A Day in June

by Marisa Labozzetta

  “No way!” She looks up at him in wonder.

  “Less conspicuous. You can produce images that are more contemporary in feeling. There’s a kind of immediacy to taking and processing a photo on a phone. But with limitations, of course.”

  “So I’m already ahead of the game.”

  “I guess so.” He feels his cold skin ache as it stretches into a broad grin.

  “Wish I’d known about your exhibit.”

  “I can show you some of it while you’re here, if you’d like.”

  “Absolutely.”

  By the time they reach town, it’s snowing heavily, the air opaque, the gazebo in the center of the Common whitewashed like a familiar piece of old furniture, everything and everyone losing definition. He knows Ryan’s hands are as numb as his, even in the thick snowcaked woolen mittens she’s been trying to wipe her nose with. Hair like strawberry swirl soft-serve topped with whipped cream cascades out of her cap. God, he’d love to take a photo.

  “Is it a holiday?” Ryan asks.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Why the flags?” She refers to light blue ones bearing the town’s name and “1765” on every telephone pole.

  “Oh, those. I don’t even see them. They’re always there. Guess Brackton is proud of its founding date.”

  “Where do the wreaths go in holiday season?”

  “Lampposts.”

  She nods.

  He likes her attention to detail.

  “I know it must all look stark to you right now, but you really have to imagine it in summer: sunny, everything in bloom, window boxes and urns overflowing with petunias and geraniums. Blue hydrangea bushes everywhere. Summer roses.”

  “You know your flowers.”

  “I’m a photographer, remember. Geez, I forgot how far the Daffodil is from town. I think we’ve lost the others. I hope Tiffany’s okay.” He’s worried about having left her to fend for herself with Danni.

  “It’s all good. Trust me, Tiff can take care of herself. Here they come.”

  They appear at the bend on the edge of town, laughing, arms interlocked like two old women who have been friends for ages, trying to keep each other from slipping.

  * * *

  “So, Ryan, what does Jason do?” Eric swallows a large bite of Baby’s Supreme: a burger smothered in cooked onions beneath a layer of melted Roquefort and topped with a sliced tomato and pickles. He washes this down with pale ale: He wants to relax some but keep his wits about him. He would have liked to take them to Chez Alexandre, but it isn’t open for lunch, so Baby’s Bar & Grill had to do.

  Ryan, sitting opposite him and Tiffany, and next to Danni, is crunching her way through a Cobb salad when Eric’s question shifts her into low gear. She runs her tongue over her teeth to sweep up any stray greens, takes a sip of hot cider, and plucks a few napkins from the dispenser. She speaks slowly, more carefully and more quietly than the bubbling conversationalist she’d been on her way into town. She’s either OCD about her hygiene, suffering memory loss, or stalling, Eric concludes.

  “He’s an investment banker,” she announces, which nearly causes Tiffany to choke on her Vermont Reuben oozing local cheddar instead of Swiss. “He was in law school but changed his mind.”

  Eric thinks it odd she didn’t mention him when they talked about law before.

  “What house?”

  “A small one. He works for a private firm.”

  “More of a broker?”

  “Yes.”

  “A hedge fund?”

  She nods, but the way she casts her eyes downward when she answers makes him think she isn’t even sure what a hedge fund is, or maybe she disapproves of his occupation. He’s not sure, but something is off.

  “Actually, he’s in between jobs right now. Interviewing out of town. That’s why he couldn’t come.”

  “So you might be leaving the Boston area?”

  “Yes.”

  The prospect of his finding a job out of the area is probably a source of tension between the couple—clearly makes her uncomfortable, Eric thinks. Better move on to another topic. Why did he do what everyone else does and ask what Jason did? What did it matter? So many of his friends struggled—were still struggling—to find a way to support their art. He himself doesn’t like to respond to the question because it makes him feel inadequate, as though he were way behind in the achievement time line for his age. Yet their careers had been the first topics they broached after they met.

