When You Least Expect It (18 page)

“I’ve never understood that. Who cares about being surprised? Wouldn’t you rather know if you should be buying pink or blue baby stuff?” Flaca asked.

“Well, supposedly India’s not buying anything. At least, that’s what she tells Jeremy.” Lainey smirked. “But I know she’s lying.”

“What? How?”

“I found a shopping bag full of baby stuff in the back of her closet, behind the Christmas decorations.”

“What were you doing in her closet?”

“I was bored,” Lainey said. “I had nothing else to do, and I’d already looked through the rest of the house. Besides, people always hide the best stuff in their closets.”

“You’re evil, girl.”

“I know, but I’m okay with that,” Lainey said, grinning.

Flaca suddenly looked up sharply. “You’ve never gone through my closet, have you?”

Lainey’s smile grew wider.

“Oh, my God! You have! You bitch!” Flaca whacked Lainey over the head with a throw pillow. “Just so you know, that stuff is all Luis’s. He likes to get his freak on, you know?”

“The black faux-leather teddy is Luis’s? He
is
pretty freaky.” Lainey laughed and dodged another blow.

“Okay, so the teddy is mine. But Luis bought it for me.” A red flush crept over Flaca’s face and neck. “But the movies are all his. I swear.”

“Yeah, right. Face it, he’s not the only freaky one.”

Flaca took another wild swing with the pillow.

Lainey shrieked and ducked. “Hey! Stop hitting the pregnant girl!”

“Where do you want me?” Lainey asked, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. India was flitting around her studio, adjusting a camera on a tripod, setting up an enormous octagonal-shaped light box, straightening out the black backdrop. The room they were in was large and windowless, and filled with camera equipment and props.

“Just a minute,” India said, again fiddling with the camera. She glanced up. “Are you tired? You can go sit in the reception area, if you want, while I get set up here.”

“No, I’m okay.” The truth was, Lainey was fascinated by how focused and serious India was. It was so different from the ingratiating, hovering India she normally saw at home.

India dragged a white chaise in front of the backdrop. “Go ahead and sit down,” she said.

“Like this?” Lainey asked, reclining back on the chaise and fluffing her hair up with both hands.

“I’ll pose you in a minute. Let me just get a light reading,” India said. She checked the light level and then spent a few busy minutes getting the light boxes positioned correctly, before turning back to Lainey. “Okay. Now. Turn your shoulders here. And your head this way,” India said, maneuvering Lainey into position with a light touch of the hand. “There. Hold that.”

It felt awkward holding herself in such an artificial position. India returned to her position behind the camera and began snapping pictures. She’d give Lainey instructions—“Raise your chin a bit. No, not quite that much. There! Perfect! Hold it!”—and then, after snapping a few quick shots, would return to pose her again, occasionally having Lainey stand so India could push the chaise
into a different position. Lainey posed with her head resting on her arms, lying back with one hand draped near the baby bump, leaning back against the chaise. It didn’t seem very glamorous. Every time Lainey tried to strike a sexy pose—bending forward to show cleavage, or opening her mouth seductively—India would stop her.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t be wearing something dressier?” Lainey asked. At India’s direction, she was wearing her maternity jeans and a white tank top.

“No. This is perfect. I want you to look casual,” India said with such authority Lainey didn’t question her further.

The photo session was relatively short; after thirty minutes India announced that she had enough.

“You did a great job,” India said. “You’re a natural.”

And although Lainey thought India might just be buttering her up again, she couldn’t help feeling a flush of pleasure at the compliment. No one had ever before told her she’d been a natural at anything.

“Do you take all of your pictures here?” Lainey asked.

“It depends. I do all of the formal portraits here, but I actually prefer working in natural light,” India said. “I do a lot of shoots at the beach, or at the nature preserve.”

“Why? Is natural light better?”

“I think so. It’s actually what I’m known for. I prefer the effect, although it can be less predictable. That’s why some photographers prefer working with artificial lights.” India gestured to the light boxes. “The results are more consistent. But these lights are really just meant to replicate natural light, so I figure why not use the real thing.”

