16. Friday #3
When the photo was done, she paused to whisper to Ren. “Kyle prefers the version where he is looking away moodily into the distance in profile, and he suggested I make it black and white.”
“My favorite,” Ren said, his voice thick with laughter.
Sarah went to find Elka, who was not shooting anywhere near Ren anymore.
The blond woman had wandered down the beach and was carefully dusting some rocks in the shallow water with side light; in the background of her shot, the Milky Way swept down towards the shore.
Sarah had a moment of worry: what if Elka had seen her and Ren together that night and viewed it as a betrayal? But she pressed ahead.
“Do you have a minute for a portrait?” Sarah asked.
Elka turned to her and sighed, nodding. “I used to be a model,” she said. “So it’s not as exciting for me. But you can take one.”
“By the water, maybe?” Sarah said, and they looked at the waves. Elka pointed to a spot where a wide, flat rock formed a little platform, and Sarah carefully checked it for wet spots before having Elka sit down.
“Ren turned me down,” Elka said quietly.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah replied.
“I used to be able to get any man I wanted. I have to make peace with getting older.”
“How old are you?” Sarah said.
Elka sighed. “Thirty-three.” Sarah didn’t laugh, but it was a near thing. She reminded herself how sophisticated she had felt at twenty-one and how burned out she thought she was at twenty-six. At forty, she felt the reverse: a constant surprise that she had nothing figured out yet.
“It’s okay,” Sarah said. “If you are feeling sad, then we will get a sad shot.”
Elka positioned herself on the rock and wrapped her arms around her knees. Sarah framed her so that the water was behind her and set up soft lights to give her definition from both sides.
“Look up,” Sarah suggested. She took Elka’s portrait. The woman’s lovely, sharply-boned face looked sad but hopeful. Sarah showed her the photo and Elka smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “Alone in the world.”
“Alone with the stars,” Sarah said.
Elka nodded. “Will you give me a copy? This one I like.”
Sarah walked along the beach to where Selassie was shooting a tidal pool while Rita held a light source for her. She watched them, feeling proud of how confident they had become in the few days that they’d been shooting. They no longer needed her help at all.
“Sarah!” Selassie called. “Don’t you think Rita needs a photo of her in the tide pool like a mermaid, too?”
“I already had my portrait taken. You just want me to freeze off my sensitive parts,” Rita replied.
“You know, Rita,” Sarah said, “you can do what you like. But I just had to listen to Elka talking about how she was no longer attractive at the ancient age of thirty-three, so if you want my opinion, I say you get in there naked and we do it right.”
“Yes!” her friend cried.
“It’s dark!” Rita said. “How am I crawling around there in the dark? And what if one of the men comes over?”
“It’s portrait photography,” Sarah said. “They can handle it.”
Rita stood there for a long moment, considering. “All right, fine,” she said, peeling off her jacket. “But no putting this on any of the group emails, okay?”
“I promise.”
Once Rita had stripped down entirely, Selassie and Sarah each took one of her hands and carefully helped her to wade into the pool of water in the middle of the rock.
“You’re going to keep your head and shoulders out of the water,” Sarah said, “and we are going to wait until the water is still and get a shot of you with the stars reflected on top of the water.”
“You are going to get a photo of me freezing my tits off,” Rita said with a shiver.
“Worth it!” Selassie replied, readying a flashlight to add some fill light. A pop flash wouldn’t work, Sarah knew. It would create too much glare on the water.
“Twenty seconds until I die of hypothermia,” Rita told them.
“Then we’ll get the shot in ten seconds.”
Rita leaned into the water, supporting herself on her elbows as she faced the camera. Behind her, the Milky Way sent the light of a billion stars towards them as a sparkling backdrop. Rita held still for long enough that the water settled for a moment, and Sarah took the shot.
“Wait,” Rita said. She flipped over so that her whole body was just emerging from the water, dripping and cold. She paused like that, looking up at the sky, and Sarah took the picture again.
“That’s it,” Selassie said. “That’s the one, gorgeous.”
“Good Lord!” came Jack’s voice as he walked past carrying his camera and tripod.
“It’s for art!” Selassie called back.
The sky had one last gift for them that night: a small meteor shower that sent a handful of falling stars, one every minute or two, dropping like jewels across the sky to the north. Sarah caught one in a thirty-second exposure, sweeping downward like a promise.
One by one the participants headed back to the hotel to sleep before their flights the next day. Kyle, of course, announced that he was pushing through. Sarah returned to the hotel room in the back of Rita’s car at two in the morning. Ren returned at dawn.