Worth a Thousand Words

by Stacy Adams

  Indigo had been an intern at the newspaper just four weeks, but even she knew it meant trouble when Claude Ingram approached you first thing in the morning without a smile. She looked into the photo editor’s eyes and didn’t see one there, either.

  “Can I talk to you in my office, Indigo?”

  It was Monday, and one of the Herald’s two staff photographers worked silently at a twenty-five-inch computer screen, downloading work he had shot over the weekend. He paused and watched as Indigo rose from her swivel chair and followed Claude down a short hallway.

  When they reached his cluttered office, Claude grabbed a disheveled heap of papers off the seat across from his desk and motioned for her to fill it. He slid into his chair, placed his elbows on his desk, and rested his chin on his two fists.

  “How have you enjoyed working here this summer?”

  Indigo peered into his milky gray eyes, and hesitated, unsure whether to treat this as a trick question or as an icebreaker.

  “It’s been great,” she responded. “I’ve enjoyed getting to meet people across the city and shoot everything from car accidents and house fires to profile photos and community fairs. As you know, my previous internships were with museums and magazines, and I pulled a brief stint at a catalog recruiting company my sophomore year, where I took photos of aspiring models. This is a great opportunity to try a new form of photography, and I especially appreciate being able to work in my hometown.”

  Claude nodded and continued to stare at her.

  “Have you been pleased with my work?” Indigo finally asked.

  He sat back in his chair. “That’s why I wanted to meet with you this morning. I’ve heard great things about you from the staff. They think you’re wonderful to work with—professional and enthusiastic. And they’ve heard the same from some of the folks that you’ve photographed. But I have to admit that the body of work you’ve produced has been inconsistent.”

  Indigo’s heart lurched. She sat forward in her seat and prayed that her facial expressions didn’t mirror the panic coursing through her veins.

  “What do you mean?”

  Claude turned toward the computer, which sat on a desktop to his left, and tapped the mouse. He opened a digital file that contained at least a dozen photos Indigo had taken over the past few weeks.

  Many of them had appeared in the newspaper, but there were multiples of the same subject, and some of them were off center or out of focus.

  Indigo held her breath. She remembered taking some of those shots when that annoying blurriness filled her vision in one eye or the other. She would shoot extra frames on those days, in hopes that she’d hit the mark with at least a few of them, despite her inability to properly hone in. Or she’d switch eyes and close the one that happened to be bothering her. She thought she’d pulled it off. Despite the extra shots, she had submitted some really good images, and a few had been featured on the newspaper’s front page.

  “You do good work,” Claude said. “But it appears that you’re straining to hit the mark sometimes. It takes extra time to get additional shots or poses from a subject, in hopes of landing one or two usable ones. Why are you having to do that?”

  He turned to look at her.

  Should she tell him that sometimes her vision got blurry while she was working, or that sometimes, out of the blue, she’d see halos, or occasionally couldn’t see out of the side of one eye? That wouldn’t be in her best interest.

  Then again, Claude already knew something was up, or he wouldn’t have pulled her aside this morning.

  “Have you been getting complaints?” she asked.

  “A few, from the other photographers who have been asked by an editor to work on one of your pictures because something was not quite in focus,” Claude said. “They’ve had to go back through the digital images to find a more suitable one, and on one or two occasions, we’ve needed an image so badly that we’ve photoshopped something you’ve shot to make it work. That’s a no-no in journalism. When we go that route with a photo, we have to indicate on the image that it is a photo illustration because we’ve manipulated it in some way, and we really shy away from that.”

  Indigo remained silent. She knew all of that, and she had even noticed that label on a couple of her favorite pictures when they had appeared in the Herald.

  God, please don’t let me get fired.

  “Are you having problems with your eyesight, Indigo?” Claude leaned toward her, to read her expression. “If you are, it’s okay. Photographers can wear glasses or contacts. You know that. Is it your eyes, or is something else going on?”

