I squeezed Jo’s hand, and we drove through the rain to my house.
Seven
We got to my house a little before five. The lite, evening rain had stopped, and as soon as I opened the front door I could smell the wonderful smell of my favorite dish in the world: Shepherd’s Pie. Louis Armstrong was tapping out the gravely notes of ‘Star Dust’ in the kitchen.
“Mom?” I hollered.
“I’m in the kitchen. I wasn’t expecting you for another twenty minutes.”
“I’ve got Jo with me.”
My mother walked out into the hall wiping her hands on a tea towel. Her blonde hair was pulled back and her feet were bare with pearl-pink painted toenails. “Welcome Jo,” she said taking Jo’s hand. “Do you prefer Jo or Jolene?”
“Jo’s fine Ms. Douglas.”
“Dawn. Please call me Dawn.”
“Okay, Dawn.”
“Alex, she’s prettier than you said she was.”
This made Jo and I both blush and turn away.
My mother just laughed at that. “Well come on in then,” and we followed her into the kitchen.
My mother was a great multitasker, much better than I ever was, and cooking for her was a chorus in motion. The ground beef sizzled in one pan and beans sizzled in another. Potatoes boiled in a pot and a loaf of fresh bread rose in the little bread machine I had bought her for Christmas.
“Why don’t you kids help yourselves to something to drink. There should be some cold sodas in the fridge.”
“Is Pepsi okay?” I asked Jo.
“Great,” she said bobbing her head.
“So, tell me about yourself Jo, do you have any siblings? What are your parents like?” my mother asked fishing two or three beans out of the pan, blowing on them and taking a taste.
“Well, I have an older sister, Susan, who’s a year older than I am, my dad teaches philosophy and my mom works at a nursing home three-days-a-week.”
“Married?”
“Yeah, they’ve been married now for...twenty-two years I think?”
Sitting on the kitchen counter was a padded yellow envelope with my name printed across the front. I tore it open and let the contents fall into my hand. It was my brand-new passport. Finally. I had been waiting for it for nearly three months.
“And are you from around here? I think Alex mentioned you live in Aurora?” Mom asked poking the potatoes with a fork and wrapping a tea towel around the handle of the pot to pour the steaming water into the colander sitting in the sink.
“Yeah. I’ve lived in Aurora my whole life.”
“Aurora’s beautiful. Alex has probably told you that I own the Thimbles & Lace there in old Aurora.”
“Yeah, he took me by there one night when we went to Blue Moon for coffee.”
“Alex, you should have brought her by when I was open,” my mother scolded looking over her shoulder. “Come by sometime when I’m open Jo and I’ll let you pick something out,” she continued with a smile and turned back to dump the potatoes into a glass bowl. The golden, fluffy lumps piled like wet dough.
“He also said you are a photographer too. You just had a show downtown didn’t you? I heard it went well,” my mother said looking at Jo as she went to the fridge for cream and butter.
“Yeah,” Jo replied shyly turning away.
My mother caught this and told me later that it was that single gesture that made her like Jo. She always said that women have a way of seeing things in each other that us guys just miss. I don’t know anything about that other than I trusted her and it meant a lot to me that mom liked her.
“Oh, shoot,” my mom said kneeling down in front of the open refrigerator door. “It looks like I’m out of cream. Alex, I need you to run as quickly as you can down to the store and get me a carton of whipping cream.” She walked over to her purse sitting on the kitchen counter and pulling out a five. “Jo, do you need anything while he’s out?”
“No,” she said smiling. Jo told me later that she appreciated being treated like an adult dinner guest. Some of her parents’ friends had a way of talking down to her since she looked slightly younger than she was.
Seven-Eleven was just down the street and thankfully they had a pint of whipping cream so I was only gone for about ten minutes.
Now, I don’t know exactly why I took my camera with me just to go to the corner store for some cream. I guess it was just instinctive, but I’m glad I did.
When I got back to the house, I saw mom and Jo, through the kitchen window, laughing over an album of me in my younger years. I lifted my camera and clicked off a frame.
The three of us ate our Shepherd’s Pie and laughed together for probably three hours.
After dinner my mother showed Jo around the house, and they talked a little bit about how my mother started selling jewelry.
“Can I show her my room?” I asked.
My mother turned down her nose at this. “You know the rule.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know. I just want to give her a chance to see it.”
“Alright, but leave the door open.”
I rolled my eyes again as I took Jo’s hand and we went upstairs.
My room looked like what most teenage boy’s rooms probably look like if you add a passion for photography and a desire to travel. Maps hanging on the walls. Shelves full off photography material. An Ansel Adams here and there.
“Wow, you really do want to travel,” Jo said leaning forward to look more closely at the antique looking map of Europe I had pinned to a corkboard with little pins marking of all the places I wanted to visit.
“Yeah, a big part of me wants to be a war correspondent, but another part of me doesn’t want to get shot, so I think I’ll try Europe first.”
