Close Up Page 3

  The phone rang, startling her. She glanced at her watch. It was almost nine. Her heart sank. Her ten o’clock portrait client was probably calling to cancel. She got to her feet and went into the living room to pick up the receiver.

  “Hello.” She kept her voice cool and businesslike.

  “I’m calling for Miss Vivian Brazier.”

  The voice on the other end was female, brisk, and professional. The client’s secretary, most likely.

  “This is Vivian Brazier,” Vivian said.

  “I’m calling from the Penfield Gallery. Miss Penfield had an appointment with an artist to review some of his paintings at one o’clock today. However, that meeting has been canceled. I do realize this is very short notice but, if you’re still interested in showing some of your pictures to Miss Penfield, she will be willing to take a look at them at one o’clock.”

  Vivian’s mood soared skyward with near-miraculous speed. Excitement and hope sparked. Shortly after moving to Adelina Beach she had managed to place two of her limited-edition art photos with a local gallery. The pictures, both landscapes, had been exhibited in a show and had sold for modest prices. But afterward her career had stalled. She had not been able to get any more of her photographs into the local galleries.

  “Yes, of course, I’ll be happy to show Miss Penfield some of my recent work today,” she said. “I’ll be there at one.”

  She hung up and went into her bedroom, opened the door of her closet, and contemplated her wardrobe. She had several smart suits that she had brought with her when she had moved from San Francisco to Adelina Beach but they had been designed to be worn to charity luncheons and garden club teas. They required gloves, hats, and handbags that matched the shoes—not at all the sort of thing an up-and-coming photographer wore to a fashionable gallery.

  She pushed the suits to the back of her closet, where they were lost in the shadows along with a couple of dramatic evening gowns. She had not worn any of them since her arrival in Adelina Beach. The clothes belonged to her other life, the life she had lived as the eldest daughter of the fashionable, socially connected San Francisco Braziers. That life had gone down in flames following the scandalous liaison with an artist and then her subsequent refusal to marry the man her parents had handpicked for her.

  It had been almost a year since she had sat down with her family and announced her decision to pursue a career as an art photographer.

  The news had landed with the force of a grenade in the Brazier household, although she was at a loss to understand why. It should have been obvious that she was passionate about taking pictures. She had been an avid photographer since her father had given her a Brownie on her eighth birthday. She’d moved on to her first view camera and set up her first darkroom at the age of twelve. She had been enthralled by the magic she could create in the dark.

  But the scene in the elegantly appointed living room of the Brazier home on the night of her announcement still rang in her ears. “But, dear, photography is just a hobby,” her mother had said. “There’s no reason you can’t continue to do it after you’re married. I’m sure Hamilton won’t mind.”

  At that point Vivian had pulled the pin out of another grenade. She had informed her parents that she had turned down Hamilton Merrick’s offer of marriage. Her mother had been first horrified and then distraught and, finally, furious.

  Her father had warned her that if she continued with her crazed plan to become a professional photographer he would cut off all financial support until she came to her senses.

  Her sister, Lyra, had watched the drama in silence, a speculative expression in her eyes.

  Later that night Lyra had come to Vivian’s room and sat down on the velvet-covered dressing table stool. She had watched Vivian fill the two suitcases sitting on the bed.

  “You’re serious about your art photography, aren’t you?” Lyra asked.

  “You know I am.”

  “You’re sure you don’t love Hamilton?”

  “Absolutely certain. I suppose if I had to marry someone, Hamilton would probably do as well as any other man.” Vivian took a pile of lingerie out of a drawer and dumped it into a suitcase. “Mother and Father approve of him. He’s in line to take control of his father’s business. He goes to all the right social affairs and we do have a few things in common. I certainly enjoyed the outings on his yacht and he’s an excellent dancer. He was even willing to overlook the scandal. But I’m not in love with him and, frankly, I’m sure he doesn’t love me.”

  “You’re positive about that?” Lyra said.

