Pinhole
Copyright© 2022 by Fanlon
Chapter 31
Walking up to the Sheldon Museum of Art was nerve wracking. I couldn’t believe this was the gallery where my photographs were going to be displayed. The building itself was incredibly intimidating. It was a huge white stone square block of a building with tall, reaching arches that wrapped around the entire exterior. It was lit by bright white lights that made each carved pillar and the walls between them seem to glow. It was a gorgeous building from the outside and I was kicking myself for not thinking of trying to use it in one of my portraits. I am going to have to change that, and soon.
I had walked and been driven past this building more times than I could count but I never really gave it a second thought. I had never wondered what was inside, or been curious enough to find out. The size and scope of the Sheldon Museum of Art was hard to gauge until you were climbing the two sets of stone stairs that led up to the wall of glass that served as the entry. Sure, it looked big, but you didn’t realize just how massive it was until you were right there, in person. There weren’t any windows to see in as you drove or walked by, telling you there were two levels. It was just a huge pale stone building.
There were dozens and dozens of people making their way up the stairs, and even more walking along the sidewalk in route to the Gallery already. I started fidgeting with my tie, making sure it was straight. Then I started feeling like I was choking for real; the tie was too tight. The collar of my shirt felt like it was soaked and sticking to my skin. I desperately wanted and needed to undo the top button so I could breathe.
Laura held my hand tightly in hers as we both climbed the stairs. There weren’t that many, but it felt like thousands right then. Dad must have seen me about to start panicking and put his hand on my shoulder. I turned to see a proud, calm smile on his face, and Mom’s eyes twinkled with delight and excited anticipation.
“It’s going to be fine,” Dad bent down and whispered just loud enough that only I could hear him. “You’re going to do great.” He nodded as he gripped and then patted my shoulder before letting me go.
Just before we reached the glass doors, Dad hurried forward and held the door open for us and then we were inside. Holy shit! I just stood there in the middle of this huge room and stared, mouth agape in awe. The stone walls from outside of the building continued on the inside, but that wasn’t what caught my eye initially. It was the angled stairs on both sides of the room forming a hexagon when you looked at it head on.
The stairs led up to a long balcony hallway that connected one side of the gallery to the other. The way they were designed was a work of art in itself. That’s when I looked up and saw the huge golden disks set into the smoothly carved ceiling.
“Someone’s waving at you over there,” Dad said, and I blinked.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Over there,” Dad pointed towards the stairs and then up to the balcony where Katie was standing with her mom and, I assumed, her dad. “See them?”
It’s a good thing he was pointing so I knew where to look. If he hadn’t, I never would have seen Katie. I had been so focused on the building I didn’t realize how many people were here. There had to be a hundred, at least. You wouldn’t have known it by the sound because there was nothing more than a hushed murmur in the room. It sounded more like a library than an art gallery.
“Laura, look who’s here,” I told her and pointed to where Katie was standing.
“Want to go say hi?” she asked.
“I mean, I guess?” I answered, not sure at all if I really wanted to or not.
“Come on. Jeez, you’re being a big baby.” Laura rolled her eyes and pulled on my arm as we weaved through the crowd of people. “I should be the one who’s terrified, not you.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw our parents smiling and watching us go. Dad winked and raised a hand in his usual form of waving without actually going through the motion. The next thing I knew we were squeezing past a line of people slowly climbing the left flight of stairs. Then, ready, or not, I was standing right in front of Katie and her parents.
“You must be Josh,” Katie’s dad said, reaching out a hand for me to shake which I did. “Pretty exciting, isn’t it?”
“Umm, yes, Mister uh, I mean—Professor Peterson, sir,” I answered, trying to keep my nerves under control and feeling like I was failing miserably.
“Enough of that!” He smiled and I felt a little of the tension on my shoulders lessen. “Just call me Doug.”
“Okay, umm Doug,” I replied, feeling strange calling Katie’s dad by his first name.
“You look like you are about to fall over, Josh,” Mrs. Peterson said, and my eyes quickly shifted to hers. “Just breathe and enjoy the evening.”
“I guess you two haven’t seen them yet, have you?” Katie said, referring to my pictures.
