An Alaskan Wedding

by Nance Sparks

  “Honey, I couldn’t be prouder of all that you’ve accomplished. No doubt you have a successful business, but at what cost to you and your happiness? You dove into it all to stop the hurt from so long ago. And before you say anything, I know you enjoy your work, but, honey, that isn’t all there is to life.” Her mom sighed. “Or maybe that is all you want from life. Who knows. It’s a question only you can answer. If I can put my two cents in, I’d be okay with being a grandma to a couple of girls. No matter what you decide, I love you and I’m here for you.”

  “I love you too, Mom. I’ll post some pictures soon. Thanks, you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  “Drive safe, honey, call anytime. Good-bye now.”

  Riley disconnected the call.

  Had she fallen into a safe groove of perpetually packed schedules and tight deadlines to keep from taking any risks? Was everything designed to protect her heart? Was that really why the studio came before anything or anyone?

  “Incoming SMS, say ‘read it’ or ‘ignore.’” The truck speakers interrupted her thoughts.

  “Read it.”

  “I wanted so much to invite you back to the house, but given Sydney’s confession today, I thought she might want some time to talk. I miss you. It was wonderful to see you. Can’t wait until tomorrow.” Andi’s words flooded the sound system.

  Riley smiled inside and out. Andrea was worth the risk. She was worth the time to see if this could work. She replayed the message twice more before turning on the radio and enjoying the rest of her ride home.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Now, remember to say please and thank you. Keep your hands in your pockets and no fighting.” Andrea looked at her daughters before they got out of the car.

  “Mom, we heard you. You’ve been saying the same thing for hours!” Sydney climbed out of the car and stretched.

  The building looked like an old brick warehouse. Windows on both stories were twice as tall as they were wide. Additional bricks created an arched flange above each window that gave the tall structure nice character. It was a building she’d expect to see in a black-and-white photo from the early nineteen hundreds. Leave it to Riley to give this incredible architecture new life. A bell jingled as the front door was pushed open from the inside. A sign reading Candid Photography hung above the door.

  “Hey, you made it! How was the drive down?” Riley walked outside and pulled Andrea into a hug. She stepped back and turned to the girls. “Long time, no see.”

  “This is how far you drove yesterday to have pizza with us? You must really like my mom.” Sydney offered a fist bump. Riley returned the gesture and smiled.

  “Please tell me that you don’t have any orange pop. Mom’s grounded from orange pop for at least a week.” Olivia crossed her arms and looked at them pointedly.

  “I have all sorts of fun treats, and hopefully none your mom will spit on any of us. Come on inside. It’s cold out here.” Riley held the glass door open. When everyone was inside, she turned the deadbolt.

  “Why did you lock us in?” Olivia asked.

  “Because the studio isn’t open. I don’t want strangers trying to steal all of the hot wings,” Riley said.

  “Why do you live at your work? I thought you flew on airplanes for your work?” Olivia asked.

  “All good questions.” Riley looked at Andrea.

  Andrea shrugged and smiled. She enjoyed seeing how Riley interacted with the girls.

  “Most of the time, I fly on airplanes for my work, but sometimes people come here to have pictures taken. The downstairs is the photography studio and my house is upstairs, but you have to come through the studio to get to the stairs that lead up to my house. I don’t have a separate entrance from the outside.”

  “Can we see the studio?” Sydney asked.

  “Absolutely.” Riley turned to the left and flipped a panel of switches.

  Prints hung in almost every open space that Andrea could see. One by one, banks of lights turned on and bathed the large open space in a soft golden glow. Spotlights highlighted several large prints and other collages of smaller prints. Several of the walls were painted bright and bold colors that seemed to frame the canvas prints. As always, Andrea was in awe, and the girls looked similarly impressed.

  “Come this way,” Riley said. “This is where we actually take the pictures.”

  Riley led them into a large open room off to the side. There were lights and silver umbrellas all around the perimeter of the space.

