“But—” Jae begins, and then he stops, starts over. He’s still adjusting, I’m guessing, to the fact that I’ve told him this at all, that I called him twenty minutes ago and told him I’d be taking a month off to help a friend and to deal with—I’d paused thickly—panic attacks. There’d been five seconds of silence on the other end of the phone and then he’d said, “Alex?” as though it might be someone crank calling him.
“I’m glad about it; don’t get me wrong,” he continues. “But I’m not sure I understand the deal. She gets a world-renowned photojournalist to help her with her school project—”
“It’s not really a school project,” I correct, but of course itisa school project. I just don’t like the little inflection in Jae’s voice, the one that suggests I’m out here robbing a cradle. “She’s twenty-seven years old.”
“She gets a world-renowned photojournalist,” he repeats, ignoring me, “and you—go to therapy?”
I lean back in my chair, scrub a hand over my face, images still bright behind my eyelids—the ones on my screen, sure. But also ones of Greer today, dappled with the sunlight that’d been peeking through the maple.
“She’s good at negotiation.” Quiet but deadly. Like an assassin, but foryour feelings.
“Is she going to be a lawyer? Some kind ofbusinesswoman?”
“No. Asocial worker.”
Jae’s silent on the other end of the phone again. I open my eyes, focus back on the computer screen, narrow my eyes at another image featuring dozens of circular canopies draped in gauzy, orange-yellow fabric, shot through with twinkle lights, white-silk-draped tables and chairs beneath. Wedding season in Bangladesh, a story I shot for a travel magazine when I’d been in the area. Pretty, but too touristy for the auction, and not really on brand for me. I close it, slide my eyes over to another image from the day before, a baburchi in a short-sleeved plaid shirt, the pattern not unlike the one Peter Hiltunen had on today. He stands over a long counter, chopping an onion, but what’s striking is the looming pile of translucent rings already stacked beside him, a tiny mountain of flavor that had made my eyes stream with tears as I’d shot. In the photo, the cook laughs at me, his eyes bright and dry. Maybe this one for the auction.
“Quit multitasking,” Jae says, and I drop my eyes, embarrassed at how well he knows me through the phone alone. The truth is, aside from Kit, Jae’s the closest thing to a best friend I’ve ever really had. Given that he takes 22 percent of my income, it maybe should feel odd—but it doesn’t, not really. “This’ll be good for you. Why not think about—”
“Aw, Jae,” I say, scratching a hand over my scalp, knowing we’re about to tread well-worn ground. Usually I can put him off by saying my connection’s bad, or that my battery’s dying. “Don’t bringthis up again.”
“Hey, listen. Do I call you when you’re in the middle of a job and tell you to—I don’t know what. Take more pictures of kids or dogs, or do more black and whites? To stop doing that thing where you kneel, put the subject above you?”
“Hey,” I say, offended. But he has a point; Idotend to do that, an early trick I’d learned to manipulate scale, to make an easily overlooked subject seem giant, impossible to ignore. For a second I think about the prints hung outside of Hiltunen’s office, student work that was so technically skilled I’d felt a small pang of jealousy, or maybe longing. The last couple of years, whenever I’ve had young photographers out in the field with me, I’m always a little surprised by their native intelligence looking through a lens. No matter what the purists say, these kids have been carrying around decently high-quality cameras in the palms of their hands for years, loading up their social media sites with pictures of everything fromfood to family.
Shit, maybe I should choose a different picture for the auction. I reach out to reopen my screen, but pull my hand back when Jae speaks again.
“The point is, I don’t tell you how to do your job. This is mine. I tell you where there’s an opportunity, and this is a good one. You’ve basically got someone barking at you to sign a book deal, a nice retrospective of your career so far, and now you’ve got a whole month to consider it. I can send you over some paperwork.”
“One thing at a time,” I tell him, standing from my chair and making my way into the kitchen. Now that I’ve shut the computer, my stomach rumbles, and I realize I haven’t had anything since the coffee from this afternoon. On top of everything else, my eating habits are garbage, not unhealthy but recklessly sporadic, especially when I’m in the field. Probably something else I should work on while I’m here. “It’s been a big day for me.”
“Oh, sure. Getting hosed by a coed.”
“She’s not a coed. And I didn’t get hosed.” Much.
“I’ll send the book stuff, but you don’t have to look at it. You can put it in the same place you store all my Evites, the ones younever RSVP to.”
“I don’t like those things. Too many animations. Lots of clicking.” Also I’m usually too busy working for whatever stuff Jaeinvites me to.
I open Kit’s pantry, pull down a carton of ready-to-heat soup she’s put there—it used to be our favorite, tomato soup. A treat when we’d have it with grilled cheese. I smile now, looking at the carton, so different from the small cans of Campbell’s I’d buy. This one saysOrganic.Flavored with basil. Non-GMO. There’s a picture on the front, creamy red soup in a sleek white bowl, a few thin twirls of cheese on top, a single basil leaf tucked artfully in between. Good for Kit, buying this nice carton of soup. I set it down on the counter, and for a second feel strangely unsure about whether I should eat it. I feel a little tremor of anxiety—not quite the onset of a panic attack. But a tiny warning bell, maybe.Jesus, what the fuck iswrongwith me?
“You sound a hundred years old,” Jae says. “I’ll also send you an AARPsubscription.”
“No address,” I deadpan, staring at that carton of soup. Jae chuckles nonchalantly, and Ifeela hundred years old. “I gotta make some dinner.”
“Alex, listen. I’m glad I’m not in the room for this part, because you’d probably do that thousand-yard stare you always do when I try to talk to you about something other than the business. Hell, you might hang up on me in the next three seconds. But I just want to say—I think it’ll be good for you. Even if it is just one month. Even if it’sjust one time.”
One month. One time.
I swallow, mumble out a brief “Thanks, man,” a promise to keep him posted. When I hang up the phone, I set it next to the carton of soup, and for a few long, silent seconds, I think I might end this day like I began it—hands on my hips, sucking wind, freaking the fuck out about nothing I can put a finger on. Soup, forChrist’s sake.
But then the screen of my phone lights, a white message box with a name I like to say. When I slide my finger across the screen, her message is two separate lines: first, a phone number, followed by a name—Dr. PatriciaGarrett-Lynch.
Second, an address, followed by an instruction:Tomorrow, 10 a.m.
My brow lowers, and then another message pops up:That’s the kind of text James Bond would send, I think. The point is, it’s a camera store and Ineed a camera.
My mouth curves into a smile, my breath and blood slowing in pleasant relief. Just as I’m about to reply, I see she’s typing again, so I wait.
