Return passage, p.5
Return Passage,
p.5
And there definitely wasn’t supposed to be one.
The groove had definitely been there, but he hadn’t been in it.
That was the problem. It had slid along, sweeping his staff into their own orchestrated perfection, but he’d remained untouched. That ideal, seamless flow hadn’t included him at all.
“Be honest, boyo, that session sucked,” he told the empty studio. Everything had come together so perfectly for yet another ad for yet another high-end glossy. Man, the Magazine would launch spectacularly in a few weeks, a high-profile mid-December launch, and it would include a never before seen twelve-page spread by the great Russell Morgan. The rag would probably never pay off the lavish launch party of hope, ice sculptures, and chilled magnums of champagne before disappearing like a thousand before it.
“Morose much?”
The studio kept its thoughts to itself—the first reliable sign that he wasn’t totally losing his shit.
He stowed the last camera with the others piled by his computer. At the breaker box he shut off the umbrellas, spots, scoops, and washes. The studio shifted from a stark landscape in hard-edged relief to a nest of curious shadows and rounded forms. The tang of hot metal and deodorant were the only lasting result of the day’s efforts.
“Get your shit together, Russell.” His reflection in the darkened window, stories above the streetlights of West 10th, was unimpressed and proved it was wise enough to not answer back. There was never a “down” after a shoot; there was always an “up.”
Not tonight.
He’d kept everyone late—even though it was Thanksgiving eve—hoping for that smooth slide of image-camera-man. It was only when he saw the power of the images he captured that he knew he wasn’t a part of the chain anymore and decided he’d paid enough triple-time expenses.
The next to last two-page spread would be the killer—shot with the door open against a background as black as the sports car’s finish, the model’s single perfect leg wrapped in thigh-high red-leather boots all that was visible in the driver’s seat. The sensual juxtaposition of woman and sleek machine served as an irresistible focus. It was an ad designed to wrap every person with even a hint of a Y-chromosome around its little finger. And those with only X-chromosomes would simply want to be her. He’d shot a perfect combo of sex for the guys and power for the women.
Even the final one-page image, a close-up of driver’s seat from exactly the same angle, revealing not the model but instead a single rose of precisely the same hue as the leather boot, hadn’t moved him despite its perfection.
Without him noticing, Russell had become no more than the observer, merely a technician behind the camera. Now that he faced it, months, maybe even a year had passed since he’d been yanked all the way into the light-image-camera-man slipstream. Tonight was a wakeup call and he didn’t like it one bit. Wakeup calls happened to others, not him. But tonight he could no longer ignore it, he hadn’t even trailed along in the churned-up wake.
“You’re just a creative cog in the advertising machine.” Ouch! That one stung, but it didn’t turn aside the relentless steamroller of his thoughts speeding down some empty, godforsaken autobahn.
His career was roaring ahead, his business’ growth running fast and smooth. But, now that he considered it, he really didn’t give a damn.
His life looked perfect, but—“Don’t think it!”—his autobahn mind finished despite the command, it wasn’t.
Russell left his silent reflection to its own thoughts and went through the back door that led to his apartment—closing it tightly on the perfect BMW, the perfect rose, and somewhere, lost among a hundred other props from dozens of other shoots, the long pair of perfect red-leather Chanel boots that had been wrapped around the most expensive legs in Manhattan. He didn’t care if he never walked back through that door again. He’d been doing his art by rote; how god-awful sad was that?
And just to rub salt in the wound, he shot commercial art.
He’d never had the patience to do art for art’s sake. Delayed gratification was his idea of no fun at all. He left the apartment dark with only the city’s soft glow through the blind-covered windows revealing the vaguest outlines of the framed art on the wall. Even that almost overwhelmed him tonight.
He didn’t want to see the huge prints by the art artists: autographed Goldsworthy, Liebowitz, and Joseph Francis’ photomosaics for the moderns. A hundred and fifty rare, even one-of-a-kind prints adorned his walls—all the way back through Bourke-White to Russell’s prize, an original Daguerre. The Museum of Modern Art kept begging to borrow his collection for a show…and at the moment he was half tempted to dump the whole lot in their Dumpster if they didn’t want it.
Crossing the one-room loft apartment—as spacious as the studio—he bypassed the circle of avant-garde chairs that were almost as uncomfortable as they looked and avoided the lush black-leather wrap-around sectional sofa of such ludicrous scale that it could be a playpen for two or host a party for twenty. He cracked the fridge in the stainless-steel-and-black corner kitchen searching for something other than his usual beer.
A bottle of Krug.
Maybe he was just being grouchy after a long day’s work.
Juice.
No. He’d run his enthusiasm into the ground but good.
Milk even.
Would he miss the camera if he never picked it up again?
No reaction.
Nothing.
Not even an itch in his palm.
That was an emptiness he did not want to face. Especially not alone, in his apartment, in the middle of the world’s most vibrant city.
Russell turned away, and just as the door swung closed, the last sliver of light—the relentless chilly blue-white of the refrigerator bulb—shone across his bed. A quick grab snagged the edge of the door and left the narrow beam illuminating a long pale form on his black-silk bedspread.
The Chanel boots weren’t in the studio after all. They were still wrapped around those three thousand dollar-an-hour legs: the only clothing on a perfect body. Five foot-eleven of intensely toned female anatomy right down to an exquisitely stair-mastered behind. Her long, white-blonde hair lay as a perfect Godiva over her tanned breasts—except for their too exact symmetry, even the closest inspection didn’t reveal the work done there. She lay with one leg raised just ever so slightly to hide what was meant to be revealed later.
Melanie.