  “Why is there so much stuff? Where are the cameras?” Sydney asked.

  “All of this stuff allows for options. If we’re taking pictures of a baby in a basket, then we need different things than if we’re taking pictures of you with your softball stuff or Liv in her dance costume. If you come over to this side, you’ll see what I mean.”

  Andrea was just as curious as the girls. She followed them over to where Riley was standing. Riley opened a cabinet in the back of the room and pulled out a camera on a tripod. She set it up on some taped marks on the floor.

  “Okay, come look through the camera and you’ll see how little space is actually needed to take a picture.”

  Once Sydney and Olivia had looked through the viewfinder, Andrea took her turn. She could see the top of the stool and the gray background behind the stool and that was all.

  “What are the umbrellas for? Does it rain in here?” Olivia asked.

  “The umbrellas are for light, not rain. They focus light where I need it so there aren’t any harsh shadows. See, if we put your mom on the stool, look at how half of her face is hidden in the dark because of how the light is hanging from the ceiling. If I click on these lights and these over here, now she’s lit up perfectly with no shadows.” Riley stood behind the girls as each looked through the camera again. “Here, this button takes a picture. Go for it.”

  “Really?” Sydney’s face lit up. She stood behind the camera and pressed the button. “How do I see what it looks like?”

  “Press this button and it will show up on the screen.”

  Sydney pressed the button and a photo of Andrea showed up on the small screen.

  “Wow, that’s so cool.”

  “Let’s let Olivia take one, too, okay?” Riley lowered the tripod for Olivia’s height.

  “Mom, you have to smile,” Olivia said from behind the camera.

  Andrea looked into the camera and smiled. She stood once she heard the shutter click and looked at the wall behind Riley and the girls. Her breath caught.

  “Is there a light switch for that wall?” Andrea asked.

  Riley turned to see what Andrea was pointing at and smiled. She walked over to the far wall and flipped several switches. Lights clicked on and then spotlights focused on several large prints.

  “Those prints have been on that wall since the day the studio opened.” Riley ambled over and stood next to Andrea.

  “Mom, that girl looks like you but a lot skinnier,” Olivia said.

  “Thanks for that, Livy. Believe it or not, that girl really is me.” Andrea strolled up to the photos on the wall.

  “They let me have the prints when the contest was over. It always makes me smile to see them when I walk into this room.”

  “Seeing them on your computer screen was one thing, but seeing them on your wall is an entirely different experience. I spent all those years thinking the worst. I honestly thought you hated me.” Andrea’s words trailed off.

  “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Riley said, leaning on a table.

  “How old were you?” Sydney asked, studying the picture closely.

  “I was eighteen. I was two months pregnant with you in that picture.” Andrea reached up and touched the glass.

  “Did you hire Riley to take your picture way back then?” Olivia asked.

  “Would you two like to see s
ome pictures of your mom in Alaska?” Riley asked.

  Andrea was grateful for the distraction. She wasn’t ready to answer any more questions about that day beneath the apple tree.

  Riley walked over to the far wall and shut down the lights in that room. They made their way back through the lobby and then up a wide hallway lined with several photographs that Andrea recognized from the website. The hallway opened up into a sizeable room with a couple of desks, a large worktable, and a monster of a printer.

  “This is where we sort through all of the pictures we take.” Riley clicked on several light switches and the room lit up. “My desk is back over there in the corner and Jodie sits in this desk up here.”

  “Why do you need so many monitors?” Sydney asked.

  “We each have three so we can work on photos with two of them and see email or whatever we need on the third,” Riley answered.

  “Who’s Jodie?” Olivia asked.

  “Jodie works with me. You can meet her later if her flight gets in on time.” Riley walked over to the table.

  “Is she coming to watch football, too?” Olivia asked.

  “No, she kinda lives here.” Riley spread out some prints on the table. “I still need to frame these, but here’s your mom in Alaska.”

