A Flickering Light (26 page)

“You’re a fine model, Jessie,” he told her.

She beamed at his praise but made sure she never stood close enough that he could pat her back or that she could smell the scent of baby powder on his shirts.

The second surprise came the following day, when Jessie came to the front of the studio, where a few people had gathered. She pushed her way past them. Lilly was in the crowd.

Jessie gasped.

Mr. Bauer had framed the print of his double exposure and placed it in the window. Jessie told herself there was nothing to be alarmed about. She was simply a model, an employee. But she hadn’t cleared it with her mother, and her mother didn’t like surprises. Worse, here in this setting, away from the technicalities of the developing room, she could see the portrait for its nuances. He’d once again made her look wistful, reflective, and even pretty. He’d taken a photograph that showed her to be more than what she was. And very likely, Mrs. Bauer too would see things in the print that were better left unexposed. She never should have agreed. But it was too late now.

Mrs. Bauer had heard about the Taft photograph by reading the paper. But it was the dressmaker, Lilly Gaebele, who mentioned to her that her sister’s photograph was in the window beside the president’s. “It’s a double exposure or something like that,” Lilly had said. “I don’t really understand it.”

“Two images on one print,” Mrs. Bauer explained as Lilly fit the dress. She had not lost all the weight she’d gained with Robert, but she’d decided to ask the elder Gaebele girl to take in at least a little from the dresses made for her while she carried the boy. “Were both images clear?”

“As far as I could tell, but there were several people staring and I couldn’t really get too close.”

Her dressmaker continued to work, circling her, pins plucked from an oval cushion attached to her bodice. Mrs. Bauer anticipated pricks at her waistline. They never came. The girl was good at what she did, and she could be silent too if Mrs. Bauer didn’t pursue conversation. Was the girl bragging on her sister’s portrait by mentioning the crowd gathered around? Maybe she ought to take a look at it.

Mrs. Bauer had known of the double exposure’s success, of course, but not who the model was. She hadn’t asked, nor had she requested to see it. She just hoped he hadn’t had to pay the girl more for the modeling. The Bauer Studio wasn’t made of gold. It might have been if her husband had put as much money into new cameras and promotions as he’d put into that ranch. Even getting a better market for that salve of his would help. Times were difficult right now. People were nervous about the economy, and the Bauers had three children to care for.

She never should have agreed to another child. The baby was easy to care for, but she was more tired now than she’d ever been. She dragged herself from bed each morning only to bring the child back to nurse him. Sometimes she fell back asleep before he did, and she worried she might roll onto him. She’d sent Winnie to her mother’s, begging her to look after the girl for a few days each week even though Mr. Bauer had agreed to take Winnie to the studio. He made subtle comments about the distraction, having children’s toys in the reception room, and she knew he was hoping to increase the portrait sittings what with the good news of the double exposure and Taft’s photograph.

Winnie’s absence helped, but she still felt herself going up and down the hills of exhaustion that always bottomed out in a lost temper with her husband, and even with Russell sometimes, though the boy rarely did a thing out of line.

If only they had enough money to hire a live-in girl, one of those Polish immigrants who populated the city. They were clean and tidy and said to be fine cooks. She didn’t know how they might be with children, but she could ask.

Except what was the point? They couldn’t afford it. Just as they couldn’t afford Mr. Bauer’s trips to the congress either, but he’d gone. Or his club memberships, but he continued to rejoin. And who knew how many hours and dollars he’d spent perfecting that double exposure? How many glass plates? How many tins of developing solutions had he gone through? However would they recover such frivolous losses? She felt her face grow warm, almost hot. She looked up into the mirror.
That flush again
. Sometimes she felt as though a thousand bees were stinging her, and this awful flush moved up through her body to her neck and face. She couldn’t get her breath.

Her dressmaker spoke to her. What had she said? “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Mrs. Bauer said.

“Would you like to do something different?”

Lilly was talking about the retailoring of the dress, but when Mrs. Bauer answered yes, she referred to more than the shape of her gown.

Jessie’s parents called her into the parlor. Her father began by telling her that both of them felt it would be better if she left the employ of Mr. Bauer.

Nothing made Jessie more likely to click a shutter shut than being told what to do. It was true she had considered leaving the Bauer Studio a while back, but her lack of success at finding work and the changes at the studio made her feel she had things under control. There’d been a realignment of the border between her and Mr. Bauer, and neither she nor he had crossed it. She believed she could have a life as a photographer, maybe one day independently. Why her parents would choose now to have her leave made no sense to her, but she was ready for this argument. She’d outlined several points in her mind about why she ought to remain. She started in, but her mother held her hand up for her to stop.

“Just keep in mind,” her mother said, “that with Ralph Carleton’s evangelistic work, you might get to travel. You’ve always said you’d like to do that.”

