If I Lose Her (12 page)

 She walked
into the main gallery and heard people talking in the café in the back, so she
walked back. The few people who were sitting around chatting and drinking their
hot drinks looked up at the girl in the black dress holding flowers. One table
was empty; the table where we had our first hot chocolate together.

 On the table
was a cup of steaming hot chocolate, and a photograph was taped to both of the chairs.
One was of her and one was of me.

 The girl
behind the bar smiled as she watched Jo detach the photo of me from the chair
and turn it over.

Clue #5

My sweet Jolene

You’re almost there

The car out front…

 Then she
looked over at the second photo, pealed it off and read the back.

Will bring you here.

 “He was in
here just a few minutes ago,” the girl behind the coffee bar said. “You’re a
lucky girl.”

 “I know.”

 She saw my
white Cougar sitting out front so she ran out of the café with flowers, hot
chocolate and photos in hand, but it wasn’t me she found in the drivers seat,
it was my mother dressed like a chauffer.

 “Dawn,” she
said laughing. “Where’s Alex?”

 “I can’t
tell you anything, but you should get in.”

 Jo climbed
in the back seat, and my mother drover her down Santa Fe and out to Platte
River Drive.

 The timing
was perfect, because the sun was just setting.

 “Have fun,”
my mother said as Jo got out of the car.

 “Thanks.”

 Through the
glass doors of Paris on the Platte, Jo could see the flickering light of 200
candles. She walked into the café and found me standing in the middle of the
large room, dressed for a night on the town.

 “Alex,” she
said starting to tear up. “This is…”

 I held my
finger up to my lips. Then I pointed to the little remote control she was
holding.

 She looked
at it, smiled a smile of realization and pushed play.

 Elton John
started singing ‘Something About The Way You Look Tonight’ in the background,
and I walked up to her.

 “Happy
anniversary,” I whispered into her ear and I gently kissed her.

 She set the
gifts down on a near by table, stood up on her toes, since I was taller than
her and slowly kissed me back.

 “You didn’t
actually think I was going to relegate our one-year-anniversary to a random
band and some food money at a festival did you?”

 “Actually,
you did have me going there for a while.”

 “Well,
thanks for playing along and trusting me.” Then I kissed her again. “I’ve hired
the whole place out for the night, and the barista is yours. You can order
anything you want,” I said leading her over to the counter.

 “Really?”

 “Yep, you
can even call him Bob if you want.”

 “Bob huh,
are you okay with that Bob?”

 “Actually,
Bob is my name so yeah that’s fine.”

 Jo laughed.

 “I do have
one more thing for you though.”

 “A gift on
top of all this? Wow, if I didn’t know better I’d think you are trying to get
me to like you,” she said in her full flirty way.

 I reached out
and Bob handed me a large, red box I had wrapped with a white bow.

 She slowly
took it from me, walked over to a table and unwrapped it.

 Her eyes
grew as she saw that inside was a photo album from our first year together.

 “Alex, this
is beautiful,” she said running her hand over the leather cover.

 She flipped
through the pages, one at a time, remembering all the little moments we had
shared together thus far.

 “And I made
room for these,” I said taking the stack of photographs that she had collected during
her little scavenger hunt.

 I flipped to
the last two pages of the book and pressed each of the clues into the spots
that I had reserved just for them.

 “It’s
perfect Alex.”

 Then she
kissed me again.

 We swayed to
the music of Elton John for a while, then she decided that she wanted to try
out her own personal Bob the barista.

 We ordered
sandwiches with extra fries, hot drinks with cups full of whipped cream and
laughed the evening away.

 When the
night was done I dropped her off at home. It was all I could do to let go of
her as she got out of the car.

 As I watched
her walk up the driveway I thought about how desperately I did not want to go
home by myself, but we both knew that for right now, sleeping alone was our
only option, so I drove home with only the taste of her on my lips and the
smell of her in my clothes to take with me.

        
November came. My mother was already preparing for Thanksgiving by stocking
the cupboards with potatoes and beans. Things between her and I were back to
normal, which meant I didn’t ask about Peter and she didn’t talk about him.
However, I knew from the messages I found on the answering machine once in a
while that he was a regular piece of her story again.

 Jo had spent
the better part of the last two months printing photographs and thinking about
how her images would view together as a single body of work, and now it was
time to hang her show.

 Opening
night was always a Friday night, so I went with her on Thursday to see that
everything had been framed and was ready. This was the first time I had
actually been to the Camera Obscura.

 As I walked
in, I was first greeted with a tinkling of a bell attached to the door, then an
elderly gentleman with thin grey hair and cowboy boots walked down the steep
steps from upstairs.

 “Hello, can
I help you?”

 “Yes, my
girlfriend is Jolene Daniels.”

 He just
looked at me with wide-open eyes.

 “She has a
solo show here tomorrow night.”

 “Oh, JOLENE
Daniels.”

 “Yes, JOLENE
Daniels. She’s just outside bringing in some more photos.”

 “Fine,” he
said nodding. “I’m Hal Gould,” and he held out his hand.

