STIEGLITZ.
When Coltrane returned to Packard’s house, he went straight to the vault and for the first time ignored the life-size face of Rebecca Chance gazing at him from the darkness of her sanctuary. He was too compelled. Pivoting toward the shelves on the right, he picked up stack after stack of boxes and carried them out to the shelves in the vault.
Stieglitz, he thought again.
Driving home, he had been unable to stop marveling about how unique it was for a photographer of Packard’s genius to have devoted so much of his output to a single person. Indeed, he could think of only one other photographer who had done so: the most influential in the medium, Alfred Stieglitz, who during 1918 and 1919 had obsessively taken pictures of his lover and eventual wife, the painter Georgia O’Keeffe. These photographs and others taken in later years amounted to more than three hundred, although there were rumors that after Stieglitz’s death, O’Keeffe had prevented the release of many others, perhaps even destroying them.
Randolph Packard had been infamous for his arrogance, but he had been humble in his appreciation of genius and, like every other great photographer during Stieglitz’s lifetime, he had made a pilgrimage to New York to learn from the master. Packard’s first meeting with Stieglitz had been at Stieglitz’s celebrated gallery, An American Place, in 1931, two years before he took the photograph of Rebecca Chance’s house and twelve years after Stieglitz had taken the bulk of his passionate photographs of Georgia O’Keeffe. Had Stieglitz shown Packard the O’Keeffe portraits? Had the idea of a pictorial monument to Rebecca Chance occurred to Packard because of Stieglitz’s influence? If so, some of the photographs would have been…
Pausing only long enough to verify that the humped rock formation in the photographs of Rebecca on the cliff was in fact the same as the formation on the cliff she had leapt from in Jamaica Wind, Coltrane hurriedly set aside the boxes he had previously looked at. Each night when he had responded helplessly to the urge to come down here, he had been eager to sort through the entire collection but had never gotten past three of the boxes. To have rushed through such an abundance of beauty would have been gluttony.
But now rushing was exactly what Coltrane did, opening box after box, sorting through their contents as quickly as he could without risking damage to the images. The late hour and the glare of the overhead lights made his head pound. His hands trembled with apprehension that he was wrong, with anticipation that he was right. His emotions twisted and tugged. Five boxes. Eight. Twelve. Their contents occupied shelf after shelf. Photographs of Rebecca Chance on horseback, on a sailboat, on a diving board, a forest path, a garden terrace, a stone staircase, a sun-bathed balcony. Fifteen. Eighteen. Of Rebecca Chance in evening clothes, in slacks and a blouse, in jodhpurs, a swimming suit, a gardening dress, a flower-patterned skirt, a white top, and an even whiter shawl.
The full impact of the amount of photographs that Packard had taken of Rebecca Chance was stunning. These many pictures – no wonder Packard hadn’t produced many new photographs. He wouldn’t have had the opportunity. Developing so many photographs (and Packard always developed his own work) would have taken a lifetime.
Although Coltrane was fervently convinced that his logic was correct, his hands trembled with despondency as he reached the final box and fumbled to lift its lid, expecting disappointment. As a consequence, he wasn’t prepared. The first nude photograph rendered him powerless. His legs became rigid. His body turned to stone. His breathing stopped.
The most arousing photograph he had ever seen showed Rebecca Chance naked and yet covered, draped with the chromium beads that hung on the walls of the dining room upstairs. She leaned with her customary natural grace against the blackness of the wall beyond the beads. She was angled slightly to the left, her head and body almost in profile but not quite, both of her eyes visible, directed unashamedly toward the camera. Light came from the left, contributing a sheen to her lush black hair, making her dusky skin seem to glow and her dark eyes seem to have something burning within them. At the same time, the light reflected off the strings of chromium beads, causing them to gleam with the simultaneous evocation of ice and fire. The image had so tactile an illusion that Coltrane could feel those cold/hot beads on his own skin. They seemed to caress him, all the while promising to move and expose more of Rebecca Chance’s magnificent body, the gleaming beads contrasting with the large dark nipples that projected from among them, as well as with the even darker silken pubic hair past which they dangled.
