Intimate Portraits (32 page)

Rennie and Sarita.

Autumn wanted to ask, to break in
and demand Rennie tell her it wasn’t true, that he hadn’t done what Fran said
he’d done.

But he had. She could look at his
face and see.

I don’t believe it. Answer him, Rennie.
Tell him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Tell him you didn’t love
Sarita.

Instead, Rennie shook his head. “Don’t
do this to our friendship, Francisco. Don’t do this to yourself. You’re worth a
dozen Saritas, can’t you see that? She was a cheat and a liar. She was a waste
of your time and mine.”

Fran jerked as if yanked by a
string attached to his body. Pain, pure, jagged, white-hot pain showed before
he turned away. Pain that she understood and empathized with. When he turned
back, bleakness remained. “You shouldn’t use Autumn to get back at me for
Sarita, Rennie.”

“Francisco. Don’t you know me
better than that? I love Autumn. I hope she’ll marry me.”

The unsolicited, clear
declaration that once would have given her everything she desired, filtered
through her mind and heart.

This is what I wanted. I should
be happy. I am happy.

Fran swung toward her. “Is that
true?”

I am happy.
She hadn’t waited all these
years, longed for Rennie all this time, dreamed of him all those lonely nights,
to turn his proposal down. No matter how forced it was.

She loved him and wouldn’t throw
away her opportunity to have him. No matter how numb her heart had become after
imagining him with Sarita, she still loved him. “If that was a proposal, Rennie,
I accept. Yes, Fran, I love him.”

Strange how calm she sounded. No
one could tell her heart was broken.

Fran didn’t want to believe her. “Even
if he’s using you?”

Strength returned. She could
overlook anything. Jane, Sarita, however many women Rennie had known in the
past.

She didn’t care. She was his
lover now and that was all that mattered.

But the image of him and Sarita
together still cut through her. Why hadn’t he told her?

Because she was an outsider,
because she would never be the one he turned to with his intimate sorrows and
joys. Because she was and would ever remain on the outside.

“Even if he’s using you, Autumn?”
Fran persisted.

She glanced at Rennie. A
melancholy hinted at the faint unhappiness she had suspected before.

That shadow isn’t there because
he’s thinking of Sarita. He’s upset because of what Fran is saying. He’s
worried about Fran.

She clung to that belief.

Rennie spoke to his brother, but
his words were for her. “I’m not using Autumn, Francisco. I would never use
Autumn.”

“Nobody’s using me for anything,
Fran.” Her voice was her own, clear and prosaic despite how disembodied she
felt, how separate from everything around her.
Sarita and Rennie.
“I’m
surprised you’d say such a thing about your brother. He’s right. You should
know him better than that.”

“Should I?” Fran’s teeth flashed but
his grin was mirthless. He didn’t take his eyes off Rennie, but Rennie didn’t
flinch. “If you’re not trying to get back at me, then you’re using Autumn to
take your mind off somebody you can’t have. Either way, it’s wrong.”

Autumn’s gut clenched. At some
point Rennie had loosed her fingers or she had pulled away from him. Her hands
hurt. She was gripping them together too tightly.

“I wouldn’t do anything like that
to Autumn, Francisco. Not to anyone, but especially not to Autumn. And I can’t
believe you’d think that.” Rennie’s voice was quieter than before. The skin over
his cheeks and around his eyes was so tight she could see his bones. “I care
too much for her. I hope she knows that.”

“Of course I do.” That was her
own voice so calm, so reassuring, so matter-of-fact.

Rennie’s tightness relaxed. He
pried her clenched hands apart and tucked one through his arm. “Isn’t it time
we left to meet the others at the High? They’ll be wondering where we are.”

Outside, the day was bright, with
blue skies and fleecy white clouds and fifty degree temperatures better suited
to March than December. The building shadows remained minimal, allowing the sun
leeway to fall on parked cars and pedestrians alike.

The exceptional weather was
wasted on Autumn. The ten minute walk to the High Museum between the two men was
interminable, with Fran stiff and removed on one side of her while Rennie’s
fingers entwined with hers on the other. No joy bubbled up as it should from Rennie’s
proposal.

She wouldn’t cry, no matter how
she felt like it.

****

The building housing the High
Museum of Arts rises like a modern fortress at Peachtree and Sixteenth Street. Its
poured concrete seems to be all circles and squares and glass. Large white
porcelain tiles frame and protect the sides and give it a dazzling pristine
appearance. Designed by architect Richard Meier, the striking edifice houses
Atlanta’s art treasures and hosts visiting exhibits from around the world. Atlantans
take great pride in the High.

As Autumn and the two brothers
approached the ramp, she ignored the large and hideous modern sculpture that towered
over the grounds beyond. Even the graceful statue in the Rodin tradition that
surveyed the sidewalk from their left barely warranted a glance. The tension
between Rennie and Fran consumed her. She ought to do something but she didn’t
know what.

Their feet clomped on the walk as
they went toward the curved underbelly of the building that housed the
entrance. Two hardy souls ate lunch beside a merrily playing fountain below
them, but the usual lines of impatient school kids were absent.

Good. She didn’t think she could
stand the noise. Not with the headache forming in her right temple.

Inside the lobby, Norma and Laney
chatted with a security man and the admittance attendant until Laney caught
sight of them. “Oh, there they are! Come on, Norma. Autumn, we heard about the
fire. What happened? Did anything get saved?”

In the light-filled atrium,
Rennie dropped her arm as the sisters threw question after question at her. In
the flurry of answers and explanations and exclamations, Fran’s tightlipped
silence went unnoticed along with Autumn’s tension.

