It was a simple sketch. One his advisor in art school would have called “pedestrian” and “it’s always good to practice, isn’t it?” That man never cared for Zack’s sketches, anyway. He was more interested in what Zack could mold, be it with clay, stone, or even wood. There wasn’t a single art medium Zack wouldn’t try, although after ten years of intensely going at this whole art thing, he definitely had his favorites. Wood was not high up there.
Neither was sketching or painting, truth be told. But Zack’s best ideas flowed when he put images down on paper first.
He didn’t bother with a lot of shading. Nor did he draw anything below the table, opting to instead depict the young woman as she looked – hand on head, elbow on table, pencil thumping against her dictionary as she inevitably gave up on whatever she worked on.
What’s keeping you from working, my dear? Those were the kinds of questions Zack asked his subjects when he attempted to crack their hardened veneers. What’s got you so tense? Is it money? What’s it like to worry about how you’re going to pay your rent? Zack had never worried about that, but he admitted that kind of life – on the other side of the mirror, as it were – was like for those forced to live it. Is your work hard? What are you working on? Translating? Writing from scratch? Or are you studying for school? Ah, I don’t mean to be rude when I say you look a bit old for a student. In a good way, though. I’m tired of college co-eds. Zack was finally reaching that age, he supposed.
His phone buzzed with a new text. The message was from Seth.
“Dinner on your yacht?”
Seth was never that direct, unless he was chewing his best friend out.
“Pplleeeassssseee??”
What the fuck? Zack wanted to laugh if it wouldn’t disrupt his workflow. That kind of text was so uncharacteristic for the uptight ex-doctor who gave up his whole private practice to pursue his true calling in the arts. Seth would choke on his own brushes before texting that to any man, let alone Zack, who would never let him live it down.
“Sure, Judith.” It must have come from his girlfriend. How Judith got a hold of her boyfriend’s phone like that, Zack didn’t want to know. I kinda do. Again, distractions.
When Zack put his phone down again, he noticed his new muse was gone. Her stuff remained behind, however. She must have gone to the bathroom.
Just as well. Zack had shit he needed to do. He shoved his lemon cake into his bag and took a big gulp of his latte. The last thing he did, after putting the rest of his supplies away, was rip the sketch out of the pad and approach the barista rearranging the case.
“Could you give this to the young lady over there?” he said. “I’d appreciate it.”
The barista looked between the sketch and the man who drew it. “But, this is…”
“I don’t need it.” Zack lowered his sunglasses and turned toward the door. “I got all the inspiration I need, thanks.”
The sun was warm on his skin and the air smelled of the marina only a few more blocks away. To go home to start working… or the marina to play?
Zack loved that his day became unpredictable. No other kind of life was worth living.
***
Rachel returned from the bathroom, a bit crestfallen that the handsome stranger was gone. So much for the eye candy. Did this mean she had to get back to work?
Apparently not.
“Hey, Rachel.” Parvati approached her table even though a small line formed at the counter. A piece of paper was in her hand. “You know that hot guy sitting over there?”
“Uh, yeah? What? Did he stiff you? Harass you?” Rachel knew it. Men that hot never kept their business to themselves.
She did not expect to see a sketch of herself land on top of her mobile office.
“He told me to give this to you before he left.”
Rachel snatched the drawing paper and held it between both hands. Her eyes widened to see her at work, pretending to ignore Mr. Hot Artist as if he were a man who could be ignored.
He was drawing me that whole time? He… noticed me? He acknowledged my presence?
And he never even said hello?
“What an asshole!” That sneer echoed off the café walls. The two other patrons, each minding their own business, looked up at her. “Least he could’ve done was introduce himself!”
Parvati rolled her eyes. “I’ve gotta get back to work. Have fun with your own. You should frame that, by the way. It’s pretty good, huh?”
While she took a middle-aged woman’s order for a hazelnut latte, Rachel continued to stare, dumbfounded, at the way a total stranger had decided to depict her.
