Chapter 9

I shook my head as I came back to the porch in Fairfax. Looking at old memories like that, and filtering them through what the Cat had just got done telling me about why Nancy loved me begin to make a little more sense to me. I had never looked at it like that before and I didn't really have it all sorted out. I was just feeling a lot more secure about the whole thing somewhere deep inside myself that I hadn't even been aware of. I let out my breath in a long sigh.

Then I went into thank the Cat for giving me the insights I needed to put it into perspective.

That night, it was just Nancy and I in bed together and I told her about my conversation with the Cat that morning. Not about how she had given me the keys to unlock the mystery of why Nancy was with me, but about how she was feeling about her own life. Nancy said she'd talk to her, and then we made a quiet sort of love, looking each other in the eye while our hips slowly moved together. She could see that something had happened but sensed it wasn't the time to talk about it yet and she was right about that. I hadn't fully processed the whole thing inside myself and she knew that when the time was right, I'd tell her about the rest of it. I was busy telling her a lot of things that night, and most of what I was telling her wasn't put into words.

I had a day gig the next morning, and asked Kathy if she wanted to tag along with me and go up to Napa while I took pictures for a winery? Cat countered it and asked me if it would be okay if she used my studio to take some pictures of Kathy, if Kathy was up for having her picture taken? She hesitated a second, then said yeah, she could get behind having a 'world famous photographer make me look good'. Nancy had taken the van that morning to go to work in so we managed to all squeeze into the Z with a bunch of the new dresses and stuff filling up the back and off we went to the industrial section of San Rafael where my studio was.

Cat was familiar with the studio but some gear had gotten moved around since she'd been there last. I showed her where I'd moved the stuff she'd need for the shoot and helped her get the big old wooden ladder out and stood up so she could set up the jells on the spots she'd want for shooting Kathy with. I had to run so didn't stick around to help her with the set up. The Cat and I were pro's and she understood about having to be somewhere on time so she helped me get the gear I needed ready and out into the back of the sports car and I was off and running.

This shoot I had that day was mostly taking pictures of a winery's new tasting room before it opened. They had a few fairly good looking people from the winery dressed up in casual clothes and I posed them around the room, shot some bottles in the foreground with the winery's new label on it for a brochure and in the late afternoon when the light was right, I shot pictures of rows of grapes. This was a family owned business and they invited me to stay for dinner and I accepted, as I knew they wanted to talk about business stuff and so I got to enjoy a wonderful Italian home cooked meal. My agent had set this up at the last minute. The photos were for the agency I had worked for way back when and they'd called him up and asked for me specifically, which was damn nice of them.

The family basically, I think, wanted to make sure that I knew what I was about as far as taking pictures went. So we talked about other ad accounts that I had done work for and I explained that I had been mostly working on rock and roll these days, which lead to a few of the younger family members asking me about bands that I had done work for and I told them about album covers I shot and they asked questions about rock stars I knew and what they were like while I did my best to stuff my face with this absolutely amazing spaghetti someone must have been slaving over a hot stove all day to make. I joked with the grandmother of the clan, and tried to talk her out of the secret family recipe, but she wouldn't give it up. She did invite me to bring my girlfriend up and she'd make it for her, and I took her up on the offer. After dinner, I autographed a few album covers for the younger ones in the family, and they insisted that I take a 'few bottles' with me, which translated as there wasn't any more room in the Z when they were done stuffing it with cases of vino. I told them I would be sure and bring my girl back with me the next time, and said that I would like to take their pictures when I came back, 'especially yours, Maria, ' which won me some points. Maria was the grandmother and she had a very strong face that interested me. When I finally drove out, I knew that I had made some friends, not just done a few ad photos.

It was past one when I got home and I didn't feel like dumping my gear off at the studio so I skipped it. I let myself into the house and was quiet as I used the john and brushed my teeth. I could hear some sighs and whispers coming through the guest room door while I was going into our bed room, but just smiled and went in and was careful not to wake up Nancy as I got undressed and into bed.

Cat and Kathy took off with some borrowed cameras of mine the next day to do the tourist thing, so I got to see the photos first that they had made the day before when Gwen dropped them off around six or so.

