Chapter 32: Dog Days

“I LOVE ALL these photos,” Rebecca Drayfus said Monday afternoon. “Why can’t we use them all?”

“As much fun as that would be, we have a specific number of pages to fill. And if you go shrinking them down too much, you might as well not use them at all,” Miss Sullivan told the yearbook editor. I sympathized with Rebecca, not so much because I wanted to use all my photos, but she’d just graduated over the weekend and still had to spend time at school with the yearbook staff doing the final edits this week. Technically, the only things left to choose were graduation photos.

“I know. We’ve been over this before. But it’s such a shame to have all these photos from the year that are the coolest yearbook photos ever, and not be able to display them someplace. You did a great job, Nate.”

“Thank you, Rebecca. It’s been a fun year.”

“These are the best of the lot,” Anna said. “I know there aren’t as many as we’d like, but we’ve only got two pages for graduation.”

“Your eye is almost as good as Nate’s,” Rebecca said. “Everybody! Final photo approvals for commencement.”

The rest of the yearbook staff who were busy proofreading and cross-checking to make sure the right photos were matched with the right captions, came over and scanned the photos, all nodding their agreement. I think no one really wanted to be there for the last steps in getting the yearbook ready. I had a stack of proof sheets that I was matching negatives with. During the course of the year, photo selection had been an on-going process and I’d printed the requisite 5x7s. Nothing in the yearbook could really be any bigger than that. But I had a couple dozen that had been selected in the past two weeks to fill things out.

“I’ll tell you this,” Monica Rice said. “I wish I’d sprung for a senior portrait replacement like so many others did. The senior photos that Nate took make all the others look bad.”

I’d retaken nearly half of the senior photos and posed each one with an accompanying Attic Allure shot. It had been a profitable endeavor. But I didn’t want all the other students to feel bad about it.

“Can we just decide right now that Nate will be the official yearbook photographer next year?” Donna Reichert asked. She was the assistant editor this year and designated as the yearbook editor for next year. “I move that all senior yearbook photos be taken by Nate.”

Whoa! I was hoping they’d like things well enough for me to continue as yearbook photographer. That was fun. But I thought the school had something like a contract with the photography people for school pictures. I’d charged $40 per sitting for the retakes I did. Of course, they all included my Attic Allure portrait, too.

“That’s an interesting idea,” Miss Sullivan said. “We can discuss it further when we’re talking about next year instead of this year. Now, Nate, I believe you have twenty-one more pictures to print. How soon can we have them?”

“Thursday, if that’s okay. It’s just a lot of enlarging and developing time,” I said.

“I’m not going to get out of here before Friday, anyway,” Rebecca sighed. “I’ll expect them on Thursday at ten in the morning.”

“You should get a proposal prepared for when you meet with Miss Sullivan about being the portrait photographer for the seniors next year,” Anna said as we left the school. “You aren’t getting half what they should be paying you per picture for the yearbook.”

“I was just happy to get the gig,” I laughed. “It was really an amazing year considering what I’ve managed to do.”

“I think I’m ready to see your new studio,” she said. “I had to make sure I wouldn’t like blow up about it. I realize you are a photographer and you aren’t required to live by my rules. And I’m not your girlfriend, so I really don’t have any right to say what you should or shouldn’t do. I know there are pictures that might make me a little ... um ... jealous, but I think I can handle it now if the invitation is still open.”

“I’m very proud of my studio and the work I’ve been doing,” I said. “I have a stack of prints I need to make, so I expect I’ll be spending a lot of my time there the next few days. I’d love for you to visit and if you have critiques on the quality of my work, rather than the subject matter, I’d be happy to listen and learn.”

“You’re such a proper gentleman when you’re in business mode. Let’s go. I want to see both the business and what my friend has been up to.”

We headed for the studio.

“Oh, wow! This is a lot different than that little attic room I saw!” Anna said when I turned on the lights in the new studio.

“My uncle and patron advised me to get a locking fireproof cabinet for my negatives and contracts,” I said. “When we got it here and started hauling it up the stairs, Mr. Barkley suggested that I park it on this floor instead of making it up the last flight. Then he said the room was empty, so I might as well clean it up and use the space for my studio. I still have the darkroom upstairs and most of the props are stored up there, but I got a shipment from a patron in Chicago of some new backdrops and a bunch of props he rescued from a defunct theatre group.”

“These backdrops were just given to you?”

