Sketchbook (A Tale of Adventure and Romance in the Brazilian Amazon) Read online

  The Sketchbook

  (A Tale of Adventure and Romance

  in the Brazilian Amazon)

  by Paula Freda

  Copyright 2005 by Paula Freda

  Smashwords Edition

  bookcover copyright 2005 by Paula Freda

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction, names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  The Sketchbook

  by Paula Freda

  "Darn!" Mary Juliette muttered under her breath, and glanced out the window of the motor coach. She slid lower into her seat, and stamped her foot. She had done it again. Once more her dark eyes had betrayed her attraction to a handsome face. And Hennessey was not the first male to quietly laugh at her. She was an incurable romantic, the sort whose emotions showed readily. But the eighteen year-old who had started work as a typist seven years ago with not an unusual girl’s fancy to meet "Mr. Right," was destined to be slowly disillusioned.

  Certain to find her "Mr. Right" among the pleasant-faced young men who worked alongside her in the bank, when one caught her fancy, her words and actions demonstrated her feelings clearly. And in her naiveté, she expected him to respond in like manner. But the pleasant-faced young man had laughed at her behind her back and sometimes to her face, and the girls in the bank had tagged her "naive." They had also nicknamed her "MJ". It had taken her a long time to accept that her plainness and unpretentious character made her expectations improbable.

  Her parents were gentle folk, comfortable in their gray clapboard house with an enormous Maple in the front yard, and a vegetable patch in the backyard. The "moderate type," they were quite content with their simple lifestyle. Family gatherings and an occasional movie were all they expected. When at twenty-five years of age, Mary Juliette announced she was taking a three-week vacation in South America they were shocked and bewildered.

  "Why?" her father asked.

  "You just can’t," her mother exclaimed. "A girl alone, and so far away!"

  "I have to," Mary Juliette replied.

  "Why?" her father asked again.

  "Because that’s where I’ll find him."

  "Who?"

  "Mr. Right."

  Both parents thought she had lost her mind.

  No amount of arguing could dissuade her. And here she was in South America in a motor coach following an insane hunch that the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life was somewhere nearby waiting for her.

  She had already drawn his picture in her Sketchbook.

  Mary Juliette loved to paint. She had taken every art course available in her small town. Canvases that reflected the strength and depth of her emotions filled the attic (her studio) in her parent’s home. She was also a dreamer, living out her fantasies in her sketches and paintings. She carried her sketchbook everywhere. At the moment one was ensconced in her tote bag under her seat.

  When James Hennessey, the guide, climbed into the motor coach, she was one of the four female passengers who craned their necks and sharpened their hearing to better see and hear him. Not surprising, since he was quite attractive, a tall, broad-chested man, with a casual air that matched his safari poplin shirt, pants, and wide-brimmed hat. The two male passengers hardly noticed Hennessey, until he purposely cleared his throat and stood at the front of the bus and faced them. From his shirt pocket he took a card containing the names of the tourists seated in the motor coach. Behind him, Enrique slipped into the driver’s seat and checked the fuel gauge to make sure no one had siphoned the gasoline during the night.

  "Okay, folks," Hennessey drew their attention. He had a deep, even-keeled voice. "Let’s make sure everyone is here." He scanned the card. "Mr. and Mrs. Barry and Ira Krausner?"

  "We’re here," Ira acknowledged in an eager tone. She raised a slim, nail-tinted aging hand and waved. Beside her, Barry Krausner nodded, and adjusted his corpulent figure to better fit into the upholstered seat next to the window. Hennessey acknowledged them briefly, and then went on to the next name on the card. "Miss Carole Santini?" He glanced up when there was no answer. "Miss Santini?" he repeated.

  A belated, "Present and accounted for," came from a dark-haired, blue-eyed young woman. She moved to the seat next to the aisle, to be sure that he saw her. She was slender and voluptuous where it mattered, dressed in sleek brown slacks and a clinging white silk long-sleeved blouse. Not the smartest attire for a four-hour ride through the Amazon, Hennessey thought.

  He continued, "Professor Emil Rutger."

