“All right. Before we go any further….” She paused. She really couldn’t take it any longer. “Put on the damn drape. You’re not here to seduce me.”
The girl’s lower lip jutted out. “So? He’s going to take the photographs.”
“I’m going to take the photographs,” Roz said. “I’m the photographer. He’s just the front and the money man.”
How she hated calling him that. He really was the money-slipping-through-the-fingers-like-water man.
“Oh,” the girl said and backed away from the edge of the stage. She picked up the sheer drape and wrapped it around herself, then shivered. “It doesn’t cover up much.”
“It’s not supposed to. There’s a robe behind the curtain over there.” Roz gestured toward the curtain at the side of the stage.
The girl followed her direction, grabbed the robe, and slipped it on. “How come it’s so cold in here?”
“It makes better art,” Roz said sarcastically.
The girl sat on the edge of the stage and tucked her feet under herself.
“Here’s the deal,” Roz said. “For the next two hours, we will take as many photographs of you as possible.”
“I thought you were only doing a few portraits.”
“There are different kinds of photography,” Roz said, not willing to go into too much detail.
The last thing the girl needed to know was that she had treated a ream of paper with salt and silver nitrate so that they could reprint the Talbotypes as many times as they liked—or to put it more accurately—as many times as they could afford to do.
“This is an artistic session,” Roz said. “I’ll put you in different poses and take as many portraits as possible. You will get half the portraits—” Technically, she would get half of the number that Roz told her were portraits, which in the past had been less than a fourth—“and a quarter of the daguerreotypes—” actually, only about one sixteenth because artistic daguerreotypes brought a large sum from soldiers heading out to the frontier. “I hope that’s acceptable.”
The girl was picking at her robe. Roz wasn’t even sure she was listening.
“In exchange for that, we will keep the rest and sell them to cover our expenses.”
“Sell them to whom?” the girl asked.
The “whom” threw Roz. She hadn’t expected good grammar from a girl who wanted to pose nude.
“Anyone we please,” Roz said. She wasn’t going to negotiate with this girl. It would be Roz’s way or no way at all.
The girl smiled. “All right.”
Roz felt a shimmer of unease. She had been right; this girl was planning something.
“What if I tell you I only want one portrait and you can keep the daguerreotypes?”
“I would tell you not to change the deal,” Roz said.
“Hell, hon, let her change the deal if she wants.” Jack was coming through the curtains, the second box of plates in his arms.
“No,” Roz said.
“I made my initial agreement with him,” the girl said, not looking at Roz. She was smiling at Jack instead. Jack, the bastard, was smiling back.
“Fine,” Roz said, uncertain whether she was more irritated at the girl or at her husband. “He can take your portraits then.”
“Roz.” Jack set the plates down hard. They clanked together and Roz prayed that none of them were broken.
“All right,” the girl said. “I’d rather be photographed by a real photographer anyway.”
“Doll.” Jack took a step toward the girl. “If you want a real photographer—”
“Then Jack’s your man.” Roz smiled sweetly at him. “You remember how to work the camera, don’t you, dear? The one you’re used to is the one in the middle. Don’t touch the two on the sides. The process is different for those. And the one near me is a camera obscura. It is nothing like anything you’ve ever used before.”
“Can’t you control her?” the girl snapped at Jack. She looked so fierce that Jack took a step backwards.
“Um.” Apparently Jack didn’t have a good lie ready. “No, doll.”
“Pity.” The girl pulled her robe tighter. “Well, I’m here, I’m naked, and the price is right. Let’s do this thing.”
Roz didn’t move. “Why do you want your photograph taken like this?”
The girl stood, shook her head like a horse about to run free, and let the robe fall away from her shoulders. “I appreciate art,” she said.
***
The session took two hours. The girl was a natural. She even managed to get the drape to hang as if the wind were blowing around her—and she sustained that pose for a good five minutes.
Roz went through every one of her plates.
Jack, whose attention wandered mid-way through, took care of the three customers who came to the main studio. His voice would filter in, and Roz felt a stab of envy. She didn’t want to be alone with this girl. She would rather be taking sedate portraits of matrons who believed it was time to step in front of yet another infernal machine.
Roz had asked him to put out the closed sign, but of course he hadn’t. Jack had a penchant for risks, particularly unnecessary ones. They made his heart beat faster. Risks also excited other parts of him, which Roz didn’t mind.
She almost wished the girl had held his attention, instead of being such a flinty manipulative little shrew. The girl had questioned each one of Roz’s orders, but performed with a smile whenever Jack spoke to her.
Jack tired of this first and left. Roz had to endure it for the entire session.
“Get dressed,” Roz said.
“Are we done?” The girl seemed almost disappointed.
Roz nodded. “If I wait much longer, some of this work will be lost. I have to process these plates quickly. They can’t sit.”
“I thought they’ve come up with a new process, one that allows the plates to be shipped without being developed.” The girl had grabbed the robe.
Roz frowned. The feeling that she was being used rose again. Most people knew nothing about the current state of photography. The dry plate system intrigued her, but she hadn’t seen it yet.
