The Last Blue

by Isla Morley

  Two minutes later, the ordeal is over, and Massey shakes Levi’s hand like he’s won a contest. Levi heads back into the house just as Willow-May charges around the side of the house with Jubilee in tow.

  “Pictures!” the girl squeals.

  Massey scoops her up, deposits her on the chair, and ruffles her hair. “Just one picture this time, sport.”

  Havens and Jubilee have not talked since their outing yesterday afternoon, and she avoids his glance. As soon as he takes a shot of the girl, she runs to Jubilee’s side and uses her arm as though it were the water pump.

  “Now one of Jubilee!”

  Even as Havens is unscrewing the camera from the stand and explaining that no one should be forced to have her picture taken, Massey is ushering Jubilee to the chair, and the girl is protesting, “But she does want her picture taken!”

  Massey claps his hands at Havens to hurry the proceedings along, speaking of the light not lasting, as if he’s some expert on the matter.

  Gone from Jubilee is the carefree manner from when they went into the woods together; now she picks at her nails.

  “Don’t be nervous, dear. It’s not going to hurt one bit.” Massey turns to his cohort. “Will it, sport?”

  Willow-May offers Jubilee her doll. “Don’t be such a scaredy-cat.”

  Havens squints through the viewfinder of the Contax, wishing Massey would quit telling Jubilee how pretty she is. It makes her uneasy. Havens straightens up. “There’s a shadow…” He motions to her cheek.

  Massey rushes to bring her chair a little closer, arranges her shoulders when she sits down again, and tells her not to think of it as posing. “Don’t even look at the camera. Focus on something over Havens’s shoulder and just pretend he doesn’t exist. No lady has ever found that hard to do.”

  Havens adjusts the lens, and she is studying the doll on her lap and fidgeting worse than before. Massey notices this and confiscates the doll.

  “Just relax,” Massey tells her, which has the opposite effect. She tenses and shifts uneasily.

  Havens runs his hand through his hair. “I think we should do this another time.”

  Massey asks Jubilee if he can show her how it’s done. Exchanging places, he crosses his legs at the knees, throws one hand behind his head, and ogles the camera with puckered lips. This makes Willow-May giggle and Havens cringe. Jubilee doesn’t know what to make of it.

  “I’m just fooling with you. You are doing great.”

  Massey snaps his fingers at Havens.

  Through the lens, he watches her tuck her dress around her knees, cross her ankles, fold her hands, and uncross her ankles. Eventually, she raises her eyes. He can’t bear to see her this way, obliging.

  “No, it’s not going to work,” he decides.

  Her expression becomes grave.

  “You haven’t done anything wrong,” Havens assures her.

  “No, she hasn’t,” Massey hisses. “She’s lovely. Take the picture!”

  “No,” says Havens. To Jubilee, he adds, “I’m sorry.”

  She springs to her feet, takes her sister’s hand, and dashes back to the house, a very dark shade of blue.

  Massey is agape. “What the hell was that?”

  “It wasn’t working. You saw her, she was uncomfortable.”

  “Well, what do you expect when you behave like that? What’s the matter with you?” Massey slaps his arms against his sides in frustration. “She was right there, ready and willing.”

  Through gritted teeth, Havens corrects him. “Not willing! Forced.”

  “It’s the picture we wanted.”

  “It’s not the picture I wanted!” Havens balls his hands into fists. He has a mind to smash his camera against a rock. “I don’t want some snapshot to slap alongside your article!”

  Massey holds up his palms. “Whoa. I didn’t know we were going for the Mona Lisa here.”

  “Not all of us are out to change the world. Some of us are just trying to create something special, something unique.” Something that suits her.

  Massey folds his arms, rocks back on his heels, and looks at his shoes.

  “These people have been so gracious to us—Jubilee saved my life—and what do we do in return? We exploit them.”

  “Exploit them? We’re featuring them in a story that’s going help—”

  “Please! Can we not even be honest with each other about what we’re doing here?”

