Yet even as I sat there alone, I wasn’t seeking solitude, but Olivia.
Going back to the first box, I found an alphabet series. These weren’t photographs, but illustrations of animals, each paired with a number from one to twelve. Holding them up to the light before putting them in the machine, I wasn’t alarmed, and thought they might be fun for Michael to look at. Even the first one—eight Adders on Ladders (the ladders forming the letter A)—seemed odd, but clever. But when I reached seven Cavorting Cockroaches forming the letter C on the shirtfront of a horrified little boy, and then got to four Murderous Marmosets with exaggerated claws extended, teeth bared and silvery fur dangerously spiked, I stopped looking for more. Had Press been forced to see these hideous slides? They were the stuff of nightmares.
I was relieved to come to several slides of an enormous meadow dotted with hot-air balloons, probably the beginning or end of a race, shot from a hillside. Three teenaged boys in clothes from a generation past stood in the foreground, leaning on one another, watching the balloons. One of the boys looked back over his shoulder squinting at the camera, his shoulder hiding the lower part of his jaw as though he didn’t want his whole face to be seen. I wondered how long he had stared at the photographer to make his face so clear in the image. Unlike the other boys, he wore no cap, and with his narrowed eyes and lanky black hair he reminded me of one of a pair of twins I’d known in primary school. Boys who had tormented even older children, pelting them with rocks from behind an old shed that sat on the road near the school. It was rumored that they had once tied the tails of two cats together just to watch them fight. As I stared at the boy’s unpleasant face, one of his eyelids dropped in a lascivious wink.
I gasped, disbelieving. But then he was still again. Beyond him, the two other boys then seemed to come to life. The second boy, the one with white-blond hair, turned his head slowly to look at the third boy. He inclined his forehead so that it rested against the hair just above the third boy’s ear. I knew that profile, that tall forehead and the permanent look of hauteur. But that hauteur melted as he tenderly nuzzled the third boy’s cheek and the lobe of his ear. I knew I should look away. I knew that what I was seeing couldn’t possibly be real. And yet, when the third boy suddenly turned to face the second and roughly grabbed the back of the white-blond head, and kissed him with sudden violence, I knew the feel of that kiss, the fullness of those lips against mine. I put my hand to my throat and closed my eyes, terrified.
At a tap on the door, I opened my eyes. The teenagers on the screen had returned to being anonymous figures who certainly didn’t at all resemble my husband and his best friend.
What was wrong with me that I’d imagined such a thing? Something I couldn’t have even conceived of in my most secret thoughts?
“Charlotte?” Nonie opened the door from the hall a few inches. “Are you asleep?”
Embarrassed, I tried to keep my voice light. “Of course I’m not asleep. I don’t need a nap.”
“Are you coming down to dinner?”
Dinner? I looked around the dim room. There was no clock, and I didn’t remember seeing a clock. Glancing at the curtains closed over the window, I could see the light had faded significantly.
“What time is it?”
“Why are the lights off? What are you doing in here?” Nonie used a voice I hadn’t heard in a long time. I felt seven years old.
I moved to switch off the lantern, but my hand brushed the searing housing instead and I cried out.
Nonie rushed inside, bringing in a soft unfocused light from the hallway with her. Then she pressed the wall switch, flooding the room with light. I brought my injured hand to my eyes.
“I’m not doing anything wrong, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I spoke harshly without meaning to.
Nonie ignored me, anyway. “Let me see.” She took my wrist and inspected the burn. “The aloe plant is in the butler’s pantry. We’ll put some on it when we go down.” Looking at me closely, she let go of my wrist and touched the sleeve of my blouse. I couldn’t remember shedding my sweater.
“You’re soaking. It’s like a furnace in here.” She looked around. “What’s that smell? Like something burning.”
I waved my hand. “Me?” I said, trying to be funny to make up for my harshness.
Her eyes rested on the lantern and the boxes of slides piled beside it.
“I meant to show you this,” I said. “You said you hadn’t seen one in a long time.”
She shook her head. “Not since I was twenty or so. Though even by then, not many people used them, except for. . . .”
“Except for what?”