“I get it. All the escorts, and the EPAs that preceded me. I get it,” she says without judgement. Sabrina Broe would have to be one of the few people I’ve met in my thirty years who don’tprejudge based on surname. “But you and your activities?” She says the last word like an accusation.
“Ah, is that how you worked it out?” She nods, a curtain of hair falling to obscure her face. “Most of my dates to events are Covet models or from one of the other agencies. Then, every so often one will be photographed leaving my apartment in the early hours in the same clothes from the night before. It’s a choreographed dance of deception, Bri. An illusion, all spun to portray me as a philandering playboy rather than a lovesick fool obsessed with his boss. The models sign NDAs that are as watertight as your contract. They binge-watch The Pitt and sleep in the guest room.”
“There has to be some kind of resolution?” Her naïve expectation is nothing more than the whimsy of common sense and hope, none of which are allowed as part of the Hynd or Mercer families.
“There isn’t, so don’t worry your pretty head trying to create one. Magnus Mercer might be retiring in two weeks, but the detritus of that family tree doesn’t end with his bough. Michael and Alice are just as poisonous, and Mitchel would just as soon bury any of us in one of his mining slag heaps than go against the rigid philosophies of that dynasty.”
Sabrina stretches her arms above her head in an extended movement, the yawn looking more maw than tired reflex. “Come on, you. Off to bed, we have to be up early to catch that flight home. Let’s just see how the next couple of weeks pan out before any heavy-duty decisions need to be considered, yeah?”
Trenches of cleared snow lay in neat rows by the curb as I set out from Onyx One. I’d wanted to catch the subway as some kind of homage to the life I lived when all of this began, but the bitter cold and Terry’s insistence on a car, has my resolve wavering. Removing the portfolio strap from my shoulder, I slid it next to me in the back of the Escalade, not wanting to be parted with my piece for a single moment. All up it was one hundred and eleven hours, the last dozen spent second-guessing some of the shading and blending, removing it all before adding it back how it was. It’s a stark piece meant to represent that a battle can be won and lost and remain cordial. That opposition doesn’t always mean oppression and destruction, like the conversation with Trystan where he had flayed his soul open with tortured confessions of love for a man he couldn’t have. A love I shared in a similar yet altogether different way, knowing deep down that I’d never have him either. Not properly.
“You can pull up anywhere here.” Terry nods and brings the car to a gliding stop. The park is in full winter phase, tree branches stretching into the bluebird sky like dormant fingers, bare and vulnerable. The sounds and smells are the same: the wafting aroma of hot dogs and onions is always present no matter the time of year, and cell phones trill with incoming calls while children shriek from playground equipment. The ever-present cooing of massing pigeons is dullerthan usual, perhaps lost to the cold. Maybe more of the birds have found a food source with less exposure to the elements. Still, I clutch the portfolio tight as I make my way down the arcing path toward the benches that meet up near the fountain in the middle. Terry and George follow from a distance, the latter thrusting his gloved hands inside his coat for some extra warmth that may not eventuate. Still, I press on, my boots providing a clip-clop soundtrack to my pulse when I arrive at the bench where the chessboard should be set up as the battle wars on. But there is no battle, no war. The area is replete and lonely, no milling pigeons, no muffled curses, no ahs from a secreted flask. I wonder if the cold sent them to a new location more immune to the elements. The gazebo catches my eye; the inky silhouette of a dark army coat is just visible behind the bricked walls and decorative ironwork. I hurry over to find a solo occupant, face downcast toward three pigeons greedily devouring the few grains he has offered them from a crinkled paper bag, as etched as the lines on his face.
“Hertio,” I pant out, racing to join the man sitting with quiet solemnity. His head lifts, tilting to meet the sound of his name as the soundwave lingers in the cold air. “Where’s Yusef?” I mutter, checking beside the man for any sign of his compatriot. The flask, another coat or hat perhaps, in case his absence is temporary.
“Gone,” he says on a breath so paper thin, it’s almost a thought.
“Gone… home?” I venture, the blood in my veins pumping into my chest and refusing to disperse. The pressure is so great, I think I’ll implode and send icy shards flying. I look up to see Terry hovering near the bench where epic games of cunning used to play out, reclaimed by snow. As if Mother Nature knew the answer before I did, and ghosts over their very existence with a thin blanket of white.