  “Is she your girlfriend?” Olivia asked. “I thought my mom was your girlfriend.”

  “No, she’s my friend and she works with me,” Riley said.

  “So, both of you live at work?” Olivia asked.

  “The house is above us. We’ll go upstairs next. You’ll see.”

  Andrea stood behind Sydney and Olivia. There were several large prints spread out. Shots of her in the black cocktail dress, one of her in the hot springs looking up at the northern lights, another of her in the bridesmaid dress at the hall, and then the last one sitting in the front of the canoe with the reindeer off in the distance.

  “Wow, I wish we could have seen all this stuff. The sky was really all of those colors? Green and purple and pink and blue, how cool is that! Mom, you went swimming outside? Didn’t you freeze your butt off?” Sydney stared at the photos.

  “It was a hot spring, Syd. It was like taking a hot bath outside underneath the sky.” Andrea looked at Riley and smiled.

  “These are for you, once I get them finished. I have a few others too.” Riley squeezed Andrea’s hand.

  “They turned out beautifully, Riley.” Andrea looked up from the photos and into Riley’s eyes.

  “Who’s ready for some tailgate snacks and a football game?”

  Andrea stared at the prints on the table even after the lights clicked off. She looked at the print beneath the northern lights and shivered with the memory of what happened after that photo was taken. Who knew when she’d be able to experience that feeling again? Either she was followed by her two young chaperones or Riley was out of town. She had never been this needy, but being with Riley was really that incredible.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The large loft door slid open shortly after the second quarter of the game had started. Riley looked over in time to see Jodie coming through the door backward pulling her suitcase up the last few steps.

  “What a whirlwind! Chumly, Maine was the fuckin’ bomb! There was this cute little brunette, Cloe, that totally cozied up to me. She was a fun party favor. Get this, she’s from Mad—”

  “Edit, Jodes, edit.” Riley jumped up from the couch and spoke loudly to cover up whatever inappropriately funny thing Jodes was about to say next.

  “Edit? Clients? What? Whoa, we have company. A heads up would have been nice.” Jodie stood between the kitchen and living room. “Well, hello, everyone.”

  “I sent you a text.”

  Jodie pulled out her phone. “Oops. I guess it would help if I took the phone off of airplane mode. Would you like me to get a hotel tonight? Easy peasy, no biggie.”

  “No, I’d like you to come here so I can introduce you to everyone.” Riley shook her head at the whirlwind that was her closest friend. “Jodie, this is Sydney, and Olivia, and this is Andrea.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sydney and Olivia. Andrea, eh? I apologize now if I call you Andi because that’s all I’ve ever known you as. I’ve stared at photographs of you since my first day of college. It’s nice to finally meet you all. I’ve heard great things,” Jodie said.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too, Jodie. I’ve also heard great things. I’m glad you and Riley have each other,” Andrea said.

  “Ah, Chumly’s good people. I couldn’t ask for a better friend or a better boss.” Jodie smiled.

  “Okay, I have to ask. Why do you call her Chumly? There’s got to be a story there.” Andrea looked from Jodie to Riley.

  “Go ahead and tell her.” Riley started laughing and rested her hip on the couch. Her worlds were meshing, and she liked the feel of it. A lot.

  “Well, for starters, Chumly sounds way better than shark bait.” Jodie walked into the living room and sat in an open chair. “Okay, here’s the story. Riley and I arrived on campus on the same day and were assigned to the same dorm room. Her walls were quickly covered with photographs of a single favorite subject. So, one day I asked her about the strawberry blonde in the photos and she tells me that she’s the one her heart can’t let go of. She tells me that the girl in the photos is the one that you’d swim across the ocean for, knowing damned well that you’d be chum for the sharks, but you’d jump in and swim anyway given the chance to be with her just one more time. She gets all dreamy eyed, and says their love was profound. Total Shakespeare. It was such an unexpected answer that it earned her the nickname Chumly and it has stuck all these years.”

