Malcolm stopped to photograph a locked service door before they had been walking for five minutes.
Annelise had been prepared for this. She had agreed to it, discussed it, and put on shoes suitable for standing beside unremarkable buildings. Still, the door was aggressively unremarkable.
“This one?” she asked.
He looked away from the camera. “You say that as if I’ve chosen a husband for it.”
“I wanted to be sure.”
“Look at the light.”
She looked. Morning sun fell across the upper corner of the doorway, leaving the lower half in shadow. There was a worn patch around the handle where years of hands had made a dull shine. Once she saw it, she couldn’t stop seeing it.
“All right,” she said reluctantly.
“A ringing endorsement.”
He lifted the camera again. Annelise stood back, watching him shift a little to one side. He was different with the camera than with his phone. More deliberate, less willing to accept the first thing offered. He checked the picture, frowned, moved back, and tried again.
“One,” she said.
“What?”
“I’m counting toward forty-nine.”
“Cruel woman.”
The morning was cold but dry. Leaves had collected along the curb in damp, dark folds. The market stalls were only beginning to open, and the streets around them had the suspended feeling of a place not yet fully in use. Annelise liked being out before the day became crowded. She liked the weight of the concert still in her body, a little tiredness in her ribs, a phrase that surfaced whenever she stopped thinking about anything else.
They had eaten late after the performance, hot food with potatoes as requested, and gone to their separate homes. This morning he had met her by the market entrance with two coffees and the camera bag over his shoulder. She had thought the coffee bought him at least fifteen minutes of patience.
Now she watched him photograph the door for a third time and decided she could afford more.
“Come here,” he said.
She stepped beside him. He showed her the screen. In the photograph, the door had become less a door than a set of surfaces, light meeting paint, metal worn through use. She could still see the trash bin just outside the frame because she knew it was there, but the picture didn’t need it.
“You’ve removed the ugly part.”
“I’ve chosen a part.”
“Convenient distinction.”
“Essential.”
She looked again. “I like it.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m annoyed, but I like it.”
He smiled and put the camera down against his chest.
They walked toward the narrow street behind the market. Annelise took her phone out, then put it away again. Every time she considered photographing something, she imagined how Malcolm would frame it and lost interest in her own attempt.
He noticed on the third repetition.
“You don’t have to take pictures.”
“I want to.”
“Then take one.”
“That’s very easy advice from a man with equipment.”
He looked down at the camera. “The equipment doesn’t tell me what to look at.”
“It looks authoritative.”
“So does your phone when you use it to tell me I’m going the wrong way.”
She laughed and stopped beside a shop window. Inside, someone had arranged a display of kitchen utensils with considerable ambition. A whisk leaned against a bowl. Three wooden spoons stood in a jar. Reflected over them were the windows of the building opposite, so that the spoons appeared to be growing through a row of curtains.
“There,” she said.
Malcolm came to look. “What do you see?”
“Spoons in someone’s apartment.”
He looked for another moment, then smiled. “I see it.”
She lifted the phone and took a picture. On the screen, her own reflection dominated everything.
“I’ve made it about me.”
“Move a little left.”
She turned her head. “Was that your one opinion?”
“Technical assistance. Separate category.”
“You’re exploiting the terms.”
But she moved left. Her reflection slid away, the spoons remained, and the photograph came closer to the thing she had wanted. She took it, then lowered the phone before she could spend ten minutes improving a joke about cutlery.
“Done.”
“Can I see?”
She showed him. He looked carefully, without laughing at the wrong part.
“I like the one window that’s open,” he said.
She hadn’t noticed it until he said it. In the reflection, one dark rectangle interrupted the neat row.
“Me too,” she said.
They continued. Malcolm stopped for a rusted hinge, then changed his mind because the light had gone. Annelise thought he might wait for it. Instead he took one unsatisfactory picture, looked at it, and moved on.
“No?” she asked.
“No.”
“After all that?”
