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.”
Luke tilts his head to the side and says, “Or you can show me yourself later.” Then he points to my purse. “For now, why don’t you take your camera out and get a few shots of the place. You know you want to.” His delicious mouth lifts into a grin, his hazel eyes shimmering under the fluorescent lights.
He has no idea how badly I want that.
“You don’t think anyone will mind?”
“Not at all,” he says.
After hesitating, looking around at other people walking the aisles slowly and taking in the details of so many talented pieces of art, I slide the zipper open on my purse and pull out my camera.
“That has to be heavy carrying around on your shoulder,” Luke says, glancing down at it.
I shrug. “A little,” I say as I adjust a few settings. “But I don’t carry much else.”
“So no makeup drawer in there?”
“Nope.” I chuckle, then snap a shot of him.
We make our way down several rows of art and I begin to notice that the farther we go, the larger the paintings become. There’s a canvas painting of Kilauea that is almost as tall as me, but small in width. A stunning landscape so wide I could stretch my arms out to my sides and still not touch the edges. Easels have long since disappeared, replaced by the actual walls of the building because the paintings here are too large for easels. But there is still a lot of empty space, where I’m sure more art will be added over the next couple months. And as beautiful as all of the paintings and photographs that are here are, I can’t help but notice how there’s no real method to how things are being laid out—being in the business that I’m in, these kinds of things are hard for me to ignore. But eventually I pass it off as it just being too early, and that it will all come together in due time.
Finally, when we get to the last row, there is one giant wall with the most beautiful paintings I’ve ever seen, tall in height and enormous in scope; some of them could take up half a wall in my apartment back in San Diego.
“Wow,” I say, craning my neck as I look up. “This is gorgeous. Just gorgeous.” But so is the one next to it, and the one after that, and after that. I begin to see a pattern in the styles, like all artists have, and realize that a few of these were painted by the same person.