his cell phone from his pocket and found her number. He clicked on her number and opened a text message.
He asked one question.
Are you still waiting?
It took a few seconds for the knowing little dots to tell him she was responding.
Victor?
He had no right being this happy.
Good answer, he replied.
I thought for sure you’d be back to work by now.
He smiled. I am. No one is looking me in the eye.
That’s rough.
He stepped out of character and asked, How would you handle it?
You want my advice?
Yes.
Ignoring the elephant in the room never makes it go away.
Victor rubbed his chin and grinned. Wise and beautiful.
The telling dots went on for quite a while, as if she were typing something, changing her mind, and then restarting.
You said three months, Victor. Now go away.
He laughed out loud.
The phone on his desk buzzed.
“Yes?” he answered.
“Everyone is gathered in the boardroom, Mr. Brooks.”
Had it been an hour? He looked at the time.
Daydreaming about Shannon was very time-consuming.
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
He opened his phone to a different app and slowly made his way to the meeting.
No one looked at him as he walked the hall, and many people scattered out of his path to avoid contact.
He was the elephant.
Inside the boardroom, the talking came to an abrupt halt with his presence.
“Good morning,” he said.
A chorus of replies similar in nature returned.
Then silence.
He placed his phone on the table and pressed play.
His staff exchanged nervous glances as the drum riff of Simon and Garfunkel’s hit about all the ways to leave your lover started to fill the room. When the words started to sink in and the chorus played, the nervous looks of his employees turned to smiles and laughter.
Victor was pretty sure he burped up mezcal at the memory of singing the song with a near stranger in a Tulum bar.
The song ended and the air in the room eased.
“Seems Corrie realized I was a workaholic asshole, wised up, and ran in the opposite direction as fast as she could.”
No one in the room disagreed with him.
Not one.
He laughed. “Okay . . . tell me what I missed.”
Shannon’s studio was a tight, comfortable space with a room in the back fit for photo shoots. Her small office sported a TV-size monitor where she could scroll through the images she’d taken and narrow down the best shots without clicking on each one.
Even though Victor and Corrie’s wedding was one that would never have the bride and the groom skimming the images, Shannon found herself sifting through the pictures anyway.
The tightness in the faces of the bride and groom had been passed off as nerves at the time, but now when she was looking at them, Shannon saw something completely different.
Doubt.
Easily deduced in light of Corrie taking off, but even with Victor. He’d been so uptight when she first started taking his photograph with his groomsmen.
She came across the pictures she’d managed of Victor and Justin. Their resemblance really popped on camera, especially when they smiled.
Shannon filed a couple of the better, more natural shots in a folder and continued through the pictures. She’d taken several shots while the guests were being seated . . . of Victor standing on the sidelines, waiting for word that Corrie was on her way. She zoomed in on an image where Justin was saying something to Victor that drew out a heated response. Then she found one of Victor looking at his watch.
From then on, the images she caught were pictures no one realized she was taking. Her lens had focused on Victor when he’d told his guests that his bride had cold feet. His gaze looked over the people, avoiding eye contact. Embarrassed? Upset? Shannon couldn’t decipher his mood.
The somber mood of the people that lingered after Victor left could be felt in the photographs. They huddled in small groups, drank the free liquor, ate the food. At some point someone made an executive decision to set the food up on a long table, and the local families that walked up and down the beach tempting tourists with their handmade trinkets were offered a free meal.
That was when Shannon took picture after picture.
The local children laughed with their siblings with bright eyes and animated faces. They stuffed their bodies with food and their souls with their family. These kids had next to nothing in terms of things. It was apparent in their lack of shoes that fit and the clothes that looked as if they’d been passed down