Whitney Scharer - The Age of Light

“So strange,” the woman murmurs, and turns back to Jimmy and snakes her arm through his, and together they push their way up to the bar and leave Lee staring after them.

Poppy and Jimmy stand together at the bar with the careless quality of people who don’t question their place in the world. They seem so casual, so relaxed, and Lee remembers that in New York she was like them, a girl who took what she wanted from life when she wanted it. This new version of herself—sad, alone, embarrassed—is not who she really is. The old Lee would have laughed off any whiff of scandal, made the Kotex ad into good gossip, found a man or three to pay for her drinks if she was short on funds, and not given Poppy and Jimmy another moment’s thought.

Lee walks up to the bar and leans against its rounded corner. A finger snap is all it takes to get the barman’s attention. As she waits for him to make his way over and take her order, she catches sight of her reflection in the murky mirror behind the bar. The humid room has flushed her cheeks. “Smile,” Lee whispers, imitating a man’s stern tone, and watches herself in the mirror as she does so. Her face is as beautiful as ever, her smile just how she wants it. Right now, she thinks, she’ll get a gin martini, cold and clear as a glass of diamonds, and after she’s finished the drink she’ll go out into the crowded center of the dance floor and find someone to spin her around. And then tomorrow she’ll take the card Man Ray gave her that she’s been carrying around in her pocket and pay a visit to his studio. Ask him if she can be his student. Get him to teach her everything he knows.

It is just after two o’clock the next day when she arrives. She raps on the door and considers all the things she could say. Man Ray probably won’t even remember her from that night at Drosso’s, but if he does, she can laugh it off, or pretend to be someone else entirely, as Poppy did.

Time stretches out long enough that she begins to regret being there. Finally the door opens, and Man Ray stands in front of her, drying his hands on a dingy rag, his hair springing out from his head just like the first time she saw him.

“You’re not supposed to be here until two thirty,” he says.

Lee takes a step back. “I—I’m not supposed to be here at all.”

He shades his eyes with his hand. “You’re not my two thirty?”

“No, no… I’m… We met before—” The minute it’s out of her mouth she regrets it but pushes on. “We met at Drosso’s.”

He steps out onto the doorstep and takes a better look at her, then laughs. “You! ‘I wouldn’t let you touch my breast if I was falling out of the sky.’”

“That’s me,” Lee says, smiling despite herself.

Man motions for her to come inside with him and shuts the door behind them. The foyer is filled with paintings and photographs in mismatched frames tacked haphazardly all over the walls, and a wide wooden staircase hugs the edge of the room and leads to a landing. Without another word he heads up the stairs, and she follows him. They enter a small parlor and Man walks over to a cart that holds an electric kettle and begins to make two cups of tea. Lee sits in an armchair studded with unnecessary buttons and watches him. He’s as small as she remembers him, but this time he’s dressed stylishly in wide-cuffed wool pants and a matching vest, and his body has a coiled, wiry energy to it. As he pours the water over the tea bags with one hand and arranges spoons and sugar cubes on saucers with the other, Lee likes how efficient he seems, some part of him in constant motion. He brings over the tea and sits on the settee across from her, and she likes, too, his dark brown eyes, the intelligence and humor she sees in them as he looks her over.

“I didn’t expect to see you again,” he says, his voice light. “You seemed rather angry.”

“Well”—Lee leans forward and picks up her teacup with nervous fingers—“I lost my camera that night. I know you’re a photographer. I thought maybe, when you left, you might have seen it?” She glances around the room as if she expects her camera to be sitting on a shelf nearby.

“You had it with you at Drosso’s?”

“Yes. But I lost it.”

“Not the best place to take something valuable. Lots of unsavory people go there. Addicts.” He picks up his cup and slurps from it noisily. When he sets it down he scrunches his eyebrows together, as if concerned for her safety.

Lee switches tactics. “I’m a photographer—well, not really. I’m a model. I was a model in New York before I moved here, and I know Condé Nast and Edward Steichen. I know you know them.”

“Has Steichen done you?” She can feel Man’s gaze resting on her throat, her hair, her mouth.

“Of course. For Vogue and other places.” Lee feels the familiar ground of modeling beneath her, sits up straighter and turns her good profile toward him.

“I’m better. After this two thirty I don’t have any more appointments. I’ll take your picture, you can use it here, get started. I know some people at Laurent’s—they’re always looking for new girls.”

Lee sets down her cup. “I don’t want you to take my picture. I want to take pictures. I want to be your student.”

“I don’t take students. I don’t know what Condé told you. But you’re luminous, truly. I can see why Vogue wanted you. I’ll do you for free. You can put it in your portfolio.”

Behind him a grandfather clock tolls once and is followed by the pound of the door knocker. Man rises. Lee knows this is her only chance to make this work. He thinks she’s beautiful, that much is clear, and it would be so easy to flirt with him and keep his interest. But she doesn’t want him to think of her that way.

“I’ve been thinking of how I’d take your picture,” Lee says, just before he reaches the door. He turns to look back at her. “I’d lay you down on a table and put the camera at your feet. I’d make you look like a landscape.” She blurts out the words quickly. As she says it she can see it: the ridges and folds of the fabric on his body like mountain ranges, the features of his face flattened to abstraction.

Man pauses at the door and considers her. “It wouldn’t work. There’s no way to get the focus right on a shot like that.”

Of course not. Conviction and confidence, in an instant, replaced by the wide void of all she does not know. Lee stands up and clasps her hands together like a schoolgirl. “That’s why I want to be your student. You can teach me these things. Condé mentioned I might come to you—”

Man waves his hand. “He’s sent lots of people my way. I made the mistake early on of being helpful, and now everyone feels like they can come learn from me. I don’t have time to support every person who wants to be the next Man Ray. I’m busy. Portraits to shoot—portraits to shoot for Condé’s magazine, actually. He should know better.”

“How would you shoot me?” Lee pulls down her shoulders and lifts up her chin and looks at him directly.

Man gives her a quick appraising glance. “Probably a close-up of your face, with your hand at your throat. Black background.” His tone is clipped, a bit dismissive. Again the sound of the door knocker echoes through the room.

“That’s boring,” she says, to keep his attention.

Man chuckles and crosses his arms over his chest. “Oh? Then I’d put you near a window, half in light and half in shadow, and shoot you nude with your eyes closed, like you looked at Drosso’s.”

“You just want to see my breasts again.”

He stares at her, surprised, then starts to laugh. “You’re not shy, are you?” He takes a step toward the door and then holds up a finger. “Wait there. Don’t go anywhere.”