There was a series of photos of Kathy in her new clothes standing in front of various backdrops dressed to the hilt. Cat had called up a make up artist she knew and he did the full on routine. Frankly, I wouldn't have recognized Kathy after they were done with the make up and such, and yeah, Gwen had stuck the Cat's logo down in the bottom of the corner. The original one she had started out with, not the new and much thinner one she was signing her work with these days. I wondered how her folks and boyfriend would react to seeing these Vogue model type pictures: Is that really you? I grinned at the thought. I'd bet her mother literally wouldn't recognize her and wondered how she would be able to convince them it really was her? Not your usual tourist vacation shots. Not many vacation photographers used 8x10 negatives for one thing. These high gloss pictures weren't snap shot sized either and every single hair on her head was clear and crisp when you looked at the 16x20 blow-ups.

There were two boxes and the ones in the smaller box were of Kathy nude. She wasn't doing anything lewd or dirty in them, just pictures of a pretty girl sitting on a stool. There was one shot straight on where Kathy had her leg drawn up and her chin on her knee and you can see about half of her bush behind her ankle, but not her split. I kind of liked that one, and wanted one for myself. Then I wondered what the hell I would do with it, as I had file drawers full of pictures that there just wasn't any room left to hang more pictures on the walls. But I wanted a decent shot of Kathy anyway, and this one with the kind of pensive, sort of shy, kind of speculative look in her eyes as she rested her chin and cheek on her knee captured something about Kathy.

Nancy got home about that time and laughed at how Kathy looked done up all haute couture. You know the look, the 'I'm the epitome of cool and absolutely beyond your low life ass' snotty look that was so fashion model back then. She made a couple of funny jokes about what Kathy might have been saying when the photos were took. You know, 'That wasn't me that farted, I'm a fashion model and we don't fart!' kind of captions. It was an old game we played, and Gwen kicked in a couple of good one liners.

I made hamburgers as it would be easy to do more if Kathy and the Cat showed up and hadn't eaten. That was a good idea, as Gwen had just finished up the dishes when they came in and yeah, they had already grabbed a bite, so the spatula and frying pan got washed and the cutting board cleaned and the onions and such went back into the fridge and the table got cleared off and the photos got spread out and looked at. Kathy just could not get over how great she looked and the Cat got a kick out of her reactions as she looked at the poster sized prints sitting on the table leaning on the wall. Gwen had mounted them on foam core so they stood up by themselves.

Kathy just kept shaking her head as Gwen uncovered print after print. The Cat just kicked back and smoked dope, and smiled indulgently at Kathy's reaction.

"So how are you fixed for wall space at your place?" I asked Kathy innocently. Her boyfriend was still in grad school and knew they probably lived in a cramped little student apartment. Which triggered off, 'oh god, where am I going to put them?', which was the reply I was after. They sure wouldn't ever have to paint the walls after hanging two dozen or so pictures up: There was over fifty square feet of huge photos there. They all laughed, and I grinned.

Kathy was a bit shy when the nudes of her came out of the box, but what the hell. Everyone there had already seen her in her birthday suit, so it was just 'oh god I hope I look half way decent in the pics!' shyness, or maybe it was just that it was a photograph and there she was in her skin and 'what would people think back home?' stuff going through her mind. Everyone thought that the photo I liked, the one with her knee up on the stool was the best of the bunch and she said it would be okay if Gwen made a copy for me, as long as it was okay with Nancy? Like, maybe she wouldn't be happy with me having a picture of an ex girlfriend stark naked or something? Yeah, right.

The phone rang while we were looking at the pictures and I went out to the living room and picked it up. Connie had been out of town for the weekend and had just gotten around to returning her phone calls as she'd been busy as hell for the last few days and yeah, she'd love to see Kathy and no, she was free that night, and no, Bob was in Dallas at some meeting and couldn't make it, but sure, she could come over and hang out for a while, soon as she ate and okay, yeah, a hamburger would be fine and could she pick up anything on the way over to drink, which reminded me that I hadn't been out of the house all day long and still had to lug up a hell of a lot of wine out of the Z. I hung up and told everyone that Connie would be coming over, so 'hide the dirty pictures' and say, could you guys give me a hand lugging some stuff out of the car?

Okay, so I'm a lazy son of a bitch. There was only so much room in the car and the family at the winery had been pulling bottles out of cases so they could cram more of them in. So Nancy moved some boxes around in the laundry room downstairs and the rest of us made numerous trips from the car to the little side area outside the laundry room until we got to the 12 bottle cases, which went in first and then the loose bottles got put on top of the boxes laying on their sides and we now had a good start on a wine cellar. Nancy selected a few bottles for us to sample and laughed when I joked that it ought to last us a day or so. She told me that it damn well had better last us until Christmas, as 'this stuff ain't for chugging' as she put it. She told me that I had solved our Christmas presents for a few of our friends who were wine snobs. Yeah, rock and rollers can be wine snobs, too. Phil Lesh had a pretty good nose, (whatever the hell that means.)

