A Man on an Island Ch. 01

She looked back to see him looking into his paper cup before putting the cigarette butt inside it and swirling it around to put it out, she guessed.

Cale stood up and walked to the nearest of the garbage cans that the store provided to discard the cup along with the wrapper and bag from his bagel. Emma found herself checking out his ass in spite of herself.

He turned to walk to his bike and noticed a person in the car a bit away from his bike peripherally. He didn't look at the person directly, he just noticed them. He zipped up his jacket, before picking up his helmet from the seat to sit down.

Emma had been taking shot after shot of him during this time. She was an amateur photographer of sorts. She'd wanted to do it professionally, but life had gotten in the way somehow. She wasn't certain what she liked about these shots, but there was a quality that she could see there. She just wasn't sure yet what it was. She'd need to be in a darker place to figure it out since there was too much light here to really look at the camera's display. Emma would have preferred having her good camera along, but this was why she had the little one, for those grab shots that cropped up in life.

She watched him set the helmet down on the tank before fiddling with some switches or something. His hands went to the handlebars and then the bike started and he began to pull on the helmet. After getting it done up, he quickly put on his gloves and lifted the bike to retract the stand.

Emma suddenly realised that she might eventually edit and post the shots that she'd gotten on one of the art sites that she had her stuff on. She knew that she couldn't do it without his permission and a release -- and he was about to leave. He began to paddle the bike out of the space. She called out to him, but there was no response. The bike wasn't loud, but she wondered if his mind was elsewhere, and so she leaned on her car horn.

Cale's head snapped around. There hadn't been anyone nearby a few seconds ago, but you never could tell. He noticed the direction of the sound was not behind him, and then noticed that the woman he had caught earlier was there and waving to him. He put the bike into gear and pulled back into the spot that he'd just vacated. What could she want? He dropped the stand and shut off the engine to look at her.

He found that he was missing about every third word, so he held up his hand and then unfastened his helmet to pull it off. "Sorry, "he said, "I'm not getting everything you're saying. Give me a second here."

She began again, "Excuse me, I wanted to thank you for not letting me fall, but I also wanted to talk to you about something. I noticed you sitting there, and I took a few pictures of you. I hope it's alright with you, and I was wondering if you'd consider letting me use these on the web."

Cale was confused, "Why did you take my picture?"

Emma shrugged, "You looked kind of introspective with the sun on your face, and I liked it, so I grabbed my camera. What was the tear for?"

He looked down, feeling a bit embarrassed, "You saw that?"

He looked back to her with a shrug, "It was for me, I guess. I was feeling a bit down for a minute there, but the sun felt so good, and I kind of used that to stop any more from coming. You can use the shots if you want, I guess, "he said, "but will I be able to see them?"

She smiled, "Sure, but I may edit them, and I'd need you to sign a release to let me do it. What do you say?"

Cale found her smile to be a bit infectious, and he held out his hand, "My name's Cale. What's yours?"

She grabbed his hand, "I'm Emma."

"Well then, Emma, if I understand the way this goes, you get to do whatever you want with my images after I sign. So, if it's ok with you, I have only two small conditions -- if you don't mind, may I see them on your camera? I'm only interested in what you saw that would make you grab your camera. I'd ask for your word that you don't make me look too much like a fool."

"What's the other condition?" she asked.

"That was it, "he said, "Pick the best unedited one and let me see it for a second, and don't make me look any dumber than I already do."

She began to scan through what she'd taken, "You don't look dumb, and anyway, I'd never do that. Here, I think this one's the best without editing," she held up the camera to him.

He looked for a second, "Fine, where do I sign?"

She found a release in the glove box and handed it to him with a pen, "and please put your email address on the back -- I'll send you copies if you'd like."

"Sure, "he said with a smile, "I think I'd like that."

"Thanks Cale, "she said, as she took the signed release from him, "I'd better get a move on. I still need to do some work at home before I head off to work. Where are you off to from here? I'm asking to see if it matches my impression."