  “Yep.” Vivian paused in the act of taking a hatbox down from the closet shelf. She eyed Lyra closely and then she smiled. “I see. I hadn’t realized you liked him so much, at least not in that way. You did a very good job of concealing your feelings.”

  Lyra flushed. “Mother was so sure you were going to marry him. I did not want to let anyone know I found him attractive. Besides, Hamilton has always treated me as if I were his kid sister.”

  Hamilton was, indeed, a handsome, charming man, Vivian reflected. On the surface he appeared to be everything a woman in her world could ask for in a husband. They had known each other most of their lives because they had grown up in the same social circles. When she was in her teens she’d had a mad crush on him, but when they had gone their separate ways to college she had not really missed him.

  After graduation Hamilton had taken a position in his father’s law firm. He had dated a lot of women, including her, but he had not shown any interest in marriage until quite recently. It had come as a shock when he had asked her to marry him. Talk about a quick way to kill a perfectly good relationship.

  She dropped the hatbox on the bed and walked across the room to hug Lyra.

  “Trust me, neither my heart nor Hamilton’s will be broken when I move to Adelina Beach,” she said.

  “Must you leave San Francisco to pursue your art?” Lyra asked.

  “For now I think it’s best. If I set up a studio here, Mother and Father will be embarrassed. Or, even worse, they would pressure their friends to ask me to do portraits and wedding photography. I don’t want to do that kind of work, at least not as a career. I want to do the kind of pictures that hang in museums and galleries. Pictures that make people stop and take a second look. I want to create art.”

  “Why Adelina Beach? Why not Hollywood or Beverly Hills?”

  “Adelina Beach is adjacent to L.A. It has all the advantages of being close to the city but it has a reputation as an art town. The best and most exclusive galleries in Southern California have shops there. It’s the place to be for someone like me, an artist trying to establish a career.”

  “I will miss you so much,” Lyra said. Tears filled her eyes.

  “It’s not as if I’m moving to New York or the moon,” Vivian said. “You can come and see me as often as you like. All you have to do is get on the train. And I will come back to San Francisco on holidays and birthdays.”

  “I know, but it won’t be the same.” Lyra used the sleeve of her robe to wipe her eyes. She managed a shaky smile. “But I will admit I have always wanted to see Hollywood.”

  “We will tour Hollywood together the first time you come to visit me.”

  Lyra’s visits had occurred with increasing frequency in the past several months. She had loved the sun and the beach and she had enjoyed acting as an assistant in the studio. Aware of Vivian’s financial circumstances—Gordon Brazier had followed through with his threat to cut off all funding—Lyra invariably showed up at the beach house with a gift of a new dress or a fashionable hat. Vivian’s mother had recovered from her initial emotional reaction and had begun to send lavish presents—shoes, jewelry, or a smart new handbag.

  The result was that Vivian possessed a rather extensive wardrobe for a struggling photographer.

  She pushed aside a new tennis outfit—unworn—and
settled on what she had decided to make her signature professional style—a pair of black slacks with wide, flowy legs, a black silk blouse, and a jaunty little turquoise scarf. Square-toed, stacked-heel shoes fashioned of perforated black patent leather finished the look.

  She crossed the bedroom to the dressing table and brushed her shoulder-length whiskey-brown hair so that it fell in deep waves. Next she uncapped her new crimson lipstick. There would be no hat and no gloves today. Hats and gloves were too formal, too traditional. She was an artist. She had to project the right image—that of a modern, unconventional woman; a free spirit. A woman who did not conform to the rules.

  She had concluded early on that in art photography, as in every other area of life, looking the part was 75 percent of the challenge. Most of the rest involved the same quality it took to walk boldly past a police line armed with only her Speed Graphic—attitude.

  Chapter 4

  At precisely one o’clock that afternoon she stood in the back room of the Penfield Gallery trying to conceal her tension, afraid to let herself get too hopeful. Fenella Penfield was acknowledged as a force of nature in the Southern California art world. Her verdicts were treated as law by serious collectors and fashionable members of the public.

