by Vic Tyler
To: Benji Reed
Subject: Re: Re: How’s it going?
It’s good to hear from you, Benj. Glad to hear business is doing well and Grant isn’t giving you too much trouble (laugh)
Sarah and the kids are great. Thx for asking. My youngest finally started school, so the house is quieter during the days. Hallelujah!
An opportunity for some work covering cultural exploration came up and I wanted to see if you’d be interested.
My new assignment is to cover one of two hostile tribes in the Amazon for 4 months. My colleague was originally covering the other one but due to a last minute emergency, he can’t make it. So the assignment is on standby while we’re finding someone on short notice.
It’s a little unusual, but if you’re still interested I can pitch your name to my editor. Travel expenses and a small stipend will be covered, but you’ll be making nothing compared to what you’re doing now.
Fashion in NY is no joke. Sometimes I think about going back to something steady. But there’s nothing that can replace the thrill of what I’m doing now.
It’ll be a tough and unforgiving trip, but that’s what makes it glorious in the end, eh?
Let me know.
Nick
“Did you kill someone?”
“First call I’ve gotten from you all year, and it’s to accuse me of murder?” Grant chuckled on the other line.
“Your methods are questionable.”
“Not as much as yours. Guessing you talked to Nick.”
“You heard about it?”
“How do you think he got your email?”
“It’s on the studio website.”
“Breed [at] bayre [dot] com sounds like porn spam,” Grant said, obviously amused.
I gritted my teeth.
“You’re the one who fucking made it, asshole.”
“We should get you a new one.”
“I’ve been telling you that for two years.”
“Eh, it grew on me. Actually, we’ll keep it.”
I groaned. I didn’t understand how this infuriating man got anything done. Grant hummed.
“So when are you going to accept?”
“Who said I was going to do it?”
“Do you have any reason not to?” he asked pointedly, obviously with something in mind.
I paused. “Like what?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t. Being cryptic doesn’t suit you.”
“A certain lovely assistant,” he drawled with extra emphasis.
“She’s an employee.”
“You let her keep the picture.”
I resisted sighing. It had made the rest of the day awkward with Maria. And even though I was pissed at Grant, I knew he had his own reasons for keeping the picture with him and I couldn’t fault him for that. And of course, he’d fucking make copies. For his whole don’t–give–a–shit act, he was a lying, anal motherfucker who couldn’t keep his nose out of anything. I just never expected he’d give one to Maria.
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
Grant tutted in disapproval. I knew what he was thinking, but I didn’t want to hear it because I didn’t want to hear my own thoughts said aloud. Didn’t want to think about what I was feeling. But Grant didn’t push it.
“So are you going to take the Nat Geo assignment?”
“I don’t know. I need to think about it.”
I heard a few clicks. Grant tapped his pen against his chin when he was thinking.
“I think it’d be good for you. It’s about time for you to graduate from this line of work.”
“What are you on about?”
“I know you’ve been sticking around to pay me back, even though I told you not to. But this sort of opportunity isn’t going to come up again easily. So take it.”
I leaned back into my chair, exhaling the uncertainty that built in my chest. Grant and I were equally stubborn: me about paying him back for everything he's done and him refusing a single cent of it. But as long as the studio stayed under his management, I figured my work would net a slow trickle he couldn't refuse.
“Well, think about it. If you really like working at BAYRE, you’re welcome to stay on. If you want to trapeze through rainforests and eat bugs, then I’ll just find another you to keep BAYRE going. Hopefully more handsome and less of an asshole this time.”
“Impossible,” I told him. “I’m the best you’re going to get.”
“Now that’s a truly sad thing to hear first thing in the morning.”
“It’s three in the afternoon.”
“Whoops.”
Click. The line went dead. Idiot.
Aperture. Shutter speed. Focus.
Maria’s slight frame sharpened in the viewfinder. She was looking up.
“We’ll need better lights,” she said. “The fluorescent light isn’t going to look good for the shoot.”
“Look this way,” I ordered.
Maria’s face turned towards me, her features dark and sharp, illuminated poorly by overhanging yellow light.
Click. I scrolled through the photos we took, dissatisfied.
We were in a large house that we were location scouting for a small, indie magazine that reached out. Even though the decor was pretty close to what we envisioned, there were some major elements lacking.
First, we’d need to get rid of these goddamn flickering lights. Then, somehow cover the atrocious wallpaper. But the furniture and the general color scheme of the place was spot–on. This was going to be a hassle.
Maria, Maria, Maria. There were a lot of pictures of her. She was fun to photograph even though she rarely agreed to it outside of work. Not that I ever asked.
But there was only one photo that popped into my head when I thought of her. Her playing the cello, dressed shoddily in her wilting bedsheets, her long hair swaying in her passionate playing, the morning light highlighting her focused face, eyes closed, as though she was imagining she was somewhere else.
I had cursed myself for not bringing a camera out, although I rarely took one when I went to Grant’s, and the bastard had tricked me into going to a bar. So my shitty phone camera it was. It was grainier than I’d like, but somehow it turned out perfectly.
