Focus by Hudson Aimless

     Quince House was a large, rolling Victorian number set on the break of a generous hill where it stopped short at the Western edge of the lake. Replete with charming bay windows, a sizable hearth in the main parlor and a looming widow's watch at its crown, Quince House was nothing less than picturesque and usually booked solid through the spring, summer and fall months.

     To the building’s right a sizable green lawn hosted a large, white tent. To its left a simple flower garden with a parking lot beyond. And in back lay an expansive blue-green flagstone patio where, in the warm June sun, the guests had been congregating. Two pretty young ladies in black uniform moved through the crowd offering iced tea and orange.

     In the center of the space, by the low wall which protected the guests from tumbling down into the lake, Grimaldi had opened his worn leather case and started to assemble his Hasselblad medium-format camera. He looked at his watch and then at the sun above. It was a touch higher than he would have liked but well in keeping with his expectations for that week. For that matter, had it been up to him, he would have placed the couple close to the vista and let the audience look at them and further to the far end of the lake. But, unimaginatively, Mrs. Frouch had chosen to stand them under the arbor nearer to the house. Everyone stood them under the arbor. And everyone started too late in the morning for Grimaldi’s liking.

     Admittedly the arbor had been nicely decorated by Mrs. Frouch’s chosen florist and would frame the couple well, but what when compared with the shimmering water? That view would be the sole possession of the officiant and, possibly, the wedding party. More accurately, according to Grimaldi’s calculation, they’d be staring almost directly into the sun. He grumbled and rustled his eyebrows and began to load a roll of film. He made a mental note to load small Leica with black and white this time, given how clear the sky was.

     "Plenty of light, huh?" Towering over him like a shaggy spire stood a young man with dose of acne that crept up from within his awkwardly loose collar and seemed to choke his throat like a weed. "I'm Zach -- I'm the brother of the bride." Grimaldi stared at him blankly and finished loading the Hasselblad.

     "Sweet camera. May I have a look?"

     "What's your name?"

     "Zach. I just told you."

     "Well then, no."

     "'No' I can't try it or --"

     "I'm sure it looks like I'm having fun, Zach, but I'm going to ask you to trust me when I say that this is very, very serious business. You know this is a special day for your sister, right?” Grimaldi provided no pause for the young man’s response. “So we want this to go well. Please don’t think about touching my instruments or I’ll start to fish around in my satchel for a utility knife."

     Zach’s face was still in surprise, his breathing suspended.

     "So yes, you can't try it." Grimaldi placed the Hasselblad on the short stone wall and then thought better of it. Peering over the wall, he could see the steep drop some twenty feet to the rocky shore where the lake licked the land. Were the camera to fall it would be broken into a hundred small pieces. Instead he placed the camera safely on the patio.

     He then loaded the two point-and-shoot Olympuses with color and dropped them in his left and right jacket pockets. For personal use he pulled the tiny digital camera and the micro gooseneck lens extension out of their velvet, slipped the camera into his right jacket sleeve just shy of his palm and bent the lens attachment out so that it just barely extended past his wrist. He fastened it all in place with an Ace bandage. Lastly he pulled the Leica from it’s leather case and lovingly brushed it off. This he loaded with black and white and slipped into his back pocket.

     Grimaldi grabbed a glass of iced tea from one of the girls walking by and drank it quickly, scoping the scene for the brooding boy with the bad skin. He spotted him walking surreptitiously towards the driveway. Grimaldi made his way into the cool of the house and up the generous stairs to the third floor, then down the hall. He knocked on the door of the master chamber.

     "We're dressing in here," came the response, as he had expected. He tried the door handle but found the door locked.

     "Photographer," was his response. He could hear them shuffling about and then the door opened. A pink-faced girl, short and stocky, stood in the doorgap, her hair and makeup and fingernails freshly perfect. Grimaldi smiled and pushed past her.

      Inside the other bridesmaids were in various degrees of undress: hiking up cumbersome stockings or helping each other zipper up tricky dresses. Grimaldi began taking pictures. He was always surprised at how accepting the bridesmaids were of him, of how the camera justified his intrusion. The bride, he noticed, was not with them and he found the setting disappointing and thin on possibility. After a handful of moments worth the effort he matter-of-factly asked them to bunch together and smile. He triggered the flash but didn't release the shutter.

     "She's upstairs. She's so nervous. You probably shouldn't go up there."

