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Vector a Modern Love Story
Vector a Modern Love Story
Vector a Modern Love Story
Ebook199 pages3 hours

Vector a Modern Love Story

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Opera student Eva is infatuated with her mentor, a successful older man who runs a philanthropic Foundation for HIV care in New York City and South Africa. She confuses dramatic opera fantasies with reality as she plunges into her first romance. Her showcase performance in La Boheme mirrors her own tragic, blossoming love. As her singing career begins and she learns more about his work, she discovers her obsession had a secret and dangerous past.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherJJ Brown
Release dateNov 27, 2011
ISBN9780983821120
Vector a Modern Love Story
Author

JJ Brown

J.J.Brown is a published author of 10 books including mysteries, speculative fiction and noir fiction infused with a passion for nature, science and family. Her books are published in print, ebook and audiobook editions.The author spent her childhood in the Catskill Mountain region of New York. She continued writing fiction during her career as a Molecular Biologist and Public Health Advocate in Philadelphia and New York City. Her fiction subjects often address current medical and mental health issues, and environmental concerns.J.J.Brown has a PhD in Genetics from earlier research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory with Nobel Prize winner Barbara McClintock. Brown’s genetics, medical education and public health works have been published in leading scientific and professional journals.When not writing, J.J.Brown enjoys reading, Tai Chi, and time with her companion rabbit, Belinda, and parakeets Sweety and Penelope. She has two daughters and lives in New York City.

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wealthy philanthropist playboy Michael Barnes has just returned from Johannesburg, South Africa. His physician, Dr. Emmanuel Victor drops in on him at his upscale EastVillage apartment on the eve of the soirée they will be attending, a benefit of The Barnes Foundation at the Waldorf. Dr. Victor is privately concerned with Michael’s ability to put in the required appearance and deliver the expected speech. We quickly learn that, though Michael appears normal to the casual observer, his health is in serious decline.

    The story is further complicated by the unexpected arrival of Michael’s protégé: the girl in the golden coat, beautiful young opera student Eva Mascona, who is secretly infatuated with Michael. As naive as Michael is worldly, Eva believes Michael is not a cowardly man. But will that faith in him, and her obsession, prove to be her undoing?

    Dressed in a beautiful purple gown pilfered from the stage wardrobe at her music school she follows Michael to the charity ball.

    (Excerpt)

    Eva slunk back behind a column to collect herself. She watched and waited. Her eyes burned and welled up with tears as she observed them, keeping herself concealed behind the curtains. Eva followed Michael’s every move. She was waiting. Watching, waiting, following. She wanted to intercept him alone. She had to see him alone. All other thoughts were consumed by one, that she had to have his attention tonight.

    (Excerpt)

    Eva didn’t notice where she herself was going, absorbed in the game of tracking him. She was in love. She had been in love with him for so long that tonight, she decided, was the one time she would not let him slip away from her. Tonight she was Musetta, and tonight, she thought, with the desperation of the obsessed, she could have anyone.

    In a plot that echoes La Bohème, the very opera Eva is soon to perform in her stage debut, Vector explores the inequities of poverty, health care and the availability of medicine, alongside the modern day plagues of hepatitis C and AIDS.

    Beautifully written and tightly plotted, Vector draws the reader in to the very real seeming world of the characters, and subtly notches up the tension as each vivid character is drawn inexorably toward their fate.

    Word Count: 51,000 words

    This writer’s strengths: subtlety, brevity, voice, characterization, and the ability to float effortlessly between characters points of view. This writer knows how to approach and tell story. She is strong on craft and spareness, vividly detailed description that supports the overall theme of the novel, and dialogue that sounds natural and is dusted liberally with interesting facts.

    Who will like this book: Anyone who loves a seamless, tension laden story told in classic literary style. Readers who enjoy deeply investigated characterization.

    Self published score: 97 out of 100. Vector contains a few editing mishaps: mainly the misuse of ‘lie’ where the word should be ‘lay’, a suit which was hung up during a scene, then later appears on the floor. The physical production of the paperback is very good: it is made of quality stuff and the glossy cover is interesting and feels nice in the hand. The layout and formatting are up to traditional standards. It’s available as a paperback or as an e-book.