  She took a deep breath before she answered. “First of all, I’m sorry to hear that my work hasn’t been up to par,” she said. “I’m mortified about that. Really. I thought everything was going okay. I wish someone had mentioned it to me. I would have been happy to come back in after hours and correct whatever needed to be altered.

  “But I do have to be honest and say that I’m having some occasional blurriness in my eyes every now and then. Not all the time, so I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

  Claude nodded. “As a professional photographer, Indigo, a little blurriness is a big deal. You can’t just live with that and do your job well.”

  Neither of them raced to fill the long silence.

  “Tell you what,” he said and sat back in his chair. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off and go get an eye exam. It’s still early enough that you should be able to land an appointment today. Get your eyes checked and see what they say.

  “If you need glasses, as soon as they can set you up with a pair, then we’ll send you back out on assignments. If it’s something that’s going to require a longer fix, we’ll talk and go from there. Maybe we’ll let you do some in-house work for a while if we need to.”

  Claude gave her a reassuring smile and ran his fingers through his dull brown hair. “We just need to get to the bottom of this. It’s not benefiting the Herald, or you, if you can’t do your best work because you’re having issues with your vision. Just get it checked and let’s go from there, okay? Don’t sweat it at all. Take today off, and tomorrow, if you need it.”

  He pushed himself up from his seat with his thick forearms and walked her to the door. He patted her shoulder. “You’ll be fine. You’re young. Maybe you’ll wind up with a pair of nice frames.”

  Indigo gave him a weak smile and trudged down the hallway to the photo lab. The staff photographer, James, didn’t look her way when she entered and walked to the corner armoire to retrieve her purse.

  “See you tomorrow,” she said with the ounce of lightheartedness she could muster.

  What she really wanted to do, though, was call Brian or Shelby, and have a good cry. But neither of them was available right now. They had been at OCS for a week and wouldn’t be able to communicate with anyone off base for at least ten more days. How had she wound up with a fiancé and best friend both interested in becoming commissioned Naval officers and fighter pilots?

  She buckled herself into her seat and sped out of the newspaper’s parking lot. A few minutes later, she pulled onto Warner Street and parked in the far corner of the library parking lot. The library didn’t open until ten a.m., so the lot was empty. She sat there and wept until the sobs left her hiccupping.

  Then she picked up the phone and tried to compose her voice.

  “Hello, Melinda? This is Indigo Burns, Dr. Covington’s cousin,” she said thickly. “I need to come in immediately for an eye exam. Can you fit me in this morning?”

  13

  Rachelle took one look at Indigo and turned to her exam assistant. “I’ll call you if I need your help, but I think I can manage this patient on my own.”

  Sabrina gave Rachelle the chart she would need to note her findings during Indigo’s exam and closed the door when she left the room.

  Rachelle approached Indigo, who sat slouched in the high-backed, leather chair.

  Indigo was trembling and trying to hold back t
ears. She was afraid to talk, because she knew if she did, she’d lose her composure again. She kept her head bowed and wiped her eyes with a crumpled tissue.

  Rachelle touched her arm. “Calm down. Whatever’s going on, we’ll work through it. First, you have to tell me why you’re here and why you’re so upset. Did you injure your eye or is something else bothering you?”

  Indigo shook her head. Rachelle turned away and pulled a stool toward her so she could take a seat.

  “I need an eye exam,” Indigo finally said, and sure enough, the waterfall resurfaced. “I messed up some pictures at work.”

  “Did the newspaper fire you?”

  Indigo shook her head again and dabbed at her eyes.

  Rachelle sighed. “Then why are you this upset? We all make mistakes. Maybe you need glasses—so what? You need to calm down so I can take a look.”

  Rachelle rose and briefly left the office. When she returned, she offered her cousin a damp handkerchief and a Styrofoam cup filled with water.

  “Pull yourself together and we’ll get this all figured out.”

