Charcoal on Canvas

[Mistress Jorja]

"Evil is not just a word. It is reality."
- Edgar Allen Poe


The summer was drawing to a close, already the cool breath of autumn whispered its chilling secrets over the sand and surf of Ocean City. The waves broke with more intensity, and then gull's piercing cry is dwarfed by the melancholy sighs of the wind. But still they flocked, loyal patrons of the town, crowding onto the boardwalk for one last cotton candy, turn on the ferris wheel, and breath of salty ocean air...for this year, at least.

Bianca Rituzi sat, legs curled under her, like a cat tucking away it's precious tail. The faded bellbottoms, silver studded belt, blank tanktop, 3/4 length clinging sweater-jacked, silver hoop earings hanging provocatively, topped off with black platform slides made her fit right in with the "usual" crowd of teenagers, which she had been a part of just a few years ago. But yet she stood apart, in a pause, watchful with keen eyes. Her makeup was dramatic, perhaps a remnant from her rebellious younger years, heavy black eyeliner and mascara accentuated with blood red lips, the only color on her entire facade. Her wind whipped, white-blonde picked up the slightest highlights from the neon signs giving it an ethereal quality in the moonlight.

Sketchpad in hand, the rough leather binding comfortably familiar beneath her artistic fingers, she looked over the masses of people...expressions of every size and shape. You can tell she's a local from the wild, almost haunted, look in her eyes, that of one who belongs among the white-capped breakers of the sea. Her sketches show a sensual side, contrasting sharply with her dark, rebel-without-a-cause exterior. Two lover's hands intertwined...the rise and fall of a perfect jaw line -- chiseled from granite and covered with a day or two of stubbled growth...a woman's torso silhouetted against the dark waves...a wide-eyed young girl with preppy pigtails, lips formed into a perfect O around a lollipop...the image of corrupted innocence. The charcoal pencil, her weapon of choice, somehow softening the sharp lines of cold, hard reality she conveyed.

Beyond the ebb and flow of the crowd, stood a tall, motionless figure. The crowds parting around him, and coming back together once the obstacle had passes as if he was no more than a shadow. His eyes intrigued her. There was something that drew her...something that called to her over the harsh accordion and raucous circus music...a dark, intrinsic soul lay beneath those languid pools. She bit her lip in the epitome of concentration, the lithe grace of her smudged fingers shaping and forming the mans expression from a physical characteristic into a work of art.

As if he felt her eyes on him, he turned in a swift flourish to meet her gaze, a fluid gesticulation that seemed to have been almost rehearsed.

There was something there, beneath his calm and indifferent exterior, that hinted of dark temptation. A strong sensation, almost dominance, that no other human she knew possessed.


OOC: Closed thread (for now...) between Jack Steed & myself.

 

[Jack Steed]

Marcel

It was his third time—the one that was supposed to be the charm—although what magic he was hoping for he couldn’t say. For three years now he had been coming to this place, always making sure to have some pretense of business in New York or D.C. or Philadelphia, even though this excursion, this pilgrimage rather, to Ocean City was his principal motive for travel.

Each time he had returned here since Brenda’s death, Marcel Baroneaux would wander down the boardwalk, stopping at various points along the way, unable to get his bearings, asking himself: Was it here? Or here? Or there? And then he would hear that awful carousel screaming above the laughter of children, the scolding of parents, the squeals and cries of teenaged lovers, and hurry forward, remembering now, until he found it. The Spot: the post where he had carved their ‘kilroy was here’ just 5 years before during that mad first whirlwind trip they'd taken together: “MB + BR,” with its silly heart-shaped frame.

Yet, each time he had found it, it was always the same: a three-day drive and nearly 1500 miles from New Iberia, yet he couldn’t bring himself to walk that last 15 feet. He stood there now, as he had done twice before, paralyzed, his hands buried in the trenchcoat that he pulled around himself to ward off this biting northern air, ignoring the stares and mumured comments of the shorts-and-shirt-sleeves throng that swirled around him. Dressed as he was—always in black for this trip—with little food or rest since leaving Louisiana, he could excuse those who mistook him for one of their less fortunate citizens. He smiled grimly to himself and ran a finger along his jaw, feeling the stubbly growth of beard, and, for an instant there, he dwelled in the hallucination that it was her finger once again brushing his chin or his cheek or his lips….

