Livora Gracely

For once, the wind could do all the talking.

Too Much Light

Nora had prepared everything for the photograph except somewhere for the wind to go.

The ceramic woman stood on the table at the back of her shop, her face lifted, blue hair swept away from her cheeks. Ribbons curved out behind her and held their shape above the tabletop. Nora had arranged a little vase beneath one of them and folded a length of silk beside the base.

“I wanted her to look at home,” she told Kit.

The photographer set his camera on its stand.

“Let’s see how the light falls first.”

He switched on the lamp and took a test photograph. On the camera screen, a bright white patch covered the woman’s cheek. Part of her sleeve had disappeared into another patch of light.

Nora leaned closer.

“She had a face when I put her there.”

“She still does,” Kit said. “The lamp is being rather enthusiastic.”

Room for the Ribbons

Kit moved the lamp to one side and angled it toward a large white board. The reflected light fell softly across the table. On the next photograph, the woman’s cheek curved into view again, and the blue flowers on her sleeve had separate petals.

Nora touched the edge of the screen, keeping her finger clear of the image.

“That’s the blue.”

She had tried to describe it to customers over the telephone. Dark blue, she usually said, then found herself adding several qualifications.

Kit adjusted the frame to match the square photographs on the other catalogue pages.

The end of a ribbon vanished beyond the edge.

He widened the view. Now the whole figure fitted, but the vase hid the lower curve of another ribbon. The folded silk crowded her feet.

Nora looked from the screen to the table. She had spent most of the morning choosing that silk.

“May I take these away?” she asked.

Kit stepped aside to give her room. She lifted the vase clear, then drew out the silk without brushing the ceramic folds.

A pale rectangle of tabletop appeared where the cloth had been.

A Different Frame

With the props gone, Nora could follow each ribbon from the woman’s shoulders to its curled end. She stepped back beside Kit.

“Could we leave more room here?”

She pointed above the lifted face.

Kit turned the camera horizontally and tried a wider photograph. The figure stood to one side, her gaze directed into the empty space above and ahead of her.

Nora studied it for a while.

“Our catalogue uses squares,” she said.

“For the individual listings. What about the opening page?”

She pulled the paper layout from beneath her notebook. At the front, she had drawn four little boxes, each waiting for a photograph.

Kit waited while she looked between the layout and the camera screen.

Nora rubbed out the boxes and drew one broad rectangle.

“This one,” she said.

He made a small adjustment to the light. She folded the unused silk and put it back on its shelf.

Her Own Weather

They compared the last few photographs on Kit’s laptop. Nora chose the one in which a faint shadow beneath the ribbons showed how far they curved away from the woman’s body.

He saved it in the catalogue folder and turned the laptop toward her once more.

At the bottom of the paper layout, Nora wrote the figure’s height, the price, and the name of the shop. She checked the measurements against her notes, then set her pencil down.

There was still plenty of space around the lifted face.

From the front of the shop came the soft rattle of someone trying the door. Their appointment had run into opening time.

“Anything else before I let the customers in?” Nora asked.

Kit checked the saved photograph.

“No. We have it.”

She glanced at the figure, then at the lamp and the empty stretch of table.

“Some wind, perhaps?”

Kit smiled.

“She brought her own.”