Chapter 5: Price I Pay

I was aware of an engine rumbling near my head, but I ignored it, half-asleep. A car door opened and closed, punctuating the ever-present sounds of nature. My mom’s voice floated through the morning air, finally triggering a return to consciousness.

“Matt, Lara? Don’t tell me you’re still sleeping?” Melissa called out.

I peeled apart my desiccated lips, finding it hard to croak out an acknowledgement. “Hgghh...”

“Oh, no! Are you sick?”

I cleared my throat and spoke more normally. “No. Just sleeping. And thirsty!”

“Thought you’d be out on the river early!”

I sat up, clearing my head. I could hear my mom poking around our gear. For a moment, my heart leapt. Then I remembered that we’d cleaned the camp of any incriminating evidence the night before. Well, hopefully we had; everything was still fuzzy.

“I’ll get breakfast going,” she called out. “Eggs okay?”

“Sure.”

“Any fish left?”

“No, we ate them all.”

I glanced at Lara. She was asleep, oblivious to the chatter. I gave her a nudge and then another. Eventually she came to, her eyes fluttering open.

“Time to get up,” I whispered.

We shared a brief smile as she gathered her wits. When I crawled out of the tent, Melissa was singing a tune as she cooked.

“Morning, Mom.”

“Good morning!” Melissa glanced at me, eyes sparkling. She looked unusually happy. For some reason, the image of our washing machine flashed into my head. I shook it off.

“Is Lara still sleeping?” she asked.

I nodded as I poured myself a glass of water. “We were up late, hanging out by the fire,” I explained. “Eating marshmallows and trout.”

“Mm! That sounds delicious. Something I should serve at the restaurant!” she teased.

“You never know,” I deadpanned. “Might be a hit.”

Melissa sniffed in my direction as I sat down at the table near her. “You should sit upwind of the fire next time. Your clothes could set off a smoke detector!”

I chuckled, but also breathed a sigh of relief that campfire smoke was all that she smelled.

“So did you catch a lot of fish, then?” she asked.

“Six,” came Lara’s voice.

“Morning, sweetie!” Mom called. Then she turned to me. “Six is really great, Matt! Impressive! Did you catch them all with your fly rod?”

I felt some heat in my face at the misguided praise. “Lara got six.”

My mom was caught off guard for a moment. “Oh... !” She pursed her lips appreciatively. “Wow. Good for her. And you?”

“I got some too,” I answered vaguely.

“Two,” came the clarification from the tent.

Melissa narrowed her eyes at me, grinning questioningly.

I shrugged sheepishly. “That’s how the luck goes sometimes.”

She patted my shoulder as she kindly held her tongue.

Back at our house that afternoon, I stretched out on the couch, the familiar aroma of sautéed trout filling the great room. I’d saved some face that morning by catching three small ones with the ant technique, while Lara and Melissa had hiked up the river for a few hours. Still, I knew it would be some time before I lived down the six-to-five loss.

I wanted to call Heather, but since the meal would be ready soon, I opted to relax for a bit. I was still feeling a little hazy from the weekend. In fact, I was wondering if the fog was a permanent effect of smoking weed. Was I already ‘burnt out’? Surely it had to just be a lack of sleep and the tail end of the drug’s effects.

My camera bag was open on the living room coffee table, the SLR sitting next to it. For a while, I thought nothing of it. Then I sat up and looked at the case intently, just as Sarah came to sit beside me.

“Tell me about your weekend, sweetie.”

“It was good,” I answered distractedly, barely registering her words. “What’s, uh, with the camera? Taking pictures?”

“We did some test shots for Mom’s cookbook.”

I relaxed a little. “Oh, that’s right.”

“She wanted to try some things out. Hope you don’t mind we used your camera?”

“Of course it’s fine. It’s not really my camera, it’s Dad’s. Ours, then.”

Sarah smiled warmly. “We took the film in to the shop yesterday. Should be ready in a couple of days. We took yours in too. Doubles, we figured. Maybe you’d like to send some copies to Heather?”

The fear returned at full blast. Oh shit! Which ones did they take? Suddenly I couldn’t remember if I’d done anything with those two black-and-white rolls that had photos of Heather in various states of dress – and undress – on them.

“Yeah, good idea,” I managed, evenly. Fighting to stay outwardly calm, I pulled the camera bag to me. “I did have a couple of rolls...” I began, as I unzipped the side pocket with trembling hands. Empty... “ ... that Heather, um—she wanted to develop them. Something about long exposure, or something. You didn’t take them all in, did you? She wanted to develop a couple of the rolls herself!”

Sarah frowned at the desperation that had crept into my voice. “Oh, we didn’t know. We just took them all, sorry. You could still send her the negatives, right? Does she have a darkroom at her school?”

