“Because I’m a photographer, Simon.”
“The best wedding photographer in San Francisco, maybe in the country.”
“It’s not that kind of contest. It’s a contest for photos of Ohio.”
“What’s the prize?”
“I don’t know.” Was there a prize? I wished he could understand that while I cared about every bride, CEO, and event in the moment, that those photos left me a bit hollow. The photos I’d taken in Chance in the past forty-eight hours had started to refill a well I hadn’t realized was near empty.
“Annie told me you wanted the clothes from the cleaners you left at my place, so I took them over to her. You could’ve asked me to send them, you know.”
“I didn’t want her to bother you. You can forget it, I don’t need them.” I could go shopping. Or I could wear any of my dresses to Miles and Violet’s wedding. The wedding Shay didn’t want to happen.
“Annie has everything ready to go.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“I take it you’re having a good time? I mean, if you need more clothes than you already packed.”
“Yes, I am.” How I wished that I wanted to ramble about Shay and even about Beck. Or tell him about Josie and her kids, or the car. Or the gossip girls, Nettie’s on Lark, or the mall. I knew I should let him in, even just a little. I needed to remind myself we had a connection that went beyond work. Beyond work and sex. “It’s just hard to be here. I grew up here. I left kind of suddenly and—”
“And you’ll be leaving again.”
“I guess so.” I saw Cameron and Morgan across the street, walking out of the library. Suddenly I wanted to appear nonchalant and unencumbered.
“Si, I’ve got to go.”
“Annie’s waving at me, says she needs to talk to you. Hang on.”
“I can’t. Not now. I have to take care of something.” I waved and Morgan lifted her hand in a half wave. She swatted Cameron and he turned. He spoke to Morgan. She continued up Main Street toward Poppy Lane and then he walked across the street to the park.
“She says it’s important.”
“I’m sure it is, but so is this.”
*
I lay back down, and again, held my camera to my face. I shouldn’t have allowed work to intrude on my week, or Simon to muddle my thoughts and my mood.
A shadow fell over me, and then Cameron’s face appeared in my viewfinder.
“Earth to Teddi Lerner!”
I smiled but felt shaky and unsettled as I lowered the camera to my side and sat up.
“Feeling more chipper today?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “No, not really. I want to apologize for yesterday.”
“No apology necessary. What’s wrong?” Cameron sat and crossed his legs the way we had in elementary school.
“Don’t you have to go home with Morgan?”
“No, she can be home for a while on her own. What’s going on? Is it Beck?”
“Actually, no. It has nothing to do with him.”
“Want to tell me?”
“Not right now.”
“Did you get any good shots?” Cameron pointed to the camera.
“No, I wanted to take some pictures here in the square—but don’t tell anyone, I’m uninspired this morning. Everything looks kind of, well, blah.”
“Oh, that could be the new town motto. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. Welcome to Chance. Land of the free and home of the blah. Should bring in lots of tourists.”
I laughed. “That’s not what I meant. I just meant that I think I’m trying hard to find just the right thing, at just the right angle, for just the right picture.”
“The right picture for what?”
I pulled the contest brochure out of my bag and handed it to Cameron. He studied it.
“I have a diagnosis,” he said.
“Oh, you do, do you?”
“Photographer’s block. It’s like writer’s block. I know it well.”
“Somehow with all those ideas flying at you at the cemetery, I doubt it.”
“I haven’t written the book yet, have I? Not the easiest thing to admit, I must tell you. But it’s a fact. I have a lot of ideas and a little bit of follow-through.” He looked at his hands as if looking for something—a pen, an idea, a muzzle. “I mean I don’t have follow-through with writing my book. I have great follow-through with everything else.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“I do. I swear. I also have a great cure for lack of inspiration.”
“Do tell.”
“Come with me.”
“No way, Mr. Davis. I know where you like to get your ideas.”
He stood and reached out his hand toward me. “I promise. This has nothing to do with cemeteries.”
*
“Nice, isn’t it?” Cameron shifted his car into park at Jasper Pond. “It’s a really great place to think.”
“Or make out.”
“Ha! Well, if you say so…”
“You don’t know what this is, do you?”
“Don’t tell me. It’s an ancient burial ground, and a kiss from someone you knew when you were ten breaks the spell.”
I chuckled. “Good try. It’s where kids park.”
“Yeah, so…” Cameron shook his head and then his eyes widened and he blushed. “Oh, you mean park. Know it well, do you?”
“I’ll never tell.”
“I know Deanna runs on the path here; she never mentioned seeing anything.”
“It’s a late-night-in-the-dark thing.”
“It is, is it?”
“Can we change the subject?” I never should have brought it up, but I seemed to say things around Cameron I shouldn’t. “Aren’t we here to find our creative inspiration?”
“Ah yes, come with me.”
We walked across the gravel lot toward Jasper Pond. A new purple playground stood where the picnic area had been, and new picnic tables flanked a dock for remote-control boats. The meadow where Celia and Miles were married had been replanted as a community garden. A sculpted walking path wound around the pond and through some of the trees, with stations for stretching and pull-ups and squats.
“Want to keep walking? Or we could sit? We don’t have to talk.”
“Whatever you want to do is fine.”
“Teddi, I’m trying to help you find your creative center. Work with me here.”
“Let’s walk.”
Cameron slipped his hand into mine and led me to the shore of the pond like an excited child. His hair even flopped like a boy’s, and if I were his mother I’d lick my hand and try to glue it into place. His whimsy lightened my mood and I scampered to keep up.
Stones lined the shore and I let go of his hand, then reached down and grabbed two. One perfectly flat and able to skip halfway across the pond, another smooth and round to tuck in my pocket as both a memento and a promise. I did this without looking at Cameron, not wanting to answer any questions he would ask.
“I saw Beck.”
“You saw him or you talked to him?”
“I talked to him.”
“That’s good, right?”
“He told me about Shay.” I turned toward Cameron and looked him in the eye. “About what she did. How she behaved.”
“You know it wasn’t my place to tell you, don’t you, Teddi?”
“No, I’m not saying you should have told me. I guess I just wanted to thank you. You let me rant and ramble about Beck and Deanna and all the time you were probably thinking I was a lunatic who knew nothing. And you would have been right.”