Page 86 of Puck You Both

"We’re indoors."

"Great lighting, then."

Wall looks around to where none of the studio lamps are on yet. "Fluorescent."

"The best of the -escents."

Somewhere out there exists a version of this where three grown men exchange a normal hello. We are not those men.

I invoke the chair's privilege and end the meeting.

"First setup's in ten," I inform a point directly between their heads, and walk away.

I get six steps before I glance back. Wall's already looking. Half a second, maybe less, and then we're both deeply invested in opposite walls.

Six steps. Next time I'll get ten.

The shoot starts on time, which is the last thing that happens on time.

Petrov is up first, March, paired with a senior beagle. He walks onto the set, hands the leash to an assistant like it's a coat, and turns to address the room instead of the camera.

"Today my word is smolder." He reads off his phone. "To burn slow, with no flame. Also: a look." He turns to the lens and rearranges his face into something…weird.

"Are you in pain?" the photographer asks.

"It is smolder."

She lowers her camera. "Can you look at the dog, maybe?"

"The dog cannot handle the smolder."

The beagle is asleep on his shoe, handling it fine.

I check the clipboard. Six minutes overtime already.

That's when Hendrix decides the calendar needs him. He drops off the light stand, completes one full lap of the set, and lands on Petrov's shoulder, where he faces down the lens like a model.

The photographer looks at me for a ruling. I consult the clipboard. The clipboard has no parrot policy.

"He stays," Petrov says. "He understands smolder."

Somewhere in the finished calendar, March will feature a Russian, a sleeping beagle, and a parrot, all smoldering.

Lindqvist draws the chihuahua, and the hatred is immediate and total. It vibrates in his hands like a phone on a glass table, ears pinned, while the calmest man I know gazes serenely into the lens above it.

"You look conflicted," the photographer says, taking a few shots in quick succession.

"I am not conflicted," Lindqvist says. "The dog has made its position clear. I respect it."

I unlock my phone and take a photo of my own and set it as his contact picture.

The blind dog goes next—Candy, chaperoned by Ace and Devon, who introduces Candy to me mid-setup, right before pointing at my clipboard and saying, "Love that for you." She sits where she's placed, aims her face at nothing in particular, and outperforms two hockey rosters without doing a thing.

"Can she look at the lens?" the photographer asks.

"She's blind," Devon says. "The lens can look at her."

The lens looks at her. She wins.