The uncanniness of her touch was unbearable enough. But it was her gaze that made him turn. Gasping for breath, he muttered, “M’ peti’ chere,” and pirouetted, a quick lilting waltz step, as if the body remembered too the last time she had looked at him. Their eyes met, and the melody came back to him: “Jolie Blonde,” a song he hadn’t heard since that night.

This jolie blonde, too, boldly returned his gaze, much as Brenda had done. He studied her, and he felt studied in return. It took a moment for the hallucination to dissipate, and Marcel looked away when he had convinced himself that this third time had been no more successful than the first or second.

“Sorry … I’m so sorry,” he muttered, unaware that he had been drifting closer to the bench. He looked up and was surprised to see her so close now. He smiled awkwardly, realizing how he must appear to her, and apologized again. “Pardon,” he said to the girl, “you must excuse me. Please. I didn’t mean to stare.” Her eyes narrowed and she nodded slightly, still studying him. Marcel glanced at the post across the boardwalk and sighed, and then he looked down at the bench, their bench, occupied now by this stranger. “May I sit for a moment?” he asked her.

 

[Mistress Jorja]

Bianca Rituzi

Bianca followed the man’s steps with her eyes, tentative at first but with an increasing air of confidence and perhaps unkown sense of purpose. Closer now she could tell that he was older...but not by much, although the conveyance of melancholy in the fine lines of concentration that formed like beads of sweat on his forehead, told of far more experience than she in all walks of life.

His lips moved, but no sound escaped. To most it would have looked as if he was talking to himself, but her eye had been trained to value details more highly than a singular entity. The way he raised his chin slightly, parting his lips to enunciate clearly, leaning his head to the side as if to emphazise an abstract thought of the utmost importance, it was clear to see, had he been actually speaking, the words that projected were meant to reach only her ears.

But maybe it wasn’t her that was his intended audience, for although he spoke in her direction, he didn’t really see her. The sharp crack of the beachside fireworks broke through his distant reverie, ricocheting until he focused on her, a slightly embarrassed look on his face. He licked his lips like a man feeling the cool trickle of water on parched skin after entering the blazing domain of the Sahara sun.

“May I sit for a moment?”

She found his request a bit odd, considering the numerous other whitewashed benches that remained unoccupied, but complied to the firm, commanding air of his rich baritone. When she slid over to make room, the sketch pad slipped off her faded jeans and, strictly adhering to Murphy’s law, fell into his line of vision, open to a page detailing one of her most intimate imaginings.

It was her turn to be flustered, and she hurriedly retrieved it, brushing the fine grains of uncleanliness from the stark white pages as she closed it with a reverent sense of delicacy.

The sharp melody of her silver bangles shifting position on the smooth, nutmeg-colored skin of her wrist wrapped around the air itself. She gestured to the empty seat beside her with a flourish.

“Make yourself at home...”

 

[Jack Steed]

Marcel

Marcel hesitated for a moment, his eyes still locked on the spot where the image had been. Such an intimate kiss, rendered as it was with such bold, confident strokes, seemed either uncanny or obscene coming from the pen of one so young. Sensing the girl’s embarrassment, Marcel looked away, feigning interest in a sudden report from the fireworks overhead until she had sufficient time to recompose herself. There was no point in pretending that he hadn’t seen her drawing, but it would be rude to acknowledge it.

“Make yourself at home,” he heard her say, and Marcel exhaled slowly and looked at her again.

Seeing her now, Marcel chided himself grimly. Except for the blonde hair, there was little resemblance. His desires, the ethereal setting, and her bold makeup had conspired to create the doppelgänger effect. But now that he looked at her a third time, he discovered that she was not so young as her costume and makeup had led him, on second glance, to believe. Mid- to late-twenties, perhaps, he mused—old enough, certainly, to make her sketch seem less obscene and fanciful and more erotic and … intriguing.

“Thank you,” Marcel replied, settling himself on the bench beside her. “But I doubt that I’ll be staying quite that long,” he smiled, huddling down in his coat. “I just need a moment . . . to rest.” He closed his eyes and sat quietly, trying one last time to conjure an image that would suffice....

The sound was oddly familiar. He couldn’t quite place it at first, but then he heard her voice. “Are you okay?” The metallic jangling of her bracelets, the gentle touch on his arm, and her soft rich voice. “Are you okay?” she asked again. Marcel bolted upright, embarrassed himself now at having apparently drifted off like that. He shook his head and rubbed his hand slowly over his face.

“Mmmm . . . sorry,” he said, sitting up straighter now and opening his coat to the cool breeze. “Must have . . . . More tired than I thought,” he shrugged, smiling wanly.

