Black Hearts

  “I have a car. I’d be happy to drive anywhere, so long as you’re there.”

  Her cheeks flush even more and I have to hide my smile. I love getting this reaction out of her, and it’s so easy to do.

  “Okay, well, that might make things easier,” she says. “I think some of the best shots in the city, you know, to get a real feel for it, are a little harder to get to by public transport. Doesn’t mean I don’t do it all the time, but I’m not sure if you’re up for that.”

  I nod my head toward the top of Taylor Street, beyond the school. “Come on, let’s go to my hotel and get the car. I’ll drive, you tell me where to go.”

  She seems hesitant, maybe because the two of us on public transport would be safer, or at least less awkward, in her eyes. But my smile quickly convinces her otherwise.

  “So, what did you learn today?” I ask her.

  She sighs, adjusting the camera bag on her shoulder. “Nothing important. I mean, I guess it is but…just something I’m not thinking about yet. Setting up your own business. How to work freelance. That kind of thing.”

  “That doesn’t interest you?”

  She shrugs, flipping her hair. “It does. I mean, I want this to be my career, you know? But…it’s scary. Because it makes you think about what’s after that. I still don’t know what I want to be. I know what people expect me to be…”

  “What?”

  “My mother,” she says, pressing her lips together. She catches me staring at her and gives me a quick smile. “It’s not a bad thing. My mom is great. It’s just, well, she’s actually a well-known photographer. In the bay area, anyway.”

  “Is that so? So it runs in the family.”

  “Yeah, we’re all kind of artists. Except for Ben. He’s my brother. He lives in Santa Cruz, is almost done with school there. He’s into, like, MMA fighting and computer hacking and all that.” Hacking? It reminds me to tread carefully with that too. If someone with any kind of hacking experience wanted to really find out who I was, they could link me to the cartel pretty quickly.

  She goes on and I make myself pay attention. “I don’t remember him being very artistic but I could be wrong. Maybe he secretly paints or something. Then there’s my dad. He’s a tattoo artist.”

  I give her an impressed look. “You mean he was or still is?”

  “Still is. I know, he’s like almost fifty. But he’s not stopping anytime soon.”

  “And why should he?” I tell her. “My father is at the height of his…career. And he’s not stopping either. Sometimes I think he should take a break and sometimes there’s too much pressure on me…”

  “Oh yeah?” Now she’s really intrigued, chewing on that shiny lower lip. “What does he do? What does he want you to do?”

  I scratch at my stubble. “He’s an importer and exporter of various products. You’re pretty and white, so you must like avocados.”

  “He grows avocados?”

  “Doesn’t grow them,” I tell her. “He just buys them from other countries, sells them to the US, passes them across the border.”

  I’m not even lying, not really. The inside of fake avocados can hold an awful lot of opioids and fentanyl. If you held one in your hand, you’d swear they were real. They even squeeze the same way, smell the same way. The drugs come in, the avocados go out. Of course my father and I don’t have much to do with that process, but we’re the ones who orchestrate it, one of the many different ways we get the drugs where they need to go—right into the hands of the American people.

  “By the way, I may be white and pretty, but I don’t like avocados,” she says a few beats later as we turn onto California Street.

  “No avocados? You’re rebellious, aren’t you?” I tease her quietly. “Do you have any tattoos? Or is that not considered rebellious if your father gave them to you?”

  “How do you know he gave them to me?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess it’s not such a bad-ass statement when your father does it. But yeah, I’ve got them. The only one you can see right now though is this one.” She peels back the sleeve of her jacket to reveal a highly-detailed Death Star from Star Wars with the word RESIST underneath.

  “Resist, persist,” I say, finding myself warming to her. “You’re not just rebellious, you’re part of the rebellion.”

