A Man's Face

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

“You’re a hermit, Marc. When was the last time you had a date?” Ben Parker needles him. Marc’s best friend and colleague is a hound dog, but only to help his friends find romance. He’s married to a terrific woman whom he worships.

Marc grimaces. “A date? What’s that? You know I hate the bar scene. Too much chatter from women who are tipsy on wine, laugh too loud and are hoping to score a husband.”

Ben waves him off. “Forget the bars, and the gym, and all those other hook up places. You need to meet some really classy and gorgeous women. Women who are your intellectual equal. And I know just the place.”

Marc snickers. “Intellectual equal? Sounds really snobbish.”

“No. Just high class, where the woman of your dreams just might have a father in high places. You know, for your career.”

“A country club? Who can afford those fees?”

Ben shakes his head No. “An art gallery. An opening gala. They love this art stuff, and most of the guys that attend are gay. So you’ll have a clear field.”

Marc’s eyebrows knit together. “Really, Ben?”

Ben almost quick-steps to keep up with Marc’s long, smooth strides. “You doubt me? You are a catch, my man. Most guys would kill to have your looks, and women should be lining up to grab you. Besides, the food is fantastic and the wine flows freely, as in no charge.”

“What kind of art? I’m not interested in all that wussy impressionist stuff.” Ben and Marc have been friends since college days, and although it’s a thought that has yet to enter their minds they will eventually wind up on opposite sides of the courtroom.

“Hey, Meredith’s work is not wussy,” Ben defends his modern artist wife. “It’s terrific. Anyway her work is in the side gallery now. The main exhibit is right up your alley. It’s got paintings and photographs of the history of flight - from Da Vinci’s ornithopter to the Wright Flyer to the Concorde, and beyond.”

Marc brushes off this idea. “Sounds like the Air & Space Museum. I’ve been there countless times. Nothing new.”

‘No, no, not that one,” Ben explains, with his usual exuberance. “A private gallery with work you won’t see at Air & Space. Incredible renderings, very imaginative, futuristic and the like. There are also models you can touch.”

“What?”

“And buy.”

Marc gives Ben a good-natured smirk. “Are we talking about planes, Ben?”

“Funny. Come on. What else have you got to do tonight besides TV and a pizza?”

“I’m not really sold on this.”

“Because I haven’t told you the best part.”

“And that is?”

“They are raffling off a weekend personal charter of a Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet that you can fly yourself. It’s a beauty.” Ben has listened to Marc’s fascination with flying since their college days, sometimes with rapt attention and other times with his eyes glazing over at the remarkably boring, to him, details. But this is an opportunity he doesn’t want his best friend to miss.

Marc pauses their power walk, amazed. “What? That plane costs two million. Those raffle tickets must be a fortune.”

“Not really. It’s a promotional deal, only for people who have a pilot’s license. Just plunk your business card in the hopper.” I promise if you go I’ll never bug you again.”

“I’ll hold you to that. Okay, I’m in. Just this once. And I’d better win that raffle.”

“And I want to be your first passenger when you do.” Marc laughs at the thought of Ben pie-eyed, the only way he flies.

Men in cool blue blazers and colorful crew necks, and women in short skirts and espadrilles showing off spectacular legs, meander from paintings to etchings, realistic and surreal, contemporary to abstract, blathering with sometimes faux knowledge while holding their tulip-shaped wine glasses.

Marc is impressed by the stylish gallery design even though he knows absolutely nothing about gallery design. But this one is large and airy, almost like an airport hangar, with miniature prototypes of planes from every century, reimagined with psychedelic designs, hanging enticingly from exposed beams. Life-sized portraits of famous planes and their aviators line the walls and cajole him along on a flying buff’s pictorial dream: Wiley Post who made the first solo flight around the world, then crashed on a failed take-off from Alaska, killing himself and humorist Will Rogers who held a typewriter in his lap as he wrote his column. The Spirit of St. Louis, designed and built in San Diego, with the input of pilot Charles Lindberg, making the first solo flight across the Atlantic.

Two complex men. Both of them recipients of many awards and medals, notable for their scientific and humanitarian endeavors. One a Nazi sympathizer, anti-Semite and bigamist; the other with a record of armed robbery. Still, the men’s character flaws don’t detract from Marc’s admiration for their historic accomplishments, and he realizes we are all - famous, infamous, and everyman - capable of behaviors on either end of the spectrum of human conduct, and everything in between. Best of all they flew, escaped the limitations of the earth to become aviation heroes.