“Yeah, she does,” I replied, more calmly as I realized that freaking out over missing rolls of film was the surest way to telegraph what was on them.

“We can mail them right away if you want.”

“Okay, yeah, I guess that sounds good.”

I finished searching the bag, at last finding two canisters. The momentary glimmer of hope was dashed when I opened them to find that they contained new film, their black tongues sticking out at me in jest.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, hurrying to the restroom. My mind spun, trying to remember what I’d done with them. After flushing the toilet for effect, I went to my room and quietly closed the door. As I leaned against it, I tried to calm down.

“Think, damn it,” I whispered.

I simply could not picture myself unpacking those two rolls from the camera bag. After returning from Montauk, I’d set the bag on my chest of drawers. Then I... What? Had I even touched it in the week since we returned home?

I looked under my bed, in my desk, and in various other possible hiding places, all to no avail. I realized I was in serious trouble, unless I could do something to stop it. I glanced at the calendar: Sunday. The photo shop was surely closed. I would have to call in the morning and cancel the processing. Just tell the store that I wanted to do it myself. It would be easy to identify the rolls in question, since they’d be the only black-and-white ones. Yes, of course, because Melissa wouldn’t shoot food in black-and-white. That would be stupid.

“That’s it,” I repeated to myself, starting to feel calmer by this new plan.

They might already have been processed. I pushed that frightening thought out of my head as my mom called us to dinner. I rejoined the family, fighting to repress the nervousness inside of me.

“Film? No, I haven’t seen any,” Lara answered my query.

I slumped against her doorframe.

“Why?” she asked, looking up from her book.

I glanced into the living room. My parents were going over a recipe Melissa had typed up. They seemed oblivious to us, but I still slipped into Lara’s bedroom and closed the door.

“I’m so screwed,” I muttered, sitting heavily on her bed.

She put her book down and faced me. “What’s wrong?”

“They took my film in to be developed,” I explained vaguely.

“So? At least you don’t have to pay for it, then.”

“No! There’s some shots on there that—” I spread my hands in front of me. “Of Heather ... Uh, you know?”

Lara’s eyes widened and a grin started to blossom across her face. “Like, naughty pictures? And they found them?”

“Yeah. Well, no. I mean, they don’t know what’s on them,” I sighed. “Not yet, anyway. But they took them in! Unless I hid them somewhere when we got back, but I don’t think so.”

“Have you checked under your bed, where you keep your weed?”

I gave her a patient look. “Yeah. Everywhere. I’m pretty sure they were still in the camera bag.”

Lara let out a breath. “That was kind of dumb! How many times have I told you, you’re supposed to hide your porn under your bed!”

“It wasn’t porn shots,” I said quickly.

“Nudes?”

I hesitated, then nodded sheepishly. I needed someone to confide in, after all, or I was going to go out of my mind with anxiety. “Some of them were.”

“You never told me you did that.”

“It never really came up.”

“Well, I haven’t seen any film lying around, but if I do, I’ll definitely give it to you. But only after I develop it!”

I ignored her jest. “Fuck. This is going to get me in so much trouble. Heather, too.”

“Is it illegal?”

“Isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Lara admitted.

“Even if it’s not, our moms are going to be pissed. They’ll tell Heather’s parents. She won’t be able to come up to visit ... Ugh! I’m so fucked. I ruined everything!” I moaned.

Lara moved to sit next to me on her bed. “Keep it down, Matt. I’m sure they’ll cut you some slack.”

I didn’t reply.

“Ten bucks says they’ve had their fair share of photo shoots when they were with Dad,” she added.

“Pfft. Yeah right.”

“Why not? Dad had a darkroom, so they probably did all kinds of crazy things.”

Had a darkroom? This was news to me.

“How do you know he had one?”

“That’s what Mom said some of the equipment in those boxes was.”

My insides raced as I had grand visions of claiming one of the bedrooms in the guest cabin and turning it into a darkroom. Then I’d be able to develop – and therefore take – all kinds of photos. Any pictures I wanted.

Abruptly I realized that my photography days were probably coming to an end. The only dark room I’d be seeing had bars in front of it.

I groaned as I put my head on Lara’s shoulder. “Come visit me in jail,” I wailed.

She sniggered. “Okay.”

“I might need your help in the morning.”

“Packing for prison?”

I laughed a little despite my anxiety. “No, I need to make a call. In private.”

“I’ve got your back, bro.”

I gave a sigh and trudged to my room.

By morning, I’d worked myself into a froth of worry. I hadn’t called Heather the night before, out of fear and shame. I’d spent the evening in my room, alternately looking in new places for the missing film, and sulking on my bed as I imagined all possible punishments.