Coltrane’s penis hardened. The unwilled motion broke his paralysis, causing strength to return to his legs. His hands, frozen in the act of setting the box’s lid to the side, resumed their activity, trembling as he placed the lid on the shelf. His breath returned, air coursing into him, filling his lungs, reducing the light-headedness that had increasingly overtaken him while he stared at the picture. But his dizziness was only partially abated, for he felt he was falling into the photograph.
His erection became harder. Conscious of his body as much as he was of hers, he thought, I was right. Stieglitz had shown the way. Of the hundreds of photographs that Stieglitz had taken of Georgia O’Keeffe, an astonishing number of them were the most meticulous, loving nude shots that any man had ever taken of any woman. Sometimes it seemed that Stieglitz had commemorated every inch of O’Keeffe’s body, her expressive hands, yes, and her breasts and her eyes, but also her elbows and knees, the cleft in her hips and the soles of her feet, the curve of her shoulder blades, parts of her that, to Coltrane’s knowledge, had never been the subject of a close-up portrait but that Stieglitz’s amazingly intimate photographs evoked. One critic had been almost frightened by the power of Stieglitz’s portraits of O’Keeffe, describing them as primal, implying that Stieglitz thought of O’Keeffe as the great Earth Mother.
But in Packard’s naked depiction of Rebecca Chance, she wasn’t the mother but the lover of us all, Coltrane thought. Overwhelmed, he turned to the other photographs in the box, finding more nude portraits, each more candid and beautiful than the one before. None was as artistically staged as the one he had first seen, but each was a work of art because Rebecca Chance was a work of art. Her unclothed body, its smooth curves, indentations, and ridges, was mysterious, at the same time daunting, so powerful in its frank presentation of sexual womanhood that it caused Coltrane to react not only with desire but also with awe. Rebecca Chance didn’t pose so much as present herself before the camera, allowing herself to be photographed. Gazing unabashedly into the lens, she was so at home with her female nature that Coltrane had to fight feeling embarrassed about his sexual reaction to her.
He examined more photographs and came to a remarkable sequence in which Packard had done what Stieglitz only hinted at with Georgia O’Keeffe, photographing literally every inch of Rebecca Chance’s body, her ears, the top of her head, the nape of her neck, the area beneath her arms, the inside of her thighs, the backs of her knees. There was no area so commonplace or private that Packard had not taken a picture of in close-up. What made the sequence so moving was the devotion with which Packard had recorded the separate parts of the object of his obsession, as if in the thoroughness of his subdivision of her he could multiply her beauty.
Coltrane reached the last of the nude photographs and felt emotionally exhausted. Bracing himself against a shelf, he closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and mustered the energy to begin putting all the photographs back into their boxes. His hands felt numb. His heart pounded. Despite his closed eyes, he continued to see Rebecca Chance, naked, gazing at him. Raising his eyelids, he took one more look at the final nude photograph before him, then managed to put all of them away.
Upstairs, on the sleeping bag next to the increasingly pathetic-looking artificial Christmas tree in the living room, Coltrane fell into a black doze almost immediately. On previous nights, Ilkovic had haunted his dreams, turning them into nightmares, but tonight, it was Rebecca Chance’s arms that reached for him, her naked body pressing against him.
“CAREFUL,” the paunchy foreman told the two young men who were working with him. They all wore blue shirts that had the same logo as was on the side of the blue semitruck: PACIFIC MOVERS. They opened the back of the truck, the right and left hatches slamming against each side. After securing the hatches, they pulled out a ramp from a slot beneath the truck, the ramp making a scraping sound that grated against Coltrane’s nerves. While the workers hooked the ramp into place, Coltrane walked toward the open rear and saw stacks of furniture hidden by generous amounts of protective blankets.
“Careful,” the paunchy foreman repeated, and now Coltrane realized that the man was talking to him, not his young coworkers. “You’d better stay out of the way. Sometimes stuff falls, or one of these guys might trip.”
