Chapter 6
When I arrived at the Cultural Arts Center on Friday, I noticed Elizabeth waiting outside its doors. I gave her a wave as I crossed the street and we went in together, chatting, our footsteps echoing in the high ceiling of the hall as we headed to the photography classrooms.
I couldn’t help but peek into the studio as we passed and was rewarded with a quick glimpse of Elijah standing with his back to me, his folded arms pulling the fabric of an olive-colored T-shirt tight across his shoulders, as he spoke to a handsome man I didn’t recognize.
“You look good.” The man’s voice was hushed, but it carried to where Elizabeth and I stood. “I was surprised when I heard you were slumming it at the Arts Center.” The stranger’s words and step into Elijah’s personal space making my heart sink.
As if sensing our presence, Elijah stepped back and turned his head. Giving us a small smile, lifting a hand.
“You two need a studio? I’ve got one empty,” he said, gesturing to the stall to his right.
“Say yes. Say yes. Say yes,” Elizabeth chanted in barely a whisper behind me, tugging on the back of my shirt.
“Not tonight,” I said instead, lifting my arm to show him my binder.
“Well,” Elijah paused, letting out a breath. “I’ll be back and forth again between the two rooms if you have any questions. Oh, and contact sheets or prints you make from those old negatives, I would love to take a look at them.” He gave me an even brighter smile then, before turning back to resume his conversation.
“I think he might have wanted you to stay,” Elizabeth whispered as we continued to the darkroom.
“I doubt it. Did you see that guy?” I asked, and she just looked at me, confused. “He was fucking gorgeous.”
“I don’t think he likes him,” she shook her head, “but he seems to light up when he sees you.”
“I should be so lucky.” It was easy to confess things to Elizabeth that I wouldn’t have to my closest friends.
Elizabeth just frowned at me. “You’re making the whole thing too difficult.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” was all I could say, and to my relief she let it drop.
We chose enlargers side-by-side again and, whether because he had expressed interest or because I wanted them for myself, I couldn’t say, but I found myself starting to make contact sheets for each sleeve of old negatives. It was a rather boring process where a negative sleeve is laid directly on a sheet of photographic paper and exposed to light, so that in the end you have a single print with small proof images of every negative in a sleeve. With 35mm that would normally have meant thirty-five images per print, but since I was primarily working with 120mn, it was far less.
As he had promised, Elijah was in and out all evening, spending most of his time helping students I did not recognize and that I suspected were from the Tuesday night beginners class. Elizabeth and I found ourselves doing so as well, when Elijah was out of the room and I assumed back in the studio. It was fun, especially when helping the high-school-aged kids that were still so excited about the whole process.
Between chatting and helping out, Elizabeth and I accomplished very little and as the room started to empty, we finally began working on our own projects in earnest, me working with my old family negatives and Elizabeth printing shots of her third grade students from the previous year that she planned to include in letters she hand wrote to each of them, praising their accomplishments and wishing them a happy summer.
I thought that sounded sweet.
Toward the end of the night, Elijah came to stand close to my side, watching as I made a test strip for one of my proof sheets.
“Do you mind?” I found it nice that he always asked, and I told him that I didn’t, quite liking the feel of him by my side, the thought making me blush and feel utterly hopeless.
He watched as I went through the monotonous, and totally uninteresting work of making a test strip, before finally speaking. “Would you…” he stopped as if debating something before continuing and asked if I would be interested in grabbing coffee or something after class. “I may be forced to draft you into helping put away the chemicals, but it would be my treat, and I’d get a chance to look at your proof sheets.”
It took me a moment to answer the question, as distracted as I was by the way Elizabeth was less than subtly watching us out of the corner of her eye. “That would be nice.”
“Great,” he said, smiling before moving away to oversee the other students and eventually heading back to the studio.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Elizabeth asked in a whisper.
“I’m sure it’s not like that,” I told her, not sure at all actually. “We have a friend in common.”
“Oh, coffee together is a given then.” She rolled her eyes and smirked.
We both continued to work after that, and Elizabeth kept up a quiet but steady stream of conversation, peppering it with the occasional you two would make the prettiest babies type comments that I chose to ignore but secretly enjoyed. I was rather nervous at the prospect of having coffee with the man, even if it was only to look at my prints, but worked hard to hide my nerves.
I was only on my fifth contact sheet when Elijah finally came back with our ten-minute cleanup warning before disappearing again.
“You don’t have to go home, but…” Elizabeth’s impression was a terrible one.
“I heard that,” Elijah called back from the other room, and everyone laughed.
When he returned, I was the only one left and was retrieving the last of my prints from the dryer, Elizabeth having left a few minutes before, giving me what she explained the following week was apparently the universal text me signal. I had thought maybe her thumbs had gone numb.
Elijah and I worked side-by-side, storing and discarding chemicals and putting the room to rights, chatting about the following Monday’s class. When we were finished, we each grabbed our things and headed across the street. Stepping into the coffee shop and being hit with the smell of coffee and pastries, we sighed in unison.
“These labs are exhausting,” he said as he studied the late night offerings. “I’m thinking of suggesting they separate the studio and the darkroom labs.
