“I’m in the park. I’m not with you.”
“That’s a technicality.”
Sam studied her camera. “What were you taking a picture of?”
Isabelle pointed to the sign.
“Why?” Sam asked.
“The sign’s funny. Sandwishes. I want to remember it after they tear it all down.”
“Wishes,” Sam said abruptly. “My parents used to hug me and call it a Samwich.” He moved closer, peering at her camera. “The camera looks cool.”
“It’s a Canon.” She showed it to him. “Film, not digital.”
“How come it’s not digital?”
“I like shooting with a film camera. It’s richer,” she said. “It shows more, I think. Plus, I’m stubborn and old fashioned. I just like it better.” She showed him how the lens could turn. “This is for focus. You turn this focusing ring here for the aperture and it lets in more or less light,” she said. She noticed his lashy eyes, the splash of freckles on his cheeks, and she suddenly wanted to touch every one. She felt her eyes watering and had to lift the camera to hide her face. She turned her flash on. “You want the flash in the daylight because it actually opens up the shadows.” She took his picture.
Sam grimaced. “I hate the way I look in pictures. I always look like I’m sick.”
Isabelle lowered the camera again. She studied him. “I don’t think you look sick at all,” she said. “Sometimes photographs show things that aren’t there. You have to learn to look deeper, to see what might be hidden.”
He looked at her, considering. “Can I take a picture?” he asked.
“Sure you can.” She handed him the camera. “Brace it with one hand on the bottom, and then use your index finger and your thumb to focus it.” She moved his arms close to his chest. “That’s to keep it all steady, so your movement won’t give you a blurry picture.” She showed him how to look through the viewfinder, how to see the needle in the middle. “That’s your light meter. Today you probably want it right smack in the middle.”
“I see it!” he said, his voice rising in excitement. “But it’s to the right.”
Isabelle pointed to the aperture scale. “You want to change your f-stop then. Go to, oh, f-eight, I would say. In the business, we say f-eight and be there!”
“Is that, like, photographer talk?”
“It is indeed.”
He changed the f-stop and then peered through the camera, holding it gingerly. “Okay,” he said. “Now what do I do?”
“It’s okay. Don’t be afraid of it,” she told him. “What do you want to take a picture of?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Well, take your time. See what catches your eye.” Isabelle had no idea what Sam might take. You could never tell with kids. She had once taught a kids’ photography class at Beautiful Baby. She’d spent hours gathering interesting things she thought they might like to photograph: stuffed animals, bags of candy, even a rubber chicken she had found in a joke store. To her surprise, the kids had ended up taking pictures of their own nostrils or their feet and one little girl had taken nothing but shots of her own hair that she was holding out in front of her. Isabelle was amazed by their creativity, and the kids had been thrilled with their pictures.
Sam held up the camera in both hands and peered through the lens. He was facing her and she heard the shutter click.
“Wow, that was fast.”
He nodded, happily. “Go through the whole thing again,” she told him. “Cock this lever to get to the next frame. Then check the light meter.” She watched him fumble with the rings and then he held the camera up and snapped another picture of her. “Don’t you want to take anything else?” she asked, and he shook his head.
“When you develop the picture, can I have prints of the ones I took?” Sam asked. “Can you mail them?”
“Sure. I print them myself.”
How would she manage mailing him pictures when Charlie had asked her to stay away, Isabelle wondered. She glanced at her watch. She couldn’t believe she was here with Sam. She wanted to call Beautiful Baby and tell them she’d be late or that she wouldn’t be there at all, but she knew she couldn’t. “I’ve got to get going,” she said, holding out her hand for the camera, and for a minute, her hand touched his; then he turned and took a picture of the street, and then gave the camera back to her.
She took off on her bike, looking back as she turned the corner. Sam was already gone.
AS SOON AS SHE got to work that day, Isabelle went to see Chuck. He had his feet up on the desk and one hand was buried in a bag of chips. There was a spot of grease on his tie. “Oh, hi,” he said casually, motioning to the chair with a nod. “What can I do for you?”