“I hope not.”
“The last thing we want is a client to get hurt.”
“I’m not worried about me. Don’t let anything happen to the furniture.”
“No problem there. I’ve been doing this for twenty years.”
But the young men obviously hadn’t – they looked barely older than twenty. Uneasy, Coltrane backed away, watching them mount the ramp and begin undraping blankets from the first layer of furniture.
His chest felt warm when he saw a glimmer of metal. He was suddenly looking at a chair. But he had never seen any furniture like it – so simple and yet so aesthetically pleasing. The chair’s legs and sides were composed of steel tubes, the gray hue of which was polished to a sheen. The seat and back had clean, straight lines, black suede over a padded reinforcing material. It invited being touched, which Coltrane almost did as one of the young men carried the chair past him at the bottom of the ramp. The second young man followed with another chair.
“Where do you want them?” the foreman asked, looking up from a clipboard.
“In the dining room.”
Coltrane led the way into the house. In the living room, the miniature Christmas tree and the sleeping bags were no longer in evidence. “The dining room’s to the left.”
“Nice house.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” The foreman turned to the young men. “Okay, put the chairs against the dining room wall so they won’t get in the way. Hold it. Those walls are…”
“Covered with strings of chromium beads,” Coltrane said.
“I definitely haven’t seen anything like that.”
And so it went, the young men unloading furniture while the foreman didn’t do anything but make check marks on his clipboard, then follow his helpers into the house to be certain that nothing was damaged.
Four more dining room chairs. Then the dining table itself: glass-topped, rectangular, with rounded corners, a steel frame supporting the glass top, and steel legs.
The foreman used a soft cloth to wipe smudges of dust from the glass top. “Not a scratch.” He looked at Coltrane for confirmation.
The living room furniture was framed by aluminum tubes that were coated a shiny black. The tubes were arranged horizontally, eight inches apart, forming low cages with high backs. The effect was vaguely industrial, a glorification of mechanization that had been prevalent back in the late twenties and early thirties, but the design was so harmonious that it felt liberating. Thick, wide cushions were set into the frames and against the backs. The material was red satin. Three chairs and an L-shaped sofa filled the living room. Glass-topped side tables, coffee tables, and wall tables filled more of the space, as did a chromium cabinet. So much glass and polished metal made the living room gleam.
Standing in a corner, telling the young men where he wanted them to set the pieces, Coltrane began to feel tugged toward the past. Oddly, though, the past seemed the present. The furniture had been designed so long ago that it seemed new and fresh.
“Mister, I’ve been hauling furniture half my life,” the foreman said. “I gotta tell you – this stuff is definitely different.”
“But do you like it?”
“What’s not to like? The junk I sometimes have to deliver… But this is solid. Look at the sweat on these kids’ faces from lifting all this metal. Nothing flimsy here. No danger of this stuff falling apart. Style. Reminds me of a real old movie I saw on cable the other night. It had furniture like this. I’m not a dress-up kind of guy, but being here makes me feel we ought to be wearing tuxedos and drinking martinis. Hey.” He turned to his helpers. “We’re supposed to be movers. Let’s get a move on.”
Coltrane turned to watch them go for more furniture, and he wasn’t prepared to find that Duncan Reynolds had come through the open front door.
Duncan looked more surprised than Coltrane was. In fact, he seemed startled. His usually florid face was pale, emphasizing the numerous colors on his sport coat. His mouth hung open.
“Duncan? What’s the matter? Are you all right?”
“I came to see your reaction when the furniture was…” Eyes wide, Duncan surveyed the living room. “To find out if you were satisfied with…” Shocked, he pointed toward the sofa, then the chairs, then the end tables. “How did…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. That’s the problem. Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s just as I remember it. Exactly as I remember it. But that can’t… How could you possibly have…”
“What are you talking about?”