  She laughs. “I wish. My parents taught me to question everything and so…that’s what I’ve been doing.” At that, her brows pull together, as if an unpleasant thought has slid into her brain. I want nothing more than to erase whatever thoughts she’s having that make her look less than happy. I think, no, I know I could make that happen too, if she gives in to me. The thought of her naked on my hotel bed, eyes rolling back in her head while I count her tattoos with my tongue. She’d have no thoughts, no worries, except me.

  Vicente will be the only name on her lips.

  “That’s probably what makes you a great photographer,” I tell her. “Questioning everything you see, never taking anything for granted. Plus, you’re observant. You noticed me in the café the other day before we even met.”

  “Yeah, well,” she says quietly, tucking her hair behind her ear. “It’s impossible not to notice you.”

  I grin at her, wondering how much I must look like a wolf.

  A couple of minutes later and we’re at the hotel and waiting in the lobby for the valet to bring the car around.

  “Nice place,” she says, looking around. “I’ve never been inside. I hear the restaurant at the top is hella cool though.”

  “Top of the Mark?” I repeat. “You mean, where I’m taking you for dinner tonight?”

  “Dinner?” she repeats. Her eyes open wider.

  “Yes. It’s only fair. You show me around the city, the best places to photograph, I’ll take you out for dinner.”

  “Yeah, but we’re taking your car,” she says.

  “Let’s just say my generosity knows no bounds.”

  Just then the Mustang swings around in front of the hotel. Fucking driver took the corner a little sharply, absolutely no respect.

  I consider cutting him down while he gets out of the car, but instead, while Violet is in awe over the vehicle, I slip the valet a ten dollar tip, holding on to his hand a little longer, my eyes telling him to watch himself.

  He’s intimidated. He takes the money, thanking me profusely, and backs off.

  “I can’t believe this is yours,” Violet exclaims softly, turning to face me.

  I flash her a smile. “Believe it. And get in.”

  Moments later I’m pulling the cherry-red muscle car out of the hotel’s driveway and we’re screaming down California Street like a scene from a classic film. Violet’s red fingernails grip the dashboard as she squeals in a mix of fear and delight, her cries getting louder as we burn through green lights until we brake to a hard stop near the ferry building.

  “Holy shit,” she says, looking at me in awe. “I’ve always wanted to pretend to be Steve McQueen.”

  She’s breathless, her face flushed, eyes bright and shiny. She looks like sex. It takes all my control to keep my hands on the wheel, my attention on the road. That heated urge to possess her is climbing through my veins and I have to take a deep steadying breath to quell it. I’m not used to having my desires kept in check—I’ve always been brutally upfront about what I want. But with Violet, I have to be careful. I can’t scare her off.

  And honestly, I don’t want to. Every moment I’m spending with her is another layer unwrapped, and another challenge lying in wait.

  I love challenges.

  San Francisco is a hilly collection of one-way streets, and while I obviously don’t know the city well outside of what I learned from the guidebooks, I take the car down the Embarcadero, past the piers and the trams that trundle between Phoenix palms, past yacht clubs, beaches, Crissy field, until Violet is telling me to pull over.

  “I thought you were directing me to old Fort Point,” I say, gesturing to the d
ecaying old military fortress beneath the pillars of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “Too cliché,” she says, getting out of the car. “Come with me.”

  We stop at a café where I buy her a decaf latte with almond milk, and then head out onto Torpedo Wharf which sticks out into the bay like a broken thumb.

  At the end of the pier, we find a spot where no one is fishing and she leans against the wood railing, staring silently at the bridge.

  The fog is continuing to roll in, bringing a briny mist that you can taste. Only the tops of the bridge remain visible, the orange red seeming to glow against grey skies, while shadows of the structure come and go as the fog moves in.

  Violet stares in quiet fascination, her dark eyes taking it in. I can see the fog reflected in them, giving her an eerie quality. She appears to be listening but whether it’s the fog horns, the chatter of the fishermen, the lapping waves, or the dull roar of the bridge traffic, I don’t know. Could be something else entirely.

