Beautiful Burn

  "You took this? Who is this?" Jojo asked.

  "My sister," I said, my voice quiet. I hadn't spoken to Finley since I'd woken up next to Sterling. She had left me a few voicemails, but she also understood that I might not want to chat about her vacation by the sea while I was stuck in a snow globe.

  "It's actually pretty good," Jojo said. She looked at Wick, and he agreed. She picked up another frame, and then set it down. "What camera are you using?"

  I shrugged. "Just a point-and-shoot my sister bought me. A Nikon, I think. It's over there." I pointed to a bag in the corner.

  Jojo strutted over and rifled through my things, pulling out the camera and holding it up. "I started with this one. I can teach you a few basics over lunch. Take some pictures tonight, and show me tomorrow."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because your job description might broaden."

  "I'd love to do lunch, but I'm sort of on a budget. I brought a sandwich from home."

  "It's your fourth payday. You can't afford lunch yet?" she scoffed. When I didn't answer, she continued, "My treat. Don't bother arguing. I'll win."

  Wick nodded. "She's right."

  "Okay. I have a few things to wrap up first."

  Jojo left for her desk, and Wick disappeared into his office, closing the door. I was glad he was in a good mood. Thoughts of Sterling and the many possible reactions Finley could have about our moment of temporary insanity ran on a loop in my brain, and I was working on maybe three hours of sleep.

  I finished answering Wick's emails, and then pushed my roller chair away from my desk. The phone buzzed.

  "Ellie, line one," Jojo squawked over the speaker.

  "For me?"

  "Yep."

  I picked up the phone and pushed the button for line one, wondering if it was a bartender complaining about something not working at Turk's, or Mike hoping I'd give him good news about his crap pictures.

  "This is Ellie," I said, waiting for several seconds until the voice on the other end began to speak.

  "I'm ... I'm sorry to call you at work. Congratulations on the job, by the way."

  I hunched over, as if that would help to muffle the conversation. "You can't call me here, Sterling."

  "I know. I'm sorry. But Finley isn't returning my calls."

  I rolled my eyes. "She never returns your calls. Stop being paranoid, and stop calling me. Don't think I don't remember you passing me whatever the fuck that pill was. What did you do? Roofie me?"

  "I--this isn't my fault."

  "Then whose fault is it?" I hissed. "I don't even remember what happened."

  "Neither do I!" he snapped. "You were upset. It was supposed to just make us chill. It was something new I scored from Preston."

  "Preston?" I hissed. "You gave me something you got from Preston? You could have killed us both!"

  "You didn't have to take it. You can't put this all on me."

  "I trusted you," I said, gripping the phone and trying to yell at him as quietly as possible. "But you're right. I accept my part in what happened. You might love her, but she's my sister. I'm trying to turn things around so I can prove to her that--if she does find out--I've changed."

  "You can't tell her," Sterling said, sounding desperate.

  "I won't. But you know best of all, Sterling. Finley always finds out. She knew I cut her Barbie's hair and she wasn't even home. We hosted a birthday party that weekend. It could have been anyone, but she knew it was me."

  Sterling laughed once. "I remember that story." He was quiet for half a second. "You're right. We're fucked."

  I closed my eyes. My lips skimmed the speaker as I spoke. "This is not we. I don't want to talk to you anymore, Sterling. You're on your own."

  "Ellie..."

  I hung up the phone and sighed, pushing away from the desk and gathering my things for lunch with Jojo.

  She was standing by the door waiting for me when I rounded the corner. I followed her to her Outback and ducked inside, hugging myself for warmth. Jojo seemed oblivious to the cold, twisting the ignition like she wasn't wearing huge sleeping bags for gloves.

  "You brought your camera, right?" she asked.

  I held up my bag.

  "I figured we'd try Camp's Cafe. The food isn't farm-to-table or organic or any of that shit, so it's tourist free, and one of the quieter places, so I can show you some tricks on your Nikon. I'm excited to see what you can do. You seem like a natural."

  I laughed once.

  "What?" Jojo asked, pulling out onto the road and poking at the heater setting with her mittens.

  "That's what Finley said. My sister."

