Crap!Noooooo.
Not good.
I try to play it cool by quickly photographing a couple of other things as I walk over to meet him. The boatyard crane. A rusted chain. Don’t think I’m fooling him, though. Ugh. See? I should never take photos of people; it only gets me in trouble.
“You know … I didn’t realize modeling was part of this job or I would’ve asked for extra,” he says as I approach.
“Just doing some warm-up shots to test the light,” I tell him, seeming relaxed. Sounds good. Maybe he believes me. “Don’t get excited.”
“I don’t like my picture taken.”
“You used to.”
“Well, I don’t anymore, so don’t waste film on me.”
“It’s not film. I brought the digital,” I say, holding it up to show him. “I figure I’ll be taking a lot of motion shots, and besides, I can’t afford film right now, since I spent all my savings on chartering a fancy boat.”
“Sounds like a problem, all right. Just so you know, the boat isdefinitelynot fancy, and we don’t give refunds. So your money is g-o-n-e,” he spells out.
I shrug. “The things we do for art.”
“Is that what this is? For art?” He steps closer, scowling down at me in a dark T-shirt printed with a fierce wolf and anvil design—an advertisement for some local business on Lamplighter Lane. For a moment, my mom’s stupid superstitious mumbo jumbo about that bedeviled street floods my brain. She’d definitely take it as a sign.Warning! Stay away from this guy!
“U-uh … ,” I stammer, trying to recover my wits. “You know I’m serious about my photography. In fact, you know lots about me. But I don’t know all that much about you. I mean, thenew and improvedyou.”
“Sounds to me like you’ve been snooping around if you’re talking to Bunny … ,” he murmurs.
I ignore that and crane my neck to see around him. “Which boat are we taking? I don’t want to lose the light.”
He mumbles some mildly foul things under his breath and nods with his head, leading me down a short wooden dock to an ugly orange boat. Not a yacht. Not a houseboat. Not even one with a tarp to keep out the sun. Just a little boat with four seats, a motor, and a steering wheel.
“This is your boat?”
“Not mine,” he says. “It’saboat. I would not name my boat ‘Big-Enough.’?”
He’s not kidding. I take a second look at the peeling letters on the side.
“Okay, wow. It’s making theFun N Sunlook pretty good,” I say, glancing back at the boat sitting up on blocks, upon which we had our little tête-à-tête. “This is a family boat?”
“?‘Family’ isn’t a word I’d choose to describe it. But hey. It’s the boat my dad said I could use,” he says, holding up a key ring and shrugging as his mouth curls up into something I’d call a smirk. Yep. He’s smirking. What a jerk. Acutejerk, but … “We dock a lot of boats here. There’s a system. It’s complicated. It’s not like you can just put keys in a car and drive it out.”
“I’ll bet it’s not,” I say.
Smirk.
“Besides. This one had a leak. We’re testing it out. So it’s a double-duty thing.”
“A leak?”
“We repaired it. It’s fine. We do good work. But it’s smart to test it.”
Smirk.
“Fine,” I say.
“Okay?”
I nod. “Let’s go. It’s ‘big enough,’ right? I’m just taking photos.”
