Full Exposure

by Jerry Cole

  “My brother,” she says, “Evan. The problem is, neither of us actually know how to find him.”

  ***

  Scott goes home with two new numbers in his phone, the photo album still pressed heavy against his side through the cloth of his bag, and the scarf he had wrapped it up in. Frances had seen him off with a kiss on the cheek and a determined proclamation that they were friends now, dear, and Mitchell had pressed a to go cup of white chocolate mocha into his hands, free of charge.

  Friends. It was strange to think about, unfamiliar on his tongue. He hadn’t made a friend since before April died. The only person he had really thought of as a friend for the past few years had been Gabriel, and even then it was mostly just a case of being unable to shake the person he had called his closest friend through the worst of his college years. Mitchell and Frances had taken him in so quickly, though, pulling him back into their conversation whenever his thoughts began to wander too far, trusting him with what was clearly an incredibly important task, even if he was no closer to finding the photographer—Evan—now than he had been when he walked into the coffee shop two hours earlier.

  Mitchell had promised to update him as soon as they got the slightest hint of where her brother might be, and Frances had made him promise to come back again the next weekend for coffee. It was an easy enough offer to accept, too. And, that was the strange part. Despite his hesitations, it was easy to be friends with the two of them, even if Mitchell leaned too close into his space when she gave him a playful, light punch on the shoulder, even if Frances’ bright eyes and dimpled smile reminds him a little too much of April. He wants to be friends with them, he’s just out of practice, and he has no idea where to begin.

  The photo album itself, however, was another matter entirely. Despite how much of their conversation had centered on it, the girls seemed to do an incredible job of talking about the things that really mattered, leaving Scott more than a little disoriented when he finally stood up to leave. He had gathered that the pictures were taken years before. That much wasn’t very hard to figure out, though, what with the differences in Frances’ face when held up next to the photographs. Evan had never given her the album, though. For some reason, had never even shown her the majority of the pictures. Her expression had gone melancholy when she flipped through the book, eyes a little misty as she pointed at some of the photos and told them things like he took this one when we went to Paris for the summer and I put whipped cream on his nose right after he took this one. It gave the album a whole new dimension, now that he had a voice, a personality to put to the faces filling the photographs.

  Mitchell’s voice had gone wobbly when she said that she hadn’t seen Evan in nearly five years, and Frances had flipped to the photograph of the two of them on Christmas, adding he left the morning after he took this in a low, sad whisper.

  Scott had just nodded, not quite sure what to say. He knows what it’s like to miss someone like that. He can see himself in the girls, can see the way their expressions go small and sad whenever they said Evan’s name, just like his own does whenever he thinks about April. They could get Evan back, though. It might be too late for him to see April again, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do a thing to get Mitchell her brother back when he’s the one with the photo album in the first place.

  He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets as he walks, hunching his shoulders to fend off a gust of chilly air that blows past him.

  ***

  He goes to see Frances and Mitchell the next Saturday, Halloween passing in a haze of cheery well wishes and work. By the third week, November proper has come around, and they have a regular table picked out in the corner of the shop, where the buzz of the street outside is all but inaudible and Mitchell can still keep an eye on the door whenever a customer walks in. There’s a cup waiting for him on the table when he ducks into the coffee shop, giving Mitchell a smile and a wave and making a beeline for Frances.

  “I thought your drink would go cold,” she says, a wan smile on her face. “You’re not usually later than me.”

  “Couldn’t find my keys,” he chuckles, sliding easily into his chair. It’s been nearly half a month since he met her, and he’s still surprised at how easy and comfortable their conversations are. There’s something of April in her, in the way she refuses to mince her words and the way she lights up when she talks about her adventures with Evan.

  She only ever talks about him when Mitchell is away helping customers, Scott notices. He figures it might be a bit of a sore topic, with the three of them having no real idea where Evan could be, but Scott can’t help but relish the chance to hear Frances go on at length about him.

  “We spent our childhoods together, you know,” she says during a lull in the conversation, eyeing Mitchell at her place behind the counter. A line stretches nearly to the door, the lunch rush beginning to fill up the shop even on a Saturday, and Scott knows they have a bit of time before Mitchell is free enough to come back to the table. “I was born a few years after him, but he lived so close to me that we were basically stuck together from the beginning. Our parents were friends.”

  “His parents wouldn’t know where he might be?” Scott asks, on a whim. He regrets it, though, when Frances’ expression goes tight and pinched.

  “I doubt it,” she replies, her lips set in a thin line. “They were never on the best terms, you know. Sometimes I think his father was the reason he left in the first place.”

  Scott blinks at that, surprised. “He didn’t tell you why he left?” With as close as Evan and Frances had seemed in the photo album and in Frances’ stories, he has a bit of a hard time believing Evan would just cut and run without a word. But, Frances just shakes her head, a small, sad smile on her face.

  “He was just gone the next day. Bed made. Clothes gone. All our calls went to voicemail. The only reason we knew he wasn’t missing was because one of the gardeners saw him leaving on his own, but even then, we couldn’t find out where he went.”