Lainey remembered the photos hanging on the Halloways’ walls. Candid shots India had taken of Jeremy wading in the surf, Georgia sitting in a garden, wearing a big hat and laughing up at the camera, Otis asleep on his back with all four
paws sticking straight up. They looked like pictures out of a magazine.

“So why did you take my picture inside?”

India opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped and frowned. “You know, I’m not sure. Most of the maternity portraits I’ve seen are posed. Actually, much more so than I just did with you—they often have lots of dreamy special effects, smudged edges, the subject dressed in a flowing white dress. Really not my style at all. I guess I assumed that most women would want their maternity portraits to be, well, not formal, but definitely stylized.” The frown deepened, and India started muttering to herself. “But you’re right, maybe it’s silly to do that just because it’s what other photographers do. I should just shoot the show in my style. Forcefully bring my perspective to this project. Hell! Why didn’t I think of that before? I should know better!” India exclaimed, growing more animated by the moment. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed. She suddenly stopped and smiled at Lainey—a smile of such real pleasure, Lainey was taken aback.

“Thank you,” India said warmly. She grabbed Lainey’s hand and squeezed it.

“What for?” Lainey asked, staring down at their linked hands. The familiarity made her uneasy. She pulled her hand back, out of India’s grasp.

India didn’t seem to notice the rebuff. “You made me realize exactly what I’ve been doing wrong. Come on. Let’s go to the beach,” India said, grabbing her camera bag. “I’m going to kick it old school, and use my Leica.”

“What … now?” Lainey asked.

“Yes, now! The light will be perfect.”

“But I’m hungry. It’s almost dinnertime. I could kill or die for some ice cream.”

India looked at her thoughtfully. “I’ll tell you what: I’ll stop
and buy you an ice-cream cone on the way,
if
you promise not to drip it on your shirt.”

“Can I have chocolate?” Lainey asked hopefully.

But India shook her head. “Vanilla,” she said strictly. “You’re wearing a white shirt. Chocolate would be flirting with disaster.”

“Fine,” Lainey said, sighing. Even though she pretended she was giving in, she felt a secret thrill of excitement at the prospect at being the subject of one of India’s black-and-white photos, of seeing herself in magazine-photo perfection. “But I want chocolate sprinkles.”

“Deal. But hurry. I want to get there before we lose the light.”

The beach shoot was such a success that, to celebrate, India stopped off at Hunan Palace on the way home for takeout. She urged Lainey to order everything that sounded good, and they ended up leaving with three heavy, steaming bags of food. When they got back to the house, India laid the food out on the coffee table, after giving Otis strict instructions that he was to stay away. He went as far away as his bed, where he lay down, staring intently at the food and drooling conspicuously. Lainey and India sat on the floor, eating right out of the boxes and watching a reality makeover show, where the hosts bullied a frumpy middle-aged woman into throwing out all of her clothes and getting blonde highlights.

“Why did she have to throw out her sweatpants?” India asked indignantly. “What’s she supposed to wear when she’s vegging out at home?”

“She was wearing those sweatpants to work,” Lainey pointed out.

“Still. They could have left her one pair to watch TV in.” India groaned, pushing a carton of kung pao chicken away from her. “I’m stuffed. I can’t eat another bite.”

“I can,” Lainey said, digging into the vegetable fried rice. She
tipped the box toward India. “Look at me, I’m voluntarily eating vegetables.”

India giggled and took a sip of red wine. “Good, then I don’t have to nag you for another twelve hours.”

It was the most relaxed Lainey had ever seen India. The tense lines around her eyes were gone, and her smile was genuine.

“What does it feel like?” India asked. “Being pregnant, I mean.”

Lainey considered. “Better now that I don’t feel sick all the time. But it feels a little weird when the baby moves around.” She shrugged and rested a hand on her bump.

“Does it hurt?” India asked.

“No. It’s more like having a little ocean inside of you, with an octopus swimming around inside of it. Most of the time I don’t feel it, but then every once in a while it bumps up against me,” Lainey said. When India laughed, Lainey looked up, suspicious that India was laughing at her. But then she saw that India wasn’t mocking her. She was tickled at the idea.

“I had no idea,” India said. “I never thought to ask my friends when they had babies. I guess I assumed that I’d find out when …” She stopped suddenly, her smile vanishing.