  Indigo took the cloth from Rachelle and mopped her face. The cool wetness felt good against her clammy skin, and she took a deep breath. Rachelle stood there until Indigo was ready to take the cup.

  Indigo cradled it in her hands, then sipped every drop. She inhaled and finally felt the tears abating.

  “Feel better?” Rachelle asked and returned to the stool.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Indigo said. “I’m upset, but I don’t know why I’m so emotional. I guess it’s a combination of missing Brian and being reprimanded at work this morning. The photo editor essentially told me not to come back until I’m sure my vision is okay.”

  Rachelle’s surprise didn’t escape Indigo, though it was replaced with a professional mask of nonchalance within seconds.

  “That sounds fair to me,” Rachelle said. “So you’re here for an eye exam. We’ll make sure everything looks okay. Now the tears about Brian—I know you miss him. I’m sorry I can’t help you with that, but it will get easier. He’s going to be in the Navy, so you’ll have to get used to him flying off on missions, you know?”

  Indigo tried to smile. “You’re right, this is just the beginning.” “Let me look at your eyes,” Rachelle said. She moved closer and used a remote control device to dim the lights in the room.

  Rachelle took Indigo through a series of tests and asked about her symptoms.

  “How long have you had the blurred vision?”

  Indigo was slow to answer. “I’m not sure. It’s not always there, you know?”

  Rachelle sat back and looked at her. “I need some idea, Indigo.”

  “I think I’ve been having episodes of blurriness off and on for almost a year. It will bother me for a day or two and then it will go away and I forget about it.”

  “That never prompted you to get your eyes checked, or at least ask me about it?”

  Indigo shrugged. “I’d think about what I needed to do, then exams would come up, or I needed to complete some paperwork for grad school, or I had to shoot some photos for a project. Senior year was just crazy.”

  Rachelle nodded. “Not to mention that you were pledging, hanging out with Miss Shelby, and spending time with your honey, whenever he made it back to Tuskegee.”

  She raised her palms. “I’m not fussing, though. I see plenty of people, some of them much older than you, who know better, and they still think if they avoid a potential problem, it will go away on its own.

  “You said the photo editor wasn’t pleased with some of your work. Did you find the blurriness to be a problem when you were taking pictures?”

  Indigo nodded. “Yeah, I did sometimes. I just tried to work around it.”

  Rachelle jotted a few notes on the paper attached to the clipboard and pulled a piece of equipment attached to the ceiling close to her.

  “Lean forward so I can look into your eyes,” she told Indigo.

  She shone light in Indigo’s eyes, conducted a few air puff tests, and dilated her pupils so more tests could be conducted.

  At some point, Indigo realized that the questions and the chitchat had stopped.

  “What’s the diagnosis, Doc? Do I need bifocals?”

  Rachelle tried to smile, but didn’t quite pull it off.

  “I’m not sure yet, Indigo. I’d like to have a friend who’s an ophthalmologist take a look. I’ll call her now and see if she can fit you in.”

  Indigo felt the fear rising again. “What do you think it is?”

  Rachelle sounded calm, but if all were well, Indigo knew that she’d be in the adjacent room by now, picking out a pair of frames. She recognized evasion when she heard it.

  “It could be a number of things,” Rachelle said. “You have some interesting symptoms, and Yolanda’s specialized training will help us make a quicker diagnosis. Sit tight for a minute. Let me see if she’s in the office today and I’ll ride over with you.”

  Rachelle left the exam room door ajar. Indigo heard her talking softly to her receptionist.

  “Call Yolanda Woodman over at Jubilant Memorial and see if she can see Indigo this afternoon. How many more patients do I have scheduled for today?”

  Indigo could hear Melinda’s fingers flying over the keyboard, but not her response.

  “Good,” Rachelle said. “Will you call the three of them and ask if they can come later this afternoon, say after four p.m., or if they would mind terribly if we reschedule for tomorrow? Tell them I have a family emergency.”