“The furniture’s in the same places where Randolph preferred it. Twenty-five years ago, a few months after I started working for him, the day he first showed me this house, the furniture was positioned exactly as it is now. Randolph told me it had been that way when he bought it, that he had never varied it, that he never wanted it to be varied. It never was. Until it was taken away to be auctioned. And now you’ve arranged it so it looks precisely as when I first saw it. I almost expect to see Randolph stroll upstairs from working in the darkroom. How did… How could you have known where to…”
“I had help from some photographs.”
Duncan’s mystification deepened.
“I’ve been doing research,” Coltrane said.
Duncan stepped nearer, anxious for an explanation.
“I figured a house designed by Lloyd Wright would have attracted attention when it was built. Yesterday I went to the library to see what I could learn about it. The reference librarian showed me a yearly subject index for every article that was published in every major magazine. So I started in 1931, when this house was built. I looked under Lloyd Wright’s name in the index, and I got a reference to him right away, an article about him in an architectural magazine that isn’t published anymore but was fairly trendy back in the thirties – Architectural Views. Excellent library that we have in L.A., the periodical department has every issue of that magazine on microfilm. So I had a look. Turns out this house received a lot of attention when it was built. The article had an analysis of Lloyd Wright’s design. It also had photographs: interiors as well as exteriors. Each room. Including the furniture.” Coltrane gestured toward the living room. “All I did was imitate the arrangement of the furniture as it was shown in the photographs.”
“You don’t suppose Randolph took the photographs?”
“That’s what I wondered,” Coltrane said. “But I didn’t have to look at each photograph for more than a second to decide that the images were so uncomposed and poorly lit that they couldn’t possibly be his work. I strained my eyes a little trying to read the fine print on the microfilm. The photo credit went to someone whose name I didn’t recognize.”
Duncan calmed himself. “For a moment, I thought you might have discovered some Randolph Packard photographs that no one knew about.”
“Wouldn’t that have been something if I had.”
“Coming through.” The overweight supervisor led the way for his two young assistants, who were carrying more black metal tubes. “I don’t know what this is, but I’m guessing it’s a bed frame.”
“King-size or regular?”
“When we get all these pieces assembled, I’m betting it’s a king.”
“Master bedroom. Top floor.”
“You heard the man,” the foreman said to his helpers.
The troop disappeared, trudging upward.
Duncan watched in a daze.
“Duncan?”
“Uh, what?” Duncan turned, blinking.
“The other day, you mentioned that Randolph owned an estate in Mexico.”
Duncan’s face didn’t change expression, but something in his eyes did, becoming wary.
“You said that Randolph used various shell corporations when he was buying property, so that no one would know the true buyer. You said Randolph bought this house that way – and a place in Mexico.”
“Now that I think about it, I suppose I did mention something about that.”
“I was wondering where the estate was.”
Duncan’s gaze remained guarded. “What makes you ask?”
“Just curious. Randolph had such a unique way of viewing things, I thought the hacienda might be as dramatic as this house. It might be worth going down to Mexico to have a look.”
Duncan answered too quickly: “I wouldn’t know.”
From upstairs, Coltrane heard the faint clang of metal tubes being bolted together.
“Careful,” he heard the foreman say.
“You wouldn’t know if I’d find it interesting to visit the estate?” Coltrane asked.
“I wouldn’t know where it is. I was never there.” Duncan looked up the stairs toward the metallic sounds. “Randolph never told me. Some place in Baja California, I think he might have mentioned.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Sorry I can’t be more helpful.”
“It probably doesn’t matter. For all I know, it isn’t as unique as this house, or it hasn’t been preserved the way this place has. Did Randolph still own it when he died?”
Duncan looked away. “Years ago, he mentioned something about selling a property in Mexico.”
“Well,” Coltrane said, “it was just a thought.”
“Careful,” the foreman repeated.
“I’D LIKE TO SPEAK TO MR. BLAINE,” Coltrane said into the telephone.
“May I tell him who’s calling?” the receptionist replied.
Coltrane gave his name. “I’ve been having some discussions with him about the estate of a deceased client of his. Randolph Packard.”