  Scott looks down into his cup, swirling his drink to watch the coffee spin and froth up at the edges. Frances has a strange expression on her face, pinched and a little sad, and Scott feels a pang of sympathy shoot through him. He had been like that, once. He would still be, if not for Gabriel there to pull him out of it.

  “What was he like?” he asks, setting his mug back down onto the table with a muffled clink. “Evan, I mean.”

  Frances blinks, brightening just a bit. “What wasn’t he like, really,” she chuckles. “He could be a real firecracker, even if you couldn’t tell just by looking at him. He would get me into trouble at family dinners by pretending to pick up a dropped napkin and leaning over to whisper ridiculous comments in my ear.”

  “He seemed pretty focused on making you smile,” says Scott, leaning forward slightly. “If that photo album was anything to go by.”

  Frances snorts, somehow making it sound graceful. Scott supposes it has more to do with the person than the action. Frances could make mucking out a horse stable look elegant. “You know, looking back at it, I can remember him taking every single one of those pictures.”

  Scott hums, tilting his head to listen, but Frances doesn’t continue. She just sits there, sips her drink and looks sideways at him, and when she takes off her glasses to clean them on her shirt, Scott swears he can see a flicker of melancholy in her carefully curated expression.

  Maybe it’s the wild hair, maybe it’s the way she carries herself, maybe it’s the fact that she looks just as lost as he does in that single instant that makes him lean forward and open his mouth to speak, folding his hands on the table. It’s a handful of days until he has to visit the grave, and for the first time in five years, he finds he doesn’t really want to be alone for it.

  “Are you busy on Tuesday?”

  “Tuesday?” she repeats, and her accent draws the “tu” into a “tch” kind of sound. “I don’t think I’m doing anything, why?”

  Scott takes a breath. “I was won
dering if you could come somewhere with me.”

  Chapter Four

  Scott finds Frances at the gateway to the cemetery, dressed in black with a hat and veil, looking like a character out of a dime store novel. She has an umbrella in one hand, held up to keep the rain from soaking her, and a bouquet of white roses in the other.

  “I got here a bit early,” she says, an apologetic smile on her face. “I left my phone, though, so I couldn’t let you know.”

  Scott hurries over, taking the flowers to give her a free hand. “Sorry for making you wait, then,” he counters, and leads her through the gateway.

  The cemetery is quiet, not many people coming out on a late weekday morning. Scott doesn’t mind it too much, though. It gives him a little peace and quiet, and there’s something comfortingly melancholy about being able to walk through the rows of headstones and grave markers without having to worry about the bustle and life of the world outside the gates. He spends the walk huddled underneath Frances’ umbrella, telling her what he can about April.

  Frances doesn’t speak much. She lets him talk for the most part, listening intently with a sad expression clouding her usually chipper face. When Scott mentions the ring and the proposal he had planned, she presses a hand to her heart like a southern belle in a historical romance.

  “It was a car crash, in the end,” he says, the corners of his mouth turned downwards. “It was dark and raining, and she spun off the road. They found her an hour later.”

  They reach the grave as he finishes speaking, and Frances gives a stifled little sob that she hides behind her hand.

  April’s headstone is simple, white granite weathered down a little over time, but Scott can still see “April Macaulay, 3.31.1992 - 11.16.2014” carved into it as clearly as it had been five years before. A familiar lump rises in his throat, threatening to spill tears from the corners of his eyes, but Frances puts a steadying hand on his arm and he manages to swallow them back down.

  “You loved her very much, didn’t you,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. It’s a statement, not a question, and it seems to echo in the quiet of the graveyard, the sound reflecting off the headstones and ringing in his ears.

  “More than anything,” he says, and lays the flowers down, propping them against the stone. If he unfocuses his vision, all he can see of them is the green stems sticking out like emeralds against the white.

  Frances detaches from his side, kneeling down until she is at eye level with April’s carved name. Scott makes a stiff attempt to stop her, to keep her from getting her dress dirty on the rain-soaked ground, but she doesn’t seem to mind. When he realizes she isn’t getting up, he huffs, shaking his head a bit. He’s already wet, no matter what, and he figures sitting down couldn’t hurt much more. Circling around to the back of the headstone to keep from walking right over the grave, he sinks down, sitting cross-legged with his back to the cold, wet granite.

  “Hello, April,” he hears after a long moment of silence, and he realizes the voice belongs to Frances. Warmth blooms in his chest.

  “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” he calls back, to reassure her. “She wouldn’t mind.”

  “I’d like to, though,” says Frances, and Scott falls silent. She goes back to speaking to the headstone after a second, voice low enough that he has to strain his ears to make out the words.

  “I hope you don’t mind me coming,” she’s saying, muffled by the rain. “I know we never knew each other, but I’ve heard a lot about you. Scott told me he’s been coming out here alone for the last five years, but I didn’t feel right about letting him go by himself this time. Not when he’s got friends now.”

  Scott snorts, reaching over to pluck a couple blades of grass out of the ground.

