Instrumental

Chapter 5

My alarm goes off at four-thirty in the morning on Thursday. For a second, I regret telling John I’d go with him on the bike ride. It"s dark and comfy under my sheet. But I’m better than nothing, which is what he’ll have if I don’t move.

John pulls in at five and hands me a smoothie after I slide into the passenger seat.

"Thanks. You buy this?"

"Made it."

"You make smoothies?" I eye it suspiciously. "What’s in this?"

"It’s safe. Bananas, blueberries, strawberries, yogurt, and a little protein powder."

I take a sip. "This is yummy. I might have to put you on my kitchen staff."

"Not on your life, Larsen."

We drive to the same park as last week and get out.

"Technically, they frown on people being here while it"s dark," says John as he pulls out the bikes. "But it’ll be light soon."

"Got me out here breaking the law."

"Welcome to the edge," he says dryly. "We’ll need to take a harder trail to get to the spot I want."

At least it’s one my few days off. And I gave it to John. I buckle my helmet. "Ready to ride."

We arrive at the clearing as the sun rises. I hop off my bike and pull out my camera, taking pictures to get used to the setting and what’s around here.

Gen sits on a log, watching the horizon. It’s the longest period we’ve been together and haven’t spoken.

I’m all over the place, experimenting with different angles and objects. I love the way the light and colors play with how everything appears.

After a while, Gen watches me instead of the horizon, and I take her picture.

"Hey!" she yells.

"Don’t like your picture taken? What happened to the selfie bonanza last week?"

"I was prepared then. You took one of me being… me."

"Those are you’re best shots."

She smiles. "You probably didn’t mean it, but that was sweet."

"Do you mind biking again now?" I ask, hoping for a distraction. "There are a couple of other spots I planned on seeing."

Gen jumps off the rock. "Let’s go."

It’s windier at our next location, making for intriguing and animated snapshots. Gen fools around by a nearby stream, and I shift to the burst setting, switching between taking photos of her and nature shots.

After a while, I check the time. It’s mid-morning, and I’m getting hungry. "One last stop and then breakfast?"

"I get breakfast?" She grins. "Great."

The last spot is high, with a magnificent view of the mountains. It’s incredible to see shadows of clouds move over the forest in the distance.

Why haven’t we brought Gen here before? This is turning into the perfect bike trip.

It’s about one-thirty as we finish brunch at a local diner. Since Gen didn’t have anything else to do today, I asked if she wanted to check out the pictures with me, and she was game.

It’s a waste of paper and money, but I develop every picture so it’s easier to see what I have. I go from there, deciding what changes to make or whether to do a different type of development.

After we pick up the photos, I lead her to the lowest level of our house into the craft room. I have a large table set up, and there’s a desk in the corner with a massive monitor and stylus that I hook my laptop to when I work with the photo editing software. Mom’s photography stuff is here, and the darkroom is next door. If she wasn’t outdoors, she spent a fair amount of time in this section of the house.

"Are these yours?" Gen points toward the photos on the walls.

"Some are. Anything with people is Mom’s."

Gen laughs. "You don’t like people?"

I stand next to her. "They’re fussy. I don’t capture them as well as the nature stuff. People are elusive."

Gen is quiet a moment. "You captured the immensity of these trees and the crashing waves. They’re amazing."

"Yeah, amazingly stable."

Gen seems to contemplate me. "People can be stable too, John."

I jerk away and walk back to the desk. She saw too much. "I can’t believe you’ve never been in here before."

"I have, but it’s been a while. Taylor and I don’t have a craft bone in our body."

I chuckle as I spread small piles of photos in front of me on the table and number them.

Gen grabs a marker, and we continue working quietly.

I was in the zone today; everything clicked. Eventually, we get to a pile of shots with Gen.

"How many of me did you take?" she asks, exasperated.

I guess I lost track.

"What do you do after you number them?" she asks.

"I’ll touch up the ones that are great as they are. Other pics, I’ll do fun things with on the computer. But I can do that later. Watching me work on my laptop isn’t exciting, and I’m sure that’s not how you want to spend the rest of your afternoon."

"It sounds cool. I don’t care, if you don’t."

I pull out the desk chair. "Great. Have a seat, and I’ll grab something else."

We lapse into silence, the quiet broken with clicking or me asking Gen to do a task. I’m happy she doesn’t mind staying, especially for an activity I love. This entire day has been about doing the things I enjoy most.

And Gen hasn’t complained once.

Her phone goes off, and then her face turns bright red.

"What?" I ask.

"Something Taylor texted." She pauses. "She asked if I can stay for dinner."

"Are you?"

"Yeah." She grabs her purse. "But I should visit with her. She’s already going to blow a gasket when she finds out we’ve been together the whole day."

"I asked her first. Repeatedly."

"Which is why I don’t feel guilty." She smiles. "Today was really awesome, John."

"It was. Thanks for being there."

She walks out of the room.

I turn towards my desk and gaze at a picture of Gen lying there.