Judith Krantz (22 page)

Jazz, at eighteen, found herself far more mature than her teenaged classmates, almost all of them boys, and she took no interest in any particular one of the mass of males who sweated and tinkered with lenses and fuses and talked about Nikons and Leicas with worship. If only one of them had cared about the Lakers, she thought, as she listened to her fellow students … but no, they were hopeless nerds who would have looked at her in astonishment if she’d asked them what they thought about the chances of that new rookie from Michigan State, Earvin “Magic” Johnson. He struck Jazz as too tall for a point guard, more likely to become a power forward, but her father, who had followed basketball all his life and had taken Jazz to hundreds of games, assured her that if Jerry West, manager of the Lakers, had chosen Magic as the first pick of the college draft, he must have a damn good reason.

Tony Gabriel never really could find out why he accepted the invitation to lecture at Graphics Central in the late spring of 1979. It wasn’t his bag to spend time pontificating and answering questions, but he had a couple of days in L.A. before he was due to leave for Nicaragua, and the new dean of the school, Davis Collins, was an old buddy who’d burned out after his fourth divorce and decided to take a job that would keep him home nights in case he ever got married again.

“If you’d never started that marriage stuff, Dave, you wouldn’t have racked up four divorces,” Gabe advised him kindly. “You should give it up.”

“We don’t all have your guts, Gabe. Some of us fall in love.”

“Four times?” He was incredulous.

“Don’t ask me to explain. Come on down and let the kids hero-worship you, Gabe. They’ve been working so hard all year that they’ve just about forgotten why they came here. They need some inspiration.”

The lecture hall was jammed, kids practically hanging from the ceiling, as he did an improvised slide show and explained when and where and how each world-famous image had been shot. For an hour afterwards he fielded questions, waiting for one from a girl who sat silently in the front row, looking as if she’d drifted in from some woodland wild, never taking her eyes off his face. She was dying to ask something, he could tell, and he found himself glancing at her, waiting for her hand to be raised, but she sat without moving, her long, wiggly hair falling in careless squiggles around her face, her eyes glowing in repressed curiosity under her level brows.

Finally Gabe announced that the lecture was over, and that there would be absolutely no more questions. He accepted the storm of applause, and turned to gather up his stuff while the hall emptied behind him. When he was ready to leave, the girl was still sitting quietly, looking at him, alone, a question still in her eyes. He could guess what she wanted, he realized with pleasure. Groupie time.

“Excuse me, Mr. Gabriel, may I ask you something?”

“I’m on my way, cutie, but why not?”

“Would I be right in saying that the craft of photojournalism is ninety percent lying and cheating and talking people into letting you into the right place; nine and nine-tenths percent the pure chance of
being
in the right place at the right time; and one-tenth of one percent actually taking the picture?”

“You could say that.” A novel approach, but no question she was hitting on him.

“That’s what I figured. I knew I didn’t want to be a photojournalist, but I wasn’t entirely sure why. Thank you for being honest.” Jazz rose to go and was halfway down the aisle when he stopped her.

“So how come you stayed till the end?”

“I didn’t want to ask you that in front of everybody. It might have sounded rude.”

“You
were afraid of embarrassing
me?”
He found himself suddenly indignant.

“Well, of course.” She walked more quickly toward the exit to the hall. He followed her and grabbed her arm.

“So how come, if it only takes one-tenth of one percent of what I’ve got going, that I’m the one who comes up with the killer shot and not the next guy?”

“I would assume that you’ve been extraordinarily lucky.”

“You think there’s no craft to what I do?”

“Craft? Absolutely yes. It’s
all
craft. That’s the problem. I like a little something else mixed into my work.”

“Jesus. An arty one. You take pictures of weirdly shaped trees at sunset, and reflections of mountains in ponds, and prairie grasses waving in the wind and shit like that.”

“Not exactly. Look, I have to go.”

“So go.”

“You’re holding on to my sweater.”

“So let’s have a drink. You can show me your work.”

Yeah, that was how it had started. He’d never known if she’d hit on him or he’d hit on her, but probably it was what he got for doing a favor for old Dave. No good deed goes unpunished, as his grandmother, may she rest in peace, used to say.

Human charm, in its superficial manifestations, can be conjured up by a well-worded recollection of the timbre of a voice, the particular quality of a laugh, the contrast of an unexpectedly beguiling glance in an otherwise ordinary pair of eyes, the recollection of the play of humor or the music of whimsy. Yet charm is essentially inexplicable and resists description.

Tony Gabriel had been blessed by immense charm, that unfairly distributed blessing. He had charmed from his cradle. His con-man performances rested far more on his charm than on his shrewdness, persistence, courage and skill, all of which he had legitimately. Part of his charm was that he never exercised it deliberately, as do those semi-charming people who can rise to charm when the occasion demands it.

Tony Gabriel couldn’t turn it on because he couldn’t turn it off.

Many photojournalists referred to him as “the Hungarian,” because in the history of the western world, Hungarians have been and remain the most notoriously charming people who have ever lived. Tony Gabriel knew of his nickname, knew the meaning behind it, and since he was the kind of charmer who had never had to work deliberately at being charming, it puzzled him slightly. What element of his personality were they picking on, anyway? At the same time, he saw no reason to be offended. Hungary was close enough to his family’s mixed-up, much-traveled, middle-European background so that his family tree, if it could be constructed, which it couldn’t, probably contained a Hungarian here and there. He was pragmatic about charm and believed that the only important thing to remember about it was that it worked.

