Chapter 12
Melissa woke to the hum of the ceiling fan and a to-do list already forming in her head.
She sat up against the headboard and pulled her laptop from the nightstand. The folder she’d made the night before was still there. Portraits. Three images inside. Winnie at the window. Winnie smiling. Winnie in the quiet after.
She opened a new document and started writing names.
Jan. Sally. Bryan. Cassidy. Emily. Grant. Clint.
She stared at the last name for a while, then moved it to the bottom.
The others she could picture. She could see Jan at the espresso machine with her sleeves pushed up. She could see Sally behind her counter with a pencil stuck in her hair. Bryan in the kitchen with a dish towel over his shoulder. These were people she’d been watching for months already.
The difference now was that she was going to walk up and ask them.
She closed the laptop before she could talk herself out of it. She showered, then ate a piece of toast standing over the sink. She loaded two lenses and a spare battery into her bag. Her hands were surprisingly steady.
You know how to do this. You always did.
She locked the cottage behind her and walked toward town before the heat settled in.
Harbor Brew at seven forty-five. Dark roast and warm blueberry muffins, with a morning line that reached the door. Jan stood behind the counter with her hair in a thick braid over one shoulder, pulling shots with the speed of someone who’d done it ten thousand times.
Melissa waited until the rush thinned before she approached. She set her camera bag on the floor between her feet and waited for Jan to finish steaming milk for a regular.
“Jan, when you get a minute.”
“I have approximately forty-five seconds.”
“Okay. Forty-five seconds.” Melissa took a breath. “I’m working on a portrait series. The town. People in their workspaces. I’d love to photograph you here if you’re willing. Nothing posed. Just you doing what you do.”
Jan wiped her hands on her apron and studied Melissa over the espresso machine. “You’re asking permission.”
“I’m asking permission.”
“I’ve had tourists shoot video of me without asking. Like I’m a zoo animal.”
“I know. I’m not them.”
“You’re not.” Jan finished wiping and draped the towel over the handle of the steam wand. “When do you want to do it?”
“Right now, if that’s okay. I’d stay out of the way. Anything you don’t want me to use, I delete. Even the ones you just don’t like.”
“Shoot it.” Jan waved a hand and turned back to the machine. “Just don’t get my bad side.”
“You don’t have a bad side.”
“Flatterer.”
Melissa lifted the camera and stepped back toward the window so the morning light fell across the counter from the east. She didn’t say anything else. She let Jan forget her. It took about two minutes.
Jan hummed under her breath the way she always did when the line got long. Melissa took the first frame when Jan was steaming milk, her face half-turned toward the thermometer, her braid swinging with the small tilt of her head. She took another when Jan laughed at something a customer said, her whole face opening into it. She got one of Jan’s hands on the handle of the coffeepot, a small scar on the inside of her wrist just barely visible under her sleeve.
She moved once, to the side of the counter, to catch Jan in profile while she rang up a cup of drip for a silver-haired man in a fishing cap. The light caught the small silver hoop in Jan’s ear and the flyaway strands along her temple. Jan didn’t glance over once.
She stayed twenty minutes. She left before Jan asked her to.
Outside, she slipped the camera back in the bag and stood a moment on the sidewalk. Her heart was running a little faster than it should have been for a woman who’d taken fewer than forty frames. She pressed her palm flat against the camera bag and waited for it to settle.
