The Color of Light (13 page)

The weatherman on 1010 WINS called it a nor’easter first, and then the Halloween Storm. Later on that night it came to be known as the Storm of the Century. But at the American Academy of Classical Art, it was just another Halloween. The skeleton in the anatomy room wore a pirate hat cocked at a jaunty angle. A petrified parrot was wired onto his bony clavicle, the cigarette still clamped between his yellowy teeth. Someone had broken into the case that held the cat and the dog skeletons and dressed them as a bride and groom. A furry black and orange spider zipped up and down a wire suspended from the ceiling near the office, vibrating and emitting spooky electronic moans. First-year students swooped in and out of studios wearing capes and vampire teeth. Michelangelo’s
David
wore a Rastafarian cap and a mass of dreadlocks.

The Naked Masquerade was held in the Great Hall, at street level, where they kept the Michelangelos. Party guests encountered
The Dying
Slave
in the foyer as they entered the double doors leading in from Lafayette Street. For today, the statue sported a sequined gold Speedo.

Inside, a row of fluted Doric columns marched along the borders of the cavernous space. Hundreds of yards of cream-colored fabric gathered in pleats across the ceiling and plunged in deep swags behind the massive statues. A full-scale replica of the
Pietà
was the focal point of the room, occupying its own coffered niche. Replicas of the recumbent figures decorating the tombs of the Medicis,
Dusk, Dawn, Night
and
Day,
were arranged in the four corners of the enormous hall.

All day long, vans pulled up to the curb with deliveries for the Halloween Ball. Uniformed drivers, bent almost double in the driving rain, conveyed saran-wrapped platters of painstakingly styled hors d’ouevres, artisanal breads, meats, crudités, sushi, cheeses, fruits and pastries, then departed, their place at the curb taken almost immediately by the next van.

Waiters and waitresses glided through the crowd, invisibly whisking away lipstick-kissed glasses and replacing empty platters. The men, hired for their physiques as much as their abilities, were stripped bare from the waist up. The waitresses wore bodystockings adorned with a few well-placed feathers and sequins, but as they hurried by hoisting platters over their heads, they looked as naked as artists’ models.

Accustomed to seeing nudes on a daily basis, the students ignored the waiters and gathered in clumps to ooh and aah over the food. A table staggered under the weight of a giant brown sugar glazed turkey and a leg of prosciutto di Parma. Next to the prosciutto, a silver tureen filled with ice was topped with a crystal bowl of smoky gray caviar and all its customary accompaniments, chopped egg, chives, crème fraîche. Silver trays bore battalions of amuse-bouche, each bite an edible art object; a tiny cube of smoked salmon on a tiny cube of black bread, a strip of grilled chicken threaded in an S shape onto a bamboo skewer. One of the sculptors had spent all day carving the centerpiece, a tall pumpkin that glowed from within like a fiery furnace, bearing the skull-like face from Munch’s
Scream.

“I’m faced with having to choose between caviar with toast points and Kraft macaroni and cheese for dinner tonight,” said Graham, looking wise and inebriated under his wreath of laurel leaves. He was Bacchus. A bed sheet toga was slipping off one shoulder. “It’s one of those times when you
just have to say, ‘What would Jesus do?’ Holy jet beads, Portia, did you rob the Costume Institute at the Met?”

Portia was wearing a vintage Victorian dress with a striped skirt that swept the floor, a tight corseted bodice, and a long, low, scooped neckline that made her neck look as if it had a couple of extra vertebrae. Her hair was pulled back and piled up into a nineteenth-century bun, held together with jeweled combs. Auden was outfitted as John Singer Sargent, in a dark brown three-piece suit and beard, wearing a straw hat from a questionable time period. He was carrying around Portia’s palette and brushes for authenticity.

“There are a million trunks in my grandfather’s attic,” she said abashedly. “We’ve got these great old clothes from my grandparents and my great-grandparents.”

“To misquote Woody Allen,” Graham said dryly, “my Grammy would have saved me all of her museum-quality designer clothing too, but she was too busy being raped by Cossacks.”

“Who are you supposed to be?” Harker asked curiously. David and Sara were wearing street clothes, toting glasses of white wine.

“We’re dressed as a couple of art teachers from a small college upstate. Sara doesn’t like costume parties,” he added apologetically.

