Michael had rechecked the charcoal image so many times in the last five hours that the creased fibers of the paper had finally disintegrated. He stacked the pieces carefully and returned them to the secret pocket of his leather-bound book. After all these years the boy had returned.
Why?
Michael closed the sketchbook and slid it to the side of the desk. Better to spend his time on questions that could be answered.
Where could he find Julius Amodei?
Michael scrolled down the web list displayed on the hotel’s computer screen, hoping a different internet access from a computer with a different search history would provide different results. Unfortunately, this computer brought up the same hits he had seen on his laptop back home.
How could a prominent Brazilian art collector be so hard to find in his own country?
The door to the business center opened, admitting the ambient noise from the lobby and his exuberant agent.
“I looked for you in the restaurant. You missed one helluva breakfast.”
Michael nodded toward a cloth napkin, loosely wrapped around half-dozen balls of pão de queijo. “Got some.”
“Ooh, cheesy bread. May I?”
She stuffed an entire ball into her mouth and squeezed herself into the chair at the adjoining computer station.
“I love Brazil.” She licked the butter from her fingers. “What’re you doing?”
“Checking my emails.”
“What’s wrong with your laptop?”
“Didn’t bring it.”
“Your phone?”
“Charging.”
“Tablet?”
“You’re nosy this morning.”
“This morning?” Jackson chuckled and snagged Michael’s leather-bound book with one of her long, pink nails. “What’s this?”
Michael clasped his hands to keep from snatching back the book. If she thought he didn’t want her to look inside, she’d never let it go.
“These are incredible. How did I not know you did this?”
She settled on a sketch he had done the previous day of a lone sunbather reclining in the shallows of the rooftop pool, back arched, face to the sun, knee bent to repeat the shape of the Twin Brothers Mountain behind her. Unlike his abstract paintings, Michael penciled with realistic detail, from the grains of wood on the privacy walls to the steel bolts fastening the glass railings. If Jackson looked closely enough, she might even see Michael’s reflection drawn into the wood-framed ear-shaped mirrors that hung on the wall behind the lounge chairs.
Michael gave her a satisfied smirk. “Unobservant?”
“Amusing. But seriously.” She thumbed back through the other sketches. “I don’t even know what to say. These are phenomenal.”
“They’re just snapshots—places I’ve been, things I’ve seen. They’re not show-worthy.”
“Excuse me? You’re just the artist. I decide what is or is not show-worthy.”
She fanned back to a drawing of an animated couple sipping cappuccinos at a Venice Beach sidewalk café while a sparrow stole crumbs off the edge of their table. Jackson shook her head then peered at Michael as if she had never truly seen him before.
“Have you always done this?”
“What?”
“Recorded life with such painstaking detail.”
He shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“I’ve always thought of you as a grand conceptualist—huge canvases, vibrant colors, evocative themes. But these intricate little drawings?” She shook her head in wonder. “I have to admit, I’m surprised you can even see in black and white. I mean, come on. Michael Stark without color?”
Michael stiffened, remembering that awful day when Julius Amodei had appeared on his doorstep weeks before Michael’s professional debut.
You draw with charcoal because you are handicapped, Senhor Cross. This is not art. This is weakness.
Even now, ten years later, his mentor’s words stung.
“It was a simple question, Cross.”
“Sorry. I just spaced out. What did you want to know?”
“Have you ever tried using charcoals?” When he didn’t immediately answer, she touched her pink nail to the bottom of his chin and lifted his jaw. “Don’t gape, darling. You’re not a fish.”
He closed his mouth and shook his head, at an utter loss as to how he was supposed to answer such a loaded question. Should he tell her how deeply Amodei had betrayed him, showing up at Michael’s college art event, convincing him to move to Venice Beach, setting him up with a gallery, then telling him his work was shit? Or should he tell her what he had done to those charcoals after Amodei had left?
He shuddered.
How could he explain the fury he had felt alone in his apartment? Or the hysteria that had arisen as he ran through the alleys of Venice Beach hunting for Amodei? Or the disgust he had felt upon returning home and having all those accusing eyes watching him from the walls? He had let them down, every one of them. His subjects had opened their souls, trusted him to tell their stories with skill and empathy, and he had made a mockery of their suffering or so he had felt at the time after hearing his mentor’s cruel denouncement.
He shouldn’t have been surprised. His mother had done the same, and his father, and his college girlfriend. Everyone who ever supported Michael had turned against him when he didn’t fulfill their dreams and agendas. Even his guardian spirits—who had always been there to comfort and guide him—had abandoned him when he had needed them most. Why should Julius Amodei have been any different? Why should Jackson?
He closed his sketchbook, slid it out of her hands, and bound it with its leather strap.
Maybe one day he’d trust her enough to tell her why he had torn down every charcoal portrait in the apartment, piled them in the fireplace, and burned them all to ash.