If I Lose Her (4 page)

 We got to my
house a little before five. The lite, evening rain had stopped, and as soon as
I opened the front door I could smell the wonderful smell of my favorite dish
in the world: Shepherd’s Pie. Louis Armstrong was tapping out the gravely notes
of ‘Star Dust’ in the kitchen.

 “Mom?” I
hollered.

 “I’m in the
kitchen. I wasn’t expecting you for another twenty minutes.”

 “I’ve got Jo
with me.”

 My mother
walked out into the hall wiping her hands on a tea towel. Her blonde hair was
pulled back and her feet were bare with pearl-pink painted toenails. “Welcome
Jo,” she said taking Jo’s hand. “Do you prefer Jo or Jolene?”

 “Jo’s fine
Ms. Douglas.”

 “Dawn.
Please call me Dawn.”

 “Okay,
Dawn.”

 “Alex, she’s
prettier than you said she was.”

 This made Jo
and I both blush and turn away.

 My mother
just laughed at that. “Well come on in then,” and we followed her into the
kitchen.

 My mother
was a great multitasker, much better than I ever was, and cooking for her was a
chorus in motion. The ground beef sizzled in one pan and beans sizzled in
another. Potatoes boiled in a pot and a loaf of fresh bread rose in the little
bread machine I had bought her for Christmas.

 “Why don’t
you kids help yourselves to something to drink. There should be some cold sodas
in the fridge.”

 “Is Pepsi
okay?” I asked Jo.

 “Great,” she
said bobbing her head.

 “So, tell me
about yourself Jo, do you have any siblings? What are your parents like?” my
mother asked fishing two or three beans out of the pan, blowing on them and
taking a taste.

 “Well, I
have an older sister, Susan, who’s a year older than I am, my dad teaches
philosophy and my mom works at a nursing home three-days-a-week.”  

 “Married?”

 “Yeah, they’ve
been married now for...twenty-two years I think?”

 Sitting on
the kitchen counter was a padded yellow envelope with my name printed across
the front. I tore it open and let the contents fall into my hand. It was my
brand-new passport.
Finally.
I had been waiting for it for nearly three
months.

 “And are you
from around here? I think Alex mentioned you live in Aurora?” Mom asked poking
the potatoes with a fork and wrapping a tea towel around the handle of the pot
to pour the steaming water into the colander sitting in the sink.

 “Yeah. I’ve
lived in Aurora my whole life.”

 “Aurora’s
beautiful. Alex has probably told you that I own the Thimbles & Lace there
in old Aurora.”

 “Yeah, he
took me by there one night when we went to Blue Moon for coffee.”

 “Alex, you
should have brought her by when I was open,” my mother scolded looking over her
shoulder. “Come by sometime when I’m open Jo and I’ll let you pick something
out,” she continued with a smile and turned back to dump the potatoes into a
glass bowl. The golden, fluffy lumps piled like wet dough.

 “He also
said you are a photographer too. You just had a show downtown didn’t you? I
heard it went well,” my mother said looking at Jo as she went to the fridge for
cream and butter.

 “Yeah,” Jo
replied shyly turning away.

 My mother
caught this and told me later that it was that single gesture that made her
like Jo. She always said that women have a way of seeing things in each other
that us guys just miss. I don’t know anything about that other than I trusted
her and it meant a lot to me that mom liked her.

 “Oh, shoot,”
my mom said kneeling down in front of the open refrigerator door. “It looks
like I’m out of cream. Alex, I need you to run as quickly as you can down to
the store and get me a carton of whipping cream.” She walked over to her purse
sitting on the kitchen counter and pulling out a five. “Jo, do you need
anything while he’s out?”

 “No,” she
said smiling. Jo told me later that she appreciated being treated like an adult
dinner guest. Some of her parents’ friends had a way of talking down to her
since she looked slightly younger than she was.

 Seven-Eleven
was just down the street and thankfully they had a pint of whipping cream so I
was only gone for about ten minutes.

 Now, I don’t
know exactly why I took my camera with me just to go to the corner store for
some cream. I guess it was just instinctive, but I’m glad I did.

 When I got
back to the house, I saw mom and Jo, through the kitchen window, laughing over
an album of me in my younger years. I lifted my camera and clicked off a frame.

 The three of
us ate our Shepherd’s Pie and laughed together for probably three hours.

 After dinner
my mother showed Jo around the house, and they talked a little bit about how my
mother started selling jewelry.

 “Can I show
her my room?” I asked.

 My mother
turned down her nose at this. “You know the rule.”

