Innocence Page 5

Chapter 5

  The strongest of us all, the most complicated and certainly the fiercest friend to mankind, was last to join our gathering.

  Her entrance to The Five was preceded by the audible clicks of her ever-present camera. And not those cameras built into smartphones that everybody and her brother uses to snap selfies and post up on Facebook or Instagram. I’m talking about a real camera. A Nikon, I believe. Or perhaps, a Lycia. Whatever it was, it was professional grade, with the price tag to match. Amanda Livingston treated it like her baby.

  The British-born photojournalist from a broken family didn’t have all that much to her name. But she had that camera, and she kept it with her like a security blanket. Actually, that’s not correct. It was her armor. When that camera was raised to her face, she was fearless. She would go anywhere, amid any kind of danger or threat, because the camera was her passport to see, to document, to report and to expose whatever crime or injustice there was so all the world could see.

  She was the real deal, Amanda Livingston was. The rare person in which the job – no, the calling – was bigger and more important than herself. She gave herself to journalism -- to serious, muck-raking, change-the-world journalism -- even though the world and the economics of the Internet were crushing journalism and turning it into some bastardized BuzzFeed form of intellectual popcorn and mindless eye-candy that could be consumed on a smartphone.

  Not Amanda. She was different. A throwback. She believed that the image told the truth, and it took a professional to see that. Not some blogger with an iPhone. A professional with a real camera and a finely trained eye.

  Her.

  Sonya was the first to notice the intermittent clicks of Amanda’s camera, emanating from just beyond our dorm room’s open door. Sonya turned from our group’s conversation around my bed. She raised a finger raised for quiet, then sharpened her brow as she focused on the doorway.

  Click.

  Sonya rose from the chair she had pulled up next to the bed. All our attention was now tuned to the doorway and the dimly-lit dorm hallway beyond.

  Sonya stepped into the entranceway, only to discover Amanda, blonde and buxom, crouched down around the corner, with her camera to her face and focused on our room.

  “What gives?” Sonya demanded, looking down, hands propped on her hips.

  Amanda lowered the camera from her pretty face, looking up like a lost puppy dog.

  Amanda shrugged, then straightened.

  “Mind telling us what you’re doing?” Sonya pressed.

  Amanda stepped into the doorway, exposing herself to all of us in the room.

  “I take pictures,” she said in a small voice that made it hard to notice her accent at first.

  “You mean you spy on people in the privacy of their own rooms?” Sonya corrected, not masking her annoyance.

  “Hey, it’s a public hallway,” Amanda said, more sure of herself now, not backing down. The ring of her British accent was both clear – and intriguing. “The door was open. I saw an image, and…”

  “And what?” Sonya demanded.

  “And I took it?” Amanda said, her soft British accent so smart-sounding, so perfect. But why was Sonya acting so rudely?

  “So what are you? Some kind of English Lois Lane?” Sonya’s voice was smothered in sarcasm.

  “Lois who?” Amanda asked.

  That’s when I stood up.

  “Why don’t you come on in,” I invited. “I’m Monica.”

  I extended my hand in front of Sonya. My roommate glared at it, then shifted her sharp eyes to mine.

  “Amanda,” the photographer answered, taking my hand, ignoring Sonya. “Amanda Livingston. I guess we’re neighbors. I’m in the flat a door down.”

  “Flat?” Sonya repeated, but no one paid any attention.

  “So you’re from England?” Lauren asked, popping up from the bed to get a good look at our interesting guest.

  “Yes, London,” Amanda answered. “But not lately. My father moved to America, and I’ve been staying with him. Well, caring for him, actually.”

  “Nothing serious,” I put in.

  “Not anymore,” Amanda said, her eyes falling to the floor. “He died. Cancer.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sonya managed in a low, chided voice. “Come on in.”

  Sonya and I stepped aside, and Amanda Livingston entered our room. And in that moment, she also entered our lives and joined The Five.

  “What a wonderful space,” she said, her eyes taking in everything. “Interesting work,” she added, staring at Sonya’s paintings. “Yours, I gather?”

  Sonya seemed surprised. “Yes. Thanks. How did you know?”

  Amanda shrugged. “You address things head-on. Very bold. No nonsense. I like that. It’s honest, isn’t it?”

  “All art is,” Sonya said. “If it’s good.”

  “Ah, the quest for the eternal truths,” Amanda nodded. “A well-traveled but lonely path.”

  Sonya couldn’t help staring at our guest as she soaked in the space, the art, the air and the complex chemistry that was the five of us, together.

  “So the pictures?” Sonya nodded at the camera slung around Amanda’s shoulder.

  “Just a moment that I noticed,” Amanda explained. “If anything comes of it, I’ll give you the image.”

  “What did you see?” Sonya asked.

  This seemed to stump Amanda. Her blond brow furrowed, her porcelain skin crinkling ever so slightly on her forehead and at the corners of her blue eyes. “I don’t know really,” she finally said.

  “Yes, you do,” Sonya said, never breaking her stare. “You can tell us.”

  Amanda looked right into Sonya’s face.

  “I saw friendships forming, I guess,” Amanda said. “Something I could rather use. Seems my roommate has withdrawn from university at the very last second. It’s all very mysterious, really. I do hope everything’s all right. Sometimes, they employ such euphemisms when someone is in hospital.”

  “Wait a second,” Chelsea Daniels put in. “Don’t you see? You scored, big time. I’ve heard that when a roomie flames out, sometimes you go the whole semester without a replacement. Don’t you see?”

  “Rather lonely, I expect,” Amanda pondered.

  “Lonely!” Sonya chimed in. “Private is more like it. Privacy, as in when you have a guy to entertain?”

  Sonya watched Amanda to see if the Brit-born blonde was picking up on her meaning.

  “Hmm,” Amanda hummed. “Never thought of it quite like that. Then again, it’s usually not an issue.”

  “You don’t date much?” Chelsea commiserated. “Welcome to the club.”

  “Not that,” Amanda corrected. “Heavens no. Rather, the men I date tend to be a bit older. So, they have their own flats.”

  “Older?” I repeated. “How much older?”

  “Decades, usually,” she answered.

  “Ewwwe,” Chelsea squealed in disgust.

  “Don’t tell me,” Sonya said. “Professors. You get off on tweed jackets and pipe smoke.”

  Amanda shrugged. “Journalists, too. I like smart people. I like to be challenged. And I like to challenge them.”

  Sonya nodded. “Professors, all right. I’m sure you’ll do well here. I bet the old boys can’t wait to get to know you.”

  “Old dudes?” Lauren Marks intoned, as if her mind just could not comprehend the attraction. “Really?”

  “Well, not ancient,” Amanda corrected. “No actual geezers. I think the oldest was fifty-two. No. Wait. He had a birthday. Fifty-three.”

  Amanda looked about the room as all of our jaws hung open, as if unhinged.

  “Fifty-three-fucking-years-old?” Lauren repeated in a halting, disbelieving tone. “And you find that attractive?”

  Amanda cocked her head, then shrugged.

  “I never really thought about it quite like that,” she answered.

  “Well, you gotta tell us more,” Sonya insisted. “And you’ll have to share that single ro
om of yours should any of us pair up with a younger man who still has his own teeth -- but not his own flat. Deal?”

  Amanda broke into a smile.

  “Deal.”