“The sun has refused my instructions.”
“Unprofessional.”
He took her hand for the next stretch of sidewalk. His fingers were cool. She folded hers around them and enjoyed the awkwardness of walking with their joined hands between them, the slight adjustment each made when the pavement narrowed.
At the corner, he wanted to go right toward an old loading bay. She wanted to go left because she could smell bread.
“We said breakfast afterward,” he pointed out.
“After a photograph. We’ve taken several.”
“A generous interpretation.”
“You had a technical-assistance category. I have a breakfast category.”
He considered her with mock seriousness, then let her pull him left.
The bakery had a few small tables and a line that moved slowly because everyone seemed to be making an important personal decision about pastry. Annelise chose something warm with cheese in it. Malcolm chose a bun, then changed his mind when he saw hers come out.
“You can have a bite,” she said.
“I wasn’t asking.”
“Your looking has become very expressive.”
They took their food to a little standing counter by the window because the tables were full. She broke off a piece for him. He offered her a piece of the bun in exchange. It was sticky enough to require a napkin, and she laughed when he tried to manage the camera, coffee, and pastry with two hands.
“Put something down.”
“Everything is important.”
She took the coffee from him. “There.”
“A ruthless decision.”
Outside the window, the street had begun to fill. People carried bags, unlocked doors, stopped to talk in the middle of the sidewalk. Malcolm watched a reflection move across a parked van and then disappear.
“Missed it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Tragic.”
“Recoverable.”
He ate the last of the pastry and wiped his fingers. She gave back the coffee. The small exchange pleased her more than she could explain without spoiling it.
They found an empty bench farther along, where the sun had reached the seat. Malcolm put the camera bag between his feet and sat with a sigh.
“How are you feeling after last night?” he asked.
“Hungry, apparently.”
“Apart from your impressive recovery meal.”
She looked down the street. “Glad I did it. A little surprised it’s over.”
“You’ve got winter.”
“Yes. And I’m walking in with someone the first week. We exchanged numbers last night.”
“Good.”
“I think I made a friend over a pencil mark.”
“There are worse foundations.”
She smiled. Then she remembered the work email she had read before leaving home.
“Can we do Thursday instead of Wednesday this week?”
“This coming week?”
“The eighth. I’ve got training on Wednesday, and it’s going to run late. I thought I could still manage dinner, but I’d rather not arrive with half my brain in a conference room.”
He took out his phone, checked, and nodded. “Thursday’s good. Yours?”
“Yes. I’ll cook.”
“Seven?”
“Seven.”
She entered it in her own calendar. It took less than a minute. Then she put the phone away and leaned back against the bench, the matter finished.
Malcolm remained looking at his screen.
“There’s something else I wanted to ask you,” he said.
She turned toward him.
“The family visit I mentioned. December eighth. It’s a Saturday, about two hours away. I usually go for the day, but I was thinking of staying one night. Would you like to come?”
Annelise pictured another room full of names she would learn imperfectly, another chance to see him belong somewhere that had existed before her return. She wanted it. She also wanted to know what he was actually proposing.
“Stay with family?”
“A hotel. There’s a small place near them. We could drive back Sunday without getting up at dawn.”
“I approve of that part.”
“I thought you might.”
She opened her calendar again. The date was clear. No work commitment, no concert, no arrangement with Cecily she had forgotten. A Saturday and Sunday, available without needing to be surrendered.
“I’d like to come.”
He smiled, a little more openly than she’d expected.
“Yes?”
“Yes. Tell me what time we’d leave so I can complain accurately.”
“Not early enough to justify much.”
“I’ll find something.”
He put his phone away. “I told the customer we were keeping the later date, by the way.”
“The December job?”
“They said all right.”
“That’s inconveniently simple.”
“I had prepared three arguments.”
“Save them. Someone may need convincing about a drainpipe.”
He laughed and stretched an arm along the back of the bench behind her. She leaned toward him until his sleeve touched her shoulder.