  "Well, she was right. Maybe we can start covering things other than the farmer's market and wandering wildlife."

  Jojo parked in the alley in a space meant for the townhouses spanning the entire block. She didn't seem to be worried, stepping out and slamming the car door. We walked together, and I followed her past dumpsters and oil vats through a dirty screen door into the back kitchen.

  "Jojo!" one of the cooks called.

  Jojo waved, and then gestured for me to follow her past the pantry area, beyond the grill, and then the cash register.

  "The same!" Jojo called. "Two!"

  The woman behind the counter nodded and yelled back to her staff. "Two Jojos!"

  We pulled off our coats, scarves, gloves, and hats, and sat them beside us in a booth by the window.

  "You have your own sandwich? That's kind of cool."

  "Not really. I just order the same thing every time, and you're going to love it, too. A fried biscuit with avocado, a medium fried egg on top, and their special sauce. It's Korean or something, which is weird for a country cooking kind of place, but it's f--it's good. Trust me."

  I frowned. That didn't sound appetizing at all, but it was a free meal and better than turkey meat on plain wheat bread, so I wasn't going to complain.

  I handed Jojo my camera, and she told me all about exposure, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. She had me play around with the different creative modes on the camera--the P, A, S, and M--showed me how they were used, and then educated me on why they were superior to the icon modes.

  By the time I scarfed down the weird but delicious Jojo biscuit, I was already adjusting the camera and taking a few shots of the cafe and outside.

  Jojo clicked through them, shaking her head. I bit my nails, waiting for judgment.

  "Ridiculous," she said. She handed me back my camera. "You really have an eye. Wick is going to shit, because he's getting ready to lose his assistant."

  "No," I said, waving her away. "Really?"

  Jojo grinned, putting her elbows on the table and leaning in. "Really. You'll still be helping at the office and cleaning his coffee table, I'm sure, but you're going to be great. I can tell."

  "I'm not a journalist. I can't write. I paid someone to do my papers in college."

  Jojo made a face. "You had to write papers for a degree in ceramics?"

  I closed my eyes, embarrassed. "Yes."

  Jojo cackled, and I laughed with her, really laughed, for the first time in a long time.

  "Thank you," I said, trying to catch my breath. "I didn't know I could laugh like that sober."

  Jojo rested her chin on the heel of her hand. "I know you're supposed to be some kind of family fuck-up, but you're not that bad. I can't imagine you've changed that much in a month."

  "It's amazing what detox and responsibility will do for a girl," I said, only half-teasing.

  "You've been doing so well. Not one slip-up."

  "It's hard to drink or buy weed when you're broke. And even if I had, I wouldn't tell my boss."

  "I'm not your boss, and you're not a liar. It's not just about the money, Ellie, and it's kind of sad, because I've been watching you work so hard, you're still waiting to get it wrong."

  "That's not true," I said, shaking my head and fidgeting with my water glass.

  Jojo breathed out a small laugh, and then began gathering her things.
"Let's go. You have work to do."

  Jojo dropped me off a block from the magazine, and I bent down, glaring at her through the open passenger side window. The exhaust was puffing from the back of her car, and my breath didn't look much different.

  "Really? Is this photography Survivor? It's like nine degrees."

  Jojo waved at me. "There are some interesting things this way. I want to see how you see it."

  "Fine."

  "See you in a bit," she said with a shit-eating grin.

  My camera was cold against my skin, and I struggled to change the settings with my stiff fingers while Jojo pulled away, heading for the back lot behind our building.

  I turned around, seeing an old house, and leaned back to see the antennae. I took a practice shot and checked it, tuned the settings again, and took another. When the display filled with my shot, I smiled. Jojo was right. Automatic mode sucked ass. It was a world of difference knowing how the adjustments would affect the picture.

  I walked down the road, away from the MountainEar, getting lost in taking shots and then watching how the quality changed with the different variations of ISO, shutter speed, and exposure time. I took close-ups of leaves with snow, roofs with snow, broken down cars covered in snow, windows panes with snow ... There was a lot of snow in my shots, but I made it work.