  “You see,” she continues, “I think he’s been a very lonely person since you left, and I think I know a little bit about what that’s like. It’s hard, really, to miss someone you know isn’t coming back, and I think he might have gotten scared that he’ll lose anyone he gets close to. I know I did for a long time.” She pauses, as if searching for something to say, and the sun peeks through a hole in the clouds, reflecting like a beam of light off the wet stone slabs. “He’s helping me, you know. He’s helping me find someone I lost. I just wish I could do the same thing for him.”

  The water that drips down Scott’s cheek is warm, leaving a trail of heat cutting through the cold rain that soaks his skin.

  ***

  Frances places a hand on his arm as they leave the cemetery, firm enough that Scott knows she’s trying to get his attention rather than support herself.

  “We found him,” she says, three little words, and it takes half a moment before Scott can figure out what she’s talking about.

  “Is he close?” he asks, because it’s easier than saying did you talk to him or is he still everything you thought he was. The rain falls around them in sheets, pattering off the fabric of the umbrella loud enough that they can’t be overheard by anyone that happens to pass by. The closer they get to the front gate, the more of the outside world seems to leak into their little bubble of quiet solitude, until Scott can make out the sound of car horns and crowd chatter over the ambient din of rainfall.

  “Closer than I thought,” replies Frances. Her voice sounds off, breathy and a little pitched, like she forgot to inhale before speaking. “It still has to be you, though.”

  Scott nods. He knows. Besides, he thinks he might actually be glad of the opportunity to meet Evan himself, to finally put a voice and a personality to the face he had found himself so drawn to. As much as he might not want to admit it, over the weeks he’s spent more than one late night hunched over in his living room, studying the angles of the photographs, trying to picture what Evan might look like behind the camera based on the single still image of him in the album. There’s just something about it that he can’t quite put out of his head, but he’s chalked it up so far to just a curiosity for the unknown, a nagging at the back of his mind that he won’t really be rid of until he passes the book along good and proper.

  “It’s not much,” says Frances, digging a pen and a small, half-used memo pad out of her purse. “Mitchell couldn’t get an address, but she does have a town and it’s fairly small. I think if you ask around a little with the locals they should be able to point you in the right direction. Evan’s pretty distinctive, I think.”

  “What, just ask for the British photographer and call it a day?”

  He means it as a joke, but Frances just gives him a knowing smile and inclines her head ever so slightly. “Something like that,” she says. “If that’s how you want to word it.” There’s a beat of silence, where she opens and then closes her mouth as if there was more she had meant to say.

  Scott nudges her arm gently, jostling the umbrella and sending stray raindrops skittering from the edges. She looks at him, squinting as if searching for something in his face, then seems to relent.

  “Just—” she starts, breaking off to find the words to say. “When you see him, ask if he wants to come home, will you? Not back to the city, but back to Mitchell and I, at the very least.”

  Really, Scott can’t say no to that.

  ***

  He pulls the photo album down from its place on his shelves when he gets home, spreads out the folded up paper Frances had scribbled Evan’s location on. An unfamiliar town name stares back at him, looping and bubbly handwriting tracing out the letters neatly. A quick search on his computer brings up turn-by-turn navigation to a little hole in the wall town pushed right up on the coast. It’s nearly two hours away, twisting down mountain roads and stretching across endless wilderness, but he finds he doesn’t quite mind.

  Printing off the directions, he sticks the folded up paper along with them into the photo album, nestled snug against the Christmas photograph.

  Chapter Five

  The mountains open up all at once as Scott navigates his car down the twisting one lane road, going from a dark, looming
wall of rock and black trees to a heady view of the sky and sea. The horizon breaks through the gap between the slopes like a door blowing in the wind, and when Scott cranes his neck to see down past the last curve in the road, he can just barely make out the shingled roofs of a little town built in clusters along the foothills. The sun dips low enough against the skyline that gold reflects out on the water like spilled paint, rippling with the waves as they crest and come down onto the shore, dotted with little indistinguishable figures that he thinks must be people swimming, despite the fact that it’s the middle of November and the water this far north must be just shy of freezing.

  He drives up slowly, hand steady on the wheel as he pulls to a stop at an intersection. The buildings are small, nothing like the towering skyscrapers of the city. It’s all quiet here, and when he rolls down his window the scent of sea breeze fills his lungs.

  It’s the kind of place Scott always thought he would live—a little cottages, white picket fences with roses and ivy growing over the sides, April and a dog and two and a half kids. The thought of it makes his heart clench a little in his chest, twisting up his insides with that familiar nostalgia that creeps up on him whenever he thinks about what he might have had with April. Next to him, the photo album rests on the passenger seat of his car, and he wonders if Evan ever thinks about what he might have had with Frances. In the weeks since he had met her, she had never let on whether or not they had been together.

  Well. You don’t really make a photo album of someone if you don’t care about them a little, right?

  He stops in front of a corner store when he sees one, the kind of mom and pop joint that looks like it’s been there longer than half the town. The bell on the door gives a pleasant jingle when he steps inside. The woman that turns to wave at him from behind the counter is elderly, wrinkled with laugh lines.

  “Can I help you, dear?” she asks, leaning forward against the register.