The receptionist’s voice came to attention. “Randolph Packard?”
“I’m buying a house he owned, and I need some further information. I know it’s New Year’s Eve afternoon.” Coltrane tried to sound self-deprecating. He chuckled. “Or whatever today is called.”
The receptionist sounded amused. “Yes, I’ve been having the same problem.”
“Anyway, Mr. Blaine probably has a ton of work he still needs to finish, but I was hoping he could spare a few minutes for me.”
In death as in life, Packard’s name got results. Twenty seconds later, an unctuous baritone was on the line. “Mr. Coltrane, I trust that your arrangements are proceeding satisfactorily.”
“Totally. In fact, I’m so pleased that I was wondering if another property Mr. Packard owned might be available for sale.”
“If you’re referring to the house in Newport Beach, it was given to his assistant. You’d have to speak with him about that.”
“No, I was thinking of a property in Mexico.”
“Mexico?”
“I believe it’s in Baja California.”
The baritone sounded confused. “No, I’m not familiar with it.”
Coltrane glanced down in disappointment, his suspicions having proven groundless. “I guess it must have been sold years ago.”
“The only property I’m familiar with that Randolph Packard owned in Mexico isn’t in Baja.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s on the western main coast of Mexico, much farther south than Baja. Below Acapulco, in fact. Near a town called… I can’t remember it in Spanish, but in English it’s very distinctive. The spine of the cat.”
“What?”
“That’s the name of the town.”
“Espalda del Gato?” Coltrane asked.
“I’m impressed. Your Spanish is very good.”
“I spent a lot of time in Spanish-speaking countries. If there’s a way for me to see the place, if it’s still in Mr. Packard’s name, maybe I’d be interested in buying it also,” Coltrane said.
“I can’t help you with that. It’s out of my hands. The hacienda was a bequest in Mr. Packard’s will. The title was transferred a week ago.”
Coltrane couldn’t hide his frustration. “To whom? Can you tell me?”
“Against my advice, Mr. Packard didn’t transfer all of his assets to a trust. The hacienda in Mexico was one of the items that he neglected to include. If he had included it, the bequest could have been handled privately, without involving a California court. But because the hacienda was included in a will, it has to go through probate. It’ll be a matter of public record. I could put you through the inconvenience of going to the court house. I don’t see why that’s necessary, however. Mr. Packard gave the Mexican property to someone named Natasha Adler.”
“Natasha Adler?”
“I have no association with the woman. I can’t tell you a thing about her.”
“Do you have her address and phone number?”
“That information was not included in the will. I had to hire a private investigator to find her. I’m afraid I’d be violating her privacy if I told you where she lived.”
Damn it, Coltrane thought.
“Now if there’s nothing else I can help you with,” Blaine said.
“Maybe one thing.”
The baritone had a hint of impatience in his voice. “Yes?”
“Would you mind telling me the name of the investigator you used?”
“CHEERS.”
“Cheers.”
Coltrane and Jennifer clicked glasses of Absolut and tonic.
Jennifer sipped from hers and wrinkled her nose. “It’s like with champagne – the bubbles are ticklish.”
“Maybe you need more vodka and less tonic,” Coltrane said.
“Then the rest of me would be ticklish.” Jennifer wore a black Armani dress, the hem of which came up just above the knee. Its top ended where her breasts began. Pearl earrings and a matching necklace couldn’t compete with her smile.
Taking another sip, she surveyed the living room. “I expected the furniture to look striking, but not this much. It’s really – I don’t know what word to use – fantastic. I feel as if I’m in that wing of the Museum of Modern Art, the one where they have furniture that’s considered art.”
“Does that mean you feel the house has changed enough for you to give it another chance? You don’t still associate it with Ilkovic?”
“It feels different now.”
“Good.”
“As if I’m in the 1930s.”
“That’s the illusion I want to create. I want this to be a haven from the present.”
“It seems to me that the present’s still here, though.” Before Coltrane could ask what she meant, she added, “Is it safe to sit on this stuff?”
