The Photographer

all my clothes … I had to clean everything. It was quite a mess, and I’m … I’m going to wash my clothes in the machine. I’ll just find a towel until they’re dry.”
“Poor Itzhak.” Natalie crossed toward me in the direction of the bathroom. I feared she was going to examine my clothing to see if I was telling the truth about the vomit. But she stopped in front of one of her parents’ nightstands to check the time. She turned around and walked back toward the bedroom door.
Fortunately, Natalie returned to bed rather quickly after a glass of milk. I was mildly concerned about how she would relate what she saw. She appeared to believe me when I explained about Itzhak. But I couldn’t be certain.
Still wrapped in the blanket, I went back to the master bathroom, where I’d left my clothes, and sent Amelia a text: can I use the laundry machine to wash my clothes? unfortunately, Itzhak’s been ill.
no! did he ruin ur clothes?
i’m fine
please use my bathroom to rinse off. The response allayed all my fears and filled me with the same sense of euphoria that I’d had earlier.
I placed my clean clothes in the laundry machine with detergent. Then, when I entered the master bathroom again, it was not as a trespasser, but as an invited guest. I sank down into a tub of steamy hot water. The water jets massaged my body, and I imagined it was someone touching me. Thoughts of Fritz consumed my imagination. Followed by thoughts of Amelia. I stared at the magical light fixture on the ceiling, a million drops of crystal held together by some invisible force. A feeling of deep contentment and optimism pervaded my soul. I stepped out of the bath, invigorated. Once I’d dried off, I returned to the laundry room to place my clothes in the dryer.
When Amelia and Fritz came home, they both apologized repeatedly. They felt awful for leaving Itzhak in my care, a dog with chronic gastrointestinal issues. In this situation, they could only see themselves as the guilty parties.
The next day, I woke up late with a headache, as if I were hungover, though I’d had very little to drink the night before. I checked my phone. The first time I’d babysat for Natalie, Amelia had written to me early the following morning, but I found no message this time. I checked again twenty minutes later. And again after that. I was hoping for some acknowledgment of our growing relationship. I feared sliding back. I drank a cup of coffee, showered, dressed, checked my phone again, then collected my equipment for the job I had that afternoon in Tribeca.
I arrived and stepped out of the elevator directly into a corner duplex penthouse: twenty-foot ceilings, white oak floors, a landscaped terrace, and sweeping views. Having photographed more than eight hundred parties given by wealthy New Yorkers, I was no longer impressed by the size of a home, nor was I impressed by costly art, furniture, or finishes. A majority of rich people have bad taste and derivative homes. Some of them have an impressive art collection dictated by an art consultant. It’s possible to hire people who will tell you what art to buy, what dishes to buy, what sheets to buy, what color to paint your walls. But the final product does not reflect any one person’s point of view, personality, taste, or sensibility. Just like any generic idea of what’s good, it’s actually not good.
The Straubs’ home was different. Amelia and Fritz did not design their home with the goal of trying to re-create something that they’d seen before. They, themselves, were the artists. They, themselves, had the vision.
Since I’d arrived early at my clients’ home, seven-year-old Boris was alone in the living room playing video games on an iPad. I approached the sturdy-looking child and handed him a box wrapped in green paper and silver ribbon. “Happy birthday,” I said. He took the package and placed it on the floor next to his feet. Then he jumped, landing with all his weight on top of the birthday present. He picked up the crushed package and handed it back to me, with a snide look on his face.
“I don’t want the party,” he said. “I don’t like anyone who’s coming.”
I turned the package over in my hands, noticing for the first time that my green blouse matched the wrapping paper. “Not even me?” I smiled at him.
He studied the camera around my neck and wrinkled his nose. “Especially not you.”
I stepped away from Boris, determined to try again in a few minutes.
Across the room, in the kitchen, I recognized Chef Simone, preparing pigs in blankets and goat cheese canapés. “Hi, Delta,” she said to me as I approached, and then quietly, with a nod toward Boris: “Little brat.”
Over the years, I’d perfected an inscrutable expression on my face that was neither agreement nor disagreement. And that was the expression I offered Simone. I refused to be seen gossiping. Quite frankly, she was underestimating our clients. That energy gets out there and I know for a fact that the clients can smell it. Many of my clients were vulgar, shallow, arrogant, and/or insolent. But they were not stupid. They expected the people in their employ to feign respect, whether or not it was genuinely felt. I’d learned that lesson early on from socialite-turned–event planner Emily Miller when I was assisting on her weddings. If a client had the vaguest notion that you didn’t think highly of her, you’d never get hired again.
Boris’s friends arrived, followed by Mack the Magician. I’d known Mack for years, since I’d started shooting Emily’s clients and their kids. He laid claim to performing at large venues and implied he did parties on rare occasions as a special favor to the parents. But we all knew that wasn’t true. He had the identical act every time and the same tired jokes. He didn’t even bother to rotate