Through The Lens

Not quite what I was expecting. Then:

"Can you help me up to my room?"

This from a fellow journalist? Are you kidding?

"Yeah. Let's go."

Up narrow, twisting stairs to a room about the size of a steamer trunk, the windows shut, and it's about as pleasant in there as the Sahara in August. Open the window and screw down the radiator valve; she drops her skirt (revealing -- what the hell! -- seriously cute legs) then she slips off her sweater (not bad, not bad at all...). She stands there kinda wobbly and cute in nothing but a back brassiere -- looking not at all embarrassed and says -- without a trace of slurred speech or any regret -- something like: "I want to sit on your face; think you can handle it.?"

Fuck!

She's plastered -- I mean totally baked -- and that's not my thing, so I help her under the covers and she's mewing like a kitten and holding my face in her hands and we're kissing when from out in the hall I can hear Needham stalking along in a drunken rage calling out my name,

So what would you do?

Yeah, right. I thought so.

Off to the rodeo.

____________________________________

Morning comes -- and near as I can tell about five hours too early, and here I am standing before a too small mirror pulling pubes from my teeth. Tompkins is in the shower bitching about all the crème rinse I dumped in her hair ("not my fault," I tell her; "I was aiming for your mouth -- and you ducked...") which doesn't go over too well. Over the sound of pounding water I can make out something about needing to improve my aim and some sly little admission about the taste of splooge.

Yada yada yada, go tell your mother.

I tell her I gotta go and she says something cute like "don't let the door hit you I the ass on your way out" (God, I hate that one -- it went out with, like, Nixon in '74) and I head back to my room. There's a note on the door from Needham, some words like "bastard" and "asshole" underlined in red (ah, an obsessive-compulsive dickhead!) catch my eye and I toss it in the can on my way to the shower. Make it down to the breakfast buffet in record time and grab a tumbler of orange juice (yeah, that German crap that tastes like a mix of cough syrup and grapefruit juice) and some coffee (yea!! Not Starfucks!!), slide a couple of new cards in the D3 and drop the 85-1.4 on the front end and I'm heading for the door when Tompkins slides in by my side and grabs my arm on the way out.

"Wanna do this together?" she asks.

Do I have a choice, I think. "What do you have in mind," I say.

"I'll cover the briefing and main conference, you cover the plenary session with the foreign ministers; we meet for lunch and compare notes."

"Sounds okay." Actually, sounded better than okay, but what the hell.

"I didn't bring a photographer," she says.

"Can I get the credits, maybe a couple of bucks?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'll share those, too."

"Cool."

"Cool."

We hop in the shuttle and as it pulls out I see Needham trundling out the main door shaking his fist at me and yelling something about the legitimacy of my ancestry. I shrug my shoulders and mouth "where were you?" and "missed you". Leave him standing there in the dust with his mouth hanging down somewhere around his knees.

Life is good.

________________________________

The morning worked out very well, our meeting over lunch worked out even better than I'd hoped. Tompkins was all decked out with the latest and greatest wi-fi and banged out a story on her MacBook while we sat in a little Gasthaus picking away at bread and cheese. I picked up the D3 and slipped the 14-24 on it and looked through the viewfinder at old brown beams overhead and huge cowbells hanging from spikes driven into timber planks maybe two hundred years ago, really fascinated with the idea that I was sitting in an ancient barn in the Swiss Alps eating cheese while this brainiac chic next to me is grinding out a newspaper article on a machine that would have made Johannes Gutenberg drop dead in a fit of orgasmic ecstacy.

She had her glasses off, this owl-eyed preppie-Radcliffe Phi Beta Kappa'd New York intellectual, she of the worn out Birkenstock set, so anyway I swung the camera over and framed a quick shot of her and fired off a quick shot. She never looked up, never acknowledged I'd even taken her picture, yet I could have sworn on a stack of Hustlers that I'd seen the faintest little smile cross her face when I did that.

I tend to see the world as it really is when looking through the lens.