“Of course.” Coltrane laughed.
Tentatively, Jennifer lowered herself onto the red velvet cushion of a black tube-enclosed chair. “So far so good. It didn’t collapse.”
“The man in charge of the crew who delivered it assured me that this stuff was made to last.”
“It certainly has. After all these years, it’s as shiny as new.” Jennifer took a long sip of vodka and tonic. “You’re certain Duncan lied to you about the place in Mexico?”
“It wasn’t so much what he said. He told me he had a vague memory that it had been sold some time ago, that maybe it was in Baja. No big deal. But there was a nervous look behind his eyes.”
“Maybe he just needed a drink. Not everything’s a mystery.”
“I phoned the private investigator Packard’s attorney uses. I got lucky and caught him in. For five hundred dollars, he looked in his files and told me that Natasha Adler, the woman who inherited the estate, lives up in Malibu. Her number’s unlisted, but he gave me that, too.”
Jennifer raised her glass to her lips. The drink did nothing to relax her increasingly troubled expression. “I don’t see what you hope to accomplish.”
“I’d like to know why Packard gave it to her.”
“Maybe she was a friend or a business acquaintance.”
“Fine. But if she knows the estate, maybe she can tell me something about it.”
“Such as?”
“Whether parts of Jamaica Wind were filmed there and whether she’s ever heard of Rebecca Chance.”
Jennifer shook her head.
“Aren’t you curious?” Coltrane asked.
“Professionally, sure. Those photographs are a major discovery. It’s important to learn when they were taken, who the subject was, what sort of relationship Packard had with her. That information doesn’t make the photographs any more brilliant than they already are, but as a magazine publisher, I can tell you human interest adds incalculable monetary value. That raises the question of when you’re going to tell Packard’s estate about them. Without being specific, I did some checking with an attorney. As I understand it, you have a claim to own the photographs, but the right to reproduce them belongs to Packard’s trustees. You’re going to have to come to an arrangement with them.”
“When I’m ready.” Coltrane bit his lower lip. “You said ‘professionally.’”
“Excuse me?”
“You told me that professionally you were interested in the photographs. You emphasized the word, implying, I suppose, that you weren’t interested personally.”
“Not the way you are. The way you talk about Rebecca Chance, it’s like she’s a living, breathing person. Last night, you asked me if I was jealous of her. Maybe I am a little. It’s almost as if…”
“What?”
“You’re falling in love with her.”
Coltrane didn’t comment.
Jennifer finished her drink.
“Time for a refill?”
“You bet. It’s New Year’s Eve, after all.”
“And if we’re not going to starve, I’d better start the marinara sauce.” Coltrane walked with her through the dining room and into the kitchen.
A smaller version of the glass-topped, steel-rimmed dining table was against a wall.
“I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on Duncan about possibly lying to me. I wasn’t exactly honest with him, either.”
“Oh?”
Coltrane refilled Jennifer’s glass, adding a lime wedge and ice cubes. “I told him I knew how the furniture was supposed to be arranged because I had seen the layout in an old architectural magazine. Not true.”
“Then if you didn’t find out from a magazine…”
“The photographs we found in the vault. By now, I’ve had a chance to go through all of them. It turns out that several of the pictures of Rebecca Chance were taken in this house, and as you might expect from anything Packard did, those photographs are as clear and crisp as can be. I had no trouble using them as a guide to arrange the tables and chairs and things.”
Jennifer studied him.
“I also found some interesting photos of a different sort,” Coltrane said.
Jennifer studied him harder.
“Nudes.”
The moment Coltrane said it, he wished that he hadn’t.
“Nudes,” Jennifer said flatly.
“You know, the type of thing Stieglitz took of Georgia O’Keeffe.”
“Yes, I know exactly the type you mean. Show them to me.”
CROSSING THE VAULT, Jennifer said, “No shivers anymore?”
Coltrane furrowed his brow in puzzlement.
“This vault used to give you the creeps,” Jennifer said. “It made you claustrophobic.”