I shook my head no and blushed.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Katie smiled brightly. “Come on, let’s go see!”
Katie grabbed my free hand and then Laura’s as well before leading us down the balcony and through a set of glass doors. Looking around at my surroundings, this is what I expected a gallery to look like. The walls were large and bare aside from two sets of three pictures set far enough apart so as not to encroach on each other. Katie kept ushering us to where my pictures were hung, and I barely had a chance to see what everyone else had submitted.
“Here they are,” Katie said, still smiling brightly and pointing to three black and white portraits I recognized.
I didn’t walk right up to them. Instead, I looked around the room we were in and noticed a common theme: every picture was black and white. The submission to the left of mine was closeups of flower petals, so close that you could see the individual cells of each pedal. It was stunning and powerful.
To the right of mine, the other submission that shared the same wall with me was gorgeous landscapes that immediately reminded me of the pictures Mr. Watts showed us from Ansel Adams. They were good, but nothing like the ones from the master of black and white landscapes—not even close.
Then there was my submission, the three pictures I had taken of the girls from school. They weren’t hung on the wall in any kind of pattern or mosaic. They were set level, all three of them in a row and each nearly touching the next. I was worried for a second which one was going to be in the middle. Would Professor, err Doug hang the one of Katie in the middle? He hadn’t, in fact, it was Laura, my beautiful perfect Laura, hanging proudly in the middle.
Katie and Laura were standing right in front of my portraits. I couldn’t see Laura’s face because her back was to me, but I could see Katie’s and she looked proud as she took in her image on the wall. I stepped up next to Katie, who was still a pace or two away from the wall.
“They are amazing, Josh,” Katie said, quietly. Her eyes drifted to where Laura was standing. “Especially hers.”
I looked at Laura and from where I stood I could see her hands were up in front of her face. Laura turned at that moment and looked at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but her hands were covering her mouth. I instinctively wanted to apologize that the picture wasn’t good enough. That it made her look ... I didn’t know.
“It’s ... I...” Her eyes welled with tears and my breath caught in my throat.
“I’m sorry you don’t like—” I started to say but Laura cut me off, her hands dropping slightly as she shook her head fiercely.
“It’s...” Laura took a deep breath, her hands going to her sides as she closed her eyes. “It’s perfect. I love it.”
Her lip started to tremble, and she gasped a sob and rushed towards me, slamming into my body as she wrapped her arms tightly around me. I could feel her body shaking as she cried silently into my shoulder. Katie stood there smiling that weird sad smile look people get. Her own eyes became a bit puffy from the emotions in the room.
“So, you like it?” I asked when Laura stopped crying. She leaned her head back so she could look me in the eye. She still had tears running down her cheeks, so I reached hand up and wiped the first one, and then a second away with my thumb and kissed her ever so gently on the lips. That brought a small smile to her lips and her eyes sparkled. “I wasn’t sure if you would like it. Both of the ones we took turned out amazing. Dana and I thought this one was the best.”
“I look ... beautiful,” Laura said, her voice hesitant and unsure. “I can’t believe it. It’s just ... I have never wanted to be ... that, you know. I never wanted to be beautiful, not after...”
Laura dropped her gaze to the floor and my heart lurched. I held her cheeks in my hands and gently tilted her head back up to meet mine. She looked at me, her eyes flicking back and forth between mine, wondering and waiting for what I was going to do or say.
“Laura, you are beautiful,” I told her, as her eyes welled up again. I felt her try to look away, but I held her still, not forcefully, but lovingly. Her fists clenched, her walls being rebuilt in record time. I could feel my own tears forming in my eyes as we looked at each other. It seemed like an eternity that we just stood there, her face in my hands. Slowly, the hurt, fear, and anger in her eyes started to melt away. The word she had refused to hear, the word she hated with every fiber of her being, suddenly broke her and at the same time, rebuilt her right before my very eyes.
Her fists loosened and then I felt her arms resting on my sides, her fingers grasping for me, seeking to hold onto me. My tears started to fall as she watched me, searching my eyes for whatever it was she wanted to find. She must have found it because she suddenly pulled me close and kissed me as thoroughly as we had ever kissed before. It was full of passion and love.—not a needy, desire driven thing, but an emotional one.
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