The portrait, p.9
The Portrait, page 9
She and Jean-Louis had been so loving to each other, and he had been so kind and generous to her, and they had adored their baby Axel when he was born, and after. Jean-Louis had lived for them, and it had nearly killed her when Axel died. Devon couldn’t imagine a woman like Faye, or how she and Charlie had continued a loveless travesty of a marriage for twenty-three years. And keeping their finances intact seemed like a poor excuse to maintain the marriage. But she respected what he had told her. He had made it clear that he intended to stay married, although he claimed it didn’t interfere with his independent life at all and for all intents and purposes he was a free man. It hadn’t deterred Devon. She appreciated his honesty, and she was just as attracted to him as before.
Charlie walked around in a daze all day, relieved that Devon wasn’t upset that he was married, although he was sure that she would have preferred it if that wasn’t the case. She was the first truly available woman he had ever been attracted to, and he was relieved to know that she wasn’t merely an illusion, or an obsession—she was real. It opened the door wide for him to pursue her, and he could hardly stay away from her all day. He couldn’t resist calling her at five o’clock. He had thought of nothing else all day. She had looked so beautiful as they talked in the candlelight the night before, with her hair glowing copper in the light, and her eyes bright, filled with trust and hope. She was the most loving woman he had ever met, and the most compelling. All he wanted was to be with her.
“Can I interest you in a walk on the beach?” He liked walking early in the morning or at sundown, when it wasn’t as hot and there was usually a breeze.
“I’d love to, maybe tomorrow. I’m just finishing a painting, and I don’t want to leave it right now. Do you want to come over in a while?”
“I’d love that,” he said in a husky voice, which gave her a thrill. She wanted to see him too, but she was in an awkward place on the painting she was working on.
“Seven o’clock?” she suggested, squinting at the painting. “I could try to cook dinner for us, but you might never want to see me again,” she said, and he laughed.
“I can bring pasta and cook for you. My repertoire isn’t too varied either, or we can go out.” He wanted to see her, he didn’t care when or how. He didn’t want to waste a minute. All the barriers had been removed, in his eyes, with his disclosure the night before. And she had accepted the situation he was in. Other women had walked out as soon as he said he was married, whatever his arrangement was with his wife. And some just wanted to have fun, or were married too. He had always said that his being married was a given, and a number of women were willing to play by his rules. It meant that they had no future with him, which they accepted for a while, and when they found that it was true, they left. Devon didn’t have her eye on the future, she was only living in the present. She had long since learned how unreliable the future was, no matter what plans one made.
Charlie arrived at seven, in jeans and a black T-shirt, after his walk on the beach. And Devon was still wearing the shorts and pink tank top she’d been wearing while painting all afternoon. She had just finished a small painting of a brightly colored bird that had caught her eye that morning. It was like a beautiful little jewel. It was still sitting on her easel to dry, and she was cleaning her brushes when he arrived. He saw she had a splash of peacock-blue paint in her hair. The painting of the deer was on another easel, finished and drying.
She looked so beautiful and natural and innocent when he walked into the room, with the last rays of sun pouring over her hair like molten gold, that she took his breath away, and he walked across the room and kissed her so hard and so long that she couldn’t breathe when he stopped.
“I missed you today,” he said in the same husky voice she had heard earlier. His obsession with her had gotten the better of him all afternoon, and he could think of nothing else. Without stopping to ask her, he slowly peeled off her tank top, and held her breasts in his hands and bent to kiss them. She didn’t stop him, and reached down and unbuttoned his jeans. The brushes she’d been cleaning fell to the floor, as she and Charlie devoured each other like two starving people. Twenty-three years of a life without love overwhelmed him, and sixteen years of her own loneliness turned into a tidal wave of desire, as he carried her to her bed not far from where they stood. Their clothes vanished instantly, and their bodies took over, begging for each other and crying out for love. They fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, and were driven to heights neither of them could remember. It was dark in the room when their lovemaking ended, and they lay next to each other, trying to catch their breath. Charlie looked at her and smiled.
“I’m sorry, Devon . . . I went crazy thinking about you all day.”
“Me too,” she whispered with a small smile, running her hand lightly over his body again. They had been swept away by their passion, with no regrets. She propped herself up on one elbow, lying on her side as she looked at him seriously. “I’ve never made love with a married man before,” she said thoughtfully. “It didn’t seem right.” And she knew that technically, it still wasn’t now. But after everything he had said, she didn’t feel guilty. He had said he was a free man, and she believed him. She had given herself to him heart and soul.
“I’m not married in that way,” Charlie reminded her. “And it was never like this.” For an instant, he felt as though Devon owned him now, and the thought of it terrified him and excited him all at the same time, and he wanted her again.
They made love until they couldn’t anymore. They ended up in the shower, with the hot water pelting down on them. She looked up at him adoringly, and he thought he had never loved any woman more. He had never known anyone like her, so full of talent and kindness, passion and tenderness.
“I never want to leave you again,” he whispered to her. He knew it was too soon to say it, but it was how he felt. They both had years of pent-up emotions and unfulfilled dreams and longing to bring to each other. “Are you hungry?” he asked as they got out of the shower and he admired her perfect body, as she admired his. They had come far in a short time.