“You could give me a raise,” she said. Chuck took another chip and then laughed at her, as if she had told him a hilarious joke. “Oh, sure, how about a million more dollars?” he offered. The chip crunched. “Maybe I’ll give myself one, too.”
“I’m serious,” she said quietly. “I haven’t had a raise in over a year. I deserve one.”
“Excuse me, you deserve one?” He frowned and sat up straighter. “You don’t have a college degree.”
“Give me time off and some financial help and I’ll get one,” Isabelle blurted, but he lifted his hand.
“Let me refresh your memory, Isabelle. You weren’t here for three weeks of our busiest season. We had to really scramble to get things done.”
She looked at him, astonished. “I was in a car accident.” The words wounded her. She didn’t like saying them.
“It’s not so busy now. Do you see people lining the streets to get in here? Do you even see them in the waiting room? Tourist season’s ending. Beautiful Baby’s going to get slow. You know that.” He tapped a finger on the desk. “Besides,” he said. “People aren’t crazy about you taking their kids’ pictures anymore.”
She flushed. “That’s ridiculous. Who told you that?”
“Is it ridiculous?” He picked up a potato chip and gestured at her. “I may think it is, and you may think it is, but if our clients don’t think it is, then we have a problem. People know you as the woman who killed a mom.”
“It wasn’t my fault.” She tried to stare him down. “Some people don’t even know who I am.”
“Oh, yes, they do. This is a small town with big memories. People believe whatever they want to believe. They do know who you are, because I’ve heard them talking about you.” He leaned toward her.
Isabelle felt a pulse beating in her neck. “I’m the only decent photographer you have here and you know it.”
“How good do you have to be to work here?” he said. He dipped his hand into the bag and pulled out another chip and studied it before popping it into his mouth.
Isabelle got up and walked out of his office. Was Chuck right? Was it the accident? Was it that people didn’t want to be photographed by her because she had killed a mother, because she could have killed Sam?
Maybe I don’t blame them, she thought.
She had wanted to be a photographer since her father had given her her first camera. She was always taking pictures, always reading books about photography and sending her work to magazines. She never got anywhere, but people had told her that she had promise. What did that mean? It was a false word, like plucky. How and where did you go with it?
IT WAS THE BEGINNING of December, and Charlie was at yet another meeting with Miss Rivers. “I’m still worried about Sam,” she told him, tapping her pencil on the desk. She told Charlie that Sam was a smart boy, but all of a sudden he was doing terribly in school. “He seems to have lost interest in everything,” she said. “He doesn’t turn in his homework, he’s failing his tests, and he doesn’t pay attention. He used to be the smartest boy in the class and now it’s as if he’s not there anymore. He’s always daydreaming.”
“He does his homework,” Charlie said. He remembered Sam hunched over the table, concentrating so hard that he didn’t even hear Charlie come up b
ehind him.
Miss Rivers pursed her lips. “Plus,” she said. “He doesn’t have any friends.”
Charlie started. “Of course he has friends,” he said.
“I’m just saying that at school, he keeps to himself and reads,” said Miss Rivers. “For a while he was friendly with Teddy, but Teddy hasn’t been back to school because of a personal family matter.” The teacher leaned forward. “Actually, I thought Teddy was part of the problem.”
“Teddy?” Charlie said. He felt suddenly bewildered, trying to place the name. “Who’s Teddy?”
Miss Rivers gave him an odd look. “Teddy. His best friend, Teddy.” Miss Rivers pursed her lips. “Mr. Nash,” she said. “Maybe he needs to talk to somebody.” She scribbled something on a card. “No one can deny he’s had a hard time. He’s been through a trauma. And kids can be cruel. This woman is supposed to be just excellent.” Numb, Charlie took the card and tucked it in his pocket.
The whole way home, Charlie brooded. Sam had a best friend named Teddy and Charlie didn’t know a thing about him.