 “I’m Alex
Douglas.”

 “What?” He
asked turning his ear to me.

 I could see
now that he had a hearing aid so I spoke up.

 “ALEX.
DOUGLAS.”

 “Fine.” 

 Photographs
of Marilyn Monroe lined the staircase, and I could see some black and white
prints by artists unfamiliar to me hanging at the top of the stairs. As I
turned to the right, I entered a large room, taking up the entire bottom floor,
with off-white painted walls and rows of little brass hooks. Four of Jo’s
photographs were already hung while several more sat wrapped in plastic on the
floor.

 “You should
put your name down on our mailing list,” Hal said pointing to a book laying
open on an old fireplace mantel.

 I walked
over and added my name to the column of scribbled marks.

 “It looks
like it’s coming along,” I told Hal.

 “What?”

 “I SAID, it
LOOKS like it’s COMING ALONG.”

 He stood
there again with eyes wide, slightly bobbing his head. I wasn’t sure if he was
thinking or if he hadn’t heard me.

 “Sure. The
show’s tomorra. We need to get it hung,” he replied.

 Then the
doorbell tinkled, and I turned. It was Jo, carrying one of her most recent
pieces.

 “Hey Hal,”
she said walking over and giving him a hug. “How does it look?”

 “It’s good
work,” he said walking over to one of the hung images. “The colors are good,
and the composition really says something.”

 “I brought
you one more piece,” she said pulling plastic off of my favorite print. We had
stopped by my house on the way down to get it so she could hang it in the show
with the others.

 Hal walked
over, picked it up and held it underneath one of the track lights.

 He looked at
it for about five minutes without saying anything. Then he took down a print
hanging over the fireplace mantel and hung Jo’s in its place.

 “Fine.”

 Loretta was
off for the night, so Jo and I helped Hal hang the rest of Jo’s pieces.

 Once we were
done, we stepped back, and I wrapped my arm around Jo’s waist.

 “I think it
looks like a show,” I told her. “Let me get a shot of you with all of your work
hung, so that I can say that I knew you when.”

 She rolled
her eyes and slapped my shoulder. Then she walked over and stood next to the
fireplace. I lined up the shot and took the picture of Jo with her arms raised
in a gallery of walls lined with her art.  

 “Have you
been upstairs?” She asked.

 “No.”

 “Oh, you’ve
gotta see this.”

 Then she
took my hand and led me up the creaking steps.

 Every bit of
wall space on the second floor was filled with vintage prints. Edward S. Curtis
hung over the stairs, Nick Ut and W. Eugene Smith led me into a room where the
William Corey prints Jo had told me about hung over a threadbare couch the
color of pea soup.

 “Those are
really beautiful,” I said pointing to the William Corey, Japanese garden,
prints that Jo had gone on and on about. Then I turned to see Steve McCurry’s
Afghan Girl hanging between two columns. “Oh wow. You weren’t kidding,” I said
walking up to it. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to touch her–to run my
hand across her cheek–to ask her why she looked so sad.

 I walked
into the next room and gently ran my fingers over the dusty edges of prints
wrapped in plastic and filed in racks according to their subject matter.
Western. Architecture. Floral. Nature. On the back wall hung two black and
white prints that I recognized but couldn’t place. One was of two workers
dressed in overalls and hardhats standing next to a black, oil pipe as wide as
one of them, and they were both covered from head to foot in dripping oil. Oil
also covered the rocky ground around them. The contrast to the photo next to it
was so stark, their placement had to be intentional. The second image was of a
boy, maybe eight-years-old, standing naked with sinuous legs and a swollen
belly on a background of snow-white sand. Next to him was a slender, dead tree
that mirrored the gentle staff the boy carried in his hand.

 “That’s
Sebastiao Salgado,” Hal said walking over and taking the print of the boy off
of the wall. “He is the most important photographer alive today.”

 Hal gently
reached out and stopped just short of touching the boy’s face. Then he hung the
photo back on the wall.

 “Hal, do you
have a restroom?”

 “Just around
the corner,” he said pointing to the back.

 I went into
the small bathroom and flipped on the light. I was surrounded on all sides by
fine-art nudes. This was the first time I had felt self-conscious in a bathroom
by myself.

 Jo found me
when I came out.

 “Have you
seen Hal’s office?”

 “Uh-uh.”

 “He keeps
the best stuff in there.”

 I followed
her around the corner and into a small room with a desk piled to overflowing
with papers, books and prints. On the walls were pieces that I would expect to
find in a museum rather than someone’s office. There were three Edward Westons,
including his famous pepper, a Man Ray and two Ansel Adams as well as several
others.

 “Hal was the
first person to show Adams in Colorado. They couldn’t sell his prints for
twenty-five dollars at the time,” Jo told me. “The pepper is appraised at
around thirty-five thousand.”

 “Wow,” I
said leaning forward and looking more closely at it. The shape was interesting
and the contrast was amazing, but I couldn’t imagine myself ever spending that
much on a photograph of a pepper.

 I explored
the gallery for about another hour before it was time for Hal to lock up for
the night.