  Havens packs away his equipment and stalks off in the direction of the woods.

  * * *

  Havens clears the clump of blue gum trees, follows the path another quarter of a mile, and crosses a glimmering stream into the secluded meadow that backs up against another heavily timbered hill. He passes a broad canopied tree sprayed in tiny pink blossoms and humming with bees, and even before he reaches her little wooden shed, he can hear her singing. Like the first time he happened upon her, he feels he ought to call out some warning. Again, he does not. Coming here uninvited is an intrusion on her privacy and part of him thinks to turn back, but the weaker part of him, the part that has come to dominate every thought and action, compels him forward.

  Morning rays spill from the doorway. Wearing her pale yellow cotton dress and work boots, Jubilee is cleaning the cages of chickadees and finches, and before he can greet her, the northern flicker gives him away with a warning cheep.

  She spins around, using her hand as an awning for her eyes. “Mr. Havens.”

  He can’t think how people start conversations. “How are the patients today?”

  “On the mend. But I don’t think anyone wants to be photographed.” She spies his camera bag, and he casts it aside hastily.

  “I came to apologize. You shouldn’t have been put on the spot—”

  “Willow-May’s the one for pictures,” she interrupts, “not me.”

  He attempts to explain that she wasn’t the problem, but again she cuts him off. “Yesterday you made it very clear why you won’t shoot certain pictures.”

  She can only be referring to his refusal to photograph the spider tree. My God, he thinks, I’ve made her feel hideous. “Jubilee, no. That’s not it at all!”

  With her back to him, she resumes lining the cages with old newspaper.

  “I do very much want to take your picture! Please believe me!” In his appeal, he describes the purpose of setting, how every detail must serve as context for the subject. “I looked through that lens, and it was all wrong. Nothing complemented you.”

  She pivots around. “Then what about at the pool? What was wrong with that setting?”

  Havens drops his head, sighing. She’s right. In that nave, he realized she belonged to the natural world and the natural world to her, and only a photograph that illustrated that relationship could do her any justice. Does he admit this to her? That with his epiphany came an almost irrepressible desire to photograph her in that moment, and that he knew if he captured her right then there wouldn’t be anything he could not photograph, that he wouldn’t be shackled anymore to his failures, his doubt, his lack? But however sublime, the moment would have been self-serving, almost predatory. To display her in that way would be to make her his rara aves, his conquest, his crowning achievement, and she has become much more to him than that.

  Having grown tired of waiting for a rebuttal, she fills bowls with birdseed.

  “I did very much want to take your picture yesterday, do want to.”

  She scoffs. “Because you feel sorry for me now. So I’ll feel like a regular girl like the one in your wallet.”

  He snatches his camera from the bag and offers it to her like a surrendered weapon. “Take it.”

  She frowns.

  He forces it in her hands and says, “Now throw it down. Please just break the damn thing.”

  This takes her off-guard. Shaking her head, she says, “I’m not going to break your camera.”

  “I want to capture the way I feel about you, not just how I see you. If you don’t believe that, I don�
��t want to keep it. Give it to me. I’ll break it.”

  “No,” she says, putting the strap over her head. Even so slight a smile bends the light.

  “I’m a phony,” he confesses. “All I ever do is stage the commonplace to appear extraordinary, and since I’ve met you and spent time with you, I want to be a better version of myself, or maybe return to an earlier version. Being with you has given me back a little faith in myself, and no regular girl could do that.”

  The breeze blows a strand of auburn hair across her violet lips, and reflexively, he reaches for it and tucks it behind her ear. He allows his fingers to graze her cheek.

  The longer she looks at him, the further away she seems to get. Neither of them moves, and she seems to be looking at Havens from a distance greater than three feet. Suddenly she slips past his grasp and flits outside with his camera. He follows her, but she skips a few steps ahead. Turning toward him, she lifts the camera to her face and he waves his arm at her to stop. She takes two steps backward. He keeps telling her no, which makes her more adamant.