“Not all of them. The standard photo drops that I use, I paid for. The theatre backdrops, though, were rescues. Like that one of the black with the blue abstract pattern on it. I used that for a backdrop with my first Chicago model on Sunday,” I said.

“Someone drove out here from Chicago for you to take her picture?”

“Yeah. She’s preparing a move to California and wants a full portfolio. I have a release that says I can use any of her pictures myself, but mostly I’ll make money from the prints she buys. I’d guess somewhere between one and two hundred.”

“Prints?”

“No,” I laughed. “Dollars. Between twenty and forty prints, I’m guessing. Her proofs are on the table. I’m just getting ready to go over them and make selections.”

“I want to look at them, since they are the most recent and represent a paying client from the big city. But first I want to take time to look at your gallery,” Anna said.

I waved her over to it and just stood aside. She spent a long time looking at the pictures, stopping to really focus on each one and not glancing over them. When she got to the picture of Avery under the streetlamp, which was on my desk and not on my wall, she sat and just stared at it. When she turned to me, she had tears in her eyes. I’d never seen Anna cry.

“I’m so sorry, Nate. I can’t believe I tried to make you give this up. It’s all so beautiful I can’t help but cry.”

“It’s okay, Anna. There was a lot of emotion built up for both of us that day. I guess I sort of understood later. Ronda helped explain it to me. You wouldn’t believe how protective she is of all the girls in our class,” I said.

“I’m just so glad you chose your photography instead of giving in to my school girl tantrum. We’d have ended up breaking up anyway and then we’d have hated each other. I wish...” She broke off and I was afraid she was going to say she wished she hadn’t broken up with me. But I was surprised at what I heard next. “I wish I had the courage to pose like that. I would so like to see me through your eyes. Would I be as beautiful as any of these models? When I said I was jealous, it wasn’t because you spent time with these girls while they did sexy poses for you. I was jealous that they had the courage to do those things and the trust in you that made it okay.”

“There’s really no need to be jealous of anyone,” I said. “I still have a hard and fast rule about not messing around with anyone in the studio.”

Anna went over to the table where Sarah’s proof sheets were. She looked them over and held out her hand for my loupe. After scanning them again, she started pointing them out.

“This one. Definitely the one stretched out with the hourglass. How did you think of having her hold her finger to her lip in this one? It’s brilliant!”

“That was actually Chris’s idea. She helps me set scenes and sometimes directs the model. She helps with makeup and hair, too. With the big drops, it’s really more than a one person job,” I said.

“How are you handling your accounting?” she asked.

“Oh. Um ... I pretty much just take money and put it in the bank. Then I go to the bank and get a money order when I need to buy something or take out cash.”

“My gosh, Nate! You have to get organized! You said you made over $2,000 in senior retakes, right? You’re going to owe taxes. If you don’t correctly account for your expenses, you could owe 20-30% of what you take in.”

“I what?”

Well, shit! It never even occurred to me that I’d owe tax on what I was earning. It’s not like I had a job. Which I guess was the problem. No employer was withholding income tax from what I took in. And here I thought I was being so organized.

“I have no idea where to even begin!”

“Um ... If you’d like, I could help you a little. I mean, I understand if you want me to keep out of your private life, but this could be serious, Nate.”

“Anna, I don’t know how to even ask you for help. I mean what kind of help to ask you for,” I stumbled.

“Well, general accounting would be the place to start. It’s only the end of May. If you can show me any records that you have, I could put together a revenue statement and we can work on compiling a profit and loss. I’ll get my dad to give me advice on what kind of business expenses are deductible. We didn’t get that far in business accounting this year.”

“Your dad?”

“He’s a tax accountant. Basically, he just prepares people’s income taxes for them.”

“I’ll need to pay you,” I said firmly. “Tell me what it will cost to have you work on my accounting. I pay Chris for helping me with photoshoots. I suppose that’s something else I have to deal with.”

“More and more complicated. Nate, the sooner we get started on this the easier it will be to get it done. You have a fantastic business here, but you need to manage the business aspect as well as the artistic aspect.”

When I got home, there was a white Galaxie 500 sitting in the driveway with the Falcon. I wondered who was visiting. It was always possible Mom had a church member or two she was meeting with, but it was almost dinner time, so I went on into the house. The family was gathering for the meal.

“Whose car is in the drive?” I asked.

