Fuck.I may have only met him once, but I recognize his ingratiating tone immediately. “Peter,” I say, my voice as bland as his is enthusiastic. “Hello.”
“Glad I caught you.” As though he’s somehow familiar with my schedule, as though we’re jokey buddies who do quick calls like this every day. “Thanks for sending over the picture for the auction.”
“Not a problem.” I wipe my forehead with the bottom of my T-shirt, eager to hang up. Maybe if I call Greer tonight, maybe if there’s more of that cooking show on she’d wantto come over.…
“I was calling about the class I mentioned. Documentary photography?”
I drag my mind back to the conversation, since I know that it’s as much about Greer as whatever I’m thinking about Ina Garten. Judging by the three local interview requests I’ve already agreed to via email, it’s clear Hiltunen’s milking this connection for all it’s worth, knowing what he’s holding over Greer. “Yes. Theguest lecture?”
“Is tomorrow evening too soon? It’s short notice, butI had an open—”
“It’s fine. I can do tomorrow.”
I’m only half listening while he gives me the details and offers suggestions about what to discuss, but basically it sounds like he wants an hour of me talking about how I got started, which’ll be easy enough though probably not all that helpful for a bunch of kids in actual college, seeing as how I barely graduated from high school. “It’ll take me a couple of days to get the honorarium together—”
“No need. If you get one, you can donate it to your department. I’ll sign whatever.”But you better give Greerwhat she needs.
“That’s great, very generous. How about dinner after, or—”
“Probably can’t swing that.” I’m about to tell him I’ve got to run when an idea scratches at the back of my mind. I clear my throat. “Listen, is this a public lecture? Or only for your class?”
Hiltunen pauses. “Well, if you don’t mind, it’d be great if I could send out an email to the department, or even—”
“I don’t mind,” I say quickly. I don’t mind at all who the fuck is there, so long as one particular person is. In my head, I’m already typing out an invitation to her.
Already telling myself—despite all precedent to the contrary—that I won’t screw it upwith her again.
* * * *
Of course she comes.
She sits in the back of the lecture hall, tucked into a small architectural alcove most of the other guests avoid. It’s a bigger crowd than I’d have expected on such short notice, maybe a hundred guests, and while most of them have the slouchy, dewy confidence of new adulthood, there’s also a good deal of people who are either faculty or staff or members of the community. The more people file in, the more I feel the weight of responsibility to get this right. It’s not only that I want to keep Hiltunen happy for Greer’s sake; it’s that I want to do right by Kit, who’s an everyday part ofthis community.
I concentrate on my breathing while the professor introduces me, and wonder—from some detached part of myself—how I’m managing to stay regular nervous, public speaking nervous, instead of panic attack nervous. The book Patricia gave me talked about this, about the unpredictability of panic, about how you’ve got to celebrate the wins but also be mindful of your behavioral therapy, sticking with your practice even when it seems like you’re doing fine. So when I stand from my seat to face the room, I keep that detached part of myself focused on my breathing.
And I look at Greer too.
It’s easy, once I get going—I’ve got slides behind me, arranged chronologically, an exercise not all that different from what Jae’s paperwork on this book idea had asked of me. The first few are pictures I took when I was in high school, mostly straggly trees and battered street signs, a few distant shots of street corners where the people are hunched, indistinguishable forms. I talk about how I learned to trust my eye this way, to manipulate the camera so it’d communicate that trust to the viewer. When I shift to the first photos I sold to a paper—stringer work I did for thePlain Dealerup in Cleveland—I mostly talk about all the mistakes I made. This problem with composition, that problem with shadow. This time the picture felt intrusive, cruel, that time it felt cautious, bland. Everything from later—the freelancing work that made me a known quantity as a photojournalist—has most of my hallmarks. The focus on people, the trend toward saturated hues, my preference for the sun at a low angle, the way I tend toward chaos in background context—trash in the street, bombed-out buildings, angry mobs at the corner of a frame.
