Page 13

THIRTEEN

“ N ice try,” Cookie is saying. “But I think you’re missing the point.”

She’s talking about the pictures Eddie took, which clearly aren’t what she wanted. For starters, there are only two, Val’s and CVS. No Patisserie Gaston (in Eddie’s defense, Theo and those tattoos—who could blame him for forgetting?). But the real problem isn’t the quantity, it’s the quality, and while Cookie’s not chastising him, not exactly—she’s being gentle, and it’s not like he did anything wrong—Eddie is feeling contrite. He’s already let her down, and on his first real day here.

He sets the bunch of alstroemeria, which he’s trimmed and put into a vase elaborately decorated with pop-art squiggles and curlicues, onto her side table.

“I’ve been buying flowers at Val’s since 1954,” Cookie says. “I don’t need a picture of the sign out front. I know what it looks like.”

“But I thought you asked for—”

“I did,” she interrupts. “But Lollipop, look at me. I’m stuck here in this bed. I can’t see anything but these four walls. Obviously, they’re not bad walls, if you have to stare at walls, but they’re not enough. I miss New York City. It is my inspiration, and these days, my medicine. If I can’t be part of what’s happening out there, if I can’t breathe the air on the streets and go outside to watch the people on the sidewalk, I’ll do nothing but wither away up here. I’m a New Yorker. But right now I can’t take myself into the city, so I need you to bring the city to me.”

“Isn’t that what these are?”

She shakes her head. “When I ask you for a picture of Val’s, I don’t mean just Val’s. I need to see the life around Val’s. I need to see who’s walking a dog out in front of Val’s, and I need to wonder what that dog is feeling. I need to see what trees are in bloom, and I need to wonder whether those blooms are making people happy or making them sneeze. I need to see what the young people are wearing this season, and I need to wonder whether I should be wearing it, too. I need more than just a picture of a sign. I need a picture of life, a picture that means something. Do you understand?”

Eddie lowers himself into the chair. A picture is a picture, isn’t it? It’s a moment, captured and frozen. Proof that something happened, or that something existed. A picture is a fact. At least, that’s what it is before you start putting filters on it and manipulating it to try to alter the facts it contains. That’s what Eddie’s always thought.

“No,” Eddie says finally. “I don’t.”

She points her back scratcher at the wall. “Look. Do you see that photograph there?”

Eddie’s eyes follow the back scratcher to a black-and-white photograph in a silver frame. It depicts a woman in casual pants and a henley-style sweater, walking along a sidewalk that looks like it’s in New York City. She’s striding self-assuredly, her arms relaxed and her head straight. A giant pair of bug-eye sunglasses covers half her face, hiding any expression. But she’s not the only one in the frame. There’s also a photographer off to one side, looking disheveled and anxious as he tries to keep up, as if he’s trying to get in front of her so he, too, can take her picture.

“Do you know who that is?” Cookie asks.

“No,” Eddie says.

“Who do you think it is? If you had to guess.”

Eddie studies it a little longer. “Someone important, I guess.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because that photographer looks like he’s chasing her. Which means there are at least two photographers, even though you can only see one. And the woman, she hasn’t stopped to pose, she’s still walking, so it seems like she doesn’t want to have her picture taken. They look desperate but she looks confident. So, she must be important. More important than they are, anyway. And it seems like she knows that.”

He looks back at Cookie. She is staring at him with clear eyes, hands clasped beneath her chin. Eddie can’t read her expression, either.

“What?” he says.

“You got all that just by looking at this photograph?”

“Am I wrong?”

“No,” she says, her voice dreamy and soft. “You got everything right. That means it’s a good photograph, an interesting photograph. It’s more than just a picture. It’s a window into something more.”

She holds up the pictures he gave her of Val’s and CVS. “If all I needed was to be reminded what a storefront looks like, these photos would be fine. But I need a window. I need to wonder what the person walking through the frame is thinking. I need to see an emotion on a face that makes me care about their life. I need to see something that makes me imagine what happened before you took the picture, and what happened after. I need to see magic. That’s what I need you to bring me. Magic.”

“Magic?”

“Magic.”

Eddie thinks back to the man at the fire hydrant. Is that what she means by magic? He almost tells her about him, but since he doesn’t have the picture anymore, he doesn’t see the point. “How do you make that happen?” he asks.