  At the moment, she was bent over the first of the three prints Vivian had brought to show her. She studied it for a long moment and then straightened abruptly.

  “Forget the landscape,” Fenella said. She pushed the picture of the storm-tossed Pacific aside as if it were yesterday’s newspaper. “It’s dramatic enough but unless you’re Ansel Adams, no one is interested in landscapes. They’re inherently boring.”

  Vivian winced inwardly but she had been brought up in the hothouse social world of San Francisco. She knew how to conceal strong emotions. There was no point arguing about the marketability of the picture. It was Fenella Penfield’s gallery, after all. Her opinion was the only one that mattered.

  Penfield was in her mid-thirties, a tall, thin, angular woman with a razor-sharp profile and the tight face of a dedicated smoker. She wore her dark hair in a severe chignon that emphasized her dramatically made-up eyes. She clearly relished the process of savaging the delicate feelings of vulnerable artists. She was well aware that she could make or break a career and seemed to believe that she had a divinely inspired mission to purify the art world.

  The Penfield Gallery was located in a fashionable shopping district. The area had once been an exclusive neighborhood of large, two-story homes built in the Spanish colonial style. Fenella knew how to cater to her wealthy clientele. She always took care to park her elegant red Duesenberg directly in front of the entrance. The expensive vehicle, with its long lines and miles of gleaming chrome, was a visible symbol of class and luxury. It might as well have spelled out the message Don’t Even Think of Entering This Gallery Unless You Are Rich in neon letters. The upscale tone was carried through to the grand entrance and the stark white-walled showroom.

  The back room of the gallery looked as if it had once been part of a grand reception hall designed to host large parties and social gatherings. Unlike the showroom in front, however, it was a typical gallery back room. Vivian had seen enough of them in the course of showing her portfolio to know. Framed and unframed paintings were stacked against the walls. Cartons and crates were piled on the floor. Large sculptures loomed in the shadows. The workbenches were littered with framing tools and materials.

  At the rear of the shop a handsome staircase led upstairs to a balcony that ran the width of the room. There were more pictures and boxes stacked on that level.

  Vivian understood why clients were impressed with the Penfield Gallery and she could certainly appreciate the smart marketing. But she had been raised in a wealthy household, a home filled with genuine Old World antiques, fine carpets, and beautifully polished furniture. It took a lot more than a handsome car out front and the severe, ultramodern décor of the showroom to impress her.

  Fenella contemplated the image of the Adelina Beach pier in the morning light. An aging, dust-coated Ford was parked near the beach. A man and a woman stood next to the vehicle, gripping the hands of their two small, barefoot children. Everything about the couple radiated a mix of exhaustion and resolute determination. The children were wide-eyed and excited by the sight of the ocean.

  It was clear that the family had not come to California on a vacation. They were there for the same reasons so many others had made the journey. Whatever lay behind them was worse than the uncertainty of their future in the West. They had come to find a new start; a new life.

  “I call it Finding California,” Vivian said.

  The photo had been entirely unscripted. She had come across the family on her way home after selling a late-night murder scene to Eddy at the Adelina Beach Courier. The sight of the weary family gazing out at the pier and the horizon beyond had made her pull over to the curb. The couple had agreed to let her take the picture. Afterward she had given them the twenty dollars she had just collected for the crime scene shots. They had acted as if it was a small fortune.

  “I’m not the Farm Security Administration,” Fenella announced. “I have no interest in hanging pictures designed to promote Mr. Roosevelt’s New Deal.” She tossed the photo aside. “Besides, everyone who arrives in California on Route Sixty-Six takes a picture of the beach and the pier. I was hoping you would have something more interesting to show me.”

  Vivian braced herself and reached into her portfolio. She took out the last picture and put it on the table. It was the first in her new series of experimental photographs.

