Pinhole, Higher Learning
Copyright© 2024 by Fanlon
Chapter 12
It was finally Thursday. I was anxious and excited to go to my first photography club photo shoot. I had no idea who the model was going to be or if there even was one. Either way, it was going to be amazing. I had been going over all sorts of different ideas for the picture I was going to take. The possibilities were nearly endless.
“So, did you get permission to go tonight?” Dana asked.
Her eyes danced as she watched me for a reaction. She was just as excited as I was apparently. Dana had agreed to take me without hesitation the moment I asked her for a ride.
“Yup.” I nodded, grinning. “We played twenty questions, but in the end they finally agreed.”
“Cool. What time should I be there?”
“Whenever. I just need to be there by 8:00”
“I’ll just come by after school,” Dana announced.
“Do you think I could come with you, over to his house?” Laura asked, and I grinned.
I wrapped my arms around her in a tight hug before pulling back and stealing a little kiss right there in the hallway.
“You won’t get in trouble, will you?” I asked. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I was already on her mother’s shit list and the last thing I wanted to do was make things worse.
“It’ll be fine, don’t worry,” Laura replied, smiling. “I’ll just tell her I was doing homework with Dana.”
Dana rolled her eyes dramatically, but a smile ruined any protest she had about the whole situation.
In all the anticipation for this evening, I had completely forgotten that I was going to have the whole afternoon to myself. When Dana and Laura showed up, that would change, but until then ... boredom.
I tried to keep myself busy working in the darkroom, but unfortunately, there wasn’t anything really for me to do in there. Everything I had gotten over the weekend was already put away and ready for use. I did manage to get all the chemicals I needed as well as two boxes of photopaper, and those were all stored on a set of metal shelves against the far wall.
One of my dad’s friends, it turned out, was a retired photographer, and happened to have some things in his garage I might like. When we showed up to look, we found an older key light on an old adjustable stand that would work perfectly. There was also a back light that could be paired with it. The key light I could set up behind me or or to the side, while the back light would go behind the model. Neither one was brand new, obviously, but that didn’t matter to me. They worked and I couldn’t wait to try them out for real.
He recommended we should try to find a fill light, soft boxes, and an umbrella or two. He also mentioned reflectors and diffusers, but sadly he no longer had any of the things he listed. It would have been cool if he kept all the stuff he had, but he explained that when he retired, he gave a lot of it away to his old partner. What he still had, I was welcome to though.
I was messing around with the key light stand when there was a knock at the door. I knew who it was right away because they didn’t bother to wait for someone to come and let them in.
“Josh, we’re here,” I heard Dana call out.
“Leave the door open, Josh!” Mom yelled down from the top of the stairs and I flinched.
Laura raced down the stairs and jumped right into my arms. I was nearly taken off my feet and the two of us staggered for a second before I finally got my feet back under me.
“What did she mean about the door?” Laura asked, before planting a kiss on my lips and leaning back to look at me.
“Uhh, what?” I stammered.
“He got busted with a naked girl down here last week.”
“What! You did?” Laura’s eyes were as wide as they could go.
I didn’t say anything, my eyes shifting over and over between Dana and Laura. I watched Laura’s expression go from one of shock to questioning to accusatory. Dana, after an agonizingly long pause, finally put me out of my misery but not before Laura backed away, hands on hips, looking furious.
“You should see your faces right now.” Dana laughed.
“Dana!” I whined.
“It was just me,” Dana told Laura who still maintained her pissed off posture. “I posed for him last week to test out of the darkroom when we got it done and his mom came downstairs.”
“Is that true? Don’t lie to me,” Laura demanded.
“Yes, that’s exactly what happened.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that, then?”
“I panicked,” I answered, my head down staring at my feet nervously.
After dinner, Dana, Laura, and I climbed into her Beretta, and we took off. We needed to drop off Laura first, which we hadn’t planned well because when we got there, Laura was in my lap and her mother was watching the car from the upstairs window.
“Oh shit, my mom’s right there!” Laura gasped, sitting in my lap. “Down, get down. Come on, move it, hurry!”
I slouched down as low as I could and even shifted toward the center console to stay out of sight. My heart was racing, and it was hard to believe we were so stupid to not have thought about this before we got here. Flat out, this was the dumbest thing I had ever done.
“It’s dark in here, so she shouldn’t be able to see him.”
“What about the dome light?”
“I just turned it off. Don’t worry,” Dana answered, her voice shockingly calm considering the position we were all in. “Just get out normally and shut the door right away. You, stay down as low as you can and roll toward me. That way only your back is exposed.”
Laura took a breath and did as Dana suggested. I hugged the center console as tightly as I could and didn’t move until the door slammed shut and Dana drove away. After we turned at the end of the block and were out of sight, I finally got back into the seat like a normal passenger.
“That was way too close!” I huffed, still trying to control my breathing.
“Yeah, that was pretty stupid on our part.” Dana chuckled.
“You think?”
“It’s over now and no one got in trouble, everything’s fine, jeez.”
“I know but—”
“Dude, you’re about to go to your first nude photoshoot at the university. Think about that instead of how close we were to getting caught by Laura’s mom.”
“I wonder what it’s going to be like.”
“I know, right? Do you think I can come with you?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. I had a gut feeling that there was no way the people in the club were going to let Dana in, unless she was one of the models posing, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“I’ll ask and see, but I can’t promise anything.”
“I know, I know. Just ask for me, please.” She gave me a hopeful smile and I returned it.
Dana pulled up at the same place Mom always dropped me off and picked me up after class. She left the engine running and watched as I got out of the car, grabbing my bag from the back seat. I had decided to bring both my Canon as well as one of my pinhole cameras. I wasn’t sure if I was going to use the pinhole, but I wanted it just in case.
“I’ll go ask if you can come in with me, just stay here and I will come get you if it’s cool.”
“Okay, hurry up.”
“Oh, settle down, jeez.” I laughed and she smirked in return but didn’t move.
I hefted my bag, slinging it over my shoulder and closed the passenger door. It was dark, which made it hard to see exactly where I was going. All of the lights in the building were off, which didn’t help. That left the meager streetlights, which helped some. I was almost to the main door before I noticed a tall figure standing out front watching me as I approached.
“Ah, you made it.” I recognized that voice.
“Umm, yeah. I did.”
I was trying to place who voice this was, but I couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t until he turned and the streetlight out front allowed me to see his face that I realized who it was—Professor Peterson.
“I’m glad you came, Josh.” He reached out a hand and I grasped it in my own. He grinned proudly.
“Thanks, Professor Peterson. I’ve been looking forward to it all week, ever since Jeff told me about it.”
“Come on, let’s go in. The others are all waiting for us.”
“One thing, umm. My friend, Dana. She’s the one I worked with on my project...”
“What about her?”
“Can she, you know, umm. Can she come in and watch or help me?”
“Not tonight, maybe another time.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Run and tell her she can wait in the library just up the street. Tell her to be back here around 10:00. We should be done by then.”
I nodded and did just that. Dana looked crestfallen and I felt terrible, but what else was I supposed to do? I told her she could go over to the library and wait and that I would be done around 10:00. She nodded, gave me a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and pulled away slowly from the curb to, I assumed, go and park.
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