Page 42 of The Calendar of New Beginnings
A smile lifted his face for a moment. “Me too.”
Her mind sized up the subject before her like she was taking a photo. Andy was sitting on her over-the-top bed and gazing at her with a familiarity she’d rarely experienced in her travels. This…this was a moment she wanted to capture. “I’d like to try and take a picture of you. Right as you are now. Is that okay?”
Her palms broke out in a sweat when he studied her for a long moment before nodding. Pushing off the bed, she retrieved her smart phone from her purse in the parlor. When she returned, he was sitting up as stiff as an over-starchedpuppet.
“You’ve tensed up,” she chided, trying to calm her own nerves. “Lean back on your elbow like you were before.”
He let out a tortured sigh. “I’m no good at this, Luce.”
Her hands were shaking as she brought up the camera function and positioned the frame on him.“Please.I need to try to take pictures when I have the urge. Even though I’m scared I can’t capture what I see anymore.”
Leaning back on his elbow again, he watched her with compassion. She took a few steps to the right and the left, judging the angle and the light, closing her right eye. Her weird vision pissed her off, and the phone still felt unfamiliar in her hands. She missed the feel of her Leica.
“I want you to think about me,” she told him, determined to proceed. “How you and I have weathered a lot of years and a lot of miles together to stay friends.”
Even though he was still embarrassed, a reluctant smile crossed his face. “That we have.”
“And I want you to think about how you play your part every day by being the best dad in the world to Danny, a son to your mom, and a brother to your siblings.” She started taking photos, missing the feel of her finger pressing the shutter. With the Leica, she had all the precision of a sniper taking a shot. The touch screen wasn’t the same.
“Andy,” she said softly. “Think about Kim and how you were the best husband she could ever have imagined.”
His face contorted, but he didn’t shift out of his pose. His eyes flickered down, but she knew she’d captured the depth of his love. The depth of his loss. She lowered her phone to her side.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her diaphragm tight.
His chest rose on a tortured breath. “You don’t pull any punches as a photographer.”
“A great picture doesn’t just capture a moment in time,it captures emotion. You have a lot of emotion inside you, Andy Hale.”
Although he rolled his eyes, he made no move to get off the bed. “Well… Are you going to show them to me or what?”
“Huh?” she asked.
“The pictures you took? I want to see them.”
Her hand curled around the phone. “They’re not… It’s only a camera phone. I don’t… Shit. I don’t want to show them to you.” Truth be told, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see the flaws in her work.
He patted the bed beside him this time. “Come over here, Lucy Lu. We’ll struggle through them together.”
He was right. Where was her courage? She prided herself on doing things no one else would. Besides, how was she going to improve if she wasn’t willing to study the flaws in her work? She hopped up beside him on the bed and opened the photo album in the phone’s directory.
She clicked on the first photo of him. He made an agonized sound in his throat.
“Delete,” he begged.
A reluctant laugh emerged. “You look cross-eyed. Must be thinking about our friendship. Besides, the composition is all wrong. And the light…terrible.”
“The composition?” he asked dryly. “My name is Andy.”
“No, silly,” she said, pointing to the next photo. “The composition is?—”
“Lucy, I know what composition means,” he informed her, nudging her in the shoulder. “I was trying to get you to lighten up. You’re all tense.”
“I’m allowed.”
They clicked through the rest of the photos,and her insides shriveled at the poor quality. Sure, she’d managed to capture some heartfelt emotion, but the photos didn’t have the clarity or crispness she was used to with her Leica.
“These are really great, Lucy,” he said softly when they reached the end. “Do I really look like that when people mention Kim to me?”
