Chapter 9 #2
She smiles to herself. “I used to think I was Ansel Adams or something, and I’d have all these Polaroids of brown grass or somebody’s shrub, but then I ran out of the film cartridges, and more were too hard to find, so then I started asking for disposable cameras for my birthdays and Christmases.
They were cheap enough, but I’d go through one in like an hour, and my dad would get so annoyed with me because I was always asking him to take another one to CVS to get the prints made.
Eventually, they bought me a digital camera for my fourteenth birthday, and once I went to high school, I met Mrs. Chambers.
She was the art teacher, and even though it wasn’t a big program, she helped me a lot.
Pushed me to try things, made me sign up to work on the school newspaper and yearbook, so I could practice taking photos.
She was always giving me tips she saw online, sending me notices for classes or things, but… ”
“But what?” I urge when Jo trails off. She’d been so animated talking about her past, I immediately miss it.
“But Mrs. Chambers really helped me, that’s all. She was the closest thing I had to a mentor, I guess. Someone in my corner.”
I’m in your corner, I don’t say.
Instead, I ask, “What happened?”
She briefly bites at her lip before explaining, “My family isn’t poor, but we aren’t well-off either, and without any scholarships or anything, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to pay off school, so Mrs. Chambers convinced me to go to community college.
She basically held my hand through the whole process.
I wasn’t a bad student, but I wasn’t naturally academic, and whenever I needed help or a confidence boost, I could email her, and she was there for me. ”
I’m glad Jo had Mrs. Chambers to support her, but it’s so obvious what’s missing in this story—her family. Where was her family in all of this?
“So, I worked in a day care after I earned my certificate while I practiced my photography. Then I started getting hired to take photos for all the local schools and some weddings—”
“School photos? Like portraits?” When she nods, I glance around her apartment. “Do you have any of your work I can look at? A portfolio or something?”
Her brows knit together. “You want to see it?”
“Of course.”
She stands to reach for a plastic bin under her bed and sets it on my lap. It’s filled with all kinds of prints as well as photo albums. Then she tells me, “I have my digital work online, on my website and social media.”
I huff. “You have a website? Social media? Why didn’t I know this?”
“Why would you know?”
“Because we’re going to get married.”
That earns me a sound of amusement, and I dig into her work.
Clearly, some of them are from when she was a kid, the old Polaroids and blurry 4x6s.
There are indeed pictures of “nature” like weeds in the sun or a piece of trash on the ground among random blades of grass.
But then there are ones that she must have taken as she grew older, ones with a new, more mature perspective.
I don’t know anything about photography, but I can appreciate how she started being able to see something in her subjects, in the shadows and light, in the stories she told.
After I’m done with those, I ask her for her social media handle and promptly follow the Instagram page that is only photos of nature or things in her daily life.
Her website has a much wider portfolio, with information on how to contact her for sessions that might include anything from weddings and birthdays to baptisms and graduation photos.
“You ever do animal photos?” I ask, finally putting my phone away after I’ve seen every possible picture.
“Animal photos?”
“Yeah, like portraits of animals.”
“Oh.” She purses her lips. “I haven’t, but I guess I could.”
“I have a cat and I think it would be really funny if you did a photo session for us. I could send out prints like people do Christmas cards. Oh! Wait.” I snap my fingers with an idea.
“You know how they used to do those backgrounds for school photos. I remember Sheffy had, like, lasers and stuff in all his school pictures. I never got school pictures, but his parents had them everywhere in their house. I want that…of me and Gus.”
“You and your cat with the neon line background?”
I nod solemnly. “Yes.”
She tosses her head back and laughs. Hard. Her teeth out with the cute gap, her throat exposed, hair hanging halfway down her back.
I love it.
I want to make her laugh more, make her smile so big that she forgets to hide.
When she finally rights herself, she still can’t bite back her grin, and I stand to tuck a few strands of her dark hair behind her ear. “You’re beautiful when you smile. You should do it more often.”
But it was the wrong thing to say because she immediately shuts down, pulling away from me.
“Jo—”
“I can do that. I can do a photo session for you and your cat.”
I try on a flirtatious smile. “You’re going to fall in love when you see my boy.”
She stares at me placidly. A practiced emotionless mask. “I’m sure.”
I open my mouth to apologize, but she crosses to the door, stopping my words. “Thanks for taking me out tonight. I had fun.”
And I suppose that’s all I can hope for. I don’t dare touch her or mention how I’d like to take her out again, how I’d like to take her out tomorrow night. And the night after that. And every free night I have.
Instead, I jut my chin at her then step into the hall. “Night, Jojo.”