Everything is framed the way I imagine the world would like to be framed (if 'things' had their say in the matter, and I'm hoping not to come across as a total control freak here). I can sometimes make better sense of the chaos and the beauty of this world when I try to compose a story photographically.

Anyway...

I pulled up her image on the LCD and looked at this 'thing' called Mindy Tompkins. Something drew me into the picture and I zoomed in on her face, and I saw something in the pixels really quite disturbing. Beneath the worn patina of bohemian excess, under the studied indifference of her Ivy League uber-sophistication, she was really quite beautiful, and it was my guess she had been doing her very best to hide that fact from the world for a long time. I looked at that image for quite a while, I think, and looked up from time to time and took in her profile while she checked her notes, as she fleshed out her story. My stomach lurched. I felt queasy.

Yeah, there was no doubt about it: behind the tortoise rimmed façade there was something compellingly, oddly beautiful about her. Peaceful, studious, self-confident? Yeah, sure, goes with the territory. This wasn't an image of a woman anyone would knowingly call insanely gorgeous -- indeed, her beauty was if anything like a chameleons, hiding under studied camouflage, avoiding discovery at all costs -- but I know great beauty when I see it. It was right there in front of my face, and all of a sudden she took my breath away.

And now she was looking at me.

"Can I see?" she said, and I passed over the Nikon. She took it and looked at the image. "Not bad," she said after looking at it for a moment, then she whipped the camera up to her eyes and quickly composed a shot and hit the shutter. She didn't look at her work, just passed the camera back to me. She had just taken what I still consider the best photograph of yours truly I've ever seen, and she knew it. She didn't have to check it out. She knew that what she did would always be at the top of the class.

I looked at the image, then at her, then shook my head and grinned.

"You're something else, you know that?"

"Don't let it get around," she said softly, smiling.

All I wanted to know right then was her status re: significant other in life. That shook me pretty good, so I put the camera in my bag and took out my notepad and started writing.

I ignored her as best I could, but there was no need, really. She was lost in her story again, banging away at ninety words a minute.

________________________________

There was a reception with cocktails in the evening and we had both been invited to an "off the record" session with the Secretary of State and a bunch of foreign ministry types from the EU. We got back to the Edelweiss about five and changed, then hopped the shuttle over to the night's venue, a private residence up on the side of the mountain astride a ski slope. The shack was about twice the size of The White House and had reportedly cost some West Texas roughneck about a hundred million and change. The taps ran with hot and cold Dom Perignon, or so I was told.

"I hate these things," Tompkins said. "They're like arm-candy festivals."

"Oh, I always have fun at them," Needham said from across the aisle as we pulled up, his hands bouncing away in his pockets.

"Arm candy?" I said.

"Oh yeah," she continued. "It's like the smaller the dick the hotter the chick."

"And you've done personal research into this?" Needham said, leering.

"Not as much as you, I hear."

This from me. So gallant, don't you think?

"Well, there's a hole in my theory, Rittenhauer." She looked at Needham now and smiled. "Because if were true, then Mr Needham here would have the hottest chicks in Switzerland hanging on his every word tonight."

"Probably not much to hang on," I said.

That seemed to shut him up for the evening.

________________________________

Some cheese-dick from State cornered Mindy right after we passed through the line and I didn't see her again for an hour. Needham went to a dark corner and stood staring out a window, hands in pockets, lower lip jutting out. Tracy Hilyard from Reuters cornered me, and this was definitely not in my evening's game plan.

Racy Tracy. A well earned moniker if ever there was. They used to call her type nymphomaniacal, then sluttish; over the years this morphed into "easy" and finally, of late, into 'running with the wolves'. Whatever, she had healthy appetites in that regard and she moved right on in.

"Hi, Grant."

I smiled, cleaned a dark spot out from under a fingernail.

"So how's it hangin'? Still down to your knees?" She looked vaguely hungry.

"Me? Tracy, you've got me confused with Hank Needham."

She looked at me, then at Needham across the room. "Really? I hadn't heard that about him before."

"Oh yeah. You should give it a whirl sometime. The boy puts Long-Dong Silver to shame."

