99 Percent Mine

“You weren’t surprised, you were traumatized. I heard you, loud and clear. From this point on, we’re going to ignore this thing between us. We’ll get ourselves a sold sign and we will see each other at Christmas. Maybe. There’s a festival in Korea around that time that’s always interested me.”

“Could you tell me why you did it?” I hear the floorboards under his feet creak. “Were you lonely? Mad? Trying to get back at me for something?” He hasn’t reached the conclusion that I want his body and his pleasure, more than I want water and food.

“I’m not telling you a damn thing,” I reply, because I know that’s what will annoy him the most. “I’ll tell you one day, when we’re eighty years old.”

I click the camera and look at the display. It’s hard to argue with reality, and here it is. This room—and this potential relationship with Tom—is not the flower-wallpapered version I’ve been carrying around in my head. This house is no longer beautiful, and Tom has receded out of reach. I’m down to zero.

His phone begins ringing again. “I’ve got to get this.” He starts to walk, but I stop him.

“What you did before, in the kitchen?” I snap a couple more frames. “With my coffee? Don’t do that shit again.”

“What did I do?” He looks up from the ringing phone, his thumb hovering. His brow is creased. He seriously doesn’t remember.

“You took a big slurp from my mug. Now your boys are looking at us like we’re . . .” I can’t finish.

Tom has the good grace to look embarrassed. “I guess not all sledgehammers are created equal.” He answers the phone. “Tom Valeska.”

I should get out of here and do my job. I should be taking advantage of the strawberry-sundae light.

I go down to the fishpond and hold the camera up to my eye. I haven’t taken an outdoor photo in probably a year, and it doesn’t help that my hands are shaking. What the hell just happened?

“I don’t know what to shoot,” I say to no one in particular. A tight feeling is in my chest now that I’m alone. Taking photos of this house? It’s too real. These are photographs of something I’m going to lose.

I want my white lightbox and mugs.

“Shoot everything,” a guy near me says, unfolding a metal table. He lifts a circular saw onto it with a grunt. “Because everything’s going to change.”

I walk around the outside of the house. “Just try to take one,” I whisper to myself. The first click is the hardest, and I barely look through the lens.

I take real estate shots, coaching myself through it, but before long, I’ve loosened up enough that I can pick out the little details. Just for me, so I can have them forever. I lean against the fence and shoot up at the crooked weathervane, topped with a galloping horse, that hasn’t spun in years.

This isn’t what Tom had in mind, but I shoot the moss and ivy clinging on the side of the wall, and the way the honeysuckle hangs low, dusting everything with yellow powder. I’m photographing this house like it’s a bride. As much as I ache to have it stand in the frozen fairy-tale clasp of roses forever, I know it’s time to let it go. The only way that I can is because it’s now in Tom’s care.

Inside, time is running out, so I click and reposition, zooming in on individual hydrangeas in the wallpaper. I probably look insane, but I take a shot of the tile Loretta replaced in the bathroom—one salmon-pink square in a sea of cracked buttermilk relics.

I’m chasing the clock, and guys are stepping out of my way, falling respectfully silent as I step back and take a portrait of the fireplace. I will not let so much as a sheet of sandpaper touch this mantelpiece.

Why didn’t I do this earlier? Why didn’t I take days, recording and archiving these memories I have? I truly forgot that this was a skill of mine, something that could be used for a purpose other than a paycheck.

A banging sound begins, like the outside world is trying to break in.

I think I take more than twenty minutes and I’m a little drained. I really want to load these into my computer. I look at the time. I was immersed up to my neck in a state of creative flow for an hour. I took over two hundred photos. How did that happen?

I look up in astonishment and make eye contact with Tom. I wonder if he even has a website.

He doesn’t smile, but I can tell he’s pleased with me. Maybe all is not lost.

“Good work, Darce. Now get gloves on and get to work.”

* * *

I’M WILTED WITH tiredness and it’s only Wednesday. Three more months of this? Stepping out of the way, tripping over power cords, and being covered in dust? I had a bar shift thrown in last night for good measure, and just finished a photoshoot for Truly. I think I need to go to bed at six P.M. tonight.

I’m sorting through photos of butts in underwear when Jamie calls. For once, it’s me answering the phone with my heart in my throat. Is he dead-dying-drowning? Surely it’d take an emergency for him to call after this long.

“What’s up?” How cool I sound.

“Voicemail Darcy is picking up her phone for once in her life. That’s what’s up.”