Take a Deep Breath (Lake of the Pines) (18 page)

“OK, a little closer.”

James grudgingly took a small step
closer to his sister.

Maddy smiled to herself. He was
just like his mother. She hated getting her picture taken too. “A little
closer. Put your arm around her James,” she instructed. He glared at his aunt.

“Come on. It’s not going to kill
you! The sooner you let me get a good shot, the sooner you can go down to the
water.” James reluctantly put his arm around his sister.

“Now smile,” Maddy prompted. Lena
pasted a goofy smile on her face and James remained stoic. Maddy snapped the
photo anyway. She realized the impromptu photo shoot wasn’t to be. She lowered
the camera. “OK. Let’s go down to the water.”

“Yes!” James shouted and pumped
his fist in the air.

“Can we get our feet wet?” Lena
asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Maddy
answered. They sat down on the bench and took their shoes off and stuffed their
socks inside. Maddy placed them under the bench out of the way. James was
halfway down the beach to the water’s edge before Maddy stepped off the
boardwalk. Lena lagged behind him.

“Wait for me!” she called.

Maddy smiled as the two kids waded
into the water.

“Don’t go out too far,” she called
as she framed their smiling faces in her viewfinder and snapped a series of
candid photos.
That’s better.

She stood at the edge of the water
just out of reach of the lapping waves.

“Come on Aunt Maddy,” Lena
motioned to her.

Maddy tentatively dipped her toes
into the water and jumped back.

“Sorry! It’s too cold for me.” The
water wouldn’t be warm enough for her taste until at least the middle of July.
Right now she could still feel the icy winter in its touch. “I’m just going to
sit over here on the beach and watch.”

Lena nodded and went back to
searching for shells on the lake bottom. Maddy continued to watch them play in
the water, broad smiles crossing their faces as they screeched and laughed at
each other.
Watching.
Maddy was good
at watching, observing and recording. She was always the woman behind the
camera, never the one in the spotlight. She preferred to blend into the
background. That’s how she got her best photographs; by blending into the
background, being totally unremarkable. She had a face that no one remembered.
Maddy sighed and struggled to keep herself from wallowing further in self-pity.
Her mind wandered back to her conversation with Mrs. Jenkins. She laughed at
herself as she brought her knees to her chest and rested her camera on them as
a make-shift tripod. She didn’t have much hope in “it” happening to her anytime
soon. Out of the four Adams sisters, Maddy was the youngest and the plainest.
Maddy determined the good genes must have run out by the time they got to her.
She didn’t have the deep blue eyes that her mother and sisters all had; hers
were gray or green or hazel or who really knew what color they were. She didn’t
have the curvy figure of her sisters either. She would have thought she was
adopted if it weren’t for her grandmother. Maddy favored her with her
stick-straight figure and hair.

A late bloomer, Maddy rarely dated
in high school. The two dates she’d gone on were border-line disasters. She’d
been so shy and clumsy. Neither boy asked her out twice. In the back of her
mind she figured one of her sisters or friends had put them up to asking her
out in the first place - pity dates. Maddy sucked her breath in at the painful
memories. She hadn’t gone to her homecoming dance or her prom. She pretended
not to care; to prefer a good book and warm cup of cocoa to a superficial
dance, but in reality she would have jumped at the chance to go to the dances
-- to go shopping with her mother, to pick out a fancy dress, to get her hair
and nails done… It hurt that no one had asked her to go and she was too shy to
do the asking herself. Too shy and too afraid of rejection. She did have that
trait in common with her sisters. Once she got to college she focused on her
studies, while her roommates partied. Inexperienced socially, she felt awkward
around boys and the party scene. Everyone seemed light-years ahead of her. She
felt content and safe fading into the background again. Now that’d she’d
graduated college, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do next.

Maddy’s phone vibrated in her
pocket, disturbing her from her thoughts. She glanced at the kids now building
a sandcastle on the shore and pulled her phone out. The screen told her it was
a text message from her best friend and college roommate, Monica
.
Speaking
of pity dates,
Maddy thought as she scrolled
through the message. Monica was always trying to set her up with some guy. This
time the guy happened to be Monica’s older brother.

“Hey Mad, how’s it going?  Mason
is visiting friends at your lake! I know you would hit it off. I can set it
up!”

Maddy frowned. She’d never met
Monica’s brother, Mason, and had no intention of going through another painful
pity date, especially a blind one. She didn’t want to hurt Monica’s feelings,
but she also didn’t want her brother to be obligated to go out with her on his
vacation. She sighed as she touch-typed her response.

“I’m not sure I’ll have time with
all the wedding stuff going on.”

A few seconds later Monica’s reply
flashed across the display. “You’re always too busy. Take some time for you
this summer. At least think about it.”

