“I want to. It’s... complicated.”
“It usually is.” He picked up his coffee mug, turning toward the door. “When you do enroll, come find me first day. I want you in Advanced Photography, not the intro class. You’d be bored, and bored students make everyone miserable.”
He wandered off before she could respond, leaving her standing alone in the photography lab.
Bea materialized at her elbow. “Wow.”
“What?”
“Do you know who he IS? Besides a teacher?” Bea grabbed her arm, voice dropping to an urgent whisper. “He won the California Documentary Prize. Three years in a row. He doesn’t just SAY things like that. To anyone. Ever.”
“He was probably just being nice.”
“Mr. Reeves is never just nice. He once told a kid his portfolio looked like ‘a cry for help from someone who’d never seen natural light.’ To his face.” Bea was practically bouncing. “He saw your festival work. He remembered specific pieces. He wants you in Advanced.”
“If I enroll.”
“When you enroll.” Bea squeezed her arm. “Stella.This is huge. This is validation from someone who actually knows what he’s talking about.”
Stella looked around the photography lab—the student work on the walls, the darkroom waiting to be used, the north-facing windows letting in that perfect even light.
Mr. Reeves had seen her work. Not because she was Tyler’s daughter. Not because Bea had talked her up. He’d gone to the festival and looked at “The Shack Breathes” and remembered the Bernie triptych and the dining room composition and the shot of Margo at the grill.
He’d seen what she was trying to do. And he thought she was good enough for Advanced Photography.
Someone outside her family believed she belonged here.
“We should go,” Stella said, her voice strange in her own ears. “Dad’s probably wondering where we are.”
“He’ll be fine. I told him we were having a formative educational experience.” Bea steered her toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go find Mom.”
They walked back through the art wing, past the ceramics studio and the painting rooms. Students called out goodbyes to Bea. Curious glances followed Stella—the new girl, the cousin from Australia, the one Mr. Reeves had pulled aside.
Bea had texted Anna, and by the time they got intothe visitors’ lot she was waiting for them. At the car, Stella paused with her hand on the door.
Her phone buzzed again. Three missed calls from Fiona now. A voicemail. Two texts she could see on the lock screen without opening.
Call me please. We need to talk about your flight.
Her flight. The one scheduled for not long from now. The one that would take her back to Sydney, back to the life Fiona had planned for her, away from darkrooms and photography labs and teachers who remembered specific shots from festival exhibitions.
“You okay?” Bea asked.
“Yeah.” Stella got in the car. “Just thinking.”
“About Mr. Reeves?”
“About everything.”
Anna pulled out of the parking lot. The turpentine smell had faded, or maybe Stella had just gotten used to it.
“You know what you have to do,” Bea said quietly. “Right?”
“Call her.”
“Soon.”
“I know.”
