Leaves (2 page)

Tyler was dreaming of dancing pumpkins when the clock radio came on. For a moment, the pumpkins swayed to the rhythm of the song before Tyler realized what was going on.
Why'd I set the alarm? I don't have to be anywhere this mor
n
ing.

The song was James Taylor's version of “Up on the Roof,” one of Maria's favorites. He remembered when she bought the album and played the song in what seemed to be an endless loop. It was the first pop song Tyler knew by heart – he was six at the time – and one afternoon, he found himself humming it while passing Maria's bedroom.

“Do you know what you're humming?” she said.

“It's that roof song.”

She laughed. “Yeah, that roof song. You like it?”

“You play it all the time.”

“But do you like it?”

“Yeah, it's good.”

She seemed very happy to learn this. “Do you want to hear some more stuff like that?”

“Sure.”

Maria invited him into her room and showed him her considerable record collection. She pulled out albums and played him a variety of songs: new stuff like Jackson Browne, Boston, and Bruce Springsteen, and cherished records like Cat Stevens'
Tea for the Tillerman
, Bob Dylan's
Blood on the Tracks
, and the Beach Boys'
Pet Sounds
. Tyler had heard some of this stuff before – Maria always had music on in her room – but he listened to it differently now as his sister pointed out the way a drumbeat changed in a certain place or the way the singer sang the same words differently each time. He thought key changes were the coolest thing in the world and loved the fact that none of his friends had any idea what he was talking about when he pointed one out.

After that, he and Maria became close music buddies. Every time she bought a new album, she invited him in to listen, and when she went off to college, she came back to tell him about all the new bands she'd heard. He loved that they had this between them, and he especially loved it when he got the opportunity to reciprocate by introducing her to new stuff as he got older.

When was the last time they'd gotten together to talk about new music? Did Maria even listen to new music now?

He finally got up the energy to shut off the radio, still trying to remember why he set it in the first place. He reached across the bed to flick the toggle. But the alarm wasn't set. The clock read four eighteen. Was he dreaming? His dreams were never that vivid.

James Taylor ad-libbed his way toward the end of the song, which faded out gently. Convinced now that he was truly awake – more awake than he would expect to be at four nineteen in the morning – Tyler wondered which song would come up next. What was the song that came after this one on the album? But the radio remained silent.

He lay back in bed, thinking,
this isn't a co
n
venient time for me to lose my mind.

It's a funny thing. They're always at their most beautiful just before they die.
The new photos had just come out of the printer, and Tyler found the richness and depth of color in them moving. The leaves in Oldham had just begun to change, but it was already obvious the foliage was going to be stunning this fall. He'd read in the local paper that conditions were near-optimal this year, though the media around here tended to say the same before relatively muted seasons. The local equivalent of propaganda. Still, if these first days were any indication, it would be a gorgeous month.

This was the first opportunity he'd had this year to photograph leaves as they came off the trees. There were three or four great shots here. A burnt umber sassafras set alone against a vivid blue sky, curling upward as though attempting to take flight. An almost coppery beech juxtaposed against a stand of trees across the park just beginning to be dotted with yellow. A lemony hickory as it pirouetted just inches from the ground. Those were the best of this lot, and they were very good. People would buy these.

If they were going to buy anything.

Tyler simply couldn't understand why this had been the toughest year of his career. The economy in Oldham and the entire surrounding area had rebounded extremely well, far ahead of the nation by all indications. Even the previous winter had been okay as far as tourism was concerned. But the demand for his work was decidedly down, coming off of his best year ever. Had he saturated the market? Were his photographs in too many galleries in the area? Were people tired of looking at his images? He'd pressed hard over the past few years to develop a distinctive style. Was this working against him now? Had that style become yesterday's news? If so, what was the next step? At thirty, retirement wasn't an option.

He could hardly consider it a surprise that his work life had gone badly for him this year. It was difficult to think of anything that had gone well in any aspect of his life. This was without question the most brutal stretch for him in memory, and the decline in interest in his work had only made a secondary contribution to this. His mother had wasted away so quickly and yet she also seemed to linger in a diminished state for an excruciatingly long time. Once Tyler understood that she was going to die, that no medical or spiritual miracles were coming, he had tried to come to terms with it. He even tried to convince himself that her dying was a preferable alternative to her suffering, and while at least that much was true, he was still completely unprepared when the inevitable happened. Knowing she was gone left an un-fillable chasm. That in itself was maybe the biggest sucker punch of the entire experience.

He'd started sparring with Corrina and her stepson Ryan during his mother's final weeks, and neither relationship had improved since, something he still found baffling. Ryan was fixing for a fight the day the kid went postal on him; of that much Tyler was certain. What he couldn't figure out was why. Of all people in the family, why him? And how was it possible that Corrina didn't see it for what it was?

It was not long after that when he realized he'd become an appendage in Patrice's life. It was one of those four-in-the-morning things where several images tumbled into his head at the same time – the way she no longer looked up when he entered the room, the way her eyes crinkled when he came to her with his troubles, the way her heart seemed to sag when she came home at night. When he got up the nerve to discuss it with her a week or so later, hoping she would convince him that he was imagining things, she thanked him for having the courage to say what she had wanted to say for some time. He had no option but to move out before what remained of their romance turned poisonous.

Yes, it had been a world-class awful year. However, fall had always been his favorite season. Maybe his fortunes would change color along with the leaves. Certainly if this latest set of photographs was any indication, things were about to improve. Though it was only nine thirty in the morning, Tyler had been at his computer for three hours already, waking up feeling much more motivated than he felt when he went to bed – even after that weird thing with the clock radio. Now, though, it was definitely time to get outside. He decided to take a walk to Henry's, taking his three best shots along with him.

