When he holds out a hand to me, Idon’t take it.
I get upall on my own.
* * * *
After a quick stop at my car for my laptop, we walk three blocks to a sandwich shop Kit loves, a place called The Meltdown where sometimes you’ve got to ask for less than the regular amount of cheese or else you’ll probably have a stomachache for a good twelve hours after. I choose it on purpose, so it feels like I’m doing something for Kit—showing her brother around town, nice and casual—and so it feels like I’m reestablishing a boundary between us. He seems to get it and doesn’t argue with me when I insist on paying as a thank-you gesture, sending him to wait at a tablewhile I order.
While I wait for our food, on impulse I take my phone from my back pocket and snap a picture of him—fast and thoughtless, nothing like the tripod-body, held-breath anticipation from the park. When I check my screen I see Alex, the stretch of restaurant between us, his head tipped to the side and slightly bowed as he plugs something into my computer’s USB port. He looks calm and focused, as though he’s sat in that booth a hundred times. A regular work spot after a day of shooting.
I navigate to my messages, attaching the photo in a text I first intend to send only to Kit. But then I pause, adding Alex’s name as a recipient too. The picture is of him, after all, and I don’t want to seem like a creeper.Ordered your brother your favorite sandwich,I type, and press Send. I picture Kit, probably somewhere in Italy now, maybe having a big bowl of pasta and a glass of wine—and know it’ll make her smile to see it.
When I carry our food over, he’s pushed the camera and laptop to the side so there’s still a big expanse of table for us to eat. He’s got his phone in front of him, and when he looks up at me, there’s an expression on his face that’s new to me—somehow shy and mischievous, all atthe same time.
“Saw your picture,” he says, teasing. “Too grainy. Badlight in here.”
“Was it okay I sent it?” I ask, feeling unsure now. Maybe Alex is looking to keep his distance from Kit right now, not let her think he’s settling in here.
He shrugs. “She knows I’m still here. I spoke to her last night.” His jaw tightens slightly, and I wonder what they spoke about—if he’s told her about Patricia, if he’s told her he’ll be here for a week even after she gets back. “They’re having a great time,” he adds, which I’m guessing means he doesn’t want totalk about it.
I nod toward the laptop. “Did you look already?” As soon as I ask, the plates in my hand feel heavy, distracting. I’m nervous, embarrassed, excited. I have to know how those pictures turned out.
“Not closely. They pass over the screen when they import.” There’s a twitch to his mouth that tells meNot closelymeans something different to him than it does to me. I set the sandwiches on my side of the booth, pushing them almost to the edge. Then I slide into the short expanse of bench that’s left on his side, and he immediately moves to give me room.
Not much, room, though. It’s a short bench, so my shoulder is against his arm, my thigh against his. Everywhere we touch, something happens to me, still. Electricity. “I need to see before I can eat,” I say, trying to keep themoment casual.
He smiles at me, eyes crinkling at the corners, and here’s another bosom-heaving moment for the director.
He moves his hand, taps a finger on the trackpad of the laptop, and pulls it closer. In my periphery I see bright green first, and I’m all anticipation—for a second, I watch him, see the green of his eyes take in the green ofthe photograph.
“Come on, now,” he says, gentle and coaxing, same as back in the park, and I let my eyes slideto the screen.
It’sbeautiful, this picture. I must’ve started slightly off center, or maybe I stayed that way, who knows, but the nasturtium leaf takes up about three-quarters of the image, dark brown soil and the edge of the garden box showing along the bottom of the screen and along the left side. It’s nice, how that is—the settings I used have blurred them out, so they’re mostly a rich color contrast to the sharp, clear edge of the leaf—so green that it both does and doesn’t look like it comes from nature. It’s like—the ur-leaf. The Platonicideal of leaf.
And right there in the centeris my ladybug.
Candy-apple red, so in focus you can see every one of her spots—three on each side, and one in the middle, up where the red shell gives way to the jet-black head of her. I see details on her body I’ve never seen before on an insect—the way her shell curves up minutely, right at the very edges, a little aerodynamic rim, the way each spot is slightly different, like a tiny, imprecise paintbrush dolloped on her back before sendingher on her way.
“Oh,” I say. Or—maybe I heaving-bosom it, whatever. Alex’s finger taps the keyboard, and the next picture is just as good, nearly identical to the first. “I told you I was a good student,” I add, and Alex’s quiet laugh, released right beside me, feels like the softest caress over my bare skin.
He starts to tap more quickly through, and for the next ten or so photos some of the initial awed pleasure wears off. Aside from a shift in positioning, the pictures are almost identical, and I think my biggest problem will be choosing one to show for my assignment. I’m already leaning toward the first one, like I imprinted on it as soon as it came across the screen.
I can see in the photographs the very second Alex had touched me—the first image is slightly less focused, the leaf grainy and unremarkable looking, the ladybug’s shell blurred on one side as it lifts, a sliver of gray peeking from underneath it, wrecking the look of that cheerful, shiny dome. She looks…disturbed, frantic, spooked.
Before he can click again, I lean back from where I’d curved my body toward the screen.
“Wait.” He taps again, and again. I’m not watching closely; I’ve blurred my own eyes a little, wanting to remember that first picture instead. Alex has adjusted his own body at some point—the arm not operating the computer rests along the back of the booth, so once again I’m in the bracket of his body. Anyone would think we’re together.Togethertogether. “Here,” he says, and takes his hand away from the laptop, dropping it beneath the table to rest against his thigh.
And—thispicture.
She’s lifted off, barely, casting a tiny shadow on the leaf beneath her; her shell is spread wide, covering most of that jet-black head. It looks gorgeous that way, spread apart—somehow seeing it in two pieces makes it look harder, sturdier, more like armor than decoration. And beneath are her big, gray-black wings, wings I knew existed but had never even thought of before—thin as tissue paper, veined like the leaf beneath her, wholly transparent in their thinnest spots. And in the middle, her wide, brown-black body, red flanks along either side, ridges stacked vertically. The sturdiest spine you’ve ever seen on something so tiny.
“That’s the one,” I say on a gasp. “That’s the one, right?” Before I think of it, before I remember how close he is, I turn to face him, to see whether he’s as excited about it as I am, but he’s not lookingat the screen.
He’slooking at me.
The light from the laptop screen casts his stubbled jawline in bright, visual echoes of my picture—a little green here, a little red there, and I’d like to trace those colors, see how they feel with the textures of Alex underneath. His eyes are on me—he’s cocked his head ever so slightly in a way I recognize from the park, but this time his expression is hooded, less acute and less focused, as he takes me in. When those eyes settle on my mouth, I hear it again, Ifeelit again:Press Play.If it isn’t my bosom heaving, it’s definitely something else. I press my knees together, feel the pulse of desire there, and Alex shifts, his thigh moving so I feel the long, ropy give of his muscle underneath one of my kneecaps, and his blink is slow, concentrated, like in that split second of registering my body against his, he’s closing out the world and making a picture of his own, the same one I’m making. The same one where I slide closer, where I give him the same mouth he’s made a study of—
Ping.