     "She's a wreck. She's so pretty. I think she's trying to calm down."

     He quietly ascended the last set of stairs. As his head rose above the floor level of the last story he saw her. Her back was to him and she was holding her dress high above her feet up so that she wouldn't dirty it on the floor. Layers of crinoline feathered the light around her naked feet. Her veil sat to the side on a chair and her rich, auburn hair was neatly braided in the French style.

     "Lift you dress a bit higher."

     She turned slightly, possibly enough to see him, and lifted her dress so that her calves were bared. Grimaldi sat the Hasselblad on the floor and gently pulled the Leica from his back pocket. Handling it gently, he took a single exposure. The camera’s precise movements were whisper quiet.

     "Lift your left leg so I can see the underside of your foot."

     She did so and it was as he hoped: filthy, black. He took another photograph and then ascended to the top stair. He took a step toward her. She turned fully. Behind her, past the window, the guests milled about -- drops of color among the regularly interspersed white chairs and grey stone. Beyond them the dark green of the lake and the foliage around it, collapsing into its own reflection on the water's surface.

     She had clearly been crying. Her eyes were large and the swaths of skin underneath them moody and wet. She smiled weakly and her lips seem to flush anew. Grimaldi brought the Leica to his face, but he didn’t really need to look through the lensfinder. He knew the settings by instinct but it provided a mask that clouded the uncomfortable intimacy he assumed they felt at times. He took three quick pictures, each time moving closer until, by the third, her radiant face consumed the complete frame. The sun streaked through her hair like flame consuming a sheaf of typing paper.

     The musicians on the patio -- a cellist and four flautists -- began to launch into one of any number of flowery pieces. To Grimaldi, back at his case, the music was usually the single most stomach-turning element of these events. But critical, he recognized. The flautists, disturbingly dressed in re-embroidered peasant shirts and inappropriately loose and flowy pants, reached for notes that only the most trained and abused pair of lips could sound across the instruments’ blowhole. Nonetheless, the guests took the hint and began to seat themselves according to affiliation with the two families.

     As Grimaldi rolled the Hasselblad's stock up into the film canister and prepared a second roll, he turned to see that the groom and his best man had taken a spot up by the arbor. By their side was the officiant, a thin, pale priest who seemed to struggle within his severe attire.

     The boy with the bad skin stumbled down the aisle, barely helping an elderly woman safely to a seat. Grimaldi was surprised by the young man’s unsure movements - was he helping the older woman, or was she assisting him? Grimaldi reached into the satchel and removed a thirty-five millimeter with a telephoto lens and zoomed in on the boys face as he trudged back up the path. He snapped a series of fast frames of the large black eyes floating among the cranberry bog of his skin. Stoned, Grimaldi realized. As the boy passed by, Grimaldi whistled low at him. Zach turned and came forward. Grimaldi pulled a set of car seats from the bag and tossed them at the kid.

     "It's a Volvo. Get the tripod in the trunk." Zach smiled and ran off excitedly, if unsteadily, toward the parking lot. When the boy was just out of site Grimaldi looked at his watch. He probably had a good fifteen minutes before the boy figured out that the keys didn't work in any of the parked Volvos. He started shooting furiously, trying to capture the clumps of friends and family as they made their way to seats together. These pictures, natural and relaxed, were often very successful and appropriately inclusive as mother, father and children almost always sought seats as a group.

     As he was kneeling at the front row and taking an especially fitting portrait of one of the grandmothers -- her flowered dress favorable played off her densely wrinkled and fascinating hands - Mrs. Frouch tapped him on the shoulder. She wanted to tell him any number of things he could have guessed and he turned a deaf ear to her. As a rule Grimaldi listened little to wedding planners and trusted them even less. Instead of paying attention he focused on the movements of the crowd, cognizant of the fact that the boy would likely show up at any moment, which he did.

     "Sorry, but did you say a Volvo? Because I checked all of them before I realized these aren't even keys for a Volvo. These are for a Honda."

     Grimaldi tried to look embarrassed and weighed his luck.

     "And I tried the Hondas, too."

     Grimaldi looked him straight in the eyes. "Can you get me a Perrier from the bar?" Zach nodded, somewhat disappointed, and began to step away. "Evian gives me an itchy throat, so make sure it's Perrier, okay?" And finally, "with a slice of blood orange, if they have it."

