15/05/2011 Image – » »

Augur

Contributed by Rivka Jacobs on 14/05/11

The boss, the founder and CEO of the company Greta Dixon walked down the middle of the reception hall towards her office suite. From either side she heard, “Good afternoon, Ms. Dixon,” and, “Glad to see you again, Ms. Dixon.” Her steps were soundless; the plush, red-velvet carpet muffled the impact of her fawn-colored high-heeled pumps. She paused at the desk immediately to the right of her office foyer.

“Are there any messages, Jim?” she asked her assistant, who was seated but alert.

Thirty-year-old James Guerrero nodded. “Paul Simpson from Citizens Action Committee called again. Traynor, Lopez, and Young would like you to call them back; this concerns one of our former clients, Littlerock Mutual. Your step-sister Beatrice called from Atlanta; apparently she still doesn’t understand ‘what part of where-were-you when I was starving and needed help don’t you understand’ Would you like a list?”

Greta Dixon nodded and smiled warmly at her handsome, dark-haired, well-built assistant. She reached out and took the piece of paper, making sure her fingers brushed his in the process. “Would you come into my office, James,” she said. “I need to rearrange a few things on my schedule for tomorrow.” She tilted her head slightly, then pivoted gracefully. She walked slowly to one of the double doors, grasped the knob.

James stood in place and leaned over, staring for a moment at her back-side as it worked beneath the tight, tan mini-skirt half of her two-piece suit. He abruptly jumped away from his chair and darted around his desk; he stopped beside her and shoved the door until the entrance was wide-open. He bowed slightly and she moved past his extended arm. His lower abdomen tightened as he breathed her perfume — something of bergamot, rose, violets, and sandalwood.

Greta continued until she stood in front of a small, brown-leather sofa. She patted at the wisps of red curls that hung in front of her ears; her hair was otherwise pulled into a tight and elaborate chignon. She turned and motioned with her chin for James to follow.

He immediately slipped all the way inside and drew the door closed after him. He remained there for a moment, then heaved a sigh, tugged his jacket straight, and strode to Greta. “Yes, Ms. Dixon,” he said. He was next to her once again, looking down.

“Come here,” she said, reaching her hands up and cupping them around the back of his neck. She pulled and urged his head downward, his face towards her face. She waited with her mouth partially open.

It didn’t take much force; James Guerrero planted his lips on hers and began a light kiss, but in minutes was grasping her and rubbing her and pressing himself into her as much as their clothing would allow.

“You know what I want from you,” she said with a gasp, and started to unbutton his shirt.

It was after dark, several hours later, when the two of them — Greta Dixon, owner and CEO of Dixon Financial Services and James Guerrero, office manager, assistant, and personal secretary, made their way to the executive penthouse suite’s private elevator and descended seventeen floors to the parking garage below.

When the elevator reached the basement, and the doors opened, Greta punched in a security code that opened a gate to the executive reserved parking section. She was giggling, her purse wedged under an upper arm, her briefcase clutched to her breast. Her hair was disheveled. She shifted around so that she was moving backwards, facing the young man. “Drive me home,” she said.

“Uh, but don’t you have a chauffeur?” he answered, attempting to straighten his tie and get his shirt tucked in while trying to keep up with her.

“Sure,” she said, facing forward once more. “But I’ll tell him to go on home without me. I have a little BMW just for myself, that I keep on hand.” Her heels clicked and her entire body jounced sensuously with each step.

James grimaced slightly, not quite sure if this was a good idea. He knew it wasn’t legal. But he was ambitious, and anticipated moving into one of the case-manager or broker positions before long….

In another ten minutes he was at the wheel of the navy-blue BMW M3 convertible and his boss was in the seat next to him; their hair flew and snaked wildly as they sped along the Schuylkill Expressway leaving Philadelphia. They took the East City Avenue exit, and eventually they reached Merion Road heading for the posh suburb of Merion Station.

“It’s amazing to me….” James began, searching for something to say. It was a quiet, early summer evening and he almost whispered as he turned slowly onto Meadow Lane, afraid people would hear, then look to see who it was.

“What is, sweetie?” She reached over and gripped his nearest shoulder, gave it a squeeze. “I didn’t think you were the type to indulge in cliches … but it was amazing….”

