Shades of Crimson and White

Chapter 5 - The Weaver Awakes

Penny

What does one say to a tech billionaire who asked you to be their photographer? He didn’t need to know this was my first feature, but that didn’t stop my knees from trembling as I walked up to the top floor of his office building and was shown into a room that could have fit four of my previous apartments inside.

I don’t know what I expected. Oscar Duncan’s office was so clean. Pristine. Every item of furniture and piece of artwork had its place, each object providing both fashion and function. No papers marred his desk. Only a leather desk pad and blotter with an empty matching pen holder, a framed picture, and something that looked a little like a cellphone from the ʼ80s. Next to it was an electronic pad inset into the desk which must have been built around the device, because that sucker was solid granite.

“Penny Alexander, sir. From Profiles…” Oscar’s secretary announced me and my purpose with so little fanfare, I was surprised when her voice faltered. Was there a wrong way to introduce someone? Would she be fired if she didn’t say things just so? I had a moment of consternation, but moved forward, my hand outstretched.

“Mr. Duncan. Penny. It’s an honor to mee—”

“The honor is mine Miss Alexander.” He spoke quickly, as if to impress that his time was limited. He didn’t shake my hand and remained behind his desk.

Well, this was new. I turned to his secretary, my gaze questioning. She motioned for me to move forward, then stepped back and closed the door softly behind her. I felt alone.

“You come highly recommended.”

“By whom?” I asked. “I’ve only just started with Profiles.” I brushed at my skirt with my hands, it was a little tight, and not meant for ease of movement. But I’d chosen it assuming it was the kind of thing one should wear to impress.

Oscar waved a dismissive hand, leaned forward, and sniffed the air. I hadn’t worn perfume. Couldn’t stand the stuff. Whatever he smelled, he liked, I assumed as his smile widened, giving him the look of a shark more than a human. “Yes. But you are already a known photographer in your own right, are you not?”

Well, not yet. But that’s the plan. Aren’t you the charmer?

I grinned. “I’m working on it. Perhaps it’s Callie Alexander of whom you’re thinking. My twin. She’s a painter.” Among the more well-known pieces that have easily been found at the Louvre or The Metropolitan Museum of Art were a couple of Callie’s paintings, her more recent, darker pieces which seemed to fit his aesthetic. It surprised me. Did he have the wrong sister? Would Callie be shocked if I told her or did she know?

Oscar nodded slowly and closed his eyes. “Ah. Yes. I’m sure that must be it.” Clearing his throat, he reached for a glass of water on his desk, and after a few tries to wrap his fingers around it, succeeded. He took a long drink and visibly relaxed. Either it wasn’t water or there was something in it, but being a man of his standing, surely, he’d want to keep his head clear. He was the tech wunderkind, after all. At least, that’s what Callie kept telling me. I’d always figured her tech magazines were just for show. Callie was a wild card who had been born to a purpose. Going off the rails wasn’t an option, which is, I suppose, exactly why she chose to deviate. Or maybe there’s something darker at play, suggested a voice in the deepest recesses of my mind.

“Miss Alexander?” I jumped, and the camera over my shoulder hip-bumped me. I reached down to steady it and pulled it from my shoulder. When I removed the lens cap, I realized I’d been staring at him.

“Sorry. Yes. I’m—”

My eye strayed to a painting with a hand rising out of the darkness in supplication. Four people—three on the right, and one on the left—looked to the creature whose hand reached out. The creature had no face, at least not that offered features of any sort. It was as if the face were being pulled down, stretching into blurry nothingness. An old woman, the only one in the picture, looked on. And someone stood behind the creature with no face. The once-human creature, if the hand …. No, even that seemed elongated slightly. I closed my eyes, trying to burn it away from memory. Had someone painted their nightmare? This wasn’t one of Callie’s, I didn’t think. It was too dark. Too black. Too stark. The only real color was red. The rest of it was black, brown, silver. Brown. Silver. The colors of metal and earth. And night. I shivered in spite of myself and sat up straighter. I had work to do.

“Mr. Duncan?” I asked, hoping to get him to look at me. His gaze shifted to the wet bar.

Without turning toward me, he asked, “Where should we begin? I mean, where would you like me to sit?” Now that he knew I wasn’t Callie, I wondered if he’d meant for this Alexander or the other.

Well, tough. I was here now, and Tom was salivating to have this client on his books. Which wasn’t so bad for me, either. This job could be the ticket to getting our mom back home.

I pivoted slowly around the room, searching for a good clean backdrop but with enough light for a cover shot. The wall of windows offered a great panorama of the city, but just a bit too much light. He’d have been washed out. I thought about just leaving him at his desk, but his obsidian desk gleamed in the sunlight beaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The two chairs facing his desk didn’t look comfortable.

