“Really?” Paul says, stunned. “Not a single one?”
“Nope. But I don’t trust them. They’ve been nothing but sloppy. And if Judith said she saw it, it must be there.” There’s defiance in his voice, though it shakes a little.Here is a man who loved his wife, Paul thinks with real feeling. A heartbroken man who’s been cold to him, and dismissive, too, but if he could satisfy Tom Senior in this, it would be nothing but beneficial to them both.
Paul says he’ll examine the self-portraits with exquisite care, reprinting the negatives if he needs to. Tom looks relieved—grateful, even. His face disappears from the window, leaving Paul to back the car out and drive off at last. Tom and Tom fade to blips behind him.
As he winds through residential streets toward the highway, Paulmulls over Tom’s solemn request and wonders if he’ll really find proof of the man in her pictures. He imagines how Marty would react…and the public, too. He gets carried away thinking about it until he merges with the highway. The flow of cars returns him to the present, to what he’sgotten:every last roll, negative, and printof Judith Stanley’s. Pure elation takes hold of him, sends him speeding along.
He turns on the radio to hear the Doors. He doesn’t love the Doors, but he pumps the volume anyway:Come on, baby, light my fire, / Come on, baby, light my fire.He feels ignited by the lyrics, for once. He feels like a fuckingking.
9.
He planned on waiting until the next day to start, but two hours after getting home, hauling boxes up the stairs and stacking them neatly by the dining room table, Paul stares down at the tidy piles he’s made after inhaling dozens of Judith’s prints. He’s lingered with her in desolate small towns, felt the electric pulse of the city, and soaked in the eerie quiet of her suburban neighborhood. He’s reunited with the sad girl at the parade, who seems just as vividly, painfully alive as he remembers, and he’s examined Judith’s face reflected in store windows, ponds, mirrors, toaster ovens, shards of glass…in every reflective surface imaginable. Her poses range from powerful to playfully arch; she stares a challenge at the viewer that is completely at odds with the Judith he knew.
But of course, he hardly knew her. Knowing what he knows now, and knowing how she died, he sees disturbing details he missed before: slumped shoulders, averted eyes, a haunted look. As if she’d seen the man over her shoulder and snapped the shot anyway. Paul finds himself squinting at every self-portrait for signs of him, even knowing these are the cropped prints, stalker-free.Was he there?Paul wonders, staring at Judith reflected in a window. Behind her, you can see the sidewalk across the street and a small part of a field beyond; that’s all. But was he standing there, somewhere in that space, watching her?
He guesses he’ll find out tomorrow, when he reproduces her self-portraits, just as he promised Tom he’d do. He’s as eager to look as heis uneasy. Even given the edge he’d have with Marty if he found Judith’s killer lurking in her photographs, it freaks him out. To see the man who killed Judith—to actuallyseehim, preserved on film.
Paul reaches for a glass of liquor that isn’t there, the ghost of a drink like the ghost of the cropped-out man. He shivers. And steps away from the table—gratefully—to pour himself a few inches of whiskey and light a cigarette.
While he blows smoke into the cold night air, Paul remembers how he learned of Judith’s death. He was sitting in this same room, in his armchair, watching local news about a “shocking death”—a middle-aged housewife murdered in New Jersey. Paul didn’t know it was Judith, of course—how could he? The housewives of New Jersey were legion. But when the announcer said the body was found in the parking lot at NJCC, Paul snapped to attention. He’d held class the night it happened.
Early the next morning, he called Betty in the main office and asked for the full story. When she said Judith’s name, Paul felt a moment of vertigo.Judith Stanley, really?Betty had confirmed it softly and said she was sorry, though there was an edge to her voice. It wasn’t long after that the police called, but in the quiet, shocked interim, Paul fixated on the way they’d described her on the news: as a stalked and murdered middle-aged housewife. When she was really, he wanted to say, a fuckingartist, a brilliant photographer, an innovator. Should he call the TV station and tell them? He didn’t. He couldn’t. They wouldn’t want to hear.
But here he is now, sitting close to the bounty of her work, the proof he needs to say what she was:a fucking artist, a brilliant photographer, an innovator.Soon he’ll tell Marty, tellHarper’s, then hopefully go on and tell the world. Yes, despite what Judith told him she wanted. She was wrong, though, wasn’t she? And if she’d known how she would end—silenced and killed and deprived of her photographic voice forever—Paul is certain she would have changed her mind, she would have given her approval.
10.
