Camera Wars

by Chelsea Hale

  The next day, Coco, her parents, and her brother stood on the porch of Jeffrey’s house. Jeffrey answered the door, ushering them in for dinner. They hung their coats, and Jeffrey gave Coco a huge hug and kiss. “I’m so excited you’re here! My grandma is in town and wants to see you.”

  Coco followed him into the next room, which was filled with people. Jeffrey said it would be a combined family dinner, but she wasn’t expecting his entire extended family. Was it his family reunion? She’d had no idea. She felt like a receiving line as each of Jeffrey’s relatives came up and gave her a hug or shook her hand. She looked around for her parents and brother. Matt was talking with Jeffrey’s younger brother, and her parents were talking with Jeffrey’s mom in the kitchen.

  She greeted everyone, trying to keep a smile on her face. Having a combined family dinner was more like Thanksgiving than a casual meal together. No wonder Jeffrey wanted her to bring her camera. He held her hand and brought her over to his grandma, who sat on the couch next to the fireplace.

  “Coco, it’s been so long. You look beautiful.” Her eyes sparkled with a little moisture, as she brought Coco in for a shaky hug.

  “It’s good to see you, too.” Coco eyed the yarn at her feet and knitting needles in her hands. “Who are you making this blanket for?”

  “A new grandson was born last week. I’ve already made him a few, but thought he could use another.”

  She chatted with a few more people before Jeffrey’s dad made the announcement that they’d start dinner. Three fold out tables with chairs crowded the kitchen and living room, making space for everyone to eat.

  After getting their food, Jeffrey led Coco to the kitchen table and they sat on one side together. Matt also joined them. Then her parents sat across from them, and his parents took their places at the ends of the table. Soon the rest of the seats were filled.

  “This looks like a great time for a picture,” Jeffrey said to Coco. “What do you think?”

  Coco swallowed her bite of food. They were close together, but having everyone at different tables didn’t sound like the ideal setting. “I can grab a few pictures of the individual tables, but it’ll be hard to do a group shot.”

  Jeffrey seemed to think about it for a minute. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “I’d be happy to take a picture of your family after we eat if you’d like.”

  “It can just be a big group shot. You guys can be in it, too.”

  “Okay.”

  Partway through the meal, Jeffrey stood up and clinked his glass with his fork. “I’d like to say a few words.” He looked around the room, then continued. “Thank you everyone for being here today. It’s not often that we’re all in the same place together. I’ll take the blame because I travel so much.” A few people laughed. “Traveling so much has made me realize that something needs to change.”

  Coco lifted her eyebrows at him. Was he considering cutting down his travel schedule? Or maybe finding a job that wouldn’t require travel? The idea sent her stomach jumping. He was going to announce to all of his family and hers that he would be around more often.

  “Coco, we’ve been together a long time. Now it’s time to take things to the next level.”

  Oh wait. He wasn’t going to … not right now, was he?

  He fumbled with his pocket until he pulled out a small black box.

  He was.

  “Colette Beaumont, will you marry me?”

  She blinked. Stunned. He had caught her by surprise, which okay, was something that she’d always hoped for. She hoped she wouldn’t expect the exact moment of a proposal, but she’d expected it to be a little more romantic—snow falling around them, or a sunset, or something picturesque. But with her family and his entire family, in the middle of dinner, at a kitchen table?

  “Coco?” He paused, and she looked up at him and then to the rest of the room, her cheeks flushing at all of the eyes on her.

  Her mind flew to Peter, and she almost gasped. But he’d been sorry he’d kissed her, and then he’d been standoffish about the job offer. She shook the thoughts of Peter away. She was in the middle of becoming engaged to Jeffrey. The boy of her high school dreams. And her current dreams too—she hoped. She put on her biggest smile. “I will.”

  He pulled her up to stand beside him, and everyone in the room started clapping as he put the ring on her finger. She looked at it for only a second before he wrapped her up in his arms. He tried to dip her but the wall was too close to them, and she leaned forward to avoid the collision. He pulled her in for a kiss, and she tried with everything in her to find a firework. Not even a spark appeared. But they could work at it. It had been there once. She was sure of it.

  She looked down at the ring on her left hand as she finished eating her food. It sparkled, but was a little loose on her finger.

  “Do you like it?” he whispered to her.

  “It’s very pretty.” Not the style she would have pictured herself wearing, but it looked great.

  The rest of the evening was a blur of congratulations and trying to explain her manual settings on her camera so others could take pictures of her and Jeffrey. She finally gave up and switched it to auto.

  At the end of the night, she and Jeffrey finally had a chance to talk alone.

  “I bet you didn’t think this morning you’d be engaged by the end of the day.” He grinned.

  He had her there. She definitely had not seen it coming. “I didn’t.”

  He gave her another kiss and held her hand as they sat next to the fireplace. “Now that we’ve got the proposal over with, we should nail down a date.”

  Over with? “I’ve always pictured a spring wedding,” she said, “when the tulips are in full bloom.”

  “Whoa, that’s only a few weeks away and you’re still finishing school. I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on you.”