Then she sat down on the bed.
“So, this is your bed huh?” she asked with a flirty little tilt of the head.
My ears perked back. “Yeah.”
She ran her hand over the top cover.
“You should close your eyes.”
“Why?”
She looked out the open door then back at me and whispered. “Cause I want to do something naughty.”
I swallowed. Then I closed my eyes.
I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting, but she definitely had my attention.
I could hear rustling.
“Okay, you can open them,” she whispered.
When I did I saw her holding a pair of lace, white panties. She pulled back the top blanket, laid them out flat on the bed and put the cover back. Then she turned, as though nothing had happened, and went back downstairs.
I didn’t know how to respond.
“Thank you for dinner Dawn, but I should probably be heading home,” I heard Jo say downstairs, so I went down and gave her a ride home.
“What was that all about?” I asked as we approached her street.
“What?”
“What do you mean what?” I asked looking over at her.
She bit her lip.
She just looked at me. Then we both burst out laughing.
Eight
It was Sunday afternoon. It had been raining all morning leaving everything coated in a layer of vibrant wetness.
Jo had been studying the work of Howard Schatz for several weeks now and decided it was time to conscript me and her friend Amy to go with her up past Evergreen to a pond in the woods that she and Susan played in years earlier when their parents had brought them up into the area camping.
Amy was usually willing to get doused in powder, climb a tree or wade through cold streams for the sake of art. She had an interesting look because she was so waifish with her pale skin and pale grey eyes, and the only thing that she wanted in payment was a large, cherry slushy from Seven-Eleven. So, we made our way up into the forest, drinking our slushies and turning our teeth red, looking for the spot where Jo wanted to photograph. Once we found it I pulled over, and Jo got out and put on a wet suit that she had brought with her. She had also bought a waterproof came
ra case that looked like an industrial-strength zip-lock bag that smelled of fresh rubber. I watched with interest to see how it worked as Jo unzipped the top, slid her camera in, zipped the top shut and rolled the top over on itself, sealing the camera in.
“Have you tested that case?” I asked her, nervous of dunking a camera in water.
“Yeah, I put the TV remote in it and put it in the bathtub. It seemed to work just fine.”
SEEMED to work just fine? Well, not my camera, thank you very much. I thought to myself as I watched her.
Once we had all of our gear together we walked out into the trees until we came upon a mythic looking specimen with a single large branch stretching out over a pond. From the end of its branch hung a thick rope, browning from age and algae, with a large knot at the end.
“Up until we were about ten, Susan and I loved stripping down to our underwear and swinging out into the pond. This place has such great memories for me,” Jo said setting her stuff down beside the water.
I stood at the water’s edge and looked in. It was surprisingly clear with a layer of leaves covering the forest floor beneath it.
“What do you want me to do?” Amy asked.
Jo lifted a red, antique dress out of the box. “Put this on.”
Without hesitation, Amy began to unzip her jeans. I turned around to give her some privacy. When I heard the edge of the water rustle I turned back around.
Then Jo and Amy walked out into the water.
“Alex, can you hand me the snorkel in the box?” she asked.
I dug around, found the blue, plastic snorkel, walked to the water’s edge and handed it out to her. She reached for it, put it in her mouth and continued into the water.
Amy swam out in front of her then turned over on her back so that her red dress and hair floated out into the water around her. I lifted my camera and took a photograph.
Jo disappeared under the water so that I could only see the tip of her blue snorkel.
Then she poked her head out of the water.
“Amy, why don’t you try going all the way under so I can see how it looks,” Jo said holding the snorkel to the side, then she put it back in her mouth and disappeared again. Amy took a deep breath and ducked below the pond surface.
I stood on the bank watching an elbow breach the surface here and a foot breach the surface there, listening to some birds in the trees above laugh at the funny-looking fish trying to swim in the pond beneath them.
A golden praying mantis crawled down the tree next to me with careful precision and stopped and looked at me. I raised my camera to my eye and leaned close. I turned the focus ring on my camera as the mantis reached out with its barbed arm and touched my lens. Click.
Then Jo stood up out of the water, and Amy came up for air.
“I’m not sure this is going to work.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because we kicked up so much dirt and leaves climbing in that I can barely see.”
A drop of water fell onto my lens.
I held out my hand.
Two drops. Three drops more.
“It’s starting to rain,” I told her.
“Amy, why don’t you come to the edge of the water and I’ll see how it looks over here.”
Amy lifted herself out of the water and walked to the edge of the pond.
“I’m going to go get back in the car,” I said putting my camera underneath my shirt as the rain began falling more heavily. Jo didn’t say anything; she just focused on Amy and kept taking photographs.
I got back to the car just as the rain became heavy.
As I waited, my memory wandered back to a time when I was a little boy standing, looking up at my mother while she sat just under the awning on our back porch, sipping a cup of something hot and reading a collection of poems by Sylvia Plath. She was wearing a white dress, and her bare feet were propped up on a small wooden table stretched out into the falling water. I can’t remember how old I was, just that it was funny that she was intentionally letting her feet get wet.
