his smile widened to a broad grin.
"Well I'll be darned. That's the best darned picture anybody's ever done of me! It really is! I paid some jerk $200 last year to paint my portrait, and I had to sit still for what amounted to almost two weeks, and he didn't do half as good a job as you did in five minutes, little lady! I surely do want to thank you," he said, reaching in his pocket and producing a five dollar bill from a money clip. "Here, you take this," he said, pressing the fin into her hand.
"But, sir, it's only…" she started to protest.
"It's only a small portion of what it's worth. I know. Now if I can find that stubborn wife of mine, I'm gonna drag her back here and have her pose for you. She's not goin' home without a picture done by you, Miss…" he looked at her signature, "Conklin. What's your first name, Miss Conklin?" he asked, leering down at her.
"Jill."
"Jill, eh? Well now ain't that a coincidence – mine's Jack, Jack Dawson. Here, have one of my cards. Do you have a card, Jill?"
"No, sir, I'm afraid I don't," she said with embarrassment. People were listening to the exchange.
"Well you should, Jill. Any artist as good as you needs a business card. I'll see you later, Jill. I'm going to find that wife of mine and drag her back here for a picture." And he was off, cigar smoke billowing in his wake.
A quiet couple with a pigtailed little girl had been standing patiently to one side. They stepped up to her. "We'd like you to do Tammy's portrait," the wife said.
"I'd love to do a portrait of Tammy," Jill said sincerely, smiling down at the freckle faced seven year old. "Children are really fun, and a challenge. They can't sit still."
The whole day was like that. One customer after another. It wasn't until the wind came up at three o'clock that Jill realized she hadn't stopped for lunch. She was suddenly ravenous, and starting to get chilled. She started to break out in goosebumps and her nipples were standing out erect beneath her thin T-shirt. She cursed herself for forgetting to bring her sweater. Three raucous hardhat types started to give her a bad time. They were making embarrassing and insulting remarks, and staring at her proudly upthrust breasts with the very visible and erect nipples.
Suddenly Jill caught sight of Jack Dawson coming towards her. But the big man in the cranberry knit jacket was not accompanied by his wife – there was another man with him, a very distinguished looking gentleman who was the antithesis of the cigar smoking tourist. Jack Dawson's companion was a tall, refined and elegantly handsome Latin with an impeccably tailored beige silk suit, light blue shirt with French cuffs and navy blue silk necktie with white polka dots. His whole aura bespoke breeding and authority, and he had the unmistakable smell of wealth about him. Jill gave the pair a grateful smile of recognition. "Why, Mr. Dawson!" she called out. At that the hard hat boys dispersed muttering epithets under their breaths.
"I brought a friend of mine to have you do his picture. Couldn't get the missus out of them bo'tiques. She needs a supermarket cart to put everything in! Jill, this is Mr. Garcia."
"Ernesto Garcia, Miss Conklin," the elegant man offered in a deep and slightly accented voice. He took her extended hand and shook it warmly, looking directly into her eyes in such a penetrating way that Jill had to suppress an involuntary shudder.
"How do you do, Mr. Garcia," she said a little breathlessly.
"I think we are too late, Jack. Miss Conklin is obviously finished for the day. You look chilly, my dear."
"Well, yes, I am a little cold, actually."
"Here, I'll give the little lady my jacket," said Dawson, starting to undo the gold buttons on his cranberry knit.
"Please. Miss Conklin should not be imposed upon," Garcia insisted with an air of quiet authority. His eyes never left her face, and he smiled ever so slightly as he spoke. "Let us see Miss Conklin home. Perhaps we can prevail upon her to do my portrait another time." And he signalled for a taxi with one commanding gesture. Instantly the Yellow Cab was at the curb before the flustered Jill could protest that she only lived a few blocks away.
Jill sat between the two of them, feeling small and overwhelmed. The suave Latin produced a business card from a snakeskin case. "Will you be my guest for dinner tonight, Miss Conklin? Jack and his wife will be joining us also, of course," he asked in such a way that made refusing awkward. Then he added, with a twinkle in his eye, "You see, I have an ulterior motive."
Jill was conscious of the feel of Dawson's thigh pressed tightly against hers. She looked up uncertainly at Garcia. "An ulterior motive?" she echoed naively. Garcia handed her his card.
"Now you can't say 'No,' Jill," Dawson put in, leaning more heavily against her. "Mr. Garcia is a pretty important person in the art world. He just might help a young artist like you a whole lot."
Jill read the card: Ernesto Garcia, Pres. Galeria Garcia, New York, Mexico City, Acapulco.
Jill's large hazel eyes widened. Even from her rudimentary high school Spanish, she knew that "Galeria" meant "Gallery" – art gallery. This could be the break she'd dreamed of for so long.
"And be sure to bring samples of your work, Miss Conklin. I'll have Jack and his wife pick you up in a taxi at 8:00… if that's convenient," Garcia said confidently.
"Y-yes. Eight would be fine, Mr. Garcia," Jill answered breathlessly. There was something almost hypnotic about the smooth Latin. She couldn't refuse.
The taxi had stopped in front of Josephine's garrish pink house. Jill felt a flush of embarrassment in the presence of a man of obvious wealth as she followed Dawson out of the cab and collected the things he had thoughtfully carried to the door. "Thank you, Jack. See you at 8:00," she said cheerily, as she opened the dark wooden door and stepped inside the musty hallway of Josephine's "mausoleum".