  She laughed. “I meant next spring. Once I’ve graduated and get a job.”

  He scratched the back of his neck. “I actually found you the perfect job. You’re going to love it.”

  “Oh?”

  “I know how much you like doing your video montages and projects, and you’re good with a camera, too. I talked to a few people and told them about what you do, and they agreed with me that you’d be a perfect fit.”

  “Who were you talking to?” She had been toying around with wedding videography as a full-time career path, but she wanted to hear what Jeffrey thought. With or without Peter, she knew she would love it.

  “For Better Builders. That’s why I was late to Matt’s game. I wanted to make sure that they’d go for it before I told you.”

  “Better Builders wants videography?” How would it be working for the company Jeffrey worked for? What would they need done locally? Advertising footage?

  “I brought up the idea to my boss so you wouldn’t get bored when we’re traveling. I want you to feel like you’re contributing, and even though you don’t have your accounting degree, photography can still be useful. Your camera really will be better than the phone pictures I take, and we can blow them up for advertising.”

  Confusion creased her brow. “You want me to come with you on a trip?” That was a first. She’d enjoy seeing what he did, getting a sense of his world. A month or so would be an adventure.

  “Even better.” Jeffrey grinned wider, if that were possible. “We’re transferring a group down by the Amazon to help facilitate the building group down there. Guess who they chose to head it up?”

  Coco sat up straight, turning her body toward him. “How long will you be gone?”

  “You mean, how long will we be gone.”

  “Okay. How long?” Her head swam. The Amazon? That was why he’d been reading the book on the plane.

  “It’s a three-year contract with a possible year extension. They guaranteed it wouldn’t be longer than that, unless we want it to be longer, of course.”

  “Three years?”

  “That’s why I wanted to propo
se tonight. I need to be there September first. If we get married in August we can still have a week honeymoon before we pack up. I have three dates in between my current trips that would work. You can choose whichever one you want.”

  He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world to pack up her entire belongings and live somewhere else. Not just somewhere else, but on a completely different continent. For three years. “This is a big commitment. I … I need to think about this.” She couldn’t compute all of this right now.

  “Marriage is big, but we’ve been together so long, it should be a natural next step.”

  Then why wasn’t it feeling right? She adjusted on the couch, resting a hand against the couch back. “It’s not the marriage part. It’s the moving part.”

  “We’ll be together. That’s all that matters.”

  “What about my ideas for my future? I’m graduating soon.” Had she always been so easily persuaded away from her own thoughts by Jeffrey? She’d sought his advice out so often, and she used to think it was wise.

  “I know. That’s why it’s perfect timing.” Jeffrey looked so confident.

  “I won’t have done anything in my field. If I go and come back in three years, I’ll have nothing on my resume to show for it.”

  “That’s why I talked to my boss. You can take pictures there.”

  That was fulfilling his dream, not her own. “I thought when you were making your announcement at the table that you were going to say you’d taken a job with no travel, that you’d decided to settle down.”

  “We would be settling down. We’d be in the same place for three years.”

  She laughed. They saw things so differently. That wasn’t settling down—that was completely uprooting her and her life. He needed to understand that this was a huge decision, bigger than marrying him. “What if we get pregnant?”

  He scratched his head. “I suppose we could fly you back here, and you could be here for the pregnancy. I’m not sure about the hospitals in the area.”

  “Jeffrey, how is that being together? How would that be better than you traveling all the time now? You’d miss out. We’d miss making memories together.”

  “We could wait to have kids until we came back.”

  How far would his ideas stretch him? Doubt crept in that it would work at all. “What about our families? You want to be away from everyone for that long?”

  “We could make a few trips back to see everyone. I’d have you by my side, so I won’t be lonely. Those long days of work would fly by knowing you are there for me.”

  “How long do you have to make the decision to move there?” She needed more time to think through the logistics, to make sure she was doing what was best.

  Jeffrey looked stunned. “It was a no brainer. The compensation package is better than I’d get here. I accepted last week.”

  “But we didn’t discuss it.” She sat up straighter. How could he already make such a monumental decision without her?

  He shrugged. “We don’t discuss everything about my job or my decisions, just like I don’t weigh in on everything in your life and your decisions.”

  “Yes, but it affects us both after we’re married.”

  “That’s why we’re discussing it now. Look, it’s like your accounting degree. I didn’t weigh in with all of my negative thoughts when you switched majors. I was supportive even though I knew the better job offers would be with the degree you didn’t finish.”

  “You’re unhappy I switched majors?”

  “I told you that at the time.”

  “I thought it had to do with the wasted time in school.” So, he wasn’t happy that she’d followed her passion and was using that against her.

  “Look. I shouldn’t bring it up. I forgave you for it, and you’re doing what you love, so that’s good, even if your degree doesn’t mean as much.”

  “What?” She shook her head, not wanting to get distracted from the true purpose of this disagreement. “Can you retract your acceptance on this job or are you already locked in?” She needed all of the information before she jumped to conclusions.