“He’s the one who travels. I doubt he’d take a young female assistant along with him. And you wouldn’t approve of that anyway, would you?”

“Hush now. He’d send you ahead,” her mother said.

“I suspect he has a male secretary to handle the advance preparations, Mama. Arranging the site, getting the proper authorities to permit him to be there, all of that. And really, any man can do that. And any woman can write his letters for him. But how many women can make a photograph that other people look at and smile? Or even cry because it’s so beautiful?”

“At least with Mr. Carleton you’d be exposed every day to rightful behavior,” her mother said. She turned to her husband, who watched Jessie with kind eyes.

Jessie lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry you think I need that.”

“The photograph,” her father said. “Lilly says it is quite provocative.”

So that was it. Somehow Lilly’s scandalous and erroneous view of her relationship with Mr. Bauer had been conveyed to her parents by Lilly’s tragic review of a simple photographic success.

“Have you seen it? It’s nothing to be alarmed about. Just a technical photograph.”

“We urged August to get you the camera because you were so sad after Roy’s fall. We hoped it would help you, and it did. But now it’s taking you places you ought not to go, Jessie.”

“Don’t you see? I have a
profession
because of it. Not like Lilly. She doesn’t get to spend all her time doing what she’d like, making dresses. She’s wrong about the portrait. She’s just jealous!”

“She has a beginning,” her mother said.

“This is my beginning.”

“We’d like to see you happily married one day,” her mother said. “And that isn’t likely to happen while you hold on to these dreams that can’t ever be achieved. We want you to be wise, Jessie, and not hold unnatural affections for an art or for a forbidden person.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked like she’d just eaten some of her mother’s vinegar pickles.

Jessie looked aghast.

“Unnatural affections?” She whispered the words. “I…I… admire his work. I think he’s a good man. He has taught us well. There’s nothing unnatural in that.”

“He is putting thoughts in your head that you may never be able to secure. A studio of your own.” This from her father. “We wanted you to have something to distract you from the hard times. But—”

“Papa, he doesn’t know about my desire to have my own studio one day. He doesn’t! I just don’t see why I have to leave doing something I love. I only told Lilly and Selma and Roy!” She didn’t want to cry, but she could feel the tears of frustration nibbling at the edge of her eyes. Her parents looked at each other.

Her father spoke then. “Sometimes people who love you can see what you can’t.”

“I have to see through my own eyes,” Jessie said. “When I’m eighteen, Papa, I’ll have to make my own choices.”

“You have a few months to go until then. And while you’re here with us, it’s our responsibility to help you. You know our wishes and what we think is best for you.”
Yes, and I considered leaving
myself. But not now
. “Ralph Carleton has an opening. We trust that you’ll make the best choice.”

Jessie left the parlor, grabbed her hat, and stomped out into the autumn evening. She needed to walk. She looked up to see the streetcar making one last run across the Lake Winona bridge. She stepped on. She watched people as she moved by, the
click click
of the car on the tracks a steady rhythm to match her heart. Her timing was always wrong. Just when she felt she could work beside someone she cared for deeply without violating her own emotions or challenging his, her parents decide she isn’t deciding well at all.

They couldn’t know how much she enjoyed the little moments in the studio when Voe danced around mimicking someone they all knew—the telephone operator or the postman. Her parents couldn’t grasp how much pleasure she derived from watching Winnie play with her dolls at the small table Mr. Bauer had brought in for her, listening to the child’s words soar and sing, unlike Roy’s. They couldn’t know—she hadn’t ever told them—of the small pleasure she felt as she worked her way past the bricks of regret she carried because she found pleasure in the normal chattering of the child. Working for Ralph Carleton would be a constant reminder of those parts of her that were neglectful, fearful, and self-centered, evidence of her bankrupt soul. She’d face daily reminders of the inevitability of human error. She’d always wonder when she’d err again.

Jessie rode the streetcar to the end of the line, then rode it back. She did say prayers as she put her hands against the cool window. She’d have leaned her head there, but her hat wouldn’t allow it. She didn’t hear anything neat and tidy, no voice of God telling her just what to do. She’d planned to leave anyway, before the double exposure, so maybe it was time. Maybe she was being held back by being a mere assistant. She could have a studio of her own one day if she took a few risks, like photographing the president herself instead of convincing Mr. Bauer to do it. If she could buy a Graflex camera, it would be so much easier to make photographs for postcards. She could take wedding photographs too, she thought. Photograph happy occasions. It was getting out of the studio that would make a photographer’s career. Just like those photographs from Pikes Peak, which made her want to go there. Advertisers like Ivory soap or Keen Kutters scissors and shears would buy prints of their products. Models didn’t have to be…people.

She had to look up to the bank as the river flowed along and reach for those fruits and healing leaves. There would be another way. There had to be.