Perusing the sleek personal jets Marc silently chooses, I want one of those...or that one...for his dream is to own his own private plane, one that he can fly into the serenity of a cloudless sky. The exhibit program lists each of the items, its price - to this Marc gives out a low whistle - and a picture of the graphic designer and image consultant, Anabel Starr, an exotic beauty. But it’s the flying machines that stir his desires and provoke his fantasies.

Upon turning to another alcove, he is startled to see the plane that he flew as a kid in his bedroom, a model replica of the A-10 Thunderbolt II. Marc’s blood pressure rises. The memory pierces his consciousness: flying the model out the window of his bedroom, then seeing it crash on the cement below. He runs down the stairs and stops short at the doorway to the kitchen. She is lying on the floor soaked in blood. The scar-faced man is kneeling over her. He is almost a man, maybe 18 or so, handsome, except for the cruel scar cheek to chin. Mom? She doesn’t answer.

Queasiness creeps in and brow sweat begins to form, but a fragrant presence jolts him back to the here and now.

“So, which one do you dream of?” Her voice is musical, and silken smooth. The sensual scent of Jasmine causes him to turn.

“And what makes you think I dream of one?” Marc replies with a smile, as much for the subject of planes as for the beautiful woman with ebony eyes who is standing daringly close.

“Well, men have few dreams. They either desire a fast car, a fast horse, or a fast plane. Plus you’re here looking at them.”

“Actually, I was dragged here by my colleague, Ben. His wife is an artist with an exhibit in the side room.”

“Oh, yes. Meredith Parker. I love her vibrant playful style tempered by sophisticated colors layered within a beautiful palette.”

“I have no idea what you just said. Are you an artist, too?” Marc looks at her slim, well-manicured fingers for any sign of paint stains.

“Well, yes and no. I don’t paint or etch but I do have to use artistic instincts to create image campaigns and design exhibit spaces for my various clients, like this one. What do you think?”

“I am almost speechless with admiration.”

“And what do you do? Mr. - ?”

“It’s Marc. Marc Jordan. I’m a lawyer. Defense, actually.”

“Really. A noble profession. So nice to meet you, Marc Jordan.” She offers her hand and Marc feels the warmth, the welcome, and the seduction in her touch.

Marc succumbs to it completely: the warmth, the welcome and the seduction. No matter how hard he tries he cannot fathom the depths of her passion, or satiate the hunger for excitement that dwells within. The fire inside Anabel driving her ambitions and dictating her temperament completely envelopes him in its unrelenting heat. Polar opposites attract. Anabel is demanding, getting every thing she desires, while Marc, in his buttoned-up introspection, yearns only to remember the one thing he truly wishes to forget.

Marc’s few past relationships were benign, never rising to the heights of emotion that he feels now for Anabel. If it is possible to be “possessed” by pheromones or some invisible force, he is. He has little control over his emotions when she is near, can think of nothing else but her, as though fate has ordained their coupling.

He has a downtown loft apartment, not in one of the million dollar condos near the Convention Center that are completely out of range of his wallet, but in a quaint old building that was once a hotel, exuding old Spanish charm. He loves that it’s in walking distance of every location important in his career, but with the added perk of a bedroom view of the bustling Embarcadero, the ships, the shops, the ferries, the bay. He and Anabel spend as many hours there as their work schedules will allow, exploring each other physically, erotically, fervently.

“Ana, I know every beautiful inch of you, but somehow I don’t know who you are. There are some pieces of the puzzle missing.”

“Mystery in a woman, I’ve heard, is very romantic. And you know how I feel about romance.” She moves her body so close that he feels she could meld into his, like a shapeshifter, making them one.

“But you never talk about family or your childhood,” says Marc, the one most guilty of never speaking of family or a childhood interrupted by two tragic deaths.

All Anabel will reveal is that her father is a single-minded successful business man, and that her mother left when she was a child and she has had to resort to therapy to deal with it. But one thing she does carry of her mother is her artistic talent and instinct, which led her to her current career.

“She taught me art, vision, color, space, feng shui...”

“Feng Shui?”

“Yes. It’s a Chinese system that studies people's relationships to their environment, especially their home or workspace, in order to achieve maximum harmony with the spiritual forces believed to influence all places.”

“You do have a way with words, Anabel,” Marc says, hearing a slight tinge of hyperbole in her description. “With all those mystical references, the name Starr suits you. Come clean. Is it real or made up?”

“Not really made up. My middle name is Estrella, which means Star.”

“Anabel Starr,” Marc says, lifting up her chin with soft fingers, “you light up my life.”

She laughs, but with obvious affection. “Oh, please. If I didn’t love you so much I’d say that’s the corniest line I’ve ever heard.”