She shut her eyes and opened them again, hoping against hope that she would not see the creamy white walls of Marco and Lena’s guest room but instead the palm fronds of a Honduran beach hut. She listened for a moment at the sounds coming through the slightly open window, wanting to hear a call to prayer from a minaret in Istanbul or the monotonous cry of a Moroccan fishmonger in Agadir, anything but the steady wash of waves against the cliffs and the lonely cry of gulls circling the water.
The truth was that she would rather be anywhere but here. How could she face today and tomorrow and every day after that, each of them hollowed out by a loss so fundamental she couldn’t quite comprehend it? She had to approach the reality of Marco’s death from the corners, with a snatch of memory, a tiny flash of recollection. She recalled the catch in Lena’s voice on the telephone as she said those two words that changed the world—“He’s gone.” The image of Marco’s leather jacket hanging on the hook in the mudroom, his empty loafers sitting beneath it—even those tiny slices of memory took her breath away.
Maggie rolled out of bed with a groan and hoisted her suitcase onto the quilt, rummaging for her toiletries. She could hear voices rising from the kitchen below. Everyone must be up.
In the cheery bathroom down the hall, under a stream of hot water, she lathered and rinsed, breathing in the steam and the green-tea scent of Lena’s favorite guest soap, shaving her legs, mechanically performing the minor pleasures she had come to fully appreciate in her years of travel. When she was on assignment, hot water was often a luxury she did without. She was used to taking precise, minimal showers from a bucket of cold water or bathing with a bandanna and a basin. Sometimes, in arid places, water itself was so scarce her only option was to wipe herself down with a moistened bandanna to cool her skin for a moment and erase a little of the grime at the end of a sun-scorched day.
She’d learned to tolerate a fine coating of dust in her hair and a trickle of salty-white sweat dried between her breasts and behind her knees. It was part of the job. But when she had the opportunity, she relished a good hot shower and all the suds she could possibly make. Today, though, she was too preoccupied to enjoy them.
Her head was pounding, probably a combination of her long travel days and grief. She leaned against the cold tile of the shower and tried to center herself. “I’m here on the island. I’m here on the island,” she repeated over and over, a mantra to secure her in time and space. Sometimes she felt so disconnected from her surroundings that she thought she might just float away and find herself in another place entirely. Brussels for instance, or Benin. Occasionally, in a neutral environment like a hotel room or airport lounge, she couldn’t recall where she was. Her mind would go blank, and she would be completely unable to name the country or continent where she was standing. It was a strange sensation, floating for a few seconds in a geographical void, struggling to orient herself until some small detail clicked into place and she was once more in a budget hotel in Mexico City or in the KLM lounge in Amsterdam.
When she traveled, she dreamed of being here on the island more than any other place. Not her utilitarian apartment in Chicago with its unused musty smell, the hollow click of her shoes on the wood floors, the perpetually empty refrigerator, but here with Marco and Lena and the kids. The rest of the year she would often drift to sleep replaying their summer days together—the barbecues and game nights; picnics at Lime Kiln Point, the top whale-watching spot on the island; making homemade ice cream; sitting by a dying bonfire, watching stars wink to life.
She had always felt the pull of the island, the allure of the family who embraced her and knew her so well. But lately that pull had become even stronger. In the past few months, she had begun to notice the thrill of travel was wearing a bit thin. What would have stirred her blood a year ago had begun to seem more like repetition, familiar in a way that felt perilously close to boring. She had always laughingly insisted that the day she settled down was the day she’d die, but recently she had felt the lead-edged pull of fatigue as she disembarked from yet another international flight, laid her head on another lumpy pillow, listened to the babble of crowds speaking a language she didn’t understand.
She had a new ache in her bones that she couldn’t identify. She found herself sniffing apple pie–scented candles in a Heathrow Airport gift shop, ordering fried chicken and a butterscotch milkshake at an American-themed restaurant in Beijing. She tried to shake it off, muster her energy, convince herself the world was still a vast and undiscovered territory waiting for her camera lens. But she kept dreaming of her mother’s voice, softly singing the words to a long-forgotten lullaby in Spanish. She woke up more than once with those words crowding onto the tip of her tongue.
