“D’you go out a lot?” she asked.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Where do you go?”
“Wherever.”
“So you have a lot of friends?”
What are friends? I go to three birthday parties a week. That’s more socializing than anyone needs. When I lived in Florida, my best friend got married. She asked me to be her maid of honor and then she changed her mind. We’d had an unusually close bond. I cared for her when she fell and broke several bones. Her fiancé was probably threatened by the strength of our relationship. He couldn’t handle the depth of her affection for me.
I heard the front door open and Amelia’s and Fritz’s footsteps. They appeared in the kitchen and saw me and Piper at the island. Dressed in winter coats and boots, eyes shining bright, faces flushed from the cold, they looked dashing.
“Hi, guys.” Amelia furrowed her brow in confusion. She and Fritz threw their coats on the hall bench and removed their boots.
“Piper had a nightmare,” I said.
“I’m OK.” Piper brought her cereal bowl to the ceramic farmhouse sink. “The radiator in Natalie’s room woke me up. Hashtag Noise. You guys should get it fixed. I don’t know how Natalie sleeps in that room.”
“Sure.” Fritz pursed his lips, perhaps to indicate that he appreciated the gravity of the problem, or perhaps he was trying not to laugh.
Once Piper was safely upstairs, Amelia cut her eyes at me. “That kid is a piece of work.”
I nodded, then gathered my belongings. “Listen, I’m sort of embarrassed to tell you this. I…”
“What?” Fritz asked.
“I took some pictures of your kitchen. It’s exquisite. One day, when I buy a house, I want to have a kitchen that looks like yours.” I gestured toward the cabinetry. “The workmanship on the cabinets. I took some photos so I don’t forget. Is that OK?”
Amelia laughed. “My God, I don’t care if you take pictures of the kitchen!”
Her laughter sounded like music to me, her voice lifting up to a high register, and then descending. In that instant I recognized my love for Amelia. I wasn’t sure how to describe it. My feeling was bigger than any label I could come up with.
* * *
I woke to the sound of my cell phone ringing. It was my former colleague, Lana. She hadn’t called me for three months. For a while she’d been calling every day. She found out I’d slept with the man she was dating. I’d had no idea they were in a relationship. I only saw them together twice. One night, about six months earlier, I’d bumped into Christopher at an overpriced bar on Vanderbilt, and we started talking about photography. He wanted to walk me home and he ended up spending the night. I hadn’t talked to him since.
When Lana discovered what had happened, she said some vile things to me. She called me a whore and a parasite. It wasn’t worth my time to fight with someone like her. She projected her own dishonesty and disloyalty onto other people. Years earlier she’d betrayed my trust, so our friendship was already on an inevitable decline. In the last couple of years, I’d barely seen her. It was even a stretch to describe her as a friend.
Lana’s call went to voicemail. She rang again and it went to voicemail again.
I sat down at the kitchen counter with a cup of black coffee and a piece of toast and surveyed the living room and kitchen. I owned three expensive pieces of furniture: a solid rosewood coffee table and two leather chairs. The kitchen cabinets were well made, with high-quality chrome hardware, though I would have preferred polished nickel. My large walnut cutting board, prominently displayed on the kitchen counter, contrasted beautifully with the white Caesarstone countertops. But recently such details that had pleased me in the past failed to lift my spirits. I couldn’t help comparing myself and my apartment to the Straubs and their house. The contrast left me feeling profoundly inadequate. I found it impossible to shut down the voices in my head that shouted out my inferiority.
Lately my brightest moments were derived from my personal photoshopping endeavors, particularly the ones involving the Straubs. I would usually allow myself to devote several hours to those projects later in the day, as soon as I’d finished my work. It was something to look forward to.