  14

  Life was about to be miserable, at least for the foreseeable future.

  Brian learned in his first few hours at Naval Station Newport that he’d best not refer to Officer Candidate School as OCS when speaking to his leaders; he’d best forget about his personal thoughts and feelings, because only what mattered to the team was important; and he’d best quickly realize that his time was no longer his own. Every waking hour would be filled with academic preparation, physical training, and gouging—memorizing everything from the proper way to address his drill instructor and his candidate officer to all of the material he needed to know to pass each test and move forward with his class.

  “If you’ve seen the movie An Officer and a Gentleman, forget about it!” Class Drill Instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Cade McArthur barked his first order as he stalked past each man and woman who stood erect in a ruler-straight line on the lawn. Brian was eighth in the formation and Shelby was three men to his right.

  “Of the fifty-four men and women standing here today, I can guarantee you that at least ten of you won’t be commissioned with this class. Some of you are going to realize before Indoctrination Week is over that you aren’t officer material. Some of you will fail a few tests along the way and be forced to roll back to another class—that is, if you don’t give up.

  “All of you will leave here, in whatever fashion, with the understanding that no one is given a commissioned officer’s uniform just because he or she looks good in it.”

  McArthur stopped in front of Brian and glared at him. Brian maintained his one-thousand-yard stare, fixing his eyes on an object in the distance, and tried not to breathe.

  “You’re going to have to earn it,” McArthur spat, before moving on to the next person in the line. “You got here on paper. Now you’ve got to prove you belong. Welcome to Officer Candidate School, Indoctrination Candidates.”

  Brian held his pose and waited for orders. If this was what it took, so be it. He had read enough and talked to enough people who had gone through the training to know it wouldn’t be a cakewalk. A retired Navy pilot he met last summer during an internship at the Federal Aviation Administration had encouraged him to face the fear and the stress that he would confront with self-confidence, despite his leaders’ efforts to see if they could break him.

  Achieving that for Brian meant reciting over and over the Scripture his mom had taught him as a child: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.<
br />
  He wished he could look to his right to see how Shelby was holding up. She wanted this as much as he did.

  God, give her the strength to persevere too.

  McArthur made sure everyone had received a manual and ordered them to read the document—all three hundred pages—tonight.

  “You will be expected to know everything in this guide. Especially how to appropriately address and respond to me, to your candidate officer, and to a commissioned officer,” McArthur said. “For the next twelve weeks, you will identify yourself as an Indoctrination Candidate and refer to the numbers of your graduating class. This group will be the tenth class graduating in fiscal zero-eight. Read the manual! You will be expected to know what to do—no exceptions, no excuses.”

  Later that night, Brian lay in his bunk and mentally kicked himself for not bringing along a blanket. If he had, he would have slept on top of the covers and kept his bed in perfect condition for morning inspection. Other guys obviously had been taught that trick, and pulled out covers from home when the drill instructor had completed his nighttime walk-through.

  As tired as he was from the day’s activities, Brian couldn’t sleep. Neither could his two roommates.

  “You think we gone make it, man?” Todd Wayland was from Mississippi and spoke with a southern drawl so thick and slow that Brian equated listening to him to waiting for the last drop of molasses to be forced from a plastic bottle.

  The room was pitch-black, and Todd spoke just above a whisper.

  The other bunkmate snorted before Brian could respond.

  “Sounds like you’re scared, Wayland,” Greg Kemper, a proud recent graduate of Harvard, taunted. “Ready to go home to your mama?”

  “Not if yours’ll take me first,” Todd countered. “Wanna wager on who’ll last?”

  “None of us will if we don’t work together as a team,” Brian reminded them. “Have you guys read the manual? Instead of slamming each other, how about you figure out how to get along so all of our lives will be easier? If we pass inspection and all do well on the tests—as a team—we can earn an Honor Class designation. Think about what’s important, okay?”