“I’m too happy to be hungry.” She smiled at him. “Are you?”
“Starving,” he admitted. “I know an all-night diner in Bridgehampton. Do you want to go?” he asked, and she laughed. She was pleasantly exhausted but willing to go anywhere with him. They dressed and locked up the barn, and twenty minutes later they were on the way to Bridgehampton. The diner was like something out of a time warp, and there were lots of young people there, and some truck drivers off the main road. Charlie ordered a steak, and she had waffles that were delicious, and when they finished, they went back to the barn.
They took off their clothes and climbed into her big comfortable bed. They were too tired to make love again. It had been a perfect night, and she smiled thinking that it was the first time in years she had spent the night with a man. The moonlight was shining through the tall windows in the barn, and Charlie whispered to her. She was already half asleep.
“I have to leave early tomorrow. I have a meeting.”
“Uh-huh,” she mumbled and drifted off to sleep, as he looked down at her with love in his eyes, and then fitted his body around her, and fell asleep himself.
When Devon woke in the morning, Charlie was gone. She vaguely remembered his saying something about a meeting but she couldn’t remember what. He had left her a note that said only, “I’ll call you . . . thank you for the happiest night of my life . . . love, C.” It had been the happiest of hers in a long time too. She thought about him as she drank a cup of coffee. He was starving for love in so many ways. She had been alone and lonely for such a long time, and she had lost so many people she loved. Now Charlie had appeared, like an answer to a prayer. She hadn’t even been praying for a man in her life. She accepted it as it was. She didn’t want more than she had. She thought love was behind her, in the past, and now here he was, exploding with passion and love. It changed everything. She wondered what they would do when he went back to California at the end of August. He said he traveled all the time, so hopefully they would work it out. And she had four commissions to do between September and the end of the year, so she had her commitments too.
She assumed she would hear from Charlie by the end of the day, for a walk on the beach, or dinner, or another night of passion. She was surprised he didn’t send her a text, but assumed he was busy, and she didn’t know if the meeting was in the city or remote. She didn’t remember what he’d said. And she didn’t want to disturb him. She played around with a painting she had started and hadn’t finished, but lost interest in it after half an hour, thinking about him, and eager to see him again.
By the end of the day, she hadn’t heard from him, and was worried. She wondered if something had gone wrong at the meeting. At ten o’clock that night she called him, and it went to voicemail. She just said she was thinking about him, and hung up. He had said he would call her, so it seemed strange he didn’t. She finally fell asleep, sure she’d hear from him in the morning. Something might have happened to him. He could have had an accident on the road. She forced herself not to think of anything dramatic in the morning. He had only left her bed twenty-four hours before, and he had only been out of touch for a day. She wasn’t going to make a big deal of it when he called. He had only just walked into her life. She couldn’t be needy and unreasonable. She was a grown woman and had been alone for sixteen years. She could survive a day or two without him. She didn’t own him and he had heavy responsibilities, she reminded herself. A crisis could have come up at the meeting that he was dealing with. But how long did it take to write a text? There were two voices in her head, Reason and Panic, and she was trying to walk a tightrope between the two.
By the end of the day, she still hadn’t heard from him and sent him a text that said only, “Are you okay?” There was no immediate answer and none by the next morning. By then, she was sure that something was wrong. But she had no one to call to ask. He hadn’t answered her phone message or her text. And he wasn’t the kind of man to make love to her and disappear for three days. He was attentive and kind. She felt ridiculous calling hospitals to look for him. She wasn’t going to just show up at his house. There might be people there, still in a meeting.
By the end of the third day, she was in despair, and there was a familiar knot in her stomach she hadn’t felt in years. She had felt that knot the night Jean-Louis didn’t come home from work. He was gone all night and she was livid, thinking he was having an affair. They had had an argument that morning over something stupid, and it didn’t warrant staying out all night. She had thought of going to the restaurant where he worked, but didn’t want to make a scene.
It had taken the police a full twenty-four hours to come to her apartment and tell her Jean-Louis had died.
All the same familiar feelings washed over her now, and she forced them from her mind. She had to force herself to know that if Charlie hadn’t contacted her for three days, there was a reason for it. He was a sensible, responsible man, and he was crazy about her.
She went for a walk on the fourth day to try to stay calm, and that night, anger finally set in. Maybe he was one of those lunatics who convinced you that they were madly in love with you, got you to sleep with them, and then you never heard from them again. It had happened to her once when she was much younger. She had fallen for it, out of loneliness and despair at the time, two years after Jean-Louis died, before Axel got sick, and the guy had just vanished, and called her three months later for a booty call. She had hung up on him. But Charlie wasn’t like that. He couldn’t be. He was an adult, and a responsible, caring man.
On the fifth day, she was livid, with herself. She had been an idiot, and had been played for a fool. His whole sad story about his wife. He was probably just a chronic cheater and had used her like a hooker or a sex toy. She was mortally embarrassed by how gullible she had been. She realized that she didn’t know him at all, and anything was possible. It was all a fantasy, and a bad joke.
