Shutterspeed (8 page)

‘Did you get off early today?'

How did she know to find him here, now? How does she always know?

Jasmine leans against the bike shed wall. Her tanned legs are crossed at the ankles, her short socks casually folded over. Her eyes shine up at him. She half-grins.

‘Yeah, for good behaviour. I hate this place,' he says. ‘Me too. Music's boring.' She casts her eyes in the direction of a nearby music studio where a relief teacher is sitting at the front reading a newspaper. ‘What are you doing?' she asks.

‘I'm leaving,' he says.

‘Where you going?'

He shrugs, then lies. ‘Home.'

‘Shit, it must be bad.' She squints up at the sky, softly rubs the small bump of her tummy and considers her options. ‘I'm coming too, then.'

‘Why?'

‘I hate Thursdays.'

The bike lock rattles as it comes free.

‘Besides,' Jasmine continues, ‘Mrs Hanson caught me with the turtle and said she'd confiscate it. She called it a wild animal, can you believe it? She doesn't care. Nobody does. That's the problem with this world …'

‘Ease up, Jaz.'

‘Well, what am I supposed to do with it? Let it die in the suburban jungle? Let it get killed on roads? Pecked to death by seagulls?'

‘Give me a break, would ya?'

She laughs, her goal accomplished.

‘I'm going.'

‘I know,' she says. ‘I'm coming too.' She dangles car keys from her right hand.

He remembers she's not the enemy. ‘Let's go then.'

Even the threat of Jasmine's bad driving doesn't put him off today. They pull the wheels from his bike and lodge the frame tightly into the back of Jasmine's white Mini Minor. She reverses out and drives the two of them away from school and it feels bloody good. Along Leighton Beach, the sun heats up the car and their bodies. He eases into the seat and looks out to the Indian Ocean from the car's open window, filling his lungs with warm sea air.

Jasmine sings aloud, unselfconsciously. It's some Eskimo Joe song crackling out from the radio. The sun hits his face and he can't help smiling. Today was worth getting out of bed for. Today he told Carey to fuck off, and now he's hanging out with Jasmine somewhere between school and home, without having to feel stressed about it. Tomorrow he'll be in the shit, not just with school but with his old
man. But fuck it, right now it's just the two of them, and the turtle, and they don't have to be anywhere but here, doing anything but this.

There aren't too many people at Cottesloe. Just some tourists tanning on the sand, and a group of dole-bludgers and part-timers out on boards, hoping the offshore wind will pick up.

It takes Jasmine four attempts to park the Mini, but she finally nails it. They walk down the stairs and settle on the lawn overlooking the beach. Jasmine prises open a few pistachios. Out to sea, a couple of old guys sit waiting for a set. In closer, some body-boarders play in the small waves.

‘Perfect day,' she says. ‘Photo-perfect. Let's get some shots for the assignment.' She drags an old SLR camera from her bag.

‘You've got to practise your wagging technique, Jaz,' he says, taking the camera off her. He looks at borders through the viewfinder. ‘You've missed the point.'

‘Come on, can we? It'll be fun. I need a model and I want you, okay? I just gave you a lift here and I'm sure that's equivalent to at least four photos.' She smiles.

‘What?'

‘And you ate a pistachio — that's another three photos.'

‘Since when? You know I don't pose. I won't,' he says, suddenly self-conscious. He runs his hands through his hair, wondering how scruffy it looks. ‘I'm not a poser and I'm no frickin pretty boy.'

‘Thank god for that,' she says. ‘You're Dustin and you're my subject, so calm down, relax, and help me keep up my A-minus in art, okay? I've been helping you pass all year — you owe me this at least.'

It's a convincing argument. She pulls a black spiral notebook from her bag and flicks a third of the way through it. He snatches the book and looks at each of the pictures drawn in 4B pencil. There are least twenty pages of them.

‘This is me?' Some parts look like him — the hair, the shoulders, the eyes — but many of the lines are too quick and sketchy. There's just a lot of movement.

‘It's rough,' she says.

‘This is what I look like? To you?'