 I rolled my
eyes. “I know. I just want to give her a chance to see it.”

 “Alright,
but leave the door open.”

 I rolled my
eyes again as I took Jo’s hand and we went upstairs.

 My room
looked like what most teenage boy’s rooms probably look like if you add a
passion for photography and a desire to travel. Maps hanging on the walls.
Shelves full off photography material. An Ansel Adams here and there.

 “Wow, you
really do want to travel,” Jo said leaning forward to look more closely at the
antique looking map of Europe I had pinned to a corkboard with little pins
marking of all the places I wanted to visit.

 “Yeah, a big
part of me wants to be a war correspondent, but another part of me doesn’t want
to get shot, so I think I’ll try Europe first.”

 Then she sat
down on the bed.

 “So, this is
your bed huh?” she asked with a flirty little tilt of the head.

 My ears
perked back. “Yeah.”

 She ran her
hand over the top cover.

 “You should
close your eyes.”

 “Why?”

 She looked
out the open door then back at me and whispered. “Cause I want to do something
naughty.”

 I swallowed.
Then I closed my eyes.

 I wasn’t
quite sure what I was expecting, but she definitely had my attention.

 I could hear
rustling.

 “Okay, you
can open them,” she whispered.

 When I did I
saw her holding a pair of lace, white panties. She pulled back the top blanket,
laid them out flat on the bed and put the cover back. Then she turned, as
though nothing had happened, and went back downstairs.

 I didn’t
know how to respond.

 “Thank you
for dinner Dawn, but I should probably be heading home,” I heard Jo say
downstairs, so I went down and gave her a ride home.

 “What was
that all about?” I asked as we approached her street.

 “What?”

 “What do you
mean what?” I asked looking over at her.

 She bit her
lip.

 She just
looked at me. Then we both burst out laughing.

 It was
Sunday afternoon. It had been raining all morning leaving everything coated in
a layer of vibrant wetness.

 Jo had been
studying the work of Howard Schatz for several weeks now and decided it was
time to conscript me and her friend Amy to go with her up past Evergreen to a
pond in the woods that she and Susan played in years earlier when their parents
had brought them up into the area camping. 

 Amy was
usually willing to get doused in powder, climb a tree or wade through cold
streams for the sake of art. She had an interesting look because she was so waifish
with her pale skin and pale grey eyes, and the only thing that she wanted in
payment was a large, cherry slushy from Seven-Eleven. So, we made our way up
into the forest, drinking our slushies and turning our teeth red, looking for
the spot where Jo wanted to photograph. Once we found it I pulled over, and Jo
got out and put on a wet suit that she had brought with her. She had also
bought a waterproof camera case that looked like an industrial-strength
zip-lock bag that smelled of fresh rubber. I watched with interest to see how
it worked as Jo unzipped the top, slid her camera in, zipped the top shut and
rolled the top over on itself, sealing the camera in.

 “Have you
tested that case?” I asked her, nervous of dunking a camera in water.

 “Yeah, I put
the TV remote in it and put it in the bathtub. It seemed to work just fine.”

 
SEEMED to
work just fine? Well, not my camera, thank you very much.
I thought to
myself as I watched her.

 
Once
we had all of our gear together we walked out into the trees until we came upon
a mythic looking specimen with a single large branch stretching out over a
pond. From the end of its branch hung a thick rope, browning from age and
algae, with a large knot at the end.

 “Up until we
were about ten, Susan and I loved stripping down to our underwear and swinging
out into the pond. This place has such great memories for me,” Jo said setting
her stuff down beside the water.

 I stood at
the water’s edge and looked in. It was surprisingly clear with a layer of
leaves covering the forest floor beneath it.

 “What do you
want me to do?” Amy asked.

 Jo lifted a
red, antique dress out of the box. “Put this on.”

 Without
hesitation, Amy began to unzip her jeans. I turned around to give her some
privacy. When I heard the edge of the water rustle I turned back around.

 Then Jo and
Amy walked out into the water.

 “Alex, can
you hand me the snorkel in the box?” she asked.

 I dug
around, found the blue, plastic snorkel, walked to the water’s edge and handed
it out to her. She reached for it, put it in her mouth and continued into the
water.

 Amy swam out
in front of her then turned over on her back so that her red dress and hair
floated out into the water around her. I lifted my camera and took a
photograph.

 Jo
disappeared under the water so that I could only see the tip of her blue
snorkel.

 Then she
poked her head out of the water.

 “Amy, why
don’t you try going all the way under so I can see how it looks,” Jo said
holding the snorkel to the side, then she put it back in her mouth and
disappeared again. Amy took a deep breath and ducked below the pond surface.

