An Absence So Great: A Novel (Portraits of the Heart) Page 24

  “Would you like a tour of the rest of the studio?” Jessie asked when they’d completed the circle of the reception area.

  Mrs. Bauer snorted. “I guess I know what a photographic studio looks like.”

  “Oh. Perhaps tea then?” Jessie said. “Lilly?”

  Mrs. Bauer allowed herself to be directed to the table. Lilly poured a cup, asked if she’d like sugar (she did) and cream (she didn’t), and offered her cakes and cookies. She pointed to one of each, then chose a chair close to the door. Jessie followed with the teacup balanced on the plate. She took the umbrella and put it in the brass stand near the door while Mrs. Bauer slowly munched.

  “Your father was a photographer, wasn’t he?” Jessie asked, sitting beside her. Will she be the only person to come?

  “How would you know that?” Mrs. Bauer asked. She turned stiffly to look at Jessie’s face.

  “I believe you told me,” Jessie said, “years ago, when I’d come by to confer about photographs and such while Mr. Bauer was ill. We spoke of your own training, retouching, that sort of thing.”

  “Yes, he was. A good photographer too. I’ve skills myself, you know. I practically trained Mr. Bauer.”

  “You did well then,” Jessie said.

  “Yes, I did,” she defended. “He’d have been lost without me and my father to guide him. Papa’s passing allowed him to build the studio on Johnson. Did you know that?”

  “I didn’t,” Jessie said.

  “Well, it did.” She sipped more tea. “My mother’s supposed to come by. My sister, Eva, too.” She looked toward the door. “Don’t know what’s keeping them.”

  “I hope they make it,” Jessie said.

  It was a truthful statement, but Mrs. Bauer’s stiff posture, the practiced eating, and the tortured expression in her eyes when she looked at the door told Jessie of this woman’s fragile state, a brittleness that left a mist of fear above her lip that wasn’t from steaming tea. Jessie lost her own discomfort then, stopped wondering at Mrs. Bauer’s motives for stopping by. Jessie felt instead compassion for this woman whose losses settled in the creases of her face.

  Other guests arrived, but Jessie never lost awareness that Mrs. Bauer filled her studio. Once or twice, when the door opened and neither Jessie nor Selma stood close enough to greet the new guests and receive their cards, Mrs. Bauer, looking with anticipation for her sister and her mother, would say, “Welcome to Polonia’s Party. Jessie Gaebele’s the new proprietor, trained by the Bauer Studio, don’t you know.”

  It would be a long afternoon.

  Voe surprised Jessie midway through, showing up with baby Danny on her hip. “Mrs. B.,” Voe said. “Didn’t expect you here. Isn’t this the sweetest place?” Mrs. Bauer raised her teacup as though making a toast. Voe hugged Jessie with one arm while Danny kicked to be set down. He waddled over to Mrs. Bauer, who startled and leaned back in her chair.

  Jessie handed the boy a cookie, and he trailed after his mother as she moved slowly along the gallery of photographs.

  “All your pictures up here on the walls. Just like a real photographer, you are,” Voe said.

  “I am,” Jessie said. She grinned.

  “We’ll give you competition, Mr. Bauer and me,” she said, winking at Jessie. “Won’t we, Mrs. B.?”

  “Indeed,” Mrs. Bauer said. Voe and Jessie exchanged glances as she led her friend to the table for tea, then completed the tour before Danny’s racing around forced Voe to pick him up and prepare to leave.

  Voe’s brief visit reminded Jessie of the absence of friends in her life. She had busied herself with photography, helping Ralph, and getting this new studio ready, but Jessie knew her distance from Voe wasn’t all about work-related issues. Friendship meant sharing what mattered, the struggles and salutations, and she couldn’t really tell Voe of her moments of great joys or sorrows without also commenting on the man most often in them.

  “Come by anytime, Voe,” Jessie said at the door. Voe had Danny in hand.

  “Likewise,” Voe said. “You know where we live.”

  “When I get things under control here, I’ll do that.” Jessie waved into the cold December air.

