“Luke … I just can’t get over what you can do to a canvas. These are”—I reach out as if the painting is a magnet to my fingertips and I want so badly to touch it, but I stop just short—“so lifelike.”
He steps over a large piece of fabric sheeting covered in paint that lies across one section of floor and bends down behind a box underneath a window.
A laptop hangs from his hand when it emerges. He opens it and walks over to me.
“I showed you mine; now you get to show me yours,” he says, wriggling his brows.
I know right away he’s referring to my photography website, which I told him about back at the community center.
Luke sits down in the center of the floor Indian-style, placing the laptop on his lap. I look at the floor and then at my dress, white and bound to show every little speck of paint that might get on it no matter how dry—he realizes right away.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says and starts to get up. “I’m used to just coming in here and sitting wherever. I didn’t even think about your dress.”
I stop him before he gets up by sitting down with him, my legs bent beneath me. A light beaming in from two horizontally elongated windows washes over the space. I don’t care about my dress. It’s just a piece of fabric. Luke’s face softens and something passes over his eyes that I can’t make out, but it makes my heart race.
Reaching out for the laptop, I take it from him and prop it on my own lap. The Internet speed isn’t all that great here so it takes a few minutes to bring up my site and for the thumbnails to load, but once everything is there, I turn it at an angle so Luke can see. He scoots over closer to me, his side touching mine, and peers down into the screen. I feel breathless to have him next to me. My palms begin to feel moist and my pulse quickens.
I can’t remember the last time I felt so eager to share my photography with someone other than my mom or Paige. It’s very personal to me; I may display it on my website for all to see, but this is different. Meaningful. And with Luke, already it feels so natural.
Luke looks at every last photograph on my site, enlarging each one to get a closer look at the details.
“And you say I have a gift,” he tells me and I smile in thanks. “You definitely have an eye for a good shot, that’s for sure. Who is this woman? She’s in several photos.”
“That’s my mom.” I point to a close-up of her sitting near the kitchen window waiting for my dad to come home. A shadow is cast across her face by the window blinds, creating a dozen dark lines over her skin. “Dad used to work as a truck driver. For about three years, I think. I was fifteen when I took this one.” I pause, thinking back on the moment. “I just thought it was so out of character for my parents—Mom in this case—to miss Dad and to show it like this. I don’t think she even knew I was aware, or that I even took this photo. But Dad was gone a lot on the road and Mom would always sit in front of that window when she knew he was on his way home and she’d watch for him.” I smile to myself, thinking about it. “And for about three days, before Dad had to leave again, my parents were the happiest people.”
“They weren’t always happy?” he asks.
I look away from the screen and glance over at him with a forced smile; his expression—the intensity of his hazel eyes, his unwavering focus—is filled with interest.
“Whose parents ever are these days?” I laugh lightly.
He shrugs, smiles faintly.
“Did they fight a lot?”
“No, it was nothing like that,” I say. “They just never had much time for themselves. They each worked two jobs when I was growing up. Sometimes my aunt would babysit me until I was old enough to stay at home by myself. I didn’t see my parents as much as they didn’t see each other.”
Luke is quiet for a long moment, a little longer than what I feel is normal.
“Well, believe it or not,” he finally says, “I can relate to that one hundred percent.”