If I Lose Her (5 page)

 As I turned
and looked at her from across the room, she understood and nodded.

 I unlocked
the door and opened it far enough to look out. Just then a police officer
shined a flashlight in my face.

 “Officer!” I
said holding my hand up over the flashlight. “We are developing sensitive photographs.”

 The officer
lowered his light and looked past me into the dark room. “Are you a student
here?” he asked.

 “Yes sir,
I’m a photographer for the yearbook, and I was photographing a game tonight. I
just wanted to see what kind of shots I got, and I’m here developing some film.
Is there a problem?”

 “Do you
realize it’s 10:30 son?”

 “Uh, no sir
I didn’t. I must have gotten lost in what I was doing.”

 “Are you in
there alone?”

 “No sir. My
uh…friend was at the game with me and she’s helping me develop the film.”

 “Uh huh. I’m
going to need you both to step outside for me.”

 “Yes, sir,”
I replied, and I turned to Jo who was standing just behind the door. I opened
the door and we both walked out to where I could now see another officer around
the side of the building and their car parked lengthwise behind mine.

 “I’m going
to need you both to step out next to the vehicle please,” he said, which we
both did without hesitation. Then he leaned in and looked into the darkroom,
being courteous enough not to use his flashlight again until he walked back
over to us.

 “Are you
both students here?”

 “Yes sir,” I
said.

 “I’m going
to need to see some ID.”

 “My purse is
in on the table,” Jo told him. I was not too bothered, but I could tell she was
shaken up.

 “That’s
fine,” he said.

 Jo went and
got her purse and came back with her student ID. I handed him mine along with
my driver’s license. He looked at them both with his light then spoke into the
radio on his shoulder.

 “Dispatch,
this is three-one-nine-six-seven over.”

 “Go a head
three-one-nine-six-seven,” the voice from his shoulder chirped.

 “I need a
check on one Alex Douglas and one Jolene Daniels over.”

 It took a
minute but then his shoulder chirped again. “Alex Douglas, 812 Tabor St.,
Lakewood Colorado, seventeen-year-old, Caucasian male. No outstandings. Jolene
Daniels, 8412 Lamar Drive, Aurora Colorado, seventeen-year-old, Caucasian
female. No outstandings over.”

 “That’s a
confirm dispatch, over,” he said to the small voice coming from his shoulder.
“Sometimes we have people trying to do drug deals and other stuff in these
school parking lots after-hours,” he said handing our ID’s back to us. “And, I
think 10:30 is late enough to call it a night on the homework, don’t you?”

 “Yes, sir” I
replied.

 “Yes, sir,”
Jo mumbled, looking down at her shoes.

 “Don’t worry
young lady, you’re not in trouble. Just be safe. Okay?”

 She didn’t
respond.

 “Have a good
night,” he said as he and his partner climbed back into their cruiser and
pulled forward, but didn’t leave.

 “Why don’t
you get into the car. I’ll get the film and lock up,” I told her.

 Again, she
didn’t say anything. She just walked to the car and climbed in.

 I got the
camera bag, film canister and locked the door behind me.

  The
police just sat in the parking lot as we drove away.

 The night
had been so great but crash landed so hard when the cops arrived that I didn’t
really know what to say so most of the way home we just sat in silence. When we
did get to her house I took Jo’s hand.

 “Are you
okay?” I asked.

 “Yeah,” she
said taking a deep breath. “Tonight was just a lot of firsts for me that’s all.
I think I just need some time to process it.”

 “Will you
call me tomorrow?”

 “Maybe give
me a day or two,” she replied, which I wasn’t expecting.

 “Okay? Well,
please call me sometime so I know you’re alright. Okay?”

 She looked
at me with a forced half-smile and nodded. Then she squeezed my hand and got
out of the car.

 I didn’t
hear from her for the rest of the weekend, but on Monday morning I picked her up
for school, just like I had for weeks now. She didn’t feel the need to tell her
parents about anything that happened since she hadn’t gotten in trouble with
the cops, so it seemed like everything was okay. I decided that the best thing
to do was to let her bring it up when she was ready, but she never did.