In the morning light, Paul studies the contact sheets he’s developed from Judith’s self-portrait negatives. Notallof them—it was too much work, and too slow, to do all of them, and he figures if Judith said the stalker was inallof them, he should see him inanyof them, right? So he studies the selection under his loupe, moving slowly as he goes. He’s afraid to see the figure—much as Judith must have been afraid every time she developed a self-portrait—but he longs to see it, too. Longs for proof.
He doesn’t find it. Sets the loupe on the table and sighs. Maybe he’s chosen the wrong ones? There shouldn’tbewrong ones. Or he’s missed it somehow, in these small versions? He could—and probably should—print them full-sized. He could—and probably should—printmoreof them, despite what Judith said. He should be thorough.
But it’s eleven o’clock, his energy for the project has flagged, and he’s anxious to call Marty now, while the day is fresh. He has his little speech about Judith memorized, and he wants to get things going. If it works out, he and Marty can discuss the elusive stalker another time. If it doesn’t—well, he can’t even think about that.
—
Thirty minutes later, he’son the phone with Tom sharing excellent news: Marty wants to see Judith’s pictures—this Friday. Tomhardly reacts, which shouldn’t surprise him, but it makes Paul rush awkwardly ahead without a careful transition.
“I’m sorry to say I struck out with the self-portraits. I, uh, redeveloped them and looked them over carefully, but…nothing. No sign of the man. I wish I had better news to report. It’s possible I missed him, you know, though I did look thoroughly,” he adds, practically broadcasting to Tom with preemptive defensiveness that hehasn’tlooked thoroughly, that he’s done a half-assed job.
“Okay,” Tom says at last. Paul swallows his surprise. But he knows Tom simply distrusts him. He would have given the same response even if Paul had developed and scoured every last self-portrait for hours, for days, and found nothing. He only asked Paul because he had no other recourse, because Paul was the “expert,” loathsome as he was.
“I don’t know why I couldn’t find anything,” Paul says, sounding desperate to his own ears but unable to stop talking. “Just so you know, I believe Judith, too. If I have time later I can go through them again—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Tom says stiffly. “Let me know when you find the pictures you want to show the magazine. Tom Junior and I are anxious to see them.”
The words are delivered without malice, but Paul clenches all the same. When he phoned Marty and told him he had some “incredible work” to share with him, work that wasn’t his own and had a story around it as good—or better than—the photographs themselves, Marty said he was “keen” to see it. When they hung up, Paul was shaking from head to toe—as if Marty had said he wanted to see Paul’s own photographs, or as if Paul’s personal artistic reputation were on the line. Regardless, Marty is eager to see the photographsin Paul’s possession—and Paul is filled with urgency to bring Marty the very best set he can.
But what if he shows them to the Toms, and they veto them?
He tells himself to slow down. First he has to get Marty’s approval; then he’ll deal with the Toms.
11.
Paul resents having to teach Tuesday night. He leaves his apartment reluctantly, but on the drive to New Jersey he reviews all the work he’s done for hisHarper’ssubmission and realizes he’s close, and getting closer, to finding the essential twenty prints that will blow Marty’s mind. He calls up some of his favorites, analyzing their strengths and wondering in which order he should arrange them.
He’s still caught up in this daydream when he steps through the classroom door. Hearing the low buzz of conversation and seeing his students’ familiar, living faces wakes him from his art-induced stupor. Rich and meaningfully layered as they are, Judith’s pictures are ultimately flat images, dead things. Or are they signs, images of death? Each one a testament to and proof of Judith’s nullified existence? His students, though limited, areliving. He needs the living tonight—though he didn’t know it until now—and throws himself wholeheartedly into a largely improvised lecture on portrait photography.
His students respond in kind: tuning in, leaning forward, taking notes. The most visibly engaged among them are the three girls who sit in a row, dressed in tight turtlenecks or sweaters, miniskirts—god, those miniskirts!—and brightly colored tights. They smile at him with highly glossed lips, and sometimes he smiles back, runs a hand through his hair, tugs at his beard, struts a little. It adds vigor to an already vigorous talk, one he almost wishes would last forever. He wants to getback to Judith’s photographs—and doesn’t want to at the same time. He feels a chill now when he thinks of the pictures arranged on his table in all their gorgeous dead splendor. It’s nothing like the dark, liquid gaze one of the three girls—the sexiest, Charlie—fixes on him now, sending sparks along his nerves. It makes him wonder if it might be worth ignoring the school’s official policy on instructors commingling with students…again. It’s been a while since he did, and it ended badly the last time. Got messy. He doesn’t want or need messy right now, but the girl makes him ache for it all the same.
