"I know we're almost down, but I have one more thing to show you guys. It'll be worth it, trust me." 

 

A chorus of beaten moans came from Professor Artom’s field survey class, tailing him bow-backed and eager to head home after the day's journey. It was only their second trip, but it happened to involve quite a hike up a local mountainside, and at this point he’d already squeezed nearly every ounce of mileage out of them. 

 

At least, out of Sofia. Having crossed “stopping for rescue inhaler use” off her trip bingo card, she wondered in not so polite terms whether it was, in fact, worth it. 

 

The professor, on the other hand, seemed not only unaffected but eager.

 

"You expect us to climb that?" said one of the chunkier girls—Rosa. 

 

"That’s nothing," came one of the sportier girls—Julia. 

 

"I think you’re all capable," said Professor Artom. "And I'll help whoever needs it."

 

The man steadied himself against the dirty, rocky cliffside—around ten feet tall with a reasonable incline of roughly forty-five degrees—then hoisted his arms up with ease. His hands, sturdy and dextrous, grabbed at juts of crag with confidence that belied the pudge in his belly. He was in his element. 

 

Sofia spied glimpses of his back muscles through the twisted, sweat-soaked fabric of his blue polo. A rock abruptly crumbled away beneath his boot, but despite the brief loss in footing, he simply moved onward, the sweat of his concentrated brow adhering stray curls to his forehead, the rims of his glasses glinting with fading sunlight. Upon hoisting himself over the edge, he stared down at his disciples and smiled. Sofia's stomach tightened. 

 

Some students made it up all on their own; some took the professor's hand. Sofia dawdled, running the cost/benefit assessment in her head and concluding that one more sunset in her life couldn’t possibly be worth this level of exertion—even as, summit by summit, she heard glowing praises of the view ringing from her peers above. 

 

And then there was one. The professor looked down expectantly. 

 

"I'll pass," she said, putting a hand up. 

 

"But you can do it. You did the rest of the hike just fine."

 

"With several shots of albuterol."

 

“Come on, what’re you, scared? Scared of one more little baby cliff?” he asked, his voice charged with boyish challenge.  

 

“Not the cliff. My own lungs.”

 

He stuck out his hand. Her eyes fixed on the lines of his open palm. After an eyeroll and a moment’s hesitation, she shakily grabbed the cliff's crags and practically flailed her way up, a baby bird stumbling after the rest of its flock.

 

With only a few feet left, she grabbed his outstretched hand, large and weathered and warm. She was surprised by his unassuming strength as it helped lift and stabilize her; the hand was not merely ceremonial help, it actually gave her needed stability as she found footing and squirmed her way up over the ledge. 

 

As she rose over it, she beheld a small lookout with a worthwhile view indeed: the sun was setting beautifully over the mountainous river valley, painting the sky in textured clouds of gold and red and indigo. 

 

The group stood in the throes of oohs and ahs, snapping photos and chattering. Sofia stood alone at the fringes, trying to capture the scene with her smartphone and failing pitifully. 

 

Professor Artom, who’d been taking photos with his bulky DSLR, noticed her alone and approached her from behind. He spied the image on her phone, streaky and white, her expression clearly frustrated with the disparity between life and screen. 

 

"You know you can adjust the exposure?" 

 

She jerked. "Jesus, you startled me."

 

"Sorry. Uh…may I?" 

 

"Sure."

 

He leaned in, tapped his finger on the screen's bright, blown-out yellows, and brought the slider down, rendering the vista in its proper fiery glory.

 

"Whoa. I had no idea I could do that."

 

"You know what else you can do—" 

 

"Professor! Can you take a photo of us?" called Julia. 

 

"Sure," he called back. "Just a moment," he said to Sofia. 

 

Sofia watched as he ended up playing photographer for some of the others, finding her eyes rolling at the indulgent vanity of such a request. She turned back to her own camera, armed with new knowledge, quietly taking her own photos—or trying, anyway. Her mind was for some reason on other matters.

 

He laughed suddenly from across the clearing, rousing in her an irrational pang of jealousy she quickly suppressed. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose self-consciously. She was here to learn. Unlike some people.

 

"These are sooo good. Can I hire you to take my Instagram pictures?" said Julia after Professor Artom showed her the results on her phone's camera. 

 

"I am a luxury few can afford," he responded with feigned haughtiness. 

 

"Is that a no?" 

 

"Yes," he said. He turned to the rest of the group. "Okay, folks, start wrapping up so we don't get caught in the dark." 

 

Sofia quickly turned back to her phone and continued snapping, for some reason thankful for the response he'd given Julia. Not that it mattered either way. It wasn't any of her business what he did with other students. It was just a matter of propriety. That was all. 

 

"I can take one more if you want." 

 

She whirled around, once again startled. 

 

"You've got to stop doing that."

 

"...With you in the shot, I mean," Professor Artom continued.

 

"That’s okay, I don't really need it." 

 

"Nobody really 'needs' a photo of themselves. But it just takes a fraction of a second—1/100th to be exact," he said, checking his shutter settings. She shrugged.

 

"It's fine," she said. Then: "…I don't know, I guess I find it a little…conceited."

