I was always amazed at how someone from my past unfailingly seemed to turn up on opening nights of exhibitions. It didn't seem to matter which city I was in, some old school friend, long lost family member or an acquaintance from the photography fraternity seemed to find the ads for my openings in the small print and turn up to say hi.
And, to be truthful, I didn't mind one bit. It wasn't like my exhibitions were the biggest draws in the art world, and most of the "passing public" were less than interesting so I was nearly always happy to see a friendly face who cared more about me than the technical aspects of the photographs on display.
That night was my opening in the Farrington Gallery on Hilton Head, South Carolina. I was displaying a collection of American seascapes, which the gallery manager assured me would be popular with the affluent, retired and nautical clientele. It had been a long day of agreeing where the prints should be displayed and after at least fifty passing conversations with polo-shirted and deck-shoed potential customers, I was waning as the time clawed its way towards nine o'clock and the gallery's closing. I was counting the minutes between me and my bed at the Days Inn. Yes, I know, the glamorous life of a struggling photographer!
The gallery was down to only a handful of customers when I spotted her. Blonde, lithe and wearing a striking white summer dress that was splashed with pastel colors, it was hard to miss her. I watched her for a moment or two, hoping that she'd turn and I could see her face, but she didn't and my attention was drawn away from her image by the gallery manager, anxious to tell me that there had been lots of interest in my work, but no sales yet that evening. I wasn't surprised. I was sure I would sell some prints here, but it was hardly ever in the first rush of an opening that my work sold. I figured this was her final check-in of the evening so I thanked her for her hospitality.
"Mister Harwood?"
I turned around to find the blonde in the summer dress smiling at me. I automatically extended my hand to her as the recognition part of my brain went into overdrive. She took my hand and I offered, "Graham", inviting her to use my first name as I tried to place the face I was sure I had seen before.
She smiled as she shook my hand, a soft smile that revealed her white teeth and several laugh lines around her mouth and eyes. Her hair was cut in a classic page boy, with a few strands pulled away from the front and gathered at the back with a white ribbon. She looked in her mid-thirties and the familiarity of her face was startling, but I had no name to put to her gorgeous face.
"Graham." She confirmed the use of my first name and offered hers. "Elena."
"Elena." I confirmed dumbly as I continued to run her features through my brain's recognition function. "Thank you for coming tonight."
Her features broke onto another smile, this one a little more sly and playful. "You don't remember me, do you?"
I wanted to say I did, because I knew I should, I knew her from somewhere... but I had nothing for her.
"Elena Forbes." She watched my face for recognition. I was nearly there, but not quite. "Miss Forbes, from Junior High. You were in my eighth grade art class?"
Now I remembered, and wondered how I could ever forget. "Miss Forbes." I instinctively took her hand again and shook it. "How cool. What a surprise. What are you doing here?"
Elena gave a semi-shrug of her shoulders and looked around at my prints. "I recognized your name when I was here last month. I thought I'd come see if it was really you. I live here, well over in Bluffton. I don't teach any more. I paint, and try to sell through a few of the local galleries. I know a lot of the art community around here."
I could think of nothing to say but. "I'm honored. Thank you for coming," which probably came across as very insincere, but my mind was racing back eleven years, computing ages and recalling schooldays.
Miss Forbes was the most gorgeous teacher at Mill End Junior High and at thirteen years old I was smitten by her looks just like every other boy at the school. Back then she must have been in her late twenties, had the perfect looks of a magazine model and whether she wore skirts or jeans, her womanly figure had every boy in the class paying attention to every move of her hand and hanging on to every word she spoke.
I hadn't been particularly close to Miss Forbes, but even back then art was my thing and she'd helped prepare several competition entries. By the time I'd moved to high school I was all about photography, but I was still a pencil and paint guy in eighth grade. I hadn't seen Miss Forbes since I left Mill End, but I did hear at some point in high school that she had left the school, something about a minor scandal – posing nude for evening art classes when she was still student. I recall wishing I'd been in that class when I heard she was gone.
"I love your work." Elena said, turning away and walking to a wall of sunset seascapes. I allowed my eyes to drop and check her bottom as she moved gracefully away and I followed. She still had it. "This one is intriguing." She pointed to a photo that looked straight out to an incoming tide as the sun fell in the sky. "How did you get the correct exposure here?" She pointed to the beach and the waves. "Surely the sun's light makes the balance incredibly difficult?"