“You do seem to run yourself a bit ragged,” I said and watched as Elijah ran a self-conscious hand through his hair.
“God, I’m sure I’m a mess.” He let out a tired sigh.
“No,” I assured him, “you always manage to look like you just stepped out of a magazine.” I blushed the moment the thought was out of my mouth.
He just grimaced and looked embarrassed. He went back to studying the menu, hands shoved into the pockets of a pair of chocolate-brown chinos, head tilted, and I flashed to an image of Evan as he stood on his porch looking down at me. I found it odd that men who were so entirely different in every other way would have such similar body language. Evan with his blue eyes, pale complexion and black hair and Elijah who was all golden skin, caramel-infused brown hair, and pale-green eyes. Eyes that made my heart pound against my ribs when he looked at me. But the tilt of the chin, so identical, told me it wasn’t just a coincidence.
“So, how exactly do you know Evan?” I asked, trying to make sense of their connection.
Elijah looked over, slightly surprised. “He’s never said?”
“No,” I answered, shaking my head.
“I guess I know more about you than you do about me.” His comment was accompanied by a look I couldn’t read, and I wasn’t sure what to say. What had Evan told this man about me?
Elijah was quiet for a moment before answering. “He stayed with me for a while shortly after my David died,” he said, watching me closely as if trying to gauge my reaction.
“Your husband?” I asked, even though I figured I knew the answer, and he nodded.
I wasn’t sure what else to say. I hadn’t lost anyone close to me except for my grandparents, and at that point, I had lived two hours away so, as much as I missed them
, their passing didn’t affect me on a daily basis. The thought of his loss was heartbreaking.
“I am so sorry,” I told him sincerely, knowing the words could never be enough. “Was it very long ago?”
He said nothing more specific than that it had been a while back and nothing more to clarify his relationship with Evan. Not that he was under any obligation.
When we were finally called forward, me gesturing for Elijah to order first, he stepped up and asked for some decaffeinated specialty drink and a vanilla bean scone. I ordered a simple black coffee, and we took our place at the same table where Elizabeth and I had sat the previous Monday.
He asked if he might see the contact prints I had made that evening, and together we sifted through the different images, talking about those that caught our attention. We both enjoyed the image of my grandfather in his brand-new army uniform, hat slightly cocked, aiming a rifle in such a staged shot that even the subject couldn’t keep a straight face and the image of him standing, arms thrown over the shoulders of two other men I couldn’t identify, a smile that screamed three sheets to the wind.
“Your grandfather has a great face,” Elijah commented. “Very expressive. Do you know which print you’ll make next?”
I looked through the sheets again, scanning quickly to find the image of both my grandparents sitting on the roof of an old Ford. My grandmother in her late teens-early twenties, wearing jeans rolled to the calf and leather shoes and ankle socks. My grandfather leaning back on his elbows in a checked flannel shirt, dark hair slicked back from his face. My grandmother’s smile was all teeth, but my grandfather’s closed-mouth smirk and his arched eyebrow made you wonder what had actually been going on behind the camera.
“I love that one.” Elijah smiled at me. “There’s a story going on there that we’re not privy too. That look,” he said, pointing down at my grandfather, “it’s priceless. That look makes it more than a photograph but a frozen moment in time. Or does that sound silly?”
“No, not at all. That’s it exactly.” It was like he had read my thoughts, and I couldn’t help but grin at him. “It makes me wish I could have asked my grandfather what had been going on.” He held my gaze just long enough for my heart rate to kick up. Studying him in the brighter light of the coffee shop, I could see that Elijah was a few years older than me, probably in his mid-thirties, with faint lines that had started to appear at the corners of his eyes. I couldn’t remember ever being so attracted to someone in my life. But it was more than his looks. It was the way he seemed to view the world around him.
He finally broke eye contact, looking down to glance at his watch, one of those heavy-looking stainless steel ones with a black face. God, you just never saw watches anymore, everyone used their phone, and for some reason I found it extremely sexy. Maybe because it drew attention to forearms that I had just realized I had a surprising desire to touch.
“Well it’s getting late.” He let out a resigned sigh. “Thanks for having coffee with me, I enjoyed it.”
I thanked him as well, and we walked out to the parking lot in companionable silence. We said our good-byes and when I was about to head to my Jeep, he touched my arm, stopping me. “So, you’ll be in class on Monday?” he asked, but I would have sworn that had not been what he was going to say.
I nodded, telling him I would, and he gave me another one of those sexy half smiles before he let his hand fall away.
I watched him as he walked to leave, heading to some sleek, black convertible parked on the far side of the lot. I didn’t know much about cars, but I knew expensive when I saw it. And that was the crux of the problem really, wasn’t it? Elijah Fall was BMWs and GQ fashion. I was old T-shirts and even older Jeeps. No matter how strongly I was drawn to the man or how much I hoped the interest was returned, how could it be? Even if it was, I doubted I could hold his attention for long. I hadn’t been able to hold onto Jason’s, and he hadn’t been nearly as perfect on the outside or as beautiful on the inside as Elijah Fall appeared to be.