“You were talking,” she told him hesitantly. “Saying something. I couldn’t make it out,” she added quickly, helping him now avoid further embarrassment.

“Yes . . . I can imagine,” he chuckled. “I am sorry.”

He sighed deeply and made as if to rise. But his eyes landed on the post across the way, and he stopped breathing for a moment. Once more he was still, and once more he could feel her eyes on him.

“Look . . . uh, I’m not from around here,” he said softly, turning to meet her gaze. “I need some coffee … or a drink … or some food or some … something,” he shrugged. “I don’t know what I need, to be honest,” he smiled. “Could you give me … directions? I think I am lost.”

 

[Mistress Jorja]

Bianca Rituzi

“I’m not from around here...”

That was true beyond a doubt. His black garb and painful expression was unusual to find among this crowd. And if he was a native, she would have been surprised that he didn’t have a girl on either arm, fawning over him. The underlying turmoil of emotions aside, he had a very sensual air to him that would have most whispering ’Wouldn’t mind sinking my teeth into THAT‘ as he passed them by.

“I think I’m lost...”

She smiled as he stumbled over his words, recovering quickly from his seemingly dark reverie. His good natured temperament was as refreshing as the rousing breeze that carried the playful citrus scent of her perfume.

“I’ll not only direct you how to get the strongest, blackest coffee in the town, I’ll escort you there myself.”

Untucking her long legs from their previously curled position, Bianca gestured down the boardwalk in a general sweeping motion, the sound of the silvery bangles almost as much a part of her nature as the heavy footfalls that her black platforms made on the broad planks. The sign of an artsy coffee shop could just be made out, the name framed by a vivid pair of mermaids delicately sipping espresso.

~ Drift In & Sea ~
Surf, Sand, Sun and Coffee...Is this heaven or what?

 

[Jack Steed]

Marcel

Marcel rose and followed the woman as she clopped down the boardwalk. He stared straight ahead, forcing himself not to look back at the post or the bench. It was only after they had traveled a block or so that Marcel realized that his senses had been trained on his guide: the jangling melody of her bangles and the rhythm of her shoes on the planking, the faint notes of her perfume carried back to him on the breeze, and the tight curve of her hips peeking out from the straight length of her sweater. She moved swiftly, easily through the crowd, and Marcel drifted after her, as if pulled along in her wake. It was only when she looked back over her shoulder to make sure he was still with her that he realized he had been staring at her long legs and shapely derriere.

She stopped and waited for him to catch up to her. She smiled at him, pointed up ahead vaguely, and said something to him, but Marcel didn’t understand what it was. His ears were ringing and he felt his face grow warm. After three years of living only with the memories of one woman’s body, Marcel was unnerved to find himself suddenly ogling another’s. As they continued on toward the coffee shop ahead of them, Marcel scolded himself for this betrayal.

When they reached the coffee shop Marcel hurried forward to hold the door for his companion. She seemed surprised by this, and gave him a bemused grin. But she nodded and brushed past him. Marcel inhaled deeply as she did so, hoping to catch another whiff of her beguiling perfume before the coffee house aromas overwhelmed his sense of smell. Once inside, she directed him to a corner table and asked him what wanted. “I’ll get it,” she smiled.

“Double espresso,” Marcel shrugged, “or whatever’s strongest.” Ordering coffee anywhere north of the Felicianas was always disappointing, but at least the sudden fashion for coffee houses had made it possible to get something resembling the thick, rich brew he was accustomed to. She turned toward the counter, and Marcel reached out and clutched her leather-bound sketchpad. “May I?” he offered. A look of panic flashed in her eyes, and Marcel let go of the parcel. “No, no . . . I won’t look,” he explained, gesturing lamely toward the table. “I’ll take it for you.”

She relaxed instantly, and handed him her portfolio. They exchanged another brief, awkward smile, and then she turned on her heel and walked to the counter, tossing her head and running her hand back through her long, blonde hair. Marcel moved to the table in the corner, but, try as he might, he couldn’t take his eyes from her. This is not good, he told himself. This is not supposed to happen. But he continued to watch her.

A few moments later, she returned to the table, carrying the two steaming cups carefully in her outstretched hands. Marcel stood and took the cups from her and set them down, mumbling his thanks, and then he pulled the chair next to him out from the table and held it for her. Again the bemused smile crossed her lips, and again Marcel felt slightly embarrassed. But she sat in the chair and reached for her cup, and Marcel sat again and reached for his.

