Within This Frame by Zart Lindy

Author:Zart, Lindy [Zart, Lindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Within This Frame
Published: 2015-12-11T04:00:00+00:00

LANCE—1996

“HI, MAGGIE.” HE felt shy, an emotion he couldn’t recall experiencing prior to Maggie Smiley.

She glared at him from where she sat in a chair as a makeup artist colored and blended her face, changing it from average to exotic. Her long hair was lassoed into a side braid with fiery locks of hair left out around her face and ears, small pink flowers threaded through it. Dressed in a flowing, strappy white dress, Maggie reminded him of a fairy, or some other mystical being.

“Hi.” The greeting was cold and curt.

It was the morning of their appointed sunrise photo shoot. Other than when forced to be near each other for the show, Maggie had strategically ignored him the past couple of weeks. When he went to see her at her apartment, Judith informed him she was either sleeping, not there, or busy. By the seventh time he stopped, even she seemed empathetic to his plight, firm though she remained.

When the blond told Maggie she was finished, Maggie got up from the seat and walked toward the photography crew that was set up near a boulder. Lance fell into step beside her, sand sliding between his toes as he walked. He wore a white buttoned-down shirt with the collar up and the buttons near the bottom of it left undone. White slacks straight and crisp, they’d been rolled up for him so that his ankles showed. Lance’s hair was styled high and floppy, a chunk of it hanging over his forehead. He’d pushed it back once and was scolded. He hadn’t touched it since.

“Can we start over?”

“Start what over?” she asked suspiciously, crossing her arms and picking up her pace. “There has to be something first, and then that something has to end, for there to be something to start over.”

“Don’t wrinkle your dress,” the photographer barked as she glanced up from readying the lens.

Black metal contraptions were set up around them like a photography prison, people rushing around to fix or change things with the setup. It was interesting how much work it took to make something seem simple and flawless.

Maggie dropped her arms like her dress was on fire, her expression abashed.

Lance gave the photographer a glower, which she returned with a lifted eyebrow, and turned back to Maggie. “Everything. I want us to be . . . whatever we were . . . and more. I’ve had plenty of time to think these past weeks while you’ve pretended like I don’t exist—”

She snorted, looking at the ocean in the distance. Lance followed her gaze. It built up, crashed down, only to rise again. He looked at Maggie, staring at her profile like his eyes had the power to make her give in to him.

“—and I realize I did and said things I shouldn’t have, and . . .” Lance swallowed thickly. “I miss you. Can we start over? Please?”

They were at a privately owned part of the beach, and Lance was positive it cost the magazine company a pretty penny to be allowed to have the photo shoot there.

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