 

He furrowed his brow. Conceited? Merely for one to have their photo taken? His knee-jerk hunch was that this ridiculous notion was rooted in some insecurity; clearly, what she'd meant was that she was uncomfortable being the object of attention.

 

Well, too bad. 

 

"Let me ask you something, Sofia. How would I know the difference between a photo you took and one published in National Geographic?" 

 

"Mine would be shitty?"

 

"No, wh—" he started, interrupting himself to grin at her remark, "No. When you tell your kids you went to the Taj Mahal, or the Golden Gate Bridge or whatever, they're not going to care as much about the landmark as they will the subject."

 

Sofia averted her gaze. 

 

"Not nuts about having kids."

 

"Fair. But you get my point."

 

She nodded, still not entirely sold. 

 

"Here, let me show you," he said, taking some steps back and stancing. His fingers gripped his camera as his face tucked behind the viewfinder. The long barrel of his lens aimed dead at her as though his Canon were a Kalashnikov. 

 

"I guess," she murmured more to herself than him. She stared into the rainbowed glass of the lens and tried to relax, allowing her body to pose itself naturally. Natural for Sofia, of course, constituted a distant, grave expression, stormy eyes, a stern mouth, and crossed arms. 

 

Professor Artom lowered his camera and looked at her with patient amusement. 

 

“You look like you’re in front of a firing squad.” 

 

“What? What am I doing?” 

 

"Let's troubleshoot,” he said with a sigh, closing the distance between them. "May I?" 

 

"Sure."

 

He began gently adjusting her arms, orienting her, standing close enough for her to catch his not entirely offensive scent: a hard day’s sweat commingled with some sort of cheap deodorant. 

 

“So what I want is you at a bit of an angle so your back isn't totally to the light, ‘cause then you're too underexposed. Relax your arms, put one on the railing if you want, whatever’s comfortable. And breathe."

 

Sofia tried not to show that she was becoming even more nervous watching him retake his vantage point. There was something chilling about him posing her, photographing her like a doll, staring blankly into his lens, its glass scrutinizing her, making her feel uncomfortably aware of herself. 

 

It did nothing to ease her burgeoning concern with his perception of her.

 

"Miss Bezzina, you are not smiling!" he called out in faux admonition. She huffed and rolled her eyes. 

 

"Why do I have to smile?" 

 

This made him smile. 

 

"Oh, I don't know, because you're happy to be here?" 

 

"I’m plenty happy. I don’t have to bare my teeth like a chimp to show it."

 

"Like a chimp,” he muttered to himself in disbelief. “You know, you're something else. Fine then, don’t smile. But you do have stuff on your shirt.” 

 

"What?" she said, looking down at her cotton button-down, brushing it for dirt or bugs or a stray leaf. She could find nothing wrong. “Where?”

 

"On your shirt," he insisted. She brushed at it again. “Still there. Like four of them. Round and white. Nope, still there.” 

 

She swiped once more before it dawned on her. 

 

“You mean my…buttons..?” she asked slowly, “...are on my shirt?”  

 

She looked up, her face slightly scrunched in dumbfounded confusion as to where he was going with this, to find him nodding enthusiastically with a very dumb, wide-eyed look of concern on his face. 

 

It wasn't funny at all. It was moronic. It was absurd. 

 

It was so stupid she let out exactly one laugh. 

 

 

One was all he needed. The dopey look on his face immediately fell as he snapped the photo. 

 

“Too easy,” he said. 

 

"Stupid," she muttered through her grin. 

 

 

"I'm not the one baring my teeth like a chimp."

 

He snapped one more then walked over to her and showed her the camera's screen. Her jaw dropped. Somehow, by some divine grace, the photos had actually turned out lovely. A couple of them included the whole scene, a couple were zoomed in on her. In all of them, the warm, gold light hugged her face, illuminating her eyes and hair. The angles made her body look proportional. She appeared natural, her smile candid, yet in a way that for once didn’t conjure in her those familiar feelings of inadequacy. 

 

"Wow," she breathed in genuine shock. 

 

"See, Nat Geo wouldn't publish these.” Professor Artom stopped on one particularly flattering shot that took both of them off guard. “Or, uh…maybe they would," he said quietly. 

 

"I don't look terrible," Sofia muttered. "How’d you manage that?" 

 

"Pointed it at you and pressed the big round button." She gave him a look. He shrugged. “Just basic shot comp. When you take a lot of pictures, you start to get the hang of it." 

 

"You must have some sort of magic touch, because none of my pictures ever come out like that." 

 

"In general? Or of you?" 

 

"Both. But…more often the ones of me."

 

His demeanor softened. So he was right. 

 

"Well. Eye of the beholder and all. Or lens, in this case."

 

A moment of silence passed between them before the professor started putting away his camera. Sofia stared at the dirt, hand rubbing the back of her neck, unsure what to make of this comment. 

 

"Let's not keep the others waiting," he said, turning on his heel. 

 

As he walked away and began leading the group back down, she stood there, thoughts racing, feet cemented to the dirt. Her breath came quick now in a way from which her inhaler would provide no rescue. 

 

No, it was nothing. Nothing that meant anything.