She’d told no one, not even Lena and Marco, certainly not anyone at work. She was rising fast in her career. Everything she’d worked for—what she had yearned for in those long-ago nights on Chicago’s southwest side, listening to the strident voices of the neighbors arguing and the boom of car stereos cranked high outside on the street—it was all within her reach. Now was not the time to turn back.
So she steeled herself, ignoring the pull of her heart toward something she couldn’t quite name. “It’s just a slump,” she repeated again and again, forcing herself to order samosas and chicken satay, choking down the words to the lullaby that floated up in her throat at the most inopportune times. “I just need a little rest,” she reassured herself, secretly wishing August could come sooner rather than later.
But now that she was here again, she wished she could turn back time, be somewhere other than this, before she learned about Marco, when she could still think of the island as a place of safety and continuity. Everything felt different now, strange and unfamiliar, as though it were another place entirely. It rattled her. Without Marco, this place no longer felt like home.
Maggie shook her head, confused and uneasy, wiping a froth of shampoo from her cheek. If this no longer felt like home, what did? She had nowhere else to go.
She squeezed her eyes shut under the spray of hot water, trying to steel herself once again for the day ahead, forcing herself to be strong. Lena needed her. The kids needed her. She couldn’t go to pieces now. With a sigh, she turned off the water and prepared to face reality.
Clean and dressed, Maggie padded down the stairs and paused at the kitchen door. Ellen was standing at the stove in Lena’s cherry-print apron, making pancakes. The kitchen smelled like maple syrup, and Maggie’s stomach growled. Luca and Gabby hovered at Ellen’s elbows, peering at the griddle on the stove top. Jonah sat at the table with a stack of pancakes on a plate in front of him. Lena was nowhere to be seen.
“Ooh, that one looks like a bunny. I want it!” Gabby pointed to a pancake cooking on the griddle.
“Mine doesn’t look like a triceratops,” Luca said, peering at the pancakes doubtfully.
“It looks like a fairy!” Gabby giggled.
Luca frowned, disappointed. “But I wanted horns.”
“Well,” Ellen said, “let’s just put a bit of batter right here, and . . . Look at that. It’s a ferocious triceratops.”
“Morning,” Maggie said, rounding the counter into the kitchen.
Ellen glanced up from the griddle and gave her a warm smile. “Good morning, Maggie. Sleep well?” Luca and Gabby looked up, curious for a moment, then returned their attention to the pancakes.
Maggie yawned. “Like a rock. Mind if I make some coffee?”
“Goodness no. Can you operate that thing?” Ellen motioned with the spatula toward the gleaming stainless steel espresso maker looming over one corner of the counter.
Maggie nodded. “Sure. It’s not as hard as it looks.”
Ellen raised her eyebrows. “Well, it looks like you could fly it to the moon, all those knobs and levers. I’m afraid to touch it.”
Maggie crossed to the machine and touched one of the sleek knobs. It was a top-of-the-line Italian espresso maker made in Milan. It had been Marco’s splurge one Christ
mas. He had an identical one at their house in New York. He’d taught her how to use it when she came to the island the following summer. It was Marco who’d started Maggie’s love affair with espresso, and she’d never gotten over her taste for the strong, tiny cups of coffee. It was the perfect way to start a morning.
“If you can operate that contraption, do you mind making me a cup too?” Ellen asked, expertly flipping a pancake.
“Sure.” Maggie hunted in the cupboard for the coffee beans Marco ordered direct from a specialty store in Little Italy in the Bronx. In the space of a few minutes, she made two double-shot espressos and offered one to Ellen. “Oh, just leave it right there on the counter. I’m going to add a whole lot of milk. Ernie says I like my milk with just a drop of coffee.” Ellen chuckled and turned another pancake.
Jonah sat at the table alone, fidgeting with his silverware. Maggie slid into a chair beside him. “Hey, good morning.”
He didn’t look at her and didn’t respond.