    Vector is a very entertaining, satisfying read, and I highly recommend it.

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Vector a Modern Love Story - JJ Brown

Readers’ Praise for J.J.Brown and Vector, A Modern Love Story

I am pulled right into J.J.’s story, my heart jumps at every detailed description of atmospheres, moods, feelings of each character and my soul feels caressed by the unpredictable, yet smooth, precise and immensely sweet way J.J. is able to write and tell us about pain, love, hope! J.J.’s style is impeccable: timing, scenes, events and unbelievable depth of emotions.

–Laura LME, author, Milan, Italy

An exploration of our innermost desires, joy, fears, and connections. That which dwells and we keep within us speaks louder than any of our words.

–Michael Coleman, poet, New York, New York

Well written and a little bit frightening.

–Mike Macartney, engineer, California.

Characters run the gamut of loving and generous to selfish and immature, yet there is a finely drawn theme of the power of love in a world of people who need love so desperately.

–Elizabeth H. Cottrell, reader review.

Vector

A Modern Love Story

J.J.Brown

Copyright 2011 J.J.Brown

Smashwords Edition

ISBN-13: 978-0-9838211-2-0

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication and Acknowledgements

For my daughters, and in memory of my parents and grandmothers. Thanks go to my editor Susanna Leuci Rosensteel and to Lillian Rodriguez, Laura LME and Michael Coleman for critical reading of the manuscript prior to publication. Gratitude goes to teacher Swami Shivendra Puri of Haridwar, India. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or have been use fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or to people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover painting: Peder Severin Kroyer: A Duet.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Gift

Chapter 2: Role Play

Chapter 3: The Benefit Ball

Chapter 4: After the Party

Chapter 5: Midnight Crime

Chapter 6: Opera Diva

Chapter 7: Burn

Chapter 8: Performance

Chapter 9: Funeral

Chapter 10: Dawn

Epilogue

Other Books by J.J.Brown

Connect with the Author

Prologue

If you have ever lost someone you love, as many of us have, and I have, then stay awhile with me. I’ll tell you the story of a woman and the man she loved. I’ll call them Eva and Michael. Their doctor, Emanuel Victor, told me their story and asked me to share it with you.

*****

‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. –Alfred Lord Tennyson

Chapter 1: The Gift

Scattered pieces of luggage with tags from Johannesburg, South Africa, were pushed up against one wall of the front room of Michael Barnes’ apartment in the East Village neighborhood of New York City the last time his physician, Dr. Emanuel Victor, visited him there. It was October and early on a Saturday evening. A dreary rain fell outside, but inside the apartment was brightly lit. The front room was on the second floor and faced Second Avenue near East Fifth Street, which was nearly always busy, but inside, the spare antique furniture, the wood floors, the small Persian rugs and the Tibetan canvas painting that hung on the wall opposite the windows all gave a feeling of quiet sanctuary.

It should be noted that Michael Barnes and Dr. Victor were close. Because of his work, Michael had a network of over a hundred thousand contacts—friends, followers, fans—between his organization’s page and their social media network feeds, but he was involved with very few of them on any personal level. This evening, both men were preparing for The Barnes Foundation’s annual Benefit Ball. As night fell, neither man could have guessed that he stood on the edge of a precipice that bordered utter darkness. No, they thought it would be a grand party.

Michael was tall and gaunt, with dark brown eyes and silky black hair, an attractive man of forty-four, a New Yorker. Dr. Victor, who his friends called Victor, was just shy of sixty, a conservative man originally from France, partially bald with short and patchy brown curls where hair continued to grow around his ears. His hazel eyes were often watery and he needed magnifying glasses for reading. He was a tall and heavyset man and tonight he wore a shapeless, black trench coat over his gray evening suit. Although born in Paris, he had lived in New York, upstate or the city, most of his adult life and so retained no French accent.

