Breathe Easy

Chapter 8

After going home to change, I drove to a client's house for the family portrait call I'd gotten earlier. The home was in some suburban neighborhood in East Miami, but it stood out like a sore thumb because it was a huge cottage-style kind of mansion, sat at the very end of the street in front of an open plain, and was blatantly unlike any of the others all lined up on each side of the street.

I forged along the cobblestone path that lead to the front porch. The house was made of stone and looked like something out of a storybook. It was a light gray with teal shingles, and had a chimney, and a bay window. Freshly planted flowers and rosebushes lined the walkway, and little hedges on the perimeter of the driveway. A shiny white Mercedes graced the landscape out in front of the garage.

The setting was perfect, but from what the owner said earlier on the phone, the pictures would be taken in a courtyard. It must have been out back somewhere, and the thought of that excited me. This was the usual when coming to do family portraits, as most people who were too sophisticated, or lazy you could say, to take their own pictures were mainly wealthy folks. I was always seeing high price mansions that cost more than everything in my life, but there was something about this house that truly piqued my interest.

As I reached the porch, I glanced up at the arched opening and spun around to take in everything else. I punched the doorbell with my finger and took a step back. The rhythm of the doorbell wasn't your typical ding dong either. It was a more drawn tune with several dings and dongs, kind of like a church bell. Probably got annoying after a while, but I thought it was quirky.

I took a bottle of water from my backpack to fight off my terrible cottonmouth, and ended up chugging down the entire thing. I tossed the empty bottle into my backpack. Then took a breath meant, wrapped my hand around the lens of the Nikon hanging from my neck and tried to look professional. I'd been doing this job for almost a year and a half now, yet I still looked like a gawky amateur half of the time. It was a wonder anybody ever took me seriously.

There was a click. Then the door was open, and there stood a boy who looked about ten dressed in a white dress shirt twice his size and a skinny black tie. His eyes lit up and became all googly. I smiled and threw up a hand; the lazy wave.

"This is the Castile residence, yeah?"

"My last name is Castile and I live here, so yeah. Are you the photographer?" he said, mindblown.

I wanted to roll my eyes, and bash him over the head with my Nikon to maybe knock some sense into him, but this equipment cost way too much to be used as a weapon. So maybe my hand would suffice.

"I am." This time I didn't smile.

"My name's Joseph. I'm in the seventh grade."

Sixth grader, huh? He was just a little perverted thirteen year old with raging hormones, so maybe I couldn't blame him for being so invasive with his eyes, but it still disgusted me. A lot. So why not patronize him?

"That's sweet, little guy." I petted him on the head. "Where's your mom?"

He flinched a little at me touching his perfectly slicked back hair, looking up at me dismissively. All of the sudden a woman came to the door and stood behind Joseph, placing him to the side.

"You'll have to excuse him," she said, reading the expression on my face. Soon hers matched mine and she side-glanced at him like she wished she'd never given him life. "He's a flirty one. Thinks he can get any girl he lays eyes on, young or old."

"Mom..."

She held up a hand and refused to give him eye contact. "Go see if your brother is finished getting dressed. And don't eat anything in that there shirt."