After breakfast I took a soothing hot shower and enjoyed the force of the water pounding onto my shoulders and arms. My shower was only thirty inches by thirty inches, though the glass walls on two sides gave the illusion of a larger shower. A small hexagon-shaped glass tile covered the shower floor, and a rose-colored subway tile covered the walls and gave off a warm glow. I should have painted the walls of the apartment the rose color instead of lavender. The lavender walls looked gray and flat in the northern light. Why hadn’t I known that would be the case? If there was one thing I knew about, it was light. What kind of light made people and places shine.
CHAPTER SIX
On a Saturday afternoon in early March, I received a text from Amelia.
What r u up to during the day tomorrow?
Her question was one I’d hoped and prepared for.
going for a run over Brooklyn Bridge
I knew that Amelia enjoyed the route over the Brooklyn Bridge and through Brooklyn Bridge Park, because I’d overheard Natalie discussing it with Piper. I surmised that Amelia liked Brooklyn Bridge Park because she wanted to feel like she was part of the community. She liked the image of herself as someone who took advantage of the free things that the city had to offer, as if what she loved most about her life was accessible to anyone who lived in Brooklyn.
It wasn’t an especially convenient route for me. Moreover, I disliked running. But I had a feeling that if I casually mentioned a plan to run over the bridge, Amelia would be tempted.
She wrote back: I’d love to go with you.
I spent a few minutes composing my response. I hoped to appear pleased, in a measured way, but not excited. In the end, I wrote: Great.
* * *
We met at 10 A.M. on Sunday morning and started by running north on the promenade. It was late winter, but still cold, so the walkway was relatively empty. The BQE below us was backed up with traffic and oppressively loud. For the first twenty minutes of our run, Amelia talked nonstop. “They’ll move on to another architect in a heartbeat,” she said. “And Fritz has a lazy confidence. He thinks the clients are loyal. He’s always surprised if we lose them.”
We approached the end of the promenade and continued down the long hill past the playground. In spite of the fact that Amelia was ten years older than me, she was a lot faster and in better shape. I tried to disguise my heavy breathing.
“He’s leaving it to me, largely because he knows that I landed these clients and they’re mostly interested in my ideas. Well, that doesn’t have to be true.” Amelia wasn’t winded in the slightest. If I were just listening to her voice and didn’t see her, I wouldn’t have known she was running. “Fritz is devoting more and more of his time to pro bono jobs. A library for an underserved neighborhood. Fine. A homeless shelter. Fine. And he says he finds that more rewarding. But we have a hell of a lot of overhead. Fritz throws up his hands and he says it’s time to downsize. Downsize, my ass. Twenty years ago he was driven. But he’s lost his competitive edge.” Amelia finished the speech and exhaled like it had taken a lot out of her. She sounded defensive and probably felt guilty about her criticism of Fritz. Even so, she really owned her story, perhaps more than anyone I’d ever met. It was intoxicating.
Once we approached the bridge, I looked below and could see the lights on Jane’s Carousel, the century-old merry-go-round, sparkling inside a glass box, and could make out the carved wooden horses, no two exactly alike, and the chariots.
I’d photographed two birthday parties there. It was the most beautiful merry-go-round I’d ever seen. Up close, each horse has a distinct personality and decorative style. The older children prefer the “jumpers” and the littlest children like the “standers.” The babies ride in the chariots.
I recognized this carousel as an original
work of art. It differed from Cinderella’s Golden Carousel and everything at Disney, all of which had an eye toward sales in its DNA.
So much talent and skill had gone into the restoration of Jane’s Carousel and the design of the glass pavilion, situated on the East River between the two bridges. It was divine in its concept and execution. And how ironic that the children, the primary consumers, would never fully appreciate it. And neither would the adults. They would trivialize it as an amusement ride.
Amelia must have seen me looking in that direction. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” She paused. “Do you ever take Jasper to the carousel when he’s in town?”
My throat tightened. “Yes, he loves it.”
“Same with Natalie. I used to take her there.”
“How is Natalie?” I hadn’t seen her for a week. She had gone to a friend’s house Friday night, so Amelia hadn’t needed me to babysit.
She paused. “Well … a couple of days ago, she heard us talking about having a baby. You know, I’m very open. I don’t believe in hiding anything.”
