On Camera, On Paper

Her camera was always on before she was in the frame. Always the same place, always the same background, the same wall. He studied it microscopically when she wasn’t there to see him. He memorized all of it, the way he memorized the turn of her chin, the flick of her fingers through her hair when she leaned over and it got in her eye. The corner of a bright blue painting, cut off enough from his view that he couldn’t decide if it was the ocean or the sky, in its sturdy and rustic wooden frame. The long table behind her chair, dotted with candles and decorative bottles that were sometimes filled with colorful flowers, dandelions or cheap carnations. As the week went along, he’d watch each morning as they drooped a little more than the morning before. There was a stack of leathery books between the candles and bottles, like an Altar to Learning: Dostoevsky, with a title blocked by the faceted glass of the crystal salt and pepper shakers in front of it that seemed like antiques. And two heavy Brittanica Language reference books that looked rough at the corners and like they probably had that distinctive old book smell, that scent that feels like a dusty old trunk in the back of an attic. He wondered if its cover felt like the stories of the people who had held them and pored over the text.

She slid into view just before the start of the scheduled meeting, just as she always did. Black leggings and a pen in her right hand crossing the screen before it moved out of frame, just like always. Today she was wearing one of the black long sleeve shirts too. He liked it best when she wore the pink shirt, but that was rare. The light, dusty color made her face seem so much brighter, and he had to make sure that he wasn’t staring on those days. Probably better that she didn’t wear it very often.

The Boss flicked on his camera and the meeting started.

They covered the day’s agenda, someone mentioned a claim that needed to be followed up on. He heard Sophia typing and taking notes, just like she always did. They talked about last week’s payouts and being more stringent with qualifications. Sophia started to make a casual comment about the comparison to last year’s payouts in correlation with how much they’d grown, and she was cut off before she could finish. But Brian knew what she was talking about, he always loved how nothing slipped by her, she saw it all, all of the evils of the insurance company and their money-grubbing industry. They both knew that their boss was making loads more this year while tightening payouts, canceling annual bonuses, and freezing everyone’s salary because of “pandemic emergency”. But the indefinite WFH order proved more of a blessing than Brian had expected. He’d never met Sophia, The Boss’s assistant, before these daily virtual management meetings, and she was his favorite part of the day. Even the minutes before she was on camera when all he could do was look at that table and the corner of the painting.

When the meeting was finished, Sophia reached behind her, put the little black notebook and the pen on the table in front of the Brittanica's, just like she always did, and turned off her camera.

In an hour or so, everyone would get an email from Sophia with meeting minutes, and a list of tasks to be completed, some assigned to a particular person as per The Boss. Brian loved it when there was something that he needed to do, it almost felt like she was writing a note to him, even though it was a note that the whole team could see, and it never included anything other that the necessary information for his assignment.

He wondered what her hair smelled like, and felt bad for imagining himself holding her and inhaling the jasmine-honey scent of her shampoo, or maybe it would smell like warm cotton, soft and familiar. He tried not to do that, but daydreams are easy during insurance sales management.

Seven months into the seemingly ceaseless pandemic and holidays were approaching. The Boss said something about a virtual holiday party and there were some groans and a generally unenthusiastic reaction.

“Well, look, I was going to send each of you a bottle of nice champagne so that we could all toast together. But if you don’t want to have a party, I won’t send you all a bottle, and I’ll have a lot of nice gifts for clients next year.”

Suddenly the response switched: Ohhhh! Yes, we should all have a “cheers” together! Let’s do that.

He knew that would change everyone’s minds, and he would get to feel like a generous, kind boss at the very end of the year. The generous, kind, Reagan-loving boss who was a shining example of the failures of Trickle Down economics. He asked everyone to wear red or green since they wouldn’t be decorating the office this year. Once again finding a clever way to outsource his responsibilities and make it part of everyone else’s.

December 17.

The day before the party and two small packages arrive on Brian’s doorstep with a 375ml demi bottle of Veuv Cliquot in each.

In a locked chatroom sarcastically called “The Watercooler” even though they never had a watercooler when they were at the office, his coworkers complained in tones of “We should’ve known...” false shock at the half-assed, half-bottle they received, barely enough for two glasses of champagne. Everyone had been planning to participate in the obligatory toast, vaguely mingle for a few more minutes, and then going finish their fancy bubbles off with whomever they actually wanted to be spending their time with. Apparently not lost on The Boss.

