"Yeah, time flies," Genise looked at me warily. "Listen, why don't you make yourself comfortable." She pulled a chair from under her table.
As Genise went about whipping up stir-fry, I fell under the spell of her photo albums. I occasionally glanced upwards for a glimpse of her ass. Her photography was always compelling, but the photos in front of me were riveting. Faces, ordinary faces, of all shapes and sizes, colors and creeds, beautiful and ugly, distinguished and nondescript, all caught on the boardwalk, all unaware of the camera's eye. The transitory captured in eternity. I could have spent hours creating stories about those faces.
One series of photos I found bewitching. In the first photo an angry woman, her face red and her fists clenched at her side, scowled at an old man sitting on a bench. The man sat passively, almost relaxed, his folded hands resting atop crossed legs, his back resting against the bench. He was smirking at her.
In the second, a wad of spit hung in spiraling flight. Pupils dilated, the man's expression registered surprise.
In the third, the missile impacted upon the man's cheek, which he managed to turn towards the assault. His eyes shut, a hand rushed upwards in attempt at intercepting the loogie. In the background an onlooker stared mouth agape.
In the next photo, the man reaches into his pocket. The woman appears in midst of a giant leap backward, like a coyote hop in reverse. Fear is noticeable beneath her anger.
"I thought for sure he was packing," Genise said startling me. She looked over my shoulder. "She thought so too."
The next photo reveals the man staring at the backpedaling woman and drawing an object from his pant pocket. The stunned onlooker in the background is also caught in retreat.
In the next one he produces a handkerchief. "He really pisses her off," Genise said.
"Like she's not already," I looked over my shoulder at Genise.
In the following photo as he wipes the loogie away with a smile upon his face. He still rests against the back of the bench. "He laughs at her. She rips into him, calling him a fucking this and a fucking that and he just sits there calm as can be, laughing at her. I wanted to smack both of them."
"Why?"
"Cause she was way out of control and he was way in control, like too contrived or something."
In the last photo, the woman's face was flushed with anger, her forehead purple beneath tightly curled bangs. Her eyes glaring as she turned away.