‘How about wrecking the photos?’ says Faye.
And with that, I have an idea.
My Amazon delivery arrives the next day. Ty always takes photos at the same time every day, when the light is the best. So as soon as I see him in the garden on Saturday afternoon, I head outside. He’s focused on what he’s doing, which is taking pictures of the pond again. The light is glittering on the surface, creating an ethereal glow around the water.
I start putting up the privacy screen. The screen is a pop up, meant to block sunlight or nosy neighbours.
It’s opaque, so I can’t see him after I put it up. But I can hear him.
‘Writer!’ says Ty, his voice raised. Looks like the nickname is sticking, but I don’t feel mad about it. ‘What are you doing?’
I pop my head from around the side of the shield. He looks mad.
Excellent.
‘How did you know it was me?’ I say. ‘It could be my mum putting this up.’
‘I can see your hands. I don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work this one out,’ he says. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Just putting up this privacy screen,’ I say. ‘You know, on my side of the fence, so I can.’
‘But why?’ he says.
‘For privacy, duh,’ I say. Bet he doesn’t like being made to feel stupid.
‘You need privacy?’ he says, eyebrows up. ‘From us?’
‘Well, I wanted to stop having conversations with annoying neighbours,’ I say sweetly. ‘This feels like a good solution.’
As soon as I say this, I catch the screen on the fence at an awkward angle, causing me to stumble and drop it. This is a mistake because now the golden hour light has hit Ty’s face, lighting him up like an angel.
An angel with a devil’s heart, I have to remember. He made me feel so bad yesterday.
‘Really?’ he says. ‘You want to stop talking to me?’ He leans forwards. ‘I must have made quite an impression.’ His eyes flicker over me. ‘Are you sure this isn’t to do with me taking photographs?’ He gestures at his camera.
‘You take photos?’ I say, feigning ignorance. ‘I hadn’t noticed at all.’
Within seconds he is over the short fence, and straight up in my space. I feel my throat get dry with his proximity. But I can tell my aim has been accomplished, he looks irate.
‘Stop this stupid act,’ he says.
‘You were the one callingmestupid,’ I say.
He frowns, those green-brown eyes narrowing.
‘No,’ he says slowly, ‘you’re the one who accused me of calling you stupid. I never said that.’
I think back to our conversation. It’s true he never said it, but he made me feel it.
He shakes his head. Lifts up his camera.
‘Do you know why I like photography?’ he says.
Now it’s my turn to shake my head.
‘May I?’ he says.
I nod, mostly out of curiosity of where this is going. He takes a couple of steps backwards, lifts up the camera, twists and taps on the settings. Then he looks through the viewfinder and takes a photo of me.
