Just a little concoction of mine to kill time between classes. Pure fluff for the hopeless romantics out there.(or in my case the closet-hopeless romanticsJ)
Pictures Never Lie
Beth Jones
It was really no big deal. Well, at least it wouldn't have been a big deal if I had followed through with my plan to stick Nigel's new long-range adjustable lens camera where the sun don't shine. But then Woody showed up at the office and I lost my train of thought. It happens generally without my ever noticing it. To tell you the truth, a lot of things happen without my ever noticing when Woody's around. Weather changes, phone calls…lanky, hyperactive Tea Bags taking Paparazzi-like photos with their new long-range adjustable lens cameras when no one asked them to. Such was the case on the day Nigel took 'The picture of Jordan and Woody' that began to circulate, unbeknownst to me for three days following the taking of said picture. I swear, I never even saw him outside the door. But three days later, I walked into work to find one of the most flattering, sentimental pictures of myself and…and anyone, I'd ever seen. It literally took my breath away.
In 'the picture of Jordan and Woody' I was sitting at my desk. I was leaning back my sneaker clad feet propped up on top of a couple piles of paper I like to think of as being filed under "I'll do it later". I have a case file on my lap and Woody is standing behind me, leaning over my shoulder. There is nothing really remarkable about that. Woody leans over my shoulder a lot to look at case files. The remarkable thing is that he is not looking at the file, he's looking at me and I am looking at him. We're practically nose to nose for God's sake. An inch from each of us and we'd be kissing. But as suggestive as the stances from the two of us are, the expressions on our faces are what had everyone talking. We look….blissful….happy….comfortable. We look like we're in love. It couldn't be more obvious. Both of our cheeks are flushed, Woody has that look guys get on their faces when they get caught off their macho guard and I am smiling at whatever cute remark he made. We look like a couple.
Pulling myself momentarily out of the trance the picture had put me in, I looked around the office, trying to tell if anyone was watching me look at the picture. No one was, but I got the feeling that they had been. I rubbed the back of my neck nervously and hurried to Nigel's desk.
"Hey Jordan." He said deeply involved in a file.
"HEY JORDAN!?" I whispered appalled.
"Don't you 'Hey Jordan' me ya lousy Brit." I whispered angrily.
Finally, Nigel looked up from the file and looked me over once quizzically before it finally occurred to him why I was so mad.
"Oh what's this all about? The Picture?" He asked innocently.
I merely shook my head vehemently in the affirmative. Then he shrugged at me. "I don't see what the big deal is, I just took a picture of you and Woody going over a file," he said. Then quietly added:
"It's not my fault you two were all starry-eyed and twitterpated like." And turned his attention back to the file he was reading.
I started to tear him apart again but he interrupted with an Austin Powers inspired shushing.
"Aep…the camera DOES NOT lie." He said pointing at my face and then went back to his file.
I could only turn in a huff and stomp childishly back to my office and slump into my chair.
The next month, Woody and I began seeing each other. I had actually planned on avoiding him for the next few months but as persistent as he is, Woody found out about and saw the picture. He confronted me with his feelings and mine for that matter and insisted that we at least try going out and see where it went after that. I agreed because well, he didn't really give me the option of not going out with him. He said he was sick of paying 5th grade courting games with me. Always willing to accept a challenge, I agreed to go out with him.
The next year, Nigel took another picture for us and oddly enough we have the same blissful, happy, comfortable looks on our faces. But this time we weren't in my office. We were on the beach. I was wearing a simple white linen dress with a wreath of flowers in my curly, windblown hair. Woody was wearing a man's soft white peasant shirt with Kelly green needlework sewn into a beautiful pattern bordering the v - shaped collar done expertly by his mother, and a pair of khakis. Neither of us wore shoes, nor did any of the guests all dressed much the same. We stood in the sand with the late afternoon sun setting into the sea behind us. When I got back the next week from our honeymoon I made sure to put the picture up under the office one and we jokingly called it 'the other picture of Jordan and Woody'.
A few years after that, a final picture followed the previous two, now frayed and faded from the years of being pinned to the wall. The new picture looked out of place next to the other two -- I thought, but Nigel assured me that it looked just perfect. A fine end to the chronicles of Woody and Jordan he said. And as I looked at the three smiling faces of Woody, myself, and our little girl Emily, testing our feet in the cold ocean water, I thought so too.