 Summer was
fast approaching.

 Someone from
a small art magazine in Denver ran a piece about Jo and her work that was
noticed by a few galleries, which led to her being offered two exhibitions.
This meant that we didn’t see much of each other outside of school for a few
weeks. Then one morning, when I picked her up for school, she mentioned that
her parents wanted to know if I could take a portrait of their family. I had
already taken Susan’s senior portrait, and apparently they liked it. I guess
they also figured it would be a good opportunity to finally meet me. Now, Jo
and I had been seeing each other for over six months by this time and she had
met my mother nearly a month ago, so I knew a meeting with her parents was
coming. It’s just that neither Jo nor I had rushed to put it together, and now
there was this increased pressure on me to make their family portrait.

 “Of course,”
I said after a minute of deliberation. “When were you thinking?”

 “Is Saturday
okay?”

 “I don’t
have anything going on Saturday. What time?”

 “We usually
eat around 6:30, but they’d like you to come by at 5 so we have time for the
photo and so they could have a chance to talk to you. You don’t have to do the
photo if it’s a problem. They just like us doing a summer portrait every year,
and they’re willing to pay you.”

 This caught
my attention, but I wasn’t sure how to respond to it.

 “Would that
be weird, me taking money from your parents?”

 “I don’t
think so.”

 “How much
are we talking?”

 “One fifty.”

 “Oh, I think
I can be convinced to take a hundred-and-fifty bucks from your parents.”

 “There’s one
more thing,” she said.

 “Okay?”

 “They don’t
know about your ear ring, and I think it would probably be best if you took it
out. Just for right now. Is that okay?” She asked with not a small look of
worry on her face.

 Piercings
and tattoos had become a huge fad in the nineties, and I had a loop in one ear
in my left ear.

 I smiled.
“Damn, I was planning on getting a couple of more piercings just to meet your
parents. Maybe a tongue stud or a septum ring.”

 She shook
her head and started laughing. “That’s nasty.”

 “What about
a labret?” I asked laughing and poking the skin on the bottom of my lip.

 “I’ve never
even heard of that. A what? A labret?” She said with a frown and a chuckle.

 “Yeah I can
take out the piercings. No problem. How should I dress?”

 “Well, we’ll
all be dressed up for the portraits so you should probably at least wear some
slacks and a collared shirt.”

 “Stop by the
Goodwill on my way home. Got it.”

 She shook
her head knowing that I actually liked dressing decently and had an assortment
of casual dress clothes. I even owned a couple of decent suits, but you might
not have believed it if you met me on the street.    

 She took my
hand.

 “Alex,
there’s something else I need to talk to you about,” she said as I pulled into
the school parking lot. “I’m not sure how to bring it up because I don’t want
to upset you so I’m just going to come out and say it.”

 “Okay?” I
said turning off the car and turning to face her. There was a long dark hair
caught in her lip-gloss that I brushed away.

 “You know
the other night, after the game?” she asked letting go of my hand and starting
to pick at her chipped nail polish.

 “Yeah.”

 “It was
really nice…what we were doing, but I just don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”

 I’ll be
honest. I was a bit disappointed at this. We hadn’t done anything else together
like that since that night because I didn’t want to rush her, but I was getting
excited about the possibility that our relationship was moving to the next
level, whatever level that was.

 “Okay,” I
said.

 “I love
kissing you, and I don’t think it’s a problem when you tickle me. But, I’m not
sure I’m ready for the rest of it. Not yet. Is that okay?”

 I sat back
in my seat.

 “Yeah, no
that’s fine. We were both caught up in the heat of the moment. I hadn’t really
thought about it much since then anyways,” I told her, but it was a lie. 