Victor’s only real concern that night, and the reason he stopped by, was his friend’s recent alarming lapse in short-term memory. Michael must arrive on time, and he must remember to give his short speech. Victor did his part to boost his friend’s confidence and assured Michael that he looked good. After they discussed the format of the evening—where Michael should sit, when he would speak—and went over the presentation carefully, Victor checked his mobile phone and rushed off to meet up with other colleagues at the landmark Waldorf Astoria hotel in midtown.

At the hotel, Victor and his team were also preparing for the annual ball. It was a responsibility Michael Barnes had inherited from his parents when they had passed away, five years earlier. It was a tradition. Michael was not altogether sure whether his mother or father would have approved of the direction he had taken The Barnes Foundation in, if they had been in this world to see it. But then, times had changed, and Michael had changed with the times.

Left alone in the apartment, Michael examined the unfurling new fronds of a large potted cycad he had imported from South Africa. Yes, it was doing very well in the front room, it was healthy. He was surprised that it had survived at all in New York. He stood at a full-length mirror and looked at himself. He liked to be alone. He preferred to be alone. He put on cologne, a woody fragrance with a hint of bergamot that he usually found had a calming effect on him. He knew he was sure to be nervous shortly. The party would begin at nine. He held the bottle under his nose and inhaled deeply. Michael could hardly smell anything at all around him, but any perfume straight from the bottle, that he could smell.

He turned and caught his reflection centered in the sandalwood frame of the mirror above his desk. Behind him hung the Tanka, a canvas draped over a thin wooden rod, depicting a Medicine Buddha seated on a yellow lotus throne and surrounded by pale pink chrysanthemum blossoms on a dark blue-gray background. The Buddha was painted with a deep blue-green, almost black, body, a scarlet robe, and narrow golden eyes that seemed to look back at him every time he glanced at the Tanka. Odd, the way it seemed alive, particularly in the evenings when the light was low. Michael had bought the painting from a Tibetan artist when he first got sick and remembered how the artist told him the god was living—the painting having been blessed in a dedication ceremony—and so might at certain times decide to arise from the cloth and come to Michael’s aid. A Medicine Buddha was just what he needed.

Michael heard the prolonged, high-pitched tone in his right ear that meant a migraine was coming within twenty-four hours. It was one thing to feel a state of health or disease on the inside, physically—and it should be understood that Michael’s health was by now in steep decline—it was another thing to see the reflection of light bounce back from the mirror through the retina and to the brain as an image. He was pleased with the image. This was not about feeling; it was about physics: absorption, reflection and the path of the light. Michael enjoyed that train of thought. He loved beautiful things. He loved himself. He thought of self-love as an asset, a bolster, a support—something necessary in order for him to keep going, doing the things he had promised to do.

He went to the kitchen area of the apartment and poured himself a Campari, bitter and strong, to help with his appetite. It was partly for the lack of a normal sense of smell that he had so much trouble eating. Without scent, taste was also impaired and food became less meaningful. He stood and scanned the shelves and refrigerator but could not bring himself to think of eating. Slowly, a cold feeling crept from his fingers up his arms and throughout his entire body as he realized he could not remember whether he had already had a drink earlier. And it was not the first time that evening that Michael wondered, Where is my mind?

It was nearly time to leave for the party, if he was to help out at all with the setup at the hotel. First he checked a spreadsheet on his laptop and then laboriously went over a stack of business mail on the desk. He had to be sure that he hadn’t missed any of the gifts that were scheduled to come in this week from the Foundation’s major donors. Have to keep on top of things, he thought. Reading had become increasingly difficult for him; he had to get that checked—definitely something new going on with his eyesight. He pushed aside the mail, searched under letters from donors, health screening test kit mailers and drug purchase orders, deliveries to and from South Africa for the Foundation, bills and invoices from Bellevue Hospital in New York. One important thing remained for him to do before he left, something that could not be neglected, not even for one day: keeping up with his prescriptions. Under the Foundation newsletters, he found his medication.

