Chapter 3
By the time I entered the Arts Center for my first photography class the following Monday, I had spent a small fortune. Even opting for a used manual Nikon SLR camera, once I added in two lenses, a dozen rolls of 100 speed film and a plain leather case, I had pretty much wiped out what little I had managed to save over the last few months. I tried hard not to think about all the times I had watched my grandfather blow a few hundred dollars on a new hobby only to see the tennis racket, golf clubs, fishing rod or whatever, collecting dust in his garage a few weeks later.
Still, I felt truly excited for the first time in months, having warmed up to the idea a little more with each passing day. Even the shitty weather couldn’t bring me down.
The eclectic group of students were pretty much what I had been expecting. Though primarily young, late teens and early twenties, there was one woman around my own age and a couple well into their sixties.
I was a few minutes early and, not much in the mood for socializing, decided to grab a chair up front with the plan to look through the camera manual I had yet to crack open, when a portfolio on the instructor’s desk caught my attention. Never able to resist such temptation, I walked over to take a quick peek only to find myself flipping through page after page of the most intriguing black-and-white images. An assortment of candid shots and portraits, they were all beautiful in the realistic depiction of their subject. No soft focus, no overexposure to obscure flaws. Just the rich detail of a fine grain, slow film. Here the imperfections weren’t something to be hidden from view but a part of the whole, not something to be obscured but explored.
The complete antithesis of what I did every day.
A man, his shaved head nicked and scarred, stared out at me, a stump of a cigarette smoldering between dirty, blunt fingers. A young girl smiled prettily for the camera, her bruised and scratched legs sticking out from a pale, checked dress. An intimate shot of a lovely man, his head of dark hair pushed back from his heart-shaped face, a dark-haired child in his arms. And, though they both stared out at me with the same deep eyes, smiling a smile so much the same, one face spoke of infinite possibilities, the other of hidden heartbreak. So many images, and each as intriguing in their own way as the others.
It was an extreme close-up of a very old couple, the lines of age worn like badges of honor, that had me mesmerized. The man smiled happily into the camera, the woman with eyes closed, pressed her cheek to his. Her arms around his neck. It was somehow reminiscent of an image that existed of my own grandparents, and no doubt countless others as well. An image where they were unimaginably young, arms wound tight around each other. My grandfather in an army uniform as new and perfect as the love they shared.
The image inexplicably made my heart hurt. But somehow, as I studied that particular photograph, I understood the truth. I had never felt that kind of love for anyone. Not even Jason.
The realization was both devastating and freeing in turn.
I don’t know how long I looked at that image, certainly more than a few minutes, before I became aware of someone standing quietly in front of me. I looked up, self-conscious of the gamut of emotions that this stranger had undoubtedly witnessed in my expression, to look into the face of one of the most handsome men I had ever seen.
“They’re both so beautiful,” I managed to say in lieu of an apology. Whether for being so obviously emotional or for pawing through what I assumed was this man’s work, I didn’t know.
He only gave me a hint of a smile, studying me intently with pale-green eyes. “You must be Jacob.”
I nodded my head and, no doubt, failed miserably in my attempt to smile. He touched my shoulder reassuringly for a moment before politely shooing me away to my desk, giving me a genuine smile of his own.
He introduced himself to the class as Elijah Fall, hopping up to sit on his desk at the front of the room, asking everyone to call him by his first name, as he planned to call us by ours. He wore a black suit jacket over a red T-shirt with dark jeans, and when he crossed his legs to reveal honest to God black Gucci rubber boots, still slightly damp from the rain, I thought even Nicholas would have approved.
“I’m going to make this quick,” he said, tossing a stack of saddle-stitched booklets onto the desk of the person on his left, asking them to take one and pass the stack on. “Of course, this is all online.” He stopped, seeming to laugh at himself. “But old habits die hard.”
“This is just a refresher course, so everyone should already be familiar with at least the basics of film processing, print making and darkroom procedures.”
He looked around the room, seeming to take a mental tally of the attendees.
“We have a lot to go through and only nine weeks to do it. With that in mind, we additionally will only be working on burning and dodging techniques, the use of darkroom filters, and correction of both negatives and prints. Also, if there is time, we can work with dyes, and I can demonstrate hand tinting for anyone who might be interested.”
