I'm the Only One Going in Blind novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Contact Sheet

Lacey blocks the door and threatens to tell his parents he called Dustin a faker; Dean leaves anyway, and Simone shows him three sessions paid on his card and a frame where Dustin mouths 'Help' at the lens.

At seven on Monday morning I was packing a duffel bag in the bedroom when Lacey stood in the doorway and blocked it.

She had showered and put on her scrubs.

Her bag was on her shoulder and her keys were in her hand.

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

"Because of a photographer's email?" She tilted her head. "Dean. I told you why I sent it."

"You didn't tell me why Dustin's door says NO MORE."

"I wasn't there, babe. I was here with you."

"I know you were."

I zipped the bag and carried it down the stairs.

She followed me, close enough that I could smell her shampoo.

At the front door she put her back against it.

Our neighbor was outside in his bathrobe, watering the mums on his porch.

He stopped and looked over.

Lacey saw him and raised her voice, in the sweet, clear way she used at church.

"If you walk out on him now, Dean, I will tell your parents what you said about Dustin."

"What did I say?"

"That he's faking it."

"I've never said that."

"Then it's my word against yours," she said, loudly enough to carry to the porch. "And who do you think they'll believe?"

The neighbor turned his hose on the mums and kept his eyes on them.

I understood then that she could do this in daylight, in front of anyone, and it would sound like love.

I said, "Move, Lacey."

She looked at me for a long moment.

Then she moved, and she smiled at the neighbor and called, "He's just stressed!"

I put the duffel in the truck and drove away with my hands steady and my jaw tight.

At the first red light my phone rang.

My mother.

I let it ring and then picked up on the third try.

"Lacey says you're leaving," she said. Her voice shook. "Dean, he's barely eating. If you go, if you cut him off, I don't know what he'll do. Come to dinner on Sunday. Please. For your brother."

"Mom, I'm not cutting off Dustin."

"Then come and sit at the table."

"I'll be there."

"And draw?"

"I'll be there," I said, and hung up before she could ask again.

Broadway was empty except for a delivery van.

Simone's studio was on the second floor above a print shop, up a narrow stair with a hand-lettered sign: STEGNER LIGHT.

I had texted her at six to say I was coming.

She had answered with a single line: Door's open. Coffee's bad.

The room at the top of the stairs was big and bright.

There were three tall windows, a white backdrop on a roll, and a wall covered in printed photographs of strangers laughing.

She was at a long table with a laptop open and two mugs.

She'd pushed her sleeves up again.

"Sit," she said. "I printed everything."

She slid a folder across the table.

The first page was the email thread, six messages long.

The booking came from my address.

The confirmation call was logged from Lacey's number.

The deposit was a card payment, and the last four digits were 2209.

"That's my card," I said.

"I figured." She did not look away when she said it. "The deposits went through on three sessions. I'm sorry. I thought it was yours to spend."

"Three?"

"Today's was the third. There were two earlier ones, here, at the studio. Lacey said she wanted practice portraits of her and Dustin for the family. You never came."

"I didn't know about them."

"Then that's the second thing I'm sorry for."

I looked at the card number for a moment.

Then I turned the page.

She had printed contact sheets, rows of tiny frames, every picture from all three sessions in order.

Lacey was smiling in every frame.

Dustin was in a suit in all of them, and in all of them his shoulders were hunched.

"Look at frame forty-one," Simone said. "In the second session."

I found the number in the corner of the sheet and put my thumb under it.

It was a close shot of Dustin's face.

Lacey was off to the left with her hand on his arm, and her fingers were white at the knuckles.

Dustin wasn't looking at her.

He was looking straight into the lens.

His mouth was open a little, and the shape of it was plain.

He was saying it to the camera, and nobody else was meant to see.

"Help," I read aloud.

"I saw it the day I shot it," Simone said. "I told myself it was nerves."

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