“We can book the hotel together,” he said. “I’ll show you the place.”
He brought up the hotel on his phone. The pictures showed a plain brick building and rooms with pale walls. Annelise leaned against him to see the screen.
“Looks fine,” she said.
“That’s the enthusiasm they hope for.”
“I don’t need it to transform me. I need somewhere to sleep.”
“And two acceptable pillows.”
“Minimum.”
They compared the two available rooms. One cost more for a view of the garden. The garden appeared to be a rectangle of winter grass with a bench in it.
“No,” they said together, and laughed.
Malcolm selected the simpler room for one night, December eighth to ninth. Annelise checked the dates on the screen while he entered the booking details. She transferred him half the cost from her own phone, then waited while the confirmation arrived.
“Done,” he said, forwarding it to her.
She opened the message and saved it. A room with two lamps and enough pillows, a visit they both wanted, a Sunday return. She could picture the small practical shape of the weekend now.
“What should I bring for your family?” she asked.
“Yourself. I’ll ask about food closer to the day.”
“Good. I’d rather bring something wanted than travel with a ceremonial object.”
“No commemorative plate?”
“You’ve lost your chance.”
He put his arm back along the bench. She leaned into it again, the booking complete, the rest of the morning still theirs.
For a while they sat in the sun without making any more plans. A delivery truck passed, briefly overwhelming the street with noise. When it had gone, she could hear the market again, the soft accumulation of voices and doors and someone dragging a crate.
Malcolm nudged the camera bag with his foot. “Ready for the loading bay?”
“You’ve made it sound irresistible.”
“I know how to entertain.”
The loading bay was less photogenic than he remembered. A bright plastic barrier stood across the part he wanted, and somebody had left a stack of pallets where the light should have been.
“Your location has been edited,” Annelise said.
“I can see that.”
He sounded genuinely annoyed, enough that she stopped teasing. She looked around while he considered the scene. Along the edge of the pavement, a drain cover threw a pattern of narrow shadows onto the concrete. A leaf had caught in one slot, its stem pointing in the wrong direction.
She crouched to look at it through her phone.
“What have you found?” he asked.
“My drainpipe equivalent. Don’t distract me.”
He came closer but stayed out of her light. She moved the phone, lowered it, tried again. The first picture made the leaf look accidental. In the next, the shadow did something she liked. She took one more, then stayed crouched for a second because her knees had opinions about standing quickly.
When she looked up, Malcolm was smiling at her.
“What?”
“You look very busy.”
“I am. This is serious work.”
“Clearly.”
He offered a hand. She took it, and he helped her to her feet. Once standing, she remained close to him, the phone between them.
“Show me,” he said.
She did. He studied the picture, then nodded.
“That one. The last.”
“That’s the one I like.”
“Occasionally we agree.”
She put the phone away. “Don’t let it worry you.”
He bent to kiss her. The camera bumped gently against her coat, and they both laughed before trying again.
On the walk back, she asked to take his picture. He agreed, then stood so stiffly against a wall that she lowered the phone.
“You look as if I’m documenting a parking offense.”
“You asked me to stand here.”
“You could look alive.”
He put a hand on his chest and adopted an expression of such theatrical wounded dignity that she took the picture before he could change it. Then she took another as he laughed.
“That one,” she said.
“I haven’t approved it.”
She showed him. He looked at his own laughing face, then at her.
“All right.”
She saved it without sending it anywhere.
At his house, where she had left her car before walking over to meet him, he invited her in for another cup of coffee. She followed him through the door, put her bag down, and caught his coat before he could hang it up.
“What?” he asked.
“I’ve decided I don’t want coffee yet.”
His eyes moved over her face. “What do you want?”
She stepped closer, lifted the camera strap carefully over his head, and set the camera on the table where it couldn’t fall.
“There,” she said. “One less thing between us.”
He smiled and reached for her. She met him halfway, still cold from the morning, warming quickly beneath his hands.