  "Yo!" the professor lifted a forefinger and bobbed his gray head.

  "Right," Hennessey acknowledged.

  "Miss Florence Mallory?"

  "Right here," a woman responded.

  Another beauty, Hennessey observed. This one, ebony skinned like the night; not as slender as the alabaster one, but firmer, gutsier, her straightened hair and the pensive look in her eyes revealing more than she realized.

  "Miss Mary—Juliette—Kensington," he read.

  Mary Juliette missed neither his pauses nor the laughter that threatened to curl the corners of his mouth. "Awful, isn’t it?" she said. Men that handsome never noticed her, except for her name. They took notice of that.

  "Actually, it’s a nice name," Hennessey replied, and it fit her, he observed. "All right, folks. We’re about ready to leave. Just a few words of caution. I advise strongly using the safety belts. The animals sometimes dart unexpectedly across the road, which necessitates a quick stop. Also, keep your windows closed. As soon as the bus starts to roll, the air conditioning unit will turn on automatically. I repeat, keep your windows closed, for your protection. In addition to the wild life, there are a lot of bugs out there."

  "Vamos, amigo," he said to the driver, and settled into his seat, as Enrique switched on the engine and cranked the bus into motion.

  South America had seemed the adequate choice to Hennessey. At thirty-two, he was single, and living comfortably, if not luxuriously, on the salary the Brazilian tour agency paid him. He had never finished college, never felt any special calling, except for an avid curiosity to see more of the world than Brooklyn Heights afforded. His job was to shepherd the tourists that rode the motor coach along the narrow road that the agency had carved parallel to the Amazon River. The road ran for about two hundred miles (by no means the length of the River) and led to the Santo Lopez Mission. Here the tourists were promised a chance to spend time among peaceful natives, and to enjoy nature at its most primitive.

  Hennessey was no jungle expert, but he had learned his route well, and he was intelligent, with a fair quota of common sense, and the good looks to go with it. The fine print in his Guide’s Manual warned him adamantly never to associate on an intimate basis with any passenger, female or male. He had heeded that sound advice for the ten years of his employment, and was well content to heed it for the next ten years as well. He avoided the inviting smiles that Carole Santini and Ira Krausner both sent him. As for Mary Juliette, he caught her watching him as well, but unlike the coy signals from the two women, her glances did not invite. She was curious about him, but not brazen or flirtatious. It felt more as though she were trying to make up her mind about him. Perhaps she realized that her chances of capturing his interest were slim. She was plain. She wore some makeup, her dark brown hair was well styled in a page, but she would never be glamorous. And he had to admit that he liked "glamorous." And "glamorous" often responded; though what they saw in him, he had not the slightest idea. Yes, he was easy on the e
yes, tall, kept himself in good shape, worked out and watched what he ate. He had a fair amount of intelligence, and enough wit to keep a conversation going. Outside of that, he was just another guy. Yet three quarters of the women who had ridden this motor coach in the past ten years, had tried to flirt with him. He doubted he need worry with Mary Juliette. Plain and reserved, and as far as he could tell thus far, unaffected, even humble. Hadn’t she admitted that her name was awful? Neither had she grown angry when he had barely controlled a chuckle upon reading her name. He could trust this one for some light conversation.

  Mary Juliette could hardly contain her excitement. They were entering the South American jungle. She was finally going to see it and be able to sketch it first hand. And when she returned to her favorite hill overlooking her hometown, she would breathe life into her sketches by transferring them to canvas in vivid oil colors. She had chosen this particular tour because it avoided the tourist traps and touched upon the real Amazon – the parts of the country indigenous to the giant slithering anacondas, and the large butterflies whose colorful wings were like oriental fans, their wingspread as wide. She wanted to sketch the lush vegetation of the Amazon Basinthe laurels, the mimosas, the papaya trees. To spy the native among his village of thatched huts and capture that image. To glimpse his face as he fished and hunted, while his woman, nursing their child at her breast, wove cloth for their garments in colorful, intricate patterns. She was eager to obtain, artistically speaking, a piece of the mighty brown mud-washed Amazon. Desire welled up in her to act out once more her fantasies on paper.

