Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

“And you’d have been right.” Jane set the portfolio on the desk between them, folding it closed. “But then, none of these are really appropriate, are they? For the job?”

“You haven’t seen them all.”

“I don’t need to. They’re not what I’m looking for.”

“But there might be something—”

Jane held up her hand. “Do you have any weddings in here?”

Amina shook her head.

“Birthdays? Anniversaries? Baptisms? Bar mitzvahs?”

“No.”

“Of course not. Because that’s not really what you do, is it?” It didn’t seem like a question she wanted answered as much as said out loud, and Amina shifted as Jane smiled coldly at her. “What you do is get the stuff that people watch despite themselves. Meanwhile, I need someone who can take good portraits, who knows how to find the smiling moment and capture it. Someone who can replace me at the events.” Amina jumped a little as Jane slapped her hand down on the desk in dismissal. “Thanks for coming. And please tell Dimple I send my best.”

Amina did not move. She knew she should get up, say thank you, and head with quiet composure to the nearest bar, but she couldn’t. Moving would lead to home, to the bed she was never far enough from anymore. It would mean she didn’t have anything else to do in her week. And it was better in Jane’s office, better than it had been anywhere else for a long time. She looked at the files and the memos and the calendar separating days into pristine units of time, aware of Jane’s growing irritation the longer she sat.

“I understand your hesitation,” Amina said at last, her voice coming out softer than she wanted. She cleared her throat. “The thing is that I really can do this.”

Jane frowned. “I’m not sure you’re hearing—”

“No, I can do it well.” Her cheeks blazed. “I can. I have great references from the New York Post , and the photo editor at the P-I can vouch for me.”

“Listen.” Jane’s voice dropped an octave. “Your cousin told me you were having a hard time after all the hubbub, and I agreed to meet with you, but I can’t go giving out jobs to people just because they’re having a hard—”

“I wouldn’t expect you to pay me,” Amina blurted out.

Jane blinked. “What?”

“I …” Amina licked her lips and felt the words come out rapidly, hitting her tongue and brain at the same time. “Not until you knew I could do it, of course. Until I proved myself. By shooting a wedding. Or weddings. A month of weddings.”

Jane’s mouth puckered.

“If you let me shoot with one of your other photographers, you’ll see,” Amina continued, breathless, terrified. “I wouldn’t get in the way, and I would show you the finished product. If you like any of my shots, they can be made available to your clients. And if I’m not what you’re looking for, you haven’t lost anything.” She pitched back against her chair.

“That’s ridiculous,” Jane said.

“It’s free.”

Jane looked her over warily.

“Fine,” she said at last. “Get to St. Joe’s on Capitol Hill on Saturday morning. A nice big Irish Catholic wedding.”

Amina rose quietly, quickly putting her portfolio away before Jane could change her mind.

“Thanks,” she whispered on the way out the door.

“Ten o’clock sharp,” Jane replied.

That weekend, when Amina showed up at the Murphy-Patrick wedding, she saw someone she barely recognized. Gone were Jane’s terse manner and the dark suit, replaced by a bubbly woman who gave everyone nicknames and winked like she had a nerve condition.

“Thanks, honeys!” she had shouted, waving a hand to dismiss the bridesmaids. “Now I want one with Snow White and Elvis and the Backup Singers! Yup, in a line, just like that.”

The following Thursday had found Amina back in Jane’s office, contact sheets spread across the light box in the corner. She listened to the silence of Jane’s scrutiny — the woman was unnervingly quiet until she didn’t want to be.

“Oh,” Jane said finally, with some surprise. “This one is good.”

“Which?”

“Bride-fixing-hair-before-ceremony.” She glanced up. “Good angle.”

She moved on to the next sheet. “Not bad. Most of these with the bridesmaids are decent. You need to watch your shadows a little, though, make sure you always cheat to make the bride look better than anyone else.”

“Okay.”

Jane paused again over the shots taken during the ceremony.

“Mother of the bride crying works,” she said. “She’ll think she looks noble.”

Amina squeezed her hands together behind her back in a kind of inverted prayer, surprised by how much she cared. Jane moved quickly through the next sheet and the next. She came to the portraits outside the church.

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Your portraits are off.”

Amina’s stomach fluttered a little. “What?”

“They look uncomfortable.” Jane pushed the loupe toward her. “Look. See how your group look like they’d rather be somewhere else? My guess is you’re coming in late, when the smile gets a little tighter and the shine in the eyes fades. You’ve got to talk between shots to keep them with you.” Amina heard Jane rummaging around next to her. “Look at mine.”

The contact sheet Jane placed down on the light box showed bright-eyed, shiny-cheeked, smiling groomsmen, the Irish Catholic version of the Pips.

“Backup singers,” Amina said.

“Exactly.” Jane took the loupe back, skimming. “Your dance shots are good, but you need to get closer during the toasts.”

“I didn’t want to get in the way.”

“Don’t worry about that. Just be quick.”

She moved on, nodding at several pictures, circling others with a red grease pencil. On the last sheet, her head stopped abruptly.

“What’s this?” she asked.

It was the best picture Amina had taken all night.

“A bridesmaid.”

“Obviously. I can tell by the bouquet and the shoes.”

The shot was a side view of a bathroom stall. The bouquet lay at the base of the toilet bowl like an offering at an altar. Behind it, two taffeta-covered knees pressed to the ground, followed by calves and feet in scuffed satin pumps. And while Amina had known that the bride herself wouldn’t want to see the picture, something — vanity? — had convinced her that Jane would appreciate it compositionally, suddenly understanding the talent she had in her midst.

“What is she doing?” Jane asked.

“Vomiting.”

Jane straightened up and looked at her, the skin on her cheeks mottling. “You clicked a puker.”

“It happened very fast,” Amina said. “She didn’t know I was there.”

“At a wedding. You clicked a wedding puker.”

“It was just a few shots.”

“A bridesmaid, no less. Not someone anonymous enough not to care about.”

“Well, but—”

“Stop talking!” Jane clapped loudly in front of Amina’s face, shutting her up. “Do you have any idea how much trouble that could get us into?”

“I would never have shown those to anyone.”

“Damn right you— those ? Are there more?”

There were two more. One of the girl washing off her face, taken from the stall Amina had locked herself into, and another of her hanging over the hand dryer as it blew up at her face.

“She didn’t see you?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she didn’t. Sometimes people just don’t.”

Jane squinted. “I noticed that about you.”

Amina blushed.

“You realize how disturbing these would be to the client?” Jane asked.

“I do. I mean, I do now.”

“You didn’t then?”