Chapter 15: Friends

“So what the hell is going on?” Lara asked me.

“Huh?” I replied absently, watching Heather walk away down the beach.

“Yesterday you were on your way to meet Julie and talk, and set things straight before you went any further. Then I wake up this morning and Heather is here. Eating breakfast! What’s up?”

“Yeah, funny how things go, isn’t it?”

Heather turned out of sight, but I still stared after her imagined path.

“So?” Lara prodded impatiently.

I finally gave her my full attention. “Well, things didn’t go so well with Julie.”

I recounted the conversation, including how Heather had arrived at the most inopportune moment.

“You have all the luck, Matt,” Lara said sarcastically, patting my shoulder.

“Well, maybe it’s for the best. I’m through with Julie. I don’t know why I even got back together with her,” I lamented.

“Because of that look she gives you. She’s a siren, you know, like in that story we had to read for English. I’ve fallen for it, too.”

“Yeah, well, so have a bunch of other people. I found out she used to go out with Heather’s boyfriend Bill, too. Fifteen, and she’s already been with you, me, Brian, Bill, John, and who knows how many others.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, she didn’t do much with Bill. Supposedly John was her first lay.”

“Supposedly I was, too,” I countered. “Or so I thought. I was just watching her last night, when she gave me ‘that look’, as you put it. I wondered if she’d given all her other boyfriends the same look. If she’d given you the same look ... Then I realized how blind I was being. I mean, yeah, giving up the sex is going to be hard, but at that moment I didn’t even know why we wanted to be together, other than for that. Pathetic, huh?”

“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling all right about it. I’m sorry that Julie screwed with you though.”

“Oh, I don’t think she screwed with me,” I lamented, sighing heavily. “That’s kind of the hardest part. I’m not caught in her spell anymore, but I’m not mad at her, either. The whole thing makes me sad. And I do feel bad for dumping her now, since her dad is back in town. I really hope things work out for her with that. I’d stay friends, but if she just keeps trying to get me back, I’m going to have to keep my distance. I forgot to say, but she came by the house when we were eating this morning.”

“Really? When?”

“When we were talking. Well, when you and Heather were talking.”

Lara sniggered. “Sorry. I did realize at one point that you were still there.”

“Gee, thanks,” I muttered.

““Don’t worry, the feeling passed quick!”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m glad you had a good time. But yeah, I saw Julie up on the road. She saw us and then just turned around and left.”

Lara nodded. “All right. So what about Heather then? How did she end up here?”

I spread my hands out vaguely. “Well, we’ve been fishing together, you know, and this morning I just asked her over.”

“But isn’t she with Bill?” Lara asked.

“Yeah, I know. It was just breakfast, Lara,” I said dismissively.

“Just breakfast? Ri-ight ... You could’ve started the grill with the looks you two were exchanging.”

“What? No ... Come on, we’re just friends. I really like her, sure. She is special. Different. When I look at Julie, I see pretty hair, big eyes, nice legs, and a nice smile. When I look at Heather, I see playfulness, strength, and intelligence. And her eyes are incredible, so alive. Whenever I see them, I—”

I stopped, realizing that I wasn’t really helping prove my point.

“She’s not bad looking at all,” Lara remarked, grinning at me.

“Well, no, no she’s not. But you see, it doesn’t matter.”

“I think she’s really cool. I can see why you like her.”

“Mm. Well, she seems to like you too. That’s a plus in my book.”

Lara smiled. “So what are you going to do then?”

“I just want to spend time with her. That’s the point. I’m not expecting anything more. Bill sounds like he’s a decent guy. I appreciate the fact that he knows I fish with Heather and doesn’t care. That also makes him harder to, uh ... I mean it’s not as easy to try to ... to break them up. Not that I’m trying to do that, or anything,” I added quickly.

She nodded thoughtfully. “So what do you see when you look at me?” she asked shyly.

I wondered if she was sincere or if she was trying to roust up trouble again.

“My loving sister,” I answered enigmatically.

Apparently Julie called once, while I was swimming with Lara. Melissa said she didn’t want to leave a message.

“Matt, not trying to pry, but what’s going on with her? She sounded upset.”

I considered for moment, wondering how much to explain. “I broke up with her last night.”

“Oh ... I’m sorry to hear that.” She frowned. “Although I guess I didn’t know that you were together again to begin with. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s for the best. I shouldn’t have gotten back together with her in the first place. I kind of wasn’t thinking straight.”

Melissa nodded.

“By the way, if Heather comes over again, we’re just friends,” I said cryptically.

“Okay.” My mom gave me that look, like when I’d said Julie and I were ‘just friends’ the week before. She was probably thinking ‘Three days... ‘

“I like hanging out with her,” I added, “but she has a boyfriend, so don’t say anything that might make her feel uncomfortable.”

“Have I ever?”

“No,” I admitted. “But still, she’s just a friend.”

Melissa smiled. “She seems nice. You hid her away, this morning.”

“Hey, I offered fish, you all rejected it,” I called out as I pushed through the screen door.

“I know, I was just teasing. Invite her for dinner sometime?”

I stopped in my tracks. Dinner? Why? Hmm. Dinner...

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

Heather had to work early the next two days and it was hard not seeing her. I was tempted to go to Martin’s to score some hangout time, but I didn’t want to press my luck with Bill. I wasn’t sure if his coolness extended beyond the pier. Julie never called back, and I decided to not call her either. I didn’t have the energy to use on her at the moment.