Then she marveled at how big his balls were. Because only a guy with big balls could have thought it acceptable to not only sketch a stranger, but to give her the sketch as well!
No name. No phone number.
Just the slight scent of his cologne. A bit of musk mixed with a hint of something that smelled like pure sea air.
Rachel’s heart and mind vied over what was going to break first. Her brain won.
Chapter 3
Crash!
The top half of Zack’s latest piece – tentatively titled The Siren That Stole My Soul –cracked into two on the floor of his art studio. He likewise tossed his supplies, because they weren’t going to do him any good now.
“This is what happens when we get started on a Sunday.” Every artist, like every sportsman or fisherman, had his superstitions. Those tried and true “dos and don’ts” that would either make or break his day. One of Zack’s was Never start a new project on a Sunday. Continuing a project was fine. Finishing one up was considered fortuitous for the project’s success. Starting one, however, was like cursing himself. Every time he made the attempt, it blew up in his face.
Or broke in half and smashed onto his floor. That worked, too.
At least he hadn’t lost a ton of work. Last night, he was stricken with inspiration. The kind that forced him out of bed and to one of five lightboxes he owned, the one in the corner of his bedroom. The others were here in his studio, on his yacht, in his living room overlooking the river, and in the otherwise untouched room of his adolescence on his family’s estate. That one was my first. A gift from his father, back when his family found it charming that their youngest son was interested in the arts.
The drawing had manifested into an image of a young woman upon the rocks, the water crashing against her mermaid’s tale. The tail is an illusion, though. The water transforms it into a trident, meant to spear a sailor’s heart and force him to plummet to his death. Growing up around the water gave Zack a unique perspective when it came to the wonders – and horrors – of the open sea.
He loved the harrowing tales sailors and pirates told over the centuries. Zack had a humble collection of diaries, biographies, and other non-fiction books that told of life on the seas way back when it was the only way to get from one landmass to another.
So his siren wasn’t the most conventional image men had when they thought of a beautiful young woman wishing to end their lives. Zack’s siren was humbler. An everyday woman of size and beauty. Her hair was ratted by the sea water. Her eyes gleamed green. Her skin was tanned from the sunlight, and her fish tail slimy and powerful. He had been excited to get to work. He knew there was a reason he had that slab of marble ready to go in his studio. It had been destined for The Siren That Stole My Soul.
Until he knocked it into two, anyway.
Zack sat on his paint-covered stool and surveyed his mess. The siren’s shoulder had barely been formed when she decided to fuck with him. It’s fine. From this, I can create two smaller pieces. He’d find a way to rework that shoulder into a fish tail to account for the new proportions. Perhaps he would do two acts. The first would be the traditional feminine beauty. The second would be the monster the sailor saw when it was too late.
“Could I get any more literal?” Zack buried his face in his hand. “What a waste of perfectly good marble.”
The price didn’t concern him. The logistics, however, would be something else. His supplier would chastise him for wanting more without a show to account for. But the reason Zack put up with the supplier’s artistic outrage was because they went to art school together.
Zack didn’t like his works to be literal. He wanted them to make people look twice. To see the hidden meaning on the second pass. To understand his view of the world. To see…
“Fuck it.” He hopped off the stool and checked his phone for messages. That early on a Sunday morning? Nothing. “Fuuuuck itttt.”
He knew what was wrong.
That woman he had seen twenty-four hours before.
For some reason, Zack hadn’t been able to shake her image from his head. Whoever she was, she had been the inspirational ticket he had been searching for. He understood that more with every hour that passed. And he had no idea how to find her, unless he camped out at that café every day, hoping to see her again.
Nah. That was ridiculous. There were millions of beautiful women out there, eager to be his models and muses. I should know. I’ve slept with enough of them. Zack had done entire collections on his love life and the many kinds of women he had enjoyed in bed.
The woman he saw the day before wasn’t the most striking. Not the most well-dressed. Certainly not the most expensive. She was refreshingly normal, and sometimes that triggered Zack’s creativity better than some of the Nordic and Brazilian supermodels he had dated.