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Perhaps that was part of the reason Hope and I got off on the wrong foot. Beautiful women were trouble. Beautiful women with brains were worse. A beautiful woman with brains, a genuine smile, and a bubbly personality?
A death sentence.
How did I know she was all that?
I spent a good deal of my time in that bar watching her with her overeager infant while I attempted to drown my anger.
And my shame.
Awareness of her prickled beneath my skin. Then and now.
Once I started shooting, it became easier to ignore her. In the back of my mind, I appreciated the seamlessness and beauty of the shoot which I attributed entirely to her.
At first, I doubted she possessed the aura of authority to step into this role. I’d been looking forward to working with Maeve. When they threw me the curveball of working with a newbie, after I signed, and then discovering the newbie was the very woman I insulted at the bar?
I was not happy. Yet I found myself happily surprised.
While Hope possessed none of Maeve’s composure, she bore an innate ability to inspire people to follow her lead. She was so damn likeable.
Finally, the shadows won, and I lowered my camera.
Outside shoots trumped man-made sets any day of the week but they were temperamental. Which suited me. I enjoyed the challenge. The mental fatigue.
Stepping out of the fray, I watched as Hope directed the wrap-up. More than one set of eyes, male and female, slid to her ass as she walked past. I laughed to myself, recognizing the sheer will required to keep their eyes above her neck when facing her.
I readily admitted, to myself at least, that she was a beautiful woman. Narrowing my eyes, I took in her form.
The light was all wrong. There was no point in even thinking about it. But I’d never colored inside the lines.
I lifted the lens to my eye.
Focussed.
Click.
Awareness
Hope
My curiosity bubbled and snapped as I complained to Ava. “I know the pictures are probably perfect, but I really want to see them.”
Immediately after wrapping up the shoot, I looked for Ares. I desperately wanted to see how the set translated into digital, but he was nowhere to be found.
“So go knock on his door.”
I could have tracked him down, but without the rest of the crew around, I lacked the courage to approach him. So, I ignored Ava’s sage advice.
Our collisions thus far had been disastrous at best. Part of me could not get far enough away from him. The rest of me, to my chagrin, found him enthralling.
When he worked, he revealed a different, unfortunately fascinating, side. Apart from work, the only expressions I’d seen on his face were blank indifference or smug dismissal. Though I had to allow there was once a hint of a smile. Possibly.
On the set, with the camera in his hands, the indifference dropped from his face and his eyes burned with passion, intense focus, determination, delight, satisfaction, frustration, resignation… I lost count.
Without the camera, he stood aside from everyone else. Unapproachable. Detached. Disengaged.
With the camera, he remained just as inaccessible, but came fully focussed and alive.
I imagined that focus trained on me instead. Not from him, of course. But as a concept. To be the object of that level of interest. How Lucky tuned into Minty, the way Sean watched Tracy.
