before starting off toward the ranch house.
“Hey, don’t let me run you off,” he said.
She hesitated, glanced at the big white house perched above the creek and bit her lip.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Jody Harrison.”
“Come on, Jody Harrison.” He sat up and waved her back to her chair. “Keep me company. That is, if you don’t have anything better to do.”
Still worrying her lower lip, she accepted his invitation. “You’re Mr. Kelleran, aren’t you?”
“Yep. But I like it better when people call me Fitz.” He raised his knees and rested his elbows across them. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Fitz,” he said with a grin.
“Fitz,” she said, and smiled back.
So far, the kid was a whole lot easier to get along with than her mother.
He snapped off a piece of long grass and stuck it in one corner of his mouth. “What are you doing out here, Jody Harrison? Besides enjoying this fine day.”
“Watching. Reading.”
“Hm.” Fitz held out his hand. “Let’s see.”
She passed him a book from the top of the pile. An Introduction to Photography. Pretty boring stuff—technical terms, black line drawings, shaded shot angles. “You like photography?”
“I don’t know yet.” She frowned at the camera in her lap. “I’m just learning.”
“Don’t you think you’d learn better by taking some pictures, trying stuff out? See what works, instead of just reading about it?”
“I guess.” She glanced at him from under her lashes. “Do you like photography?”
Press flashes blinding, Steadicams angling in close, tabloid zooms clicking like scuttling cockroaches. “I’m not sure.”
He spit out the grass and returned the book. “Let me see your camera.”
She handed him a cheap model. He lifted it to his face and snapped a shot of a startled young girl in a lemon-yellow tank top, rumpled denim shorts and dusty athletic shoes. “Okay,” he said, handing it back. “Your turn.”
“What?”
“To take my picture.”
“Can I?”
“Sure.” He stood and squinted up through the tree branches. “But I don’t know if this is the best kind of light for a picture.” He looked down at her. “What do you think?”
She hitched up both shoulders. “I don’t know.”
“Guess we’re not going to learn much about photography by talking to each other.” He swept his hat off the grass and settled it back on his head. “We could talk to Krystof.”
“Krystof?”
“Krystof Laszlofi. He’s a kind of photographer—a cinematographer. Come on,” he said, plucking the books off her toothpick legs. “Let’s go.”
He headed back to the set, pretending he didn’t notice her attempts to stare without actually staring. Pretty polite, for a kid. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been called Mr. Kelleran by someone who didn’t have an angle.
“So, Jody Harrison,” he asked, “have you been studying photography a while?”
“No. I just got interested from, you know, watching some filming last week. And Jason—he’s a Steadicam guy—he told me some stuff and let me look through the lens.”
“It’s pretty cool stuff.”
“Yes, sir.”
Krystof climbed on the camera dolly to make an adjustment as they approached.
“Hey, Krys,” said Fitz. “Got a moment?”
Krystof peered down with his pouchy, basset-hound eyes. “Yes, I can make a moment. I am learning to make many moments, and to have much patience these days.”
Fitz shot a glance over his shoulder at Van Gelder, who was harassing a grip. “You ought to be a real pro in a couple of months.”
He reached behind him and dragged Jody forward. “This is Jody Harrison, a student of photography.”
Krystof nodded slowly. “How do you do, Miss Harrison?”
“How do you do, Mr. Lazz—”
“Laszlofi. It’s Hungarian. All the best cinematographers are Hungarian,” he said before launching into a discussion of shutters and settings. Jody nodded at the appropriate moments and asked the right questions, but she sneaked a cross-eyed glance Fitz’s way to share the pain of the technical tedium.
He grinned back at her. Cute kid.
Damn if he didn’t feel that funny tug in his chest again. He tipped his hat back a bit. “Lunch break. Coming, Krys?”
“In a minute.”
“Jody?”
“Me?” She pointed at her bony chest, and then at Fitz. “Eat lunch with you?”
“If you don’t have any other plans.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and angled his head back toward the white vans. “Come on. Keep me company, Jody Harrison.”
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