Cale found himself laughing, "Nowhere special. I'm sorry if your impression is of the lone drifter type. It's nothing that romantic, I'm afraid. I'm only out riding because I love to ride. I was thinking of heading to Wallwood, but by a wandering route that I like, before heading straight home from there to fix myself dinner. There's something out that way that I want a picture of myself."

Emma was curious, "What is it?"

He shook his head, "It's just a mailbox, "he said, "One particular mailbox, and I don't suppose that it's looking introspective today, but I want the shot anyway. It just looks funny to me. I try to always carry my beat up little camera in my saddlebag."

Emma put her car in gear, "Ok, have fun then. I'll email you when I get the shots edited. It might be a few days, though."

"That's fine, Emma. It was nice meeting you, "he said, suppressing the urge to talk more.

"Nice meeting you, too, "she said, and then she was gone. Cale waited for her to drive off before going back inside for another coffee. He suddenly just felt like having another.

Leaning against the seat of his bike, he wondered why he'd agreed to sign the release. It wasn't as if he expected to see the shots, he decided. He doubted that he'd ever get the copies that she'd promised. He suddenly found that he really didn't want to ride anywhere anymore, for some reason. He beat himself up for that thought. He'd wanted the mailbox shot all winter, and now it was fairly nice, and what the hell, he thought, it wasn't as if he had anything better to do. He finished the coffee and got on the road.

Emma had no trouble getting the new lock on her door, and then settled in to begin the cleanup of the mess that her ex-girlfriend had left for her. She purposely didn't load the pictures from her camera onto her computer, wanting instead to save the job for when she got home from work.

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When she got home a little before one o'clock, Emma chose a frozen entree from her freezer and threw it into her microwave. She hadn't gotten a real chance to eat anything at work. Sometimes things just worked out that way. While the microwave was running, she turned on her PC and got out her camera. She just had time to get to her 'Pix' folder and create a new subfolder that she just named 'Cale' before the microwave beeped that it was done.

As she ate, she checked her email, and found nothing of interest other than one from Sherri. She didn't open it, but that made her dig for her cell phone. There were three voicemails and five text messages.

She only listened to the first voicemail, and ditched it along with the rest. She wasn't interested in the girl's vitriol, accusations, sadness, apologies, or pleading -- in that order. That was the run of the text messages, according to their timestamps. It seemed that Sherri was having second thoughts after only a day.

Emma shook her head. No, she thought, this time I'm the one who's had enough. This would mark the fifth blow-up that they'd had. Emma only knew that she didn't want to go through any more of them. She knew that she'd likely regret the thought, but right now, she really didn't want anybody.

She found the cable for her camera and wondered what Cale was doing. She smiled at the thought. He probably led a normal life, and that would mean that he was asleep right now. She pulled the shots from the camera into the folder, and began to look through them. After wishing that she'd had her Canon along, as she always did, she smiled. He was good looking, she'd give him that. She almost wished that she was into men though there was no danger of that.

So cutie, she thought as she began to edit the first one, you're safe from me, at least.

The two shots that showed his tear held her somehow. What was it that had made him do that, she wondered. The one that she'd composed was better, she decided, and she only had to do a little bit of cropping to it. She found that she liked almost every shot that she'd taken of him for one reason or another, but that one -- it really pulled the viewer, she decided. You had to wonder about it. Was he missing a loved one? Had there maybe been a breakup? There was no grimace of physical pain, so that was right out.

No, she decided, this was a look at some rare emotion on a man's face. She cursed the little camera. You could just barely make out the track of the tear. The tear was enough, she thought, but given her druthers, she'd have much preferred to have gotten the track of it as well.

She looked at the first shot, the one that she'd grabbed. You couldn't even really see the tear, but you knew it was there, instantly. There was a tiny highlight -- a small sparkle from the sun's light that made you know it was a tear. She did her best to deal with the tiny amount of camera shake in the shot, but liked it almost as much for the spontaneity of it.