 This was the
first time I could remember really lying to her, and I hated doing it but there
wasn’t anything else I could think to do. There was no way she would understand
what it was like for me to wake up in the middle of the night with my bed
soaking wet from me sweating through the sheets or how I got aroused every time
I kissed her goodnight or how I started getting turned on by the underwear
commercials on the television when I was ten or how I was in the same boat as
all the other assholes in school who were only trying to sleep with whatever
girl they could but that I actually gave a shit about the girls around me or
how sometimes I would wake up after a dream and my penis would be so hard that
it hurt or how this all drove me so crazy that all I wanted to do was go to the
doctor and get him to give me some pill to help calm me down or how I wished to
God that somehow she could understand all of this but that there was no way I
would ever be able to tell her.

 “Are you
sure you’ll be okay?”

 I forced up the
best smile that I could. “Of course. We should probably head to class.”

 We hugged
and kissed each other in the hall where we parted ways each morning, and I
watched her walk around the corner. Then I left. I didn’t have anything else
going on in class the rest of the day that I cared about, and my time at the
yearbook was up since all of the books had gone to press a couple of weeks
earlier, so I dipped out for the rest of the afternoon to absorb what Jo had
told me and went and saw a movie. I was back on campus in time to give Jo the
usual ride home, so she never knew a thing.

 Saturday
evening I pulled up to Jo’s house ten minutes before five o’clock, feeling like
I was ready to meet her parents. I wore a new pair of black wing tips my mom
had come across in her store, a pressed pair of black slacks and a white shirt
that I had spent more than half-an-hour starching and ironing myself.

 I looked at
the sky and thankfully we had good enough evening light that I figured as long
as their backyard wasn’t awful I should be able to pull off a decent portrait.
Then I took a deep breath and rang the bell. Jo answered.
Thank God.

 “Hey Alex,
come in.” She was wearing the same slim-fitting, Oxford-blue dress she was
wearing the night of our first date.

 “Hello
Alex,” her dad said walking out from the kitchen. Her mother rose from the
couch where she had been reading some magazine and also walked to the front
door to greet me. “I’m Michael and this is my wife, Samantha,” he said shaking
my hand.

 “Hey Alex,”
Susan said coming down from upstairs. Then she tugged on her ear where my
piercing usually was and smiled. I just grinned.

 “That’s a
good-looking camera. Do you mind if I ask what kind it is?” Jo’s dad asked.

 Now, there
are two things that really get on my nerves about photography. The first is
when someone who doesn’t know the first thing about picture taking comes up and
tells me what they think will make a good photograph, like if I’m on holiday
with family and someone says: “Oh Alex, there’s this little bird over in the
tree a hundred feet away that is so damn cute. You should take a picture of
it.” The second is when someone tries to talk to me about my gear as though
they know something just because they own a camera yet they have never even
bothered to learn to change the aperture.

 “It’s a
Holga that used to be my dads,” I told him bracing myself for all of the camera
small talk.

 “Very nice.
Jo’s grand-dad use to use a large format for his photography that I still have
in the office. Would you be interested in seeing it?”

 I was taken
back. Jo hadn’t ever mentioned that photography was in her family.

 “Yeah. I’d
love to.”

 “He was a
real good landscape photographer back in the day. We used to go hiking up near
Boulder and the Vail valley when I was a kid, and I would build a campfire or
maybe do a little fishing while he would take photos.”

 In his study
was a beautiful antique, large-format bellows camera standing on a wooden
tripod in one corner. “When he died, he left me his equipment. I still go out
once in a while to take photos, when I really need some alone time, but I think
the real spark jumped from my dad to Jolene. Look, that’s her grand-dad there,”
he said pointing to a small black and white photo hanging on the wall.

 “Who’s that
other guy with him?”

 “That’s
Ansel.”

 It took me a
minute to process.

 “Ansel
Adams?” I said turning to him.

 “Do you know
his work?”

 “Are you
kidding? I used to look at Ansel Adams’ and Edward S. Curtis’ photos for hours
wondering what it would have been like to haul one of those monsters around the
mountains or valleys, taking photos before anyone knew anything about
photography.”

 “Really?
Didn’t Jo ever tell you that her grand-dad knew Ansel?”

 “No, she
never mentioned it,” I said looking at the photo of the two men smiling back at
me.

 “Well, then
you better see this,” he said flipping off the office light and leaving the
room.