In the interim, I learned some more about my camera. After developing the pictures, I knew I still had much to learn. Three photos of Lara came out nice and a few postcard-like ocean shots were acceptable, though bland. The rest were complete rubbish. Admittedly, some were outright errors, where I’d forgotten to change the aperture or shutter speed to match what the handheld light meter said. But others were just bad composition, or Lara was too dark, or any number of disappointing problems. Melissa had a few good critiques when she flipped through them with me. First, she pointed at Lara in one picture. She was striking a silly pose in front of the kitchen sink.

“Here’s something your father taught me. After he pointed it out, I noticed how many people do this, when I look at their photos. See how you have Lara’s head right in the middle of the picture?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, above her, all you have is the kitchen counters and ceiling. No offense to Beth, but that’s not very interesting. The interest is the person in this case. So here, I would’ve aimed lower. Get more of her body in, or move closer to make her larger in the frame. Basically the top half of your shot is wasted on boring background.”

She was right. I could imagine the difference if I’d filled the frame with more of my sister and less of the pickled oak.

“Sometimes the background is important,” Melissa went on. “Like this picture here, you still have her head in the center, but now there’s a sunset in the back. Never mind that she’s too dark, for now. But still, you have her head in front of the sunset, so if you’d gotten down lower, on your knees say, you could’ve gotten more of her in the frame, but still keeping the same horizon level.”

“Yeah, I see what you’re saying.”

“Remember, these are all just possibilities. Photography is at least as much art as it is technique.”

“Why did she come out so dark?” I asked. “I remember using the light meter for these.”

“Well, that light meter picks up everything in front of it. So when you pointed it at Lara, you were mostly getting the sunset light. Lara had her back to the light, so she wasn’t as bright. Check out the sunset, see? It looks right. That’s what the meter picked up. But to get Lara exposed right, you’d need to measure her.”

“How?”

“Well, with the meter you’re using, you can’t, exactly. You can get close to Lara, block out the sunset with her body, but that’s not really the best way to do it. Your father had a spot meter. It might still be in one of those boxes. We can try to dig it up when we get home. But also, in a pinch, you can just compensate by eye. If you see that she is darker than the background, you need to open up your aperture a few stops. How much is something you’ll figure out with time.”

“But then won’t the sunset be really bright?”

Melissa smiled. “Yeah, good question. For sure it’ll be brighter. But that is probably better than Lara being too dark, right? If you want to avoid that choice, then you need to brighten up Lara, either by using a flash, or reflecting some light on her.”

“Reflecting light on her?”

“With a sheet, or some photographers use a big card or a silver umbrella.”

“Great, more stuff. This is complicated.”

My mom chuckled. “No one said taking good pictures was easy! You have it better than your dad, since film is more forgiving now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some film is very sensitive to exposure, so if you’re off by more than a stop, the picture will be poor. Nowadays, they can push the development more, as they call it, and you don’t have to worry about being as exact. If you’re moderately close, the picture should turn out. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to think about everything you do, though.”

I sat and digested Melissa’s words. “Thanks, hopefully this will get easier.”

“It will. If you have any questions, don’t feel too shy to ask.”

I nodded thoughtfully as I opened my camera bag. “Okay. So what do these other two lenses do?” I asked.

“They let you zoom closer or further from your subject.” She looked at the lens currently affixed to the body. “This 58mm lens is considered a standard lens. It kind of gives you a perspective that matches what you see with your eye. But you also have in here an 85mm lens, which will make the image seem closer. The bigger the number, the more the lens zooms in on what you’re looking at.”

“What’s the other one?”

“This is a bit wider, a 35mm, so it’s going to pick up more of the view. Try them out!”

I spent a few minutes swapping lenses and aiming at my mom, finding that I could get anything from a full-body shot to a shoulders-up portrait without even having to move my position. So much to learn...

Despite the challenge of working with the manual camera, there was a primal satisfaction that came with it. I wondered what tips Heather might have for me, so I decided I would take the camera with me the next morning.

What a difference the pier girl could make. The two days that she’d been working the early shift, I’d woken up late and was generally lethargic the whole day. When I’d finally rolled out of bed at ten, it felt like four in the morning. Hans had read the whole paper and was probably teaching his third lesson by then. When fishing morning came, I was up at six, eating breakfast and out the door before the paper was even delivered to the stoop.

I worried for a while that Heather had been called in to work again, since she was not there when I arrived. But after twenty minutes, I spotted her hurrying down the pier.

“Brought my camera!” she announced as she approached.

“Me too!” I exclaimed, wondering at the coincidence.

“Cool, I want to try it. I have my dad’s old one. It’s a little more electronic than yours, though. There’s nothing like a real manual camera when you press the shutter.”

I knew exactly what she meant. We sat cross-legged facing each other as we unpacked our equipment.

“Mine’s a Canon,” she said handing me the SLR. “My dad stopped using it when he got a point-and-shoot. His new one’s a piece of crap, but he said he was tired of lugging around this big camera. So I stole it!”

“Sounds familiar. My dad left us all kinds of really nice cameras, but my parents just use a little plastic pocket thing now.”

“What a shame.” Heather narrowed an eye at me. “Did you say all kinds of really nice cameras, though?”

“Yeah, two huge boxes worth. I haven’t even been through them. He was into antiques and photography, so he had a decent collection of cool stuff.”

Heather’s eyes were sparkling. “That’s something I want to see! I love the way these old cameras are made: so precise, so solid. There’s a connection there that you just don’t get with the new ones. Even the SLRs, today ... most of them are so flimsy they feel like toys.”