It’s comfortable and exposing, all at the same time. It’s work, and it’s always been easy for me to talk about work. But whenever I catch Greer’s eye, I can tell even from a distance she’s seeing things in those picturesno one else is.
The Q & A is less about the pictures than it is about me: how I learned and how I got started so young, how I was able to shoot so much in such a short period of time. Mostly I give canned answers that avoid the realities of my younger years. I say vague things about trial and error, about photography being like a calling, that it never felt like I was shooting all that much, that it’s a way of life. When it’s time for the final question, a student in the second row raises his hand tentatively, looking hopefully toward Hiltunen, who’s been making the calls on who speaks up. This time, I take over, nodding toward himin invitation.
“This may not be a good question,” he says, shifting his shoulders nervously. “But, um. Don’t you ever feel bad? I guess what I mean is—you’re in the middle of all this”—he waves a hand toward the screen, but keeps his eyes on me—“this madness. Terrible stuff. Doesn’t it feel bad that you’re just…um…watching? Don’t you ever want to put down your camera and, I don’t know.Help?”
You can feel the change in the room, various adjustments the audience makes for the change in tone. Most people look down—the floor, the desk, their phone, whatever’s convenient. A few people seem annoyed, eyes rolling or arms crossing, shaking heads that suggest they don’t think the kid gets it. Some sit straighter in their chairs, nervously attentive, probably glad he’s had the courage to ask. Hiltunen awkwardly chuckles; from the corner of my eye I see him shift on his feet, as though he’s considering shutting this down, but I give a small shake of my head and let my eyes drift to the back of the room briefly.
She’s too far away for me to see much about her expression, but she’s leaned forward, her body stretching from that alcove, alert in her posture. I can tell the answer matters to her as much as it matters to the kid.
I tuck my hands in my pockets, breathe through my nose. It doesn’t bother me he’s asked, and it doesn’t bother me to answer, but it feels important, heavy, something I want to say exactly right. For the first time I think fleetingly about why it might be nice, someday, to write it all down—to have enough time to really think this part through before communicating it to an audience. But I don’t have that time right now, so I do my best with a short pause, a deep breathbefore I speak.
“I do want that, sometimes. It’d be a lie to say I never have that instinct. But if you do this job, what you’ve got to remember is that you’re one of the few people in the world who can—” I pause again, thinking it over. “I guess who can be a witness to the immediacy of something with your camera. You’ve got a responsibility to it, to the people involved in it. You’ve got a responsibility to be the eyes for everyone in the world who needs to be paying more attention. That’s the thing you learn, doing this job. You learn—I guess you learn that watchingishelping.”
I think the kid nods, says a word of thanks. I don’t take it in, not fully, because once again my eyes are drifting to Greer, to where she’s sat back in the alcove again, hidden herself from me further. When Hiltunen invites a round of applause, I give the barest recognition of it; I shake his hand and nod, take a gift bag from him that he proudly announces has a university T-shirt in it. It’s harder to see Greer now, members of the audience standing and shuffling out, or gathering in small groups to chat. In front of me there’re a few guests who’ve come up to express praise or thanks, to ask additional questions, a few students who introduce themselves as participants in the showcase I’ll be reviewing photographs for. I do my best to pay attention, to shake hands and make eye contact, to tell them I appreciate them coming.
But when I see that Greer’s stood to leave, her hand clutched around the strap of the bag crossing her body, I excuse myself hastily. I take those lecture hall steps like I’m a desperate, crushing college kid looking to carry the popular girl’s books. Actually I’m pretty sure that’s not a real thing in college, but obviously Iwouldn’t know.
“Hi.” I am embarrassingly short of breath. Greer looks up at me, then around at the people still in the room, all of whom I have pretty much forgotten exist. I have the oddest, most unexpected urge—to lean down and give her a brief, closed-mouth kiss, the kind of everyday welcome that’d tell everyone in this room exactly who I came here for. “You’re leaving?”