“How are the pancakes?” she asked before taking a sip of her espresso.
He shrugged. His hair was sticking up, still tousled from sleep. He looked like a lost little boy, even though his attitude seemed more like a teenager, drawn in on himself and generally unresponsive. Maggie turned her attention to her coffee, giving him some space. He’d just lost his father, after all.
“Aunt Maggie, what shape pancake do you want?” Gabby asked, coming to the table to take Maggie’s order. “You get to pick one.”
“Hmm.” Maggie pretended to think for a moment. “I want one shaped like a pancake.”
Puzzled for a second, Gabby gave her a look of consternation. “But it is a pancake,” she protested. “You have to pick a real shape.”
“Okay then. A cloud.”
A scant five minutes later, Maggie was staring down at a stack of pancakes so light and fluffy they’d put a nimbus to shame. She slathered them with butter and real maple syrup, then took a bite, savoring it. When was the last time she’d had pancakes this good? It had been the previous August, in her first week on the island. They’d all gone blackberry picking one afternoon and lugged home fifteen pounds of them. Her remaining days had been drenched in blackberries—blackberry jam, scones, pound cake, homemade ice cream, and pancakes with blackberry sauce spiked with just a hint of vanilla. It had been a step away from paradise. Those few weeks were the last time she saw Marco. She pictured his face peering around a blackberry thicket, laughing through his dark, clipped beard at her fumbled attempts to keep up with Lena, a speed picker.
“Never race a pianist,” he advised, nodding to Lena, who was intent on her task. “They’ve got lightning hands. You and me, we’ve just sketched a wall or pushed the shutter, and she’s already played Schubert or Bach.” He winked. “We don’t stand a chance.”
Recalling the moment, Maggie tried to swallow around the lump in her throat, but the bite of pancake wouldn’t budge. She sat there for a long moment, eyes burning, and finally managed to get it down. When she looked up, Jonah was staring at her. She managed a weak smile. He didn’t smile in return.
“Light as a cloud,” she commented. Without a word, Jonah pushed out his chair and left the table. When she looked at his plate, she saw he’d cut his stack of pancakes into perfect squares but hadn’t taken a bite.
When Maggie checked her cell phone after breakfast, she saw she had a new voice mail. Probably Alistair. Maggie knew Sanne had informed the office of the situation, but her boss liked to be kept in the loop. She owed him a call to personally explain why she’d left the coffee-plantation shoot early. She had taken enough shots to satisfy the magazine’s requirements. Not as many as she might have preferred, but the photos she’d taken were good enough. The series wouldn’t be one of her best, but it would still be good quality. Alistair would not be too disappointed.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Maggie called to Ellen, letting herself out the mudroom door and rounding the house, heading for the shore. The day was warming up, the sun sparkling on the dark surface of the water. She walked along a dirt-and-gravel path running along the bluff, past the steps leading down to the half circle of private rocky beach on the Firellis’ property, then through a stand of tall, shadowed firs, and into the overgrown field beside the house. A bald eagle eyed her from a tall, dead tree as she passed underneath, and she gave him a salute. The tree was a favorite perch for eagles, and one was often stationed there, keeping an eye on the world below.
The San Juan Islands had the greatest concentration of bald eagles in the lower forty-eight states, Lena had told her once. Lena was a fount of information about the flora and fauna of the islands. When they were out with the children, she was forever pointing out a black oystercatcher on the shoreline or an osprey in flight or naming obscure tiny plants they found in the open prairie habitat farther inland.
Maggie stopped at a little outcropping of black rock overlooking the Strait and took out her cell phone, glancing at the display screen. Good. She had reception.
Maggie was part of Chicago Photography Incorporated, an agency whose mundane name belied the fact that it comprised some of the top photographers in the country. The agency was the brainchild of Alistair Finney, the man who brought them all together and kept them all together.