“The process has made its way to New York City,” Roz said. “It won’t come to these parts for months, maybe years.”
And she didn’t even want to discuss the cost. The new process would require a new camera, new and different plates, and time to learn how to use them. All things she did not have.
The girl slipped off the stage, leaving her clothes behind. She held the robe closed with one hand. “I don’t suppose you have a chamber pot down here.”
The only chamber pot in the entire building was upstairs, in Roz and Jack’s bedroom. She wasn’t going to let that little minx in there.
“You’ll have to go out back,” Roz said. “I suggest you put on your clothes first.”
“There isn’t time,” the girl said and slipped through the curtains.
Roz cursed under her breath. From now on, she was going to pick the subjects for the art photography. Jack might claim he had a better eye—and he probably did for the female form—but Roz could spot a fellow con artist a lot quicker than Jack could.
She set the last plate in the box, wondering how long it would take before she had to rescue her husband from the girl’s unwanted attention. Maybe she would let Jack get himself out of it. After all, he had found the girl attractive at first.
But not in the end. In the end, he had been as disgusted with the girl as a man could be.
Roz took pity on him. He was no match for that girl, and Roz didn’t to spend the remainder of the afternoon in the theater.
She was reaching for the curtain, when a female voice cried out, “What is the meaning of this?”
That voice did not belong to the girl. Roz parted the curtain ever so slightly, careful not to let the ripple make itself noticed inside the studio.
A stout, middle-aged woman in black bombazine was standing on the woolen rug. She had both hands on her ample hips and
she was staring at Jack.
Roz stared at Jack too, and suppressed a grin. He looked terrified.
But the girl on his lap—the naked girl on his lap—arched her back, shoving those glorious breasts in his face. Only she wasn’t looking at him. She was smiling at the woman.
“Hello, Mama,” the girl said. “Care to join us?”
“Emmeline!” the woman in black bombazine said, unwittingly giving Roz information she didn’t want. “Put on some clothing.”
“But Mama,” Emmeline said in a voice that purred. “I can’t have fun with my clothing on.”
The woman’s face turned red, then purple. Roz had seen people have apoplexy before. Some had even died of it. She resisted the urge to race out from behind the curtain and calm everyone down.
“Ma’am.” Jack sounded panicked. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“That’s right, Mama,” Emmeline said. “We only just got started.”
“No!” Jack started to stand.
Emmeline rolled sideways, and Jack reached for her, but if he grabbed her, his hands would have landed on those massive breasts. He must have realized that because he jerked back as if he had been burned. Somehow Emmeline managed to catch herself and remain on his lap all at the same time.
“Ma’am,” he said, trying desperately not to touch Emmeline, “I’m a happily married man. Right, Roz?”
Roz didn’t answer. She couldn’t rescue him this time. They’d lose a lot of money in plates and equipment if she did. He would have to come up with something on his own.
The girl on his lap stroked Jack’s chin.
“Roz?” Jack looked toward the curtains.
Roz cursed under her breath.
“His wife doesn’t seem to mind sharing,” Emmeline said.
Roz cursed again. The girl was even more manipulative than Roz had originally thought.
The woman in black bombazine had turned an alarming shade of puce. She started forward. She had an umbrella in her right hand. Roz hadn’t seen it before because it had been hidden behind the wide and unfashionably hoop skirt. The woman was brandishing the umbrella as a weapon.
“Roz?” Jack’s voice trailed off. He seemed to realize that she wasn’t coming to his aid.
He glanced around the room. Emmeline snuggled closer to him and that seemed to decide him.
Jack stood.
This time Emmeline fell to the floor, banging her elbow against the wood and letting out a string of epithets that made Roz blush.
“Ma’am,” Jack said, holding up his hands to ward off any umbrella blows. “Your daughter made advances to me, just a moment ago. You see, initially, she had come in here to have her portrait taken.”
“You make innocent girls take off their clothing for portraits?” The woman brandished the umbrella over her head. But Emmeline froze. Roz stared at the girl. Something was changing here.
“Um, no,” Jack said, and to Roz’s surprise, he was blushing. She had never seen him con anyone with a blush. She was the one who could do that. Jack’s blush had to be real.
Or maybe it was simple panic. She’d never seen him panic while standing still before. Usually his full-blown panics happened on the run.
“Actually, ma’am,” Jack was saying, “she came in here asking me to take an artistic portrait.”
The woman paused, holding her umbrella over her head like a scythe. “An artistic portrait?”
“Yes, ma’am. You know. The kind that French portraitists paint.”
“Naked portraits? You create naked portraits?”
“For married women only, ma’am. Often they take such portraits for their husbands to enjoy. In private.” Jack was finally getting into the spirit of this.
Roz glanced over her shoulder at the plates. She was running out of time. She had fifty wet plates of a naked manipulative girl drying in a box behind her, wet plates that had to be developed soon or they’d be ruined forever. Thank heavens Jack had already taken another box-load of them into the development room to start the process.
“What kind of man would take naked photographs of his wife?” the woman asked.
Every man who could get away with it, Roz thought. As if that old biddy didn’t know.