     From his kit bag Grimaldi pulled a small tripod and set one of the thirty-fives on it. This he set-up at the head of the aisle, just a foot above the patio, carefully angled up twelve degrees. He checked the remote and fired two shots in short succession to confirm everything was working properly. He then went in for the kill on the three men at the altar as the irritating flautists launched into an animated version of yet another innocuous standard.

     The groom was a handsome, if vacant-looking, man with an impossibly deep cleft in his chin and thick eyebrows halfway up his face. The best man, by comparison, was lithe and impossibly boyish. They smiled broadly for the camera and laughed self-consciously. When the young ring-bearer, who couldn't have been older than four, raced up in his miniature suit and demanded to have his picture taken Grimaldi set the flash at full force and knelt down especially close to the child’s sensitive eyes before snapping the picture. The boy reeled at the explosive flash and stumbled backwards, bolting blindly to his mother's skirt. The groom chuckled at this, which was good for a final photo before the ceremony.

     Turning, Grimaldi could see that the crowd was almost fully seated and started his way back to his bags by the low wall. Just a few rows from the back, in the farthest seat, he spotted a terribly pretty young woman in a loose silk top, busily bent over her handbag in search of lord-knows-what. He stopped and aimed the extended lens of the digital camera down toward the breach of her top where a splash of fortuitous sunlight illuminated her small, naked breasts. As if waving at her chest Grimaldi took five quick shots for later.

     He refilled the Hasselblad one last time when the processional began. Before he knew it the bridesmaids were halfway down the aisle and he had shot ten frames on the remote-controlled thirty-five. The seats were packed and he raced to the front of the aisle to capture the bride and her father slowly marching toward the altar. She was fully dressed now with pink patent-leather pumps on her feet that deliciously matched the flowers that ran around the edge of her dress. In her hair sat a silver band of a tiara woven with fine glass roses.

     He could tell she had taken possession of herself by her gait and the way her head sat above her shoulders. Her father, on the other hand, was clearly very emotional. As the father of the bride released her arm and began to take his seat next to his wife Grimaldi edged in and fired the flash three times in rapid succession. The action startled the man and the emotion blossomed on his face. Grimaldi quickly photographed the dramatic moment as her father’s eyes, now welling, watched her move beyond his reach.

     Then, with the bride in place next to her groom, the flautists fell silent and all attention was riveted to the traditional tableau, resplendent in the perfectly placed golden sunlight. Grimaldi was impressed. He usually wasn't wrong about the quality of the light, but something had gone strikingly right this time. He got to the side of the charming couple and brought the Hasselblad up, placing his face down in the well of the focus box to take sharp aim. He was right about the sun, however, and only by shielding the lens with his hand was he able to avoid the glare that must have affected everyone else at the altar. He framed the couple with the parents of the bride to the side and the far edge of the lake in full background. As he was just about to release the shutter he saw it.

     He had been keenly aware of the boy with the acne meandering behind the seated crowd with a glass of what was likely either Perrier or something similar in his hand. The young man had placed the drink on the short wall and then had surveyed the patio for a free chair. But not a one was to be had, so he had done the next best thing. Leaning back against the wall, he had placed his shaky palms on the flat of it’s top and, with a small hop of his lanky legs, had attempted to flop himself up into a seated position. But he had miscalculated his effort and had instead propelled himself up and over the wall with a broad enough arc to fall, in a flash, behind it and down to the lake rock below.

     Grimaldi looked around quickly, awaiting the crying out of ladies in horror, but no one had noticed it. The boy hadn’t shouted. The guests and the members of the bridal party were watching the couple and the couple was watching the officiant. The officiant was reading his text, desperate to keep from mangling it. No one had seen the boy go over. No one but him, and he was growing unsure. Had he really seen it? Or was it a flare in the lens? The drink sitting on the small wall was the only evidence in his line of vision that it had, in fact, occurred.

     Now Grimaldi was truly conflicted. He had a professional responsibility to document the ceremony, but if the boy had fallen he might well be seriously hurt. Grimaldi could envision the boys body broken on the rocks, his lower leg nauseatingly bent in an unnatural place. He knew he couldn't possibly get down there with the Hasselblad, that was too great a risk for the camera. And simply shooting from above with the telephoto lens would be fine for a few pictures, but to capture any true drama -- especially if the boy was at all conscious or able to extend an arm in agony -- he'd need to be there, within a few feet of the event itself.