“Oh, that. Well, I guess I’ve been coming down here enough that I got used to it.”
“Yes, you definitely did get used to it. It’s cool enough in here to give me the shivers.” Jennifer rubbed her bare arms.
“Here.” Coltrane took off his sport coat and draped it around her shoulders.
“Thanks.”
“Better?” His hands lingered on her shoulders.
“Much.”
Jennifer turned to him, spreading her palms against his shirt. His nipples reacted. A gentle kiss lengthened, becoming forceful.
They held each other.
“So where are these nude photographs?” Jennifer asked.
“You haven’t changed your mind?”
“Maybe I’ve got a kinky streak.”
Taking his arms from around her, Coltrane released the catches that held the wall in place.
When he pulled the section free, Jennifer stared at Rebecca Chance’s life-size features. The harsh light from the vault dispelled the darkness of the chamber. The photograph’s eyes reflected the illumination.
“She’s much more beautiful here than in the movie I saw,” Jennifer said.
Coltrane had left the box containing the nude photographs on top of the others. He carried it out to one of the shelves and took off the lid.
Stepping forward, Jennifer stared down at the image of Rebecca Chance in the dining room upstairs, the strings of chromium beads draped over her naked body.
Slowly, she turned to the next photograph, and the next. The room was so still that the only sounds Coltrane heard were the subtle scrape of the photographs and Jennifer’s tense breathing. She kept turning the pictures.
At last, she was finished.
“Well?”
“Her nipples,” Jennifer said.
Coltrane had no idea what reaction to have expected from her, but this certainly was not one that he could have predicted.
“The nipples and the aureoles around them,” Jennifer said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Mine are different from hers.”
Coltrane found himself blushing. “I wasn’t trying to imply that…”
“That hers are more attractive than mine? They are. Rebecca Chance was an astonishingly beautiful woman. She was blessed by nature. But that’s not what I’m getting at. My nipples are small, the width of the tip of my little finger. Rebecca Chance’s are as wide as the tip of my index finger. The aureoles around my breasts aren’t pronounced the way Rebecca Chance’s are.”
“And?”
“I could get my nipples and aureoles to start looking like hers, however.”
“You’re talking about surgery?”
“If I got pregnant.”
Coltrane’s heartbeat lurched. “You think she was pregnant?”
“I suspect it was her first time. I don’t see any stretch marks to indicate that she previously had had a baby. I’d say she was about three months along, still able to keep her stomach flat. But she couldn’t keep her breasts from getting fuller and the nipples larger as the photographs progressed. The glow on her face and the luster on her skin make me think that some powerful hormones had started to kick in.”
“Pregnant,” Coltrane said with wonder, then looked with new eyes at the photographs.
“So the obvious questions are: Who was the father? Was he Packard? And, assuming that the child was born, whatever happened to it?”
COLTRANE ARCHED HIS BACK AND TILTED HIS HEAD UPWARD, a surge of pleasure seizing his body. Moving slowly, he tried not to disrupt the delicate balance between immediate need and exquisite postponement. Jennifer kissed him, thrusting against him: “Don’t hold back.” Moving faster, he felt her urgent rhythm match his own. Climaxing, he felt as if the present stretched on forever. Too soon, time became separate moments, and he eased out of Jennifer, settling next to her. Neither moved. Streetlights glinted through the bedroom’s open blinds. A breeze made tree branches sway, casting wavering shadows across the darkened room.
She turned onto her side, facing him. “It’s been a long time.”
“Too long.”
“We’ll have to catch up.”
“The spirit is willing, but the flesh might be weak.”
“I’ll see what I can do to put some strength back into it.”
“Some food might help, too. If I don’t start making that marinara sauce pretty soon…”
“No.” Jennifer touched his cheek. “Lie there awhile longer.”
“It’s a great way to end what in other respects was an awfully bad year,” Coltrane said.
“In one respect, it wasn’t such a bad year. You took some wonderful photographs. You found a new direction for your work.”