“No, no, I mean, how you started your own business. How you rose from being unemployed and homeless, to … you know … wealthy and successful.” They’d reached the long driveway that led to her estate, and James carefully made the turn, proceeded cautiously as flood-lights flared on.

“Well,” she said, “maybe I’ll tell you one day how I did it.” She settled down into the seat and relaxed for a moment, then drew herself upright as her sprawling, pale-yellow French-Provincial mansion came into view. “Just keep going to your left, there, until you get to the garage,” she directed him.

James craned his neck and couldn’t help but gawk at the place, awash in illumination; it was a three-story, multi-gabled building with several large chimneys and a slate roof. “This is amazing,” he said. He came to a stop, turned off the ignition. “Should I drive back to the Dixon Building…?” he started.

Greta laughed once. “Of course not.” She exited, unfolded herself, lifted herself to the balls of her feet, and slammed the door. “What do you think?” She stood and waited, watched him shrug — he looked almost embarrassed and boyish. Her expression hardened somewhat. “Come on,” she said, after he quietly closed the driver’s side door. “We’ll go through the servant’s entrance.”

As he followed Greta Dixon inside, and passed through different rooms, James noted that the interiors were a bizarre, anachronistic mix of fine wood, granite, and shiny metal surfaces, and flower-print wallpaper, borders, and rugs. “It’s strange,” he said, as they began ascending one of her three formal staircases. “The decor. The furniture looks like the pieces came from a palace, and the walls look like my grandma’s house in New Jersey.”

Greta’s lips curled upward. “The wall coverings are fabric, and they’re French and Dutch, from the 1660s. The hooked and oriental rugs also date from the seventeenth century.”

James stopped at the landing. Hanging into the stairwell was a massive chandelier, but the lights at the tips of the various brass arms seemed to flutter. “Are those candles?” he asked, pointing.

Greta made the turn, and began climbing the second flight. She paused to kick off her shoes, and these made a clopping noise as they tumbled a few steps behind her. She called down to him, “Yes, James, those are real candles. Beeswax candles, to be exact. The housekeeper lights them each evening, and extinguishes them before we go to bed. Part of the deal….”

What deal?” he asked, bounding up and reaching her. They were at the threshold of a vast room, the floors of which were covered with intricate Turkistan wool carpets. Banks of windows surrounded them. The ceiling overhead was lofty and vaulted and highlighted by dancing shadows. The entire space seemed bathed in a quivering, pearlescent glow. There were couches and chairs, even an area off to the side that seemed to be a kitchenette. The far end was elevated, like a stage, and supported a voluminous, canopy bed and white-painted bedroom furniture. “Whew!” he half spoke, half whistled.

“Yup, my ‘master suite’ — as big as my entire apartment used to be,” Greta said. She threw her purse and briefcase on one of the curve-backed silk-tufted settees.

James gazed around him. Here too, on all the table surfaces, in sconces extending from walls, candles of various thicknesses and lengths burned and flickered. “What’s with this?” He waved an arm.

“What?” Greta said, peering at him, her eyes glistening as she removed her jacket. “Would you like something to drink? I’ve got a fully stocked, fully functioning bar over there.” She padded in the direction of the granite and white kitchen.

James loosed the knot of his tie a bit. “You know, all of these, the candles,” he continued. He advanced further, stopped. Something seemed to tug at his attention. It felt like someone was there, next to him, whispering, making the hairs stand up on his back, tickling his neck. He reflexively touched himself under one ear. He slowly pivoted.

“What’s the matter?” Greta approached, a rocks glass in each hand. “I hope vodka is okay.” She followed his eyes with hers, and made a small sound in her throat, as if she were clearing it. “James, here, take a drink,” she said loudly.

“I know that picture,” he said. “I’ve seen it before.” He was facing an alcove. On the wall above a black and gleaming, votive-covered stone mantel that fit from side to side, was a portrait in an oval, gilt frame.

“Yeah,” Greta murmured, “she’s famous.” She took a sip from one of the glasses; ice clinked. “Come on, Jimmy, I’ll tell you about it some day,” she urged, shoving the drink in front of him, pressing up against him and trying to force him to turn away, to move towards her bed.

“What the hell? You know, that is one freaking weird-ass picture.” He took the drink, but refused to move or turn aside. “Who is that?”