Renting a place in town had some definite advantages. The cottage he'd shared with Patrice was beautiful, but it required jumping in a car to get anywhere, which meant sitting there freezing while the vehicle heated in the winter, and hassling with parking any other time of year. As a result, Tyler tended to go out less often than he liked, deciding it wasn't worth the bother. Now that he was living close to he middle of town, though, he walked all the time. He passed the house that Uriah Hayden built in 1687 – a fact noted on one of the white plaques so many of the houses in town displayed – which was followed by the one that Ezekiel Hamilton built two years later. There were plaques noting other Haydens and Hamiltons, as well as Simpsons and Partridges and others all over the town of Oldham, their homes having been converted into restaurants and coffee shops and boutiques. Some were even still homes. His own house was built by Nathaniel Essex, the first mayor of Oldham, in 1682.

Bob Ritchie was the owner of Henry's (so named for Josiah Henry, who built the place in 1701), the local art gallery on the far end of town. Bob had been selling Tyler's work since Tyler was twenty-one, claiming he was Tyler's “first patron.” Certainly Henry's was the source of Tyler's biggest sales over the years and he always went there first when he had something exciting to show. There were already a handful of people browsing the shop at this time of morning, a sign that Bob's business was in good shape.

“Hey, how's it going?” Bob said, breaking away from a customer to pat Tyler on the shoulder. “Give me a couple of minutes and I'll be right with you. I just made coffee in the back if you want some.”

“Thanks. I'll grab a cup and wait for you.”

Tyler walked slowly toward the back of the store, finding a collection of some of his shots on a wall along the way. There were many new artists on display in the gallery since he was last here a month ago. Lots of misty watercolors. Some faux Impressionist stuff. He noticed a new series of photographs of children playing. He'd never been able to photograph people well.

Tyler waved to Lanny, Bob's wife, as he walked into the office.

Lanny blew him a kiss. “You look good, Tyler. Lost a few pounds?”

“Yeah, maybe a few.”

A few minutes later, Bob joined him.

“Did they buy anything?” Tyler said as Bob sat down across from him, picking up his own coffee cup.

“Lanny'll close the deal. They're trying to decide between a landscape and a still life. Both paintings are more than five hundred dollars, so whichever they take is fine with me. What's up?”

“I just finished processing a great session and I wanted to show you a few of the shots.” Tyler opened his portfolio and pulled out the photographs, laying them on Bob's desk. “These are just test prints, obviously, but even before I start tweaking the output they look pretty good, don't they? Look at the movement on this one.”

Bob leaned forward to look at the photos. “They're great, yeah. I love the angle you got here. Were you laying down?”

“Arched under. It was a lucky shot, to tell you the truth. I was focused on a different leaf when I saw this one float down. Closest I ever get to action photography.”

Bob nodded. Tyler always knew he'd get a warm reception here. It was especially appreciated these days.

“Yeah, it's beautiful,” Bob said.

“I'm glad you think so. I was pretty buzzed when they came out. I'll work on these a little and get you a set of prints to frame.”

Bob pulled his coffee cup up to take a sip. “You might want to hold off on that for a little while. I have a fair amount of your inventory right now.”

Bob had never said this to him before, and Tyler felt a little flustered, choosing to hide behind his own coffee cup for a moment. “Do you want me to take some of it back?”

“No, I would never ask you to do that. But I'm not sure I can handle anything else until some of this other stuff moves. We've got your display up and then there are the mounted pieces in the bin as well. I sold one last week, I think, so I'm sure I'll work through all of it in the near future. Then you can replenish the whole lot.”

“What do you think is going on here?” Tyler said, failing to keep the concern from his voice.

“It's nothing. Don't worry about it. This stuff is cyclical. For a while people want nature photos, then they want watercolors, then they want abstracts, and then they want nature photos again. It always comes around.”

Tyler knew Bob was trying to ease his mind, but business had never been cyclical for him. Every year, he'd sold more images than the year before. Until this one. He packed the shots back in his portfolio, feeling a sense of disorientation he'd never felt in Henry's before. “I guess so. I might have to give these to someone else.”

“Yeah, of course. The lucky bastards. It's probably just something that's going on in this shop, anyway. They're probably burning through your stuff in Old Saybrook and they'll sell these in a week. I'm sure Penny'll call me to gloat.” Bob stood as Tyler did to shake his hand. “Everything else okay?”

“Yeah, everything's fine.”

“You settled in the new place.”

“Pretty much, yeah. I don't have a lot of furniture, but my workspace is all set up.”

“I'd like to see it sometime.” Bob clapped him on the shoulder again. “I'll call you soon, right after we move a few more pieces.”

Tyler hefted the portfolio. “That'd be great.”

“Tyler, it's really just a cyclical thing.”

Tyler offered a half-smile as he began to exit the gallery.

This was as close as this town ever came to being hectic. It was barely past ten in the morning, and already a dozen or so people had stopped by the Oldham Visitors Bureau for information, brochures, recommendations or – in the case of one woman – simply to talk about the passing of her husband in the spring. Corrina Gold Warren laid out some local maps and a stack of cards announcing an upcoming tasting at the new gourmet shop and readied herself for a steady flow of traffic. She'd be alone until noon and then Perry and Jean would join her until Corrina left at four.

Corrina had been running the Bureau for the past six years and she knew October was always the busiest month. Most years, the increased activity excited her, gave her an approximation of the rush she assumed her husband Gardner got every time he started a new case. This year, though, it was just distracting. There was too much else to do before the end of the month. Too much that no one other than she could take care of, no matter what any of them thought.