“Right.”
“I worry about her. She’s not tough. She doesn’t have grit.”
I thought it possible that Natalie was tougher than Amelia knew, but I didn’t choose to share my opinion.
We ran across the bridge, then back again, then into the park with the river on our right. At this point, I was sweating profusely, and since I’d made the mistake of wearing cotton, my shirt was wet, cold, and clinging to my skin.
“So I need an update on you and Ian,” Amelia said brightly.
“We’ve grown really close in such a short period of time,” I said. “He has amazing stories from his childhood.” Ian hadn’t told me any amazing stories from his childhood. But it couldn’t hurt for Amelia to believe that Ian and I were serious. “I might be in love.” I whispered the last words, as if I were embarrassed to admit it.
Amelia gasped with delight. She was clearly invested in my relationship with Ian. “If you two get engaged, I’m throwing you a brilliant party!”
I tried to laugh, but didn’t have enough breath, so I had to make do with a smile.
“He’s working on this apartment in Rome and our client adores him. Thanks to Ian, we have five new projects, all from the same client.”
“Wow.”
We ran along the water, past Pier 2, which offered endless choices of recreational activities: roller-skating, handball, bocce, basketball, kayaking. I’ve never been able to appreciate concepts like “recreation” and “fun.” I don’t viscerally understand what those words mean.
The wind was picking up, and my throat and lungs were burning in the cold air. Along with intermittent pain behind my knees, my shins were aching. Unfortunately, in talking to Amelia, I’d implied that I was a regular runner, so I needed to keep pace with her or risk appearing disingenuous.
We approached the Pier 4 Beach and the enormous residential complex up ahead.
“Do you have plans for the afternoon?” Amelia asked.
“Errands, laundry.”
Amelia put her hand on my shoulder while we were running. “Come back to the house with me. I bought a really good chicken soup at the market this morning.” She had an eager expression on her face.
The invitation to join Amelia at her house gave me a powerful surge of energy and strength. In a matter of seconds, the pain in my shins and knees disappeared. My legs felt strong, and I could move forward with freedom. Even my breathing turned effortless.
* * *
Back at the Straub house, Amelia showered and changed. She offered me a change of clothes, but I told her I was fine, even though all my things were damp and I would have loved a hot shower. I sensed that she didn’t really want to lend me anything—that she would have considered it an imposition.
Amelia made coffee and served Natalie and me chicken soup. The three of us sat at the kitchen counter, and Itzhak lay near Natalie’s feet. Fritz was in Boston for the weekend, celebrating his brother’s fiftieth birthday.
Natalie told us about her upcoming concert. Amelia listened for a few minutes, then checked her phone, sent a text, then checked her phone again.
“Delta,” she said, “I totally forgot that I have to drop by one of our sites in Lower Manhattan. Would you mind hanging here with Natalie while I’m gone? Only if it’s convenient, of course.”
Once I’d processed her words, I felt a dull aching sensation in my chest, similar to how I’d felt when she asked me to photograph the town house. Amelia had invited me to her house for this reason specifically. Maybe she’d gone running with me for this reason too. Perhaps she could have left Natalie alone for a couple of hours. Or she could have had Natalie join her. But it was so much simpler to invite me over as the family friend who had nothing better to do.
While Amelia was out and Natalie was practicing the cello, I let myself into the garden apartment, having observed that no one was home. I moved a stack of books from the bedroom to the living room, opened the closet doors, and left a small puddle in the bedroom. Before leaving, I studied the photographs on Gwen’s bedside table again. The picture of her in the Bahamas had probably been taken two years earlier, judging from the clothing the women were wearing and the quality of the photo. It was clear that Amelia and Fritz didn’t think much of Gwen’s personality. Yet, somehow, this woman had ten friends who wanted to spend their vacation with her in the Bahamas. What did she do to make them like her?