“I feel an interesting preference for being exactly where I am,” Tony Gabriel said to Jazz.

“Is that so unusual?”

“It’s … new. Sort of … agreeable. I don’t normally sit and just … sit.”

“Maybe it’s the lighting,” Jazz suggested. “Imagine thinking of putting candles on the tables. That’s exceptionally authentic. And semicircular red leather booths and paper napkins. You almost never see anything like that in a bar.”

“Yeah, and laminated plastic tables and Toulouse-Lautrec posters on the walls. We could be anywhere. Mexico City—Kansas City—even Jersey City.”

“I noticed that too,” Jazz said, “as soon as we came in. Down-home credibility. That probably means there isn’t too much water in the booze, unless it’s all done to lull suspicion.”

“Since when is white wine booze?”

“I meant your scotch.”

“Booze is from before your time.”

“My father says ‘booze.’ ”

“Mine too.”

“How old are you?” Jazz asked.

“Twenty-nine,” he answered.

She inspected him carefully. Unkempt but very clean, rough and ready yet somehow sophisticated, an outdoor look because of his tanned skin and skinny frame, more lines on his face than a twenty-nine-year-old should have. “You look older. Definitely older. About thirty-two.”

“Yeah? So how old are you?”

“Eighteen. Should I call you Tony?”

“Gabe.”

“Do you get to Jersey City often?”

“Often enough. So why do people call you Jazz?”

“Because Juanita Isabella is unwieldy, as names go.”

“So you’re basically Spanish?”

“Some. Mostly Irish and Swedish, all Californian.”

“A
native
?”

“The first you’ve met?”

“I think so. Wait a minute, I used to know a guy, he was born in Vegas. Nope. And there was this girl, she was from Corona Del Mar. Nope. You’re my first native. Did you know that the first time you meet anyone of an absolutely new ethnic background you get to make a wish?”

“You’re perfectly aware that Del Mar is in California. No wish.”

“So I’ve never been where the turf meets the surf. Not my gig.”

“That’s the good news.”

“You’re a fresh kid. Why aren’t you slithering all over me? Why aren’t you asking me about how I walked into Tibet or rode a camel through the Gobi or how many times I’ve climbed out of a helicopter and just let go? Where’s the respect a mere first-year student should show a big-shot, famous photojournalist?”

“You should have asked one of the boys out for a drink.”

“Actually, I’m not in the mood for mindless adoration. I get too much of it. Your subtle disdain is refreshing. But you could try to flirt. We belong to different genders. Maybe even totally different species. It’s only polite to indicate that you recognize the difference.”

“I never flirt,” Jazz said righteously.

“I know. Why should you have to? You’re too beautiful to flirt. Too intelligent to flirt. Too snooty to flirt.”

“I am not snooty,” Jazz said, sipping her wine with a larky glint in her eye.

“I just said that, I didn’t mean it. Beautiful and intelligent, but not snooty.”

“Well put. Also I’m exceptionally modest.”

“I think I like you.”

“I know you do.” Her voice was amused.

“So do you like me?
Forget it!
I never asked anyone that in my life.”

“Don’t be frightened, I won’t hold it against you.” Jazz giggled at the expression of horror on his face. “I sort of like you. You’re more or less basically likable. What’s not to like?”

“Well, you don’t know me yet. There could be a lot.”

“I’m sure there is. But how bad could it be?”

“There’s only one way to find out. Dinner?”

“Of course,” she said without hesitation. She had assumed that drinks would lead to dinner.

“So you don’t have another date?”

“No. So why do you start a lot of your sentences with ‘so’?”

“Do I?”

“Never mind. I’m afraid it’s catching. So where are we having dinner?” Jazz asked hungrily. She knew she was dressed presentably for any restaurant in California in 1979, in her white trousers and heavy, hand-knit, cable-stitched white sweater.

“I was thinking about your place.”

“Seriously. Oh, you
are
serious. I share a place with two roommates. We have peanut butter, bananas and skim milk. My roommates don’t mind sharing. Sound good to you?”

“Not even for breakfast,” Gabe said, shuddering. “That leaves Thai, Chinese, Indian, Moroccan, Japanese, Italian, but not French, I hate French. All truly civilized people hate French, especially the French, whose dream meal is a steak and fries, washed down by two bottles of red wine, accompanied by a pack or two of cigarettes. Of course there’s always pizza. Or we could make a gesture toward simplifying life, stay right here and have a hamburger.”

“We could. Let’s. Their hamburgers are probably as authentic as the scotch.” Jazz was decisive.

“There’s something … different … about you. I don’t get it and I’m not used to not getting things. It makes me nervous. I can’t exactly figure you
out—there’s something … something particular, not peculiar, but I don’t know, something … about you that I can’t quite put my finger on.”

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.” Jazz shrugged in an especially provoking way because it told the shrugged-upon person that she was indifferent to being analyzed and that she would never modify her behavior to suit anyone, but she sweetened the shrug with a smile that was as much at odds with her shrug as it was almost impossibly seductive. It was a smile that stopped the clock.

“I’ve got it! That number about being Spanish and Irish and Swedish—it’s a scam—you’re
Hungarian
! Oh my God, am I in deep shit.”