Lucky Caller(17)

But I didn’t know the lever would release the top of the tripod attached to the camera, and that with the jolt of force, both pieces would shift and fall …

I fumbled for the camera, but it was too late. It hit the ground—the concrete underflooring—with a loud crack.

“What’d you do?” Sidney looked up sharply, a copy of WALL-E in one hand, The Da Vinci Code in the other.

My stomach sank as I crouched down to pick up the camera. The back screen was cracked, and the lens had popped off.

Sidney came over, still holding the DVDs.

“Oh, bummer,” she said in that sort of sibling way that’s part aggrieved for you, part relieved that they’re not the one who did the thing.

“Yeah.” I wondered dully if I should leave it exactly where it was, undisturbed like a crime scene, so the damage could be assessed in full.

But I just straightened up with the parts in hand.

When I emerged from the basement into the kitchen, Mom and Dan were loading the dishwasher. They were mid-conversation, and Dan turned to us with a smile on his face, which slipped when he saw the camera.

“Oh, Nina,” Mom said. A familiar chorus.

“Sorry,” I said weakly. “There was … kind of an accident.”

“Nina didn’t mean to break it,” Sidney said helpfully, really cementing that she had nothing to do with it.

Dan just took the pieces, inspected the damage to the screen and the lens, and then nodded thoughtfully.

“Well, you know, these things happen, don’t they? I’ll send it back to the company, get a quote for repairs.”

“What about your videos?” Mom said. “You’re right in the middle of one.”

“Oh, that’ll be all right. I used to shoot them on my laptop, you know. I can just set it up on the table—it has the camera built right in. The film quality might not be as nice, but I think it’ll be just fine. Helps to have the footage right there in the program. Don’t have to mess around with importing and all that. That DSLR footage takes ages to get onto the computer.”

“Sorry,” I said again. “I can help to … I’ll pay. To fix it.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Dan waved a hand. “We’ll get it all sorted out.” He then turned to Sidney, who was still holding the DVDs. “WALL-E or Da Vinci?” he said brightly. “What’ll it be?”



* * *



“Those cameras aren’t cheap,” Mom said on the way home.

“I know.”

I already felt terrible. Guilty and also, like, irrationally annoyed at Dan’s niceness? It made no sense, but it grated, that I could be shitty and careless and he could be so nice about it. Maybe that’s why I felt compelled to add, “I didn’t do it on purpose,” even though picking an argument with Mom was not a super reasonable thing to be doing.

“I didn’t say you did,” Mom said. “I just … wish you would be a little more careful sometimes.”

Snapping I am careful! didn’t seem to be the kind of thing that a truly careful person would do, so I held back and instead kept silent the rest of the ride, even as Sidney tried to spark a discussion about the movie.

I googled it later anyway, even though I knew Mom was right—those cameras were expensive, and it wouldn’t be cheap to fix.

I felt another irrational surge of annoyance at Dan, seeing the prices online. Why did he have to have such a nice camera in the first place? More to the point, who told him to be a fifty-something-year-old YouTuber anyway?

I shut the top of Rose’s laptop and fell back against my pillows. Rose was still out—sans computer, clearly—and Sidney was showering, so our room was empty for a moment, silent in the way that it could never really be silent at the Eastman—the sound of the shower, the TV on low in the next room, the thump of the dryer, and the whoosh of the elevator.

I reached for my phone. Opened up a text and added Jamie.

We had all already texted for Sounds of the Nineties planning purposes anyway. So this wasn’t that weird, just texting him. And anyway, he told me I should let him know if I was interested:

Hey who would I talk to for a job at Pipers?





11.


PARIS AT NIGHT: VALUE SWAP!!!! Published by TheArtfulHeart, January 30

… So now that we’ve got our colors arranged, it’s time to start in on our foundational work. My apologies for the lower film quality today … Hopefully you can still catch all the details here.

You know, this reminds me of when we first started on this journey together, before I got my, uh, recording setup upgraded, if you’ve been watching since then. If you have, I sure do appreciate you. If you’ve just popped by, well, I sure appreciate you too. Any length of time you’ve chosen to spend with me is meaningful to me. It’s about the art, but it’s also about the human connection, isn’t it? We wouldn’t be here without that.





12.


THURSDAY ROLLED AROUND, AND I made my way to the studio for our 1992 broadcast. Jamie was programming the playlist when I arrived.

“Hey,” he said, glancing up as I dropped down into one of the rolling chairs.

“Hi.” I started riffling through my backpack for my headphones.