The stylist (I didn't bother to remember her name because I have visual blindness so it makes it pointless to learn names if I don't recognise them) has made the executive decision to rearrange the order we were to shoot the pictorial series.
By my list, the sessions are in this order:
1. The Minimalist Series
2. The Spanish Lady Series
3. The Dripping Diamonds Series
Only, it seems that we are skipping the Spanish Lady Series and jumping straight to the Dripping Diamonds Series, because, according to the stylist, the hairdresser and the makeup artists, it will be easier to turn Bronwen into the 'sexy senorita' of the Spanish Lady editorial than to go from that look back into the sleekness of the Dripping Diamonds look. It was either we change the order of the photographs or we spend hours waiting for them all to re-do Bronwen's hair and makeup.
I don't care what's easier for them; I only care that the plan that I've been studying all week has been changed and that Tao and I have to re-do the entire studio set up to accommodate this unexpected change. ANd we're still having to wait around, anyway. The security company who were due to bring the jewellery to the studio aren't due for another hour. Once the stylist notified them of the change in place, they promised to get here as soon as possible but their definition of 'soon' and my definition of 'soon' are two different things.
Which is how I now find myself going stir crazy in the studio. Since the flouncy Tidda people had finished with Bronwen's hair and makeup, and she's changed into the first of many black outfits, everyone is waiting. And talking. Phones are pinging. Tao is hovering. And it's all just... overwhelming.
But I have nowhere to go. This is my studio, the place where I seek solace. If this is where I run to get peace and quiet, where do I go if this is where all the noise and irritation is? None of my stimming is helping, either. Mimicking guitar riffs isn't helping. Listening to music has become tedious. I don't have a guitar, and I can't take any photos because we don't have anything to photograph for another fifty-eight minutes.
I suppose I could go into the darkroom and develop some photos I took last week. I've been procrastinating because I know the deadline is still a week away but there's no harm in getting a headstart. It would make a change from leaving it until forty-eight hours before the deadline.
"I'm going to the darkroom." I don't announce it to anyone specific. I turn to Tao. "When the jewellery gets here, make sure she's ready to be photographed and then we can work on composition and make sure the softboxes are correctly set up."
Toa nods.
I have to walk past practically everyone to get to the hallway outside the studio door but this poses an issue in itself. It's practically torturing having to walk by a group of loud people; the noise coming from their mouths is like... well, I imagine it is for me what nails on a chalkboard is for everyone else. A shiver spreads through my spine and makes my back muscles tense up just thinking about it. I have no choice, though. That's my only exit.
Actually, it's not. There's an exit through the other room. The one that's become the make-shift dressing room. The one that currently occupies Bronwen Saylor. While we've all been out here, waiting, she's remained in the dressing room, doing God only knows what. I mean, the door is open and if I had wanted to know, I could have looked to see, but I know Bronwen. She's reading a book. I don't need to see her doing that to know that's what she's doing. Ever since she was seven years old and could read without anyone helping her form the sounds, she's had her head in a book.
It's astounding to me that she became a model. She's incredibly intelligent. Not that models aren't brainy, it's just Bronwen could have gone to university to study astrophysics. But she didn't. I often wonder how much of this modelling malarkey is Bronwen wanting to do it and Martha wanting Bronwen to do it. Let's face it, my sister can be quite domineering. She's a woman who knows what she wants. Very opposite to me. I haven't a clue what I want.
A lot of Martha's decisiveness comes from the fact that she and her husband had some misunderstandings before they got married and after they reunited, Martha took to 'radical honesty.' Dad says it's an excuse for Martha to speak her mind and offend people under the guise of being honest. I think he's right. Not that I know the difference between being honest and rude; I tend to offend without meaning to. It's just that Dad's normally right about everything.
Having to choose between exiting via the studio or exiting via the dressing room should be an easy choice. In theory, it is. Go through the dressing room. Fewer people, less noise. Logically, it's the way to go.
No one has ever accused me of being a logical person, however. My brain, as Levi likes to say, is wired a little differently compared with the neurotypical people of this world. He's not entirely wrong, although he can only say that about me; I doubt he's met many neurodivergent people and he lacks the research and scientific background to assign such a diagnosis to everyone, but I'll concede that he's right about me.