Greta exhaled, gulped down the rest of her vodka. The ice cascaded around her upper lip and teeth. She lowered the glass and wiped her face with one sleeve of her lavender silk blouse. “It’s ‘The Girl With One Pearl Earring.’ No one really knows who she was. The original is by Vermeer, painted some time in the 1660s. I’ve had this version for years and years; since I was evicted and homeless. I’ve brought her with me, everywhere….” She touched the cool glass to her check. She stared at the two black-and-blue eyes on the wall. “Found her in a dumpster, when I went diving one morning for breakfast. There she was, looking at me so lost and alone, scared and cold, not at all happy to be covered with crud and rot and stink. Yeah….” Greta shifted to her left, so that her right shoulder now directly reflected the girl’s left shoulder; she slid her head and eyes around so that she gazed back at the painting in the exact same way the figure in the painting was regarding her, almost mirror images of one another. “Yeah, I found her and she found me,” Greta slurred, no longer sober. “Who knows, could be the original, too. See all those little cracks in the surface? So many wars and invasions, and a lot of copies have been made in the last four-hundred-and-fifty-years … who knows…?”

“Yeah, but, I’m not sure … the ones I’ve seen, the photos … she doesn’t look so … so ….”

“So what?”

He squinted, rotated his head this way and that. He laced his fingers around his drink, holding it in front of his belly. “Okay, this is freaky. This one looks … she looks angry. I mean, she doesn’t seem right. I don’t remember that expression; it’s like she’s pissed-off at me about something.”

Greta made a breathy chuckling sound. “Yeah, well, she doesn’t always approve of me or the men I bring home. So let’s go this way….” Greta pointed toward the bed. “… and she can’t see us any more.” She once again yanked at his arm.

“Hey, hey, what the eff? Wait….”

Greta lowered her head, hanging her weight from him like a pendulum. “Come on, please, forget about her….”

“No, I swear to God, something’s different. The mouth moved. Look at the corner, there….” He started to step towards the painting and Greta jerked him back sharply. “Look at that. It’s sagging, it’s like, she’s snarling, or something….”

“James, it’s me, Greta, your boss. Get your butt over here now.”

He stiffened, his face flushed. “Whoa, lady … that isn’t right. That just isn’t right. I don’t mind having a little fun, but….”

“Ahhh, gezus, James, don’t do this.”

“Don’t start ordering me around like some goddamned gigolo.”

“Look, I’m sorry….” she started, trailing off as she realized it was too late. She gave a swift glaring look at the painted face in the alcove.

“I’m leaving. Here….” He handed her his glass. “Not used to drinking like that, either, on an empty stomach. I’m driving the BMW back to the office. If you don’t like it, I’ll call a damn cab….”

Her mouth puckered with drunken displeasure. “Take the fucking car. I don’t care. I have six others around here some place.”

He spun on his heels, and strode for the stairs.

“See you tomorrow?” she sputtered.

“Maybe,” came the reply.

Greta followed briefly in her stocking feet, then stopped. “Shit.” She watched his broad back as he disappeared around a decorative column. She listened to his shoes softly tapping down the wooden stairs. She raised the two rock glasses in an instant of rage, then lowered her arms and shuffled over to the small porcelain sink of the kitchenette, and set them there. She returned to the face in the alcove. She rested her knuckles on her hips, her elbows akimbo. “Did you think I’d start breaking things?” she asked the sideways sliding eyes, the slightly open mouth, the grinning teeth of the girl. “I know, you always take care of me. So, you think Jimmy is bad news?” Greta shook her head and looked down, then up again, trying not to cry. “Okay, so you’re always right. You predicted everything; you told me the places to be, the numbers to play, the stocks to buy, the people who could help, and the men I could use.”

The candle flames all seemed to bend in the same direction, throughout the room. They flittered at once as if a puff of air had passed through. Shadows and golden light and subtle nuances of chiarscuro rounded the angles, blended the corner colors, and bolded primary lines throughout the voluminous space.

“God he’s hot, though. And I’m lonely as hell, don’t you understand?”

The girl’s pearl earring seemed to shiver and shimmer. Her eyes sank into their sockets. Droplets of water appeared on her cheeks.

“I know, you’ve given me everything. You’ve given me control over my life.” Greta Dixon slumped, her hands dangling at her sides. She felt completely exhausted. She raised her chin and once more confronted the blue and gold turban, the high-bridged nose, the anxious and restless and sweet expression. “Don’t worry, I won’t forget. We’re in this together. We have a deal.”