 “See you
tomorrow Hal,” Jo said as we followed him out the front door.

 “Fine,” he
replied.

 By Friday
afternoon, Jo was more excited than I had ever seen her before. 

 She had
straightened her hair, pulled it up into a bow and wore a new pair of shoes
that Susan had her buy for the show.

 We arrived
early and people were already showing up to see her work. Loretta poured
Champagne and set out cheese and cracker-boards while Jo began answering
questions about her work. What did you do to age them? How did you get the
colors so vivid even though you were shooting underwater? What kind of work are
you planning on doing next? The quiet girl with thick-rimmed glasses I had
fallen in love with truly came out of her shell when talking about her work,
and I loved watching it.

 Two pieces
sold in the first hour. Then things died down from about 8 till 9. Hal was off
talking to someone upstairs and Loretta was pouring more Champagne when a short
older woman came in with grey curly hair and a pair of glasses held around her neck
by a thin gold chain. A middle-aged gentleman in a neat grey suit accompanied
her. There weren’t many others in the gallery so Jo introduced herself and said
that if the woman had any questions she would be glad to help.

 For about
ten minutes I watched the woman walk from piece to piece without saying a word.
This wasn’t that unusual. The peculiar bit was that the man with her didn’t
look that interested in the art at all, he just followed next to her carrying
her coat.

 “Are you
Jolene Douglas?” She finally asked.

 “Yes ma’am I
am.”

 “Tell me.
Why did you capture these images the way you did?”

 “Well, I
wanted to challenge myself. I had seen the work of some underwater
photographers and decided that I wanted to try it myself.”

 “But why not
fish?”

 “I’ve seen
some beautiful photographs of fish, but I really wanted to say something with
these images. The place where I took most of these is in a pond up near
Evergreen that has a kind of loneliness to it, but it doesn’t feel dead. It
feels so alive, so I wanted the images to express a kind of loneliness without
the extreme sorrow that often comes with it so I contrasted the loneliness of
the compositions with the strong colors. The rich colors also remind me of the
richness of the forest we were shooting in.”

 “That’s very
good,” she said with a gentle smile of approval.

 “Margaret,”
Loretta said reappearing from the backroom with a fresh tray of Champagne
flutes. “I see you’ve met the star of the night.”

 Jo blushed a
little but tried to maintain her composure.

 “I have
indeed.”

 Just then
Hal came down from upstairs.

 “Hello young
lady,” he said smiling at her as he came.

 “Hello Hal.
I was just speaking with your young attraction.”

 “She does
good work,” and he walked up to the piece above the mantle. “This is probably
the most important one.”

 “You think
so?”

 “Yes,” he
replied bobbing his head.

 “Tell me.
What has sold.”

 “Well, the
two in the corner went immediately, and these two went just before you arrived.”
He was pointing to one of Amy in royal blue and the one of her with the flowers
over her head.

 “That’s a
shame,” Margaret said reaching into her purse and removing a small pad.

 “I can make
another print of that piece if you are interested,” Jo added.

 Margaret
looked at her and smiled. Then Jo stepped back.

 Margaret
scribbled something down on her pad, tore it off and handed it to Loretta.

 Loretta did
not read it. She just smiled. “It was good to see you Margaret.”

 Margaret
walked over to Hal, they hugged each other and I heard her whisper, “Take care
of yourself Hal.” Then she walked over to Jo shook her hand and said that she
thought that Jo’s work was beautiful. Then she and her man left.

 After
Margaret was gone, Loretta looked at the paper and smirked. She handed the
paper to Hal who read it, folded it in half and put it in his shirt pocket.

 “Fine.” Then
he went back upstairs.

 “What was
that all about?” I asked.

 “THAT was
Margaret Alpert. She happens to be a widow of one of the most prominent lawyers
in Denver, and she collects photography. She just bought four of your prints!”

 “What? Are
you serious?” Jo asked laughing. “Which ones?”

 “ ‘The
Sleeping Lily’, ‘Transcendence’, she does want a print of ‘The Blue Dress’, and
she bought the one over the fireplace. What was that one called again?”

 “Weightless,”
I replied.

 Jo turned to
me. “Oh, Alex.”

 I smiled,
walked up to her, hugged her hard and lifted her off the ground.

 “Don’t even
worry about it. I am so proud of you.”

 “What’s wrong?”
Loretta asked.

 I set Jo
back down.

 It’s just
that that wasn’t really for sale. I had given it to Alex as a gift and we just
brought it down to show with the rest of the pieces. “Could I make her another
print of it?”

 “I wouldn’t
advise it. Buyers are pretty particular about what they want. I’m surprised she
bought one of The Blue Dress without seeing the print first.”

 “No, no.
Don’t worry about it. You can make me another print. Give that one to
Margaret.”

 “Are you
sure?”

 “Of course.”

 The door-chime
rang again and five people trickled in, helped themselves to Champagne and
started mulling around. Loretta introduced herself and offered to help anyone
who needed it.

 By the end
of the night Jo had sold all but two of her pieces.