There are a couple more actors whom we'll require later, so we need to meet them before things start toward home plate.
I would like to mention that sometimes things get rather dark before they get better, and that second acts are one traditional place for that. If you're upset by noncon or reluctance, be warned. I'm assuming you've read Part 1 and can probably guess something of the circumstances. All I can say is, it's part of a longer story.
Again, thanks to thewinedarksea for his editing, particularly with, "Okay, you can stop overwriting here. You've made your point."
--C
─────────
Molly
I guess I can't be too cranky about the fact that Rick was out getting laid while I took messages for him. Neither would've happened except for me, well, me indirectly.
"Hello, may I speak to Richard Leland, please?"
"I'm sorry," I said. "He's not here right now and I don't expect him back today. May I take a message?"
"This is Victoria Carter. I wanted to set up a time to speak with him. Perhaps he could call me tomorrow?" The voice was pleasant, polite and extremely self-assured. She wasn't really
asking
if he could call tomorrow.
I was fairly sure I knew who Victoria Carter was: a prospect for some of Rick's work. About a month ago, the subject of a portrait I'd been working on had seen some pieces of Rick's and exclaimed, "Oh, Victoria would love these!" and now he had a call.
"If you leave me your number, I'll make sure he gets it first thing in the morning," I said smoothly. She gave it to me, thanked me, and hung up.
If I was correct about the circles that Victoria Carter moved in, we weren't talking art-on-the-cheap here, so I sent Rick a text immediately:
▸ Not trying to interrupt but Victoria Carter is big client. Needs call tomorrow. Don't sleep all day.
In a roundabout way, that portrait was also responsible for the fact that Rick was out getting laid. Or, at least, I presumed he was getting laid. Leah had been pretty clear in her intentions.
Rick's parents had hosted a holiday party at the Leland home every year for decades, and his father had kept it going after his mother died. Rick and his sister, Rachel, picked right up when he passed, and all their friends looked forward to the annual visit to what, since Rachel's marriage, was now the Forrester place. One of the guests last year was Mark Enright, the head lawyer at Bluefish, the company where The Bitch works, and the husband of Sophie Lane, the actress.
It happened that Sophie was flying in from making a movie somewhere but her flight got delayed so she had her car service bring her straight to the house. The men dumped all her suitcases in the library and, while he was in there, Mark saw and loved a portrait I had done of Rachel's husband. Mark dragged Sophie in to see it. She liked it, too, and they tracked me down in another room and enthused, which is fun after you've had an eggnog or two. Fast-forward a few months and I got a call from Sophie that she would really like to have her portrait done by me as a gift for Mark, would I be interested? Of course I was.
♦ ♦ ♦
"So, tell me a little about what you're looking for," I said after she had seen four or five canvases I had in the studio plus images of several more.
"Well, I'd like something to hang in the study. And I'd like something that's," she hesitated, searching for the word she wanted, "well, I don't want Sophie Lane, the actress. I want Sophia Lundgren, the woman he married. The one who steals his flannel shirts and overcooks his eggs in the morning."
"Got it."
"And I don't mind if one of the images was unclothed like you've done in most of these because it gives it an intimacy, but I absolutely do not want anything boudoir-ish."
I paint multiple images of my subject over each other using transparent oils. It's kind of like a multiple-exposure photograph. The main image, the public persona, tends to face outward. The others look away and I think of them as glimpses into the private person.
She was peering at me to see if I had any clue as to what she meant. I gave it a shot. "You want a portrait that's got the aspects of you that are all about your life with Mark, including being man and wife, but you don't want anyone who happens to walk into that room to ever think that they've stumbled on some private erotica you had done for him."
That megawatt smile had earned her a lot of money.
"Okay, then let's look at a bunch of nudes done by various artists and you tell me when the Erot-O-Meter pegs into the red." She giggled at that. We spent about forty minutes moving from Renoir to Gérôme, from Gauguin to Pavlychev until I had a good idea of her taste.
We talked over what she liked to do, how she saw herself, and I proposed several different ideas that might be Sophia, not Sophie. In the end, she said, "You're the artist. I think you understand. How about I stay in my lane and you pick what works." We discussed a price and she agreed without hesitation -- not dismissively with an attitude that hinted, "I can't be bothered with chump change," but appreciatively with, "I think your work is worth that." Damn, I liked this woman!
"Okay, when are you thinking of doing this?" I asked.
She got an apprehensive look on her face. "Well," she said, "that's where the problems come in. I'm really afraid of coming across as a diva. It would upset me if you thought I was."
"I doubt I will. What's the problem, Sophie?"
"Well, there's more than one." I raised my eyebrows and she wrinkled her nose as if to say, "I know, high maintenance!"
"The first is that Mark's birthday is in just under three months."
"Okay," I said. "I'm in the middle of some other things but I'm pretty sure I can make that work."
"The second is that I'm currently filming on two different projects, which means I'm not free that often. I have to leave this weekend and won't be back for over two weeks. And then it's hit or miss right through."
"I like to work from a combination of life and pictures, Sophie. Will you be around enough that we can do four or five sessions in person? I can work from photos the rest of the time."