 I stood on
the bank watching an elbow breach the surface here and a foot breach the
surface there, listening to some birds in the trees above laugh at the
funny-looking fish trying to swim in the pond beneath them.

 A golden
praying mantis crawled down the tree next to me with careful precision and
stopped and looked at me. I raised my camera to my eye and leaned close. I
turned the focus ring on my camera as the mantis reached out with its barbed
arm and touched my lens. Click.

 Then Jo
stood up out of the water, and Amy came up for air.

 “I’m not
sure this is going to work.”

 “Why?” I
asked.

 “Because we
kicked up so much dirt and leaves climbing in that I can barely see.”

 A drop of
water fell onto my lens.

 I held out
my hand.

 Two drops.
Three drops more.  

 “It’s
starting to rain,” I told her.

 “Amy, why
don’t you come to the edge of the water and I’ll see how it looks over here.”

 Amy lifted
herself out of the water and walked to the edge of the pond.

 “I’m going
to go get back in the car,” I said putting my camera underneath my shirt as the
rain began falling more heavily. Jo didn’t say anything; she just focused on
Amy and kept taking photographs.

 I got back
to the car just as the rain became heavy.

 As I waited,
my memory wandered back to a time when I was a little boy standing, looking up
at my mother while she sat just under the awning on our back porch, sipping a
cup of something hot and reading a collection of poems by Sylvia Plath. She was
wearing a white dress, and her bare feet were propped up on a small wooden
table stretched out into the falling water. I can’t remember how old I was,
just that it was funny that she was intentionally letting her feet get wet.

 “What are
you doing?” I asked her. “Why are you letting your feet get wet?”

 She turned
and smiled and reached over to me, wrapped her arm around me and pulled me
close to her. “There’s nothing wrong with getting a little wet. It feels so
nice. Why don’t you try it?”

 I pulled a
chair next to her. I untied my shoes and pulled off my socks. Then I wiped the
white fuzzies off my toes, rolled up my pant legs and with toes splayed
stretched my feet out into the rain. She was right. The rain was not cold but
gently cool as it kissed my skin a thousands times over.

 As I thought
about this memory, I rolled down my window and let the rain fall onto my hand
and puddle in my palm.

 Nearly
half-an-hour later Jo and Amy appeared out of the forest, muddy and soaking
wet; both as happy as could be.

 Working on
the school yearbook was probably my first real step to becoming a serious
photographer. I was running around, covering everything from chess club matches
to football games to shooting portraits of the homecoming king and queen, which
taught me two important things. The first was how to think on my feet. In a day
I could easily go from shooting something outside, in the sun, to taking
pictures in the cafeteria, and I didn’t have time to dink around with my
camera. I had to know what kind of shooting situation I was going into and
adjust for it quickly. Remember, I didn’t have a digital camera at the time to
show me on an LCD screen what kind of shots I was getting. The second thing I
learned was how to comfortably approach and photograph people. This would later
prove to be critical in my photography career. 

  Jo and
I had been dating for a few months now and we were together as often as we
could be. I went with her to gallery showings now and again, and she went with
me when I had to shoot a sports piece or something off campus.

 That year
Aurora West was doing pretty well in baseball and we were on our way to the
state championship, so I was tasked with covering the games as often as I
could, which was about twice a week. It was the beginning of May and we were
playing one of the semi-finals at home. I asked Jo to go with me, and she was
happy to.

 It was a beautiful
evening. A clear sky and enough warmth to let you know summer was on its way. I
could smell the hot dogs already cooking somewhere inside the stadium, and I
watched a little boy chase his sister around their dad with a purple gun that
shot a stream of bubbles.

 Since I was
photographing the game, Jo and I got in for free and my pass gave me access to
the player’s dugout, which was a big deal to me at the time. Jo didn’t care at
all for sports so she brought a book with her and the journal that always rode
around with her in her purse, probably to doodle down whatever inspiration
struck her for her photos.

 I had been
studying up on sports photography for several weeks because of my regularity at
the games, and I was eager to try out some new techniques. So, as the players
played, I moved around and captured some interesting moments. One shot was of
our team lounging around in the dugout during the first three innings, when we
were a few runs behind, and another was of the coach and the players all huddled
together as he tried to lift their spirits with a pep-talk. Then Patty O’neil
stepped up to the plate.

 Now, Patty
O’neil was about as Irish as you could get and proud of it. He was also strong,
one of the strongest kids on the team, and just about every time he swung at
the ball he would swing at it like he was trying to kill the thing.

