Red. Erica Spindler

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      Jack looked back at Giovanni. The photographer had wrapped for lunch; he was talking with the client and the ad agency’s art director. Everyone else was either eating or socializing. Giovanni never ate. He never socialized. He prowled and smoked cigarettes, he checked his equipment, he conferred with his assistants and drank the espresso he insisted on having whenever and wherever he was shooting.

      This would be his only opportunity to approach his father, Jack knew. If he missed it, it could be weeks, or longer, before he got another.

      As the art director and client walked away, leaving Giovanni alone, Jack jumped to his feet, excitement and stark terror clawing at his gut. He’d been waiting all his life for this day. He wasn’t going to blow it just because he was scared.

      He started across the studio toward the photographer, palms sweating, legs unsteady. He reached him and squared his shoulders. “Excuse me.”

      Giovanni turned slowly. He glared down at Jack, arching his eyebrows ever so slightly as if considering a pesky insect.

      Jack shifted under the man’s stare, panic turning his mouth to vinegar. “I…um…I—”

      Those dark eyebrows arched a fraction higher, and the man made a soft sound of impatience. “Well?”

      Jack shifted from one foot to the other, searching for the best way to start. He must have taken a fraction too long, because with a snort, Giovanni started to turn away.

      Jack’s heart stopped. He’d lost his chance! After all this time, all his waiting, he couldn’t just let him walk away! He grabbed the photographer’s arm. “Wait!”

      Giovanni stopped and looked back. Beneath his hand, Jack felt the photographer stiffen.

      “I just—” His throat closed over the words, and he cleared it. “I just wanted you to know that…you’re my…dad.”

      Giovanni said nothing. He simply continued to stare at Jack, his expression unchanging. To his horror, Jack felt tears prick his eyes. They gathered in his throat and chest, threatening to choke him.

      He fought them off, barely. “Did you…did you know that?”

      “Of course.” Giovanni frowned, his dark eyebrows lowering ominously. “Your mother and I have an arrangement.”

      An arrangement? His mother and Giovanni had…an arrangement? What did that mean? “I don’t…understand. You’re my father.”

      “I have a son. Carlo is my son.” Giovanni shook off Jack’s hand, turned and walked away.

      Jack stared after him, frozen to the spot, his world crashing in around his ears. Giovanni had already known about him. He had known all along.

      His father didn’t want him. He had never wanted him.

      Tears choked him. He thought of his dreams, his plans, thought of the hours he’d spent imagining them together as father and son, and a howl of pain and rage flew to his throat. He battled it back, fingers squeezed into tight fists.

      His father had another son—Carlo. A son he called his own, a son he wanted. Hatred and jealousy built inside Jack, stealing his hurt, his urge to cry. Carlo, Jack thought again, despising the sound of the name.

      Jack lifted his gaze. It landed on Giovanni, standing across the room, talking with a model. He set his jaw in determination. Giovanni would want him for his son. Someday, Jack promised himself. Someday, Giovanni would want him.

      8

      Someday, Giovanni would want him for his son.

      Jack’s promise to himself was never far from his mind. It burned bright and hot inside him, coloring each year that passed, years that transformed him from a trusting boy into a cocky, worldly-wise sixteen-year-old.

      That day, those words, shaped his life. They gave him direction, focus. He vowed he would prove himself worthy of his father’s love. He vowed he would show Giovanni what a great mistake he had made when he rejected him.

      At first, he hadn’t known how he would do it; he had only known the desire twisted in his gut so tightly, there were days he thought of nothing else. Then it had come to him. He would meet his father, and beat him, in his own arena.

      So while the other boys in his class at high school had involved themselves with sports and girls and parties, he had planned his future. He read everything he could about photography, talked to every assistant who would give him the time of day, studied every photographer’s technique, equipment preference and work habits.

      He had needed a camera, so he had worked anywhere he could for anyone who would pay him. After school, he’d grocery shopped and run errands for the old ladies in the apartments around his and his mother’s. At night, he’d bussed tables and done dishes at the Italian restaurant on the corner. At shoots, he’d done the gofer work everyone else hated. He now owned a used Nikon F2 with a motor drive and two lenses.

      Jack ran his fingers lovingly over the camera’s black metal body, over its levers and buttons. His camera. His first piece of professional equipment, the first of many. He would need a medium-format camera soon, more lenses, tripods, lights, umbrellas and darkroom supplies; he would need a place to work.

      But the 35mm was a good place to start, it gave him flexibility and mobility. It was the single piece of equipment that Giovanni used more than any other.

      Jack frowned and set the camera back on the shelf above his desk. Since that day eight years before, he’d only seen The Great One a handful of times. His mother had stopped bringing him to Giovanni’s shoots. She’d claimed it was her own choice and had nothing to do with the photographer, but Jack thought otherwise. He believed Giovanni had asked her to keep him away. As if by keeping him out of sight, he could deny his existence.

      Whenever Jack thought about it, his determination, and his anger, grew.

      As did his curiosity about his half brother. He wondered about him: what he was doing, what he looked like, if they would like each other if they ever met. He never allowed himself the foolishness of imagining them as friends, as real brothers; facing his father had taught him a powerful lesson about caring too much and about opening himself for rejection. He had promised himself he would never be so naive again.

      But he wondered about Carlo, anyway. He looked for him. For some mention of him, for a picture. His mother, an avid face-watcher, took all the fashion magazines, took glossies like Vanity Fair and Lears, took commercial pulp like People. He scoured them all.

      Finally, he had found a mention in People’s Passages section. Carlo’s mother, a former model, after having been involved in a tragic, disfiguring car crash, had committed suicide. The blurb mentioned her husband, fashion photographer great Giovanni, and their son Carlo.

      Jack slid open the magazine and stared at the blurb and accompanying photograph, eyebrows drawn together in thought. She’d been beautiful, Carlo’s mother. Now she was dead. Did that mean Carlo would come to live with Giovanni? Had he already? The magazine was many months old, the news could have been dated already by the time the magazine had gone to press.

      From the other room, Jack heard the sounds of his mother moving around, getting ready for work. It was early, not quite СКАЧАТЬ