By the steady rise and fall of her flat stomach, he knew she’d fallen asleep while waiting for him to finish in the studio.
How long had they been an item? Two months? Three?
She’d made him feel alive…at least when he was actually with her. Melanie was the super-model in his bed or on his arm at yet another SoHo gallery opening. Together they journeyed to sharp parties and trendy three-star restaurants where she dazzled and wooed yet another gathering of New York’s finest with her ever so soft, so sensual, and so studied French accent. Together they were wired into the heart of the in-crowd.
But that wasn’t him, was it? It didn’t sound like the Russell he once knew.
Perhaps “they” were about how he looked on her arm?
Did she know tomorrow was the annual Thanksgiving ordeal at his parents? The grand holiday gathering that he’d rather die than attend? Any number of eligible woman would be floating about his parents’ house out in Greenwich; anyone able to finagle an invitation would attend in hopes of snaring one of People Magazine’s “100 Most Eligible.” They all wanted to land the heir to a billion or some such; though he was wealthy enough on his own, by his own sweat, to draw anyone’s attention. He ranked number twenty-four on the list this year—up from forty-seven the year before despite Tom Cruise being available yet again.
But not Melanie. He knew that it wasn’t the money that drew her. Yes, she wanted him. But even more, she wanted the life that came with him—wrapped in the man-package. She wanted The Life. The one that People Magazine readers dreamed about between glossy pages.
His fingertips were growing cold where they held the refrigerator door cracked open.
If he woke her there’d be amazing sex. Or a great party to go to. Or…
Did he want “Or”? What more did he want from her?
Sex. Companionship. An energy, a vivacity, a thirst he feared that he lacked. Yes.
But where was that smooth synchronicity hiding, like the light-image-camera-man of photography that he’d lost? Where lurked that perfect flow from one person to another? Did she feel it? Could he ever feel it? Did it even exist?
“More?” he whispered into the darkness to test the sound. He knew all about wanting more.
The refrigerator door slid shut—escaping from his numbed fingers—which plunged the apartment back into darkness, taking Melanie along with it.
His breath echoed in the vast darkness. Proof that he was alive if nothing more.
It was time to close the studio—time to be done with Russell Incorporated.
Then what?
Maybe Angelo would know what to do. He always claimed that he did. Maybe this time Russell would actually listen to his almost-brother, though he knew from the experience of being himself for the last thirty years that was unlikely.
Seattle.
Damn! He’d have to go to bloody Seattle to find his best friend. There was a possible upside to such a trip—maybe there’d be a flight out before tomorrow’s mess at his parents’. He slapped his pocket, but once again he’d set his phone down in some unknown corner of the studio and it would take forever to find. He really needed two—one chained down so that he could always find it to call the other.
Russell considered the darkness. He could guarantee that Seattle wouldn’t be a big hit with Melanie.
Now if he only knew whether that was a good thing or bad.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today and Amazon #1 Bestseller M. L. "Matt" Buchman has 70+ action-adventure thriller and military romance novels, 100 short stories, and lotsa audiobooks. PW says: “Tom Clancy fans open to a strong female lead will clamor for more.” Booklist declared: “3X Top 10 of the Year.” A project manager with a geophysics degree, he’s designed and built houses, flown and jumped out of planes, solo-sailed a 50’ sailboat, and bicycled solo around the world…and he quilts. More at: www.mlbuchman.com.
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Thrillers
Dead Chef
One Chef!
Two Chef!
Miranda Chase NTSB
Drone*
Thunderbolt*
Condor*
Ghostrider*
Raider*
Chinook*
Havoc*
White Top*
Start the Chase*
Romantic Suspense
Delta Force
Target Engaged*
Heart Strike*
Wild Justice*
Midnight Trust*
Firehawks
Main Flight
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Full Blaze
Hot Point*
Flash of Fire*
Wild Fire
Smokejumpers
Wildfire at Dawn
Wildfire at Larch Creek
Wildfire on the Skagit
The Night Stalkers
Main Flight
The Night Is Mine
I Own the Dawn
Wait Until Dark
Take Over at Midnight
Light Up the Night
Bring On the Dusk
By Break of Day
Target of the Heart
Target Lock on Love
Target of Mine
Target of One’s Own
White House Holidays
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Frank’s Independence Day*
Peter’s Christmas*
Christmas at Steel Beach
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Roy’s Independence Day*
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Christmas at Peleliu Cove
Henderson’s Ranch
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Big Sky, Loyal Heart*
Big Sky Dog Whisperer
Tales of Henderson’s Ranch
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Shadow Force: Psi
At the Slightest Sound*
At the Quietest Word*
At the Merest Glance*
At the Clearest Sensation*
White House Protection Force
Off the Leash*
On Your Mark*
In the Weeds*
Contemporary Romance
Eagle Cove
Return to Eagle Cove
Recipe for Eagle Cove
Longing for Eagle Cove
Keepsake for Eagle Cove
Love Abroad B&B
Heart of the Cotswolds: England
Path of Love: Cinque Terre, Italy
Where Dreams
Where Dreams are Born
Where Dreams Reside
Where Dreams Are of Christmas*
Where Dreams Unfold
Where Dreams Are Written
Where Dreams Continue
Science Fiction / Fantasy
Deities Anonymous
Cookbook from Hell: Reheated
Saviors 101
SF/F Titles
The Nara Reaction
Monk’s Maze
The Me and Elsie Chronicles
Non-Fiction
Strategies for Success
Managing Your Inner Artist / Writer
Estate Planning for Authors*
Character Voice
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Song copyright 1983 & 1985 Matthew L. Buchman
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