بخش 4 فصل 4

New York City

March 18, 2014

IV

Addie is so many things, thinks Henry. But she is not forgettable.

How could anyone forget this girl, when she takes up so much space? She fills the room with stories, with laughter, with warmth and light.

He has put her to work, or rather, she has put herself to work, restocking and reshelving while he helps customers.

She has called herself a ghost, and she may be one to other people, but Henry cannot look anywhere but at her.

She moves among the books as if they’re friends. And perhaps, in a way, they are. They are, he supposes, a part of her story, another thing she’s touched. Here, she says, is a writer she once met, and here is an idea she had, here a book that she read when it first came out. Now and then, Henry glimpses sadness, glimpses longing, but they are only flashes, and then she redoubles, brightens, launching into another story.

“Did you know Hemingway?” he asks.

“We met, once or twice,” she says, with a smile, “but Colette was cleverer.” Book trails Addie like a shadow. He has never seen the cat so invested in another human, and when he asks, she draws a handful of treats from her pocket with a sheepish grin.

Their eyes meet now across the store, and he knows she said she’s not immune, that their deals simply work together, but the fact remains that there is no shimmer in those brown eyes. Her gaze is clear. A lighthouse through the fog.

She smiles, and Henry’s world goes brighter. She turns away, and it is dark again.

A woman approaches the checkout desk, and Henry drags himself back.

“Find everything you need?” Her eyes are already milky with shine.

“Oh yes,” the woman says with a warm smile, and he wonders what she sees instead of Henry. Is he a son, or a lover, a brother, a friend?

Addie leans her elbows on the counter.

She taps the book he’s been turning through between customers. A collection of modern candids in New York.

“I noticed the cameras at your place,” she says. “And the photographs. They’re yours, aren’t they?” Henry nods, resists the urge to say It’s just a hobby, or rather, It was a hobby, once.

“You’re very good,” she says, which is nice, especially coming from her. And he’s fine, he knows; maybe even a little better than fine, sometimes.

He took headshots for Robbie back in college, but that was because Robbie couldn’t afford a real photographer. Muriel called his photos cute. Subversive in their conventional way.

But Henry wasn’t trying to subvert anything. He just wanted to capture something.

He looks down at the book.

“There’s this family photo,” he says, “not the one in the hall, this other one, from back when I was six or seven. That day was awful. Muriel put gum in David’s book and I had a cold, and my parents were fighting right up until the flash went off. And in the photo, we all look so … happy. I remember seeing that picture and realizing that photographs weren’t real. There’s no context, just the illusion that you’re showing a snapshot of a life, but life isn’t snapshots, it’s fluid. So photos are like fictions. I loved that about them. Everyone thinks photography is truth, but it’s just a very convincing lie.” “Why did you stop?”

Because time doesn’t work like photos.

Click, and it stays still.

Blink, and it leaps forward.

He always thought of taking photos as a hobby, an art class credit, and by the time he figured out that it was something you could do, it was too late. Or at least, it felt that way.

He was too many miles behind.

So he gave up. Put the cameras on the shelf with the rest of the abandoned hobbies. But something about Addie makes him want to pick one up again.

He doesn’t have a camera with him, of course, only his cell phone, but these days, that is good enough. He lifts it up, framing Addie at rest, the bookshelves rising at her back.

“It won’t work,” she says, right as Henry takes the picture. Or tries. He taps the screen, but there’s no click, no capture. He tries again, and this time the phone takes the photo, but it is a blur.

“I told you,” she says softly.

“I don’t get it,” he says. “It was so long ago. How could he have predicted film, or phones?” Addie manages a sad smile. “It’s not the technology he tampered with. It’s me.” Henry pictures the stranger, smiling in the dark.

He sets the phone down.