Wet bar? Maybe not. Brass and glass table not far from it. Possible, but everything gleamed. I looked down at the floor. Plain white tile. A zebra rug was the only floor décor set amidst a grouping of five large black leather chairs that evoked a modern elegance. They were set against a low wall that, if I was right, was one of those firepit-like fireplaces where you turn the dial and flames leap from the rocks. The area offered a warmth I didn’t think we could get from anywhere else, and though Oscar was a handsome man, there was a coldness to him that I didn’t think he’d want front and center for his cover photo shoot. A bench ran the length of the fireplace, and if he’d light the fire, I could sit him just to the left of it. I’d go for one of those fireside chat pieces. Or perhaps in one of the black leather chairs placed to the left.

“Oscar let’s sit you by the fire.”

“Is it on? The fireplace?” he asked, reaching for my arm, and I gave it to him. He stood, his hand tight around my forearm.

“No, but we can—” He squeezed. I winced.

“Fireplace. Light,” he said in an authoritative tone. I seated him in the black leather chair which set off his crisp white button down and blue jeans. I hadn’t expected blue jeans. Slacks. Trousers. But not blue jeans. They were too … casual. His hair glowed red in the lens as I set up the shot.

“Turn outward. To your left,” I instructed.

“What do you think of my office?” he said. “Is my decorator good?”

“Chin up,” I said, but still couldn’t get the crimson shade out of the shot. I looked out the window to see if the sun was setting and causing the effect. No. High in the sky. “Imagine you’re working on a dream project.” He looked pensively toward the wall. Snap.

“Is that it?” he asked.

“No, I need to get a few more. We’ll want to choose the best from many.”

“The best. Yes. I like your work ethic.” He cocked his head. “Are you and your sister close?”

“Um …” I fidgeted with the camera lens. “Yes, of course. We’re twins.”

“Twins,” he said. “Would you join me in a drink when we’re finished?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I have a prior appointment.”

“Can it be moved?”

“Afraid not. Sorry.” I didn’t want to stay for a drink or to get to know this man. If his office was any indication of what he might be really like, I wanted no part.

“I see. Deadline?”

“For one, yes.”

“And the other?” Oscar Duncan was persistent. He was used to getting what he wanted when he wanted it. Well, he was going to have to deal with disappointment. I had somewhere else to be and couldn’t get out fast enough. The characters in the painting to his left, whose faces I could see, followed me wherever I stood. I rolled my shoulder against a shiver that wouldn’t go away.

“Personal,” I said. “Okay, let’s have you turn to the right, chin up, and to your left. Down a little. Stop.” Snap.

“Of course. I’m sorry. I overstepped.” He didn’t smile or bow his head. Instead, he changed the subject.

Talking to Oscar Duncan was dizzying. He flitted from one topic to the other like a hummingbird searching for the flower with the best nectar. Was I the flower du jour? But it felt like it was all a distraction. For what and why, I had no idea, but the thorns on the rose of my day just kept multiplying.

****

Annie, Callie, and I sat around the kitchen table. Coffees in hand talking about my latest assignment and meeting Oscar Duncan.

“What do you mean, it was all a distraction?” asked Annie.

One evening, while visiting mom in the hospital, Callie and I met Annie, mom’s Spirit Healer. She was standing over mom speaking in a fluid language, her voice like ripples in water striking pebbles. Annie looked up and smiled. “Don’t worry. She’s just sleeping. You two look like you could use some coffee.” Before we knew it, she was shepherding us down the hall for some bad hospital coffee.

“I’ve known your mom a long time, won when I saw her name, I knew I had to help. Et voila!” Annie had said, raising and lowering her arms as if about to dance Flamenco, her loose garments flying. Images of a butterfly raced through my mind, and I thought of how butterflies shouldn’t have the ability to fly south for the winter. Somehow, but somehow, they make it even though their lifespan is only a few days to a couple of weeks.

“Fleeting beauty,” our mom had said. “Take note while you can.”

Coffees became dinners, and soon, Annie was like an aunt we didn’t know we had. But Callie always seemed ill at ease around her. As if she knew something I didn’t. Annie took her gibes in stride while it vexed me, but every once in a while, we all got along.

“I mean, it all felt…constructed. As if someone told Duncan what to do. What to say. Ahead of time.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Annie asked, her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands.

“Well, nothing really, I guess. It just felt contrived. Plus, whenever I told him to look at me or look at the light, he’d change the subject and ask me questions that made no sense. As if he thought I were someone else. Or wanted me to be.”

Annie lifted her head. “Well, this was an important gig, right?” I nodded. “So, what’s the verdict? With your editor. With your client.”

I smiled and chuffed. “It’s a little too soon to tell. I still need to develop the photos.”