“Soldiers, generally, ma’am. Men who are heading out on the frontier. They need something to remember home by so…so…” Jack was casting about for a reason. His gaze darted toward the curtain. He still wanted Roz to rescue him. “So that he won’t go astray.”
Roz rolled her eyes, but the woman eased her umbrella down. She looked at Emmeline, who was now cringing on the floor. Roz had no idea why the truth—or the partial truth—would cause Emmeline to be frightened, but there it was.
“Is this true?” the woman asked Emmeline.
Emmeline grabbed the robe, then held it in front of her. Jack could still get a good look at her backside, although he wasn’t even trying. That proved to Roz that he found the girl unappealing.
“Well?” the woman asked.
Emmeline swallowed. “I thought maybe this time Father would notice me.”
Roz gasped. Jack looked stunned. The woman swooped down and grabbed Emmeline by the arm. Instead of finishing the sentence, the girl let out a loud yell as her mother pulled her upright.
“I have had enough of you,” the woman said in a low tone. “You will get your clothing and get dressed. I will take care of you at home. As for you, young man—”
And as she turned to Jack, her voice rose. She still hadn’t let go of her daughter’s arm.
“—you will take me to your so-called art portraits and we shall destroy them. Together.”
Jack’s mouth dropped open. This time, he looked directly at Roz who slipped even farther behind the curtain. Her fists were clenched. All that money, gone.
“Um, ma’am,” Jack said, his voice trembling. “I’m out time and money—”
“I will pay your expenses plus a handsome sum more so long as you never refer to this incident again.”
Roz leaned toward the crack in the curtain. A handsome sum more?
“How much is handsome?” Jack asked.
“Five hundred dollars. In gold.”
Roz clasped her hands together. They were rich!
“Over my expenses.”
“Yes,” The woman sounded angry. Roz prayed Jack wouldn’t anger the woman further. He had a talent for ruining a good thing.
“All right.” Jack almost—almost—smiled. He caught himself just in time. Roz started to step away from the curtain so that he could bring the woman into the theater, but he didn’t. Instead, he went into the development room.
The man was smarter than she gave him credit for.
Roz sprinted back toward the cameras. She took the drape and tossed it over the box of wet plates (please let them last a few moments longer!), and then grabbed Emmeline’s clothes. They were made of silk. Roz should have noticed that before, but she’d been concentrating on the girl’s face—on that look of triumph and manipulation.
Roz hurried out of the curtains, then caught them with her free hand so that they wouldn’t wave and draw attention to themselves. Emmeline was still sitting in the middle of the floor, clutching her robe. She looked like she was about to burst into tears.
Roz tossed her clothes at her. Emmeline opened her mouth and Roz put a finger over her own lips. Then she ran to the main door, opened it, and slammed it as if she had just come in.
“What’s this?” she asked as loudly as she could.
“Um, n-n-nothing.” Apparently, Emmeline didn’t have to pretend to sound frightened.
“I come home to find a naked woman in my studio,” Roz said, and then caught herself. All of her nouns and pronouns were wrong. Home was upstairs and as far as the city was concerned the studio belonged to Jack.
“Mrs. Donnelly, I’m really sorry,” Emmeline said.
“Get dressed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The sound of breaking glass stopped both of them f
rom play-acting. Anger shot through Roz. She’d spent two hours getting those portraits. The old biddy had no right to destroy them.
Emmeline bit her lower lip. Roz took a step closer to her and whispered, “Don’t say anything about that theater.”
Emmeline’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really.”
To Roz’s surprise, Emmeline hugged her. “Thank you.”
“Thank—?”
The door to the developing room opened and Emmeline dropped out of the hug as if it had never been. She grabbed her clothes and was halfway into her shift before her mother came out of the room.
The scent of chemicals followed her, and the anger threaded through Roz again. Who was this woman that she felt she could just destroy anything that got in her way?
“You are this man’s wife?” the woman asked in that preemptory tone.
Roz wanted to retort with You’re this creature’s mother? but somehow didn’t think it appropriate.
“Yes,” she said.
“Do you know that he takes nudie photographs in this studio?”
Roz faked a blush. She felt the heat rush through her face and she whirled on Jack who was standing directly behind the old biddy and grinning.
“You what?!?” Roz made herself sound as indignant as possible.
“Honey bunch,” Jack said in his best fake hen-pecked husband voice. “It was an accident…”
He continued to make up his false excuses as Roz walked toward him. Emmeline’s mother grabbed her daughter, flung the dress over Emmeline’s head, and then dragged her from the studio. Emmeline’s shoes and stockings were on the ground where Roz had dropped them.
“…so I hope you’ll forgive me, darling,” Jack said with the biggest grin Roz had ever seen. He held out both hands. They were filled with gold coins.
Roz bent over to touch them. She had dreamed of holding wealth like this, but the dream had never come true.
The door opened back up and Emmeline walked in. Her dress was on backwards and her face was tear-streaked. Her mother stood in the doorway.
“You promised,” she mouthed to Roz, then she bent down, grabbed her shoes and stockings and hurried out of the studio.
Geek Romance: Stories of Love Amidst the Oddballs Page 10