“Gone.Kaput.” He drags a finger across his neck to hammer home his explanation of gone. He didn’t need to; I knew. I fucking knew. He absent-mindedly scoops up another handful of seed, throwing them out in an arc across the gazebo floor to birds he used to chase away with pumping arms and a cursed existence. The rats with wings make quick work of the seed spray and stagger around for more, posed and waiting. I take up a position next to the grieving man, and when his hand stops shaking with exhaustion, cold, or loss, I take it in mine, hoping it might soothe my grief. I’d known Yusef for months, Hertio had for decades; yet losing him was a part of me carved out and laid bare. On an altar of timber seating, I had only one meagre offering.
“It’s done?” He nods to the folio in broken English.
“Yes, Hertio. It’s done. I am sorry it took so long, but I’m still learning and I wanted to capture both of you in the best way possible, the way I saw your battles play out.”
He considers me with the wisdom only someone in their eighties can possess. A profound knowledge of everything seen, learned, heard, felt, and lived. I extract the framed sketch, regretting the additional time framing took to complete. The company I use is as meticulous as I am. Because of that, they are in demand, and items often take weeks to come back. Hertio’s eyes lose some of the watery loneliness, a look of appreciation sliding over his features. He may have aged more in the weeks since Yusef passed; I’m not sure. “I want you to have it, Hertio.”
The man baulks, the movement in the shoulders of his army coat emphasized and obvious.
“No, no, no,” he begins, waving the hand not holding onto the frame with pinched, white-knuckled fingers. He’s not wearing gloves; why is he not wearing gloves? Because it makes it harder to scoop seed out of the bag, that’s why. This man isputting the needs of the birds he despises above his comfort. My heart is swollen and empty due to the actions and words of this unyielding man. Genuine sacrifice.
“Hertio, it’s a gift. I want you to have it. Please.” The words trickle from my lips like the tears down my cheeks. Tears for losing a man I barely knew, for losing the companionship and epic chess battles against a compatriot he found an easy friendship. For the pigeons, he will never defend or feed again.
I didn’t know his surname because it didn’t matter what it was.He mattered, not the name he was defined by.
Him.
When the call came in from Terry and I confirmed her location, my feet were already moving out of my plush office and toward the park where she was mugged.
“Take her back to the penthouse immediately. Have someone stay with her until I arrive. I’m on my way.”
“Yes, sir.”
Closing the door behind me, I stride toward Helen’s desk, where she sits with a bowl of steaming, homemade soup and a headset, transcribing notes from my earlier meeting.
“Mr. Mercer, are you heading out? You have a two o’clock late luncheon with your mother. She was very insistent.”
“Oh, I bet she was. Cancel it. And any of the papps she wanted to document our arrival. I’m assuming she booked Sercio?”
“She did, sir. Cancel everything?”
“All of it. The whole fucking circus, Helen. Thank you. I am unsure when I’ll be back, but I’m required elsewhere as a priority. I will be in touch when I can.”
“Yes, sir.”
The commuteback to Onyx One takes an eternity I do not have. Plows clearing streets are a help, but also ahindrance. If it wasn’t coming down in icy sheets, making visibility arduous, perhaps traffic flow would fare a little better. What started out as a calm, cloudless day soon descended into an icy tempest. It’s been an hour and forty minutes since Terry’s call to say Sabrina was in distress and couldn’t be comforted. It has therefore been over two hours of pain and misery for her, which pains me. George sent through pictures of Bri meeting with an elderly gentleman sheltering in the park gazebo; the man I recognize from the sketch piece Trystan alerted me to when he moved all of Bri’s things into the first minor bedroom.
She had told us she liked to sketch using charcoal and graphite mediums at her first interview for the EPA position. Back then, I think both of us assumed, wrongly, that she was some dabbling drawer who filled pages with black and gray tones of whatever image had sparked her curiosity. Why draw fruit or a vase of colorful flowers with only tones of grays and blacks? Because she didn’t. Instead, she brought her subjects to life with a kind of hyperrealism I’ve never seen before. Since the discovery of her portfolio, I have done more research into the art form and seen a slew of incredibly capable artists produce pieces that could easily be mistaken for a photograph.
