Crushing On The Billionaire (Part 1) Page 4

  That was Mercedes. She was my absolute favorite professor.

  Mercedes was the one who’d, out of the blue, offered me means to attend the art institute here in San Francisco. My foster parents had encouraged me to apply to college, as had the guidance counselor at my high school, but I felt rudderless in my search. I didn’t have fantastic grades, and though I knew my foster parents would support me in whatever direction I headed, they just didn’t have the means to fund my education. It wasn’t something I resented. It was just a fact.

  I’d taken to asking for a CD of my photos, along with the hard copies, anytime I got a disposable camera developed. It made it easier to upload my work onto social media—something I started doing more and more toward the end of my high school career. I liked the feedback I gained from the profiles that followed me, and I liked the challenge of having an audience for my work. God love them, my foster parents oohed and ahhed over my work, but they didn’t really know what went into composing the perfect shot. I didn’t really know, either. I clicked the shutter when it felt right. My followers were the ones who professed the apparent perfection of my shots.

  Mercedes was one of my many followers. I’d perused her profile several times, intrigued by the way she warped the reality of her shots using digital software. It was some wonderful blend of photography and fine art.

  When she started commenting on my work, she offered some of the most useful feedback out of anyone. Sure, it made me preen for someone to declare their adoration of a photo, but it didn’t help me get any better. Mercedes had real ideas about how to improve my shots, and she inspired me to push myself to keep improving. I was suspicious, but intrigued, one afternoon, to see a direct message from her waiting in my inbox. She’d always kept her comments public, completely transparent. What had she said that required the privacy of a direct message?

  Fearing the worst (that I actually wasn’t worth a damn, that she thought I was a fraud, that Mercedes was a man masquerading behind the profile photo of an older woman, waiting to gain my trust so he could flash his genitalia at me), I opened the message and was surprised by a series of links, a phone number, and this:

  “You are one of the most gifted young photographers on this site. I'm a professor at the Art Institute of San Francisco, and I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to get you here in the fall. Look at the links I’m sending you. Talk it over with your parents. And give me a call.”

  My foster parents were much more suspicious than intrigued, but everything panned out. The links led to the institute’s website, not pornography, and Mercedes had been warm and kind over the phone, answering my foster parents’ questions and inviting us for a campus visit.

  We took a train up to San Francisco, which was an experience in of itself, and the rest, as they say, was history. I fell in love with the strange but artistic campus, rooted in history but forward thinking. This was something I wanted deeply to be a part of. And it was Mercedes who assuaged my foster parents’ concerns about everything.

  “She’s just a train ride away from home if there are any doubts or if you want to visit,” she had said, as we all hovered around an incredible mural painted by someone famous. “And this truly is a place to grow. Loren’s already at an advanced level in photography, but this is the right college for her to become even more of an expert. She’ll be challenged here.”

  “I don’t doubt that she’ll be challenged,” my foster dad had said slowly. “My concern is just…San Francisco is an expensive place to live. This college is expensive, too.”

  Mercedes held up her hands. “All taken care of.”

  “All taken care of?” my foster mom repeated. “What does that mean?”

  “The institute has many endowments, but a particularly generous one from a famous photographer enables us to bring one photography student to attend school here on a full ride,” Mercedes explained. “I’ve taken the liberty of submitting Loren’s name and some of her work for this consideration, and it’s hers, if she wants it.”

  “Do you want it?” My foster parents looked at me. They both had dark hair and dark eyes, contrasting greatly with my light blond hair and blue eyes. Throughout my childhood, it had only served as constant reminders that I didn’t belong. That I was an outsider. Unwanted.

  But when I nodded and they enveloped me in a tight embrace, I’d never felt closer to them. This was it. They’d seen me through a turbulent childhood, plucked me out of a terrible situation because they’d seen something in me, and now they saw that I was going to turn out all right. I was going to turn out better than all right. The Art Institute of San Francisco wanted me. I was going to be something.

  “What have you got for me today, Loren?” The rest of the class was talking quietly; Mercedes had been doing one-on-one meetings with each student and reviewing the photos they’d been shooting, and now it was my turn. Even though the meetings were supposed to be casual conversations, I noted a distinct hush fall over the room. It was always like that when I showed my work. The hush fell somewhere on the spectrum between awe and exasperation. In my very first photography class at the institute, an upperclassman taking the course as an elective demanded to know why I had to be so good. It had flummoxed me. I didn’t ask to be talented at something, nor could I grasp the idea that my talent might be offensive to other people.

  I retrieved my envelope of photos from my tote bag, and Mercedes laughed.

  “You know, you could save a lot of money if you just showed me your images on a screen,” she told me. It wasn’t the first time, but I just couldn’t afford a laptop.

  “There’s something special about having prints,” I said, smiling as I hefted the weight of all those moments in my hands. “Something different from a screen.”

  The students sitting nearest me craned their necks to glean glances of my work as I handed it over to Mercedes. I’d never been prouder of a set of photos. They were all from the morning at the bridge with the camera Patrick had gifted me. I hadn’t spoken to him since that day, I realized with a flush. The day of the bridge. The day of the camera.