"No shit?"

Frankly, I was kinda surprised that she had even heard of Long Dong Silver, but she was licking her lips and eying Needham hungrily.

"Hey, don't let this get out, but word is he was up all night shooting a porn. His services are apparently in high demand."

I swear it, really, the girl was drooling now. She looked at me as if seeking permission.

"Go ahead, Tiger. Go get him."

She made a bee-line to Needham. Soon the hands in his pockets were moving like a jackhammer.

I know. I have a mean streak. What can I say?

_____________________________________

Tompkins made her way back to me an hour or so later; she seemed hushed and worried when she came up.

"What gives?" I asked when I saw her face.

"Not here," she whispered in my ear.

I couldn't help it; her breath sent a shiver down my spine, and this made her laugh.

"My oh my," she said, "are you as horny as I think you are?"

"More, probably," I said. "That would be my guess."

"Really?"

She took me by the hand and led me over to a dark corner, then unzipped my trousers and started working me over right there, no more than a couple of yards away from Needham & Co. All the while she's talking to me about 'peak-oil' and consumption curves, and with the sweetest "who, little ole me" look on her face, and I guess she was enjoying the fact that my knees were trembling and my eyes were rolling up into the back of my skull. And, I guess she was getting to the main point of this exercise, and quickly too, and I say this with some authority because at this point she started to rake her fingernails over the tip of my dick while she looked into my eyes; then she parted her lips and revealed just the tiniest bit of tongue between her lips (and did I tell you about her lips?!), and, well, that about did it for me. She took the scotch and water in her other hand and held it in front of my cock when I came, and I was apparently able to summon up quite a load. Anyway, without batting an eye, she brought the glass up to her lips and drank the whole thing down in one sweet pull; it was all I could do not to propose marriage right then and there.

Come to think of it, Needham didn't look too unhappy, either.

__________________________________

It had been a good day. One of the best in a long time.

We were in the hotel bar again, round past midnight, just the two of us. Just talking about silly stuff, really, when things took a funny turn. She got quiet, looked at me for a while, then at the embers smoldering away across the room in the huge stone fireplace.

"Who was she?" she finally asked.

No reason to be coy. "Her name was Barbara. We were together for a while . . ."

"A while? Is that like a month kind of while?"

"More like ten years; she went to Afghanistan with . . ."

Her eyes went wide: "Barbara Fisher? YOU were her. . .?"

"Guilty on all counts, Your Honor."

"Oh, shit, Rittenhauer, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Did you know her? She never mentioned . . ."

"Not well, but it's a small community."

"Community? That's a word. Rich."

"Bitter?"

"Who, me?"

"I didn't see you at the funeral."

"I wasn't there. Her parent's didn't invite me. Hated me, as a matter of fact."

"Hated?"

"They were under the impression I wouldn't marry her . . ."

"A false impression?"

"I don't know. We talked about it a couple of times, but the timing was never right. Too many . . ."

"Assignments. Yeah. I know."

"You know what, Tompkins, you . . ."

"Jump ahead, complete all your thoughts. It annoys the shit out of you."

I just stared at her. Words just didn't seem up to the task right then.

"All my life. I've done it all my life. I can see where every conversation is headed after about two words. Scares the shit out of people. Hell, scares the shit out of me."

"So, where's this one going?" I was looking at her now, kind of intensely, if you know what I mean.

"You know, that's one of the things going on here that I like. I can't read you."

"Oh? You were doing okay . . . but . . . like about what?"

"You."

"I see. Is it so unusual? Not being able to see ahead."

"More than you know." She was meeting my eyes, not giving an inch. "Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?"

"You sound like a reporter. Buzz off, lady."

She laughed, gently, knowingly.

"Seriously, Rittenhauer."

I wanted to toss out a nice, round quip about then, but somehow managed to keep my mouth shut. "I'm listening," I managed to say. This was getting heavy all of a sudden.

"Are you over her yet?"

"Most days, yeah. I have a bad one now and then."

She nodded. "Where do you live, by the way?"

