Chapter 6: Flinching

On Thursday night I was still in the studio at nine o'clock, and so was he.

The building was empty except for a cleaning cart somewhere on the third floor.

I had redrawn the tent page four times.

In the first draft I added a family, and it looked like a stock photo.

In the second I added a couple, and it looked like a lie.

The third had a hiker with her back to the lens, and it looked like me, so I deleted it.

The fourth one I printed.

I pinned it to the steel wall and stood back with my arms crossed.

A field at dawn. Two tents. A thermos on a rock.

A girl in a gray sweatshirt sat on a log beside the thermos, holding a mug and looking at the light.

She was small in the frame.

She was not hiding.

"Is that Portland?" Talbot said behind me.

I had not heard him come in.

"It's Oregon. Somewhere with a lake."

"Who's the girl?"

"She's the customer." I kept my voice level. "She bought the tent because it was cheap and the mountain was free."

He came to stand beside me and looked for a long time.

I watched his reflection in the dark window instead of looking at him.

"Better," he said.

I turned around.

"Better?"

"The light is the same. The person is right. I believe her." He nodded at the wall. "That's a good page, Unsworth."

I should have been glad.

Instead something came up in my throat that I had been holding since Monday.

"You told me my work was a photograph of nothing," I said. "In front of the whole team. On my first day."

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