Monica was not going to give up.
“I’ll think about it,” Maddy typed and pressed send.

“That’s better than ‘No’” Monica’s
reply popped up seconds later.

Maddy rolled her eyes at her
friend and tucked her phone back in her shorts pocket. She picked her camera
back up and shot some more candid photos of her sister’s children building
their sand castle. She scanned the horizon and the surrounding boardwalk with
her zoom lens. She’d left her telephoto at home, but her every-day lens still
had a decent zoom on it. She snapped a photo of a sailboat skimming the water.
A few seconds later a pair of seagulls dipping into the water filled her frame.
She panned over to the docks and the line of boats tied to it. Sail boats,
speed boats, jet skis, row boats, pontoon boats and even a canoe were moored to
the three long wooden piers that jetted out into the lake. A small houseboat
made its way into one of the open spaces on the pier closest to Maddy. She saw
a golden colored dog sitting on the deck of the boat. She zoomed in a little
closer. The dog sat perfectly still except for his wagging tail and panting
tongue. The dog stared straight ahead as if guiding the boat into place. The
boat bumped the edge of the dock and the dog didn’t flinch. Maddy watched as a
man joined the dog in her view finder. She sucked in her breath at the sight of
him. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and his well-muscled back glistened with sweat.
Unable to turn away, she snapped a photo as he turned toward the dog. The man
bent down and reached to pat the dog’s head. He had a broad smile across his
tanned face. Just as the man scratched the dog behind his ears, the dog turned
and flicked his tongue right into the man’s mouth. Maddy giggled to herself as
she continued to snap a series of photos as if on autopilot. The man quickly
stepped back and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth on reflex. He wagged
his finger at the impish dog and gave him a mock scolding, before scratching
his ears again, this time with his mouth closed. Maddy adjusted her camera to
see if she could zoom any closer and caught the sun in her lens. She could see
the glare as it flashed across the man’s face.
Crap. So much for
blending in.

The man looked up and out toward
the beach and Maddy. She quickly dropped her camera back around her neck as she
felt her cheeks grow hot from being caught watching the man and his dog. She’d
been so mesmerized by their interaction that she couldn’t help herself. The
photos were for her personal collection and wouldn’t be sold, so there was no
real harm taking them. With more people now dotting the beach, he probably
hadn’t even realized she’d taken his photo. She was worrying for nothing. Maddy
waited for her heart to start beating normally before she looked up and glanced
over toward the man again. He seemed to be watching her, studying her.
He
must see someone he knows,
she thought as she
continued to stare at him. He wore a pair of faded cut-off jeans that hung off
his slender hips. His dark eyes caught and held hers a moment as he slowly
brought a smile to his lips. Maddy felt her cheeks burning again.
He’s
not looking at you anyway. So why are you blushing?
She chided herself. He raised his hand and waved. Maddy quickly turned
to look behind her. He surely wasn’t waving at her. Her imagination must be
playing tricks on her again. She swallowed and glanced back to the pier, but
both the dog and the man were gone.

“Who are you looking for Aunt
Maddy?” James asked dripping sandy water on her bare legs.

Startled Maddy looked up at her
nephew. “No one. I was just people watching…”

“What’s people watching?” Lena
asked plopping down on the sand next to Maddy.

“Well, it’s when you sit back and
observe or watch what people are doing.”

“Boring,” James commented.

“As a photographer, people-watching
is one of the ways I get my best photos. I like to get candid or natural shots
of people doing what they love to do.”

“That sounds neat, Aunt Maddy.
Someday I want to take pictures just like you!” Lena put her arm around Maddy’s
waist and laid her head on her shoulder.

“I have an old digital camera
somewhere,” Maddy said. “I’ll dig around for it and see if I can find it when
we get back home. You can have it, if you want it.”

“Really?”

“Yep, really.”

“Can we go find it right now?”

“Are you done playing at the
beach?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“What about your brother?” she
looked at James.

“I’m ready to go too,” he agreed.

“OK, let’s roll then.”

The kids raced across the hot sand
ahead of her towards the bike rack and their shoes.
Where do they
get their energy?
Maddy wondered again as she
followed behind them.

Shar Dimick started writing stories and poems as a
grade-schooler. Her passion for writing continues to grow. Whether writing, a
blog entry, a software manual or a chapter in her next novel, not a day goes by
where she isn’t writing something. Cousin to her love for writing, Shar’s also
an avid reader of romance novels from contemporary to historical. Drawn to the
genre from an early age, it seemed natural that her first novel,
Take a
Deep Breath
, be a contemporary romance.

Shar holds a Master of Arts in English from Bowling Green
State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. She is the mother of two young
daughters and a grown step son. Shar, her husband and their daughters live on a
small farm in Northwest Ohio, where she’s already working on her next novel.