I looked at it more than I would’ve liked to admit, even to myself. But I couldn’t bring myself to delete it, even though I knew it was wrong.
“Whoa, look at the garden,” Maria breathed.
She opened the balcony door and ran outside, looking bright–eyed at all the blooming flowers and plants. She plopped onto the lush green grass, lying down.
“I forgot what it felt like to be surrounded by green.”
“There’s always Central Park,” I said, sitting down next to her.
“Too many people.” She took a deep breath and smiled. “Too many tourists.”
A slight wind tickled our faces, and we sat, listening to the birds chirping and the distant traffic.
“You can have your own backyard if you live in the suburbs,” I suggested. “Or the countryside.”
“I love the city,” she said, staring at the sky. “Well, actually it’s all I’ve ever known. My parents didn’t really like being surrounded by nature, so I’ve never been.”
It sounded like a pretty sad life to me. The city was alright, but it was packed full of buildings, cars, and people. It was too silver and shiny. I didn’t particularly care for it.
“What were your parents like?” I asked.
Maria hummed. “Music was their life. I guess that’s why they were perfect for each other. My mom was a bit of a diva. She liked the glamorous life — champagne, limos, endless jewelry, stuff like that. My dad was more grounded. He loved British rock and stargazing — kind of an old romantic. But they somehow got along. They were the only person that the other one would listen to.”
She halted.
“I don’t know if they’d be able to live without each other. I’m sure they’re happy that they got
to go together.”
The more I learned about Maria, the more she was taking up a space in the people I cared about. The people I wanted to care about. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to know. From wanting to see all of her expressions, her emotions. And as we sat and watched the clouds pass by, the thought materialized in my head, as though it had always been there, invisibly floating.
I want her. Not just her body. Her laughs, her tears, her blushes, her pouts, her smiles. What did she fear the most? How did she look when she woke up in the mornings? What were her favorite foods and places to be? I wanted to memorize each strand of her hair between my fingers, to map her delicate ivory hands through my caresses, to swim in her rich coffee eyes.
What did it even mean to ‘want her?’ Did I just want to possess her? A toy? A tool? A passing trifle?
But something had changed. I didn’t know what, but at some point, I somehow passed the point of no return. And I was afraid to find out what boundary I crossed.
“What about you?” Maria asked, turning to look at me.
I watched a white cloud shaped like a hamburger disperse slowly into something more reminiscent of a pancake.
“Never knew my parents,” I said. “I grew up fostered.”
The images of them peppered in my thoughts, small like a singular pixel. I pushed them out of my mind. No.
“Oh,” Maria said softly. “What was your foster family like?”
Another pixel. And another. The pixels multiplied, spreading like cancer. I took a deep breath.
“Not great,” I said, shoving the thoughts back. “I ran away when I was seventeen. Joined a logging company in Michigan. Grant found me and offered me a job, so I took it.”
I shrugged. Long story short.
Maria didn’t ask any more questions about it. I tried to think of something else, feeling a certain desperation to fill the silence, to change the subject.
“So what’s wrong with Michele?” I asked.
Maria turned to her side, leaning on her arm. “Are you stalking me, Benji Reed?” she teased.
I shrugged. “It was on your paperwork.”
She laughed. “I told you my mom was a diva. She named me after herself. Well, my dad insisted, but it probably didn’t take long for her to agree. Michele Ariadne. I’ve always thought about officially changing it to Maria. I hated the name, but I guess I was bullied into using it. After all, it didn’t interfere with my mom’s stage name — Michele Deveraux — so whatever.”
“Your mom is Michele Deveraux?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah,” Maria said, raising her eyebrow. She leaned back in mock disgust. “Oh no, are you one of those MILFele Shove–her–hole fanboys?”
“God, no.” Disgusting. “I heard about her from Grant. Her music was… interesting. It was good.”
I had never even heard her name up until a couple of years ago. All the news outlets reported on a brutal car accident that killed Michele Deveraux and Peter Lennox — the famous singer–conductor couple, iconic pillars in the classical music world.
It was the darkest I’d ever seen Grant look, in his full black suit and a grim expression that he couldn’t replace with his trademark smile. He didn’t talk about it, and I didn’t ask, although I remembered wondering how the fuck he knew classical music celebrities well enough to attend their funeral.
I ended up listening to Michele Deveraux’s music nonstop for the next few weeks, and even in recent times, I found myself occasionally going back to it. Her voice was strong but comforting. She was an attractive woman, but there was a full–bodied womanly quality to her voice, at times crooning, other times maternal. Not that I knew what maternal felt like, but if I had to guess, I imagined it would be like Michele Deveraux.
Well, Maria didn’t need to know any of that.
“She really was something,” Maria smiled softly. She plopped back down in the grass. “What about you?”
“What about me?” I asked.
“What does ‘BA’ stand for?”
Goddammit. I scowled. Grant always butt his head into my life wherever and whenever he wanted. My efforts to divert him nearly always failed. He was a wily motherfucker.