  The day of the kiss.

  “Loren, these shots are a giant leap forward for you,” Mercedes said, not even halfway through the roll. “What’s changed?”

  “Something pretty major,” I said, unzipping the camera bag and taking the camera out. I instantly had the attention of the entire class as my professor gasped, enchanted.

  “But this model isn’t coming out until next year,” she said, her hands hovering over the body of the camera. “Can…can I?”

  “Of course.” She’d entrusted me with so many of the department’s cameras. Surely to goodness I could trust her not to break the camera that Patrick had given me.

  “How did you come by this?” she asked, flipping on the display, scrolling through the settings.

  “I guess I had connections I didn’t know I had,” I said, feeling sheepish as I sensed the resentment building around me. “Patrick Paulson—my friend Shawn’s dad. Shawn’s a visual arts major.”

  “Ah, yes. That painter who has the terrible crush on you.” Mercedes handed the camera back to me amid a couple of audible snickers. I flushed, wondering what people were thinking and fearing the worst.

  “Shawn and I are just friends,” I said. “Best friends.”

  “That’s one half of the equation, maybe,” my professor said, smiling, and then refocused on the task at hand while I sat there, puzzled. “You’re a very lucky young woman. You’ve been turning in some of the most inspired and innovative shots in this program, and you’ve usually only had a point and shoot at your disposal. This really takes it to the next level, Loren. I expect amazing things from you.”

  Someone muttered a criticism of my new advantage a little too loudly, and my professor perked up. She had ears like a bat.

  “Here’s an impromptu lecture, even if we didn’t have plans for one today,” she said, strolling back to the center of the room. “You should never be satisfied with
your work—never. If you have that one person in the class who consistently turns in stronger work than yours, that’s the muse who should push you to become even better. Keep taking photos. Get out there. I can’t say it enough. Explore the city. Go everywhere you can. And never neglect to take your camera. You’ll surprise yourself with what you’re able to achieve, but you can never, ever be satisfied. You’ll become bound by your own limitations, unable to advance in your art.”

  Everyone around me absorbed this silently, nodding here and there, but I was enraptured.

  This was excellent advice—only I wasn’t applying it to photography.

  I was going to apply it to Patrick.

  I wasn’t going to be satisfied with his dismissal of me. That kiss at the bridge had been real.

  I wasn’t going to let the limitations keep me from getting what I wanted: Patrick.

  Chapter 5

  The plan of action needed to happen quickly, I decided. I couldn’t lollygag around and let the memory of what had happened at the Golden Gate Bridge fade. Part of me was afraid he’d already forgotten, even within the span of a week. I was quite sure that Patrick had much more important things on his plate to consider than a pair of kisses in the early morning beneath San Francisco’s iconic bridge.

  My plan was almost ruined by Shawn.

  “What are we doing tonight?” I wheedled, as we walked out of class, my arm tucked into his comfortably.

  “Tonight? Ugh.”

  I drew my arm out of his and turned to look at him. “Tonight? What’s wrong with tonight? Why ‘ugh’?”

  “My dad wants me to go to Sacramento to spend the weekend with my mom,” Shawn explained, his eyes downcast. “He says she called him all upset because she hasn’t seen me since the summer. What does she expect? School just started and we’re busy as hell.”

  The wheels turned in my head. If he wasn’t going to be at the house tonight, then there was no reason for me to go. It would be suspicious if I showed up without Shawn. There wasn’t any good purpose for me to be there, except for the purpose I actually had, which was to corner Patrick and make him admit that the feelings we shared were really there.

  “So it looks like I’m heading home to pack up and head back out, is what I’m doing tonight,” Shawn continued. “You, of course, are always welcome to go hang out at the house. Use the pool. Watch TV. Drink the beer. I know my dad wouldn’t mind. He was just saying the other day how you were like family.”

  “Oh, that’s weird,” I said, wrinkling my nose. Was that really what Patrick felt about me? That I was like some daughter he never had? That would explain part of his reluctance after our kiss at the bridge. It was probably a real turnoff to kiss someone you regarded as family.

  “That’s what I said,” Shawn replied, laughing. “I don’t really want to go to Sacramento. I’m thinking about begging out of it. I can’t believe my mom called my dad and not me. It makes me feel like a kid again. I’m going to be twenty-two this year. Doesn’t anybody realize it?”

  If Shawn didn’t go to Sacramento, that would give me my reason to be at the house. But the wheels in my head continued to crank, and I was faintly surprised Shawn didn’t hear them, creaking and scraping and churning.

  “You should go,” I said, patting his back. “Both of your parents will be upset if you don’t, and what’s one weekend away from San Francisco? Were you really planning on getting any work done?”

  “I was planning on partying and relaxing so I could get work done next week,” he allowed, shrugging. “You’re right. You’re always right. I should go to Sacramento. My mom sucks when she’s pissed off at me. The more I put off visiting her, the worse it’ll be.”

  “You’ll probably have a good time in Sacramento,” I told him. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll even find inspiration for your senior project.”