  “There’s little to control in a studio,” Mrs. Bauer said, still holding the seat by the door. “You should already have learned that.”

  Mrs. Bauer’s mother and sister never arrived, but three dozen others did, including curiosity seekers. Several scheduled portrait appointments or family sittings at their homes; many left calling cards for Jessie to call on later. The party was a success by any estimation.

  Fred came by just before five o’clock.

  “Welcome to Polonia’s Party,” Mrs. Bauer said. “Jessie Gaebele is the new proprietor, trained by the Bauer Studio.”

  “You’ve come for the tour?” Jessie said. She hadn’t realized she’d been waiting for him, but she had.

  “Not today,” he said, tipping his hat to her. He seemed to know that Mrs. Bauer sat just inside the door because he turned immediately to pick out her umbrella from the stand and said, “Come along now, Mrs. Bauer… Jessie.” He extended his elbow to his wife. “I’ve come to drive you home.”

  Jessie watched them leave, an odd ache at her heart. She ignored the questioning look in Lilly’s eyes as she turned back and began the cleanup.

  She set the dishes in her small sink and heated water for washing. The hot sudsy water felt good on her hands. She would allow herself to be pleased for having met her utmost goal at last. The party was a success. Her business would be too. She hadn’t done it alone, she knew that. George had accommodated; the bank had been convinced; her family had added furnishing accoutrements. She’d worked hard for this desire, pointed her nose in the right direction, kept herself from stepping where she’d stumble. She could truthfully say that now she was on her own.

  She just couldn’t describe the reason for the emptiness that grasped her when she told her sisters good night. Even Neggie’s purring at her feet couldn’t penetrate it.

  The Absence of Two Chairs

  THE LAST CLIENT FINISHED EARLY, and Jessie wanted to do the dirty work, as she called it, before dusk and the awful settling in of January cold. She went to the coal bin and filled up a bucket. Unfortunately, she hadn’t negotiated with George Haas to fill the bin as part of the sale, so here was yet another expense she hadn’t accounted for. No matter; it was needed. She set the pail on the back porch, then picked up her chamber pot and took it to the newly refurbished privy out back. She walked around to the front, checking the foundation, making certain the tenants had shut their windows. Dusk hovered over the snow-crusted lawn. She entered the studio, still carrying the now empty chamber pot.

  Fred met her in the reception room.

  “You…startled me,” she said, her fingers at her neck. “Did you come in through the back?”

  “No. The front.” He pointed with his hat he’d removed. “Just there.”

  “I didn’t hear the bell ring.”

  “You were in the coal bin, likely,” he said and took a step toward her, touched her cheek with his fingers, wiping what must have been a smudge from her face. Her skin trembled. He reached for his handkerchief, but instead of dabbing her face again, he handed it to her, let her do it herself. “Let me take the chamber pot,” he said.

  “No. Please. It’s fine. I … Please, sit. I’ll fix us tea. Did you want the tour now?” She wiped her cheek and handed him back the handkerchief.

  He smiled at her. “I came by to congratulate you,” he said, “since I didn’t have time during your reception. I hope Mrs. Bauer… well, that she didn’t…”

  “She was fine,” Jessie said. “She seemed—”

  “I’d be pleased with tea.”

  “Tea? Oh yes, certainly.”

  Her face grew warm. Her neck probably colored, but fortunately she wore a high-collared shirtwaist beneath her apron, and the collar pulled tight around her throat. She took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said. “Let me put this… bac
k.” She motioned to the chamber pot. “My rooms, or rather my room, is back here. I’ll put the teakettle on.”

  “May I join you?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Of course.”

  She chattered to him about the studio rooms as they walked through, pointed out the character studies. She mentioned the tenants upstairs. He commented on the helpfulness of the additional rent. “Yes, though renters have their needs,” she put it. “I hadn’t really counted on the extras.” She placed the chamber pot behind the Japanese screen, then reentered the small kitchen area, tightening her apron strings in front as she moved past him to turn on the cooking fire, careful not to touch him. She poured water into the basin and washed her hands, the lavender-scented soap tickling her nose.

