I.
The Wild Edges ofThings
1.
I spot her through my Nikon lens at the annual Columbus Day Parade. Beyond the majorettes’ ecstatic rouged faces and kicking legs, a teenage girl stands apart from the cheering crowd, darkly clothed and oddly still amidst the revelry. Her eyes were averted but now she looks straight at me, her mouth tremulous, mascaraed tears tracking down her face, offering up her misery like a gift.
I take it. I take one shot after another until she turns quickly and disappears into the crowd.
I have to stop myself from running after her. She reminds me of the young girl I once was, raw and hurting. I feel a stab of pain in my side and press hard against the spot while closing my eyes. I haven’t felt this for a long, long time.
A blare from the band’s trumpet startles me back to the present. The pain has ebbed and the girl is gone, so I lift my camera and shoot a small boy with his eyes trained upward on the yellow balloon he holds in his hand. Next, I shoot a middle-aged woman lost in thought, her hands clapping but her face a blank mask. I keep moving, keep shooting, relishing each shutter click, all the while knowing that every picture will pale in comparison to the ones I’ve taken of the tortured girl.
I can’t quite believe she was real.
As soon as I get home, I lock myself in the darkroom and work furiously until the negatives are hanging to dry. Later, staring at mycontact sheet under the loupe in the bright light of my kitchen, I see proof of the girl’s existence, and that her photographs are as good as I hoped they would be. Or feared: a new and terrible spasm goes through me. I sit down hard on a chair, waiting for it to pass. When it does, I stare at her some more. I’m not sure how long it’s been when I hear someone clearing his throat and glance up to find Tom standing in the doorway. Looking tentative, as if he’s caught me doing something obscene. I manage to give him my best smile.
“Dinner’s lasagna. It’ll be ready in thirty minutes or so,” I tell him. He frowns slightly and scans my face. Drops his eyes for a moment to the contact sheet.
“Get any good ones today?” he asks, and I nod but don’t elaborate or share. Instead, I ask him to set the dining room table, then I turn my attention back to my loupe, to the contact sheet, and to the girl I’ve caught on film.Parade Girl, I’ll call her, since I’ll never know her name.
2.
Professor Sorenson looks up from the handful of prints I’ve given him and studies me like he’s seeing me for the first time: the quiet woman in his Introduction to Photography class. The one who’s lingered timidly until everyone else finished their first “portfolio check” and left. Now we stand across from each other in the empty, semidarkened lecture hall, and I’m pleased at his surprise; my pictures aren’t what he expected: smiling children, flowers in bloom, or middle-aged women raising wineglasses in a birthday toast.
“Judith, right?” he says. When I nod, he drops his eyes again to the photographs. He’s moving through the pack slowly, drawing closer toParade Girl. It may be the best picture I’ve ever taken, but I nearly left it out. I feared he’d look into her face, into those tearing eyes, and see the younger me—like I did.Ridiculous, I tell myself.Impossible.But I hold my breath, waiting for his reaction. When he reaches her, I watch his eyes move slowly over every inch of her face and the people around her with flags waving, mouths shouting. He shakes his head but doesn’t look up.
“This is terrific,” he says, quiet enough to be talking to himself. “Just terrific.” I let out my breath, relieved, though my cheeks warm with his words of praise. I can suddenly hear the loud ticking of the classroom clock. “Every single one of these is stunning, Judith. You have an uncanny eye.” I’m too flustered to respond at first, so I reach for my pictures.But when he hands them to me—reluctantly, it seems—I simply want to hand them back. To keep living in the moment of watching him love my photographs.
“Thank you, Professor,” I say at last.
“Call me Paul. Everyone else does.” He smiles. “And you’ve got nothing to thank me for—the pleasure is all mine. Have you thought about submitting these to magazines? There’s—”
“No,” I say. He’s taken aback. But the thought of making my pictures public makes my skin crawl. As if he’s asked me to stand naked on the town green—though that wasn’t his intention, I know. “Thank you,” I add, putting more emphasis on the words this time. Professor—Paul—nods and holds up his hands.
“I get it,” he says, though I know he doesn’t; he can’t. “It’s a private passion. But you should think about it.” I lie and say I will, then thank him again and turn to go. But before I can get to the top of the steps, he calls my name:Judith. I like hearing him say it, knowing that now he knows exactly who I am.
“Bring me your work anytime. I’d love to see more.”
I haven’t thought beyond tonight, past satisfying a class requirement. I never dreamed Paul would react this way—or that I’dwantto show him more. But the force behind his words and his pleading smile act on me like a stiff old-fashioned—my grandmother’s drink—coursing through my veins.
What could it hurt, to show him more?
3.
“What does that even mean?” Tom asks, forking up a bite of steak. He’s puzzled by Paul’s comment about my “uncanny eye.” I don’t know why I mentioned it; he doesn’t like hearing about photography class.Why go to school for something you’re already good at?he asked when I first brought up taking the yearlong class at the local community college. Really, he didn’t like the change it would mean—the change in our Tuesday nights, or the possible change in me. And now I’ve blurted out what Paul said last night, and Tom is resentful. Confused, and possibly suspicious, too—of my male professor taking an interest. He chews and looks at me.
“It means I see things…differently, I guess.” The back of my neck burns. I wish I’d kept it to myself.Pride will out, I suppose—like Grandmother used to say. “Or maybe the professor didn’t know what to say, but he knew he had to say something,” I offer with a half-hearted laugh, careful to saythe professor, notPaul. It gives me too much of a thrill to sayPaul, and Tom would see it in my face.
We go on cutting, chewing, and swallowing the steak, asparagus, and potatoes au gratin: our habitual Wednesday-night meal, one that hasn’t changed since before Tom Junior left home. Nothing more is said about Paul, or photography class, or my “uncanny eye.” I’m relieved he’s let it go, but wistful, too. Tom tells me about his day, about the ongoing politics of the Harrington Public Works Department. Normally I getcaught up in these reports:Travis left the meeting abruptly? Sven and Jonathan said that only to you? Are you sure?Tonight, though, I drift away, savoring Paul’s words and the look on his face when he saw my pictures: open-eyed, surprised, more alert than I’d ever seen him, even in the midst of one of his energized lectures.
If he’d been a dog, his ears would have perked up. Like our little Rosie. Dead for three weeks now. Buried in the backyard, under the magnificent cherry tree. Tom wouldn’t let me help. He was sad, too, I knew, and wanted time to himself with Rosie in her box and the growing pile of dirt by his worn leather work shoes. I watched from the back window, wiping my tears with a dish towel. Sweet Rosie, my Rosie. Tom Junior had called in disbelief, as if he’d thought she would go on whining for scraps by the dining room table forever, Tom ceaselessly shooing her away while we all laughed.
I’d believed it, too.
I blink back tears and take a bite of potatoes. It sticks in my throat. I have to gulp water to keep from choking. Tom stares at me bug-eyed.
“You okay, Judy?”