I know going through the dressing room is what I need to do. It is. If only Bronwen wasn't in there. See, while there are more people and noise in the studio, I have to consider that while not a talker, Bronwen is an observer. She sees everything. Every fucking thing. This, combined with the fact that she doesn't speak, makes me feel uneasy. She doesn't make me feel uneasy; it's the fact that I don't know what she's thinking when she looks at me.
I never fully understood her before last November but then she did something. Her actions in trying to kiss me were a statement that I heard better than any words she's ever said to me, even if I don't fully know what she was trying to say. In my mind, a kiss (aimed at the lips, no less) is a statement of intent. The person likes you in a physical sense, maybe even romantically. If they didn't view you like that, they wouldn't have tried to plant a smacker on your lips. Bronwen was drunk, though. Alcohol makes you do stupid things. It's how Mum and Dad ended up with Sera. It's how Dan and Sophie met.
It wouldn't surprise me if most of the romantic relationships in the Delaney family were triggered by alcohol.
I'm a Delaney. Technically. On Mum's side.
Bronwen was drunk when she tried to kiss me.
Ergo, she thinks of me romantically and wants us to be in a relationship.
That's my illogical brain at work. Even I know that... no, I suppose I don't know, I'm just guessing. We've never talked about the almost-kiss. There was a quick 'I'm fine' on the doorstep, and then she flew away. It's irritating.
My feet begin to carry me before I know that the rest of my body is involuntarily following. I walk, at pace, to the dressing room, opening the door without knocking, and closing it with a loud thud behind me.
Just as I predicted, Bronwen is reading. From the looks of it, it's not a short read, either. How boring that must be.
"You never text me back."
Bronwen abruptly lifts her gaze from the pages, her hand moving so that her thumb can act as a bookmark as she slowly closes the cover. Her eyes don't mee mine, though. She's looking straight ahead, her mouth opened in a small 'o' shape and a sigh passes her lips as her shoulders slump. With a strangled look on her face, she turns in my direction, but her eyes don't meet mine.
I'm thankful for that. I'm not overly fond of eye contact. It's too intimate.
"No, I didn't. There wasn't much to say."
I flinch, my back hitting the door. "You could have said something."
"You text me a photo of spaghetti alphabet spelling out your name. There's no response to that."
"Still." It's not my strongest argument, but until I process her words carefully, it's the best I have to offer. I wanted a response from her. I wanted her to acknowledge what I'd said. Or what I was trying to say. "I- Well- After-"
"Is there a reason you wanted me to say something?"
Grateful that she's given me an opening, and with a question I can answer, I nod. "The reason I wanted you to say something is that before you left, you said the word 'fine.' In my very limited experience with the opposite sex, and from what Martha has told me in the past, fine doesn't always mean fine. And when you said that, I wasn't sure if you were fine or not."
"I was fine. I am still fine."
"I think you're lying." I don't have definitive proof and I'm not an authority on the subject, but I believe that she's lying. "If you were fine, you wouldn't have gone to New York. I've upset and offended many people before, but none have felt the need to go to another continent. They've moved to different countries before but they've never put an ocean between us. A river, a sea, a channel. But not an ocean. Which makes me think that you were not fine. You were angry. No... I don't know what you were feeling and that's why I wanted you to respond. I find you hard to read. You're not an open book. I rely on your words and when you say nothing- well, it's not like that bloody song, let's just put it that way."
Finally, Bronwen locks her eyes against mine, an unreadable expression is held within them. I can't decipher it, anyway, but I challenge anyone to figure out what is rushing through her mind and flashing in her eyes right now.
"Which song?"
"When You Say Nothing at All. First released by Keith Whitely in nineteen-eighty-eight. Made famous by Alison Krauss and then Ronan Keating when it was used in the Notting Hill soundtrack. The line in the chorus is, you say it best, when you say nothing at all. Except, that's not true for you. When you don't say anything, you don't say anything. I can't hear your body language. So yes, I wanted you to respond."
She places the book on the table, settling it on top of countless makeup brushes, the page she was reading now lost amongst the leaves of the other pages. With slow, deliberate movements, she gets to her feet. I'm glad she isn't wearing heels. She would tower over me if she were. I don't like it when she's taller than me.