The silence that followed made Lainey feel uneasy. She picked up one of India’s hands and studied the short square nails with a professional eye.

“You should let me do your nails for you,” Lainey said. “I could make them look a lot better.”

India stared ruefully at her nails. “I never take care of them. I’d like to claim it’s easier to work with short nails, but the truth is, I’m just lazy about it.”

“You can keep them short, but they’d look better with polish,” Lainey advised. “I’d probably recommend going with a pinky beige for a natural look. Or you could go the other way, and do a really dark red. That would be hot.”

“I’ve never thought of myself as a red-nail-polish kind of a woman,” India mused.

“Why not try something new?” Lainey said, releasing India’s hand.

India shrugged back. “You’re right, why not?”

They fell silent for a few minutes, both watching the television. It wasn’t awkward, though, Lainey thought. It was an easy silence. Almost like when she hung out with Flaca.

“You said you’ve done other photo shoots at that beach. Do you have any pictures here?” Lainey asked.

India looked up and smiled. “You really want to see them?”

“Sure,” Lainey said.

India stood and walked over to one of a pair of bookshelves that flanked an enormous mirror, and pulled out a large book bound in black leather. It was one of a dozen, lined up neatly on a shelf. India paged through it, then put it back and chose another.

“Here they are,” she said. India brought the book to Lainey and then sat cross-legged on the sofa with her wine.

Lainey began to slowly page through the book. Each page held one black-and-white photograph, all taken at the beach, although the subject matter varied. A wide expanse of ocean with low dark clouds swirling over. A close-up of a starfish covered with white ridges. Ribbons of sand intercut with thousands of broken shells. A little girl with a headful of ringlets throwing a stone into the water. An even smaller boy with serious dark eyes standing barefoot on the beach, holding out a shell to the unseen photographer. A dog, soaking wet from the belly down, romping in white foaming waves.

“Is this Otis?” Lainey asked, holding the book up for India to see.

India nodded. “I took that photo the day Jeremy and I met. In fact, I shot that with my very first Leica. I had to work two jobs to save up for it.”

“What’s a Leica?”

“It’s a very high-quality film camera. Not many photographers use film anymore. I don’t use it much, myself. Everything’s digital these days, so you do all of your editing on the computer. But sometimes you just can’t beat real film.”

Lainey turned the pages of the album slowly. “Where did you learn to do this?”

“College,” India said. “I went to the University of Florida.”

“Did you always know you wanted to be a photographer?” Lainey asked.

India considered this. “Not always, no. When I first started school, I planned to go into graphic design. But I was never very passionate about it. Then, during my second semester freshman year, I took an Intro to Photography course on a lark. And I just fell in love. It was just so freeing, I suppose. It gave me the power to capture a single perfect moment. I was hooked. I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life.”

“I’ve never heard anyone talk about their job like that before,” Lainey said.

“That’s just it. It’s not just a job to me. I remember when I was little, my dad told me that if I could find a way to make a living doing something I loved, I would have a happy life. And while I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that, there’s a lot of truth in it,” India said. She twirled the stem of her wineglass slowly around in one hand. “My dad was an old hippie—worse than my mom, if you can believe it—but he occasionally made a lot of sense. He passed away when I was in college. But I guess you already knew that—it was in our adoption profile.”

Lainey, who had not read their adoption profile closely, hadn’t known.

“My dad left when I was a kid,” Lainey said. She felt shy sharing this, as though she were a child trying to make friends by
breaking a chocolate bar in half and offering up one of the pieces.

“Where is he now?” India asked.

“I don’t know. He’s never stayed in touch. Sometimes he sent me a birthday card, although it was always, like, three months late,” Lainey said with a forced laugh.

India did not laugh along with her. Instead, her eyes opened wide with sympathy. “Are you serious? That’s terrible. I’m sorry.”

Lainey shrugged and looked away, wishing she hadn’t said anything. The back door opened and then thumped shut. Otis—who’d been stretched out on his rectangular cushion, keeping one watchful eye on the cartons of Chinese food, ever hopeful that an egg roll would happen his way—leapt to his feet, stretched, and padded out of the room. A moment later, Jeremy appeared, framed in the doorway, Otis wiggling with happiness at his feet.