“And put the filters on until everyone and everything is perfect,” added Callie, who’d been quiet since we’d sat down.

“I don’t do that for me. I do it for the magazine. There should be a symbiosis to all the photos. The same crisp, clean lines in a thumbnail as in a feature photo.” I turned to her. “It’s the same way you are about …” I looked down at Callie’s red-tipped fingers. She had opened her wounds again. Annie shook her head, and I reached for a napkin to stop the bleeding and keep Callie from doing any more damage. It was as if she’d marked herself to remind her of the painting. God, that thing haunted me.

“Hey, you two. Who wants dessert? I made those lemon poppyseed cupcakes you loved when you were at my place a couple of weeks ago.” Annie unspooled from her chair and went to the sideboard for her pastry box.

“Distractions?” Callie challenged, eyeing Annie’s movements. “Yep, distractions all around. Poor Penelope.”

“I do not have time for this,” I hissed. “Be nice.” Callie’s very adult response was to stick her tongue out at me. I did the same.

Annie set the cupcakes before us on napkins. “It’s dessert. Who wants to do dishes after dessert? No one.” She smiled and scooted the sweets closer. “Eat. Dishes will keep. Clutter is in the eye of the beholder. And laundry? It’s so much easier to find if it isn’t put away, right?” She laughed.

Annie talked to us like she’d known us all our lives. Maybe she had because she knew our mom so well. Though they hadn’t seen each other in a while, Annie had stepped in to help. Right now, the one person we all cared about most in the world was the glue that bound us together.

She started to put a cupcake on a plate, but Callie shook her head. “Pass. I’m going upstairs to paint.” She had somehow gotten it into her mind that Annie’s nursing skills should be able to bring our mom out of her coma, though it baffled me as to why she’d even think so.

Before Annie arrived, we’d been sitting at the kitchen table, and Callie said, “She’s the nurse.”

“Right. Nurse. Not doctor, I said. “Well, a Spirit Healer.”

“Whatever.” Callie waved away my correction. “She’s more than she says. I can feel it. Why hasn’t she told us more if she knows mom so well?”

“Probably because she doesn’t know us that well,” I said. Though I couldn’t help thinking Callie was right, that Annie was holding something back, some secret she and mom shared.

Long after Callie had escaped to her art studio, Annie looked at me over the lip of her coffee cup, and asked, “She gets lost in her art, doesn’t she?” I took a bite of the cupcake, sipped my coffee, and avoided Annie’s questioning gaze. I shrugged.

I was tired. Callie had gone to bed. At least, I hoped she had. It was more likely she’d be painting well into the night. I knew Annie had something to say, and wondered why she couldn’t say it to both of us.

“Look, anyone can see you two are hyper stressed about your mom, and I get it. But take care of yourselves, okay?”

“Working on it,” I answered a bit more sharply than intended, but Annie only smiled.

“I know you’ve got your sister’s back, but does she have yours?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Relax. It’s just a question.” Annie took another sip and studied me, her lavender eyes moving from side to side. She set her cup down on the table slowly and stood. “Pay attention to what Callie draws. Pay attention to your gut instinct. Your intuition is more powerful than you know. And if you need me, you have my number, and you know where to find me.” I nodded.

“What’s going on? Is everything okay? Is mom?” She laid her hand on my shoulder.

“You are strong. Stronger than anyone realizes, including you. Just pay attention.” She opened the door. Her bag was half hanging from her shoulder. She carried everything in that totebag-like purse. She hiked it higher, dipped her hand into it, and pulled out her keys. Annie stepped into the night, but stopped and turned to me with a wink, then made her way across the park, her long bright colored dress flowing behind her like fluttering wings.

As I closed the door, I spotted something on the ground. She must have dropped it when reaching for her keys. I bent down to scoop up what she’d dropped.

A white feather.

I picked it up and twirled it between my fingers. It was identical to Lucien’s silver feather. Could it be?

Things were messy before. Now, they were strange. Annie, Duncan, Callie, Mom. The feathers. I needed to think, but I needed some rest before heading to the cemetery to meet Lucien the next day.

***

Welcome new reader! It’s great to have you here and I hope you’re enjoying the book so far. Want to catch up on the latest chapters?

Chapter 1 - The Silver Feather
Chapter 2 - Lucien’s Visit
Chapter 3 - Callie
Chapter 4 -Oscar

©Lisa Rogers. This story has been written from my head by my hand for more years than I care to count. Completed December 2024. All Rights Reserved.

I have gone back-and-forth ad nauseum about whether or not to serialize this book and have decided to rip off the Band-Aid(tm) or plaster, if you prefer.

Disclaimer: it’s not going to be perfect, but it has been story coached, developmental, and line-edited, any typos or similar issues are mine and mine alone.