  “What was the girl’s name?” Olivia asked. “Was she pretty?”

  “Seriously, Livy? It was Mom. Mom was the girl in the photos, like downstairs in the camera room!” Sydney shook her head with the kind of disparaging eye roll only available to her age group.

  Riley threw a pillow across the room and made contact with Jodie’s face. “That was much more detail than was needed.” She hadn’t expected Jodie to share the conversation word for word. Her face was hot with the embarrassment she felt for allowing that story to be told.

  “Oh, that was the condensed version and you know it!” Jodie threw the pillow back. “She called me a few years after we graduated to come and work here. I show up and I’ll be damned if those photos aren’t still sprinkled everywhere! Did you see them?”

  “Like Syd said, we saw the few in the studio room, particularly the shots that won the award.” Andrea sat up taller in her chair.

  “Oh, there are several others tucked here and there. If you go into her bedroom and close the door there’s a black-and-white of—” Jodie ducked before the pillow hit her a second time.

  “That hotel room might not be a bad idea.” Riley knew her face was flushed.

  “Do you and Riley really both live here? You act like sisters. Sydney throws stuff at me too. Where’s your stuff? Riley only showed us one bedroom on the tour. Where do you sleep?” Olivia asked.

  Jodie looked bemused at the questions flung like more pillows. “Well, Olivia, Riley is going to build a bedroom for me, but in the meantime, I sleep on the couch. My stuff is in the hall closet. I’m only here a day or two a week, and it’s not often that Riley and I are here at the same time,” Jodie said.

  “It’s still weird that you both live at your work. Why do you have purple hair? I think I would like to have purple hair. Is that a dog collar on your wrist?” Olivia asked.

  Jodie glanced at Riley, who just looked back, smiling. “I like the purple in my hair, and this is a bracelet, not a dog collar, but it would make a cool dog collar, wouldn’t it? It matches my belt, here, see.” Jodie lifted her shirt to show her belt.

  “Liv, seriously! Stop the questions. You’re embarrassing me!” Sydney turned toward her sister.

>   Riley shrugged. “She asks a lot of questions. She’s like a little human lie detector. There’s no point resisting. There are no defenses.”

  Olivia giggled and stuck her tongue out at her sister.

  “Hey, you two, do you remember when we talked about the camera yesterday?” Riley asked Sydney and Olivia.

  “Yeah, but we were told not to bring them up because we aren’t supposed to bug you about it,” Olivia said. “Isn’t that what you said, Mom?”

  Andrea nodded. “Way to throw me under the bus, Livy.”

  Riley smiled. “Well, I didn’t forget. Would you like to see what I put together for you?”

  Olivia and Sydney nodded. Riley got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. Andrea followed her.

  “Thank you for the diversion. I was squirming in there,” Andrea whispered.

  “Jodie was there for a lot. I should have given you a heads up,” Riley said.

  “Not necessary. It’s like I have a source to go to on the lost years.” Andrea smiled.

  “I’ll answer any question you have. All you have to do is ask.” Riley leaned over and kissed Andrea’s cheek, then Riley picked up the two camera bags.

  “Those look like backpacks! That’s a lot of stuff for two kids who may lose or destroy most everything in the bag,” Andrea said. “Can I at least pay for it?”

  “Andi, it’s okay. I’m giving it without conditions. Jodie and I upgrade gear every couple of years. If they bust it all, so be it, but they both seemed sincerely interested,” Riley answered. “Come on, I can hear Olivia bouncing up and down from here.”

  Riley followed Andrea into the living room with a bag in each hand. She handed one to each of the girls.

  “Each bag has different compartments with stuff for you to use with your camera. There’s a battery charger in there and some disks and a disk reader to hook up to a computer. There are a couple of lens options and a small tripod. Do you want to play with them for a bit during halftime? I can show you how some stuff works,” Riley asked.