I smiled, appreciating that she understood the technical challenge. "The camera can't do it." I explained. "It's a computer trick, a little tone mapping and bringing out the detail from the under exposed area." I was always a little wary of explaining things like that, especially to a "real" artist who might think using computers was "cheating".
"Well, that's the advantage of oil and watercolor I guess," Elena turned and smiled to me, "I can paint what my eye sees, a camera can only capture what it's technically capable of. The computer makes up for that. Very cool." I was impressed by her understanding
We were now the last two people in the gallery and I saw the manager looking over, hoping we'd finish and she could go home.
"So how have you been?" I asked as Elena inspected another print. "How did you end up here?"
"I'm well," she answered. "Artists have a habit of living and working close to money. I like it down here and it's a good location to sell my work. I never married and don't see any reason to leave yet. Looks like we'd better go." She indicated the anxious manager. "Do you have time for coffee?" She held up an illustrated program. "I'd like to ask you more about your work if you have a little time."
Tired as I was, I was not about to turn down the offer of conversation with a fellow artist... or a beautiful woman.
We left my rental car in the gallery's lot and got into Elena's beat-up SUV. "I know a good place not far from here." She pulled out onto the road and gunned the engine.
The coffee shop was on the end of a strip mall and didn't have a green sign. It was an independent shop with eclectic décor and the twin aromas of strong coffee and quality marijuana. In a far corner a couple of musicians were quietly working on a song with muted guitars and voices. This was a place that catered for the community, not the tourists.
We ordered straight coffees and found a couple of seats in the window, a small table between us. I watched as Elena put away her keys and settled into the new surroundings. Her dress was low-cut but not excessive. I could see the pure skin of her breasts and followed the lines as her skin disappeared under her dress, covered but still shapely as her breasts gently bounced with her movements. Despite Elena being around forty years old there was no evidence of a bra, or the need for one.
As she talked I looked into her eyes. They were a deep shade of greenish blue and lead her face's expression changes as our conversation wound around my photographs, her work and a few memories from junior high. There was no doubting that Elena was a decade older than I'd remembered Miss Forbes, but she was still captivating.
As much as I was fantasizing about our chance meeting becoming a chance encounter of the sexual kind, she showed no signs that it was something in her mind. At first.
"Why did you stop teaching?" I decided I might as well confirm the rumors.
Elena didn't smile at the question. She sipped at her coffee and contemplated the answer before choosing her words. "There was a little something in my past that came out while I was at Mill End. It was nothing really, but some parents weren't pleased and I was asked to resign. I did, and rather than battle the same issue everywhere I went, I decided to drop teaching and start painting again. It felt like a waste of five years, but I came here and I've been working my way along the bottom ever since." She laughed at her description of her status. "I'm happy though. It can be a lonely, not very profitable life, but I get along and have to answer to no one."
I let her answer lie between us for a few moments, then followed up. "Rumor was that you posed nude."
Elena shrugged. "It was while I was in college. I needed some extra cash and it was easy money. Just so happened someone from that class was a parent at Mill End. Stupid really, a big to-do over nothing."
I nodded in conciliation. "Seems like there's always someone making a fuss over nothing these days."
"I didn't know it was public knowledge." She didn't seem too worried, after all it was at least a decade ago. "I'm surprised you knew. It was pretty hushed up by the school district."
I looked over at her with a sheepish grin. "Where Miss Forbes was concerned, we paid attention to every rumor." I gave a short laugh. "At our age, we just wished we'd been in the class you posed for."
"Ah... the simple amusements of the adolescent mind." Elena laughed, watching my eyes as we shared the moment.
"Not that I'm disagreeing with you..." I smirked playfully, "They may be simple amusements, but the evidence before me suggests we were right."
Elena seemed to blush a little and try to shrug off my comments. Her eyes came back to mine. I'm not sure what she was looking for, friendship, sincerity, it was impossible to tell. She reached across the table to take my hand in hers and said, "Thank you Graham. That's very nice of you to say."
I held her fingers for a few moments then she withdrew them and took another drink from her coffee cup. "You've grown up to be quite the young man." Elena offered as a subtle change of topic. "Photographer, well educated, if I say so myself, well mannered, looking good. You have a lot going for you."
"I make do." I offered, not playing anything down. I was hardly making boatloads of money.