 For about an
hour I photographed the batters from a safe spot on the side of the field,
where I could see their faces, but I was getting bored, so I decided to get a
little creative. I changed my position to where I was directly behind the
batter, up in the stands just far enough to see over the shoulder of the
umpire.

 Patty swung.

 Strike One.
Strike Two.

 Nothing.

 This looked
like it was going to be just as great as the last nine players at bat.
        Patty stepped away.

 He stretched
his arms and swung the bat a few times freely through the air.

 I looked up
and saw Jo watching me with a simple smile from where I had been shooting
previously. The book she was reading lay open in her lap. I winked at her and
she looked away in a playful way then back at me.

 Patty’s
father sat just to my right, cheering his son in with whistles and claps.
Argh,
my stomach is starting to hurt. I’m ready for lunch.

 Patty
stepped back to the plate.

 I lined up
my shot, and as soon as he started to swing I pulled the shutter release.
Crack! Patty’s bat splintered like tinder and fell to the ground as the ball
flew across the infield, outfield and the back fence like it was on its way to
Rome. I stood to my feet and mashed the shutter release.

 The player
on third crossed home. Click.

 The player
on second crossed home. Click click.

 The player
on first crossed home. Click click click.

 I counted
off each frame as Patty gleefully trotted his way across third, then I stopped.
I got the shot of the swing–at least I think I did, but did I still have
two or three frames for Patty crossing home?
Shit!
What if I shot
through my whole role and miscounted?
God PLEASE let me have just two more
frames!

 I took a
deep breath, lined up the shot, set my focus and clicked a frame just as Patty
stepped on home.
Oh thank God.
But was that my last or did I have one
more?     Again I waited and watched intently through the lens.

 Patty walked
back to the dugout as all of his teammates ran out to great him. Hugs. High
fives. Patty turned with a smile so big you think he discovered Ireland
himself. Click.

 I looked at
the back of my camera and the numbers went yellow. That was the end of the
roll. I had just barely made it, but made it I had. “YES!” I screamed, jumping
in the air. Of course, my scream was drowned out by the cheers of everyone else
in the stands who were already on their feet cheering for Patty Irish.

 I looked
over at Jo, who was laughing and shaking her head.

 I walked
over to her and told her with excited speed how I was just trying to do
something creative by getting behind the batter and how I had worried about
running out of film. She didn’t say a word. She just listened to it all with
her head cocked and an authentic smile on her face like she cared more about me
talking than what I was saying. When I was done and I just looked at her.

 “What?” I
asked.

 “You’re
going to be a great photographer,” she told me.

 When Jo said
that it was like she knew something. Like she could see something in me beyond
what I could see.

 I pulled her
close and kissed her. Then, after the particularly passionate kiss, I pulled
back.

 “Are you
hungry?” I asked. “We could try to find some cookies or a sandwich or
something.”

 “I could go
for some nachos.”

 “God I love
you,” I said shaking my head and turning to put my camera back in my bag.

 And there it
was. Hanging in the air like a kite whose string had been cut but hadn’t had
the decency to fall back down to earth.

 My eyes grew
big and my heart pounded heavy realizing what I had just said. I took an extra
minute to make sure my camera was cleaner and better put away than it had ever
been before. Then I stood up and turned back around to her.

 “Do you mean
it?” She asked.

 Now, as an
adult you realize you can say “I love you” to numerous people in your life
without it causing an apocalyptic event. However, as a teenager, saying “I love
you” is tantamount to asking someone to marry you.

 I knew that
seconds counted, and I could either play it cool or I could jump in headfirst
and just be honest with her.

 Suddenly the
noise of the crowd was gone, and all I could see was her.

 “Of course I
mean it. I’ve loved you ever since that night at the gallery when I looked
through those windows and saw you laughing with those people about your photos.
I knew right then that if I could live in that smile until the end of time, I
would die a happy man.” Then she pulled me close again, but this time she
didn’t kiss me. Instead she leaned forward, on the tips of her toes, and
whispered in my ear. “I love you too.” I put my hand on the side of her neck
and leaned my forehead against hers. How free I felt, saying to her what I had
been feeling for months now. Piece by piece I was giving her everything I had.

 It was
between innings now and there were a few more minutes until the team would be
back on the field, so we went and found some nachos and a couple of large
sodas. She liked the jalapeños; I didn’t.

 Though my
mind was on Jo, I had to try and focus.

 There were a
few innings left and I had another roll of film in my bag, so we stayed until
the end, if for no other reason than for me to get a shot of the two teams
congratulating each other.

