“Stand there and quit making fun of me,” she said as she unscrewed the cap of her viewfinder.
“Are you going to get weepy over this old redwood?” Luke teased.
“I’m getting weepy over everything that’s going to be torn down to make way for your fancy park.”
He held still while she took the photograph, then dove straight back into his arguments. “Sometimes you have to clear away the old to make way for the new and improved. Come on, let’s climb this thing.”
It was musty inside the tree trunk as they climbed to the viewing platform at the top. With the summer breeze on her face and the fully leafed trees in the arboretum below, it almost felt like they were at the top of a primeval world. Luke braced his arms on the railing as he gazed toward the Washington Monument, one of the few structures tall enough to be seen over the thickly wooded trees. Even the spires of the Smithsonian castle could barely be seen because the ugly blot of the Washington Gas Works obscured most of the view. The Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station also sat in the middle of the proposed National Mall.
“Someday we will be able to see for two full miles,” he said. “The mall will be like a smooth carpet of grass stretching from monument to monument.”
She shook her head and pointed to the Gothic splendor of the B&P Railroad Station. “That is the most beautiful building in the entire city, and it’s only thirty years old. You want us to tear it down?”
“We must tear it down. Marianne, just imagine! On one end of the park we’ll have the Capitol, where our nation’s laws are being created as we speak. At the other end will be memorials to our greatest heroes. This mall will be a hymn to the nation, built of granite and grass. This is the only place in the entire country for such a park. Go build your piddly railroad station somewhere else,” he said with a wink.
When he spoke so passionately, she could almost see his vision. It would take decades and cost a fortune, but it would be appreciated by generations of people long into the future. Someday soon all this would be swept away. Even the grand old redwood tree in which they stood would be torn down, and people would forget it had ever been here.
“It’s still sad to see it all go,” she said.
“Change is always a little sad, but exciting too, don’t you think?” Before she could answer, he reached for her camera. “Let me take your picture. At this exact moment you are the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, and I want to remember you this way forever.”
“Because I’ll be old and grizzled someday?”
“You certainly shall, but not today,” he said, looking down through the viewfinder. She instinctively knew how to stand against the railing and tilt her chin for the best angle.
“You’re wasting film,” she said as Luke proceeded to take a second and then a third photograph of her. She didn’t need to ask why he was doing this. They both knew these stolen afternoons couldn’t last forever, and someday these photographs might be all they had left to remember this time.
“I’ll pay for the film,” he said, not even lifting his gaze from the viewfinder as he took another photograph.
“Taking pictures is cheap and easy. It’s developing them that is the challenge.”
His fingers stopped moving. “Truer words were never spoken.” His words were calm, but she sensed the tension just beneath the surface.
This was a difficult subject, and she probed gently. “Will you help me in the darkroom?”
“Must I?” He cocked a brow at her, probably trying to charm her, which usually worked. But not today.
Luke’s claustrophobia was getting worse. It began the day they visited the prison together, when the experience awakened bad memories and old fears. Last week when he helped her in the darkroom, he’d abruptly left after only two minutes, claiming he needed a drink of water. Yesterday he’d accompanied her to photograph the interior of the B&P Railroad Station. Spare parts were stored in a windowless room crammed to the rafters with supplies. The moment she and Luke entered, he unknotted his tie and tugged at his collar. His complexion was pasty and covered with perspiration.
“Are you all right?” she had asked.
“Not really,” he admitted. “Go ahead. I’m not leaving. But be quick about it, please.”
Her work took only a few minutes, and the moment she was finished, Luke stumbled outside, drawing in huge gulps of air even though the atmosphere in the repair shop had been fine.
His symptoms were getting so bad that she wondered if he would be able to join her in the darkroom at all. “I’ll have six rolls of film to develop on Friday,” she said. “I could use help hanging the wet images.”
“The part that’s done with the window shades drawn?”
“The very same.”
His mouth tightened. “I’ll be there,” he said as grimly as though he were facing an execution.
“Good,” she said, but a little laughter had gone out of their day.
Marianne’s photography assignment on Thursday took her to Fort Myer, a US Army post directly across the Potomac River. She’d been asked to photograph the row of homes informally known as General’s Row, where some of the nation’s top military leaders lived. It was a lovely, tree-shaded street with spacious red brick homes set well back from the road. It was a typical assignment except for the person selected to accompany her.
Colonel Henry Phelps.
Usually a job like this would be assigned to a low-level clerk, not a colonel, and Marianne sensed her father’s hand in this. Clyde had been pulling strings to throw her and Colonel Phelps together for months, and he probably not only arranged the assignment sending her to Fort Myer, but hand-selected her escort too. Colonel Phelps was in his mid-thirties, had light brown hair with a fine mustache, and ramrod-straight posture. Many women would find him appealing.
“This is some of the finest military housing anywhere in the country,” Colonel Phelps said as they walked up a flagstone path leading to the first house on her list. The Victorian home featured a wraparound front porch with white railings.
“Have you ever lived in such a place?” she asked while setting up her tripod.
“Heavens, no. I grew up in a third-story tenement in Pittsburgh, where my father worked in a steel mill. I’ve never actually lived in a proper house. I went straight from the tenement into the army, so it’s been a barracks life for me.” His eyes took on a wistful look as he gazed at the stately homes on General’s Row. “Maybe someday I’ll be on this street.”
She took her first photograph, then cranked the roll of film. “Don’t you have to be a general first?”
“That’s the plan,” he pointed out with a good-natured smile.
He continued talking about his family while she took pictures. He had a brother who was a steelworker and an uncle who worked as a machinist for the railroad. Both his sisters married millworkers. Colonel Phelps was clearly the pride of the family, the one who had already cracked through the barriers of class to make his mark in the world. He carried her satchel as they moved to the far side of the home for another set of photographs.
“Tell me about your own family,” he said courteously as she began her next round of pictures. “I believe I read that your father has a sister, but I don’t know more than that.”