  "Did you get fired?" Tyler, or Taylor, said from across the street. "Zeke and I have a bet going how long you'll last." He was squinting one eye against the setting sun, and I turned around, noticing it was peeking behind the mountains. I pulled back my coat sleeve to look at my watch. I'd been outside in freezing temps for two and half hours and had barely noticed.

  "Which one are you?" I asked, putting away my camera.

  He chuckled. "Tyler. Are you an insurance adjuster or something?" he asked with a smile.

  "No. I'm taking pictures for the magazine now."

  "They must be hurting for help," he teased.

  "Fuck off," I said, turning to walk the three blocks back to my building. Tyler had been standing in front of his station. I hadn't realized I'd walked that far, either.

  "Hey," he called. I could hear his boots sloshing against the wet street and crunching against the rock salt before he reached me. "I was kidding."

  "So was I," I said, continuing down the sidewalk.

  "So, um." He shoved his hands in his tan cargo pants. "You and Paige..."

  "There is no me and Paige."

  "No? Why? Someone said you and her might be ... You like guys, right? I mean ... you'd have to after the night we had. I just can't figure you out."

  "What's to figure out?"

  A grin slowly made its way across his face. "You, Ellie. I'm trying to figure you out."

  "You're talking to me again."

  "I thought maybe this time it would be okay."

  "Why?"

  His eyebrows pulled in. He was getting frustrated. "Do you, uh ... still think about that night?"

  "Not really, no."

  He sighed. "It's been a month, Ellie."

  "I'm aware."

  "I still think about it."

  I took a breath, hoping I could exhale away how he made me feel. "We've talked about this," I said, continuing my trek to the MountainEar.

  "Ellie," he said, chuckling nervously. "Could you stop and talk to me for just a second?"

  I stopped, lifting my chin to meet his gaze. "So are you interested in me because I didn't just fade away like the rest of your one-night stands, because of my father, or because I may or may not be into guys?"

  "None of the above. Why are you being so difficult?"

  "It was one night, Tyler. I was a different person then. I don't want to be attracted to the sweaty fighter willing to take a drunk girl to bed anymore."

  He shoved his fists in his pockets and squinted one eye--that damned dimple in his cheek making another appearance. "You don't want to be, but you are."

  He was so overconfident my insults didn't faze him. He was too arrogant to believe me.

  I kept walking. "You're making this difficult. I'm trying to be clear. Just because I may not be at my strongest at the moment doesn't mean I'm trying to send you mixed signals."

  "I've already taken you to bed. I was going to ask if you wanted to hang out."

  I stopped to scan his face, deciding if he was telling the truth or not. There was hope in his eyes, maybe a little bit of fear. Tyler was tall and bulky and wrestled with wildfires for a living, but he was scared of me, and with good reason. Behind all that muscle and badassery, Tyler was good, and that meant I was bad for him--even if I was better than I used to be.

  "I can't hang out with you."

  He continued as if he hadn't heard me. "I'm off at ten tonight."

  "I'm in bed by ten."

  "What about breakfast? You don't have to be at work until nine, right?"

  "Because I like to sleep in, genius."

  "Are you a bacon and eggs girl? Or pancakes?"

  I frowned. They both sounded fantastic. A free breakfast was as good as a free dinner, and Sally had decided she wasn't going to allow Maricela to add to the pantry until I spoke to my parents on the phone--which I didn't plan to do ... ever. I wasn't turning my life around for them; I was doing it for Finley, and that meant I would soon be living on Ramen noodles unless Maricela took pity on me and brought over some of her famous tamales.

  Free breakfast sounded perfect, but using someone for food, knowing he was interested in me, wasn't being the good person I was trying to be. "No."

  "No?" he asked, surprised.

  "I'm sort of busy with myself. I'm sure you can find another girl to hang out with."

  My feet finally decided to complain about the cold three steps into my walk to the MountainEar. The door chimed when I pushed through the front door, fading while I stomped my boots on the mat.

  "I was beginning to wonder if you were coming back," Jojo said. Her bright smile faded. "Did you know Maddox is outside?"

  I turned to see Tyler standing outside the door, his hands in his jacket pocket, waiting.