‘In parts. It's not supposed to be realistic. It's more about the positioning and …'

‘But you've made me look messy! And crazy. And what's
that
supposed to be?'

‘That's the turtle,' she grins, then grabs her art book back
off him. ‘You
are
messy. Anyway, it's hard to draw from memory. I don't even have any photos of you, you know. Don't you think that's weird?'

‘You see me every day, you don't need to see me at home.'

‘Well, that's all going to change, with you being my hot male model. How's your Magnum look coming along?'

‘Magnum's not ready yet. You'll have to make do with Blue Steel … Do I really have to do this?'

‘There's a first time for everything, Zoolander. Shit, sometimes you just gotta give in.'

Overhead, screeching parrots flap about between pines. The noisy distraction gives Dustin some breathing space. ‘How 'bout calling it ET?' he says, indicating the turtle scratching about on Jasmine's school bag.

‘Don't be cruel. Besides, it's a girl. Now stop trying to sidetrack me. Seven photos!'

He runs his fingers through his hair again, brushing it behind his ears.

Jasmine leads him down to the soft sand in front of the surf clubhouse, where she opens her sketchbook. The ideas are simple — often they're just parts of him against sand: a hand, an elbow, an eye. Each shot obeys the rule of thirds. She plays around with technique first — the ‘soul-stealing', she says, will come later.

She fans out Dustin's fingers and places the turtle in the palm of his hand. She switches films, inserting a black-and-white roll, and Dustin has a good look at this little creature close up, with its slow blinking eyes and scratchy feet. The turtle bites solidly on Dustin's little finger when he offers it to her. He laughs.

Jasmine takes photos of this, then joins Dustin's hands so he cups the turtle.

Dustin sees in its eyes a vulnerability. ‘Does this thing think?'

‘It's an animal, Dustin. It thinks and feels.' Jasmine smiles, adding, ‘I reckon she likes you. Lie back,' she tells him, then before he can argue, ‘Trust me.'

So he does. He lies back in the sand, closing his eyes against the sun. Jasmine picks up the turtle carefully with her right hand, and with her left she smooths back Dustin's shirt, revealing his stomach.

‘Hey,' he mumbles nervously, eyes still closed. ‘This wasn't in the contract.'

‘Shut up and trust me,' she says, placing the turtle gently on his pale skin. ‘This'll look cool.'

She kneels low beside him, getting the camera in line with his stomach, cutting the horizon with the turtle's back. She flicks the camera to macro mode and takes a few shots.
Dustin shakes his head at the madness of it — getting photographed with a turtle on his stomach. Luckily everyone else is at school.

She stands above them, straddling his legs, looking down. She takes one photo of his stomach, and then — without him aware of it — a close-up shot of his face, eyes closed, smiling. It's the most relaxed and beautiful she's ever seen him. Jasmine doesn't need to take another photo — she's not going to forget this.

It's when Dustin sits up again that he's caught off guard. There's another surfer paddling out to sea now; a female in a black wetsuit, with short black hair. It hits him like a punch in the chest — it's her. Again! It has to be. The ocean pulls at him, urging him out to sea, to follow her. To finally speak to her! She continues paddling out. But he's aware of the strength of the undertow. He's not a swimmer, never has been. The deepness of the ocean frightens him. The pull of waves unnerves him. The sea can swallow everything, and who knows what lies lurking below.

Jasmine's already up by the clubhouse, rinsing the turtle of sand. ‘Come on,' she calls to Dustin.

Even here in the shallows, the vastness of open water scares him. So he turns his back on the sea and walks up the beach.

‘Can I borrow this?' he asks, picking up the SLR camera.

It's nowhere near as powerful as the one Mrs Blackler's lent him, but he tests out the zoom anyway. He scans the surface of the water, bumping over each crest of wave until he finds her. She's sitting alongside the old guys out the back. And it's not her. She looks nothing like Terri Pavish. This woman's older, with darker skin. What the hell was he thinking?

‘You taking photos now?'

How had he imagined it could've been her? She wouldn't be here anyway, he tells himself. She'd be working. She can't be everywhere he goes. Had he made her up? He shakes his head. Fuck!

‘You looked like you were in another world.'