Brian could feel his skittish anticipation about the party. Whenever he thought of her wearing red, his pulse pounded with a bulging throb in his neck below his chin. He moved his mind to Dostoevsky and remembered that he wanted to discuss Russian literature with her, and ask whether she drank sweetened milky tea or harsh black coffee because those felt like the beverages most appropriate for discussing Russian literature with the person you hope to fall breathlessly in love with.

The evening of the party her camera was on for only a few moments before she slid into view, just before their scheduled party time. She was wearing black leggings, as always, with a pen in her hand, as always. And the black long sleeve shirt that had become more frequent in the winter months. But this time she was wearing a cherry red lipstick. He had memorized her face months ago and could’ve told you that the little bow above her lip was short and shallow, and that she had a faint freckle just under her left eyebrow. But not once in his adoring fantasies of falling in love with the Lady in Red did he ever see jewel-toned lips that looked like the passageway to dark secrets he’d barely dreamed of or considered.

He looked away, certain that his neck must look like some kind of Hulk mutation as he felt his green tie squeezing rhythmically boom, boom, boom.

More of his coworkers started joining the party and Brian went to his refrigerator to get one of the bottles just before The Boss appeared.

Without any greeting or introduction, The Boss boomed, “Did everyone receive their bottle and chill it appropriately? I wanted everyone to have them yesterday so that they could be served at the correct temperature. Sophia made sure. Did everyone chill their champagne? It’s a horrible disservice to even attempt drinking at the incorrect temperature.”

Brian blinked. He heard The Boss continue some requisite celebratory speech about the company and the year and some crap about returns, but mostly he just kept repeating in his head, “Sophia made sure. Sophia made sure. Sophia made sure.”

The next week he went to her apartment to pick up her company computer and printer. He volunteered immediately. So unexpected, so abrupt, so tragic. His heart went out to her family, even though he didn’t know who they were.

“They said you’d be here today to pick up her work stuff,” Sophia’s landlady said, in her cracked, elderly voice. She watched while Brian disconnected the laptop and printer, and took his time wrapping the cords.

The blue painting that always made him wonder what kind of art she liked was a march of soldiers and people, and he still couldn’t tell if they were coming from the sky or walking into the sea.

He would never hold her hand or ask her those questions.

He was leaning so close to the painting and hadn’t even realized it.

“That belongs to her family, you can’t take that,” the landlady snapped with surprising vigor.

Brian stammered that he was just admiring the art, and didn’t realize how close he was. He closed the laptop and glanced down. Her little black book was there.

“Company notes,” he said as he stuffed it in his jacket pocket and gathered the machines for a speedy exit.

After work, after he’d dropped the laptop and the printer off at the empty office building, he sat at his kitchen table with the black leather notebook that he’d seen so many times before and wasn’t quite sure why he’d grabbed, or why he’d made it a secret. It probably really was boring company notes from the meetings, things she needed to send in that day’s email.

But it would be in her handwriting, and that was the closest he’d ever gotten to her.

He opened the soft black leather, “In case of loss,” printed in charcoal typeset with a line through it and a few spaces down, “...FOR BRIAN” in small block letters, that ellipses like an unsure dedication that lingers longer than expected.

Brian closed his eyes, opened them, and read it again.

“...FOR BRIAN”

He was up all night reading it. Love poems and sonnets with little black and white ink sketches of swans and caterpillars becoming butterflies and hands that didn’t quite touch each other. There was a narrative about a goddess who sees everything, and sees the prince who’s in love with her, but they can never be together because she is the Goddess of Knowledge who holds the Flame of Wisdom, and he would be scorched. Riddles and puns about puppy-love, and a piece just before the end contemplating the differences or similarities between love and death.

For Brian.

A year later, Brian is one week from his publishing date. “We had no idea you wrote poetry,” everyone said. He’d taken Sophia’s sketches out. When he told his publisher that he wanted the book to include art and he had some pretty clear ideas about it, they found an excellent illustrator who made colorful, lavish recreations of what Brian described. Of Sophia’s imagination.

He kept her original art in a photo book next to his bed with laminated pages, hidden like a journal of unreachable dreams.

Even before its release, everyone predicted the book would be a NYT hit, and when it was assembled and printed, Brian got a $20,000 advance.

He quit his job, but didn’t tell The Boss why. When the book came out, Brian sent him a copy with an inscription inside of it, “Thank you for making some of my dreams come true.”

They were all going to be so disappointed when he didn’t have a second book in him.