He pulled the card the teacher had given him from his jeans. Talk to somebody, the teacher had said. Sam had seen more than enough doctors in his lifetime. He thought of his son sitting in a room while a stranger leaned toward him and asked him questions. He thought of all the jobs he had to do, but what was work compared to his son? Charlie picked up his cell phone and called his foreman. “I’m taking a few days off,” Charlie said. “Personal family matters.”
• • •
ISABELLE STOOD IN her darkroom, hands on her hips, looking at the photographs Sam had taken. Photographers always talked about the law of thirds. You were supposed to divide up the shot into three sections for compositional interest, putting the main subject a third of the way into the frame, but here she was, smack in the middle and it was one of the most arresting photographs she had ever seen. He had captured her, and the most curious thing was that he had somehow photographed her so that her shoulders were dark and burly, as if she had wings under her dress and any moment she might spread them to lift off the ground and fly away. She studied the picture as critically as she could. Well. This was really a good picture. For a kid and for anyone. She clipped it onto the clothesline in her darkroom. She’d find a way to get it to him.
She picked up the one shot she had taken of him. His face was arresting, his eyes so luminous she couldn’t look away. He was gazing right at the camera, right at her, almost as if he were trying to tell her something.
SAM WAS HOME alone when a big brown envelope came through the door addressed to him. He didn’t get mail. At least not real mail. You couldn’t count the junk mail that somehow got addressed to him, offers for time shares in Florida or subscriptions to magazines he really didn’t want, like Popular Boating or Muscle Man Today. He took it to his room and sat on the bed before carefully tearing open the envelope. There was a small blue card that said only “Sam, I know you wanted these. They are good.” And then there was Isabelle’s name. He traced his finger across it.
There were three pictures, two of Isabelle and one of the street, but she had blown them up so they were large and glossy. As soon as he saw them, he had to bring the photos closer to his face to make sure he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing. She had told him that pictures showed things that sometimes seemed hidden, and now, he understood that what she had been telling him was another message. There. Right there. Look at that. Her coat was bunchy, hiding her wings. And her face was turned as if she were guiding him to look in a certain direction and when he did, he saw a blurry spot in the photograph and his heart leaped.
His mother. He knew it. It was a sign, just like the angel books had said.
“Sam.” He heard his father and quickly put the photographs back in the envelope and slid it into the bottom of his drawer under his sweaters.
For the next three days, Charlie took off work, put his cell phone away, and did nothing but be with Sam. “Everyone deserves to play hooky once in a while,” Charlie told him. They went to four movies in two days. They went bowling, and afterward, they walked along the main street. “Let me buy you something,” Charlie said, stopping in front of Laughs toy store.
Sam brightened and, to Charlie’s surprise, shook his head. He met Charlie’s eyes. “I want a camera,” Sam said.
CHARLIE WAS SO relieved that Sam wanted something, that he showed interest, that he immediately took him to Gray’s Camera Store, where the clerk started pulling out digital cameras. “How about those?” Charlie asked, but Sam shook his head.
“I want a film camera,” he insisted.
“Really? Film? But digital is so much easier. That’s what everyone uses now,” Charlie said.
“Film shows more,” Sam said.
“I bet you’re right,” Charlie said, impressed. The clerk brought out some film cameras, heavy and more substantial. “You sure?” Charlie asked, and Sam studied the cameras.
“Do you have any Canons?” he said. “That’s what I want.”
“You and ninety percent of the business. They’ve got different models and lenses to go with every budget. And you’re in luck because I’ve got a used one,” the clerk said. “At a good price for a Canon, too.”
The camera came with a strap that Sam could slip over his neck and an instruction booklet as big as Sam’s fist. When Charlie saw the price tag—three hundred dollars—he blanched. He was about to guide Sam back to one of those little automatics, but then he saw how Sam’s face was lighted up, how excited he was. “Sold,” Charlie said. “It’s your early Christmas present.”
For the first few days, Charlie got used to flashes of light in his eyes, making him blink so he couldn’t see.
