The One He's Been Looking For

by Joanna Sims

  Ian put the photograph down on the couch next to him, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Working always kept his mind occupied, but in the quiet, when he was alone, that was when the physical ramifications of his failing eyesight hit home. He placed the heels of his hands on his eyes and pressed gently. It was exhausting to concentrate on viewing the world from his stronger right eye when his blurred left eye was still trying to focus in on everything around him. Like every other challenge that Stargardt had brought into his life, the constant attempt by his left eye to focus, while his right eye did all the heavy lifting, was something he just had to learn to cope with and work around. But it wore him down. And it pissed him off.

  Ian was still resting his eyes when Dylan walked through the door, dropped his keys on the counter and opened the refrigerator. “What’s up, brother?”

  Ian looked over at him through squinted eyes. “I found her.”

  Dylan pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator and twisted off the top. “The chick on the motorcycle?”

  “Jordan.” Ian nodded as he held out the photograph. “I took this today.”

  Dylan studied Jordan’s face for a few seconds before he handed the photograph back. “You’re right—she’s got an interesting look. Great eyes, great cheekbones. I’m not sure I would’ve chased her down the street, but whatever blows up your skirt.”

  “Interesting? That’s how you would describe her? Maybe I’m not the only one around here going blind.” Ian shook his head at his partner’s lack of artistic vision. “I could name twenty seasoned models who can’t deliver like this.”

  “Hey—it’s your book. If she’s the one you want, I’m all for it.” Dylan walked around the couch and put his bottle of water on one of the hammered copper barrels. He pulled the barrel over to an art-deco chair and sat down. “God, I hate these stupid barrels. And this stupid chair. Why did you agree to buy all of this artsy-fartsy junk in the first place?”

  “Hey.” Ian held up his hand. “Don’t put that off on me. I was trying to be nice to your girlfriend.”

  Dylan put his foot up on the barrel. “Ex-girlfriend. And she dropped out of design school for a reason, you know.”

  “It’s a little late to start complaining about it now.”

  Dylan nodded. “You’re right. It is. Did you see that Chelsea put in her two weeks’?”

  “Yeah. I tried to talk her out of it. I apologized. But sometimes you just can’t unring a bell.”

  “Do you want me to start looking for a replacement right away or do you want me to wait?” Dylan’s eyes zoned in on Ian’s glass.

  “I’d rather wait until I get back from the Elite Jewelers job,” Ian said, before he polished off his Scotch.

  “All right. So what’re you drinking there, partner?”

  “Scotch,” Ian said unapologetically.

  Dylan glanced at his Rolex. “Getting a bit of an early start?”

  Ian put his glass down on the end table. “How am I supposed to know what time it is when I have to keep the blinds shut all the time?” He nodded to the closed plantation shutters. “I mean, I can either wear sunglasses indoors to cut down on my exposure to bright light. Or option B, I keep the blinds shut so I have the fun of going blind more slowly.” There was an unmistakable bitterness in his voice as he continued. “And what’s completely ironic about this is that I actually bought this place for the windows! Not that it does me a bit of good now. Photographers spend their careers chasing the light, right?” Ian shook his head in disgust. “Let me ask you this—what good’s a photographer who has to hide from it?”

  Dylan didn’t know exactly how to respond. It was difficult to know what to say to Ian these days. They had been best friends since high school and he had never seen his friend in this kind of shape. Ever since his diagnosis, Ian had changed. He was angry. Easily frustrated. Closed off. The Ian Dylan used to know didn’t wallow in self-pity and was annoyed when others around him did. But this new Ian had turned self-pity into an art form. The problem was that Ian couldn’t see it; he thought he was handling it just fine.

  “Well, it seems like you’ve come up with a really great solution,” Dylan said in a frustrated tone. “Drink yourself into oblivion.”

  Ian stood up and marched over to the bar. He poured himself another drink and belted it down, then waved his empty glass at him. “What do you know about it, Dylan? What do you think you know about any of this? There’s only one of us going blind in this room—isn’t that right?”

  Dylan didn’t respond immediately. After a moment he said, “You’re my partner and my friend. This impacts me, too. You’ve just been too self-absorbed to notice.”

  “Self-absorbed?” Ian asked incredulously. “Of course I’m self-absorbed! I’m fighting for my life here!”

  “I don’t see you fighting, Ian. From where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re giving in and giving up. I love you like a brother and I’ve gotta tell you—I’m worried about you.”

  “Well, don’t be.” Ian leaned over the bar with his hands flat against the marble countertop. “I’ve got it all under control.”

  “Is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re flat-out lying to yourself if you think that’s true, Ian. You’ve completely closed yourself off from everyone in your life, including me. You’ve broken things off with Shelby.”

  Ian shook his head slightly. “She broke it off with me.”

  “Of course she did!” Dylan gave a sharp laugh. “I don’t doubt that you backed her into a corner so tight that she had no choice but to dump you.”

  Ian crossed his arms over his chest. “She wants kids and I’m not going to give her any. I did her a favor...now she’s free to go find someone who will.”

