13. Tuesday #3
Sarah took a remote sense of satisfaction from the fact that people were talking about Ren’s love life so casually; it meant that none of them suspected how much it hurt her to hear about it.
It meant that she had everyone fooled. She pressed her head back against the wooden booth, her eyes on the row of lights that hung from the ceiling.
The light fixtures had the familiar glossy green lampshades that she always associated with cheap beer and bored waitresses, each one sending a jaundiced circle of light onto the table below.
The thought came to her that she was good at hiding her feelings because she’d been dealing with her mother for her entire life.
She had mastered the ‘everything’s fine, don’t worry about me’ performance early, probably when she started university and needed to reassure her mother almost daily by phone.
She could do it so well that people could stab her in the heart and she wouldn’t flinch.
“So,” she said lightly, “what is everyone doing during the rainy day tomorrow? I think Ren wanted to fit some extra classroom time in, but we can work around your schedule if anyone has plans.”
Sarah was still awake and working on her laptop when Ren made it back to their hotel room a couple of hours later. She slid up in bed, flipping on the light. She could see that the shoulders of his coat were dark.
“You got soaked,” Sarah said, her voice husky. She closed her computer.
“A little,” Ren said. “We had to call it a night.”
“I worried Kyle would insist on ‘pushing through.’”
“Oh, he tried,” Ren said wearily. It still felt strangely intimate to be sharing a room like this with him, watching him peel off his coat and slide off his shoes.
“Get anything good?” she asked.
He took his digital camera out of his bag and walked over to her bed to hand it to her before he continued unpacking gear.
She flipped through some images. It looked like he, Kyle, and Elka had driven to a lighthouse and shot it in the fog, capturing the long beams of light disappearing into the fingering mists of rainfall.
“Damn it, Ren. These are gorgeous.”
He nodded. “Lighthouses are great in fog.”
“Which I guess is the whole point of lighthouses.”
He smiled as he sat down on her bed next to her, taking the camera and advancing it back a few more shots.
“See that violet there?” he told her. “On the horizon? That was when it cleared up for a few minutes. I think we’d be getting an aurora if it was clear. The Northern Lights are more common in winter, but subtle versions can happen in summer, too. These clouds are frustrating.”
She nodded, and he gave her a soft look that was hard to read.
“Your curls are out,” he said after a moment.
“It’s the humidity,” she said.
He nodded. “They’re cute paired with those pajamas.”
She stared at him. His hair was damp from the rain. She had an impulse to drag him into bed with her. Not a helpful thought. She watched him take a slow breath and release it. Did he want to kiss her, too? Was that what was happening? Her breath grew shallow as his gaze searched her face.
“I need to ask you something,” he said quietly. “It’s one reason I invited you on this trip.”
She couldn’t breathe at all.
“I used to date this woman named Freya. She lived in Europe but she would fly out to come help with my workshops. I recently broke up with her, and I was wondering if you might be interested in the position. As my assistant. I run about seven of these workshops a year, and I could pay you about ten thousand dollars each. Some would be less, some more, depending on the length. I would cover airfare and hotel as well, of course. I’m not saying it would earn you a great living, but if you wanted to go back to full-time photography, it would give you a chance to do it.
And I think this week has gone really great so far. ”
Her heart ached. Some stupid, childish part of her had wanted him to tell her he loved her, desired her, even if it wasn’t in the same, all-consuming way that he had once loved Freya or his wife.
But it was just as well that he hadn’t. Her head had been drifting into the clouds, and now she felt like she was firmly back in the real world.
“That’s a really kind offer,” she said, looking away from him so he couldn’t read her expression. “Can I think about it?”
“Of course.” He got up off the bed. “Absolutely. There’s no pressure at all. I was hoping maybe this could be a trial run to see if you liked it.”
“I do like it,” Sarah said. “I have to think whether I can commit to that.”
“Sure. Take your time.”
She watched as he walked around the room, slipping his camera batteries back into a bank of chargers set up by the wall, putting an SD card into a reader attached to his laptop, then heading into the bathroom to shower.
When he was out of sight, she lay back and considered what he was offering her.
If she became his assistant, she wouldn’t get rich, but it was enough money that she could quit her job.
It would give her the time to do the My Divorce series she was thinking about.
It would give her a creative life back. And the only cost would be that she would pine for Ren, just a little, for a few weeks a year.
Who was she kidding? She would pine for Ren all the time.
She took a long deep breath and slid deeper into the covers.
She thought of Selassie’s words: The way he looks at you… I think he’s in love with you.
He must look at everyone like that.