  A friend of his mother’s once told him that this was an East Coast thing, and that on the West Coast you could converse for hours on meeting a person before the subject of how they earned a living came up—if it ever came up. It was the person they were interested in, not how much money their career might bring them. He’s never gotten the opportunity to check that out, never been to California or Oregon or Washington. Maybe that concept was all pre–Silicon Valley and Microsoft. Maybe nowadays they ask what you do out west too. Given the tight job market, Ryan and Jason are probably more thrilled than he’d imagined to have won the wedding. He feels redeemed, good about being able to provide something worthwhile.

  “Can we see your artwork?” Ryan asks, changing the subject.

  “Well—if you’d like. After we meet with the vendors.”

  “What artwork?” Tiffany looks over her corned beef.

  “Oh, Eric’s the best! He’s so talented. He’s a photographer,” Danni says. She leans toward Ryan and whispers, “Do you have a tissue?”

  “Yes,” Ryan answers as she reaches for her bag. “You need one?”

  “No. You do.”

  * * *

  In the same plain room where they hold Chamber meetings, the vendors have already set out on red-cloth-covered tables the brochures, photo albums, and whatever else they’ve brought to promote their businesses. A few have lined the walls with easels that hold large photographs of brides and grooms wearing the proprietors’ wedding rings or hairdos, gowns or tuxedos. Eric is pleased with their displays. They make the drab headquarters come alive.

  “I wanted pink or mint-green tablecloths, but Alex loaned them to us and the restaurant only has red,” hairdresser Maisie Billings tells Eric.

  “It’s fine, Maisie. Really.”

  “Looks like a high school football banquet or a steak house.”

  “Maybe that’s why I like it.” He smiles. “A guy thing.”

  “And maybe that’s why I don’t.”

  He likes Maisie. She’s pretty, dependable, no nonsense yet considerate. Pity she’s too old for him. Her son played football with Eric, and to the team she was the MILF: mother I’d like to fuck. Not only was she cool and attractive, but she was younger than all the other mothers, having given birth to her son in the spring of her senior year of high school and having had to marry her now ex, the captain of the 1985 football team.

  Yes, there was often a population increase after those postseason revelries, and he was lucky to have avoided one with Danni. He used drop in at Maisie’s shop with the excuse of having to see his mother about something while she was having her hair done. And petite blond Maisie would smile at him with those blue eyes—he was a sucker for eyes—and he’d swear she was in love with him. He’d still like to hook up with her—just one time. And he’s pretty sure she’d go for it. He refrains because he’s adult enough to know he might not satisfy her. Better to keep it a fantasy.

  Ryan is polite to the vendors, with a certain restraint to her cordiality. She tentatively leafs through photo albums and collects pamphlets as though the images on paper might jump up and eat her if she were too aggressive. Tiffany, on the other hand, is all enthusiasm as she oohs and aahs over wedding gowns, tiered cakes, bouquets and centerpieces and white-lily-and-voile-draped arbors, lists of favors, and massive scrapbooks of invitations, bringing everything that grabs her to Ryan’s attention, including whispering (with a hand-shielded mouth) that the fabric on the arbors is tacky. She pulls her over to the easels and points out b
ridesmaids’ dress colors and hairstyles, and even notes how the women in the photographs have their nails done: “You see, not everyone has white polish or a French manicure. Look how iridescent green brings out the leaves on her bouquet.”

  “Yes. Okay. Not bad. Uh huh. I don’t think so,” can be heard in response from the not quite blushing bride to be.

  “Everything is lovely, really. But I’m a bit overwhelmed. Do I need to decide today?” Ryan asks Eric.

  “Not at all,” he says, though he’s eager to have everything nailed down as soon as possible. “We just wanted to give you a taste of what we offer. Why don’t you take info on what appeals to you and share it with Jason?”

  “Of course, I have to talk it over with Jason,” she says, as though he’s not only brought the notion to her attention but given her an out as well.

  “Too bad he couldn’t be here, but you can get in touch with the vendors anytime with questions or requests for more options. I know Danni sent you their contact info. Some of them have websites, but not all, obviously.” He’s embarrassed about that. “And you’ve got some calling cards, I see.”

