Chapter One

 

Spring arrived at the end of February in San Francisco. It came with the first warm, thigh-tickling breeze, with the aroma of fresh grass and burgeoning leaves and new blossoms. It brought with it reborn lust to stir the veins and the remembrance of things past. It was that way for Sophie Russo, who jogged the steep city block. This was a regular practice, parking her old VW at the bottom of the hill and racing to the top, breathless by the time she reached the wrought-iron gate in front of Martin Scoffield's studio. The practice had its purpose, clearing out the cobwebs from her reluctant but beautiful body, making her head light, her heart beat rapidly and her pale cheeks flush. Body purified, head purged of grief, she would expel a sensuous breath of air, her lissome body looking as though it was happily collected and ready to work.

Sophie viewed that unsullied neighborhood with a degree of admiration, pondering how anything subject to the wind and the grime of a city could remain so beautifully unscathed. Victorian row houses lined the streets as far as her eye could see in all directions. Like pastel chocolates, the sculpted exteriors were painted in diminished shades of white and cream, trimmed with grey, blue, pink and sometimes tan. Occasionally now, there were highlights in the scrollwork, contrasting shades of navy, green and burgundy. One mutinous neighbor had painted their starched Victorian in vibrant shades of pink, mauve and cranberry, totally forgetting the proper decorum requisite in this sparkling community. The oddity made Sophie smile. She loved every minute on these unsoiled streets and the way they made her feel washed clean. She could admire this perfect neighborhood, but she could never live here comfortably. Her life needed its tarnished places since she was certainly a tarnished woman.

With one last glance toward the Pacific Ocean far in the distance, she would open the gate and step lightheartedly up the steps. Martin Scoffield's studio was in a corner house, one larger and detached from the other dwellings on the block. Light could come in through four sides, not just two-though the house was so close to the one adjacent, with only six feet separating their outer walls, that no sunlight actually hit the nearly useless windows on that end of the house. Taking advantage of its large lot, Scoffield's Victorian styled studio sprawled as though bursting its tightly laced seams, a turret at the top, bay window on the side, and an octagonal corner of the house jutting out beyond the more straight-laced façade.

Sophie could imagine herself living like an angel inside this house-all the rooms were light and airy; and when the windows were open, the Pacific breeze fluttered the thin curtains as if fairy sprites were dancing odes to Spring. Martin kept the hardwood floors gleaming, the rooms as pastel and muted as the neighborhood's pastel atmosphere. He'd remodeled what had been a typically drab house, turning it into one extraordinary morning room-that is, except for his darkroom where he developed his photographs and the main studio that changed according to the requirements of each photo shoot. Knowing she was no angel, Sophie's daydream of living in the house was just a playful fantasy. Working there was enough to suit her need for this cheerful splendor.

It had been comforting to have a regular job modeling clothes for department store advertisements. After her miserable twenty-sixth year when her mother died and her boyfriend of three years lost his life in the same car wreck that immobilized her for four months with a broken leg, her twenty-seventh year looked brighter-at least one that might allow her to mend her tattered spirit and put some distance between herself and the past. The task had been difficult. The modeling job had been the beginning, as though she'd been given a gift from God to restore her faith in life.

Her best friend, Maureen, had said that her life was bound to make a change, and so it had. Maureen had endured her share of grief and should know. She was infinitely wise, and thankfully patient with Sophie's slow progress back into the land of the living.

When Sophie first crossed into Martin Scoffield's world she had no idea how all-consuming this association would be. He simply adored her body. Sitting in the reception area, having answered his advertisement for a female clothing model, she was surrounded by gorgeous women, some robust and voluptuous, and others, willowy, slender versions of herself. She tossed her head back, letting the natural curls of her shoulder length hair fall behind her head while she made a stab at reading a fashion magazine. Most of the models in the room were doing the same in one way or another; though they were all too nervous to concentrate on anything. A few of the more experienced models sat straight-faced and relaxed as though they already had the job. This would be Sophie's third modeling job if she were hired; but seeing her competition, she assumed the audition would amount to no more than the other dozen auditions of the last few weeks-an unproductive lesson in rejection.

Martin Scoffield, at thirty-three, was an excellent photographer with great credentials that extended far beyond the print layouts he did to keep his business in the black. He'd produced a book of artful images taken throughout the city, highlighting the uniquely diverse character of San Francisco women. When so much is written about the gay community, Martin's exposé was a lovely tribute to another of the many defining spirits in this multi-layered city-straight, lesbian, old, young, beautiful, aged, ragged and ordinary women appeared in his work. Hailed as quite an accomplishment far beyond San Francisco itself, it put Martin Scoffield in a revered position in an often-patronizing art community.

