Bill took pictures, but that is such a simple sentence for such a complex man. One picture is worth a thousand words, as the old saying goes, so Bill took pictures and then wrote the story that he saw in the good ones. It had to be at least a thousand words long and sometimes that was hard. At other times, a whole book could be written and still not cover all that was said by that one snapshot.
The first picture he ever took of Rosa was one such as the latter. She had been leaning her elbows on the rail of an old wooden bridge, her chin cupped in her hands as she stared off into the distance. Her right foot was back and the very toe of her sandal was on the wooden planking. It was rocking back and forth absently as her mind wandered wherever she had been that sunny morning.
She was bent at the waist, her butt sticking out. The wind was blowing her long black hair out behind her head. Her full skirt pressed tightly against the front of her hips and thighs. It was all billowy and flapping behind her calves. She had her peasant blouse down off her shoulders and the wind had the front of it molded to her full breasts.
Bill was there early to photograph sailboats as they raced before the wind through the island cut, headed for the Gulf as fast as they could go. Once he saw Rosa, all thoughts of sailboats went right out of his head. His mind was already on the story that would go with the picture.
It only took a moment for him to slip the bracket on the bottom of the camera around his neck to its other half on the head of his walking staff. The staff was cut to just the right height to be used as a rest for taking pictures. At Bill's age, he needed all the steadying he could get.
With quick movements of his hands, he adjusted the focus and snapped off a series of pictures. He was trying to get just the right mixture of her hair and the dress blowing in the wind. He wished that she would turn slightly but she seemed lost in her own thoughts and oblivious to him.
Bill took one last picture and dismounted his camera from the staff. He continued to walk on past the young woman and on out to the center of the bridge. He mounted the camera, took several shots from this side of the girl before turning his attention to the cut, and focused in on a large sailboat.
It must have been a good day for sailing because the boats came along one after the other. Bill had never been sailing but it had always fascinated him. The sun was getting high and casting too little shadow to give the boats and their sails depth and contrast, so it was time to pack it in for the day.
Bill turned to see the young woman leaning her left elbow on the rail, her hip cocked out to the opposite side, looking at him intently. Her hair and dress were now blowing out to the side. Bill nodded at her and took several quick pictures. When the girl did not move or protest Bill took several more at a more leisurely rate. Once again, he tried to capture the perfect mixture of blowing hair and dress.
When she stood up straight, Bill figured she had had enough and was going to leave. To his surprise, she walked over to him and asked, "Are you a professional photographer?"
"Not really, I take pictures and then write stories. Magazines buy the stories and some of the time the pictures also. That's how I make my living now that I am retired."
"Why did you take my picture? Are you going to write about me?"
Bill thought how best to answer that and ended up with the truth. "Yes, I will write about you but not for a magazine, it will be for myself."
"And what will you write? How would you know what to write? You know absolutely nothing about me."
Bill shrugged. "I don't know anything about you, but my mind will find a story in the pictures. It always does and it always has."
"Would you let me read it?"
Sticking with the truth, Bill told her, "I don't know. Sometimes the stories I write for me get a little personal, you know, like fantasies and such. I might be to embarrassed with what my mind comes up with to let you or anyone else read it."
The girl dropped her eyes and Bill thought she blushed but with her dark skin, it was hard to tell. "See, I've already embarrassed you," Bill said hastily.
"No, I embarrassed myself. You aren't the only one with a wayward mind."
She turned and took several steps before turning back. "My name is Rosa. So you will have at least that much right," she said with a smile.
"My name is Bill."
"Good to meet you Bill." She replied before turning and walking away.
Bill took the rest of the pictures on that roll of film of her as she walked away.
*****
At home, Bill developed the pictures of Rosa and the sailboats. Later, he stacked her pictures and put them aside so he could concentrate on the boats. He laid them all out on his dinning room table and slowly scanned each one with a magnifying glass looking for something, anything that might be magazine story worthy.
The only problem was he could not concentrate. Other than pretty sails and boats, there was nothing that caught his eye or his imagination as much as Rosa did. He finally gave up, scooped them all into a pile, and stacked them on the corner of the table.
Getting Rosa's pictures from the dark room, he laid them out in the order he had taken them. He hadn't realized he had taken so many of her until he had started developing them. His eyes wandered down the rows and his hands picked up ten of them. Three from where she was bent over on the rail from the left side, two from the right side, two from where she was leaning against it, and three from where she was walking away.
The first one of the earliest set caught his eye for several reasons. Foremost was the wistful faraway, slightly sad look on her beautiful face. It made Bill feel like he should take her in his arms and just hold her tightly. She looked lost and alone.
The second reason was the curve of her breast and the hard point of her nipple showing under the pressure of the thin wind blown cloth of her blouse. The thin cloth of her skirt pressed into the V between her thighs tight enough to show the mounding of her sex. It hit Bill as being highly erotic.
The same could be said about the downward arch of her back and the way her foot was placed. The wind blown skirt hid her ass but at the same time, it drew the eye to that point. It was a launching point for the imagination and was mirrored in the flow of her long raven black hair.
The story was starting to flow, which made Bill hurry to his old typewriter on his desk. He stood the picture against the wall so he could see it as he typed. He was fumble fingered as he loaded a sheet of paper.
Once he had it in place, he began to bang away at the old machine as fast as his fingers could hit the keys with any accuracy. As it was, his fingers were having all kind of trouble keeping up with his thoughts.
He wrote:
Rosa stared out over the channel with wistful eyes and a sad heart. All the pretty sailboats were a reminder that her husband would not be back. The dangers of the sea had finally swallowed him whole. All she had left were memories.