  “Oh, go ahead then, take my picture, that’s one way to break the damn thing.”

  She looks for the trigger, then puts the camera at eye level again. He puts his fists on his hips and thrusts out his chin.

  He hears the click. “Right, it’s broken. Can we throw it away now?”

  “Another one.”

  “But I have only one pose.”

  “It’s not a terrible one.”

  This time he offers his side profile and a ridiculous pose. Anything to have her smile.

  When he faces her again, she has taken a step closer. She still has the camera up to her face, but she is not teasing him anymore. He drops his hands. He presents himself to her.

  She lowers the camera an inch, looks at him over its rim.

  He has the urge to unbutton his shirt, unhook his ribs, show her his heart.

  The camera is at her waist now. Her examination of him peels away layers of guilt and shame, bleaches his bones. She takes another step nearer, and then another, and he can only stand and watch.

  Between them now is a space wide enough only for weather to pass through, if wind or sunlight had the nerve. He can feel her breath, the heat of her body. Her fingers reach for his. Her touch is so slight. With her eyes locked on his, she opens his hand all the way. She grazes his palm with her fingertips, and he leans toward her. She presses the camera in his hand and folds his hand over it.

  She whispers into his lips. “Take my picture.”

  Matching her shallow breath, he tells her quietly, “No.”

  “Take it.”

  The air is so still. Nothing moves around them. Static has built up between them from the great friction of things being pulled into stillness. The air is charged, they are charged. Havens could stand this way forever. Her knee brushes up against his leg. By an ancient instinct and against his better judgment, he circles her waist with his arm. What am I doing? Let go of her. But his arm will not obey and his hand will not submit and his strength will not succumb to reason. He ropes her into his chest. His legs become posts. With her in his arms, he could support the weight of buildings. He will not be moved.

  “If only I could loan everyone my eyes.” This beautiful woman who restores creatures and strangers alike.

  She twists from his grip. “Take my picture.” She lays her hand on the side of her neck, looks at him, then starts to tilt away.

  It is surely easier to lift a bridge off its foundations than raise the camera still loaded with color film, and yet he does. He looks through the viewfinder and feels caught in a prism of blue light. He can no more assess her than he can assess the air after a thunderstorm, and her color now seems only to be a small part of this. Such unspoiled goodness will make a man want to pull rainbows from the sky and tie them around her neck.

  Instead, he has to press the shutter.

  How does he not fail her?

  Hearing the click, she beams at him and turns.

  He presses the shutter.

  He presses the shutter.

  He forsakes every good sense calling for him to stop.

  He presses the shutter.

  * * *

  Once he starts taking pictures of her, he cannot stop. They say Monet painted Camille every day, right up until the time she drew her last breath. Havens understands that compulsion. As soon as they return from the aviary, he hears that Massey has gone to interview sharecroppers in the neighboring holler, so he trades the Contax for the Graflex, grabs several cartridges of black-and-white film, and rushes to find Jubilee again. She is sitting on the flat white rock near the corner of the house, her back to him, a sprig of lilac in her hair, talking to Willow-May. He sets up his camera in record speed. In photographing subjects, Havens has always been a patient man. Used to be. Now he can’t wait two seconds before firing. He calls to her, and she wrinkles her nose at him before turning back to her sister. He releases the shutter again.

  Not just one, but every photograph he has ever taken is a hoax compared to these. He doesn’t have to develop them to know each is a keeper. He is impulsive, firing away, with every frame feeling himself change from witness to participant. Now only three feet away from her, he photographs the tilt of her head, her hand mid-gesture. Two feet away, he takes a close-up of her elbow, her splayed fingers, several shots of her hair falling out of its braid. He forgoes adjusting the f-stop or fiddling with the focus or making sure the horizon is straight. What he is photographing is not only her but her effect on him. Photographing her as she watches the sun drop down from the cloud bank like a rope of light onto the pasture feels like light is breaking through in him, too. When he takes a picture of her bending to unbuckle her shoes, he feels something inside him being unbuckled, and every time she faces him, it’s as if she reaches through the lens, pries open the aperture, and leaves her fingerprints on his heart. Picture after picture, he is letting her touch him. What he is photographing is the process of her taking possession of his heart. Here she sits, a thief, laughing and tossing her hair, with his heart in her lap.

