Under Chateau Lights | Complete

30 | You Wanted to Be a Photographer

Christian is mad at me, but he's still texting me to make sure his outfit for tonight is acceptable. So he must have reached acceptance on the whole 'photography side project', as he calls it. I've almost reached the church, where I'm meeting Simone for one last photography session before Meabh and Pierre's party, when Christian texts me again, asking me if I want him to drive.

Excuse me! You are on rest and I'm not letting you bungle up your knee for me. But I can drive your car if you don't want to go with the family.

No. Going with the family is fine. I assume your mother ordered a small army of cars for the event?

Would it even be my mother if she hadn't?

The laughing emoji he sends makes me feel like everything is okay. Or at least it will be. Only then do I realize Simone is impatiently tapping her cane on the ground and staring at me like I'm a puzzle she's trying to solve.

"Hey, Simone. Sorry I'm late. I got caught up with texting Christian."

"The young man you are dating?"

"Not really? It's complicated."

"My dear, I grew up in a time where 'complicated' was the norm. I'm sure I can take it."

"Can we just focus on the pictures?"

"We most certainly cannot. I don't even have a camera." Her smirk is audible. "So this Christian is the one your parents think you're dating, yes? Your best friend?"

"Yeah." I can't stop the sigh that escapes my lips. "I shouldn't have brought him here."

"Why not?" She grabs my shoulders and turns me to face the facade of a run-down building, pointing to the roof with her cane. "There, see?"

I do see, snapping a few photographs and zooming in on a gargoyle-like figure on the corner that turns out to be merely a figment of the light and shadows.

Not looking at her is making me braver than I should be. "I think he fell for me. And I might have fallen for him too if it weren't for..."

"I believe we were calling him Pete, dear."

"Yeah, Pete." It's normal for my stomach to be in knots, right?

"If it weren't for Pete, you'd be with this young friend of yours?"

"Why are you so nosy?" I shove my eye into the camera again, trying to get a good view of a church steeple peeking through the buildings.

Simone pulls on my jacket to stop me from stepping into the street and getting hit by oncoming traffic. This is why I can't photograph unsupervised.

"I'm old, Julie. It's what I do."

"You aren't that old."

"Flattery will not distract me, young lady. We go this way." Her arm loops through mine and drags me down the sidewalk toward the top of a hill. "So this Christian?"

"I don't know, Simone. I like him but everything with Christian is large. There's photographers and articles and I don't love that. In another world where his life was quiet, maybe. And I just keep thinking one day it will be. Maybe I should just ride it out and then..."

"Pete, we're calling him, just had to come right back into your life." She nods, eyes focused on some unseen entity in the distance. "I had a Pete once. Petros Eliopoulos."

She drags me across another street and up to the crest of the hill where I can see out over the fields near the hotel I'm staying in and clear across to the other side of the river. The light dances in oranges and pinks as the sun begins to disappear over the horizon. "Wow."