The four-top was waiting on Anna. Tyler had two orders working. Joey had a ticket in his hand he’d been about to call. Stella had her camera up because she’d thought there might be one more shot in the doorway and there hadn’t been.
Joey, not looking up from his ticket. “That’s four days.”
“Yes, it is, Joey,” Tyler said, flipping something on the grill.
“That’s most of the days.”
“Leave it alone, Joey.”
“I’m just observing.”
Anna was heading toward her tables, trying not to laugh. Tyler caught her eye across the room.
“Anna, don’t you start.”
“I didn’t say anything.” She picked up a menu from the empty four-top and kept walking. “I’m not saying anything.”
“You’re not saying anything very loudly.”
She smiled and disappeared around the corner.
The morning kept going. The brunch crowd cycled. Stella prepped lemons and sliced parsley and ran a few plates and shot when the light was right. Tyler at the grill, Anna on the floor, Joey at the window.
Nobody mentioned Margo again.
At eleven-forty Stella put down her knife and washed her hands.
“I’m out,” she said to Tyler, slinging the camera bag over her shoulder. “Darkroom.”
“Need anything?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
The school darkroom on Saturdays was empty except for whoever else had asked Mr. Reeves for a key, and Mr. Reeves only gave keys to two people. Stella was one of them. The other one was a senior named Marcus who took pictures of skateboarders and never came in on weekends.
She had the room to herself. The safelight came on. The chemicals were where she’d left them on Thursday, the developer sharp and familiar.
She worked through the morning’s frames. Her eye knew which ones to develop and which ones to set aside.
The wide shot of Margo came up at print number seven.
Stella lifted it from the developer with the tongs, the paper slick between them. Held it under the red light. The cream scarf. The container in her hand. Her profile, eyes turned a quarter degree off-center. The empty booth in soft focus behind her, three tables back.
She rinsed it. Hung it on the line.
She finished the rest of the morning’s frames. The hollandaise close-up Anna would want for the menu update. Tyler at the grill mid-flip. Joey at the window calling out a ticket. The light through the front windows at ten-fifteen. The salt shaker Bea had drawn a face on with a marker last September and Anna had decided not to clean off.
When she’d hung them all, she packed up her chemicals, turned off the safelight, and let her eyes adjust.
She took the wide shot off the line and carried it home in a manila folder with the others.
In her room she pinned it to the wall beside the two from three weeks ago—the Bernie at the booth, the Margo at the grill. Three prints in a row. The late-afternoon light through her window came in gold, the same Laguna amber that had been on everything all day.
Stella looked at them. Lowered her hand from the pin. Stepped back.
She didn’t turn on the desk lamp. She just stood looking.
CHAPTER TEN
