Page 28 of Deliverance

“They’re foldable.” Drew grabs another board and follows me. “Just open it up and it’ll stand on its own.”

We’re interrupted by the godawful sound of a frog croaking and I pause, my fingers still grasping the foam edges.

“Sorry,” Kristof says in a sing-song voice, indicating that he’s not sorry at all.

“It’s his phone,” Drew clarifies.

“Scared the shit out of me, man,” I tell the guy.

He giggles, an expression of satisfaction settling on his face. “You looked like you were going to jump out the window.

“I was thinking about it.”

A laugh bursts out of Drew as she unfolds her board and arranges one side of it parallel to the wall. “Can you grab the ladder, Zander?”

The way my name rolls off her tongue causes a pleasant chill to race up my spine. Apparently, Kristof is right; she doesn’t like to be bossed around, but she does enjoy bossing other people, and I have absolutely nothing against it.

We spend the next thirty minutes covering up the windows with curtains to block out all the sunlight. Eventually, when Drew is happy with the results, Kristof and his stool finally move into the box. Next, she hangs some small string lights above his head and arranges two LED tubes on either side of him.

I watch her take a step back to evaluate the fruits of our labor. She hugs her waist and stands still for a few minutes, then orders the kid to move toward the back panel. He obeys.

The space is dark and moody and Marilyn Manson is still crooning away his old songs.

“Okay, let’s try this,” Drew mutters to herself and spins around to study her camera and a set of lenses laid out on the table. The equipment occupies her thoughts for a long while. In the meantime, I’m back on the couch, awaiting further instructions, but what’s about to happen probably doesn’t require my assistance, so I simply wait and let myself relish these stretching minutes.

Kristof is the first one to point out that lunch is taking forever and that snaps Drew out of her daze. She stops messing with the camera and retreats behind the divider to make another call.

“They’re short-staffed, but they promised the food will be here soon,” she announces once she hangs up.

“I don’t know how I feel about this.” Kristof sighs but doesn’t leave the stool, and I’m honestly admiring his stoicism. I’ve done a shitload of photoshoots and I clearly remember that I was a complaining ass during most of them. The four of us were, actually. And not once were we asked to have our naked bottoms stuck to a wooden stool for hours on end.

The kid has my respect.

Drew opens her laptop and connects it to the camera via a long USB cable, then turns to me and asks, “Can you keep an eye on this?” She motions at the device. “I get carried away sometimes when I do these types of projects.”

“Sure.” I don’t ask what kind of projects exactly since I’m witnessing one right now. Instead, I scoot toward the opposite side of the couch to be closer to the table in case I need to rescue her laptop from falling to a premature death.

Drew dims all the lights in the studio and we’re left only with the tiny bulbs hanging above Kristof and two tubes inside the box. There’s a portable flash mounted on her camera and it goes off every time she takes a shot.

From the way her hands jerk right before the shutter closes, I gather that she’s working with long exposure. At some point, I take the liberty of moving toward the table to get a better view of what exactly the two of them are trying to create.

Her computer screen is riddled with aqua and yellow light streaks of different shapes and density. Somewhere among those streaks is Kristof’s silver face and he looks nothing like the silly kid who’s got a frog sound set as his ringtone.

He looks fucking fierce.

Drew does get carried away, and naturally, we all lose track of time.

It’s the phone call from the delivery person that drags us back to reality. He’s downstairs with our lunch, waiting to get buzzed in.

“Finally!” Kristof claps his hands and slides from the stool as Drew turns the overheads on and sets her camera on the table. Sweat beads her forehead and a few locks of hair stick to her neck, yet somehow, the sight of her disheveled state only strengthens the emotions swirling in my gut. She’s relentless in capturing her vision and this ferocity is like an aphrodisiac. A very powerful one. And I know a thing or two about that. Whenever I’m playing, the world doesn’t exist. There’s just me and the music. The rhythm owns my body and mind completely and nothing else matters during those moments.

Just like nothing, including her appearance, matters to Drew while she’s chasing the high of forging her art.

“Hang tight.” She looks at Kristof, who’s now stretching, then her gaze bounces to me.

“I’ll grab the food,” I tell her, trying to make myself useful.

“Let me give you some cash for the tip.” She pats her pockets and unlocks both doors.

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