 

[Mistress Jorja]

Bianca

The coffee shop provided a cosy refuge to artists, poets, and musicians alike. Any hour of the day or night you could find colorful characters exchanging banter in a playful debate over the story line of a highly controversial novel, reciting their own masterpieces from heart, swapping tips on how to better achieve realistic lighting by demonstrating with sketches on the back of napkins, or just killing time over a cup of the best coffee around.

Bianca ushered Marcel in, offering a friendly wave to the patrons that gave her your typical raucous coffee house greeting. Weaving her way through the closely gathered seats and dodging people balancing three or four steaming cups at a time, she led them to a table in the back corner that was away from most of the hustle and bustle.

When Marcel held out his hand for her sketchbook, she shied back almost as if he had threatened her with some horrible form of torture. Making his true intention clear, she passed over the portfolio into his care feeling more than slightly embarrassed at her overreaction. Offering him a tentative smile, she nodded at his request for a double espresso and strode towards the counter, glad to have an excuse to get away from the table for even a few seconds. His gaze was so intense at times she felt he knew things about her than no one had ever guessed before. And even with her back turned she knew he was watching the sway of her fringed jeans and the idle toss of hair.

“Your usual tonight, ‘Anca?

Brett was working the cash register that evening, and she leaned over the counter to give him their usual greeting, brushing her lips to each side of his cheek.

“And a double espresso if it’s not too much trouble.”

She made casual conversation with him about his classes and what gossip he had picked up from the regulars at Drift. Pulling her wallet out of her hip pocket, she paid him and noticed his eyes had wandered to the back table where Marcel was waiting. His whisper in her ear while he counted out the change into her open palm caught her by surprise.

“Picking up strange men off the street again I see...”

Stammering some excuse that could only be taken for a yes, she accepted the two mugs and threaded her way through the chaotic scene that would only get wilder as the night progressed. Setting them on the table, she noticed it was tiled in a scene similar to those she normally sketched and that made up the wrinkled pages of her random musings. Blushing slightly at this and again at his courteous mannerism as he stood to pull her chair out, she averted her eyes in fear they would reveal too much of her emotional reaction to this gentleman.

He was obliging almost to the point of being chivalrous. She was taken aback by his forthright actions but seemingly shy demeanor. Bianca felt it should be her place to make conversation of some sort, but she didn’t know where to start.

“So to what does our humble city owe this pleasure of your visit?”

Sipping her Neapolitan, she scooted his cup across the tiled table, careful not to slosh any of the boiling contents over the curved rim.

 

[Jack Steed]

Marcel

Marcel stared into his cup, idly stirring the thick crema with the tiny spoon, calculating how best to answer her question.

He sighed deeply and chanced to look at her again. She averted her gaze again, lifting her cup to her lips and blowing softly before taking a small sip. It was an endearing, child-like tic, and Marcel smiled at her and shook his head. Since they had entered the coffee shop, the woman had seemed increasingly nervous or anxious about something, and he wanted to put her at ease.

"I was passing through ... business in the city," he began, chuckling softly, and leaning forward in his chair. He propped his elbows on the table and ran his hands back through his longish black hair, holding it away from his face. "I was here several years ago . . . with someone . . . and I was happy."

His intention had been to tell her something banal, something that would suffice for 'polite conversation.' But he blurted the words out without thinking about what he was saying. "And I thought you were . . . that is, back there . . . for a moment. . . ." His voice trailed off in another sigh, and he felt her gaze upon him once again.

The woman slowly lowered her cup to the table and looked at him guardedly, and she leaned back slightly in her chair. Marcel shrugged and leaned back in his chari again, shaking his head, wanting to clarify things for her, for himself.

"There is . . . a slight resemblance," he shrugged helplessly. "I am sorry if I disturbed you."

 

[Mistress Jorja]

Bianca

Marcel's words stuck a chord with her, and although she was strongly against the idea that fate had any hand in ruling her life, there was, never-the-less, an odd feeling she had about him. His each movement caught her eye, admiring the way his masculine hands held the spoon, tapping against the porcelain rim to emphasize his faltering speech. Pursing her lips as she raised her eyes to meet his gaze, the haunting tone of his melancholy voice causing her to set her cup down and pay him her full attention.

“No need for an apology, I’m happy to have the company.”

He unnerved her yes, with that quiet charm that could tame even the most angered spirit, but she saw the pain in his eyes and the way his mouth twisted in sad grin around his coffee mug. Perhaps thinking of what could have been.

Lowering her voice, she leaned on her elbows, the cup warming her palms as she clasped it close to her bosom.