  JUBILEE

  Having slept hardly at all, Jubilee forsakes her bed as soon as the first bird starts to sing, dresses quickly in the dark, grabs her shoes, and tiptoes barefoot out the back door in time to see the gibbous moon set behind the prow of the hill. She pauses beside the barn door, and hearing no signs of stirring, pads along the damp earth to the privy and then the wash shed.

  Havens startles her when she comes out. “Good morning!”

  “I was worried you’d still be sleeping.”

  “Nope, I’ve been waiting for you.” Grinning, he holds up the basket of eggs and tells her he’s made all the hens mad at him. She deposits the basket at the kitchen door, and they hurry to the start of the trail behind the barn, where he takes her hand and leads the way, and she acts as if this is the most natural thing in the world. Nobody would guess his foot was poisoned two and a half weeks ago the way he bounds along now. Halfway up the hill, she realizes he doesn’t have a camera with him and offers to run back for it, and he says, “Just us this time.”

  At the crest, they find a flat rock that’ll seat two, and he lays down his jacket for her. Shoulder to shoulder, they face the horizon, an orange sash sewn to the hem of a faded blue hoopskirt. Though this is what they agreed on last night, she doesn’t want the sun to come up anymore. Put a padlock on it. Handcuff the hands of his watch, too.

  “I don’t want to go.” He squeezes her fingers. “How am I supposed to leave this place and forget you, Jubilee Buford?”

  “The same way I’m to stay and forget about you.”

  “You have an easy task, but mine is impossible.”

  She’s tempted to tell him her nighttime thoughts, how she’s going to be an old woman one day and the moths will have eaten away her memory so she won’t perhaps remember the names of people she knows or how the birds used to eat from her hand, but this man will be safe from time because she will have
tucked him beneath memory, stored him in that place where blood takes its orders to flow and lungs to fill and eyes to empty themselves of tears.

  From the pocket of her apron, she pulls out his handkerchief, which she had planned to give him at the time of his departure. “I made you a present.”

  “Thomas! And he’s flying,” he exclaims at the little bird she embroidered on one corner, his grin tapering off, maybe at the prospect of his own beckoning skies.

  “I’m not going to be home when it comes time to say goodbye,” she announces. “It’ll be easier that way.”

  After a long pause, he says, “We can let Socall’s frolic be our farewell. That is, if you are going to permit me a dance?”

  “If you don’t mind having your feet trampled on.”

  A match head strikes the flinty horizon, its flare turning every late-sleeper into a raucous minstrel, and while they are serenaded by the creatures of hill and vale, that which cannot be wells between them.

  Before they set back down the path, he asks her to close her eyes. He presses something in her palm. “I wish I had something precious to give you.”

  It’s a birdcall whittled into the shape of a nesting bird and threaded with yarn.

  “It’s a bit piercing, I’m afraid.” He slips it over her head. “Try it out.”

  She puts it to her lips and blows a high, lonely wishing-note meant to journey hundreds of miles north. “Will you hear that?” In the golden light, she faces him straight-on, all of her blue and unashamed. She presents herself as though she’s never been a hunted thing, as though there’s never been a time when a Right-colored didn’t come for her at a clip. She stands as though she and he were formed by the same hands.

  He lifts her wrist, studies her fingers, rubs his thumb across each of her midnight nails before pressing her palm against his chest. “Do you feel that?”

  Swung about and set back down on one foot is what she feels. Running at full speed, shoes flying off, breathing so hard it burns. Pricked awake and dreaming both.