Chapter 26
Paul is quieter than usual tonight, thumbing through my pictures. Probably disappointed by my light and dark interiors, my mundane objects and lifeless scenes. I watch him pause at certain ones and wonder what they are. I stand there, fidgeting like a schoolgirl—like one of his fangirls.
Finally, he looks up.
“These are wonderful, Judith. And unexpected.” He hands them back to me, which sinks my rising spirits, but then he looks the way he always does after seeing my photographs: bright-eyed and alive.
“I expected to see more self-portraits—in mirrors, in a toaster oven, that sort of thing?” I think of the stunning photograph I failed to take in the bathroom mirror and freeze.
How can I explain why I spent the day inside, surrounded by reflective surfaces, without taking a single self-portrait?
But Paul was commenting more than questioning. I’m relieved when he goes on.
“But I didn’t actually miss them. I mean, I did miss them, I love your self-portraits, but…
it’s astonishing to me how much emotion you convey in all of your photographs, even these, of objects and interiors.
I can still feel them, you know? Feel the weight of the house and the life of these things, and your life inside all of it.
It’s really something.” He’s staring off into the dim classroom as he speaks.
Even though he’s speaking about my life, he doesn’t need me here, I realize; he’s communing so deeply with my pictures that I could be…
a desk, or the fine point of his sharpened pencil, or nothing at all.
“Thank you, Paul,” I say, louder than usual, trying to remind him that I’m here, that I exist. “I-I purposely avoided taking self-portraits. I think I might rely on them too much.”
“No, no way. You’ve got much more to explore there.
And you will—there’s plenty of time for more of those.
But these interiors turned out beautifully.
More for the portfolio. They show your range,” he says significantly.
But he doesn’t say the rest, which both relieves and frustrates me.
I want him to say it now—maybe I would say yes.
Just for the hell of it, just to prove that I can, and to see the pleasure it would bring him.
“I do think you should go back to the city, though,” he continues, a bit brusquely.
“I really noticed a leap in your skills when you went, and I think it would push you further, in a way staying home and staying local simply cannot.” I let the silence stretch and distend between us, with Paul waiting for me to promise I’ll go there right away, go tomorrow—like I did the last time he suggested this.
“I’ve been so busy,” I lie, speaking at last. “I’ve had to stay close to home.”
“I see,” is all he says, and I can sense him studying me, studying my face and the way my hands clench together at my waist, smothering the truth between them.