Picture Perfect 67
Dan went up to the work lab on the third floor. He pulled up Teresa’s photos & focused on two of them. The one of her with Stoney and the one of his sister Linda with Kevin. They had been taken with Teresa’s camera. He could recall that little Kodak of hers. For such a crap camera it took okay pictures. The shots had been taken within a short time of each other around the same location. The post Teresa & Stoney were leaning against was to the left of Linda & Kevin. Shadows made it mid-afternoon.
None of them looked as if they were dressed for a date. Minimal make up on the girls. Sloppy clothes on the guys. Maybe they didn’t dressed up for afternoon dates. Maybe it wasn’t a date. Of course the girls must have dropped by to have lunch with their circus hands.
He cropped each of the pictures so they only showed the couples from the waist up. With Stoney’s denim incased dick out of the picture it was clear to Dan that this was the face of no twenty year old as Teresa was convinced he was. Funny how an ample cock could add years.
He went into the family photos and found one with Linda and the man she had introduced to the family as Kevin. He was clearly not the man with Linda in Teresa’s picture.
Once he was satisfied with the cropped pictures he emailed them to Linda with the subject line: “Remember when” The body of the email said: ‘Met up with Teresa Dunlop this past week. She has lots of vivid memories of you and me from when we in Stellerton. Here’s a couple of picture she had of you and her with various boy toys. Let me know what memories they call up for you.”
He’d let her tell him who the the various men were. It was possible he had the years mixed up. But she was wearing the same blouse and pedal pushers in both pics, merely with different men on her arm.
A few minutes later his cell beeped. It was Linda.
“How long are you in Toronto for?” She asked.
“I leave tomorrow night.”
“I see. It’s hard to proceed with things with you out of town. You aren’t making things any easier for either of us.”
“What’s the hurry Linda? I’ll see you on the morning as arranged.”
“I can’t make any decisions here until the business split in finalized. I should never have let you …”
“You didn’t let me do anything Linda. Even the Lifend was your idea.”
“Yeah, but it was your idea to become their sole agent.”
“They offered that to both of us. I said yes while you weighed your options. Speaking of Lifend has anyone representing them visited your store?”
“Who knows? I’ve been busy enough here. Is there one in town?”
He told her quickly about Jakob Marhene & forwarded the photos of him to her as they spoke.
“Not familiar to me.” She said.
“I hope not but after Cuppa’s you can’t blame me for being suspicious.”
“I …”
“Did those pictures I just sent of you & Teresa spark any memories?” He had to take control of the conversation before she started double-talking.
“Teresa was a … tramp. Anything in pants caught her eye & this guy Rocky …”
“Stoney.” Dan supplied.
“Right, Stoney lasted longer than any of the others. I don’t remember the guy with me at all.”
“Kevin?” Dan suggested.
“No! He was just some pal of Stoney’s. They worked at the Hippo doing odd jobs, I think. Dan it’s all so long ago. What does this have to do with anything, anyway?”
“Tracking down leads for the cold case show. Remember that’s my job now. Just because it’s family doesn’t mean I can over look it.”
A blue light started flash. It was the alarm from the store that someone was looking for him downstairs.
“I gotta go. I’m being paged by the shop. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He called the store.
“There’s someone down here to see you.” Sandy said.
“Customer?”
“You might say that.” another voice answered.
“Jeremy! I’ll right down.”
Jeremy and Ashley were talking with Ushio. He was demonstrating a drone for them. Ashley tried to take a pictures of the drone as it darted around her head.
His daughter, Ashley dashed over and, after moving her Reporter camera to one side, hugged him.
“Time you got a more lady like camera.” Dan said.
“That is a sexist remark.” She said.
“Then let me rephrase it – time you got something with a faster shutter speed.” Dan reached past her to shake hands with Jeremy.
“How’s east coast life?” Jeremy asked.
“Wet and windy.” Dan replied.
“That was quite a storm. I guess you were in the middle of it.”
“I hope you got some good pics!” Ashley said.
“What do you think.” Dan said.
“Show me. Show me.” She demanded.
“Well? There’s nothing duller than someone’s travel photos.” Dan said.
“Indulge us,”Jeremy touched Dan on the biceps.
“Twist my arm why don’t you. I do have a slide show of my storm pics.” He went over to the store showroom computer and loaded the film from his cloud. The pictures appeared on all the TVs on display and the one in the front window.
“This is the car I was driving. Built for speed.”
“Built for looks.” Jeremy said.
“These are some quick grabs as I stopped to decide which way to go to Stellerton. These are the cloudy horizon … the first drops … the lightening … the nearly total dark before the storm really hit … the windshield wipers losing the battle … a short video of the rain on the roof and on the wind shield …”
‘Weren’t you scared at all?” daughter asked.
“Oh yeah. Here’s where I pulled off at the Proud Tartan in Port Elgin. … my red beer … my excellent burger … the sudden power loss … on the porch ….”
“You can’t see across the street.” Jeremy said.
“Too true.”
“My room at the Tartan b’n’b …. Larry Clarke my rescuer … a little film Larry’s jeep … I love the way it emerges from the rain but never seems to separate from it either … … ”
“How did you get those pictures driving in the rain?” daughter asked. “You can’t drive and aim a camera at the same time. Can you?”
“Nope. I let my Lifend travel mug do most of the work. I edited these when I had time.”
The slide show had progressed to the video him and Larry careening down the slope on Moose Trail.
“That’s flipping amazing.” Sandy said.
“Yeah pretty good picture quality for a travel mug.” Jeremy laughed.
“That one calls for Imax.” daughter said.
“At end of the trail.” Dan said at the last slide show picture of himself standing by the jeep.
“You don’t look much worse for wear after your downhill surfing.” Jeremy said.
“Daddy & I were wondering if you might be free for supper.”
“I knew there was a real reason for you two to show up here.” Dan said.
“There’s something I’d like to talk over with anyway.” Jeremy said.
“I don’t like the sound of that.” Dan smiled. “I was looking forward to a night of nothing in my own little house. Busy day tomorrow and then I’m heading back to Moncton on a six o’clock flight.”
“We could send out from your little house. Couldn’t we Daddy.” Ashley said.
Dan hesitated. Peter was moved in for his house sitting duties. Explaining that to the Moxham’s would require more tact than he could muster at short notice.
“Unless you have other plans.” Jeremey said.
“All right. Let’s see …” Dan checked the time on his cell. “Say 6:30. That gives me time to get home first and make sure the cobwebs have been cleared out.”
“Perfect. Okay princess, let’s get out of here.” Jeremy said opening the shop door for her.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
TOpoet 