  This would have been easier if he’d come during her party, when it wouldn’t have been just the two of them, and she wouldn’t have shared her small quarters with him either.

  She took out pickles, a loaf of bread, jam and butter, a chunk of cheese. Neggie eased out from behind the screen and sashayed toward Fred, her black tail twitching as she swayed beneath his legs. He sat on one of the two kitchen chairs at the square table.

  “You don’t like cats, do you?” she asked, as he seemed to fidget a bit. He nodded agreement. “I’ve heard they’re drawn to people who don’t like them much.”

  “Or to those who’ll give them their independence and not smother them with petting, let them be themselves.” He stared at her and she turned away.

  “I named her Negative, or rather Roy did, for the black and white of the glass plates. She’s Neggie for short.”

  “It’s not that I don’t like cats,” he said to her back. “They shed, and the fur makes me sneeze. Or has in the past. Maybe this one is different. And of course the fur can be a problem in the developing room.”

  “I have mice,” Jessie told him. “Neggie brings them in as gifts to show me. But we make a good team. I dispose of them for her, leave her to her vices, and she leaves me to mine.”

  “I can’t imagine a single vice you have, Jessie,” he said. “Not a single one.”

  She ached with the kindness of his words, made light of them by puttering in the cupboard getting tea leaves out, locating the sieve, picking out the cups and saucers, and pouring when the teakettle whistled.

  “How are things at the studio?” she asked. She’d keep this strictly business, ignore the stirring of her heart. “It was fun seeing Voe at the party. And that Danny is a husky one, isn’t he?”

  “Going well,” he said. “Going well. Yes, Voe told me that day that Mrs. Bauer was here. It’s why I… came. I feared she might—”

  “That’s good. She was fine, just fine.” She served the tea, kept standing. “Sorry I don’t have any sweets or anything. Was your Christmas season good?”

  “Adequate,” he said.

  She lifted her cup, sipped the tea in silence, still standing. “Business,” Jessie said. “The new Kodak lets everyone think they’re an artist.” He nodded. “Would you like to see the operating room? I made a few changes from when George had it.”

  “I would,” he said. “In a minute.”

  “Oh, of course. I didn’t mean to rush you.” She set her teacup on the porcelain shelf of the sink, fidgeted with the lace at her neck. The clock ticked. Neggie flicked her tail back and forth, made quiet cat sounds. Jessie drummed her fingers on her elbows, felt the thubbing, put her hands in her apron pockets, took them out. She picked up the cat, watched as her tail twitched.

  “I won’t bite,” he said with a smile.

  “Are you talking to me or the cat?”

  “Both.”

  “A girl alone can’t be too careful,” she told him, keeping her voice light.

  “Well said. The tea is very good, very good,” he said. He lifted the empty cup to her, and the cat leapt to the floor. Jessie reached for the departing animal, nearly toppling Fred’s teacup.

  She laughed, a nervous sound even to her own ears.

  “The tour,” she said as he stood. She led him through the prop room, then the operating room, where her camera waited for the morning setting. She showed him the darkroom, where the lights were on, as she wasn’t developing anything. They discussed the merits of orange versus red developing light as they walked back out into a small print room, where she also did tinting and retouching. “The salesmen become enamored with certain brands, don’t they?” she asked.

  “They always have the next best thing to sell us,” he said. “The perfect answer without telling us of the real complications.”

  She wondered if he spoke of photography or of something else.

  He slowed as he noted the series of photographs she’d enlarged lying on the table. She’d decided to change a frame or two. He picked up a photograph of the Russian baby, Misha. “This is good,” he said. “Inventive.”

  “They wanted only the child photographed, and the mother chose the plant stand. It was tricky. From what I could gather, the mother was leaving with the child, going back to Russia or the Ukraine. They came in so the father would have a photograph of his son. It was sad actually, seeing the family separated like that. They must have loved each other once. I could tell that he would miss the child more than the woman.”

