A Photographer is Worth a Thousand Words
Helen couldn’t get what Dominic said to her at the escort service out of her head. He said, ‘There’s no way you’ll still want him by the end of it. I promise.’ Where did that kind of arrogance come from? But that wasn’t the only problem. It wasn’t just Dominic’s attitude that bothered her. It was the fact she knew what he said was true. She and Mark couldn’t last, so when Dominic said those words it felt like he saw straight through her. Naturally, it was an unpleasant sensation.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in Mark. She was. It was just that she couldn’t shake the idea that he liked her false face better than herself. If he just enjoyed having her around because she could put on a good show, then everything she was afraid of would happen when he got bored of her. She'd be brokenhearted and, on top of any other fallout, she’d feel like a fool for having trusted him.
Without question, Dominic understood her alter ego wasn’t real, and for some weird reason, that made all the difference in the world to her.
It had only been a few hours since she had agreed to date Mark, but already she felt like she had made a mistake.
Not that Dominic was any better. He was clearly the devil, but he made her see that she could get someone who wanted her exactly the way she was. She didn’t have to settle for someone who was impressed with false eyelashes.
It wasn’t until later that afternoon that she got a phone call from Mark. He explained that he wasn’t going to be able to shake off his brother for supper and asked her if he could tag along with them. Helen scratched the back of her neck and said she didn’t mind. She didn’t tell him the remainder of her thoughts, that she thought him inviting his brother was an extension of his bad behavior with Laura the previous evening. Couldn’t he explain to one person he had other plans and they would have to wait?
Needless to say, she didn’t put a whole lot of creativity into her attire that night. She wore a pair of blue jeans, layered a low black V-necked shirt with a white tank top, and put on her black boots. She decided her makeup didn’t matter, so she only wore eyeliner, mascara and lip gloss.
When the time came, Helen went onto the balcony and watched for Mark’s car. She was half daydreaming when she spotted something interesting. There was a car pulling into her building’s parking lot, but it wasn’t Mark’s Toyota. Instead, it was a Champagne colored Mercedes convertible and Mark was sitting in the passenger’s seat. Helen’s eyebrows went up. The person in the driver’s side was apparently his older brother, but… what was he driving? Then Helen remembered Mark said his condo was actually owned by his older brother and his comments about rich relatives.
Mark got out and started walking toward her building.
But Helen thought it was stupid for him to ring her bell when she could see him, so she leaned over the balcony railing and yelled, “Hey Mark!”
Mark craned his head back and looked at her. “Oh hi,” he called at half the volume with which she had called him.
“I’ll be right down,” she yelled even louder. Then she turned around and ran back into the apartment. She grabbed her keys and wallet and chased out the door. Some kinds of youthful exuberance just couldn’t be hidden.
Outside the building, Mark was leaning casually against the side of the Mercedes with his arms across his chest.
“Hi,” Helen said as she hugged Mark briefly.
“Helen, I’d like you to meet my brother, Trevor,” Mark said, easily slipping his arm around her waist and turning her to face the driver of the car.
Helen smiled politely and said, “Nice to meet you.”
Trevor took off his sunglasses and extended a hand to Helen before he said curtly, “Well, get in, girl, and make sure to sit in the front seat. I’m not escorting the two of you around like I’m your driver.”
Mark opened the door for Helen and saw her seated before he hopped into the backseat. Helen couldn’t help but wonder if Dominic would have gotten into the back for her. She doubted he'd even let another person drive.
As Trevor drove to the restaurant, Helen got a better chance to look at him, but it was hard to examine him properly without feeling like she was checking him out. Why didn’t the man dress properly? He was wearing a white button-up-the-front shirt, which wasn’t skanky on its own unless you happened to forget to do up the top five buttons and Trevor had forgotten. He wore several silver chains around his wrist and dog tags around his neck. Helen thought he was almost as handsome as Mark, except that his hair was cut so badly. Did anyone still wear their hair long in the back anymore?
When Trevor noticed her looking at him, he quickly asked her, “Is the wind bothering you?”
“No,” Helen said, turning away and feeling embarrassed.
“No, I guess it wouldn’t. I have a scarf in the glove compartment for women, who don’t want their hair wrecked, but since you’ve got a haircut like that, then I guess you don’t need it. It’s a relief really. I can’t stand the complaining.”
Helen didn’t even realize an open car would destroy a girl’s hairdo, but once she thought about it, she conceded to herself if she had worn her wig, they would probably have ended up searching for it on the side of the road.
“You’re not a womanizer, are you?” Helen asked him, suddenly flirtatious. Escort habits die hard.
In the back, Mark started laughing.
“Shut up,” Trevor shouted at Mark with a chuckle in his throat. “For Pete’s sake, can’t a guy…”
Mark shoved his head between their seats. “Open the glove compartment, and we’ll see if he’s a womanizer or not.”
“Don’t do that,” Trevor advised, trying feebly to stop Helen from getting it open. But since he couldn’t do much while he was driving, Helen easily clicked it open. It was crammed full of scarves. She pulled them out to get a better look at them. There were floral designs, stripes, and transparent ones of every color imaginable. She saw one that was such a pretty color of emerald green. She stretched it out to have a better look at it only to realize that it wasn’t a scarf, but an incredibly brief nightgown.
Trevor was watching her out of the corner of his eye, and he started shaking his head ruefully as he saw what she discovered. “I forgot that was in there.”
Helen started cramming the scarves back where they belonged when one of them was torn from her hands and blown out of the top of the car onto the road behind them. “Oops!” she cried.
“No need to worry,” Trevor said unconcernedly. “I think that one was pantyhose.”
“It was NOT!” Helen hollered over the wind and trying desperately to see what had happened to it.
“Look, we’re here,” Trevor said as he turned the car into the parking lot of the restaurant.
“I don’t think that was very funny,” Helen said getting out of the car. “Whatever happened with that woman, you should at least give her nightgown back.”
Trevor shook his head thoughtfully, “If only I could remember which girl it belonged to.”
“What!” Helen exclaimed.