  Fenella’s face tightened. Her bony shoulders tensed. Her eyes narrowed. For a long moment she stared at the picture. Vivian told herself that might be a good sign.

  “It’s the first in a series of limited editions,” she ventured. “I’m calling it Men.”

  When Fenella did not reply, just continued to gaze, transfixed, at the picture, Vivian took the risk of opening her inner vision a little, just enough to get some notion of what to expect.

  The back room of the gallery and everything in it blurred as she focused on Fenella. She caught a fleeting glimpse of energy shivering around the other woman. It was the color of a hot sunset on the eve of a violent storm. Rage.

  Stunned, Vivian hastily shut down her sixth sense and gripped the edge of the table for support. Her pulse was skittering and she was breathing too quickly. She had been braced for a dismissive rejection but not for red-hot anger.

  This was the problem with using her other vision outside the controlled environment of her studio. Glimpsing the raw energy of someone else’s emotions was always unnerving.

  Well, at least she now knew for certain that she would not be launching a career in art photography at the Penfield Gallery.

  “You can’t be serious,” Fenella said at last. Anger and disgust etched each word. She flipped the picture of a nude male figure aside. “This is nothing short of pornography. They sell pictures like this from behind the counter in cheap magazine shops. Really, I am extremely disappointed, Miss Brazier. I have an opening in my upcoming exhibition. I thought I might be able to fit in one of your photographs but obviously that’s not possible.”

  “Sorry to waste your time,” Vivian said.

  She started to gather up the prints.

  A salesclerk appeared in the doorway. She was elegant and refined in a prim black suit. As far as Vivian had been able to determine, every member of Fenella’s staff came from the same mold. Male or female, they were all elegant and refined. They all wore formal black suits.

  “Yes, Miss Curry,” Fenella said. “What is it?”

  “I apologize for interrupting you, Miss Penfield, but Mr. Deverell is here.”

  Fenella frowned. “He doesn’t have an appointment.”

  “No,” Miss Curry said. “But he insists upon seeing you. He says it’s about the Winston Bancroft photogra
ph, the one from Bancroft’s Woman in the Window series. He’s decided that he wants to acquire it for his collection, after all.”

  Fenella shook her head. “Collectors. They can be so difficult. Very well, Miss Curry. Ask him to wait in my office. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The clerk vanished.

  Fenella looked at Vivian. “Morris Deverell is one of my best clients. He is obsessed with art photography.”

  “Photographs in the pictorial style, I take it,” Vivian said. She did not bother to conceal her disapproval. “That’s Winston Bancroft’s style. He does mostly nude female figures, I might add.”

  “Bancroft’s nudes are art, not porn.”

  “Just because he doctors his photographs in an effort to make them resemble paintings doesn’t make his pictures art. No matter what he does he can’t make a photograph an abstract painting. In any case, what’s the point of trying to imitate another kind of art?”

  Fenella gave her a stern look. “You would do well to study Bancroft’s work, Miss Brazier. At least some museums and galleries such as mine are willing to hang works from the pictorial school of photography. I’m afraid the modernist style is doomed to fail.” She smiled coldly. “When all is said and done it is nothing more than a form of journalism, isn’t it?”

  Vivian’s mouth went dry. If Fenella Penfield had learned of her newspaper work, her career was truly doomed. Still . . . Fenella had not actually accused her of debasing her art by doing photojournalism. Fenella was not exactly the subtle type. If she did know the truth or if she had heard rumors, she would not have asked Vivian to show her some work.

  Would she?

  Not that it mattered now. Fenella had just accused her of doing pornography. That was probably lower than news photography on the respectability scale.

  A figure loomed in the doorway of the back room, a man this time. He was in his mid-thirties, tall, slender, attractive in a distinguished sort of way, and athletically built. From his sleekly oiled hair to his well-cut blue blazer, expertly knotted tie, and neatly creased and cuffed trousers he was the picture of upper-class sophistication. He looked like the sort of man who played polo and golf in his spare time.