  Dylan took his feet off the table and leaned forward. “Okay—so forget Shelby. I always thought she was your rebound relationship anyway. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re screwing up, and I’m the only one around here whose gonna be honest with you about it. You’re not taking care of yourself and I’m telling you, man, shoving your head in a bottle of Scotch isn’t the answer.”

  “How do you know?” Ian held his glass in place as he carefully poured himself another drink.

  Dylan rubbed his hands over his face with a sigh. “What did that shrink of yours say about all this?”

  “Just a bunch of psychological mumbo jumbo.” He waved his hand in the air. “I’m not going back.”

  “But what did she say?”

  “That I’m grieving my old life, duh, and apparently I’m stuck in three—count them, three—of the five stages of grief. But great news,” Ian added sarcastically. “Once I get to the fifth stage everything’ll be copacetic and I’ll feel just fine about the whole going-blind thing. Something to look forward to....”

  “Which stages?”

  “Anger, denial, depression....”

  “Sounds about right.” Dylan nodded.

  “Well, thank you for your input, Dr. Freud.”

  After a short silence between them, Dylan took a breath and let it out before he spoke again. “You know what, Ian? I’ve been watching you run this thing off into a ditch for a while now, and I’ve tried to back off and give you your space, because let’s face it—you got the short end of the stick here. But we need to move forward and figure out how to keep our business on track.”

  Ian put his now empty glass on the bar. “I already told you what I want to do about the business.”

  Dylan displayed a rare show of temper. “What? To just let the business fail? What kind of lame-ass idea is that, Ian? We’ve got too much time and money invested in this company just to piss it all away.”

  “Do you think I want that? Do you?” He raised his voice as he pointed to his eyes. “I’m losing my eyesight! Didn’t you
get the memo?”

  Dylan took in another deep breath, exhaled and forced himself to lower his tone. The truth was, he had been avoiding this fight for too long. He had been tiptoeing around Ian and it was time to sort some things out between them. But he also knew his friend well enough to back off before he completely shut down.

  “From what I understand...” Dylan said calmly. “From what I’ve read, you aren’t going to lose your peripheral vision. We can work with that.”

  Ian sank back down into the couch. “Dylan. Let’s get real about this thing. Do you have any idea how many of our clients are going to bail once word gets out about this? I’m telling you, there isn’t a client out there who’s going to beat down the door to put millions of dollars of campaign money into a half-blind photographer’s hands.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “No.” Dylan dragged his fingers through his sun-bleached, light brown hair. “I don’t think you’re wrong.”

  “Then what exactly do you have in mind?”

  “We evolve.”

  “Into what?”

  “A consulting firm. A full-blown modeling agency.” Dylan paused before he added, “We could even eventually hire some photographers and train them your way. Photographers would line up around the block to learn the Ian Sterling method. I mean, come on, man. Anything’s better than just giving up and throwing in the towel.”

  Ian rubbed his palm over the back of his neck as he considered Dylan’s words. From the minute he’d heard the diagnosis he had been determined to close shop when his eyes got too bad for him to work as a photographer. But maybe he was wrong about that. Maybe there was a way to keep the company alive.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Maybe you have a point. Maybe I need to consider our options. But I’m telling you that I just don’t want to be bothered with this right now. I still have enough vision to get by and all I want is to get this next job out of the way so I can focus full-time on the book. Once I’ve shot it, we’ll sit down and figure out what our next step should be. Fair enough?”

  Dylan studied him for several seconds. “And until then you’ll start taking better care of yourself. Follow doctor’s orders—lay off the booze.”

  “Yes. Jesus. You know what? Who needs a wife when I already have a nag like you?” Ian said with a frustrated sigh. He picked up the picture of Jordan that he had set on the table and ran his hand lightly over her face.

  Dylan nodded toward the picture. “And you’re sure she’s the one for the book? Does she even have any modeling experience?”

  “Who needs experience with a face like this?” Ian asked rhetorically. “And, yeah—I’m sure. Just look at her. She eats the lens with her eyes. She’s a natural.” He added more quietly, “She...inspires me. I know she can deliver.”

  It was the way he was talking about Jordan that caught Dylan off guard. He hadn’t seen Ian excited about a model in a long time. He watched his friend closely as Ian continued to speak.

  “You know, the only time I feel normal anymore is when I’m behind the camera. Everything in my life has changed—every day of my life is a constant trial in how I’m going to work around this...idiotic disease. I feel like Stargardt is slowly robbing me of my life—bit by bit, day by day—until eventually it’ll take everything away from me. My work, my independence, my future... There are a lot of days when I dread waking up, and I have to force myself to get out of bed and face another day living like this. But...” He stared down at Jordan’s face. “When I discover someone like her—when I photograph someone like her—for that short period of time, I’m not Ian with the screwed-up eyes anymore. I’m just Ian Sterling, photographer.”

  It took a minute for Dylan to realize the magnitude of what his friend had just said. It had been a really long time since Ian had opened up to him about anything, much less something so personal. And it made him wonder if the change he saw in him could be directly linked to Jordan.