  “Do you do upsweeps?” Tiff asks Maisie the hairdresser. “Good upsweeps?”

  “Actually I do.” Maisie smiles. “Just bring photos of what you’d like if you don’t see anything in our stylists’ magazines.”

  “And of course you’ll have to come back to try on wedding gowns,” Danni says. “Probably a few times. Are you thinking white or ivory, strapless or halter, mermaid look? And you’ll need to discuss the music with the DJ. He couldn’t be here today; he has a radio show at this time.”

  Ryan holds up his card.

  “He does have a website,” Eric is happy to tell her.

  “I will. We will.”

  “I love weddings! Don’t you?” Danni turns to Tiffany, who smiles, as do the vendors. Ryan appears to have a case of premarital jitters.

  “By the way, Ryan. We were really touched by your essay,” Lisa Anderson, the baker, says.

  “Straight from the heart.” Florist Annie Chalis has to one-up her.

  “And it’s so cool that you do invitations and you’re a florist,” Tiffany tells Annie. “Makes it easy to coordinate the theme. Something botanical on the invites would be perfect.”

  “If you don’t see anything you’d like in the books, I can have one of our local artists design something special.”

  Eric shoots her a look that reminds her they have a budget.

  “But I’m sure you’ll find something from these selections.”

  “I’m sure she will,” Tiffany says. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Eric senses that Ryan wants out and is surprised when she reminds him about seeing his work. Danni suggests they walk over to Licks and Relics and offers to drive them all over to Eric’s house, but Eric tells her it’s not a good idea for a crowd—even a small crowd—to show up unannounced because his mother might be napping or want to fix them coffee and cake and get all stressed out.

  “I understand. Maybe next time,” Ryan says.

  “I could take you, Ryan, just not a crowd.”

  “If you think it’s okay.”

  “Danni can drop us all off at the Daffodil House, and if Tiffany doesn’t mind being alone for a little while, we can go on in my truck. It won’t take long, really. There’s not that much to see. A lot’s in storage.”

  “Would that be okay, Tiff?” Ryan asks.

  “All good with me. I’ve got some emails to catch up with.”

  “And I need to prepare for the Chamber meeting tonight,” Danni says, and for once Eric can’t believe how easily he’s gotten rid of her.

  * * *

  Eric’s mother isn’t home; he knew that. She’s gone to a mindfulness session at the Cancer Patient Support Foundation in Williston and won’t be back for another two hours. He worries that the house smells like a sickroom even though she’s in remission. It doesn’t. There’s nothing in there that ever made it smell like that, even when she was undergoing treatment. Yet he recalls the ointments his father needed to apply every morning and night to ease the stiffness and pain that plagued him in the years before his death, smells that the air and upholstery and wallpaper absorbed and, in his mind, never exhaled. “What’s that smell?” his grade school friends asked. “What smell?” he would answer in his father’s defense and his own discomfort.

  Ryan follows him down basement steps covered with worn olivegreen carpet pads they should have removed years ago and that never bothered him until now. When he turns on the light, it’s like being in a gallery in the midst of an exhibit turnover.

  “Wow! I don’t know where to begin.” Her eyes scan the walls where photos are hung in tiers that reach the low ceiling, then down to the floor, where others—some framed, some just matted—are stacked against the wall.

  “I thought you said there wasn’t much.”

  “I’ve been at this for some time.”

  “How long?”

  He has to think. Photography is such a part of him that he can’t really remember when he first took it up.

  “I mean there must have been a beginning …”

  “My parents gave me their old 35-millimeter camera when they got their first digital. Is that good enough for a beginning?”

  “How old were you?”

  “About ten. My dad liked to shoot and develop—just a hobby—but he had disabilities, and it became too hard for him to work his camera, even to change film on an automatic. Digital saved him.”

  “He’s gone?”

  “Going on twenty years.”

  “I’m sorry. And it was love at first touch? With the camera?”