I returned to the main house before Natalie noticed I was gone. When Amelia came home in the late afternoon, I gathered my belongings. “Oh, don’t leave yet,” she said, her voice rising and falling in a lovely cadence. “I was hoping we’d have some time together.”
I felt flushed and warm with pleasure. She had the capacity to alter the chemistry of the air around her instantaneously, as if a drug was pumped into the room when she entered and I was breathing it in involuntarily. I found it almost impossible to go against her will.
She poured us each a cup of coffee, and we sat together at the dining table. She spoke softly, but intently. “The thing is … I thought that Fritz and I were on the same page about having a baby.”
The sound of Natalie playing a sonata on her cello drifted down the stairs.
I pressed the nails of my right hand into my left palm. “I understand how stressful it is,” I said. “I’d like to help you in any way I can.”
“You know, when a birth mother chooses us,” she said, “we can’t hesitate.”
I took a sip of coffee, choosing my words carefully. “I understand.”
“Adoption makes the most sense for us, but it’s taking so long. If it doesn’t happen soon, we’ll have to go out of state for a surrogate.” Amelia pushed her hair behind her ears.
I sipped my coffee again, mainly to distract from any telling signs of anxiety in my face or voice. “You’re considering surrogacy, then?”
“I’m considering everything.”
“What about a friend or a relative?”
“There isn’t anyone, not someone I could ask.” She pushed her hair behind her ears again.
I hesitated, looking for the right words.
“I’d do anything to help you, Amelia. You know that, right?”
“I know.” She smiled at me.
“You’re such an amazing mother to Natalie. If you want another child, you should be able to have another child. It shouldn’t be so hard.”
“Thank you, Delta.”
The sun was low in the sky, shining through the glass doors into the great room. I took another sip of my coffee. “It doesn’t seem fair. Pregnancy and childbirth were easy for me,” I said. “So easy.”
“You were lucky,” she said, then paused at the sound of quick footsteps coming down the stairs.
Natalie appeared with a piece of paper in her hand. “Mom, I need you to sign this form for my field trip.” Natalie lingered in the room after her mother had signed the paper. Amelia turned to sift through some mail on the kitch
en counter. My window of opportunity had closed.
* * *
I was scheduled to shoot a birthday party the following Saturday at noon on the Upper West Side. The clients had a five-year-old daughter, Hazel. From one phone conversation with Hazel’s mother, Brooke, I visualized her as a brunette with sun-damaged skin, an athletic build, and overdeveloped calf muscles. It was a game I often played with myself. After a phone conversation, I would create images in my head of the client and the family members. The majority of the time, my images would prove to be accurate.
The night before, I’d purposefully left my cardigan sweater at the Straubs’ house so that I would have a reason to go by there after Hazel’s party and spend a few minutes in their house. Five minutes in the Straubs’ home made a difference to me. The ache behind my sternum diminished quickly in their presence.
In freezing rain and sleet, I took a car from my apartment to the Upper West Side. Clients always covered my travel expenses, as I usually carried heavy equipment—a tripod and a ball head, external flash units, light stands, reflectors and diffusers, and my camera case with lenses, filters, and an exposure meter.
Hazel’s family greeted me at the door, including all four grandparents, Carmen and Sergio Fernandez, Sarah and Howard Cohen. I peeled off a couple of wet layers and entered the apartment, a classic six in a prewar doorman building. I identified Hazel’s mother—the sun exposure and the overdeveloped calf muscles. But I got the hair color wrong. She was a redhead.
The grandmothers gathered around me. “I need a picture with Hazel,” Sarah began, “for my next holiday card.” Holiday cards. The bread and butter for a family photographer. What used to be a thoughtful gesture, a considerate note and good tidings for the holiday season, had become a self-promotional opportunity—with less reach than social media, but more of a tactile punch. My clients sent out holiday cards because they wanted their friends and family to know that they had beautiful children and a lot of money. It was a message that came across easily in my photos, if that was desired. Success, in its various forms, was what I sold, so conveying it and bringing it into relief was effortless for me.
The Photographer Page 8