Then Connie showed up, and there was squeals of girlish joy as Kathy and her hugged each other and got carried away with all the usual 'you're looking good' stuff two old classmates say when they hadn't seen each other for a few years. When the hug finally broke up, Nancy handed her a bottle of wine and wished her a happy birthday, which I found out was last week. She belonged to the wine snob contingency and took a look at the label and said, "Oh, Nancy, you shouldn't have!" so I got the distinct feeling that the stuff I'd gotten laid on me yesterday must be something pretty special and made a mental note to call up and thank them again for the vino.

So we made our way up the stairs and into the house and Connie glanced at the Vogue style photo blow ups leaning against the wall on the kitchen table and didn't comment, figuring it was something that I'd done for a client or something, I suppose. Kathy and her were chatting a mile a minute and catching up what Connie was doing these days and the Cat caught my eye and grinned sardonically. I winked at her and broke out some wine glasses while Nancy dug around in the drawer trying to find the corkscrew. The Cat noticed it in the dish drainer and hauled it out and handed it to her and she did the honors to a few bottles.

She asked Connie what kind of wine she wanted and she went for the merlot, while Kathy opted for the burgundy, and the Cat had a little of whatever the rest of it was. She asked me what kind I wanted and I said red. She made a face at me, knowing I knew more about wine than just red or white, so she sniffed a few of the open bottles and poured me the merlot, which was very, very, good indeed.

What with the bottles of wine on the table and all, she asked Kathy to put away her pictures so she could get out some munchies. Connie took a second look at them and did a double take when she realized the slender clotheshorse in the expensive blow-ups was Kathy. Nancy shooed them out of the kitchen with the photos so she'd have enough room to work and I helped her by slicing up some cheeses and setting out crackers on the big serving plate. Gwen had cleared off the living room coffee table while we were doing that and the couch had the photos propped up on it while Connie made admiring remarks about the Cat's work and how great Kathy looked and how she wished she could look like that in pictures. The Cat just shrugged, like it was no big deal, and it wasn't really any big deal to her, just something that she did every day and that she could have probably have done in her sleep.

When the munchies hit the table the photos got put into the boxes they'd arrived in and stashed in the guest room. Later on, they would be wrecked when one of the airline baggage smashers shoved something right through the middle of the plywood box I'd put them in on their way home. I had insured them, though, and that fuck up would put her boy friend through about a semester and a half of grad school. Replacement costs for the processing is one thing, having to pay for the mounting, yeah, but the damn negs were right there inside, taped carefully to the plywood box lid and the guy with the fork lift had nailed those dead center. I did mention how much the Cat made per shoot, didn't I? I wish I could have seen their faces when they called up Cat's agent and got a quote on having her reshoot the photos. As it happened, Gwen had been in a bit of a rush leaving the darkroom that day, and there was one negative that didn't get ruined in the specialized enlarger that her lab used for big format work and someone stashed it into an envelope and put it aside, where it wouldn't be found until just before Christmas. Gwen printed out a print from it and we kicked in for the custom framing and shipped it off to her, and yeah, nobody recognized her, not even her own mother. Her mom never did quite believe it was really her little girl in the photo, or so Kathy said when she called up to thank us after she got it.

Connie and the Cat got around to talking about stuff after she and Kathy had caught up a bit about life back in the old hometown. Nancy was sprawled back against me on the couch, with Cat on the other end of it and the other two in the easy chairs across the coffee table from us. I just kicked back and listened to the women talk, tossing in an occasional comment, but really letting them lead the conversation where ever they wanted it to go, and getting up once in a while to get more wine, crackers and cheese, or whatever it was that needed replenishing.

When it got late, we insisted that Connie stay over night as she'd had a few too many glasses to really be driving safely. Since the house was rather packed, she got stuck out in the van on the folding back seat/bed. Nancy set it up and came back up and snuggled into next to me on the couch and we were up until three or so.

The next day, Connie decided to take a mental health day and she and Kathy went over to Berkeley so Kathy could see Telegraph Avenue. The Cat made a comment to me as they left, "Gee, buddy, the whole harem was here last night and what did you do? Went and passed out on us. You're no fun at all!" I laughed, thinking that I was indeed a fortunate man to have had so many interesting women in my life. I gave her a kiss and told her, 'Well, I only slept with half of you, you know?" She found it funny, and asked if I was jealous she got to nail Kathy and I hadn't. I told her I was insanely jealous, which was a lie, but I knew it would tickle her to hear that.