He went through the necessary motions: Open the bottle, shake a pill out, swallow it, finish off the drink—the routine actions that kept him alive. He returned to the mirror. It had become a ritual for him to ask, How do I look? Who am I? What am I doing? He performed for himself, gave the confident smile. He concentrated on being there, on being present.

Michael, he heard Eva’s lilting, young voice sing his name from the apartment building hallway. He startled but didn’t turn around. He was not expecting anyone to come by that night, not that he remembered.

Eva Moscona waltzed into his room. She fluffed the front of her long, curly hair, damp from the rain. She swung her backpack, excessively heavy with the books from her University classes, to the floor, leaving a wet trail on the polished wood. Smells good in here. What is that, eucalyptus? Were you cleaning?

Michael continued getting ready. He looked back at her from the reflection in his mirror. She was dwarfed by her billowing golden overcoat. He loved that coat on her. It was a vibrant shade of yellow and had an iridescent sheen that almost seemed to glow when the light played on it. And undeniably, Eva was beautiful. Michael noticed a vintage lace camisole under her gray hooded sweatshirt, her long, black curls down to her waist tucked under the coat. Her skin-tight, ripped jeans were wet at the bottom and her black Converse sneakers were soaked.

I left the door open?

Eva kicked off her sneakers and took out her earphones so she could hear him better. No, no don’t worry. You locked it. You didn’t forget. I just followed an old lady into the building—I think she lives upstairs.

Oh, God. What a relief. It’s getting bad, you know. Sometimes I get lost even when I’m on my own block. I don’t recognize a thing around me at all. I look for the street sign and then I’m alright again—odd. Yesterday I left the door unlocked all night.

It’s stress. You work too much. Stress does that, fatigue. You can be walking around and not even see. It’s psychological. Stress. Take a vacation.

Michael turned from the mirror to look at her; he knew she loved him when she said things like that, and he knew she would want to stay. Don’t get too comfortable, Eva. I’m on my way out.

She mocked surprise.

He laughed and softened. She was so young. How was class today?

Sucked.

Don’t speak like that. It doesn’t suit you. A beautiful woman, a beautiful voice. Everything you say should be like... Michael studied her. Eva: What should she sound like? The opera student, the blossom of youth, the short curvaceous diva, ...a bird. A songbird.

He put his medication and related papers in the desk drawer, concealing them from her, and he closed his laptop. What are you singing now at school?

Singing? She was vague and indifferent.

Don’t you have a show coming up in a few days? What does your esteemed teacher have you working on today?

My ‘esteemed’ teacher?

Michael remembered the first time he heard her voice instructor, Rosa Fioreli sing. It was in Italy, Rome, in a historic old cathedral in the center of town for an evening of operatic performances with an organist and one soloist. That was years ago, before she joined the music school here in New York City. Yes, Rosa was really something. You’re lucky to have your Miss Rosa Fioreli. The school is lucky to have her too.

Eva waved off his comments dismissively. She did not share Michael’s belief in luck, but she did adore her teacher on a personal level. "We’re doing La Bohème, you know. I told you that last week. It’s tomorrow, Michael. You forgot. It’s for a showcase. Agents will be there and all. Pick up new talent. Hope they pick me up. Have to start working."

"I love La Bohème. It’s…beautiful. You’re too young to have seen the modern version, the musical Rent, probably, when it was here in New York."

Huh? Rent? No, didn’t see it. Thank God I don’t have to worry about that, living at school, right? Guess I will soon. Rent. Wow. Money. No, I’m not ready. I’m seriously not ready to pay rent.

Michael neatened his desk top, absorbed in thoughts of that tragic opera, La Bohème. Love of opera was a passion he shared with Eva. He had learned the stories and the melodies of the more popular operas so many years ago that he thought the memories would not fade from him now. The memory of music was a pathway the human brain preserved the longest; he knew that, and he was grateful for it.

Could be depressing working on that particular story, the bohemians, the artists, what happens to them because of living like that, in poverty. He suddenly felt that a chill had entered the room, possibly from the hallway with Eva. He covered a cough, turning away from her to take a drink.

She watched him closely, "Are you alright? You

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