  “I highly doubt that,” he said, snorting. “Well, want a ride out to the house? I’m only going to stay to pack, but you can stay however long you want.”

  “No, that’s okay.” I smiled at him. “I need to clean my apartment really badly, and Friday night is as good a night as any of them.”

  “You know, you could always borrow Sandra,” he said with a frown. “There’s not a reason for you to have to stress out about cleaning your place.”

  I socked him in the shoulder. “Shawn! I can’t just ‘borrow’ a person! And Sandra isn’t yours to loan out! She’s a person! And who said I was stressed out about cleaning it? It’s just something I have to do.” Honestly, had having everything served to him on a silver—no, platinum—platter really warped his brain so thoroughly? Did he forget how the world was supposed to work?

  “I mean that you could borrow her services, geez,” he said, holding his hands up defensively. “I am well aware that you do not borrow or loan people. You have a mean right hook.”

  “Thank you,” I said, lifting my chin up. “And I actually like cleaning my apartment. It’s soothing.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Have fun in Sacramento. Connect with your mom. You might be surprised at what happens.”

  Shawn gave me a funny look as he waved goodbye, but all I could do was wonder at someone with two perfectly good parents living reasonably close to each other thinking that one or both of them was a hassle. Didn’t he realize what he had?

  I more or less laid in wait at my apartment, too jittery to focus on anything but the clock. I could’ve cleaned, like I said I was going to do, but instead I scoured my closet. What would be the appropriate outfit to wear when looking to pick up my best friend’s dad? I wasn’t sure that there was fashion advice for that. I ended up sticking with what I was wearing—jeans, sneakers, and a flannel shirt. I wanted to keep it casual—right up until the moment when it wouldn’t be casual anymore. No need to set off any more alarms in Patrick’s mind than I already was going to by showing up unannounced on a weekend where I was well aware that Shawn was going to be out of town.

  As soon as I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Shawn was on the road—safe travels, I’d texted him, smiling when I received the reply, already almost there—I grabbed the camera bag and my purse and headed out the door.

  I took the public transit that they were both always eschewing all the way out to the house, marveling at how much longer the ride was, and formulating plans in my head, reasons for going to the house in the first place. I could say I was shooting something nearby and just wanted to stop by to use the restroom…no. That was gross. I could say I was in the neighborhood and just wanted to say hello, but why would I be in the neighborhood? I could say I left something here the other night that I needed, but then there would be a long, drawn out search for an item I’d have to invent.

  When I got off at the bus stop and walked to the house, the long drive stretching in front of me, dusk settling around me, I realized that I didn’t have a plan. This was equal parts terrifying and understandable. Most of the time, when I was shooting, I didn’t have a plan. I had a half-formed idea of what I wanted, and then the process of actually taking the photos was what made everything come together.

  Confronting my best friend’s dad about unrequited feelings wasn’t anywhere near the art of taking photos, but maybe I didn’t have to have a plan at all.

  I stepped up to the front door, took a deep breath, and rang the doorbell.

  I had to stop and laugh at myself for a quick moment. I didn’t think, in the nearly four years I’d been hanging out here, that I’d ever used the front door—or the doorbell. Maybe I should’ve walked around back to see if the patio door was open, but I didn’t want to trip off any of the security lights—or look suspicious.

  After long, long seconds, the door opened and Patrick stood there, looking surprised.

  “Loren? Is everything all right?” His forehead was furrowed in concern; he needed a shave; he was barefoot with jeans and a plain T-shirt, but he’d never looked better. Being here, standing in front of him and experiencing the pull of his magnetic pre
sence, all convinced me that I was doing the right thing. The plan started to come together.

  “We need to talk,” I said simply, and he held out a hand toward the inside of the house and stepped aside wordlessly.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, shutting the door behind me as I entered the house. I’d never been here without Shawn either, and the realization gave me a good deal of pause. The atmosphere seemed changed without my friend. More serious. Much more promise. Electric.

  As much as I wanted to lubricate my nerves with a high-alcohol craft beer, I shook my head. It would be better to have my wits about me, even if they jangled about, anxious at whatever the outcome of this plan was going to be.

  “Let’s sit in the den, then,” Patrick said, moving away and indicating that I should follow him. “No reason not to be comfortable.”

  It was sensible, and soon, we were arranged on the floor among all those huge pillows. They’d delighted me, the first time I saw them. There were couches and chairs aplenty in the den, but something about those pillows attracted me to them.

  I occupied myself with arranging several of them into the design I liked best—one against a chair behind me and others on either side of me—while Patrick watched and waited, silent.

  He had to know what this was about.

  That idea struck me, and I wondered why he wasn’t taking the lead. That was what he was known for, wasn’t it? In his Silicon Valley job? He seized the situation decisively, and it was that drive that made him a billionaire, successful in every way. Why wasn’t he seizing this situation?

  It looked like it was going to be up to me to seize it.

  My pillow fidgeting completed, I cleared my throat compulsively even though there wasn’t anything to clear.

  “We need to talk about what happened at the Golden Gate Bridge,” I announced, feeling like an idiot.