Substance

Chpt. 10 Getting the picture prt1

  ‘What the hell? Way to go. Madre de Dios!’ The next week’s issue came out with mixed reactions from the inhabitants of the city. Those inhabitants including Courtland’s and Veronica’s families and closets friends.  Neither of the two of them really knew when the issue was to be released. They didn’t even know if it would be approved by the magazine’s editor at all. Even though the constant readers of the magazine had surely become acquainted with Courtland Faurr and his girlfriend, the couple remained in the dark. That was until Veronica returned from her last fifteen-minute break of the day.

Thank fully, the storeowner had chosen to show up for work that day so Veronica’s workload was light. She was talking over some detail about the newest shipment of the newest designs of summer wear shoes when a woman perusing the store approached her with her items in hand.

“Hey, I know who you are.”

Veronica smiled at the woman, “If you’ve visited the store before. But I'm sorry I can’t say that I remember who you are.”

“No I mean I know your name. I read about you and that boyfriend of yours in the article.”

“Article?”

“Oh here, let me look through my bag,” the woman said setting a plastic coffee cup down on the marble part of the counter top. She took her purse down from her shoulder and opened the bag and began rummaging through its contents. When she located the periodicals, Veronica saw the front cover was totally blue with the letters spelling Tsitra on the front. The woman flipped through the slick pages of the bound booklet and stopped on page thirty-five. There was a three- page article of text with photographs of Courtland’s paintings as well as one rather large one of she and Courtland together.

Veronica’s breath stopped midway to her lungs. She remembered him pulling her down onto his lap and wrapping his arms around her and she doing the same. From the shot, he had obviously said something that made her throw her head back, laughing without caution. It showed Courtland smiling mischievously, his straight white teeth gleaming, his dimpled cheek just kissing the exposed length of Veronica’s neck. It was for them an everyday occurrence to feel so much comfort with each other for them to let free and laugh and smile and not hide their tender relationship. It was a moment of intimacy captured on camera there in color for all to see. She had known that the photographer was snapping photos of the art exhibit but she surely didn’t know he was taking pictures of Courtland and her together. Veronica mainly hadn’t known that Mr. Arturo Kosinsky-call-me-Arturo-writer-slash-photographer would use such an personal shot of them together in a magazine piece that was suppose to have been all about Courtland and his work.

Veronica continued to stare at the photo and the woman easily handed the magazine over to her to read.

The article read:

“This is not an inspirational article. I don’t write those. In fact, I refuse to. Either you have what it takes or you don’t. And Courtland Faurr has it. He’s a native to the city, born and bred. A local to the community, he is the last of the comically deemed Faurr-Out kids, Courtland Faurr, I’ve decided, is just one of those people that you gravitate towards.

I was introduced to him by my sister-in law. She raved about him, and knowing that she’s normally a hard core feminist, people in the family tend to take notice when she doesn’t designate any man to ‘pig’ status. I came across a piece of his work and I liked it because of its simplicity.  He isn’t avant garde but his style goes with his personality.

He is a surprisingly charming and optimistic man. He likes the saying that ‘you can’t please everyone all the time.’ A saying that used to make me sick before I met the him.