There was a stir of activity, a flurry of commotion, at the front of the room. The party grew a little brighter, a little more frenetic. A statuesque voluptuary of a woman came gliding through the doorway, ostensibly naked but for an ankle bracelet, a gold turban, and a pair of dark glasses. Behind her was Raphael Sinclair.

“Oh my Lord,” said Graham.

“Who is that?” breathed Portia.

They turned to see Giselle Warburg hurrying towards the door in a high, powdered wig and a sky-blue satin gown, voluminous petticoats flouncing behind her. She looked like a portrait by Gainsborough. “Anastasia!” she was calling in her throaty voice, and the woman stopped, embraced her on both cheeks.

“That, children, is Anastasia deCroix, editor of
Anastasia
magazine. Perhaps you’ve heard of her,” said Graham, reverently.

“Wow,” breathed Portia. “Tessa should be here. Has anyone seen her?”

“I think I just bumped into Madonna!” said Gracie excitedly. Nobody had noticed her arrival, which said something about the power of Anastasia’s magnificent body, considering that their classmate was painted blue from her head down to her toes.

Ben whistled. “Damn, girl. How did you do that?”

“Poster paint,” she explained matter-of-factly. “And a body suit. Nicky helped me with all the hard-to-reach places.”

“I would have helped you,” said Harker. “Hell, we all would’ve helped you.”

“Are the Sonic Death Monkeys ready to rock?” said Portia hastily, changing the subject. Harker’s band had been hired to play the Halloween Ball.

He pushed his hair back behind his ears. “Oh, yeah. We’ve got a whole Halloween party playlist worked out. Should be righteous.”

Alone, unnoticed, Tessa came through the door.

In the subdued light, the chandeliers sparkled like jeweled necklaces, the draped ceiling rippled with shadows. A random shaft of light would catch the side of a face and immortalize it before it turned away, or reveal a sculptured female back, turning it into a scene from an old black-and-white movie. Tessa stood at the entrance to the enormous hall filled with happy strangers, and for a fleeting moment, considered fighting her way back home through the storm and spending the night in bed with a good book.

“Hey, there, girlfriend, I didn’t think you were going to make it!” Portia yelled at her. In a floor-length silk dress, with her hair swept off of her long, lean face, she was transformed, looking every inch the consummate American aristocrat, like the painting Sargent had made of her great-grandmother when she was an art student in Paris before the turn of the century. “So does this mean we’re finally going to meet Lucian tonight?”

No, he’s going to Cape Cod with his new girlfriend.
“He couldn’t make it.” she said abruptly. “Some other time.”

“Who are you supposed to be?”

She touched the brim of her hat, a swooping black velvet cap with a slouchy satin crown and an ostrich plume that quavered tremulously in the updraft. The hat had been an impulse buy, weeks ago, at an open air
market in Soho. The very full, very stiff, black crinoline petticoat, she had picked up for five dollars at the Sixth Avenue flea market. The camisole, all black lace and ribbons, was leftover from a time when Lucian…well, from Lucian.

“I kind of hoped it would make me look like I’m from a Rembrandt painting. What do you think?”

“I think it makes you look like a Flemish hooker,” said Graham. “I don’t know if any of Rembrandt’s hooker paintings survived.”

David was staring at her. With candlelight illuminating the right side of his face, he looked devastatingly romantic. “Hey,” he said shyly. “I, um.” And he stood looking blankly at her, as if he had forgotten why he was there.

Tessa didn’t know the blond woman with the short haircut and the neat sweater set who was standing next to him, sticking her hand out to shake. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Sara.”

At that moment, she sensed, more than felt, something like a hot breath on the back of her neck. She turned around, just in time to see Anastasia deCroix striding by with the languid gait of a leopard on the savannah, slow and majestic.

Anastasia inclined her head to look at her. Lowered her sunglasses. Smiled. The hairs on the back of Tessa’s neck tingled, stood up at attention.

The editor was encircled by an intimidating cortege of young women, pale and cruelly thin, dressed in various shades of black. Following close behind was Raphael Sinclair. He wore a shawl-collared dinner jacket that looked like it had been sewed onto him, expressing the sensuality of his body in the strength of the shoulders and the narrowness of his hips. He smiled as he passed and she caught a whiff of sandalwood; her heartbeat quickened, went
thump thump thump thump thump;
then he turned his attention to someone else.

“I’m thirsty,” she said abruptly. “Anybody else want a drink?”

“I’ll come with you,” said Portia. Leaving Auden to bond with David and Sara, they drifted into the crowd.