“Ah,” she says. “That’s the hard part. You have to find a way to attract it. But you can’t try too hard, or it won’t ever appear.”

Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s not enough to keep your eyes open. You have to keep your mind open, too.”

He looks back at the photograph.

“That’s Jackie O, by the way,” Cookie says. “Or, as you might have learned in history class, Jacqueline Kennedy. The first lady back in the early 1960s.”

“Oh,” Eddie says. He doesn’t remember much from history class.

“Anyway,” Cookie says. “Do you need more film? We have tons. My friend Ernie worked for the Polaroid company and part of his pension package was a lifetime supply of film. He never used it and left it all to me when he died. Check the wardrobe in the corridor.”

Eddie finds the stash of film (she’s right, there’s tons), and she shows him how to swap out a spent cartridge for a fresh one.

“Perfect,” she says. “Now let’s practice.” She picks up her hand mirror and freshens her lipstick, rubbing her lips together with a smack. She turns the mirror over on the bed and reaches up to her forehead. “Is my beret on straight?”

“Yes.”

She flicks her orange curl. “Spit curl just so?”

“Yep.”

“How’s my fallalery? Do I have enough?”

“Your what?”

“My jewelry. Maybe I need another necklace or brooch?”

“I think you look fine,” he says.

She shakes her head. “Why don’t you try that again. How do I look?”

He remembers. “Beautiful, gorgeous, breathtaking. Like a million bucks.”

She adjusts the shoulders of her dressing gown. “Just a million?”

“I mean a billion bucks,” he says. “With a B .”

“Oh, you sweet talker. Now you go stand over there and let me find my light.” She tilts her head slightly to one side, catching a reflected bit of sunshine from outside her window with her cheek. She tweaks her curl one more time, then turns her head slightly and looks up at him with a coquettish smirk. “Okay, I’m ready for my close-up.”

Eddie raises the camera and steps toward her, filling the viewfinder with her face.

“Not that close!”

“I thought you said close-up—”

“It’s an expression! Haven’t you ever seen Sunset Boulevard? ”

Eddie has no idea if Sunset Boulevard is a movie, or a play, or what, but he apologizes, backs up, and takes a picture. The camera spits out a card. He takes it and steps toward the bed. They watch it develop together.

“You look great,” Eddie says, meaning it.

“Hmph,” she says. “Take another one.”

“But won’t it be exactly the same?” he says.

“I said another one.”

“Okay.” He steps back into place, raises the camera, takes another. They watch this one develop. It looks just like the last one to him.

“Again,” she says.

“But won’t it be the same again? I don’t want to waste film—”

“Again.”

He complies, two and three more times.

“Should I change a setting on the camera or something?” he asks.

“That won’t matter,” she says. “The camera isn’t the important part. It’s just a machine. Take another one.”

He takes another, and then another and another, a whole cartridge of film of Cookie, all in the exact same pose, all with the exact same expression. He lays them all down on the bed in front of her, and together they watch them develop.

“Hmm,” she says after the images emerge. She picks up a photo and hands it to him. “Not this one.”

“I think you look great.”

“Yes, I do. But it is not a good picture. No magic.” She picks up another. “This one isn’t any good, either. Or this one, or this one, or that one.”

One by one, Eddie drops the rejects, each one an objectively good photograph of Cookie, into the wastepaper basket by her bed. Soon there’s only one photo remaining on the bed. She examines it for a moment, then takes it in her hands. She holds it very close to her eyes, then a bit more distant, then close again. Something comes over her face, a wash of color, light, relief, happiness. She stares at the photograph, mesmerized.

He steps around to her side to look.

There is nothing specific that you could identify in the picture that is different from any of the others, not the setting, not her position, not the light. But this one is different, beautiful in a different way. Something about the light from the window, the way it drapes over her face, amplifying every one of her hundred years in the lines around her eyes, the grooves across her forehead, the nicks beneath her lips—she looks like she’s lived forever, and yet, there’s an undeniably youthful glow coming through. And something about the way the light hits her eyes, like she has as many questions as answers. The other pictures were fine, and Cookie looked nice in them. But yes. This one is different. Captivating. He sees a story in it. Would he call it magic? Maybe he should.

Cookie runs her fingernail across the image. “There she is,” she says. “There she is.”