each step.
“Hello, a pleasure to meet you.” At first it sounded like he was trying to hide his accent. He gave up quickly. Sheryl started unfolding the tablecloth.
“This is Gary Novak,” Jake said. “He’s my photographer. We’ve been working together today, so I thought I’d bring him along to Sunset Cove.”
“Fine. Can you get that vase in the corner and put it on this table?”
Gary started to walk forward, but Jake cut him off and got the vase first.
“What are you preparing for?”
“A bridge game. I’m sure you heard.”
“I did.”
Gary coughed suddenly and started speaking loudly.
“You may have heard about me,” he said, his chest pushed forward. “I am a photographer. Some say I have my own unique way of seeing the world. I say, perhaps this is so. Some people have prescriptions for their blood pressure or their eyes. I medicate the soul.”
She didn’t look up.
“What time is your game?” Jake asked.
“A half hour. I can’t talk for a long time.”
“Sheryl,” Gary said dramatically.
“Yes?”
“I love to photograph beautiful things.”
Jake pinched the bridge of his nose. It almost made the pain go away.
“Sheryl,” Gary repeated. She flapped the tablecloth up and over. It covered the wood in a wave of blue. “Do you normally play bridge tonight?”
“No,” she said. “We were going to dedicate it to Charlotte.”
She crossed to the closet and got another tablecloth out.
“Did you tell anyone that?”
“Ech.”
“Sometimes,” Gary volunteered, “I cannot bear to look at the images I’ve made. Such beauty causes me great pain.”
Jake sat down at one of the chairs and rested his head against the hard wood table. Sheryl walked out from behind the closet and then she looked up slowly. She spoke in a softer voice.
“Why can’t you bear to look at the beautiful images, Mr. Novak?”
Jake looked up. Her accent seemed washed out. It was somewhere under the tablecloth, for a second at least. Gary walked across the room, his chest puffed out.
“I cannot speak of it.” He sat down and let his cane drop. “I don’t talk about my work. The images, they are a part of me. A secret part.”
“Sheryl,” Jake said. “Don’t mind him. I’m trying to learn more about things at Sunset Cove. Everyday things.”
She ignored him and walked over to Gary. He had his eyes closed. She stayed a foot away.
“Why can’t you talk about your work?”
“Words. They are blunt tools.”
“They are?”
“Like using a baguette to hammer a nail.”
She didn’t flinch, so he continued.
“Can you describe an open beach? A last birthday? Only my photographs can do that.”
“Sheryl,” Jake said. “Who will be playing bridge tonight?”
“Ech.” Her accent returned. “Didn’t anyone teach you manners?”
“What?”
“Rude, inconsiderate. You really are a reporter.”
She turned back to Gary and her face softened.
“I was a nurse. I always found it hard to talk about my work.”
Gary opened his eyes wide.
“We see the things that other people look away from.”
They both looked at Jake.
“What?” he said. “I see things too. I am a reporter.”
“Well,” Sheryl said, “you think you see things.”
“I do.”
“Did you see the soul of the city?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Exactly, my reporter friend.”
“I don’t talk about it.”
Jake bit his lip. Sheryl wasn’t even looking at him. She was watching Gary, her eyes sparkling. He started again.
“When I photograph a setting sun, it is poetry. But only because the night is drawing near.”
Jake sat down and put his face in his hands as Sheryl leaned toward Gary.
“Do you photograph the beach?”
She was close. The frizz of her gray hair almost touched his.
“The beach? I see it constantly. Waves. Sand. Birds. Waves.”
Jake sat up.
“Gary, you said ‘waves’ twice.”
They both shook their heads at him, their hair almost becoming entangled. Gary looked in Sheryl’s eyes.
“In fact, a friend of mine just passed away. She took a long walk on the beach and then…”
He turned his head down toward the floor. Then he looked up at Jake so Sheryl couldn’t see. He winked. Or tried to. It looked like he was wincing. But Jake knew what it was supposed to be. Sheryl sounded cleaner and calmer.
“Mr. Novak, you knew Charlotte Ward?”
“I did. Jacob and I both knew her.”
“I’m sorry. I miss her.” She coughed.
“Do you?”
“I’m used to it.” The accent was back. She sat up straight and took the edge of the aqua tablecloth in her hands. She rubbed it against her eyes and the corners turned darker.
“No,” Gary said. “You don’t have to be saying that.”
She looked up. Stood up. Then she sat down again.
“It’s fine.”
“I just wish there were a way,” Gary said. “A way that I could find out what she was thinking that last night.”
“I can help you.” Her voice hardened a little. “I know the last man to see her.”
“I photographed her, you know.”
“The last man,” she said, “was Abram Samuels.”
Jake wrote it in his notebook and interrupted.
“When did Abram Samuels see her?”
Sheryl rolled her eyes.
“Excuse me, reporter, we were having a conversation.”
Gary nodded his head gently.
“Sheryl, please.”
“Abram saw Charlotte at dinner that night. From 4:30 to 5:00, right before her death. Then he probably went on one of his night walks.”
“Night walks?”
“You see him every night. He walks the sidewalk trail before going to sleep.”