  She slid her tote bag from under her seat, unzipped it, and took out her sketchbook and charcoal pencils. She flipped through the used pages, pausing at the last image she had drawn. It was her conception of "Mr. Right," her "Mr. Right." She looked closer at the sketch and her mouth fell open. The drawing bore a striking resemblance to Hennessey. From the short ash brown wavy hair and wide brow, to the blue eyes set slightly too close for the width of his face and the broadness of his Roman nose. It was Hennessey, from the full lips with just a hint of sensuousness, to the rigid contour of his jaw. It was Hennessey. Was Hennessey "Mr. Right?"

  Enrique drove the bus along the road for about ten minutes, and then stopped to pick up Connors. Hennessey nodded his hello as the huge mulatto climbed in and shed his knapsack and rifle. He introduced him to the passengers as "the guard." Connors’ dark eyes rested on the ebony-skinned woman. "There are not many passengers this trip," he commented, his accent thick and rich with Portuguese.

  "Slow season," Hennessey informed him, as Connors sat down beside him. Both men went back a long way and had arrived at the point in their friendship where a glance, or a nod, or a shake of the head, or even a grunt, spoke volumes between the two. Connors was also in the employ of the Brazilian tour agency. But where Hennessey’s duties lay in caring for the passengers’ intellectual needs, Connors’ job was to guard the passengers and the bus from marauders, be they humans out for booty, or wild animals a bit too curious about the metal monster on wheels.

  It was inevitable that Mary Juliette would sketch both men. The artist in her could not deny itself. Charcoal pencil in hand, her deft fingers moved over the blank page, filling, creating, and transferring her conception of the two men. Connors’ hair was jet black and close-cropped. The lines on his face were chiseled deeper, the bone structure more prominent, the nose wider, the lips thicker, his stature harder, tougher than Hennessey’s.

  The creases on Hennessey’s tanned forehead were not as deeply etched as those of his companion. His mouth tended to smile more readily, yet with a touch of disbelief, almost mistrust, but not complete mistrust, not yet. His jaw was not that square that it could hide successfully a hint of softness. His stance was casual, too casual; a bluff, she guessed, to hide his vulnerability to the need for acceptance and human contact. Hennessey was handsome in a rugged, outdoors, self-assured way, while Connors reminded her of a black spotted jaguar, a warrior, a fighter. These were the images they evoked in her and which she transferred deftly to paper.

  The adage "the eyes are the mirrors of the soul" was the artist’s best resource to gain insight into the people she wished to paint. From her seat towards the middle of the bus, Mary Juliette could not see the men’s eyes as clearly as she needed. Placing the pad and pencil on the empty seat next to her, she rose and walked to the front.

  "Excuse me, gentlemen, but my wristwatch seems to have stopped. Could either of you tell me what time it is?"

  Connors checked his watch. Hennessey regarded her slightly amused. Had he already guessed she found him attractive? And was he amused by that fact. He reminded her of the pleasant-looking young man who had laughed at her. "Two-thirty," Connors informed her.

  Mary Juliette’s gaze was fixed on Hennessey. She gave a start when Connors touched her arm and repeated himself.

  "Oh—thank you," she stammered, color rising to her cheeks. She walked back to her seat as nonchalantly as she could manage.

  When she had regained her composure, she returned to her drawing. For Connors’ eyes, she used a hard charcoal pencil, shading his eyes heavily, aiming for emotion and cunningness with traces of sadness. For Hennessey’s eyes she used a soft charcoal pencil as on further reflection she realized that beneath the amusement in his eyes, she had glimpsed a defensive attitude. Most people that laughed at you were afraid. Satisfied, she closed her sketchbook and let it lie idle across her lap while she gazed out the window at the scenery whizzing by, the unkempt mass of trees, vines and flora that threatened to lay siege to the man-made road.

  Nearly an hour passed. Growing fidgety, Mary Juliette stole a glance at the dark-skinned girl seated in the opposite aisle. Florence appeared lost in her thoughts—not happy ones. Mary Juliette left her seat.