“Your mother’s,” Dad said. “It was time she had a car that looked decent when she drives to the hospital and to visit parishioners.”

“You got a new car?”

“Well, technically, it’s not new. It’s a 1966 and was the dealer demo model. It has almost 20,000 miles on it. But as a result, we got a very good deal. It still has a new car warranty, and the bank was happy to make the loan.”

“Wow! That’s great, Mom,” I said. Then I thought about the Falcon still also being in the driveway. “Um ... Does that mean I can have the Falcon?”

“Hardly,” Mom said. “You’ll have to share, just like always. Your dad will be using the Falcon for work.”

“Work? At Henry’s?” I asked.

“No. With all the high school kids out of school, Henry has more employees than he really needs. But I got the job at the housing development south of Huntertown. Put in a partial day today, just getting a tour and signing my W2. I’ll be installing HVAC systems in the new construction. It’s a great opportunity to use some of what I learned in Manpower Retraining.”

“That’s great, Dad! Congratulations!”

“It gets me back in the swing of things as a breadwinner. Maybe not the only one in the family, but you kids might have to pick up some of the cooking.”

“I’ll cook Saturday night,” Kat said. “Dad taught me how to make spaghetti sauce.”

“Just remember our agreement on not using too much garlic on Saturday nights,” Mom reminded her.

“I met with the yearbook staff today to get the final order of pictures. I really got surprised by Donna, who will be next year’s editor. She wants the school to contract me to do all the senior portraits next year.”

“That’s excellent,” Mom said. “Just don’t bite off more than you can chew. You still need to keep your grades up or your chances of getting into the college of your choice will start slipping.”

“Yes, Mom. Um ... May I ask a business question?”

“Of course,” Dad said.

“Anna visited the studio this afternoon while we were talking about the yearbook photos. She said I needed to put together a solid proposal for the senior portraits and make sure I was being paid enough for them. She also asked me how I was handling my accounting. She said I’m likely to owe taxes this year,” I said.

“Oh, dear! Yes, I suppose you will. It shouldn’t be too much, though. You’re only seventeen,” Mom said.

“I’ll be eighteen in September,” I reminded her. “Anna said that with what I was earning, I might have to pay between twenty and thirty percent of everything I make, especially if I’m not accounting for business expenses. It kind of freaked me out.”

“She might be right. It’s a sobering thought. As Ben Franklin said, ‘In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.’ Thirty percent, though? You’d need to be making more than $4,000 a year for that bracket,” Dad said.

He looked at me and I just stared at him with my mouth open. He shook his head.

“You’d better talk to a tax professional.”

“Um ... Anna volunteered to put together my bookkeeping and get my revenue and P&L set up. That’s profit and loss. I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about at first. Her father is a tax accountant and she was going to ask him what deductible expenses were.”

“Are you dating Anna again?” Mom asked.

“Oh! No. We’re just friends. She’s been a whiz at helping me with the yearbook photos. I’ll pay her for the work on my accounting. If we can agree on a wage.”

“Federal minimum wage went up to $1.40 in February,” Dad said. “For the first time, it applies to the construction industry. Highland Homes is offering 20% above for professionals like HVAC, and a five percent increase after six months if there’s work. Don’t know if you have to pay a teenager minimum wage. I don’t think Henry does. Seems awfully high.”

After dinner, I sat at my desk with a pencil and paper to do some figuring. No wonder Dad’s eyebrows went up at the thought that I might pay 30% in taxes. I’d have to be making more than $4,000 a year. If Dad earned 20% above minimum wage, that would put him at earning a little over $3,300 a year. If he got paid vacation, $3,500 a year. But that assumed he was working year-round. Mom made a comment about teachers being covered by minimum wage now, but preachers weren’t. I didn’t know for sure how much a new Ford cost, but it was something more than $2,000. Maybe since Mom’s car was a demo model, it was less. Still, it could be nearly a year’s income.

I needed to keep my mouth shut in school about how much I made taking pictures! I bragged that I made $2,000 taking pictures and selling prints. To most kids, that meant being able to buy a car that they didn’t need to fix. To me, it meant a year of college at any of the top tier colleges I was interested in.

The weather suddenly decided it was summer. Temperatures all week were in the 80s. The heat in the attic was stifling. But I had photos to get enlarged. I started in first thing in the morning with a big box fan running to at least keep the air moving. I even had the door open. A little after noon, three girls knocked on my door. I came out of the darkroom dripping sweat. Anna, Chris, and Ronda were all standing there.