  I don’t want to break her concentration or bring her back from whatever world she’s in. I just stand beside her and let her be. If anything, it says a lot about her comfort level with me if she lets herself drift away.

  After a few minutes, she slowly turns to me and blinks. “How long did you say you were going to be in San Francisco for?”

  “I don’t know,” I say carefully. “It depends if I find what I’m looking for.”

  “And what are you looking for?”

  “A reason to stay.” I hold her gaze with mine. The sea breeze picks up a few strands of her hair, moving them across her face like a black veil. Without thinking, I reach over and brush them away, tucking them behind her ear.

  I could kiss her. I should kiss her. The feel of her skin against my fingers ignites a million torches inside.

  Then she looks away, uncomfortable, the silence between us changing.

  I steer the subject onto her. “You said your mother is a famous photographer. Does she have a studio?”

  She lets out a soft sigh, her eyes back on the bridge. “Yeah. In the Mission District.”

  “And you don’t want the same for yourself?”

  She rubs her lips together in thought before looking down at her hands that hang over the side of the railing. “As I said, I don’t know what I want. I’m not sure I feel comfortable with the idea of having a studio. My mom does portraits of people. That’s not what I like to shoot.”

  “Not a people person?”

  A wry smile cracks her lips. “No. Not really. It’s too…intimate. My mom is great at it because people feel comfortable with her. She can…I don’t know, manipulate their feelings.”

  Interesting. Very interesting.

  People like my father.

  “So they end up exposing pieces of themselves that they don’t see. I guess I have the same intuition as her but the one on one is too much for me. I prefer to work with nature. With this.” She gestures to the fog. “No one else really understands how beautiful this is to me.”

  I look back at the fog, moving faster now. I wouldn’t call it beautiful. Moody. Dark, maybe. If anything, her beauty stands out more because of the bleakness around her.

  “My goal is to take photos that show how I see the world. All the beauty in it. The world is such an ugly and beautiful place, horrible and hopeful. I want to show the light in all the dark places.” She pauses and gives me a sheepish look. “Sorry. I know that must have sounded hella pretentious.”

  I slowly shake my head because she sounds anything but that. She sounds real. She sounds like something I want to shake loose from her, to let free and run wild.

  “You’re not pretentious,” I tell her, my voice low. “Not even close.”

  “That’s not what I hear.”

  “What do you hear?” I move in closer to her, the distance between us just a few inches. She doesn’t back up. “What does the world tell you you are?”

  I watch her swallow, take a moment. “Oh, you know. I’m too self-absorbed. Narcissistic. Pretentious. I live too much in my head, I’m too anti-social, too distant. I feel too much, care too much. My mother has always chided me for being too sensitive and then I was diagnosed with having hyper-sensitivity, so it turns out she was right. I am too sensitive. About everything. And there’s not a single thing I can do about it except know that when I experience reality, it’s not what everyone else experiences. For better or for worse.” She sighs. “Mainly for worse.”

  I feel like this is something she doesn’t unload on many people. My instincts about her were right. She’s fragile but not weak, too much a part of the world and too much removed from it. A contradiction.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, shooting me a glance. “I didn’t mean to blab away like that. I know you probably think I’m crazy now. Hell, I think I’m crazy half the time. I really wish I could just be like everyone else. To just…shut it all off.”

  “You’re not crazy,” I tell her. “I’m just understanding you better.”

  Her mouth quirks up into a dry smile. “I’m surprised you understand me at all. We’ve only just met.”

  “True,” I tell her as I reach out and run my fingers along her jaw, tipping her chin up. “But I’m sure you of all people would know that sometimes you can connect with someone in ways you didn’t think you could. Or should.”

  She barely nods, her eyes focused on mine, anticipation on her brow. I’m met with the overwhelming desire to protect and shield her which is extremely inconvenient, if not unwelcome, given the circumstances. One minute I need to fuck her, the next I need to protect her, and in the end, what I really need is to do the job I set out to do.