     "Commitment and trust," continued the preacher's motivational speech. Or perhaps he was describing what marriage means to society. Or to the church. To Grimaldi, who had been married only twice, both times having lasted no more than a few months, anything he'd ever heard expressed to a couple during their wedding ceremony added up to little more than ignorance. Only once had an officiant surprised him in any way and that was a result of the man having forgotten his morning insulin injection.

     Grimaldi regained focus when the word 'ring' was uttered rather loudly and he switched to one of the Olympuses. He spun to the other side of the best man to photograph the young ring-bearer approach. The boy ran quickly past Grimaldi, thrust the pillow at the groom and darted back, nearly shrieking, to his mother. The crowd chuckled at the preciousness of the moment and that was good for a few more panoramic shots. When "with this ring" echoed in his ear, Grimaldi pocketed the Olympus and took firm hold of the Hasselblad again, this time placing himself in a low crouch in the middle of the aisle.

     In his mind the boy with the acne had gone down head first. That would certainly make the most sense. He had basically vaulted backwards off the wall. Grimaldi tried to recall the terrain below. It was a fairly far drop, he remembered. If it was at all soft where the boy landed -- mud and moss - he would have broken his neck. If he landed face up in the shallow slope of the lake's bank he'd be alive. If he had landed face down he would have already have drown in the silty water. It was a coin toss.

     Now the bride was taking the groom's hand in hers and voicing her vows. "Respect, honor, cherish." If it was rocky -- large, rough-hewn rock -- the boy's skull would have been split wide, a disturbing horror-show of gore. He'd want Kodachrome for that. Perhaps the rocks were large and sharp but covered in a dense, vibrant green moss. That would make the image all the more striking in color and texture. Shooting from above would be appropriate if the light was working with him. He glanced up at the position of the sun and weighed it in his mind. Still too angular, he concluded.

     Grimaldi was waiting for the kiss. The kiss, then the recessional, then the egress of the guests toward the tent. "You may kiss the bride." Once the guests were queued at the reception line, he would have at least twenty minutes to photograph the boy. Surely he could get down to the water's edge and take pictures before all the guests had been seated and served their salad -- that always took longer than expected. He would need to feed Mrs. Frouch a line to keep her at bay during that period.

     If the boy was face down he'd have little to work with, perhaps only the boys hands or the white sock of a shoeless foot. The groom lifted the bride's veil and leaned in. But a profile would be just as likely, if not more so, than any other configuration. If only the young man had better skin. The groom lowered his bulging chin onto hers and enveloped her lips in his like hands set in prayer. He would need to be careful of the reflected light from the water, something he too often realized in hindsight. "I give you Mr. and Mrs..." He'd take the light meter, take care in that regard, double-check each shot.

     Grimaldi, walking backwards, proceeded the new couple up the aisle. Following them came the best man and the maid of honor and from there the other grooms and respective bridesmaids in pairs. And then came the parents of the bride and the parents of the groom and the family elders. All of them walking up to, and then past, the low wall. Any one of them might peer over, he realized, might see and point and call out and that would be it. He decided to photograph them at the moment they might turn at the wall, to distract them to the best of his ability.

     Grimaldi shot constantly until the one Olympus had nothing left to give and then began with the other. He shot furiously now, with no sense of pictorial purpose, his hands damp with perspiration. When the second Olympus had run out he had no choice to reach for his prized Leica. There were only a handful of guests left, but among them, Grimaldi realized in horror, was a man nearly six-foot-four. He could barely hear the man who was motioning across the lake and beginning to point something out to the young woman on his arm.

     Grimaldi pulled at the camera but it was stuck in the lining of his pocket. He scrambled to get it loose before the towering guest reached the wall. “Damn,” muttered Grimaldi. He was telling her about a summer home and about a raft they used to dive off of.

     With a desperate tug of force he yanked the camera from the hold of the pocket and it was free. His hand, barely holding the precious Leica swung up and around the side of his jacket where it suddenly lost grip of the camera. He reached both hands out into the air to catch it but could not prevent its fall. It dropped quickly to the patio with a heart-breaking crack and bounced up once, sending half of the frame skittering across the flagstone. Grimaldi could see, almost without looking, that it had landed the second time face down on its exposed lens, could hear the stone bite into the perfect glass.

     “They only had regular oranges, hope that’s okay - oh, shit,” he heard the boy say. But Grimaldi didn’t turn and look. Instead he slowly knelt down beside the fallen Leica and examined its sad remains.