“Hey, lover. Look what we found prowling around on the steps outside,” Chris said.

“I wasn’t prowling. I came to do some work,” Anna said.

All three girls looked incredible. I’d never seen so much of Anna. She was in a pair of shorts and a sleeveless top. Chris and Ronda were in shorts, too, with sleeveless tops that did not reach the waist of their shorts.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to pose for Nate!” Ronda exclaimed.

“No! I wouldn’t do that kind of thing.”

“Anna volunteered to help with my accounting and bookkeeping,” I jumped in. “It seems I kind of have a mess and she’s going to try to straighten it out.”

“That’s cool,” Chris said. “I should have thought of that. Though I don’t know when I’d have fit it in. It takes so much time to date Nate. I don’t have time for anything else.” She was a being a little melodramatic and I hoped she wasn’t taking a dig at Anna.

“Besides, we need to do spring cleaning,” Ronda said.

“You’re what?” I asked.

“We all decided that we could be cooler here by wearing less clothes, so we’d do a spring clean in the studio and tidy the attic a bit. I’ll bet we find all kinds of cool stuff up here,” Ronda continued.

“Um ... I don’t have time to help you two today. I’ve got so many things to print...”

“We have help,” Chris said. “Anna can work on your books while the rest of us do spring cleaning.”

“The rest...?”

“Hi! Are we late?” Judy said, poking her nose in the door. I could see Janice, Pris, and Debbie behind her.

“I’m here!” Patricia called as she ran up the stairs.

“You’re all here to clean?”

“It’s the least we can do. We get wonderful photos, a good time posing, and freedom to be as um...” Janice spotted Anna and cut herself off. “Um ... carefree as we want.”

The girls all slipped out of their sandals or tennis shoes and crowded into the clear space in the attic. Eight girls! I’d never had so many people in my studio space at once.

“I ... um ... we ... uh ... should go down stairs where it’s five degrees cooler,” I suggested. “Oh, crap! I need to rinse a photo!” I ran into the darkroom and grabbed the photo I’d put in the fixative tray.

“Don’t worry, Nate. We know what to do,” Chris said. “And we know how to keep cool. We’ll see you later.”

When I finished rinsing the photo in the bathroom and returned to the attic, only Ronda was still there. I could hear voices and giggles from downstairs, though.

“Hi, lover,” she said when my hands were free. She stepped up to me and melted into my arms as we kissed. “Someone needed to greet you properly instead of just overwhelming you with numbers.”

“You can overwhelm me all by yourself,” I said. “What inspired this invasion?”

“Heat. I think two or three of those girls are in it. No. I mean the temperature outside. We were talking yesterday and thought it would be fun to all invade here and basically take anything off that made us too hot while we worked on cleaning and tidying. You’d be okay with having us all running around in nothing but our panties, wouldn’t you, baby?”

“Um ... You know I love that, but ... You can’t mean to tell me Anna agreed to that!”

“We kind of didn’t know she’d be here,” Ronda confessed. “But don’t worry. We won’t make her uncomfortable. She doesn’t have to join in if she doesn’t want to, but I don’t think she’ll mind us having fun as long as we aren’t having an orgy or something.”

“Please try not to chase her away. She’s really being very generous to do my bookkeeping for me. I’m paying her, but it was still kind.”

“Don’t worry, honey. But you might learn some things about Anna that you never knew. Kiss me again like you mean it and you can go back to printing photos. Chris and Judy and Janice and I know where all the supplies are. We’ll probably send a team up here, but they won’t disturb you.”

“Right.” I kissed my lover and we were both pretty aroused by the time the kiss broke. I had my hands under Ronda’s shirt and she was stroking my cock through my jeans.

“I am so looking forward to our date Friday. Believe me, I’m going to take really good care of this.” She gave my cock a squeeze and ran down to join the others. I returned to the darkroom.

The next time I came out of the darkroom, I saw Judy, Janice, and Patricia working in the attic. They had their shirts tied under their breasts and were obviously braless. I figured these three were probably the wildest among the girls, so it was good to send them up here. They were organizing the space, using the former studio area to move things into while they cleaned different parts of the room. It wasn’t like cleaning the studio below. When we did that, it was a lot of space, but it was all empty. The girls had the Shop-Vac and were vacuuming and scrubbing everything they came to.