CHAPTER 4 #2
Awful timing. Perfect image.
Mae Lane, jacket whipping open, one hand white-knuckled on the banner, hair blown across her mouth, jaw set against the wind and the entire town. Not pretty. Better than pretty. True in a way that would have made Diane clap once and make it the opening slide for the rest of the month.
My hand went to the camera by reflex.
Mae saw it.
So did I.
The camera stayed where it was.
I grabbed the loose vinyl instead, braced my foot against the curb, and hauled the banner back before it could slap her in the face.
For a second, Mae just looked at me. Not at the camera. At me. Her expression went unguarded — half a second — before she closed it again. But I'd seen it. And it rearranged something in my chest.
Then she caught the grommet, threaded it, and pulled until the banner held.
"You didn't take it," she said.
"No."
"Why?"
Because for once, my hands had been more useful off the shutter. Because the camera was usually the thing I put between myself and everyone else, and I had just left it hanging there while Mae looked straight at me.
"You needed the banner," I said.
Her fingers flexed once against the pole, then curled against the side seam of her jacket, like she was annoyed at her own hand for remembering.
"That wasn't the question," she said.
"It's the answer I've got."
She held my gaze for one beat too long, then looked away first.
I raised the camera only after the banner was secured and shot the street, the vendor unloading, the bunting in the crosswalk — fast, wide, no people in tight focus.
A companion image that said town, not two specific people at dawn.
Safe. Useful. Boring, if I was honest, but boring was the assignment.
"That'll work," I said, reviewing the screen. "Street-level. Active. No sunrise chemistry."
"Show me."
I turned the camera. She leaned in to see the screen — same instinct as the market — and caught herself.
Stopped an inch short. One hand tightened around her coffee cup.
The cardboard gave a small, betraying sound under her fingers before she looked at the image from a distance that was technically adequate and personally ridiculous.
"Use that one," she said, pointing to the widest shot. "Send it to Diane. I'll approve the caption by ten thirty if she changes 'face and the lens' to 'campaign team.'"
"She won't."
"I know. But I want the counteroffer on record."
"For when this becomes a problem?"
She looked at me. Full stop. The morning had warmed, the light gone white, and she stood in it without performance. Just Mae in a jacket with a campaign that had started using her faster than she could manage it.
"The proof deck goes out at noon," she said. "By tonight, the committee has us as the first argument. By tomorrow, Maple Falls can call the whole bid a photo op. And I'll spend the next two weeks proving Laurel Creek has an actual plan."
"I can stay out of the way."
"You can't. You're named now. Diane made you part of the argument. Staying out would require you to not exist, and that's — " She stopped.
I waited.
"Inconvenient," she finished.
A different word than the one she'd started with. Main Street kept moving around us and politely pretended not to care.
My phone buzzed. Diane.
Caption revised: "Market coordinator Mae Lane and campaign photographer Theo Hart — Laurel Creek at first light." Final. Releases due by 11. Proof deck locked at noon. You're both on the field-visit roster for Thursday's committee walkthrough. Non-negotiable.
I showed Mae the screen.
She read it twice. The second time slower.
"Thursday," she said. "Field visit. Both of us."
"Non-negotiable."
"She scheduled us into the campaign together."
"She scheduled us." I heard it as soon as I said it. Too simple. Too close to the problem. "And she's making us useful."
Mae took her coffee, finally, and drank. The cup had gone cold sometime during the banner. She drank it anyway.
"Send the companion shots," she said. "Approve the caption. Sign the release." Each sentence shorter than the last. Then her gaze moved to the banner, still snapping in the wind, and back to me. "And Theo — Thursday, you bring the camera. But if Thursday gets messy, you do what you did just now."
"Skip the better shot?"
"Stand close enough to be useful before you decide what looks useful."
That should not have hit as hard as it did. I felt it in my hands first. Then my throat. Then the part of my chest where her pulse had been five minutes ago.
"Mae."
She looked at me then. Not at the camera. "I mean it. You don't stand back and make it look good."
"What do I do?"
"You stand with me."
She walked toward the town office. Campaign lead. Straight back. Cold coffee.
The folded label stayed in her pocket.
I signed the release on my phone, sent the companion shots to Diane, and started north.
My name appeared beside hers on the confirmation screen. Clean font. Official spacing. No room for argument. My hand closed around the phone — the same hand she'd held against the pole — still carrying the ghost of her pulse.
The banner caught the wind behind me.
SMALL TOWN, BIG STORY.
Thursday had both our names on it now.