“Oh, well, that’s wonderful,” Melinda says sweetly. “Where are you vacationing from?”
“San Diego,” I answer.
“I’ve been there,” she says. “Nice place.”
“Nothing like Hawaii,” I say.
She purses her lips and nods. “Yes, I guess I have to agree with you on that one.” She smiles softly.
“Too bad you can’t be here for the event,” she says, looking between me and Luke.
“Yeah, I go back home on the twenty-first,” I say, beaming at them both, “but I’d love to stick around and help set up.”
Luke squeezes my hand. “Hey now, remember what I said—”
“Yeah, I know,” I interrupt, squeezing his hand back.
Melinda’s face brightens.
“Perfect,” she says. “I think it’s really going to be our biggest event yet—I do it every year, but this year I decided to hand over the reins to my two favorite people.” She looks at Luke, indicating he’s one of them. “Luke is a special young man,” she says, and instantly I notice his face flush under his tanned skin.
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” Luke cuts in respectfully, a blushing smile covering his whole face. He looks at me with a grin and says, “Melinda is just biased because she’s practically adopted me.”
“Hey, if I could really adopt you, I certainly would,” Melinda says.
“Well, maybe you and my mom can work something out,” Luke jests.
I find their kind banter adorable, especially the way Luke is with her.
Melinda smiles.
The people who had just come up the stairs approach us, and Melinda’s attention begins to split between us and them. Luke decides it’s our cue and then he says, “I’m going to show Sienna around for a few before we head out.”
“OK, dear,” she tells him and takes him into another hug. “Let me know if you need anything.” She looks right at me now. “Hang around for as long as you’d like. There are drinks and snacks in the kitchen—Luke can show you the way.”
“Thank you—it was nice meeting you.”
“You too, honey,” she says.
Melinda greets the other people while Luke takes my hand again and leads me back down the steps.
“So is this another one of your part-time jobs?”
“No, not really,” he says as we descend. “It’s just something I do on the side. Sometimes I even answer phones.”
I get the feeling he’s being purposely vague; either that or he’s messing with me and I’m too enamored by him to tell the difference.
“What do you do exactly?” I inquire suspiciously, playfully.
Back on the ground floor, the first things I see are those striking black-and-white photographs of the old woman again, and I let my hand slip from his and I go right over to them. He follows. While I’m studying them up close and admiring the detail, I glance back at him and continue. “I don’t know why, but I just can’t see you doing office work.”
He looks at me with a small, disbelieving smile. “Why not?” he asks. “Dressed like this I look like I’d fit right in an office.”
I turn from the photograph to him. “Well, sure, you could easily look the part; I just don’t see you as the sit-down-all-day-at-a-desk type.”
One side of his mouth and his eyebrow lifts curiously, as if to say he can’t argue with that.
I look at the second photograph, focusing closely in on the beaded necklace draped over the woman’s gnarled knuckles, and the black fur of the front of her coat the way it appears to make her aged hands look softer pressed against it.
“This is an amazing shot,” I say, unable to take my eyes off of it for a moment. “It was dressed up with a filter afterward to make the black and grays so rich, but even I use filters on a lot of my shots—I think a lot of photographers probably do.”
Finally I look away from it, my gaze scanning a few other photographs on display and I start to feel dizzy with inspiration and envy. I pat my purse hanging from my shoulder just to feel the contours of my camera inside. I’d love to break it out right here and start snapping photographs of photographs, but I don’t feel right about it.
It takes me a long moment to realize that I’ve been walking down this lengthy row, taking in the details of every single shot, and that Luke has hardly said a word.
I stop and turn to him.
He’s smiling; his golden-brown hair is tousled in the front, framing a striking face full of regard and mystery that I want more and more to solve.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t be,” he says. “I like seeing this side of you—you really are passionate about photography.”
“It’s always been there for me,” I say as we continue on down the aisle. The photography begins to thin out and paintings begin to replace it. “Some hobbies come and go, but I think everybody has one that sticks with them all their life; you know, it’s a part of them, like an arm or a leg. Photography is mine. I really can’t imagine a life without it.” We stop in front of a large canvas painting displayed on an easel of a bird’s nest with four little blue speckled eggs amid the sculpted twigs. I want to reach out and feel the raised texture of the paint under my fingers, but I refrain.
“You’ll have to show me some of your work sometime,” Luke says. “You should’ve brought your camera today.”
My face lights up. “I did!” I say and pat my purse again. “And I have a website. Some of my favorite shots are on it. I’ll give you the address and you can check it out later.”