12. Monday #2
“No, not this time,” Ren agreed with a frown.
The woman seemed happy with the news as she placed herself near him at the table.
Had Ren slept with this woman? Sarah decided that there had certainly been flirtation, at least on Elka’s side. And now Ren appeared to be single again. Perhaps this woman would make her move.
As Ren began his opening talk, Sarah watched him and considered for the first time that Ren’s good looks could pose a challenge in workshops like this.
If people were interested in him romantically, they could sign up to spend five nights with him under the stars, flirting with him constantly, handing him hotel room keys that were only a few doors away.
She noticed that Ren carefully wasn’t looking at Elka, but that could mean anything.
Putting aside her reserve of adolescent jealousy, Sarah realized that perhaps having a female assistant could be a strategy for keeping interested clients at arm’s length.
Maybe it would even be useful for Ren if the participants thought Ren and Sarah were dating, especially if this blond woman was persistent and Ren wasn’t interested.
After a moment’s reflection, she realized she wouldn’t mind pretending they were dating, if that would help him.
Sarah had been harassed occasionally at work and knew how unpleasant it could be.
“Everyone,” Ren began once everyone had introduced themselves, “this is Sarah Drakenberg. She is a brilliant photographer who is going to be assisting me on this week’s shoot. She’s based in Toronto, but I talked her into helping out with this one.”
Sarah smiled. “Happy to be here.”
Elka shot Sarah an intense look that confirmed Sarah’s suspicions.
Ren began giving the practical logistics of the workshop first: where they would go, what would happen if it got too rainy on Tuesday or Wednesday, when they would probably have their overnight shoot, options for fun activities and shooting locations during the day for those who were interested (and for those who could manage to stay awake.) Ren explained the daily plan: they would meet each day an hour or two after lunch to review photos from the night before and to have a lecture on shooting and processing techniques.
The shooting portion of the workshop would begin around sunset and run until midnight (for those who wanted to go to bed ‘early’) and until sunrise for anyone interested in shooting all night. Kyle gave a knowing smile to Ren.
“Signing up for the dawn crew,” Kyle said confidently.
“I expected no less,” Ren replied with a smile.
The presentation paused as Ren let everyone leave who already knew the basics of shooting at night.
As Sarah had anticipated, most of the men left, including Kyle.
That left behind one of the Silicon Valley-type men, Jack, the married couple, the pair of women who might also be a couple, and Elka, who walked up to Ren and smiled.
“I think I know the basics,” she said in a low murmur. “But let me know if you want me to stick around.”
“You’re already an expert,” Ren said with a polite smile. “You’ll find this boring.”
“I doubt that, but I’ll see you at dinner,” Elka replied. She put a hand on his arm and squeezed it before heading out. Sarah carefully felt nothing about the exchange.
She found that she enjoyed Ren’s introductory night photography lesson.
It was a useful review for her after their discussion the previous day, but it was also an opportunity to observe Ren in his new incarnation as a teacher.
She had known him best when he was young and restless, with a tendency to bounce off the walls and switch topics.
To see him being so organized and articulate was new.
She also got a general sense of which people were likely to need the most help once they went out shooting.
The married couple, Binita and Tanjul Dangol, had a number of targeted questions but seemed to understand photography in general, while the two middle-aged women, Rita and Selassie, needed introductory concepts like focal length and f-stop explained to them.
Jack, a corporate executive near Sarah’s age, was by turns confused and irritated, like he was annoyed that this wasn’t instantly easy for him.
He had a very expensive camera but seemed unsure of how to navigate its menus, which meant he would need a lot of personal attention, Sarah suspected.
She also suspected that, like many prickly and easily frustrated men, he would prefer the help from Ren and not from her.
She could see how one teacher would not have been enough—not if these people were paying thousands of dollars to learn how to take great photographs of the stars.
“And one huge request,” Ren concluded, “I beg of you. No using your camera flash. It never, ever looks good.”
“Rarely,” Sarah said, and he jokingly glared at her. “It’s a tool like any other tool,” she added.
“Don’t listen to Sarah,” he said with a smile. “She’s a bad influence.”
At the end of the lecture, Sarah helped Ren pack up the gear before they walked into their hotel room together.