 I followed
him out through the kitchen and into the living room, and there hanging on
their living room wall, as though it were one of their summer portraits, was a
stunning print of ‘Moonrise, New Mexico’. The very photo I fell asleep to every
night and woke up to every morning for more than 5 years.

 “Are you
kidding? Is it–”

 “It’s a
vintage, hand-signed piece; printed by Ansel himself.”

 It was
stunning. The depth of blacks and contrast in the photo was so much more than I
had seen in my little magazine clipping, and there in the corner was the
A-scribble A-scribble of Ansel’s signature.

 “When I was
twelve, I saw this photo in a magazine one day at my mom’s store, and I cut it
out and pinned it to the ceiling over my bed,” I told him. “Then, one by one, I
collected other photos that I pinned over my bed. Ansel’s ‘Half-Dome, Blowing
Snow’, and Curtis’ ‘An Oasis in The Badlands’. Their work is so haunting. When
I look at them I feel like I’m looking through a window at an actual moment,
still being lived, somewhere in the past. I almost expect the Indian in Curtis’
‘Oasis’ to turn and look at me.”

 “I know what
you mean. Sometimes I just sit and look at this village for hours. Thanks for
being willing to come and take our little family’s portrait by the way. I
thought Susan’s senior portrait turned out really nice. Much better than that
studio we went to for Christmas photos last year.”

 “No problem.
Speaking of which, we should probably get to it if we want to still catch the
light.” Then we all went outside and gathered around a newly painted, white
gazebo they had in their backyard.

 The light
was good and I wasn’t nearly as nervous anymore since her dad and I had found
some common ground to stand on, so I took the photo and we went back inside for
dinner.

 “Jolene says
your mom owns the Thimbles and Lace in old Aurora,” her mother said.

 “Yeah,
that’s right. She’s had stores at different locations around town for as long
as I can remember, but she seems to like old Aurora.”

 “I’ve been
in it. In fact I found a great pair of earrings I wore to our anniversary
dinner last year. Do you remember that Mike? That little blue pair, with the
little silver flowers?”

 “Oh, I don’t
know honey, I can’t always keep track of all of the jewelry you buy.”

 “Well
anyways, I thought it was a lovely little shop.”

 “Thanks.”

 The food was
good and I was hungry.

 “So Alex,
what are your plans now that summer is soon upon us?” Her dad asked stirring a
cube of butter into his pile of mashed potatoes.

 I put down
my fork and wiped my mouth with the edge of my napkin. Then I looked across the
table at Jo.
I forgot to tell her.
“Uh, it looks like I am going to
Minnesota with my mom.”

 “Oh?”

 “Yeah, my
mom likes going up there sometimes to sell brooms to some of my grandfather’s
old customers.” 

 “How long
will you be gone?”

 “Probably
all summer,” I replied slowly.

 I kept
watching Jo for a reaction.

 “Do you have
family up there?”

 “My grandma
still lives near there, but we go mostly so mom can just get away for a while.”

 I could tell
that Jo was trying to process everything I was saying, because of how she was
playing with her food instead of looking at me.

 “When are
you leaving?” she asked finally looking up at me.

 “The Friday
after school gets out.” This meant just over two weeks.

 We spent the
next hour or two chatting about my family and their family, my future dreams,
which I had no idea about since I was only eighteen, and we munched on dessert.
Then the evening wound down and it was time for me to go.

 “Thanks for
coming,” her dad said shaking my hand, “you really should come around more
often.”

 “Yes Alex,
it was lovely to meet you,” her mother echoed.

 I said
goodbye to them and her sister and Jo walked me out to my car.

 “When were
you going to tell me about Minnesota?”

 “I’m sorry.
Mom just told me that we were going this afternoon, and I hadn’t had a chance
to talk to you about it. She said that I could stay if I wanted to, but then
she went on about how this is probably our last summer together before I move
out and how she doesn’t think she would be comfortable driving all that way by
herself and…” I pulled Jo close, wrapped my arms around her and rested my cheek
against her head. “Should I stay?”