the photographer

She lids her eyes seductively and watches him twist the lens a hair. He's squinting and his woolly curls half-obscure his face. The camera hides the other half. Irene fills in the blanks in her mind's eye. Mexican with a broad face and small passive eyes, a scar on his cheek, Raoul's face tells more stories than her own ever could.

"Good," he says with his slight accent. She watches the muscles of his arms and tries not to let her expression change, though her mouth wants to edge up into a smile. "Go ahead," Raoul adds and his white teeth reveal themselves generously beneath the camera. Irene likes that he can see that in her, likes how observant he is despite everything.

The flash goes off and Irene, experienced, doesn't blink, just watches the sunspot on her retina. It goes off twice more, and then he lowers the camera and she's rewarded with his face, just as she'd imagined it. Except there's sunspots covering bits of it, thanks to his camera.

"You think you can use those?" she asks, and wishes she smoked. How chic, how impressive it would be, just now, to light a cigarette and inhale like a girl from 1955.

"At least one of them should work. You did ver' well today. The company will like these shots." Raoul pours them both glasses of water; she sips at hers, thinking what an inadequate substitute it is for that rush of nicotine she's so often imagined (worried about blemishing her sharp, straight, white teeth, she's never even touched tobacco). She looks at the water, swirling, distorting, but she can feel his beady, watchful eyes on her and tries to curve like the gorgeous woman she knows she is. This is the first time she's worked for Raoul, and she likes him. He makes her feel appreciated. Her friend Ky told her once, knowledgeably, that women always like photographers and cosmetologists, because they make them feel beautiful. But she's never liked a photographer as much as Raoul, and Irene has been a model for two and a half years now, gone through a lot of people.

"You make me look good," she says, untying her kimono top and hanging it over her chair, and her canines, abnormally pointed, glint.

"You appeal to the market," he replies. "Good-looking, excellent cheekbones, the shadows fall ver' well-- it is less work for me. And there will need to be ver' little photomanipulation. You will sell many pairs of pants by yourself." He smiles at her again and gulps down water, throwing it down his throat like vodka. Idly, she wonders what kind of drunk he is. She wonders, too, how he is in bed. Gasping and hardworking, maybe, like the other round-faced Mexican she once slept with, a cute, honest painter with an easy smile and crinkly eyes. Irene decides she finds Raoul attractive, thinks maybe she'll give him a try. What's his last name again? Probably Gonzalez. They're all named Gonzalez.

"How long have you been taking pictures?" she asks, more out of politeness than real interest.

"I got my first real camera when I was sixteen. I went around taking pictures of everything I could see. And I never stopped, not even now. When I worked, I saved my money for better cameras, not for cars or clothes. Always the camera." She enjoys his soft slurred tones. She thinks that she needs to meet more immigrants. They're not as smart as real Americans, but they're good, humble people. That or desperate, dirty thieves and killers, of course. It goes one way or the other. Irene's maternal grandparents were Russian, and her father's father was black. It makes her beautiful, and because she was born in America, there are no negative side effects: she's just as quick, as fluent, as anyone.

"That's really dedicated of you," with just the right amount of earnestness in her tone. Raoul doesn't catch it, of course; Irene intends it to be too subtle for him. But he gets the undercurrents, and his thick eyebrows draw together furrily. He gulps down water like a man who can't get used to having enough, and thinks.

Finally his small eyes meet hers. "And how long have you been modeling, Irene?"

"Oh, a couple of years." She waves it off like it's nothing, making sure he notices the perfect shapeliness of her arm, the fine bones of her wrist. Her fingers are long and graceful. Her dappled body, in this light, is flawless, and she knows it, uses it shamelessly to her advantage.

Raoul knows it too. He drains his cup, sets it down on the table, stands and shakes her hand. His grasp is warm and dry, her own a little clammy from moisturizers and lotions. "Thank you for working with me, Irene," he says and pats her hand. "I hope to see you again sometime." And he starts to walk away.

She watches his rounded buttocks in his scuffed, big-pocketed jeans move as he walks away from her. His back to her. Confused, she starts to ask him, don't you want to stay, but she stops in time. All that comes out is, "Don't you--"

He turns and looks at her again. That broad, calculating, scarred face. Those little eyes, seeing everything. "Did you say something?"

She shakes her head, feeling her vixen hair whip coolly around her long graceful neck. "Goodbye."

He shuts the door quietly behind him, and she stays seated in her jeans and silk bra, hand still curved around her cup of water, speechless, not knowing what to think. For the first time in a long time, Irene feels stood up.

And by a Mexican, no less.