It was then that the booklets landed on my desk, having traveled around the room. I grabbed mine and, feeling silly, stood to hand back the remaining books. He reached out and claimed them with a quiet “Thank you.”
“Oh, and for anyone in my Wednesday or Friday night labs, as long as I’m free, we can work on any additional tricks you want. Within reason,” he qualified with a grin.
He slipped off his jacket then, laying it over his now closed portfolio, and hopped to standing, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s get started.”
The class went by in a bit of a blur. With the request that everyone shoot a roll of film by the following week, either on their own or in one of the adjacent studios, we skipped film processing and went straight to print making. Elijah demonstrated the mixing of each of the chemicals, grabbing a couple of the younger men to haul the five-gallon buckets and the two older students to measure the water. It had been almost eight years, but the memories came trickling back.
Elizabeth, the only other student around my own age, and I were drafted into setting up the chemical trays in the two trough sinks in the middle of the darkroom.
I tried hard not to notice how well Elijah’s jeans fit his backside as he crouched down to mix the chemicals but failed miserably. When Elizabeth looked over to waggle her eyebrows at me, we both laughed.
Elizabeth and I set up identical tray layouts in each sink. Developer first, used to bring out the image on the exposed paper, stop-bath second, to stop the developing process, fixer third, to set the exposed print, then water to wash all the other shit off. The overpowering white vinegar smell brought back memories of sneaking into the darkroom in college to kiss my first real boyfriend.
Without actual negatives, Elijah walked us through the printmaking review by having the class work with photograms. I tried hard to harness my inner-Man Ray, but sadly everything just came out looking like unidentifiable squiggles.
Elizabeth and I chatted throughout, deciding to grab enlargers that sat next to each other. By the end of class I had learned that she was an elementary school teacher, had been married almost four years, and that we were both in complete agreement that the sound of our instructor’s voice was the hottest thing about the man. And that was saying a lot.
Once the lights were back on, Elijah let out a shrill whistle to get everyone’s attention. “Make sure you grab your prints. There is another class in here tomorrow, and I can’t guarantee they’ll be here waiting.”
“And,” he called over the sound of students gathering their possessions, “fair warning, if you are here early, you will be helping mix chemicals.”
After class, Elizabeth and I decided to walk across the street to an all-night coffee shop, each grabbing a cup and taking a seat near the window. Looking back across the wet road to the center’s doors, we watched as people spilled out at different intervals.
“So, what’s your story?” Elizabeth asked, taking her first sip.
“Well, I work at Blue Stone Mar
keting, live just west of the gallery district and was bullied by friends to take up a hobby.” I made quote marks with my fingers.
“Wow, Blue Stone. That’s a pretty big deal,” she said, and I shrugged.
“So, no boyfriend?” Elizabeth asked grinning.
“And how do you know it wouldn’t be a girlfriend?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
She raised a brow. “Well, you called Fall’s voice sultry,” she made quote marks with her fingers this time. “and the fact you were watching his ass like it was reading the lottery numbers. All that was a bit of a giveaway.”
I couldn’t hold back my laugh. It was nice talking with someone whom I hadn’t known forever. “Yeah, there would be that.” I couldn’t help but smile, and soon we were both snickering.
“So, boyfriend?”
I’m not sure if it was the fact that she didn’t really know me and had no vested interest in my life or that I finally just needed to talk, but I found myself spilling the vault of my secrets concerning the demise of my last relationship and my lack of a life since.
“Well, your ex sounds like a fucking asshole.”
I laughed. “You teach second graders with that mouth?”
“Third, and yes.” She grinned. “So, four months is a long time, and our teacher is pretty hot.”
I shook my head. “Assuming he’s even gay, I’m thinking he might be a little too hot.” I didn’t mention that Evan had said he was widowed. A fact I was finding hard to reconcile with the man. “I’m thinking he’s probably a bit out of my league.”
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said, looking me up and down and making me blush, “you’re pretty hot yourself.”
I laughed again, burying my face in my arms on the tabletop. “Shut up.”
Her whispered Speak of the devil had me looking up again to watch Elijah Fall making his way across to our side of the street.
He met my eyes through the plate glass window, and he flashed me a smile, lifting his hand in greeting, before taking a right and heading to the parking lot just north of where the coffee shop sat.
We both waved back.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t waste too much time thinking about it. Real estate like that goes pretty fast.”