“By driving them off with my scary fake girlfriend.”
“Ahh. I see.” She giggles, snapping on her rubber gloves. “Now stop flirting. We’ve got work to do. Which photo should we develop first?” Kate’s voice is clinical as she spins a tiny lever on the film camera. A click sounds, and she pops open the back, then withdraws the film canister protecting our negatives.
“Umbrellas. I’ve been dying to see how they turn out.”
“They’ll be black and white,” she warns.
“Don’t care,” I say.
She steps over to a few odd bulb-looking domes on the walls, switching them on to glow red. She cuts the overhead lights, and the next thing I know, we are bathed in scarlet.
The red light deepens the crimson color of her halter top, making her look every bit the vixen she is. She smirks, as if reading my hungry expression through the darkness.
“Focus,” she whispers.
I don’t know why we’re whispering, but talking loud in this dim lighting feels wrong for some reason. After a moment, Kate unspools the negative film from the tiny canister, then lays it across a white surface. She arches closer, scrutinizing the umbrella shots.
“Will you hand me that loupe over there?” she asks, not shifting her gaze.
“The what?”
She puffs a tiny laugh. “Sorry. The small blocky thingy with the magnifying-looking discs.”
I locate the instrument and hand it to her. She barely acknowledges me as she studies two different negatives.
She stands in triumph. “This one.”
“I trust you,” I say.
She uses a small rubber instrument to puff air at the negative before turning to the machine perched on the counter. The contraption juts up almost like a periscope, with stacked trays within its neck and a wide backlit lens-looking thing.
She slides out a hinged metal box from the column of the machine. Carefully placing the negative inside, she closes the lid and slides the tray back into the machine.
“Hand me one of those eight by ten papers, will ya?” she says.
I locate the correct box on the counter and carefully withdraw a sheet.
“Thanks, bunny ears.” She winks, then slides the paper beneath a grid. She positions it just so, then tells me to get ready. Ready for what, I don’t know.
Kate flips on the tall machine, and a humming bright light casts shadows of the negative across the paper.
“Can you hand me the focus finder—sorry, the curved microscope?”
I slide it over, and she fits an eye to the instrument, fiddling with a few wheels and dials on the projector.
“Perfect,” she whispers.
I place a hand on the small of her back so she knows I’m here, and her breath catches.
“Can I see?” I ask.
“Of course.” She straightens to step back, but I curl an armaround her, keeping her close. I peer into the lens. Just as I suspected, the photo is stunning.
“You did good, Kate,” I say without lifting my eye from the lens.
“Thanks,” she whispers.
I straighten but don’t move away. What’s more, she doesn’t seem to want me to either. She presses in front of me to continue her work, and I remain close behind. So close that I brace my arms around her on the counter, my chest brushing the bare skin of her back as I watch her work.