“What are you doing?” I asked her. “Why are you letting your feet get wet?”
She turned and smiled and reached over to me, wrapped her arm around me and pulled me close to her. “There’s nothing wrong with getting a little wet. It feels so nice. Why don’t you try it?”
I pulled a chair next to her. I untied my shoes and pulled off my socks. Then I wiped the white fuzzies off my toes, rolled up my pant legs and with toes splayed stretched my feet out into the rain. She was right. The rain was not cold but gently cool as it kissed my skin a thousands times over.
As I thought about this memory, I rolled down my window and let the rain fall onto my hand and puddle in my palm.
Nearly half-an-hour later Jo and Amy appeared out of the forest, muddy and soaking wet; both as happy as could be.
Nine
Working on the school yearbook was probably my first real step to becoming a serious photographer. I was running around, covering everything from chess club matches to football games to shooting portraits of the homecoming king and queen, which taught me two important things. The first was how to think on my feet. In a day I could easily go from shooting something outside, in the sun, to taking pictures in the cafeteria, and I didn’t have time to dink around with my camera. I had to know what kind of shooting situation I was going into and adjust for it quickly. Remember, I didn’t have a digital camera at the time to show me on an LCD screen what kind of shots I was getting. The second thing I learned was how to comfortably approach and photograph people. This would later prove to be critical in my photography career.
Jo and I had been dating for a few months now and we were together as often as we could be. I went with her to gallery showings now and again, and she went with me when I had to shoot a sports piece or something off campus.
That year Aurora West was doing pretty well in baseball and we were on our way to the state championship, so I was tasked with covering the games as often as I could, which was about twice a week. It was the beginning of May and we were playing one of the semi-finals at home. I asked Jo to go with me, and she was happy to.
It was a beautiful evening. A clear sky and enough warmth to let you know summer was on its way. I could smell the hot dogs already cooking somewhere inside the stadium, and I watched a little boy chase his sister around their dad with a purple gun that shot a stream of bubbles.
Since I was photographing the game, Jo and I got in for free and my pass gave me access to the player’s dugout, which was a big deal to me at the time. Jo didn’t care at all for sports so she brought a book with her and the journal that always rode around with her in her purse, probably to doodle down whatever inspiration struck her for her photos.
I had been studying up on sports photography for several weeks because of my regularity at the games, and I was eager to try out some new techniques. So, as the players played, I moved around and captured some interesting moments. One shot was of our team lounging around in the dugout during the first three innings, when we were a few runs behind, and another was of the coach and the players all huddled together as he tried to lift their spirits with a pep-talk. Then Patty O’neil stepped up to the plate.
Now, Patty O’neil was about as Irish as you could get and proud of it. He was also strong, one of the strongest kids on the team, and just about every time he swung at the ball he would swing at it like he was trying to kill the thing.
For about an hour I photographed the batters from a safe spot on the side of the field, where I could see their faces, but I was getting bored, so I decided to get a little creative. I changed my position to where I was directly behind the batter, up in the stands just far enough to see over the shoulder of the umpire.
Patty swung.
Strike One. Strike Two.
Nothing.
This looked like it was going to be just as great as the last nine players at bat. Patty stepped away.
He stretched his arms and swung the b
at a few times freely through the air.
I looked up and saw Jo watching me with a simple smile from where I had been shooting previously. The book she was reading lay open in her lap. I winked at her and she looked away in a playful way then back at me.
Patty’s father sat just to my right, cheering his son in with whistles and claps. Argh, my stomach is starting to hurt. I’m ready for lunch.
Patty stepped back to the plate.
I lined up my shot, and as soon as he started to swing I pulled the shutter release. Crack! Patty’s bat splintered like tinder and fell to the ground as the ball flew across the infield, outfield and the back fence like it was on its way to Rome. I stood to my feet and mashed the shutter release.
The player on third crossed home. Click.
The player on second crossed home. Click click.
The player on first crossed home. Click click click.
I counted off each frame as Patty gleefully trotted his way across third, then I stopped. I got the shot of the swing–at least I think I did, but did I still have two or three frames for Patty crossing home? Shit! What if I shot through my whole role and miscounted? God PLEASE let me have just two more frames!
I took a deep breath, lined up the shot, set my focus and clicked a frame just as Patty stepped on home. Oh thank God. But was that my last or did I have one more? Again I waited and watched intently through the lens.
Patty walked back to the dugout as all of his teammates ran out to great him. Hugs. High fives. Patty turned with a smile so big you think he discovered Ireland himself. Click.
I looked at the back of my camera and the numbers went yellow. That was the end of the roll. I had just barely made it, but made it I had. “YES!” I screamed, jumping in the air. Of course, my scream was drowned out by the cheers of everyone else in the stands who were already on their feet cheering for Patty Irish.
If I Lose Her Page 4