  He stared at her while she talked.

  “It’s what I see in their faces, their eyes,” she explained. “Maybe I add more than is there.” I shouldn’t be talking about this with him.

  “You have good insights, Jessie. You always have.” He put the photograph down and picked up another. “This is beautiful.” He held the portrait she’d made of herself in her “kept-woman dress,” as her mother called it, the white eyelet layered two-piece gown she’d saved to buy. “You’re beautiful. And wearing the locket—”

  “Please, don’t,” she said, taking the photograph from him, careful again not to touch him. She crossed her arms at her waist, keeping the print between them. She inhaled deeply. “I think it would be best if you left now. I appreciate your coming by to wish me well, I do.”

  “Jessie.” He took a step closer to her, but she put the table between them.

  “Please,” she whispered, fighting tears. “Don’t make this any more difficult. I have what I always wanted, a studio of my own. Celebrate that with me.”

  “I salute you,” he said. He bowed at his waist. “I never… not ever did I imagine that I’d—”

  “Please. Just leave.”

  He stood for a time just staring, then he put on his hat and left.

  The black ink he used made the words bold. He’d gone back to his studio to be alone, to think. He wondered if she shared his longing. Probably, but she also knew the impossibility of it, better than he did, most likely. He’d forgotten to tell her that he would send over his Camera World each month. She’d always read them more thoroughly than either he or Voe. He’d send Voe over with them. He wouldn’t go there again. Being alone with her, unable to express his care for her, was simply too much. His presence unnerved her; he could see that. He’d brought her enough pain.

  The clock in his studio struck the late hour. He would pour himself into his work, recommit to his children, his wife. He hoped he and Jessie could be friends, colleagues, share a passion of a talent, but perhaps not even that was possible. He’d truly intended only to stop by and have her show him around, to honor her hard work and dedication to her course. Unlike his own journey from carpenter to cavalryman to medical corpsman to photographer, she’d stayed true to what she said she always wanted.

  Now, all he could think about was Jessie. He didn’t have a salve to heal that wound. Words came to him in a rush, and he simply wrote them down.

  Two Chairs

  You scurry across black and white linoleum squares, pouring

  milk from glass bottles into porcelain cups with canary yellow daisies,

  filled now with black tea.

  I watch as your glasses steam from the heat.

  You pull apron strings tight
er against your whalebone

  corset, a device you do not need,

  as it molds to your slender frame.

  From the Frigidaire you whisk chunks of cheese,

  piled high on the tea-leaf plate shaded

  by African violets blooming

  in the windowsill despite

  the cold.

  Through the window, Russian grasses gather snow

  in the garden beyond.

  You place this feast before me.

  A pickle crunches, ripe with vinegar, one you put up yourself,

  no doubt.

  It seeps juices onto my bread and chin.

  (My eyes plead.)

  But you hustle and bustle about

  and won’t sit down beside me,

  even though there are

  two chairs.

  The Essence of Conscience

  JESSIE LOOKED ONCE MORE at the photograph of herself in the eyelet dress before throwing herself onto her bed and giving up to tears. A good cry did help, though not as much as she hoped it would. If they could only remain friends, nothing more, she’d be happy, contented. But when he stood near her, she couldn’t determine where friendship left off and passion began. “It’s nothing I can sort out,” she told the cat, “so I’d best not be anywhere near him.”

  She couldn’t talk to anyone, must not. She’d start reading scriptures again, faithfully. That would help her. It had to.

  In the morning she rose early, and the doctor-tenant found her unlocking the Polonia’s door as he entered the building. “Are you acquiring a cold?” he asked. She frowned. “Your eyes are quite red. I can get you a Watkins product for that,” he told her.

  “I’m fine. Sneezing,” she said. “The cat.”

  “Ah,” he said and went on upstairs.

  She would put herself to work, Jessie decided. That’s how one set temptation aside. She just needed a new goal now that she’d met this one. As with a garden, she’d harvested and now she must plant again. That explained her uncertain state of mind.