"Outside Santa Fe. On the road up to the ski area, little cabin. Thoreau would be green with envy."

"And you drive a Subaru, right?"

"Land Rover. Older than you."

"No shit? How do you afford gas these days?"

"I don't," I said, looking at her intently. "You wanna talk cars?" I could see she was nervous, searching for words, settling on one then changing her mind. "Mindy?"

"Yeah?"

"Today. At lunch."

"What?" I could see she was a little off balance now. "What about lunch?"

"That's when I fell in love with you."

"Ah. Me too."

"Anything else you want to know?"

"No. Not really. You want to sleep alone tonight?"

"I don't want to sleep alone -- ever again."

She looked at me and smiled. "You were reading my mind, weren't you?"

I told her I was just following my heart.

She was okay with that.

_______________________________

The rest of the conference was kind of a blur. I took a couple of good shots and managed to write-up a nice piece, brought up some points all the others missed. Well, Tompkins knew, but you figured that, right? Editor was happy as a clam, or so Nan told me, and their check didn't bounce, so I was golden.

We took the train down to Zurich and stayed in a little place over the river by the university, right by Thomas Mann's old place. We stayed a week, ate lots of fondue and walked along the shore, just thinking, or so we said. She read with her head in my lap and I was happy just running my fingers through her hair. Never been happier, matter of fact.

Ran into Needham and Tracy one evening at a little bistro. Happy as two squirrels in a farmers long-johns on a cold night. His hands weren't in his pockets anymore, and Tracy said something about only being able to take the first foot and a half before she gagged and I just about choked on my beer.

But she was okay with that.

Tompkins and I said our goodbyes at the airport; she had an El Al to Tel Aviv and I had a ticket with my name on it for Durango by way of about ten intermediate stops. We kissed and exchanged cards and she made her way down the ramp; she stopped once to see if I was still there and I waved at her. Looked like she was crying and it broke my heart. I had to turn away.

I watched as her plane pushed back, and as it taxied out to the runway I thought about her eyes and her smile and her Birkenstocks; after her plane took off and turned out over the Alps she disappeared into a haze like the one filling my mind; I pulled out my Nikon and turned it on, flipped through the files until I found her picture. I looked at it for a long time, until they called my flight to Kennedy -- matter of fact.

I thought about her all the way back. Over the Atlantic and over America, all the way; never stopped. Damn near wore out the Nikon's screen looking at that goddamn picture.

The Rover had a flat tire when I walked up to it; had to wait for AAA then drove into Durango and checked into a hotel to rest before making the drive to Santa Fe the next morning. I called the number she'd given me for her place in Tel Aviv, but there was no answer. Watched CNN after dinner, learned a couple of reporters had been killed by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv while eating lunch with a couple of foreign ministry types, so I called her paper. No one had any information yet, call back tomorrow. I felt sick to my stomach and was sorry I'd eaten dinner and before I knew it the alarm was going off.

Still no answer on her phone. New York hadn't heard from her and they weren't hopeful.

I threw my bags in the Land Rover and turned south, drove in a mindless fog for hours down back roads I had known so well for so long, and yet I felt like the proverbial stranger in a strange land. By the time I hit Los Alamos I was so depressed I could hardly drive anymore. Shit, I could hardly breathe anymore. That last hour was murder -- I thought it would never end.

Good cell coverage so I called again and again and again no answer.

I was frantic now. I felt like curling up in a ball and going to sleep for a long time. Like forever.

The drive through town was just a blur, like the rest of the day had been. Turned up the hill past the college and drove up into the cool, thin air, wanting nothing more than for this day to be over and done with. Turned off the pavement and up the little sandy drive to my cabin and wound my up the road until my place came into view.

She was sitting on her suitcase on the porch by the front door, her studied indifference nowhere to be seen. I ran to her, fell to my knees, crying, and I held her, the side of my head resting on her stomach, the warmth of her being filling me with each passing moment with the realization that I would never let go of this woman, not ever again.

And you know what?

She was okay with that.

Fin