Lying In Bed by MJ Rose Read Free Book Online Page A

thought.

5.
    Mornings were mine . I never went to the store until noon. And then only four days a week - Wednesdays through Saturdays. So, that Tuesday, I should have been able to sleep in. But as tired as I was from having worked all night, I needed to get up early and get to Jeff’s office to make our 10:30 a.m. meeting.
    He smiled and kissed me and gave me one of his great big hugs after his assistant had taken me be back to his office. Jeff always wore elegant, old-fashioned clothes. Tweeds and bow ties. Three-piece suits. He was slightly foppish but in a charming way with his round wire-rimmed glasses, pocket hanky and little Dutch boy hair-cut.
    He offered me water, which I accepted and he moved over to a refrigerator in the corner by the window and we talked about his wife and two-year-old baby while he pulled out a green bottle, opened it, and poured the sparkling water equally between two glasses.
    The cold bubbles were welcome and I took a few gulps in a row. And then I pulled the artwork for his cover from my portfolio and put it down on his desk, facing him.
    His eyes took it in quickly. “Wonderful,” he said right away.
    “Thanks.”
    He was still inspecting it. “It works perfectly. The title will go right here.” And he pointed to the sky. “Great job, Marlowe.”
    “This one was tough.”
    “Really?” He looked up at me, puzzled.
    “Yeah. I was surprised too. Couldn’t figure it out. It was the Venice connection. It threw me.”
    He knew about Joshua and understood what I meant right away. “Aw, Marlowe, I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t realize. I shouldn’t–”
    I interrupted him. “No. I didn’t realize it either. It’s okay, now.”
    “I feel awful.”
    “You can make it up to me by getting me some more water.” And I held out my glass. When I did, I jostled some papers on Jeff’s desk revealing a photograph. I know I gasped. Because I recognized it immediately but the small sound was muffled by the louder clinking of ice cubes hitting the sides of the glass as Jeff poured more water.
    It was black and white in a thousand subtle shades of gray. Provocative, it pulled you in, demanded you look at the woman’s open mouth. The lips moist and swollen. The unmistakable expression of passion. And a single mark on her cheek. Which could have been anything. The blemish of a man’s fingerprint. Inky and dark. Smudged. A moody brand, suggestive and disturbing. Yet as a work of art, the photograph was beautiful. I could see that, regardless of all the other feelings the photograph brought out in me.
    I didn’t have to ask; I knew who had taken this photograph as well as I knew my own body in the mirror. I just wasn’t quite sure why it was on Jeff’s desk. His back was to me as he put the green bottle back in his mini refrigerator, so not really caring if it was any of my business or not, I pushed the other papers out of the way to reveal that the photograph was part of an invitation.
    On the bottom, in tastefully small type it said:
    Nude Muses: The Photography of Cole Ballinger
    I picked it up and turned it over.
    You are invited to Cole Ballinger’s first one-man show.
June 2 / 6:00 p.m.
Kulick Gallery
34 West 26th street, NYC
RSVP: 222-3333
    Cole Ballinger. A name I stared at as if I had never seen it before, because in that context it was foreign. No, worse than that. It was unsettling. A low-level worry started to hum deep in my stomach. My hand started to shake.
    I wanted to take the invitation and rip it into a hundred pieces. At the same time I felt an overwhelming wave of weariness and lethargy. The sense that I’d never be able to move out of the chair, never be able to drink the water Jeff had put in front of me, never be able to put down the photograph but be doomed forever to sit in that chair and stare at the blight in my hand.
    No matter how I’d found out about it, it would have bothered me, but like this? By accident?
    Looking up, I was not surprised to see Jeff watching