Emma moved on through the rest. It was just a shame about the angle of the sun as it put him in a bit too much shade while he'd walked back to his bike. But she found herself looking for the elusive quality that she'd noticed. She opened every shot that it showed in, and sized them so that she could look from one to the other. There was a kind of wistful thing about them, as though he was wishing for something -- or would have wished for something, given the opportunity to make a wish. But it was not immediately apparent, she realised. You had to look. The shots stood on their own, regardless, she realised.

Emma sat back and thought. That "something" had not been there on his face when they'd spoken, she was certain of it. No, it was only there before she'd gotten his attention. It was only there when he'd thought that no one was looking at him. She wasn't sure of it, she realised, as she began to edit them, but it could have been an expression of lonely despair.

She forced herself through the editing, keeping the thought for later. When she was done, she looked again. Was it just loneliness? Or was it only despair? She couldn't answer these questions, but when she combined them, it seemed to be a pretty solid feeling. She looked at him, wondering. "Why would you feel that way?" she asked the images on her monitor, intrigued. At last, she went to bed.

When she got up the next morning, she looked at the images again over her coffee. She wanted to make certain that she could still get that feeling from them in the light of day. And she found that, after a night's sleep, it was even more apparent. She smiled at this, these pictures were so subtly evocative, she thought. She spent a little while posting them to the sites that she used, and found herself eagerly awaiting the comments that she hoped to receive on them.

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Two days later, Cale got in late from a long day in some cold rain, and after a long, hot shower decided that he felt better, and wondered what to do with himself for the evening. He looked from his television, to his guitar, and then to his PC. He didn't watch much TV, and didn't feel like a movie. The cold day had sapped any desire that he might have had to play anything, and he doubted that his fingers would cooperate much anyway tonight.

He turned on the computer, and spent some time researching new exhaust pipes for his bike. There wasn't anything wrong with what it had come with, but he'd always liked the look of drag pipes. One manufacturer made a set that he really liked, but he wondered about the sound level. He thought his bike was fine the way it was for sound, and he wasn't big on making kids in strollers cry by being obnoxious. But a nice set of drag pipes would change the look a bit, and save more than a few pounds. He just needed to know if they were legal.

As he began to think about shutting down for the night, he thought about his email. He hadn't checked it in over a week. He rarely got anything that wasn't about Viagra, buying a university degree, or the odd ridiculous letter from some Russian site sending him some trash disguised as a young woman who wanted to meet him. But he knew that he'd better open it just to clear out the garbage.

As he clicked it open, he lit a cigarette and watched in fascination as well over a hundred garbage emails poured in. There was a long pause as one particular one downloaded. He gave his junk mail folder a quick look through just in case, and then deleted them all. He was about to close the program when he noticed three emails in his regular inbox. He supposed they were just more junk that his spam filter hadn't been taught to grab yet, and almost ignored them, but opened the folder at the last minute.

They were all from Emma. He'd pretty much forgotten about what she'd said, figuring that it was just talk. He opened the one with the oldest date stamp. She'd sent the photos after all, and said that she was very pleased with them, and hoped that he would be as well. He looked them over. He had to admit that the girl had talent; they were probably the best photos that anyone had ever taken of him in his life -- though he admitted that it wasn't saying much since it never happened often anyway, other than having the one on his driver's license renewed, he smirked. But these were very good.

He was a little sad to see that she'd caught his tear, but those were the ones that she'd liked the best, she'd said, so he hoped they had served whatever purpose she'd had in mind when she'd taken them. He said as much in his reply to her before opening the second message.

Emma had sent these two today, the last one only minutes before, he noted. She provided the URLs to the sites that she'd posted the photos to, and mentioned that she'd gotten many favourable comments on them from others, particularly the ones with his tear. She went on to wonder if he might consider modelling for a shoot for her.

Cale almost fell out of his chair. Modelling? What the hell for? He walked to the bathroom and turned on the light. The face in the mirror was the same one that he'd seen all of his life. He turned to the side as much as the view would allow and grimaced, nobody had expressed much of an interest in it before, so what had changed? He was a little perplexed, but shrugged.