“It was the name I was born with — Benjamin Andrews. I hated it. Didn’t want to be associated with it, and I refused to sign most of my work. So Grant told me to change it. And I did.”
“I like it,” Maria said slowly, nodding. “Benji Reed.”
“Me too,” I said. “Maria Lennox.”
We smiled at each other, almost shyly. It was an alien feeling, being shy. The suffocating, anxious hope that I’d be liked. But it wasn’t unpleasant. It was a foreign state of mind.
Maria stood up, dusting the grass and dirt off her pants. She stretched and spun around, inhaling deeply. She started running around the large area.
“I feel like a kid again,” she laughed.
I brought my camera to my eye and took a few shots. She cocked her head at me.
“Did you want pictures of the garden too?”
Huh. I looked up at the sky, thoughtfully.
“No.”
We got into the Uber and rode in silence as we headed back to the city. The manicured greens slowly started disappearing into gray cemented highways. It was dreary to watch. The sky looked a muted blue, veiled by a coat of smog, smoke, clouds, or all of the above.
I sighed. I missed the mountains and the forests. Sure as hell didn’t see myself living in the city or the suburbs in the long run. But I also sure as hell didn’t know where I did see myself. Where I wanted to be in the future. It wasn’t that long ago when I didn’t think I had one.
And I laid down no roots. There was no home for me. There was nowhere to return to. The years went by so quickly, and the thought still crept into the forefront of my mind some days, whispering, ‘What kind of future do you think you deserve?’
A warmth tickled my fingers. I glanced over to see Maria’s hand casually lying on the seat like mine was. She was also looking out the window, leaning back and lost in her own thoughts. Our fingers were centimeters away as we shared the small backseat together. With me sprawled out more in the cramped area than Maria’s small body. I turned back to the window.
I don’t know who moved first or if our warmth drew our touch to each other like magnets. Our fingertips brushed against each other lightly. The feeling of her soft skin jolted electricity through my spine. But she didn’t move away.
Would it be too bold to touch her hand? I grazed my fingers a little farther, against the ends of her fingers, and her finger brushed against mine.
We sat, each staring out of our own window, as our fingers weaved together, palms still on the seat.
We weren’t holding hands. It was nothing so obvious and serious. But in a weird way, our interlocked fingers felt more intimate. As if we would grasp empty air if we reached too far, too fast. So we allowed ourselves this cautious little connection.
Blood pounded fast in my ears. Jesus, was my heartbeat rising? What the hell was I doing, getting excited like a little schoolgirl?
But I didn’t want to move away. Her touch comforted every other part of me. And that was starting to fucking terrify me.
When we arrived at the studio soon after, and there was a surprise waiting for us. For Maria.
Amir waved like a madman as he ran over to us.
“I was just about to leave since the studio was closed,” he smiled in relief.
I scowled. This fucking happy–go–lucky motherfucker.
“Wow, good timing. We just came back from a location scout,” Maria explained, her own smile warm and welcoming.
Goddammit. I hated seeing that smile directed at any other person.
“Great timing,” Amir said. “I stopped by to see if you wanted to get lunch with me, actually.”
His eyes were fucking twinkling like he dumped glitter in them. I pulled out a cigarette to cloud the bubbly atmosphere that was suffocating me.
Maria raised her eyebrow at me. She said, “Uh, I guess we can. We didn’t make any lunch plans.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s asking you on a date, dimwit,” I said, taking a long drag, feeling the heat in my lungs.
Amir flashed me a grateful look, and I’m pretty sure I returned a grating one. Why the hell was I helping him?
“Oh.” Maria sounded shocked, her mouth slightly agape. She looked at me and then back to Amir. “Oh. Um, well —”
Amir followed her line of sight, and his mouth dropped into an ‘O.’ “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you two —”
“Whatever you’re thinking is wrong,” I said pointedly to Amir. I turned to Maria. “Go ahead. I’ll open up shop.”
Amir and Maria both looked unconvinced.
“So you two aren’t… together?” Amir asked slowly, looking at both of us. “Just want to make sure.”
“She’s single if that’s what you’re asking.” I took another drag, ignoring the nauseating twist in my stomach. “And I don’t do relationships, so it’s a moot point.”
Maria’s lips tightened.
“Take a long lunch,” I said, dropping the cigarette and putting it out. “Have fun, lovebirds.”
I unlocked the studio, bitterly regretting the sarcastic bite I couldn’t keep out of my voice. Maria and I weren’t in a fucking relationship. As long as she stuck to her own condition that we were exclusively fucking, she was free to date whoever she wanted. This was established in the beginning. So why the hell did all of this bother me so much?
chapter five
Stereo Hearts – Gym Class Heroes feat. Adam Levine
When Ansel Adams quit his path in becoming a classical pianist to pursue photography instead, he was told, ‘Don’t give up music. A camera cannot express the human soul.’
And he responded, ‘Maybe the camera couldn’t, but I might try through the camera.’
The ridges on the popcorn ceiling started to look like they were fidgeting. They started moving — dancing — as the music, the melody danced around them. Of course, they weren’t actually moving. And there was no music.