Masque of Moonlight and Shadows Read online



  Masque of Moonlight and Shadows

  by

  Darragh Metzger

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  PUBLISHED BY:

  Masque of Moonlight and Shadows

  Copyright © 2005, 2011 by Darragh Metzger

  Lyrics from Easy To Love used with permission from the Cole Porter Estate, 2006

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  Masque of Moonlight and Shadows

  Conrad rubbed the side of his nose with one callused knuckle. "Eh...not terribly certain that's quite the look you're going for, Tiff."

  Tiffany's gaze flickered from her own reflection — or, rather, that of the exotic black and silver mask she held in front of her face in her dressing table mirror — to his, without moving her head. "I haven't decided what look I'm going for, yet. I am a work in progress."

  Dylan, lounging on her bed with a proprietary ease that, under the circumstances, Tiffany thought a bit presumptuous, laughed. "Conrad, old boy, our Tiff must be properly packaged and presented. Personally, I approve of moving away from the ingénue look. Something a bit more sultry, a touch of Jean Harlow. I haven't painted her that way yet."

  Conrad scowled and bit the end of his finger, sitting on the very edge of the lounge chair as if afraid of being ensnared by its comfort. His cuticles would be a mess by the time they arrived at the masque, and his manicurist would have a fit tomorrow. Really, Tiffany didn't know why he bothered. "Everyone tries to look like Jean Harlow," he said around a well-gnawed fingertip, "including Jean Harlow, and frankly the world is becoming overpopulated with slightly tarnished sirens. Your own look is far more appealing, and it's what everyone will expect. The girl they see in all Dylan's paintings."

  Tiffany dimpled at him in the mirror, laid down the black and silver mask, and held the rose-pink rhinestone mask with the fringe of dyed marabou feathers in front of her face. It made her eyes look much larger, and almost indigo blue. Summer evening eyes.

  Then, of course, Conrad had to ruin it. "Anyway, you'd still look more like Mary Pickford playing Jean Harlow."

  That made Dylan laugh again, and Tiffany slapped the mask down in exasperation. She glared at his reflection, then at her own. Her platinum blonde hair, carefully crimped into the latest style, gleamed like metal in the soft, pink light of the dresser lamp. Her earlier niggling doubt resurfaced; the style really didn't belong with her face. It made her look like a kewpie-doll with a helmet.

  Try as she might, she could never see the ethereal, luminous creature Dylan captured on canvas so well. She'd seen herself disguised as Persephone, Gwenivere, Maid Marian, a nymph, an angel, a fairy, and any number of strange, unearthly, half-girl-half-animal or half-tree or half-flower creatures — even once as a reflection of a sunrise cast on a cloud formation — but she'd never seen herself the way Dylan seemed to. The girl in the paintings that had catapulted Dylan to his current level of fame and fortune, and bestowed upon her a certain amount of celebrity of her own, was nothing like the girl in the mirror.

  But then, it wasn't as if she knew the girl in the mirror particularly well, either.

  She grimaced to herself and picked up the masks again. Best to get on with the task of picking one and hiding behind it for the evening. Spring in Venice was for laughter, for wild parties, hot jazz, and cold champagne, but it was really not well suited to introspection.

  A gust of laughter mixed with the distant whine of a clarinet drifted to her from outside; she'd left the French doors to the balcony open, and the sounds of Venice at play already rode the evening air. Orange blossoms and a dizzying array of cooking herbs and spices competed with the normal essence-de-sewáge of the canals. She wrinkled her small nose and looked over at the doors with a sigh. "Oh, dear, it's getting late. I suppose I have to decide on something." She threw a hopeful look at Dylan. "I don't suppose I can just skip this one, can I?"

  "Absolutely not." Dylan sat up and cocked a stern eyebrow at her — playfully, of course, because Dylan was never serious about anything but his art, and even that only sometimes — and smoothed his already immaculate dark hair. "Everyone who's anyone will be there. They've all been to my show, and they've all bought paintings, and the ones that haven't, will after tonight — if my lovely muse is on my arm. Anyway, the Porters will be there, and the Berlins, and you know that means Cole and Irv will be playing everything they've ever written, trying to outperform one another all night. You'll love that."