As soon as they were alone with the door shut, she turned to him.
“Hey,” she said quietly. “Your previous assistant was someone you dated?”
He grimaced. “Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wasn’t sure it was relevant.” They were right in the doorway again, near to each other. Would she have to flash back to that kiss every time they stood like this? Apparently so.
“Well,” Sarah began, “if you need me to pretend to date you to make your life easier, just let me know.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“I’m not trying to come up with some crazy fake dating scheme,” she said in a rush. “I just thought that if someone was hitting on you, and you didn’t want them to…you and I are already staying in the same hotel room. It wouldn’t be a huge stretch to say we were together.”
“A huge stretch?” he repeated, as if unsure of her meaning.
“I just know how hard it can be when a client is interested. If it would help you to pretend we were dating…”
“Oh. Right.” He blinked. “You mean Elka?”
“I just thought… You know what, never mind. Maybe you want to hook up with her and I’m misreading the whole situation.”
“No.” He grimaced. “No. I um…no. I appreciate it, but I don’t need you to do that. Elka is…I can handle her. If something comes up, I’ll figure it out.”
“You got it. No pretending that we’re madly in love.”
Ren gave her a strange, artificial smile, and Sarah felt oddly hurt by his flat response. It shouldn’t feel like a rejection, but it did.
“Anyway…” she began. “We should get to dinner.”
“Actually, that reminds me. At dinner, I usually sit at a different table than my assistant so we can answer more questions. It’s for practical reasons, as well.
A table of twelve always takes forever to get service and finish a meal, and we need to get outside for shooting, so I always make reservations for two tables of six. ”
“Right.” He was telling her that she was not supposed to sit with him, which was fine, of course. “Whatever you need.”
“Okay.” He looked at her for a long moment and then turned to put away his laptop.
When they entered the dining room, Elka waved to Ren. “Ren! I’ve saved you a spot.” She was already at a table with four people: Jack, the Dangols, and Kyle. Ren gave Sarah a questioning look.
“Go ahead,” Sarah said. “I’ll see you later.”
Ren nodded, then walked to the seat next to Elka.
The blond woman shot Sarah a triumphant glance, and Sarah tried to mentally shake off the weirdness of the whole dynamic.
She took a seat at the other table next to Rita and Selassie, who were bubbling over with excitement about the shoot.
Both women were pretty, brown-skinned, and in their early fifties, but with very different builds: Rita was short, curvy, and freckled, and her black curly hair sparkled with bright red highlights.
Selassie was tall and fit, with wide brown eyes and her dark hair tucked into a practical bun.
Despite their mismatched heights, they had perfectly matched energies—sociable, voluble, and quick to laugh—and Sarah found herself charmed by them even though she suspected she would spend most of the week helping them figure out their cameras.
The rest of the table consisted of a man in his early fifties named Fred who wore a nice dinner jacket and turned out to be a politician from Ottawa, a blond American in his thirties named Cole who explained that he had sold a tech company the year before and was currently starting a new one, and a retired man named Grisha with close-cropped silver hair who sounded Russian but explained that he had made his money in crypto and currently lived in Greece.
After they had placed their orders, Fred gave her a thoughtful look.
“So you wouldn’t happen to be the Sarah Drakenberg from the ‘Babies’ series, would you?”
She was frozen in a brief moment of panic. “Yes, that was me.”
“We have one of your photos with our daughter Haley,” the man added. “Fred Corbeau. I never met you, but you may remember my wife Ella.”
She only distantly remembered the name. “Of course. How is Haley doing these days?”
“She’s great. She’s eight now. She’s our youngest and the older ones are jealous of that photo and wish we’d done all three of them. So are you still shooting babies these days?”
Sarah forced a smile. “No, I’ve been busy with a divorce series,” she joked.
“Ah,” he said, catching her tone. “And what does that consist of?”
“Lots of burned out trucks in the middle of fields.”
He laughed as Grisha raised his eyebrows. “Baby photos? What is this?”
“It was something I did for a few years in Toronto,” Sarah explained. She had taken down her website, but she pulled out her phone and Googled her own photo series and handed the phone to Grisha, not looking closely at the images.