  “You’d ask me to do that? It’s a very competitive job. I was the top candidate, but I won’t get another shot at this if I turn it down. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, to live in a new place and get immersed in new culture.”

  “But it’s possible to retract?”

  He stared at the floor. “Yeah, I suppose it’s possible. I could also quit my job and find something else that doesn’t interfere so much with your life, too.” He didn’t sound happy about any of it.

  “I’m just trying to figure out how much time we have to make this decision, that’s all. I need the information.”

  He stood up. “I’ve made my decision. I want to do this. I’ve arranged for you to still take pictures, to still do what you love. Why isn’t that good enough for you?”

  She bit her lip. This wasn’t going to work. “You’ve had a lot longer to adjust to this news than I have. You gave me no warning about this job change or a quick wedding. You’re going to have to give me time to think about all of it.”

  “I’ve already thought about it for us. It’ll be fun. You won’t be by yourself anymore. You’ll be with me.”

  “Except you’ll be gone at work all day long, and you’re removing all of my friends and family from me with this move.”

  “You make friends easily.”

  “I need time.”

  “I want to know now. My boss is expecting an answer about your position tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? No.”

  “Okay, I can maybe ask him to wait a day before he starts looking for someone else.”

  She blew out a breath. It probably wouldn’t matter how much time he gave her. She’d postpone, because it didn’t feel right. She didn’t need the world. She wanted Jeffrey to be her world.

  But Jeffrey…

  It was time to accept the fact that helping the world was more important to him than being her world. If she made him turn down this opportunity, he’d resent her for it. She couldn’t wait around, hoping that one day he’d choose her over everything else.

  A tear slid down her face. Why hadn’t she seen this sooner? They’d been growing apart for longer than she’d been willing to realize.

  “Hey,” Jeffrey said, his tone soft. “We’ll work this out. We always do. No tears on our engagement day.”

  She swiped away the tear and took the ring off her finger. “I’m sorry, Jeffrey. I can’t marry you. We want different things.”

  “I could give up the Amazon. I’ll call my boss right now.” His voice sounded desperate.

  How many times had she wished for those words? That he could give up his travel for her—give up one trip or stay an extra week? But hearing it now didn’t feel right. Her lighthearted laugh at the absurdity broke into a sob. “You’d be so miserable doing that.” She sniffed and held out the ring to him. “As much as I want that, I really do want your happiness. We just need to find it in different places.”

  “I thought you’d love coming with me. I thought it’d be a great surprise. An adventure.” He took the ring and spun it in his hand, not looking up at her.

  “I’d have come on a trip with you for the adventure, but not stay. That’s not where I belong.”

  Two evenings later, Coco brought a small box over to Jeffrey’s house. Mostly stuff from high school she hadn’t taken with her to Colorado, but some other important items Coco thought she should bring back: his letterman’s jacket, some of the different memorabilia he’d given her through his travels, the first baseball he’d caught at a major league game, and several eight-by-tens of him she’d taken. She took a deep breath in the cool air, wondering why she hesitated to knock.

  “Getting cold feet?” Jeffrey’s voice came from behind her.

  “Uh…”

  He smiled. “I was delivering something to the neighbor’s when you drove up.”

  She picked up the box. “I wanted
to return these to you. I’ll give you the rest of your stuff when we get back to Colorado.”

  He picked up the baseball and tossed it from one hand to the other. “That was a good game.” His smile was sad, and he put it back then took the box from her.

  “I’d better go,” she said.

  “Could we take a walk?” he asked.

  She nodded. One last walk would be okay.

  Jeffrey kept his hands in his pockets as they strolled down the poorly lit street. “Is that all you came over for?” he asked. “To bring back my things?”

  Coco took a deep breath. After figuring out her plans, she knew she’d have to clear the air with Jeffrey. It was the best way for her to move forward. “I wanted to say thank you.”

  Jeffrey cleared his throat. “Uh, for what?”

  “For buying me a plane ticket home. It’s nice to visit with my family. I haven’t done that in a while.”

  “When you’re away, you sometimes forget how much you miss home. How much you miss others.” He stopped walking and looked at her meaningfully. Even in the dim light she could make out the intensity in his eyes.

  “That’s a nice way to put it.”

  He took her hands in both of his. “Give us another chance? I can change. I can—”

  “That’s just it, Jeffrey. I don’t want you to change. I want you to be you. But who you are and who I am, we’re different. And that’s okay.”

  He dropped her hands. “It’s really over?”

  She nodded. “It really is.”

  “No hard feelings?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Oh?” His eyes filled with sadness she knew she couldn’t wash away, but she’d try.

  “You’re doing what you love. You’re making a difference in the way you want to. You know your purpose and you have goals.” She sighed. It was harder now that she was saying it aloud instead of in her head, but she had to push through. “For a while, I wondered why you chose helping people in faraway countries instead of being here with me.”

  He looked like he wanted to interrupt her, but she pushed forward. “I get it now. It’s who you are. You won’t be happy without serving the way you do. I can’t take that away from you. It’s taken me longer to figure out what I want to do, and what I want from life. But I’ve got a better idea now.”