  I pointed to the windows, demanding that he go back where he came from. He shook his head.

  "What are you doing?" Jojo asked.

  "How do you get rid of these guys? He's like gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe."

  "I couldn't tell you. I'm fairly certain Maddox has never waited outside in the cold for any girl. You should make him wait until he turns blue. You know ... for the rest of us." She held out her hand. "Let's see what you've got."

  I pulled the small card from the camera and handed it to her. Excitement lit her face as she inserted the card into the side of her monitor and sat, the wheels whining as she scooted her chair closer.

  My fingers were red and frozen, and I wondered how they'd managed to work while outside for that long in sub-freezing temperatures. Quickly getting the right adjustments and shot became an obsession, making it easy to lose track of time. Even standing next to Jojo while she clicked through the hundreds of photos, I wanted to go back out and do it again.

  Jojo shook her head and perched her elbow on the desk, cupping her chin in her hand. She covered her mouth with her fingers, the clicking of the mouse getting faster.

  "I don't even know what to say."

  "The truth. I'll still have the assistant job if they suck, right?"

  "They don't suck."

  "They don't?"

  "These are incredible!"

  I took a deep breath. "They are?"

  "Daddy!" Jojo called, sounding more like an impatient pre-teen than a young woman capable of managing an entire business.

  Wick hurried out of his office, hobbling but motivated. "They're good?"

  "See for yourself," Jojo said, still clicking the mouse.

  I crossed my arms, feeling my skin burn as it slowly warmed, and shifted my weight, unsure how to take their reaction. Wick put one hand on his daughter's shoulder, bending over to get a closer look at the monitor.

  "Ellison,"
Wick said, staring at the screen. "These aren't bad, kid."

  "Yeah?" I said, sniffing.

  He stood upright and patted me on the shoulder. "She needs an assignment, Jojo. Not any of the usual boring shit, either. Something both the locals and tourists want to know more about. Something exciting. Sexy!"

  Jojo frowned. "Ew. Don't say that, Daddy."

  Tyler finally pushed through the door. "I'm not leaving."

  I rolled my eyes. "Don't you have a job to do?"

  Wick snapped his fingers. "Yes! That's it!"

  "What's it?" Jojo asked.

  "Ellie's first assignment!" He pointed to Tyler. "She can follow the hotshot crew. We know the basics, but what do they really do? How dangerous is their job? How physically arduous? What does it take to be a hotshot? Who are they? What do they do in their down time?"

  "No," I said, more begging than answering.

  "Oh my God, Daddy, that's brilliant!"

  "Jojo," I pleaded. "I'm not a journalist."

  "I'll help you," Jojo said. "I can rewrite it, or write the whole damn thing if I have to. You just take notes and get the pictures."

  Wick smiled, all of his yellow teeth on display. He puffed out his chest, proud of his daughter. "This is going to be a feature. Edson and Wick. It could get picked up by the AP."

  "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Are we sure this is even possible?" I asked. "I'm sure there are safety concerns."

  Wick pointed to Tyler. "Make this happen, Maddox. I'm calling in a favor."

  "Don't call in a favor," I said.

  Tyler took a step toward Jojo's desk. "I'm sure I could work it out with the superintendent. I have the day off tomorrow. I could take her in and speak with him."

  I sighed and raked my fingers through my hair, pleading to Wick and Jojo with my eyes. "Stop. Let's think about this for two seconds. You want my first assignment--as an amateur photographer--to be a featured story about following hotshots into fires? Really?"

  Jojo turned off her computer, slipped on her coat, and winked at me. "Bring me back something amazing."

  "It's my second day of taking photographs. You want amazing?"

  "I have faith in you," Jojo said. "Get out of here. Work day is over, and Jose is outside."

  I trudged to my office to gather my things. When I returned to the lobby, Tyler was standing in the dark, chatting with Jojo about my assignment. Jojo had already turned off the lights and was waiting for me to leave, keys in hand to lock up behind me.

  Tyler walked with me to the curb where the Audi was parked, white clouds puffing from the exhaust. Sally hadn't authorized the use of the car, but Jose was certain my parents wouldn't want me walking miles in the snow.