‘Let's go,' he says, suddenly keen to get home.

He has to give Jasmine directions as she drives to his house from Cottesloe. Even though they've been mates for years, Jasmine's never actually been to his house. He's never invited her. At first she'd felt insulted, but eventually she came to understand that he likes to keep his worlds separate.

The white Mini Minor idles in the driveway. She waits, and then, ‘Well … can I come in?'

‘Do you want to?'

She nods and Dustin swallows. There's a barrier that isolates this house from the rest of the world. This is Ken's house, not Dustin's home. It's not a place for hanging out in, not like Nugget's place where there's always people shouting and stuff going on. This is a quiet house and it's as private as Dustin is.

She knows this, but she turns the engine off anyway. When he unlocks the front door she's behind him, with one hand on his shoulder.

They stand in the lounge room and he shrugs in surrender. She's quietly respectful, touching nothing but taking it all in: the DVDs, videos and books in the bookcase; the three lounge chairs with a rectangular coffee table in the middle; the TV and stereo; and the lone desert landscape hanging on a wall. It's an old print with sand dunes and a sunset. It doesn't inspire anything in her and she turns to him. He goes to say something, but shrugs again in apology.

She smiles at him and knows what the house is missing — a female influence. The room is all corners and angles. Nothing here is meant for comfort or touch, or to warm two men on cold nights.

‘Got any beer?' she asks.

They find a couple of six-packs at the bottom of the fridge.

‘Dad only drinks on weekends,' he laughs. ‘It's one of his rules.'

‘You know what they say about rules …'

They take a six-pack outside, where they sit on the grass by the clothesline. Dustin's embarrassed at how shabby the backyard looks. Cleaning the pool was supposed to be his job.

‘Cheers, big ears.'

They polish off their first beers without talking.

‘My toes are tingly,' she giggles.

‘You're hopeless.'

‘Hey, I'm half the size of you.'

‘Saying I'm fat?'

‘You're a stick. And a very good photography model too.'

‘What'd you expect?'

He's halfway through his second beer when Jasmine opens herself another bottle and throws the cap at him. ‘Stop being a prat and ask me to be your model.'

He avoids her eye, concentrating instead on his thumb as it bumps along the ridges of the bottle cap. Jasmine wasn't the female he'd been thinking of.

‘Come on, I'm happy to,' she says.

‘Give yourself a wrap. Claudia Schiffer wannabe.'

‘Prick!'

‘Short-arse.'

‘Wanker.'

‘So? Hippy.'

‘Loser.'

‘Vegan.'

‘Vegan is
not
a dirty word.'

‘Dirty vegan.'

‘Cyclist.'

‘What?'

‘They say cyclists have little penises, from all the friction. And erectile dysfunction is a common condition in the cycling world. I read that in
Men's Fitness
.'

‘Why were you reading
Men's Fitness
? And who the hell did the research?'

‘Is it true?'

‘Don't know. I haven't shagged a male cyclist.' He finishes his second beer and wonders if he should have another.

She opens one for him before he can decide. ‘So where do you want to take these photos of me?' she says. ‘Inside or out?'

‘Geez, you're a bossy shit.'

Jasmine's standing now, backpack in one hand, beer in the other. ‘Do you want my help? Or can you pass art without me?'

‘Okay.' He gives in, not wanting to fight her. ‘You do the posing and I'll just press the button, okay? Let's get this done so I can sleep.'

‘Inside,' she says. ‘Trust me.'

When Jasmine draws the heavy blinds across the windows, the curtain rails squeak with complaint. Dust particles unsettle and float about her. The lounge room is aquiver with the airborne secrets of fifteen years. The blinds block out the afternoon sun, shutting out everything. She plugs in the small tungsten lamp she's brought with her from school, puts it on top of the television and angles the head until it's pointing at the coffee table. She turns it on and amber light beams purposefully into the centre of the room. The air is the colour of honey, dust floating within it.

All of the familiar objects soften in the diffused light, their corners losing their sharpness, until Dustin no longer recognises the lounge room as the same one he's spent his life
eating dinners in. Outside, the world could end and they wouldn't know.