“Love and loneliness can be equally painful. But sometimes talking about it...”

She trailed off, leaving him an avenue of escape if he didn’t agree with this, but offering an sympathetic ear in case he wanted to take advantage of it. She forced herself to meet his pensive gaze, again noticing how darkly attractive he was.

 

[Jack Steed]

Marcel

They held each other’s gaze for an eternity.

The lights seemed to dim and the noisy crowd faded away, and this beguiling young stranger offered herself to him. And much as he had used to do when Father Bernard’s confessional closed around him back home, Marcel began to speak.

He told her about Brenda, and about the trip they had taken together at the beginning of their mad affair, and about how much fun they had had in this place, her city. He told her how happy he had been during those intense several months when they had fallen in love, how he had never expected to find such happiness again at his age, and how the mere sound of her voice or the way she would purse her lips when she would concentrate on something or the way she would twist the rings on her fingers when she was nervous could make his heart race.

And then he spoke at last of that night, that night when he noticed her at the fais-do-do dancing too often and chatting too familiarly with another.

“The way she looked at me when she saw that I had seen… I was stunned. And then I was angry. We argued. She left with him. The man had been drinking—oh, we all had been drinking!—it was a fais-do-do, you know? And . . . there was an accident,” he said softly, shrugging his shoulders and pursing his own lips now to keep them from quivering.

Leaning back in his chair again, Marcel brushed the hair back from his face and sighed heavily. “It’s never easy to lose a loved one—love and loneliness, as you say, mixed together, n'est-ce pas? But to see her go without knowing why—without knowing what I done, what her reasons were. . . . There was no . . . resolution, you see? She walked out the door, and ... that was the last time I saw her.”

Once more Marcel brushed the hair back from his face and then he lifted his now-cold cup of coffee to his lips, downing the bitter dregs. He set the cup down and looked at the woman across the table from him. She hadn’t said a word during his monologue, but she was still looking at him calmly. Marcel lifted the corner of his mouth in a grim attempt at a smile, and shrugged again, hoping to dispel any discomfort she might feel.

“But you know what is crazy?” he chuckled. “I come here every year—three years now—hoping for an answer from her!” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder back in the direction they had first met. “I carved our initials on a post out there—BR + MB, Brenda Richard loves Marcel Baroneaux—and I make a pilgrimage every year . . . like a shrine, you know?” He laughed again, shaking his head in self-mockery. “As if … as if she might appear here in the place where I know we were happy and reassure me that it was really true, that I hadn’t imagined the whole thing, that we would have worked things out, you see?” Marcel laughed again and leaned back in his chair, spreading his arms expansively. “And then I saw you sitting there—on our bench—and … well, as I said, there is a slight resemblance.“

Marcel looked down at the table and noticed the young woman’s hands with the rings on her fingers and the bangles at her wrists. Though she was sitting calmly, he noticed that she was nervously twisting one her rings round and round on a finger. Impulsively, he reached out and placed his hand over hers, and she stopped twisting the ring.

“You are very kind,” he said softly, “listening to a stranger’s story like this. But I should leave you to your friends, I think,” he smiled, acknowledging the two or three other men in the café who were clearly better acquainted with her than he. “But before I do, may I know your name?”

 

[Mistress Jorja]

Bianca

Bianca couldn’t help but be fascinated with Marcel’s story, while although sad and bittersweet it was enthralling. He was a wonderful storyteller, once he got past the tentative exterior. She felt she should offer some sort of consolation, but mere words seemed to lack the depth of heart-wrenching emotion she felt.

Throughout his soliloquy, she had been examining his face, his brilliantly dark eyes especially. The fall of his locks and the arch of his hairline fascinated her, as well as his hands, five fingers splayed along the edge of the granite table that was painted into an art deco chessboard.

The balanced contrast of the shadows and light over his figure resembled the perfection of chiaroscuro used in a Rembrandt or Da Vinci. And just like the interplay of the darkness and it's opposite, there was the similar contrast with his moods – a halfhearted attempt at a smile that fell flat, but a resigned acceptance for the past.

Marcel, she decided, would be an amazing subject. Stark earth tones set against the picturesque backdrop of the dazzling ocean, pale and stormy in it’s winter coat of foamy blue. A visual so unique it would be a true challenge to duplicate, as layered with emotions and personification as it was with patches of graphite and charcoal.

Feeling his hands resting comfortably atop hers, Bianca ignored the prickling of the gazes she felt caressing her neck.

