Tak switched the sleek black phone from the left to the right ear, a piece of charcoal for sketching in his hand. He frowned slightly at the canvas before him.
His excited declaration was met with sniffles.
"Baby? Baby, what"s wrong?"
"Nothing," Deena said. "The Herald is-is wonderful news. And you work so hard. You deserve the recognition."
"Yeah, but why are you crying?"
"I"m fine, Tak. Just...having a rotten day. A really rotten day."
Tak stepped back from the rough sketch of Miami"s skyline and frowned. There was a discrepancy between the buildings and its reflection in the bay. It needed a do-over.
"I"m listening," he said "I just-I just fired like two hundred people and the investors are angry at me and-and Sam and Donald called me a wh.o.r.e and-"
He dropped his charcoal. "What?"
"I said that I fired-"
He shook his head. He didn"t know how Deena could fire anyone or who in the h.e.l.l Sam and Donald were, but he"d be d.a.m.ned if he wouldn"t know shortly.
"Hey, hold on., You"re at work, right? I"m coming to you."
He hung up before she could protest, grabbed the keys to his Ferrari and made tracks for The Tanaka Firm.
Tak popped the top on a Bud Light and handed it to Deena before returning to the cooler to get another for himself. She took it with a grateful sigh. They sat in silence with the hot sand beneath them and the cool and glistening waves before them. On the horizon, the sea and sky were a seamless and perfect blue, indistinguishable in the distance.
Tak waited for her to finish her beer and then spoke. "So, how are you feeling?"
Deena shrugged and eventually gave a deep inhale.
"A little better. The view is nice. The company nicer."
"That"s good. So who was it again that called you a wh.o.r.e?" he said impatiently.
"What?"
"You said on the phone that someone called you a wh.o.r.e. Who was it?"
"Oh. That. Just these guys at the firm. Sam and Donald."
"Well, do Sam and Donald have last names?"
"Tak, there"s no reason-"
"Last names, Dee."
She shot him a pained expression. "Sam Michaels and Donald Mason."
"Michaels. Mason. Got it."
"Tak, what are going to do? Are you going to get them fired?"
He would"ve preferred feeding them his fists, but yes, fired would have to do.
"Nothing. I"m not going to do anything," he lied. "Here"s an idea. How about we just enjoy the breeze and try to forget about this day?" He stretched out on his back, hands behind his head, his face being warmed by the heavens.
"Oh. Let me say this first. Then we forget. A couple things. I talk; you listen." When she nodded, he proceeded.
Tak held up a finger. "One, you"re not responsible for all those layoffs."
"But-"
"Let"s review the rules. I talk; you listen."
Deena sighed.
"Second," another finger joined the first. "You"re not an intern, but an architect. A brilliant one, with more talent than my father even."
"Tak, your father-"
"What amazes me is that despite your brilliance, you"re having trouble with these simple rules. I talk. You listen." He shot her a look of impatience. She met it with stony silence.
"Three. You don"t owe anyone anything, not even your grandparents. And four, you"re not a wh.o.r.e."
He sat up. "Look at me."
"I am looking at you."
"No. Really look at me." He beckoned her with a single finger. When she leaned in, he cradled her face with both hands. "You"re not a wh.o.r.e. You"re not a wh.o.r.e. And you"re not a wh.o.r.e."
He smiled at the glisten in her eyes. "Now, you tell me."
Deena took a deep breath. "I"m not a wh.o.r.e."
"And you"re everything a man would want."
She blushed.
"Say it."
"And-and I"m everything a man would want."
He lay back down and returned his gaze to the sky.
"What is it that you want, Dee?"
"Want?"
"Yeah. " Want." Is it your family"s acceptance or their love that you want?"
She hesitated. "Their love, I guess."
"And if you never get it? Could you be happy?"
"Could anyone?" she asked in disbelief.
Tak sat up. "Did it ever occur to you that might find the very thing you want somewhere else?"
"I don"t know what you mean."
"I mean with me, Dee. With my family. This thing that you think is beyond your reach-well, maybe it isn"t. Maybe you"re just looking at wrong."
She blinked profusely, cheeks tinged with red.
"If this is a marriage proposal, Tak, it"s a pretty s.h.i.tty one," she said finally, smiling.
Tak grinned. "Duly noted. Work on presentation skills before proposal."
Deena rolled her eyes.
"Tak, please, this is all talk. Your father doesn"t even know about us."
"We could tell him."
"I can"t tell him. You said he would hate it. And I can"t have him hating me when, for the first time in my life..." Deena trailed off, head shaking, bursting with words she couldn"t bring herself to say.
"For the first time in your life, what?" Tak said carefully.
"It"s just that everything in my life is a fight. Work, family. Being with you is the only time I get to just be. Don"t take that from me. Not yet."
Tak exhaled in defeat.
"O.k.," he said. "Alright."
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO.
For Deena"s first gallery showing, she was nervous, even more so than Tak. A write-up in The Herald meant the possibility of a huge turnout. Any sort of buzz for an artist was good, but she knew Tak"s art had undergone a drastic departure and worried that attendees might resent the lack of nefarious underpinnings he"d come to be known for. His art these days was decidedly more self-indulgent.
