It was a good shoot. The art director was lovely. She and I drove up to Muskoka together and spent the night there. We took a canoe out in the morning so I could get some shots from the water and ended up chatting for a solid hour. I meant to reach out to her and see if we could work together more regularly, but I got too busy with other assignments.
“Do you always carry a camera with you?” Percy asks.
“Kind of. I thought you might like some photos from this summer, before the baby comes.”
She tilts her head. “Like a maternity shoot?”
“Nothing as posed as that. Just some spontaneous stuff so you can remember this moment.” Selfishly, I’m much more comfortable with strangers when I’m photographing them.
She grins. “That’s so nice. Although I’m not sure anyone needs images of me in a bathing suit while I’m six months pregnant.”
“You look beautiful,” I say honestly. Percy has doe eyes, a light smattering of freckles that kiss her nose and cheeks, and a sweet nose. Separately, each feature is cute, but they assemble to make something more intriguing.
“All right,” Percy says. “It would be nice to have some photos of this summer.” She blows out a breath. “Before things get real.”
I take the lens cap off my camera, slipping into photographer Alice mode.
“It’s an amazing thing that your body is doing,” I tell Percy, and she puts her hands on her stomach, smiling down at it.
“Or like something out of a horror movie.”
Click.
She glances at me, surprised. “You really are gorgeous,” I tell her, and she smiles again.
Click.
“Aha,” Percy says. “You sweet-talk your way into getting a decent shot.”
I laugh. “You got me, but I’m also telling the truth.”
I take a couple more shots as she grabs four mugs from the cupboard and fills them with coffee, then set my camera strap over my shoulder as Percy passes me two.
“Let’s go caffeinate the boys.”
Percy leads me out to the deck, and we both freeze at thesound of Charlie and Sam’s raised voices. I glance at Percy, and she quickly wipes the alarm from her face.
“Brothers,” she says. “They love each other, but they suck at communicating.”
“What are they fighting about?” I ask as I follow her down the steps off the deck and around to the side of the house.
She seems to debate her answer. “Their lack of construction skills, probably.”
I hear them before I see them.
“I don’t care if you don’t want to talk about it. You need to be prepared.” They sound so alike I can’t tell whether it’s Charlie or Sam speaking.
“Fuck off, Sam.”
So that clears that up.
I glance at Percy.
“Let’s go break this up,” she says.
Charlie spots us over Sam’s shoulder and he says something quietly.
“I’m not dropping this,” Sam replies.