He often said he was "getting away" from strictly commercial shoots like the ones Sophie modeled for, but that was only a pipe dream. It would take some time before he could retire from the more mundane aspects of a photographer's life.

Sophie Russo, however, saved him from the mundane and the ordinary. The instant he laid eyes on her-her thin hand was gently flinging a lock of rebellious hair out of her eyes-he was in love. Had Venus herself appeared in his reception room, he wouldn't have been more impressed. Hers was not the kind of beauty that won pageants, that would be picked as the runway model of the year, or would appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated clad only in a swimsuit. Her beauty was unique.

There was a quality of innocent virtue; though her essence was not all air and reveries. She was serene. She would speak quietly while so many other models in the room would emerge boldly once they were called on to speak. Her step would be sensuous in the purest form and uncomplicated. Her power was sexual, but not manipulative, hard, or grinding. Martin had the feeling that any moment this vision of femininity could lay back, part her legs and allow herself to be taken.

Though she was serene and contemplative, and easily seduced, Martin knew that this girl had an edge-a flaw in her character, which only made her more fascinating. Was she really what he needed in a department store model? And did he really care if she wasn't?

During their first weeks of photo shoots, Martin learned of her recent grief. He saw the sadness in her soul emanating along with her natural radiance. Perhaps that sadness kept her grounded, so she appeared less flighty than she might have been otherwise. She was clearly grounded in reality, no longer able to dream quite as fancifully as she once had.

It said a lot of Martin Scoffield that with just one glance at Sophie Russo he could deduce so much. It didn't take but a split second for him to pick her out of the group and motion her into his private office-all to the curious and critical stares of those who were left behind. The gesture was so unexpected, and so decisive that the other waiting models gave up hope of landing the job. At the same time, none left Scoffield's studio until they were dismissed.

Sophie Russo had no shortcomings as a model. She had uncanny instincts before the camera-almost as though she was inside Martin's head, knowing exactly what he wanted each moment. Martin liked pliable models. When he was working, he was the creator and viewed his models as clay to shape in a mold he devised from his own visions.

Sophie's relationship with the photographer developed easily into a friendship-a backwards sort of one, since Sophie was on guard against giving too much to anyone. She wasn't in the mood for a relationship after the last one left her so brutally ravaged. And, thankfully, Martin wasn't interested in a relationship either. He might have been gay-his sexual orientation hadn't been discussed. Though everything else was. During the course of a shoot, Martin often commenced innocuous conversations about film, theatre, San Francisco social life and the weather. Beginning with simple small talk, they proceeded to touch on their personal lives.

These exchanges were so detached, removed from emotion and even reality, that Sophie slipped in all the essential facts about her life without raising a single tear-everything from her childhood dilemmas, the deaths of her mother and boyfriend, to discourses on remodeling her apartment-something necessary to get the spooks of the past off her back-to her best friend, Maureen.

While Martin posed her in clothing; everything from cute, to romantic, to matronly, to teenage slutty, he was at the same time offering quiet therapy, so very different from the long and emotional sessions, crying her eyes out on Maureen Duvall's convenient shoulder.

After three weeks of steady work, it was obvious that working with Martin Scoffield was more than just a job. "Are you falling in love with him?" Maureen asked one afternoon, as Sophie plopped down in a kitchen chair inside her friend's warm and garlic smelling kitchen. Mo stood over her with a spaghetti-covered spoon waiting for an answer. She was a soft on the outside, steely on the inside brunette-long on efficiency and wisdom, though often short on tact.

"No!" Sophie insisted looking shocked that the subject was even mentioned. "Why would you say that?"

"He's all you talk about."

"That's because I've been with him ten hours a day for nearly ten days straight. We know each other very well."

"And he's in love with you," she stated flatly.

"He loves my body and the way I pose. For some reason I'm absolutely perfect for what he wanted."

"Beware."

"Of what?"

"You'll be in bed with him before the month's out and I'm not sure you're ready for that."

"Of course, I'm not. But, Mo, I'm not attracted that way, and I don't really think he's attracted to me that way either. I'm more of a virtuous Goddess than I am a potential lover," she said acting playfully, way a Goddess would act. "Besides, he might well be gay."

"Is he?"