The third message was pretty much just 'Earth to Cale -- are you there?'

He smiled, what was the big deal? He'd gone a month before opening his email to find it filled with endless crap. He'd only gone a week this time. He thought about her, and remembered that he'd been very attracted to her, but that proved nothing as he was certain there wasn't interest from her in anything beyond the pictures. He looked beyond that, and figured that if he agreed to the shoot, she'd get more of whatever she wanted, and since his ego didn't much need the photos; there wasn't much in it for him. His reply expressed some doubt about doing a shoot for her. He couldn't see what she was looking to capture, he said. He thanked her for the copies that she'd sent, and then hit the 'Send' button.

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Emma was working on some of her old shots when she heard the new mail chime. She usually ignored them until she was ready to read, but there had already been one a few minutes ago, so she looked. She read Cale's responses and frowned. She didn't do that many model shoots, and normally it wouldn't have mattered much to her, other than the lost opportunity to express herself through the art of it.

But she minded now. Everyone who had seen her shots loved them, even the one co-worker that she'd shown them to -- she'd even said that she was sure that she'd seen him around someplace, and that Emma had really gotten something in those shots. She fired off a reply, and sat back for a minute, thinking on it before she sent it off.

Cale stood up and walked to the back of the house, and out onto the deck. He was second-guessing himself a little now. He had a smoke out in the rain thinking that it was too bad that life was the way that it was. When he was back in high school, you could say most anything to another kid. Once everybody got out into the world, there were encumbering frameworks around everyone of work, marriage, kids, careers and all of that. Each framework was another layer of insulation that separated people, and they just kept piling up. He supposed that it was what most people wanted, being in their relationships and all.

But if you were one of the unmatched ones, it was just like you lived in a world slightly apart from everyone else. You could see them, but that was about it. He knew that if he could have a wish, he'd like the chance to get to know Emma better, but he also knew that she more than likely had her own frameworks to live inside of. He hadn't thought to look for a ring, not that it would have made any difference. He ground out the smoke and went inside to shut the PC down and go to bed.

He was startled to see Emma's reply there. She stated that as a photographer it was more her function to see what she wanted to capture, as he'd put it, than the subject's function, and she saw something that she wanted to explore. She chided him very gently about being shy, and suggested that he try to get past that because she saw that he looked interesting through a viewfinder. She asked him to please reconsider, and then repeated the 'please' in capitals with a few question marks after it.

Cale shook his head in amazement. He actually laughed out loud, and sent a quick note saying that he'd think about it, since she'd said 'please', but that he had to get to bed. He suggested that they meet to discuss it at the coffee shop, since it was a neutral place, and that he was prepared to listen to her ideas on the subject. He added his cell number, and suggested that she text him since he always looked at it at least once a day. He asked her for a day and time that was good for her, but warned that at work he was often not able to check for messages for up to two hours at a time. He wished her a good night, and then sent it.

But he didn't go to bed just yet. Cale opened his browser and went to a couple of the sites that she'd posted to. He found her photos of him and the other things that she'd done, and was impressed. What intrigued him were the comments that she'd gotten on his pictures. He read the captions under the shots, in particular one of the ones that showed his tear -- 'A candid shot of a nice guy here. I don't know what the tear was about, and he didn't say much about it in explanation. I'm really glad I caught this though.'

Several of the comments raved over the shot, and more than one said that they felt that they just had to know what it was about, that the shot made them want to ask the subject directly. Emma's replies to those were that she felt the same way, but since he hadn't offered more of an answer, she wasn't going to pry.

Cale smiled; apparently he was an enigma now. He shut the PC down and went to bed.

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Emma grinned. She sensed that he wasn't looking to feed his ego, but wasn't going so far in the opposite direction as to close the door. She shut down her computer and began to get ready to crash for the night, but found herself lying awake for some time, trying to think of what she wanted to get from the shoot if he agreed to it.