“Bianca. It means white...like, I think, the pale color of a tallowy ocean moon.” She turned her head to look out of the broad picture window, the lingering smoke of the fireworks drifting in the bare sky. The moon perched atop the billowy piles of nothingness, it’s bland reflection distorted by glimmering surface of the sea. “Which, by the way, you should look at sometime. The Atlantic is nocturnal and can be quite a beautiful creature at night.”

Standing, Bianca clasped the leather-bound book to her chest as if it were her only child, as it was – in a way. Taking a final swallow of the creamy mixture that had settled in the bottom of her pumpkin orange pottery cup, she couldn’t resist one more look at his sad expression.

It was true - he intimidated her. Not so much the fact that he was older in years, but that he was far wiser in matters of that heart that she had yet only to dabble in. Her past relationships had been quantity, not quality, and she craved the kind of intimate understanding and contact he spoke freely of.

“Maybe we’ll meet again, Stranger, the town isn’t that big after all...and good luck with finding her.”

 

[Jack Steed]

“Thank you,” Marcel nodded. “But I think my search is over—for this year, at least,” he smiled. The young woman—Bianca—stood next to the table, clutching her portfolio to her breast, looking down at him with a mixture of pity, sympathy, interest and even perhaps fear, Marcel thought. Her fingers brushed across the rich, tooled leather of her book, and her tongue flicked across her deep red lips. My God, I've frightened the poor girl, he scolded himself. Cochon!

Marcel stood and extended a hand to her in what he hoped was a gentle manner. She looked down at it for a second, and then offered her hand to him. “Well, good night, Miz Bianca. And my name is Marcel, as I said—not Heathcliffe, I assure you!” he chuckled. “I hope that I shall have an opportunity to repay your kindness one day soon.” He held her hand for another moment, delighted with the firmness of her grip, and released it slowly and felt her fingers slide along his palm. “And now I think I shall take a look at this moon of yours,” he said, lifting his coat off the back of his chair. “It sounds quite . . . extraordinary.”

As he left the coffee shop, Marcel resisted the desire to look back at her again. He felt quite certain that she would be joining her other friends now, and he didn’t want to see that for some reason. He walked down the boardwalk in the direction of his “shrine,” and he was surprised to find himself wanting a companion for this evening’s stroll. Having lived in monkish solitude these last long three years, like a flagellant whose penitential self-mortification becomes its own indulgence, Marcel suddenly found himself wishing for all those who had tried to reach out to him through his grief.

He came at last to the end of the boardwalk and stood at the rail looking out at the sea. He laughed when he saw the scene that the woman had described to him: the soft, pale moon hanging above the horizon, its light reflecting off the dappled surface of the water several hundred yards offshore, and the tempestuous roar of the surf rolling onto the breakwater below him. “Lovely,” he murmured. “She really is quite lovely.”

And when the thought struck him that he had walked all the way down the boardwalk--right past his “shrine” to Brenda--Marcel laughed again.

 

[Mistress Jorja]

Bianca

Bianca walked out into the night, her mind drifting to the odd twists and turns this evening had taken. Marcel was fascinating, and his story of lost love played right into the hands of her alternate ‘closet romantic’ persona. Her heart ached for him that night, and in more than one way.

The tinkle of brass bells over the coffee shop door reminded Bianca that she hadn’t said her usual goodnight the native inhabitants of this colorful realm deemed a coffee shop. Turning, she caught Brett’s eye and gave him a half wave through the frosted glass.

It was late, and all but a few of the families had gone home with their 2.6 children, in their sky blue minivans, to their suburban two story house, and were, as we speak, sleeping fitfully on their generic cotton mattresses.

Only the ghosts of the night owls haunted the miles of wooden planks. Bianca passed a couple – him almost invisible as she smothered him with her lips and her upper body – and she felt an unusual stab of the green-eyed monster. Jealousy.

This scene of barely contained lust was more frequent in public than one would like to assume. If you knew the right night spots, there were usually a couple or two in some state of undress in the dark back corners where they thought they were safe. These faceless subjects were the muses of some of Bianca’s best works.

Bianca turned random thoughts of Marcel over in her mind for a few minutes, looking at the moon which she had recommended so highly to him. She wondered if he too was staring up at the placid face of Luna, blemished only with the scars of its graceful aging.

Shouldering her black canvas bag, the leather bound book tucked neatly under her arm, Bianca wandered down the length of the boardwalk, not quite ready to leave the majesty of the midnight surf abandoned and unappreciated by an artistic eye.