She was morbidly depressed when she got up on the sixth day of his silence. There was no explanation by now except that he was a bad guy, and whatever arrangement he had with his wife, she didn’t care. She sent him an ice-cold text that he didn’t respond to, which was no surprise by now. The only valid excuse for his silence by then was if he had been kidnapped or was dead, neither of which seemed likely. As well known as he was, his death would have made the front page. She had looked for it, just in case, but the other scenarios she’d imagined were more likely. She had just been a convenient piece of ass and he’d played a game, and she’d fallen for it like the innocent she was. She blamed herself for being gullible and stupid.
She forced herself to get up and go for a long walk on the beach. It was raining and she didn’t care. The gray weather suited her mood. She was sorry she had ever let him into her life. She felt foolish and used. And worse than that, it had opened old wounds that she thought were long since healed. Her parents, Jean-Louis, Axel, her grandmother. She had lost everyone she loved, through no fault of theirs or her own. They had all died in terrible accidental circumstances, but her heart had read them as abandonments. It had been her nemesis for years, the fear of being abandoned, that it could happen to her again if she loved someone, that she would lose them too. She had only known Charlie for two months, and not consistently—this time for less than two weeks. She had slept with him, which seemed foolish to her now. But the wound he had slashed wide open again had taken years to heal, and he had woken the demons that had tormented her before. The demons of abandonment, when you knew you were alone in the world.
Charlie had reminded her of that fact in spades. She was sure he wasn’t dead in a police morgue somewhere, or unidentified in a hospital, as she had feared at first. He had slept with her, played a game of pretend, and walked out on her as though she were of no consequence whatsoever, and not a word of what he’d said had been true, of how extraordinary she was and how much she meant to him. He had used it as a ploy to get her into bed, and it had worked, which was humiliating. She just had to pull herself up out of the hole again. She was the only one there to do it, and she had to depend on herself and no one else. Charlie had played a game with her. So be it. Now the repair work was up to her.
On the seventh day of his disappearance, she scrubbed her house from top to bottom, reorganized her paints, and inventoried her art supplies to order new ones on Monday to replace what she’d used. She was exhausted by the end of the day, and reminded herself of what a therapist had told her, that she could survive the losses, and she was strong enough to do it. There were mean, evil people in the world and she had just come across one of them. It was bad luck but it wasn’t going to kill her. He hadn’t raped her or injured her. He hadn’t burned her house down or stolen money from her. He was a different kind of thief, who stole hearts and broke them, and preyed on innocents. But she knew better now, and she had the strength she needed to push him out of her head. The wound he had reopened would heal faster this time than her many losses, which had taken years to heal. This was a short unpleasant experience, and she had learned a lesson from it, not to trust charming strangers with her heart.
She had a shot of brandy to calm her nerves before she went to bed, an old recipe of her grandmother’s, and was just falling asleep when her cell phone rang. She had forgotten to put it on silent, after her seven-day vigil waiting to hear from him. She reached for the phone and answered it without checking who it was, and heard a deep, husky, and familiar voice she hadn’t heard in a week, and no longer wanted to hear.
“Devon,” he said cautiously, as she came fully awake and realized who it was.
“Don’t ever call me again,” she said, hung up and turned off the phone. She lay awake for a long time after that, unable to sleep, telling herself she had done the right thing. He didn’t deserve an audience for some lame explanation that was all lies. There was no possible explanation for having cut her off for a week, and refusing to respond to her or even send her a text to reassure her. She tossed and turned and finally fell asleep. As far as she was concerned, Charles Taylor was dead. She was going to tell the gallery to return his deposit to him. She had no intention of doing a portrait of him, or anything else. She glanced at her phone and saw the silenced messages stacking up. She didn’t read them. She wanted nothing to do with him. He had had the use of her body for a night, and had made a fool of her. But the game was over. He didn’t get to come back now and do it again.
She woke up in the morning, feeling slightly hungover from the brandy and the lack of sleep, and seven days of anguish before that. She made herself a cup of coffee, made sure the barn door was locked, and hoped he didn’t show up. She couldn’t stop herself from reading his messages. There were eleven of them, begging her to let him explain. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction and erased them all without responding. She tried to work on a painting, and couldn’t, and went for a run on the beach, far away from where his house was. She wanted to clear her mind and she didn’t want to run into him. He had humiliated her enough, and genuinely hurt her.
He called her six more times, and sent seven texts. She stopped reading them, and didn’t answer his calls. His calls made her feel anxious, but she tried to ignore them. He called her six more times that night, and left messages, begging her to just speak to him once and after that he’d leave her alone. She thought about it, and wondered if she was being cowardly. She hadn’t done anything wrong; he had. When he called while she was drinking her morning coffee, she answered, and braced herself for whatever he was going to say.
“Stop calling me,” she said for openers. “You had no problem ignoring me all last week. Pretend it’s last week. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. Leave me alone.”
“Devon, I understand. Truly, I’m sorry. I ended up with a crisis at the meeting last week, it went on for fourteen hours, and I was exhausted afterward. I was going to call you. I flew to California the next day, and was in meetings all week. By the time I got out, it was too late to call you every night.”