She was grateful Rennie sensed
her confusion and had stepped aside so that he wouldn’t subject her to more of
his sisters’ scrutiny. After Fran’s attack, she couldn’t deal with Laney’s
excitement and Norma’s squeals if they realized what was going on between her
and Rennie.

Or worse, their censure. They had
matched Rennie up with Victoria Montezela and might disapprove of Autumn’s
horning in.

One other thing to worry about.
Oh,
my head.

Before they started up the ramp
to the exhibit on the third floor, John appeared. In the flurry of Laney’s
affectionate greetings, Fran tried to excuse himself from the tour. “I don’t
need to be wasting time here.” His glance challenged Rennie and rebuked Autumn.

“Not a waste of time,” said John.
“Good PR.”

With that, and in the face of his
two sisters' indignation, Fran sulkily agreed to stay a few minutes, but strode
on toward the elevators without waiting for anyone.

On the third floor,
Ornaments
for the Human Body
was being presented. The spectacular jewelry lay behind
sparkling glass, in high and low cases, and throughout different galleries. Viewers
wandered at leisure, pausing to admire and rave to bystanders.

John and Fran fell back,
surveying the crowds while Laney dragged Autumn to the first case. Norma, who
had quarreled with Paul, tagged along with her sister and Autumn, anxious to
confide details. “Then I told him if he couldn’t come today after Dani had gone
to the trouble to get us passes, not to bother coming over tonight. Can you
blame me?”

Autumn’s head throbbed. Rennie
moved up beside her to stare at a sumptuous jeweled tiara.

Laney, attention torn away from
the tiara to counsel her sister, groaned. “Norma, do you like Paul?”

“Of course I like him.”

“Well, you act like you’re trying
to drive him away. You can’t expect a man to take criticism all the time and
still hang around.”

“I don’t criticize him. But I’m
not going to be a doormat either.”

Norma would never let a man, any
man, walk all over her. Not like Autumn.

She put two fingers to her aching
temple.

As the sisters moved away, arguing
the merits of playing hard-to-get versus ready-to-fall, John and Fran strolled
up discussing campaign issues.

Fran hadn’t said one word to
Autumn or Rennie on the way to the museum or after entering.

Good grief, if she wasn’t
careful, she would alienate the entire Degardovera family.

As if reading her mind, Rennie
took her arm and led her to the next case, where they stopped and pretended to
be looking inside at the glitter of precious gems and metals.

She couldn’t focus.

After an awkward silence, he
said, “About Sarita and me.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation,
Rennie.” She didn’t want to hear what he had to say, not here in the museum
after their confrontation with Fran, when her defenses were down and she was so
miserable. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to hear anything about Sarita from
him.

He put a hand against the glass protecting
items worn centuries before. “When I first went out to Los Angeles, Sarita
looked me up. Mom had told her mother that I was out there, and her mother told
Sarita. You know we were in high school together. We’d worked on projects and
gone to the prom and done other things together. She was a different person
then. Still promiscuous, but I liked her sense of humor. Her optimism. She was
always upbeat. And she was fun. When she called, I was glad to hear from her.”

“It doesn’t matter, Rennie.” Her
stomach twisted. “I don’t need to hear this.”

She had fought her personal
demons concerning Rennie’s relationship with Jane and had put them aside when
he’d said he didn’t miss Jane anymore and that he loved her, Autumn.

But an affair with Sarita was
different.

Rennie himself had described Sarita
as every man’s fantasy. She’d wondered if he fantasized about Sarita, longed
for her like other men, but until today she hadn’t let herself be tormented by
it.

To discover he actually had
fantasized about Sarita, gone further…

Rennie and Sarita had been
lovers.

There, she’d faced it. There was
something else she had to face. Could any ordinary woman live up to Sarita’s
memory? After having been with Sarita, would Rennie be satisfied with a
nonentity like Autumn?

Her heart felt as if it weighed
ten tons.

Rennie’s hand dropped from the
glass. His shoulder touched hers as they stared at some sort of jade pendant
collection that she later remembered little about except that it lay on cream
colored velveteen.

“Come over here so we can talk.”

She didn’t want to talk, but he
pulled her to a side corner. So close his breath warmed her ear, he said, “Autumn,
I never loved Sarita. Not like I love you, not even like I loved Jane. Sarita came
to see me and she looked lost, like… And I was homesick as anything, out there
by myself with no friends, no family, not much money. She was just starting to
make it. Having someone like her interested in me was flattering. And she
seemed as glad to see me as I was to see someone from home.”

“Rennie, you don’t have to tell
me this.”
I don’t want to know.

“I do have to tell you, Autumn.
You’ve entitled to know what I am. With Sarita, I thought I was helping her.
Then I got sucked in and… I told myself I loved her. But it wasn’t love. It was
something else. Sex. Weakness. I don’t know. By the time I realized what she
was, I was in real deep.”

He kept his mouth at her ear, not
looking at her. “She liked to take men and wrap them up in knots. One man died
because she set him against his friend. Oh, she liked kinky sex and group sex
and whatever else was in fashion. Designer drugs, too. But she really got off
on getting men to fight over her. The blood, the idea that they were ready to
kill each other over her… It jacked her up like… I woke up one morning and
realized I hated myself and had to get out. I told her I had to concentrate on
my studies. And I did.”

She could imagine the scene. He’d
had plenty of experience at telling a lovesick female he would be her friend
but not her lover, that she’d find someone else. He’d make it seem so logical,
be so reasonable.

She knew firsthand how smooth he
could make it.

“Was she upset?” How could she
sound so calm?

“Upset? You could say that.” Rennie
gave something like a chuckle. A bitter chuckle. “I don’t know why. I was
simply another man to her. I sent her flowers like Francisco said, but it was
to soften my leaving. Not in hopes of making up with her. I had no intentions
of getting involved with her again. Ever.”