  “No. I was more interested in sports, doing something with all that energy boys seem to be overloaded with at that age. But that’s not entirely fair. I really did like looking at the world through that lens: adjusting what I saw, bringing what I wanted into focus, fading out what I didn’t, making what was important to me prominent. The camera’s a powerful little tool. Lets perverts like me do their thing. It covers your face; you can hide behind it.”

  Oh boy, that was a really smart thing to say, because now she’s looking at him with apparent misgivings in the cellar of an empty house. Where are the bodies? Where’s the bulkhead door she can run to?

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I just mean, I’ve always liked to observe people, especially through windows. Not lewd scenes. Just everyday scenes.” He was strangling himself with explanations. “Imagine what their lives are like within those frames, how they’re different from my own. So the camera is my window. You just reproduce what you’ve seen, or imagined you’ve seen, because you’re trying to capture a story, an emotion, a life, but you also have that power to tell it raw or give it a slant just by using a device, lighting, angle, et cetera. Give it that special emphasis. I don’t know if you know what I’m talking about. Maybe I don’t even know what I’m talking about. It’s not the same with every photographer. That’s what separates the good from the great, I suppose.”

  “No. I do. I really do. I like looking into windows, especially at night. Any apartment or room in a house looks better then—warm, interesting, no matter what the décor, or lack of.”

  “Now you know the secret of shelter mags.”

  “What?”

  “Home decorating magazines. They don’t look good only because everything’s in place and new. To me, from the outside any house—or shack—looks good, and even better in lamplight. Light is so important. I like shooting in fog or with other techniques that can give you a feeling hope will arrive soon and something new will come from it.”

  He can tell by the way she’s looking at him that he’s impressed her. It’s so easy. People are always fascinated by the arts, as though the artist were a sorcerer whose talent streams unbidden into his subconscious; they never see him as the laborer who constantly searches for and never waits for his muse, who through trial and error, day after day, strives to perfect his skill.


  “Which is real and which is the reality show?”

  He cocks his head to one side and smiles. “That’s up to the beholder.”

  But then she surprises him. “My mom’s a painter. She’s always struggling with light in her oils. So happy when she gets it right—at least in her reality.”

  “What does she do?”

  “Landscapes and still lifes. Kind of somewhere between Chagall and Van Gogh. She teaches too. One course a semester at a community college. She’s really good. Is that you?”

  She points down at a photo hanging in the corner just above the floor molding where his grandfather had laid gray marbled Kentile flooring so long ago. It’s a color picture of Eric with curly sandy hair that, unlike his present haircut—nearly buzzed at the sides and tapering to a longer straight-up scissor-cut on top—is parted on one side, with curls dipping over his forehead and down his neck, complementing a three-day beard. His skin is tanned and glistening—triceps, thick neck bursting out of a tight black tank top that defines his pecs and abs—against a bright blue sky. Head tilted, he smiles wryly, daring the person behind the camera to shoot. Sunglasses hide his dark brown eyes, eyes his grandmother used to call the Gene Kelly smiling eyes. When he first Googled the name, Eric saw no resemblance to the deceased actor whose eyes squinted, turning upwards at the outer edges, when he flashed a wry smile. Eric did see similarities in their builds. He read his bio on Wikipedia. Kelly had been intelligent, a hot educated jock turned dancer-actor, an athlete who, according to all his admiring costars, had loved his art and been secure enough to combine gymnastics with ballet and other dance forms and come out sexy. Such a nice guy he spent his last acting days playing a priest on TV. Yes, he liked it that he bore a resemblance to Gene Kelly. Too bad no other millennials knew the actor and could make the comparison.

  In the photo, Eric’s eyes sit above what Eric considers a crooked nose. His mother has told him it’s not crooked, that it just takes a slight deviation in one spot where he had been hit with a chunk of ice during a snowball fight when he was five. His mother wanted to take him to the doctor, but his father insisted there was nothing they could do with a broken nose. It gives you character, he’d said. His parents viewed every hardship that came their way as character building. By the time his mother got cancer, Eric decided that both she and he had developed more than enough character.