The Photographer (Ignazio Boschetto Fanfiction)

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

I could hear the sounds of laughter coming from inside the condo behind me, and I turned from where I sat alone on the porch to peer up through the window. I could see the boys in Ignazio’s condo’s living room, eating their cake and laughing as they talked and joked with Barbara and Michele. They had just finished the last concert of their tour, which to them called for a late-night celebration in the condos. Ignazio had insisted on making a cake, and they were singing and dancing and joking around as they shared it, still wearing their suits and ties from earlier in the evening.

I smiled when I saw Ignazio’s bright smile as he hugged Barbara, and then I turned away and faced the night in front of me.

Apart from the commotion inside the condo, it was quiet outside on the porch, with only the occasional rustle of wildlife to disturb the peace. The porch light was dim, flickering occasionally and throwing me into darkness. I looked down at the box in my lap, reaching inside to place my hand on the cool cover of the magazine on top. I wrapped my fingers around it pulled out the several issues of National Geographic, setting the cardboard box down on the step in front of me and holding the magazines in my lap.

I opened the one on top and slowly flipped through it, admiring the pictures and thinking as I ran my thumb along the skylines, the waterlines, the horizons in the breathtaking photos. I imaged my own photos in the pages, and gently ran my fingers along the paper, hearing the soft sound it made.

My mom had collected the past few issues for me, since I couldn’t have them sent to myself with our constant traveling. She had mailed them to Barbara’s condo, and Barbara gave them to me in the midst of our end-of-tour celebration.

I sat alone, having stolen away from the party with the magazines, and sat admiring them in the dim lighting, thinking as I traced the settings with my fingers.

          I smiled as I turned to pictures of New York in the wintertime, where I had taken pictures only weeks earlier. Mine were just as good as the ones in the magazine, and I suddenly felt excitement within me as I imagined my own photos in the pages, my own name in teeny print below them.

          “Brilliant,” I whispered into the darkness, quietly flipping the page. I thought about going to work for National Geographic as their photographer, my dream. But tonight, as the Il Volo boys celebrated just behind me, the dream seemed so strange and distant.

I hadn’t gotten my hands on a new National Geographic issue since I started working with Il Volo, meaning these should be especially precious to me. But as I continued to flip through them, I felt a little somber, remembering my beginning days with Il Volo when I lived only to take my landscapes and thought of the boys as a distraction. I shook my head, looking up from the pages and into the darkness, quietly staring into the space in front of me.

After a moment of quiet, the door behind me jerked open and I jumped, turning and looking up into the bright light of the condo.

I raised my hand to shield my eyes, and watched as Ignazio stepped outside and shut the door more quietly behind him.

I turned forward again and he came to the steps and lowered himself down beside me, setting down his drink beside him. He looked down at the magazines in my lap and smiled at me.

“Your dream,” he said, and I nodded.

“My mom sent them to Barbara. She just gave them to me.”

Ignazio moved closer to me, and I adjusted the book so he could see the image it was open to, a stunning African sunset.

“Wow,” he breathed, and I nodded.