“Do you need help?” came a small voice. Sarah glanced down and saw Abby’s niece looking up at her. The little girl had seemed half-asleep a few moments earlier, but she had apparently revived.
“Sure,” Sarah said. “Remind me your name?”
“Hannah.”
“Hannah, tell me if there are any important people I should take photos of.”
“Hmm.” The girl considered the room. “You should get Paul and Abby.”
“True,” Sarah agreed. Sarah picked up her camera and took a quick shot of the bride and groom.
“Get them looking silly,” the girl added.
“Excellent idea. Can you get them to do something silly for me?”
“I think so,” the girl agreed, then ran off.
Kids got along with Sarah. That was on the great ironies of her life, Sarah thought. Kids loved her. Sarah watched as Hannah ran up to Paul and covered his eyes, making him laugh. Sarah took a few shots.
A moment later, the girl returned. “Can I tell you a secret?” the child said. “Ollie is going to ask my mom to marry him. I gave him permission.”
Sarah smiled. “He’s the red-haired man?”
“Yeah, over there,” Hannah said. Sarah had noticed Abby’s sister Laura standing on the tiny balcony with her boyfriend Ollie, leaning out towards the water and looking up at the stars. Laura was a striking dark-haired beauty with a delicate chin, and her boyfriend looked dapper in a perfectly tailored suit.
“I’ll see if he’s doing it now,” Hannah said.
The girl ran toward her mother, and Sarah readied her lens, but then Ren stepped right in front of her and took the picture. Ren had patiently waited all night, not shooting, but as Ollie leaned over to talk to Laura in front of a glorious emerald-blue sky, Ren had opened his shutter once and gotten the perfect shot. Stupid Ren with his journalist’s eye.
Ollie and Laura began to dance to the music, laughing, and they looked perfect doing that, too. Ren took more shots while Sarah leaned back against the wall, motionless, watching him. Why did he have to be good at everything? It made her feel so much worse.
As the dinner wrapped up and the cheerful guests gathered their jackets and hugged the bride and groom good-night, Sarah carefully packed up her camera, taking her time. If Ren wanted to talk to her, she might as well wait for him so they could talk on the way back to the hotel. Best to get it out of the way early, because she didn’t want to spend all weekend worrying about what he might say. Sure enough, he smiled at her and put up one finger as he finished up a conversation with Paul.
Sarah sighed and waited by the door.
Ren caught up with her as the last of the guests were leaving and fell into step with her on the crunchy gravel of the parking lot. The night air was cool and the small fir trees across the street stirred gently like they were sharing secrets.
“I’ve never been to Newfoundland,” he said. “It’s pretty spectacular.” She glanced up at the Milky Way arching above, the stars radiant against the last quarter of a waning moon.
“It’s definitely remote,” she said. Beauty didn’t affect her like it once had. Sunsets, rainbows, sudden storms…she felt nothing about them these days. Not for the last three years, maybe four. She had wondered for a while if that was what had killed her impulse to do photography: a deadening inside, a lack of hope that tracked with the slow decline of her marriage. When she was young, she could look at the sky and believe all that beauty was meant for her, like a message from the universe. Now each sunset and starry night seemed profoundly indifferent to her, so she had become indifferent as well. Seeing beauty now felt like stepping inside the temple of a religion that she no longer practiced or believed in.
“So what are you doing for work now? Paul said you stopped doing photography,” Ren said, shoving his hands in his pockets as they began to walk back to their hotel along the small coastal road.
“I work in marketing at a bank. I do corporate headshots and events photography along with some graphic design.”
“And you like it?”
Sarah took a breath. “It’s steady.”
He watched her intently. “Steady can be good.”
“It can.” It wasn’t. Sarah’s manager at the bank was a fussy, difficult man named Owen, who was possibly the worst human being on earth.
Technically not theworst, she supposed. Owen was several years younger than her but he had graduated from a fancy business management program, and he had a malicious streak that he considered a ‘management style.’ He particularly liked setting people up to fail in order to win small arguments or find reasons to fire them. Maybe he was the worst person on earth who had never done anything illegal.
Ren said nothing, watching her face. A gust of wind blew in from the water, making her shiver.
“Cold? You can borrow my jacket.”
