The Tin Horse A Novel - By Janice Steinberg Page 0,131

where she was.

But to make any of that happen, I’d have to tell Papa about the photographs. And it wouldn’t be enough to tell. He would insist on seeing them. Still, if Barbara was associating with men like Yardley and Geiger, did I have the right to keep her secrets? I was only eighteen. This was too big for me.

I would tell no one but Papa, I decided. I just had to talk to him away from everyone else. That turned out to be easy. I walked into the house expecting the anxious hubbub that had greeted me every day since Barbara’s departure. But Papa was alone in the living room, sitting in his armchair reading a book. Mama was in bed with a headache, he said, and Pearl had taken Audrey and Harriet to a movie.

Papa told me about the latest phase of the search. He and Pearl had gone to the train and bus stations, even the steamship lines, but they found no one who remembered selling a ticket to Barbara. Ticket agents worked different shifts, of course, and they planned to go back during the week and try again.

“How are you doing?” He regarded me with surprising tenderness, and I fought tears.

“All right,” I said.

“Your first week of college, and we haven’t even talked about it. Tell me about your classes and professors.”

As I answered Papa’s questions about USC, my fingers kept wandering to the dirty photographs of Barbara in my handbag.

But I couldn’t let Papa see her like that. I decided to burn the photographs. Barbara would come home; at least she’d get in touch with us when it suited her. I would just have to wait until she felt ready.

I couldn’t do that, either.

ALAN YARDLEY’S PHOTOGRAPHY STUDIO WAS ON A SIDE STREET off of Hollywood Boulevard. I went there after my classes on Monday. I was nervous, expecting the sliminess of Geiger’s shop. But instead, the tiny lobby, where a pleasant middle-aged Japanese American woman announced me over an intercom, looked like an art gallery; the pristine white walls held just half a dozen cleanly spaced photographs, harshly beautiful desert scenes.

Yardley himself surprised me by being … the word that comes to mind is courtly. I’d figured he would keep me waiting, and I was prepared to stay there for hours, but he immediately opened the door to the studio and invited me in. And there was such gentleness to Alan Yardley. He was in his fifties, I guessed, and he was slender and quite tall, over six feet, although he walked with a stoop, as if to keep people from being intimidated. And even though I jumped in the second I walked into his studio and accused him of lying to Papa, his gaze remained kind and a little sad.

“You do know her! I have some of the pictures you took of her!” I said.

“The pictures?” he said softly.

“From Arthur Geiger’s store.”

“Ah.” He regarded me with his sorrowful eyes. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t see any point in mentioning the pictures to your father. I thought it would only upset him. Does he know?”

I shook my head.

“So you thought that, too. You didn’t want to hurt him.”

Ridiculously, I started to cry.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “Let me see if the tea is ready. I asked Harumi to fix some. Please do sit down.”

He went out to the lobby, giving me a few minutes alone. I got control of myself, then looked around.

An open area at the far end of the room was where Yardley staged photographs. The space currently held a stool draped in gray velvety fabric, and a rice paper screen provided a soft background. Two cameras mounted on tripods and several lights on poles faced the “stage.” Just behind the cameras, in the center of the studio, were a low table and two wooden chairs. On one side of the room, he kept various props: stools, chairs, platforms, drapes, and so on. The opposite side was a working area with a light table and more photographic equipment. And on the wall above the light table hung more of the austere desert photographs I’d seen in the lobby.

Yet despite the accumulation of objects, the studio was surprisingly peaceful. Even as I anticipated a further confrontation with Yardley, something about the desert photographs made me feel calm.

Yardley came back in carrying a tray with a white ceramic teapot, two handleless white cups, and a plate of almond cookies.

“Joshua Tree National Monument,” he said, following my