|
|
Pictures he takes:
Amy, looking radiant (that word invented for brides), standing by
the trumpet vine. The flaming, trumpet-shaped flowers set off the
gold streaks in her rich brown hair. If Matt took one hundred thousand
pictures of Amy, he could never do her justice, never get her right,
never express the depth of his love for her. His unselfish,
let's-still-be-friends love, which is, after all, his chief
motive for volunteering
to be the official photographer at her wedding.
Amy and Warren, together. By the trumpet vine, by the cake, by
the rose trellis, by the champagne table. Matt focuses on Warren's
bulging Adam's apple, on his skinny wrists. He'd like to use a special
lens which would zoom in on the worst of Warren's features,
revealing to Amy (the camera doesn't lie) what a terrible mistake she
has made in marrying this man. Though, Matt thinks sourly, Amy
won't care what Warren looks like in the pictures as long as she
looks good. (And, to be fair, isn't that the way Matt himself is? The
way most of us are? We take pictures selfishly, to remember
ourselves by.) All brides are beautiful on their wedding day, Matt
thinks. Matt is full of clichés about brides today.
Amy's Uncle Hugh, over by the dahlias getting smashed on
Freixenet. Matt takes a shot of Hugh talking to himself, and it's going
to look fine when it comes out, it's going to look like Hugh having a
nice, normal conversation with somebody who just happens to be out
of the frame.
To get it over with, a picture of Dr. and Mrs. Giovanni, whom
Matt despises, possibly even more than they despise him. Amy's
landlords, the Giovannis have not only rented her their downstairs
garden apartment dirt-cheap (she's the only tenant in San Francisco
who's had her rent lowered over the years), they have semi-adopted
her as the beloved daughter they never had. They cheered from the
sidelines when Amy threw Matt over for Warren, and they look so
smug today that Matt would like to slug them both.
Reprinted with permission
from Greensboro Review, Summer 1993
Copyright © 1993
by Judith Slater
|
Bibliography