 It was
getting late, but I was too excited to go home. I wanted to develop the film
far enough to at least see on the negatives what kind of shots I had pulled
off. I told Jo that I was more than happy to give her a ride home, but she
didn’t really have anything else to do so she decided to go back to the school
with me.

 At 8:30 at
night the school was dark and quiet. Had the darkroom been in the main
building, we would not have had access to it, but since it was in a small
building out past the auto shop, a few of us had keys and could develop film
long into the night or on weekends if a deadline was approaching.

 Jo and I
pulled up and parked next to the grey-brick building and went in. I switched on
the regular light and set my camera bag down on the table closest to the door
while Jo walked over to the stereo that had gotten so much use over the years
that several of the buttons had broken off. Tape with scratchy writing marked
where the pause and play buttons used to be.

  I pulled
out the half dozen or so rolls of film I had shot at the game and set them
aside while Jo loaded a CD into the player.

 I rummaged
through the rolls piled on the counter looking for the one with Patty’s
bat-breaking run, which was marked with a red pen streak so that I could
develop it first.
Found it
.

 A song by U2
began to play.

 I went and
started collecting the various tools I needed to pry open the film canister and
developing the film while Jo began mixing chemicals. I loved working with her
in the darkroom- us bumping into each other, handing stuff to each other,
having to reach over and around each other- trying to put the pieces together
to correctly process an image.

 “What is
this?” I asked her.

 “The new
City of Angles soundtrack. Have you heard it?” She asked starting to sway her
hips to the music.

 “No, I don’t
think so,” I told her walking over to the light. My tools were laid out and I
was ready.

 “I’m ready
if you are,” I said.

 “Yep.”

 Click. The
room went dark.

 I was so
used to trimming and clipping film that it only took a few minutes to get the
roll into the metal canister for the chemical bath, but while the lights were
out, the next song on the album began to play: Alanis Morissette’s ‘Uninvited’.

 I heard a
roll of film fall off the table and clank against the ground.

 Then, in the
dark, quiet room, the solitary piano notes began walking, slowly, between us.

 The words of
the seductive song sounded like Jo was saying them to me herself, and it took
me a few moments of listening to realize that even though I had not heard this
before, Jo obviously had, and it was the album that she chose to play here in
our dark quiet world of hanging faces and captured moments, and as I listened
the hairs on the back of my arms stood on end.

 Two lines,
three lines more and the dulcimer-like notes began to work on me like a drug.

 “I think I’m
finished,” I said softly and walked to the light switch. “I’m going to turn on
the safety light. Are you ready?”

 “Yes,” she
replied. Then I clicked the dim, red light on.

 I looked at
her and she looked at me.

 In the red
light she looked like a Siren of mythic quality.

 I walked up
to her, put my hand behind her neck, and we kissed with more passion than we
ever had before, like our tongues were looking for a way to tell each other
something.

 I felt her
breath against the small hairs above my mouth as she gently bit my lip. I
wrapped my arms around her waist and lifted her up onto the table. She wrapped
both of her legs around my waist and pulled me closer, pressing herself against
me so hard that she stopped kissing me, for just a moment, to look at me. Then
she began kissing me again, this time much more slowly. I was almost dizzy
under the intoxication of her kiss, her touch, the music and the moment.

 I will
admit, I was beginning to want a lot, but I wasn’t sure how much she wanted,
and I didn’t want to scare her or make her feel like I was pushing, but with
all of me pressed against her there had to be little room for confusion.

 She moved my
hand from the middle of her back to her bare thigh just beneath the edge of her
skirt. I hesitated never having touched her here before, but she didn’t let go,
nor did she push. We just continued kissing each other. Then, with her hand on
the back of mine, I slid my hand up her thigh.

 As I made my
way into this unknown territory, she gently slid her other hand up underneath
my shirt, over my stomach and onto my chest.

 My hand slid
slowly over her leg and stopped, still with her hand on the back of mine. Then
I stopped kissing her and pulled back.

 “What?” She
asked.

 I hesitated.
I was nervous, scared. My heart was pounding, and I wanted to ask her but I
didn’t want to somehow crack and shatter what we had been building over the
past months together. She had become my best friend and the last thing I wanted
to do was hurt her.

 “What is it
Alex?”

 KNOCK.
KNOCK. KNOCK.          

 We both
turned.
SHIT! Someone’s at the door.

 “Wait,” I
hollered. “Fifteen seconds!”

 She climbed
down off of the table, and I tried to compose myself.
Who the hell is
knocking at…What time is it?

 “Five
seconds,” I hollered again, and Jo went over and turned off the music.