  I abruptly drop my hand away from her chin and nod at the bridge. “Okay, so if you’re seeing something different, show me what it is.”

  A flash of rejection moves across her brow but she quickly shakes it off and fishes her camera out of the bag. I ask her mundane questions as she sets up the shot, what’s her aperture, speed, things I know little about, and she answers with full confidence, like she’s teaching a class.

  She spends about ten minutes getting all the photos she needs, her brow furrowed, her lips pursed as she works, completely immersed with no sign of being self-conscious. She’s in her zone. I’m not even there. I can watch her intensely, every little move and mannerism, and she doesn’t even notice.

  When she’s done, she tells me to do the same, but I tell her I’m here to learn from her and that’s all. So we head back to the car and we snake up toward the bridge, parking at one of the lots.

  “I’ve never walked across the bridge before,” she says as we sit in the car.

  “Really?”

  She shakes her head. “I’ve been too afraid.”

  “Fear of heights? Vertigo?”

  “No…more like, I’ll fling myself off if given the chance.” She tries to look reassuring. “Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal. And I know I won’t do it. It’s just…I fear that I might.”

  “Fear of losing control.”

  “I guess. Fear of dying. Fear of those ten seconds as you fall, feeling everything too much for the last time. But you’ll hold on to me if anything happens…won’t you?”

  I can only stare at her for a moment. So far she hasn’t ceased to fascinate me. “Of course I’ll hold you. The whole way.”

  And even though I can’t remember the last time I held a girl’s hand—maybe my sister’s when we were young—when we get out of the car, I hold on to hers. Small, cold and slowly warming in my grasp.

  It feels natural. Disturbingly so.

  Heights don’t bother me in the slightest, but even then, the walk across the bridge is disorienting. Maybe it’s the amount of people who are walking, the long span of the bridge which is more up and down than you realize, the cars whizzing past, the fog that twists shapes and throws you off balance. Nevertheless, I stay between her and the tall fence that separates us from certain death.

  We don’t say much to each other but her
hand squeezes mine on and off. I can feel the waves of worry flow in and out of her, and at one point when a pedestrian bumps into her, my arm shoots around her waist, holding her tight. I don’t loosen, I don’t let go.

  By the time we get to the other side and back, we’re both tired, her face ruddy from the cold mist, and I’m chilled to the bone. I’m not used to this weather. The steam of the tropics is much more preferable to the cold and damp.

  “Where to next?” I ask her as we get in the car. Neither of us took a single picture on the bridge. We were too alive.

  Her face seems to crumple before me. “I’m so sorry. I just realized that I should probably go home for dinner.” She pauses. “I’m just exhausted. I think I need to stay home and rest.”

  To be honest, I wasn’t expecting her to agree to dinner anyway. It’s not like I even asked, I just demanded, and that doesn’t work out for me all the time.

  Still, I ask, “Are you sure?”

  She nods. “Yes, but how about tomorrow?” She says this quickly, as if I’ll change my mind. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be anywhere fancy or anything. I could cook you dinner, I make a mean spaghetti Bolognese, but my parents are…well, I mean I live with them so that might be kind of awkward.”

  “I would love to meet your parents,” I tell her.

  Her chin jerks inward. “Really?”

  “Absolutely. Love to meet these interesting artists who raised such a talented daughter. But how about we save that for later this week? Tomorrow, I’ll take you out. Top of the Mark if you wish, or any place you choose.”

  “No, that’s fine,” she says. “It would be fun to go somewhere nice. I’d love it.”

  “All right. The least I can do is drive you home, then.”

  Through all my research I’ve been unable to get the McQueen’s address, but I’m not surprised to find they live just a couple of blocks over from Sins & Needles in a narrow three-story row house that must cost well over a million dollars.

  I glance at Violet as we pull up to the curb. How do you think your parents can afford this place? Through tattoos and fancy photographs?

  She looks at the house anxiously as she opens the door. “Thanks for everything.”