Tak and Deena arrived at Frankfurt P"s Art Gallery at 6:30, some thirty minutes before the opening reception for the private exhibition. The single double doors on an a.s.suming stretch of sidewalk gave no hint of the gallery"s enormity. Maple hardwood floors, ecru walls, and cream paneled cathedral ceilings combined to give the room an understated elegance. Each of Tak"s paintings were mounted on a stretch of wall or a fit of easel and made prominent with an una.s.suming spotlight.
Once introduced to Deena, the gallery"s owner, Tate Hutchinson, chatted idly with Tak about the buzz his opening night had generated. Hutchinson was a fifty-something-year-old with the purchased body of a man half his age and the annoying habit of wearing shades indoors.
"Jana and I are expecting an awesome turn out," Tate said to Deena, a gla.s.s of red wine in hand. Jana was his wife.
"This guy"s a rising star. Soon he"ll be bailing on Frankfurt P"s for the grandeur of Paris." Hutchinson rolled his eyes in exaggerated fashion. "As it is, I"ve already got to share him with those bozos in Manhattan."
With a grin, Tate slapped Tak"s back good-naturedly.
Boredom plain on his face, Tak turned from Tate to Deena. His gaze traveled the length of her discreetly. She wore a simple cream dress, the neck of which plunged to reveal just a hint of cleavage. A thin strand of shimmering pearls and sleek cream pumps completed the ensemble. Deena smiled at the furtive attention.
"Let me get you some wine." Tak took her hand and led her to a broad banquet table covered with cream cloth.
"You look delicious," Tak murmured.
Deena blushed. "Delicious?"
Tak paused to open a bottle of merlot and pour her a gla.s.s. He handed it to her with a smile. "Delicious," he reiterated. "Appetizing. Mouthwatering. Succulent."
The doors opened and a cl.u.s.ter of five entered.
"Game time," he said. He gave her a hurried kiss, threw back the merlot he knew she wouldn"t drink, and disappeared towards the crowd.
As the gallery erupted with life, quickly, Deena lost Tak to the crowd. He moved from group to group, working the room like a silver-spooned socialite, clearly in his element among the people. He had the talent of his father and the social graces of a debutante. People were drawn to him, wanted to hear what he thought, what influenced him, what made him. He took their compliments with a gracious smile and a humble word, made them laugh with effortless quips and always, always thanked them for their interest.
For Deena, the whole picture that was Tak.u.mi Tanaka always amazed her. His art always amazed her. There were times when he created things that gave her emotions she couldn"t articulate. She would want to reach out and touch his work, was compelled to do so, but knew she couldn"t. It was the same with these people. They stared at his creations, lifted hands to touch them, hands that waivered with both want and knowledge that they could go no further. His art moved people, inspired joy or sorrow, hope or hopelessness, with an ease that had no equivalent. Deena knew that one day his fame would come from this very thing.
She moved from painting to painting scrutinizing each with a laymen"s eye. A seaside village in blinding shades of amber and sage. A glistening pool of turquoise in an otherwise barren desert. A man and woman locked in naked embrace and near-blotted from view. There were names for each, like Serenity, Respite, Rhapsody. They were in keeping with the emotions they invoked.
Deena continued in this fashion, giving each painting careful attention before stopping at a crush of attendees gathered around a single large canvas. Off to the side Tak and Hutchinson busied themselves in m.u.f.fled disagreement.
A slender white-haired woman peered at the single large canvas as she lifted a gla.s.s of red wine to painted and wrinkled lips. "It"s a transitive piece. Like the caterpillar mid-metamorphosis, if you will. Provocative, yet emotionally layered. A unique insight into women I"d say."
"And brilliant no less," added another, behind her. Still the crowd, so thick, prevented Deena from seeing what they meant.
A portly and balding man draped in black spoke next.
"He"s managed to retain many of the markings of Expressionism-the reliance on emotion as a mainstay, for example. Yet there are unmistakable elements of Impressionism-the visible brush strokes, the emphasis on light, the ordinary subject."
"Ordinary?" balked the white haired woman. "She"s clearly beautiful."
The fat man sighed. "Ethel "ordinary" is hardly an insult. The term is connotative of her accessibility as a woman. The curvature of her frame, for example, is indicative of womanhood as a whole and not the oft times unattainable societal standard of beauty. She is, as my wife would say, "a real woman."
Deena pushed her way through the crowd, now impatient, and found a s.p.a.ce between the bickering pair. She froze at the spread of canvas and could feel the eyes of the crowd on her as she inspected it.
Skin like toffee. Wide gold-flecked eyes. Hair, a thick potpourri of browns. She was naked, save for a crimson scarf snaking up the woman"s ankle, sheathing flesh and curves in its ascent of her body. She clutched the vibrant red fabric in her fists as it unraveled, airborne like a kite. The scarf spread and grew, fanning out before her as it faded from crimson to pink to white.
She was beautiful.
She was free.