The camera seemed to transform Sam. He stopped reading obsessively. He stopped sitting in the dark, and instead, he couldn’t wait to get outside with his camera. All he wanted to do was take pictures. Charlie couldn’t wait to see the pictures Sam had taken. He took three rolls to the photo shop and two days later went to pick them up, but when he opened the folder, his jaw fell.
Charlie had bought Sam black and white Fuiji film, the best, which wasn’t all that cheap, either. He remembered Sam snapping pictures of him at dinner, or when they were in the park. He knew Sam had taken a posed picture of Charlie watering the lawn and working in the garden, but where were those and what were these?
He spread the shots out. All of the photographs were of cars speeding away, or the backs of people, their heads turned as if they were about to tell you an important message. It had been a brilliant sunny day when Sam and he had gone out to take pictures, but all these shots were dark.
He didn’t know what to say to Sam. Not that he was any expert on photography, but shouldn’t the pictures be brighter? Shouldn’t they have something in them other than cars and the road? He didn’t want to ruin Sam’s obvious enthusiasm, or to put a damper on the first thing that had made Sam excited in weeks. He thought he’d get him some books on how to take pictures, maybe he’d talk him into a class, but to Charlie’s shock, when Sam saw his photos, he was delighted.
“Look how great they came out!” he said. He pored over the shots as if they were masterpieces, holding them up to the light, squinting, and when he handed them to Charlie, he stood so close that Charlie could feel the warmth of his skin. Sam hung all the pictures up on the bulletin board in his room, carefully thumb-tacking around the edges, and later that evening, when Charlie walked by, he saw Sam looking intently at the pictures, one after another, as if a wonderful drama were unfolding in front of him.
THE CAMERA MADE Sam brave, as if it had secret powers. He took the camera to school, and almost instantly good things started happening. First, the camera was like a stop sign. It was one thing to trash Sam’s lunchbox, to throw his sandwich, but all you had to do was look at the camera to know it was expensive and special. Sam tensed when Billy approached him. He put his arms around his camera, ready to shout for the teacher if he had to. Billy eyed him
and said, grudgingly, “Cool camera.”
The next incredible thing that happened was that Teddy walked back into the classroom, his arm in a sling. “What happened to you?” Sam asked.
Teddy scowled and acted as if he didn’t even know Sam. “None of your beeswax.”
Sam heard Teddy tell the other kids that he broke his arm while riding on the back of a motorcycle, that he had been going 70 miles an hour when the bike swerved and crashed, but all Sam could think of was how Teddy’s mother had raged into the room.
At recess, it was too cold to go outside, so they all went into the big gym. Teddy followed him, tapping Sam on the shoulder. “Take my picture,” Teddy said, and posed with his arm.
“Hey, me, too,” said Billy, and he held up his arms as if he were a muscle man on the beach. Then all the other kids wanted their pictures taken, and because taking their picture was better than getting pushed around, Sam did as he was told. When he was behind the lens, no one touched him.
Miss Rivers made Sam let her keep the camera for him. All day, he kept looking over at her desk, and every time he did, he felt a strange new surge of power. He looked up and saw the world in pictures. He made mental frames about Miss Rivers, around the window pouring light into the room. His fingers itched with excitement.
That day, when Miss Rivers asked who in the class knew when the Declaration of Independence was written, Sam shot up his hand and answered, waiting for the moment when his chair would be kicked, but there was no kick, and when he turned around, Fred Morgan, who usually sneered at him, gave him a thumbs-up.
Sam walked home through the park, his camera looped about his neck, hoping he might run into Isabelle. Maybe his father didn’t want him to see Isabelle anymore, but Sam couldn’t be blamed if they just sort of bumped into each other, could he? Maybe he wasn’t allowed to ask Isabelle about his mother, but no one said he couldn’t ask her about photography, and he had a million questions he wanted to ask her about depth and framing a shot. Sometimes, as he walked, he’d just whirl around and take a picture.
Pictures of You Page 17