Alistair had been, in his heyday in the eighties, one of the top glamour and high-fashion photographers in the world. He regularly jetted off to Milan, Paris, and Rome. Celebrities and presidents wanted him to photograph them in their homes and with their families. Supermodels and designers demanded he oversee their shoots. And then, after almost fifteen years of stress and a bleeding ulcer, Alistair announced he was retiring to start and manage a photography agency comprised of the best and the brightest in the industry. He relocated to Chicago, bought a renovated brick townhouse in Lincoln Park with his partner of a decade, Alan, and then rented a high-end office space in the Loop and began tapping every source and contact for exceptional talent.
Within a few years CPI was a leading light in the photography field, known for cutting-edge photography and a standard of excellence few others could rival. Although the agency was composed of mostly veteran photographers with years of experience and an impressive array of credentials, Alistair had a fondness for finding diamonds in the rough and polishing them until they shone. He enjoyed the challenge. It was a hobby of sorts for him. That’s how he’d found Maggie.
On her twenty-third birthday, Maggie had run into Alistair at a photo exhibit on the aftermath of war. A friend of hers had contributed a photo and invited her to the posh downtown Chicago loft for the show’s private opening. As she was standing before a shot of the bombed-out shell of an office building in Baghdad, Alistair came up behind her.
“Dull, dull, dull,” he pronounced in the smoothest of British accents, sipping a dirty vodka martini with three olives impaled on a toothpick. “I’m all for peace; don’t get me wrong. I’m a pacifist, but do we really think another melodramatic shot of ruined architecture is going to stop a war?”
Maggie turned, surprised to find him addressing her. She knew who he was. Not someone to be taken lightly. Someone to impress.
“Alistair Finney.” He offered his hand and she shook it.
“Magdalena Henry,” she said, a little dazed, trying to think of something clever to say.
“Oh, I know who you are,” he told her, sipping his martini. “I don’t talk to strangers, you know.” He studied her. “I’ve been told you’re someone I should keep my eye on.”
Maggie said nothing. He nodded sharply, as though coming to some sort of internal agreement with himself. “One o’clock Monday. Bring something nice to my office so I can see what talent you’ve got. And don’t eat lunch; we’re having sushi.”
And that was that. Over salmon sashimi and yellowtail nigari, they discussed her last project, a series that followed a first-generation Mexican immigrant family as they prepared for and celebrated their eldest daughter’s quinceañera in Chicago.
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Alistair fanned out the shots she’d brought with her, studying them thoughtfully. “These are excellent.” He sounded almost surprised. “Lovely technique and composition, but it’s more than that.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “You have layers of story. Anyone can take a photo of a birthday party, but you’re not just telling us about a birthday party, are you? You’re telling us a story about displaced people, about how they use celebration to hold on to their cultural roots.”
He examined one photo more closely, musing to himself. “Hmm, interesting. I get the feeling that you’re just a half step away, a pretty little voyeur looking through the front window. You’re just a little removed.”
Alistair stepped back from the table and pursed his lips, considering the photos and then her. “Well, my dear, you’ll go as far as you want to, but you will need a helping hand. Who are you currently an intern with?”
When she told him, he scoffed. “That will never do. Here’s what I’m prepared to do for you. I like you, and I don’t like very many people. So I will give you a chance to prove you belong here. Six months, and we’ll see if we fit.”
She agreed immediately. No one in their right mind said no to Alistair Finney. Maggie started to gather her photos, but Alistair interrupted her.
“Have a care, Magdalena.” He laid a warning finger over the photos on the table, not touching them, just making a point. “You are very good, but you have a flaw. You’re removed from your subjects, the observer who never quite enters in. Just remember that when telling others’ stories, you need to tell a little bit of your own as well.” He gave her a wry smile. “We can’t always live behind a camera, my dear. Life has to be touched and tasted and smelled in all its bloody, messy glory. Remember that. You have to live in the world, not just observe it.”
She hadn’t known what to make of his words. She could not see the flaw as he did. She gave her all to her work, and had received a steady stream of accolades and praise. She was excellent, a standout. Whatever weakness Alistair saw, it didn’t seem to be holding her back professionally. She tried to put his criticism from her mind, but his words lingered, like a pebble in her shoe. She wished she could remove it but had never figured out how.
Ascension of Larks Page 5