"I wasn't angry when I said that I was fine. I was sad. It's not every day you get rejected by the person you've been in love with since you were fifteen. And the reason I didn't respond to you is because... what was there to say?"
The softness in her voice is almost too much to bear. The evenness in her tone unmanned me each time I heard it and for some reason, it always made me feel annoyed. Others find her voice calming. I don't. I can't tell the difference in pitch, tone, and cadence. But I know when people are angry. I wish she were angry with me. I don't like her being sad.
"I tried to kiss you, you pushed me away." Bronwen shrugs her shoulders and turns away to start moving pointless items around on the table. "Then you text me a photo. No words, just your name spelt out in spaghetti. Maybe it was my fault. I got my hopes up when you text me. I thought you were going to say something else but-"
"You've been in love with me since you were fifteen?" The sudden question left my lips without warning. My brain had finally digested her earlier words and had decided that now was the best time to blurt out my response to her words. Bad timing. The way Bronwen snapped her head at me confirms that I could have- and should have- waited. Or kept my mouth shut entirely. "Five years is an awfully long time to be in love with someone. And you don't know me. You can't love me. And even if you did know me, you probably wouldn't love me."
Her eyebrows darted up for a moment. If I'd blinked, I would have missed it. Her arms fold over her chest, her shoulders pull back and her chin is perpendicular to the floor. I've seen this pose before. It's familiar. How is this familiar? Probably because it's the same pose Mum does just before she starts to tell Owen off. Even at his age.
Whatever she's about to say, however, goes unheard. A loud knock at the door interrupts the moment, Tao's voice from the other side loudly notifying us that the jewellery has arrived and we're ready to do the set-up.
I turn to leave but the red hot burning of her hand on my arm freezes me to my place. Ordinarily, people touching me makes my blood boil but when Bronwen does it, I feel the heat but it feels different. It doesn't feel like anger coursing through my veins. It feels like my heart beating quicker and quicker and quicker like it's too big to fit in my chest and it wants to burst out.
I like it.
"I know exactly who you are, Joss. Don't ever try to tell me who I can and cannot love."
Her words rattle me. And they echo in my brain for the next two hours. Each time I look at her through the lens of my camera, her words come back to me.
Does she know me? Exactly? She is perceptive enough to notice things about me but that isn't the same as knowing someone.
As she walks back onto the set after another costume change, I wait for her to start posing, mindlessly clicking away at the camera while the question lingers at the tip of my tongue. Unable to hold it longer, I step out from behind the camera and give her a long stare. Directly into her eyes, no matter how uncomfortable it should feel.
"What do you know about me?"
She straightens her body, standing normally and not in a model-like pose. "I know that you're funny even though you don't try to be. You make me laugh and you don't even realise it. You're talented and you're passionate about what you do. When you talk about photography and your favourite photographers, you do it with such intensity that I can't help but become engrossed in what you're saying. It's an attractive trait."
"Oh."
"You're the first person to comfort someone when they're upset. And if you're the one who has upset them, you feel their pain more than they do. You beat yourself up- metaphorically- about it. Personally, I find it endearing that you have no idea how to react to idiomatic phrases. You're enthusiastic about music and the fact that you can drops facts about songs without needing to think about it is freakish. Your brain is like an encyclopedia. When you get anxious, your fingers move, like you're playing an invisible guitar. You tried to teach me once, do you remember? A few summers ago. Despite the fact that heavy metal is your go-to genre, you play mellow, acoustic music on the guitar. And your fingers typically move to the riffs of Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison. It was the song you tried to teach me, so I know the notes to play and they're the same as your finger movements."
"True."
She smiles. Her face brightens. "I know you hate oranges. You can't stand the way the smell lingers on your fingers. And you refuse to eat pizza with your hands because of the grease. You have poor hand-eye coordination and a deep distaste for most sports. Your attention to detail is second to none and it's why you're able to be so creative. You're always early or on time for everything, never late. You don't wait. If someone is late to meet you, you'll leave before they arrive. You're contradictory all the time. Curious yet focused. Polite but speak your mind. Naive and smart. You always question everything. 'Why?' But you're the first to try something new. 'Why not?' And you're a perfectionist who misses small details, like what it means when a girl tries to kiss you."
From behind me, I hear Tao say "Damn."
And he isn't wrong.