Harker’s band took the stage. The lead singer shouted, “Two, three, four,” and they charged into
The Monster Mash.
At the bar, a big black cauldron sat on a fake fire, boiling out clouds of steam. It was just punch
and dry ice, but the waitress behind the table wore a pointy hat and insisted on calling it witches’ brew.

Levon waved at them from the dessert table and came over to greet them, carrying a tiny tart filled with a dot of mascarpone and one perfect raspberry. “Hey, girls! Wow, Portia.” He whistled. “That’s amazing. You look just like that Sargent portrait in the Met.”

“Well, it
is
the same dress,” she said.

Tessa recognized Inga, the head of the drawing department, engaged in conversation with a dark-haired, pale-skinned woman wearing a colorful Mexican dress, her black hair braided and pinned up on top of her head. With a marker, she had drawn on a single thick eyebrow and the suggestion of a faint mustache.

“Is that Hallie?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Levon, turning to look. He burst out laughing. “I’m really digging on the mustache.”

Tessa studied Levon’s clothing. He was in a baggy three-piece suit and a Panama hat. “You’re Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera,” she guessed.

Still chuckling, he nodded confirmation. “Say, Tessa. Long as I have you here. Have you met with Josephine about your thesis project yet?”

A flush of guilt. “No. I was supposed to meet with her last week, but there was some crisis with her babysitter and she couldn’t make it.” She shrugged. “Just as well. I’ve been so busy that I don’t have anything new to show her.”

“Don’t let her get away with it,” he advised her. “You’d better get started. You don’t want to fall behind.”

She nodded. He turned his attention back to Portia. “And just so you know, Ballard, because I know that’s what you’re going to ask me, we’re going to put exhaust fans in all the studios. Well…I’ve got to be getting back to Hallie. See you later, girls.” He popped the pastry in his mouth and moved off in the direction of the bar.

“Is he all right?” Portia frowned. “He’s walking kind of funny.”

Tessa squinted after him, but there were too many people for her to get a good look. They located Auden talking with Ben and David. He was easy to find, standing next to Gracie. Graham was nearby, shoveling hors d’ouevres onto his plate with both hands.

Clayton ambled over, beaming. Next to him was a fragile, birdlike girl. He looked slightly dazed, as if he couldn’t believe his luck. “This is Gioia. She’s in art history at NYU. Doesn’t speaka da English, but luckily, I am fluent in the mother tongue.”

“I thought you were coming as Dracula,” said Graham.

Clayton fished something out of his pocket, put it in his mouth, then growled, showing off dimestore glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth.

“You’re not even trying.” David said.

“Hey. Who says vampires have to wear capes and dinner jackets? I think if Dracula was here today, he might look just like anybody else. Even you, David.”

A flawless Jackie O went by in a pink and black Chanel suit with a pillbox hat, sporting a somewhat incongruous five o’clock shadow. Suddenly, Gracie darted away from them, disappearing in the flow of costumed party guests. The crowd parted for a moment, and they could see her with Raphael Sinclair in a pocket of space between the churning waves of humanity.

“Hey, Mr. Sinclair!” Clayton hollered to the founder of the school. “How are you, sir? May I say what a lovely party this is,” and here he hollered even louder for Tessa and Portia’s benefit, “
—
and I want to personally thank you for creating this place. There’s nothing else like it in the entire U S of A, God bless it, and I think I speak for everybody when I say we’ve all been looking for this art school our whole lives.”

The founder of the school’s eyebrows shot up, and he smiled his gorgeous smile, encompassing them all.

“Hi,” said Portia, extending her hand. “I’m Portia Ballard. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Portia,” he said, his voice smooth as silk, taking her hand. “What a beautiful name.”

His hand was so cold she almost gasped. His eyes were a strange color, she thought, looking directly into them. Gray? Brown? Green? Blue? Indefinable, like the color of a shadow. With a guilty flutter, she realized that she found him shockingly attractive. He exuded a varnished sexuality, promising that whatever price she paid for her weakness, he was worth it. He was remarkable to look at, high cheekbones angling out
of his handsome face, soft-looking sensuous lips. Impossible to guess his age, thirty or forty. His skin was youthful and smooth, but the lines that formed around his mouth when he smiled went deep. His eyes looked as if they knew every last one of her secrets, everything she thought, everything she feared. They looked as if they knew what she had in her underwear drawer, as if they knew what she looked like without her clothes on, and what she liked for breakfast. Portia couldn’t stop staring into them.