After breakfast, Lara dragged our parents out on a ‘surprise’ hike so I could use the phone. It took a bit of convincing, since they were deeply involved with working on the cookbook. No sooner had they closed the door, I was flipping through the phonebook to find the shop’s number.

“Murph’s Photo, this is Murph. Can I help you?”

Murph’s voice carried the expectancy of someone waiting for a call from a desperate kid. He knows!

“Yeah, uh, hi. I had a question. My parents dropped off some roll of silm—I mean, rolls of film, uh, on Saturday I think. I was wondering if you could hold off on developing a couple of them?”

“Last name?”

“Uh, either Jackson or Birch.”

The was some rustling on the other end as he searched. At least he hadn’t reacted to the name. That was promising.

“Here we go. Let’s see ... Actually we ran these yesterday, so they’re ready for pickup. We’re open until six today.”

“Really?”

“Yup. Six o’clock, everyday. Come and get ‘em.”

I barely managed to speak, “Oh. Um ... Okay. W-we’ll do that.”

“Anything else I can do for you?”

“Uh, no. That’s it.”

Already printed? I was entirely screwed now. But ... he hadn’t said anything. Maybe they hadn’t looked at the shots. Maybe they just processed the film without really checking the content. Surely they ran hundreds of rolls a day. Why would they sit there and look at the pictures?

I was definitely going to be a part of the trip into town to pick up the photos. With luck, I’d get to go through them first and separate out my sets before my parents had a chance to see the transgression. And then I’d run like hell from the cops.

No, there was hope, as long as Murph hadn’t looked at the prints.

When Lara and my parents returned from their hike, I was on pins and needles. Despite that, I tried to act nonchalant.

“Oh, the photo police called. The pictures are ready.”

Melissa looked at me oddly. “Photo police?”

I stared at her in disbelief. “What? I said photo place!”

“They’re already developed?”

“That’s what they said.”

“Cool.” She glanced at Sarah and shrugged. “I have time to get them now, before work.”

“Let’s go!”

“I want to come!” I blurted out, incapable of sounding calm.

My parents both grinned at me. “Excited for our photos, are we? Don’t worry, Matt, we won’t pry into your pictures of your sweet.”

At that ominous statement, I wasted no time running to the car.

The ride to Murph’s seemed to last forever. My pulse rate took another jump when we pulled into the lot and I spotted the photo shop. A police cruiser drove past as we crossed the street. By the time we reached the counter, my hands were visibly trembling. I stuffed them into my pockets and wandered around the store, pretending to scrutinize the camera equipment. I was actually listening to every word Murph said as he completed the order and rang my parents up.

Eventually Murph bagged the set of photo envelopes. On the way out, I offered to carry the sack, my voice cracking awkwardly. Sarah handed it to me with a grin, fortunately without further comment.

We reached the car. Things were surprisingly normal. No guns were drawn. Maybe I’d gotten away with it? I slumped into the back seat and pulled envelopes out of the bag, keeping my knees up to shelter the pictures from any prying eyes. Speedily I fingered through each set. A roll of food, and another; I passed those to Melissa, after triple checking their content. Third was a set from Montauk. I placed it on the empty seat beside me and kept going. Two more of food. A second from the summer vacation. One last cookbook set.

That was it. I looked at the stacks I’d reserved in the back. They were double prints of two rolls I’d shot on the trip. Two color rolls. There were no black-and-white pictures anywhere in the entire order. I flipped through them for the thirty-ninth time, but it was clear that the illicit sets were not here. At the end of one series, there were four photos of Heather sitting on the rocks by the Montauk lighthouse, still clad in her bikini. Those were the ones I’d taken right before changing to the black-and-white film. Right before she’d peeled her top off.

Had they been mixed in with the cooking shots? No. I’d flipped through them carefully. There was no way I missed forty-eight black-and-whites. They either hadn’t been developed, or... Murph is keeping them! The man looked like a pervert. Would he turn them in, or retain them for himself? How many nude photographs had the man had collected over the years? No one would question him; they’d be stupid to do so. I wondered how long my anxiety would last, knowing that Murph was sitting on life-ruining images.

Then a thought occurred to me. “Were these all the rolls you brought in?” I asked, interrupting my moms’ discussion of one of their photos.

Melissa turned to me. “I don’t know. How many do you have there?”

“Two.”

She nodded after thinking for a moment. “Yeah, that’s right. Two, and we shot five. Are you missing some?”

I found myself taking a deep breath. “Maybe. No, wait. I forgot we developed some in Montauk.” I laughed nervously. “These were the only ones then. Forget it, it’s right.”