  "Hello," she greeted.

  Florence looked at her apathetically.

  Sensing the woman’s annoyance, MJ entreated, "Hi, can I come in?" Florence regarded her. There was genuineness about the white girl. Not like the one sitting further up, that Miss Santini—Carole, was it? An elegant ass, as in donkey. Florence relaxed and offered her a genuine smile. "Sure, come on in." Mary Juliette sat down beside her. "Florence --," she tried to recall the woman’s surname.

  "Mallory," Florence said.

  "Right. And I’m—"

  "Mary Juliette. How could your parents do that to you?"

  "It was easy. Mom wanted ‘Mary,’ and Dad wanted ‘Juliette’; so they compromised. Mom calls me ‘Mary’ and Dad calls me ‘Juliette’, and I’m stuck with both," she explained, laughing.

  Florence commiserated. They kept their conversation light. At length Florence asked, "You draw?" She had noticed her sketching earlier. "Some. I like to record memories, and create new ones."

  "Can I see?"

  "Sure. I’ll get my sketchbook."

  She rose unaware that Hennessey was heading up the center of the bus. Her shoulder caromed into his midriff. His left hand shot to his midriff and the other caught her before she could fall. "Whoa, girl!" he said, his eyes again crinkling with amusement. MJ straightened and waited for Hennessey to remove his hand from her arm. He had large, strong hands. Inexplicably, the touch of his fingers felt familiar and warm, despite that he was a stranger to her.

  "You okay?" he asked, feeling her stiffen.

  "I’m just fine, thank you," she replied.

  He let go. Without further acknowledgment of his presence, she fetched her sketchbook. Pad in hand; she sat down next to Florence. Hennessey had not moved. "Are you good at drawing? Or is it just a pastime?"

  MJ met his gaze. I’m fair at it; but it’s for my own pleasure."

  "Mind if I see the ones you did of me and Connors?"

  How did he—? "Okay," she answered, feigning indifference. She turned to the page where she had drawn a side profile of both men, facing each other, and since he remained upright, she handed him the sketchbook.

  "You missed a zit. Here," he pointed to a spot on
the picture and then to a corresponding spot on his left temple near the hairline. "And Connors has a small scar, here. The jugular vein, to be exact. He was attacked by a jaguar when he was five." Not asking further permission, he browsed backwards through the book, studying each of the sketches. "Who’s this?" he asked.

  "The man I’m going to marry," MJ replied, and marveled at her daring. If he noticed how closely the sketch resembled him, he did not mention it. "So why isn’t he here with you?"

  "Maybe he is."

  Hennessey started to ask if her fiancé was invisible, then thought better of it. He handed the sketchbook back to her. "Enjoy the scenery, ladies," he said, and returned to the front of the bus.

  MJ turned to Florence who had sat quietly evaluating the two. "I’m never comfortable with arrogant rapscallions," she said.

  Florence grimaced. "Rather say ‘scoundrels’. ‘Rapscallions’ sounds like some kind of onion." Both women broke out into laughter . . .

  The name "Mary Juliette" had sounded ludicrous at first. But on second thought, Hennessey had decided it was appropriate for its dark-haired, nose-upturned, pink-faced owner." He stretched his legs and leaned back in his seat. He pushed his wide-brimmed hat forward to cover his eyes. There were still two hours before they reached the mission, where his duties as a guide would actually begin. But the name "Mary Juliette" kept intruding on his rest. She found him attractive; he had no doubt about that. When they had collided and he had caught her by the arm, he had felt her quiver, an instant before she had stiffened and fought back the attraction. He was used to women openly soliciting his attention, but this one appeared to belong to a vanishing species. Only an inexperienced female could turn her nose up so indignantly and freeze so prettily, all at the same time.

  The girl brought his parents to mind. His father, a rich, sophisticated gentleman, had never been around when his son needed him. His mother, in all fairness, had never shirked her duty as a mother. She was always there when Hennessey needed her. But the older he grew, the quicker she let go.