Coltrane shrugged.
“Your work still doesn’t seem important to you?”
“Not compared to everything that happened.”
They lapsed into silence.
Jennifer was the first to speak. “When you were making love to me, did it occur to you that Rebecca Chance and Randolph Packard might have made love in this bed?”
“… No.”
“It did to me. I imagined that she and I had changed places. Did the nude photographs of her excite you?”
“A little.”
“Did they make you more eager to have sex?”
“I suppose.”
Jennifer lowered her hand from his face and drew it along his body, fondling him.
“Like this excites you?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
When Jennifer kissed him, he tasted the salt of a tear on her cheek.
“Because I can’t compete with her, Mitch. I’m not a goddess. I’m only a woman.”
ALTHOUGH THE MORNING WAS BRIGHT AND THE SKY CLEAR, a cold breeze, at least by Southern California standards, made Coltrane retreat from the patio outside his bedroom. “Brrr,” he said, cinching his robe tighter, turning toward Jennifer, who still lay in his bed. “I was hoping we could have coffee out there, but I’m afraid it would have to be iced coffee.”
“It’s nicer in here anyhow,” Jennifer said. She raised the covers, giving him a glimpse of her breasts, her inward-curved tummy, and her light-colored pubic hair, gesturing for him to crawl under and join her.
“That’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”
“And the day’s young yet,” Jennifer said.
“You’re going to wear me out.”
“As long as I didn’t wear this guy out.”
She pointed toward the erection that he showed when he slipped off his robe.
“Since when did you like talking dirty?” He eased under the covers, feeling her warmth.
“You call that talking dirty?”
“At the very least, I’d call it suggestive.”
“And what do you call this?”
“I’m a little distracted at the moment. Maybe the word will come to me if you do it again.”
“Something better come.”
“And the day’s young yet,” Jennifer had said. But she was wrong about implying that there would be more opportunities in the day for them to make love, for after they collapsed into each other’s arms, after they nestled against each other, got up to take turns showering, and finally dressed, Jennifer told him that she was expected at her parents’ house around one o’clock. “You remember from last year,” Jennifer said, “it’s a tradition. I always go over and help Dad watch his marathon of New Year’s Day football games. You want to come with me? He and Mom will be glad to see you, and there’ll be more than enough food. You seemed to enjoy yourself last time.”
“I did. It was fun. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to beg off.”
“Oh?” Jennifer’s voice was frail with disappointment.
“Yes. I promised Greg’s widow that I’d come over and spend some time with her and the kids.”
“Oh.” The inflection was now one of understanding. “I didn’t know you’d spoken with her.”
“I guess it slipped my mind.”
“I’ve never met her, but please tell her I’m very sorry about her husband.”
“I will.”
“That coffee you mentioned would sure taste good right now.”
The kitchen was a mess from the marinara and meatball dinner that Coltrane had made, the dishes having been left in the sink while they finished a bottle of champagne and watched a TV celebrity narrate the countdown in Times Square. Coltrane had only a dim memory of the two of them stumbling up to his bedroom.
“Ouch,” Jennifer said, surveying the damage. “I’m going to need that coffee to brace myself to help with this.”
“Forget it,” Coltrane said. “Come on. We’ll go out for breakfast.”
When they got back at twelve-thirty, they lingered in front of the house.
“If your visit with Greg’s widow ends early, come over to my parents,” Jennifer said.
“I will,” Coltrane said. “Wish them a happy New Year for me.”
Jennifer looked uncertain about something. “Would you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Get a camera and take my picture?”
“Take your picture?”
“It’s a new year,” Jennifer said. “A new beginning. It would make me happy to see you taking photographs again.”
“If it would make you happy, it would make me happy.”
A minute later, he was back with his Nikon, positioning Jennifer against the ivy-looking greenish blue copper trim on the corner of the house.
“The background makes you look even more blond,” Coltrane said. “In fact, you look radiant.”
As her eyes brightened the way he had hoped they would in response to his compliment, Coltrane snapped the picture.