  “I haven’t heard you talk about anyone like this since...” Dylan stopped himself before he said Ian’s ex-fiancée’s name.

  Ian laid Jordan’s picture on his thigh. “Lexi.”

  “Sorry, man—I didn’t mean to bring her up.”

  Ian felt his gut clench as it always did when he thought of Alexia. He had fallen hard for her when they’d met on a photo shoot. She was a gorgeous up-and-coming stylist with a larger-than-life personality. After an intense, passionate, bicoastal courtship, he had asked her to marry him. He’d always wanted the wife, the kids, the white picket fence, and he had believed that Lexi was the one woman he could spend the rest of his life loving. But the diagnosis shortly followed the engagement, and Lexi’s wedding planning began to taper off. It didn’t take her long to figure out that she didn’t want to be married to a once-famous blind photographer. She called off the wedding, and the only time he had seen her in the past four years was when they worked on the same campaign. The truth was, being unceremoniously dumped by Lexi after his diagnosis still stung.

  “Hey—I forgot to tell you.” Dylan tried to steer the conversation away from her. “I heard back from the folks at the Midway museum and we’ve got our pick of several dates for the shoot.”

  “You know...” Ian continued on the subject of Lexi. “I can’t really blame her for bailing on me. Who would want to chain herself to a washed-up photographer without a driver’s license?”

  “You have a chauffeur—you don’t need to drive.” Dylan tried to make a joke of the fact that Ian would eventually have to give up his license. “And as far as Lexi goes, she turned out to be a social-climbing gold digger who latched on to you because of what she thought you could do for her career. I know that’s harsh, but that’s the truth, brother. And if you ask me, you’re lucky you found out when you did. The last thing you needed was a nasty divorce—and with Lexi, you’d better know it would’ve been nothing but nasty. The only good thing I can say about Lexi is that she hasn’t blogged about what’s going on with you. I give her credit for that, but that’s the only thing I can give her credit for....”

  When Ian didn’t respond, Dylan added, “And you know what? I’m really glad to hear you get excited about this new model. You need to forget about the past and focus on what’s ahead of you.” He hesitated before saying, “Because let’s face it. Between this thing with your eyes and all the B.S. Lexi put you through, you’ve been in a rut. I’d really like you to consider rejoining the living.”

  “I have been living,” Ian said defensively. “I’ve been working.”

  “There’s more to life than work. Why don’t you come over tomorrow for a change? We’re gonna be grilling out. Jenna has some smokin’ hot girlfriends who live in bikinis....”

  “I don’t know,” Ian said. It was hard for him to be surrounded by people he didn’t know. It was too hard to keep up with new faces; too hard to keep everyone on his right side without being obvious about it. Before Stargardt, he would’ve been the first one at the party. Now he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten together with friends. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Sure you will.” Dylan shook his head.

  “I’m serious. I’ll think about it. Okay?”

  “Okay. But I’d really like you to come over. We haven’t hung out in a really long time.” Dylan crushed the empty water bottle in his hand. “Hey, why don’t you invite this new girl? She looks like she knows how to have a good time....”

  “No. You know I like to try to keep it strictly business with the models. Besides, Jordan hasn’t signed the contract yet. The last thing I want to do is give her a reason to say no.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you have a point.” Dylan stood up and walked over to Ian. He reached out and clasped his hand. “But sometimes you’ve gotta take a risk, change the rules. You know what I mean?”

  “We’ll see,” Ian said. But
the truth was he couldn’t imagine any woman—especially a young, vibrant woman like Jordan—taking on his load of baggage. He just couldn’t see it happening.

  “All right, brother—I’m out.” Dylan paused at the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

  “Sure,” Ian said. “You bet.”

  * * *

  Jordan was excited when Ian contacted her late Sunday night to set up a meeting for the next morning. The man really didn’t waste any time. He was determined, focused and aggressive. She liked that about him. In fact, she admired that about him. As it turned out, Ian Sterling was more than just a handsome face that used to hang on her bedroom wall. He was a force to be reckoned with.

  She had received a draft of her contract via email mid-Sunday morning, which she had promptly forwarded to her twin, Josephine, who was attending her first year of law school. Once Jo gave her the green light, Jordan emailed Ian and agreed to sign. By Monday morning, she was heading back to his studio.

  Jordan was surprised when the door was opened by a petite, slender blonde in a tailored, pin-striped suit. The woman’s shiny hair was pulled back into a severe chignon that emphasized her strong cheekbones and heavily lashed, moss-green eyes. She didn’t smile at Jordan, but extended her hand.

  “Good morning, Miss Brand. My name is Shelby Payton. I’m Mr. Sterling’s attorney. Please come in.”

  Shelby had a distinctively honey-dipped Southern drawl that wasn’t often heard in California.

  “You sound like you’re from Georgia,” Jordan said as she followed her into the loft.

  Shelby looked over her shoulder, but kept walking. “Savannah. Born and bred.”

  “What brought you to California?” Jordan felt conspicuous next to the little Georgia peach. She stood head and shoulders above her and felt like a gangly giraffe lumbering behind a graceful gazelle.