  "As long as they let other people sing for them." Tiffany pouted at him and picked up the black and silver mask with a sigh. "I know, I know: it's all part of the game. It's my task to make you fabulously rich and famous, so you can make me fabulously rich and famous, and Conrad—"

  "I'm already fabulously rich." Conrad rose and tugged his jacket into place. "And fame will just have to continue to elude me." He smiled, a genial curve of girlishly full lips, but it didn't entirely warm the cool depths of his pale eyes. "Face it, my darlings, you're doomed to being fashionable. Enjoy it while it lasts. Anyway, Mussolini will probably outlaw you eventually."

  Dylan chuckled and rose, dropping his hands on Tiffany's shoulders as he moved behind her. Tiffany pretended great interest in the contested masks. Poor Conrad; he'd slipped from the center of Dylan's universe to a sort of elliptical orbit, and he still didn't know quite how, or what to do about it.

  Poor Tiffany is in no better position, of course, she admitted. She and Conrad: the two of them spun around Dylan, hopelessly caught up in his orbit and bound by the power of his talent. She the poor nobody he'd made into an icon, Conrad the wealthy nobody he'd used to open the doors of the even wealthier.

  Well, it could be worse. She could still be penniless, stranded and adrift in Paris, Conrad could be his father's greatest disappointment, and Dylan...Dylan could still be Conrad's beautiful, talented house pet, his strange landscapes and fantastic creatures decorating the walls of their bedroom.

  She glanced up through her lashes at Dylan's reflection, hovering above hers in the mirror, his large, heavy-lidded eyes studying her with focused intensity, already seeing, not her, but the she-image he would project onto canvas.

  She chastised herself for her uncharitable thoughts. Dylan's talent would surely have brought him to the notice of the critics by now, even without her image to give his art theme and form.

  And what would happen to her when he realized that?

  Dylan squeezed her shoulders and lowered his head until it was level with hers to smile at her reflection. "Wear the black and silver," he said, his eyes, bright and blue as a spring morning, dancing with mischief. "Everyone will be expecting my peach blossom and sunlight girl. Instead, they'll see you all in moonlight and shadows, black leaves and winter frost, and wonder who you are and will spend all night until the unmasking ogling you trying to figure it out. It will be a sensation."

  She raised her carefully plucked eyebrows. "And what will you be wearing?"

  Dylan straightened and placed one hand on his breast. "I shall be Pierrot, of course. I look positively dashing in white."

  Tiffany glanced in confusion at the black and silver confection of beaded silk hanging on the door of her wardrobe, beside the salmon-pink ruffled satin Dylan had just officially rejected. "But...no one is going to recognize that as Columbine. Or even Pierrette."

  "Say you're Brighella," suggested Conrad.

  Tiffany eyed his reflection; blond, broad-shouldered, baby-faced, never looking quite comfortable in dinner jackets. Or anything else. "And you? What does that leave you?"

  "Arlechino, of course. I think the white ruffled collar will suit him." Dylan cast his wicked smile over his shoulder at his long-time lover. "O
r would you rather be Scaramouche?"

  Conrad reddened. Tiffany took pity on him. Or maybe it was simply the mental picture of Conrad in clown white with a ruff. "I think Scaramouche is a better fit. And I just replaced the plume on the hat."

  Conrad gave her one of those odd, Conrad-y sort of looks she could never quite interpret. "Your wish is my command, O lady of moonlight and shadows."

  Dylan grinned and dropped a kiss on her shoulder; it warmed her skin through the thin silk of her dressing gown. "We'll leave you to it, Tiff, and go make ourselves worthy to be seen with you. Will half-an-hour do?"

  "I'll have a boat waiting," Conrad said over his shoulder as the two swept out the door.

  Tiffany picked up the black and silver mask and turned it around to study it.