Page 10 of Just My Style
He grins. “Thank you. I’ve been practicing every day.”
“Why?”
He grins sheepishly. “I want to win the sandcastle competition.”
I tilt my head in thought. “What’s the prize?”
“A Hank Heron t-shirt.”
“You’re desperate for a Hank Heron t-shirt?”
“I have one already.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Just going for the glory of the win then?”
“Something like that.”
I still can’t look at him without feeling a wave of sorrow crash over me, but I realize that it’s not him I’m upset with. “I’m working on getting over my misplaced anger when it comes to you.”
“Much appreciated,” he says.
“’Sandcastle’ is an item on our scavenger list. Would it be cheating to take a photo of yours?”
He laughs. “Maybe, but I won’t tell.”
I kneel on the sand to take a photograph at eyelevel. “This is really good,” I say, noticing that each tower has windows carved out. “How did you do the windows?”
“With a broken plastic fork,” he explains, pulling it from his back pocket to show me. The tines form the middle have been removed, leaving only the outside tines.
“It looks very professional,” I say, showing him the picture on my phone.
His eyebrows raise in surprise. “So does this photograph!”
I look at it again, taking in the castle in the forefront of the photo and the Atlantic Ocean glistening in the background. “I didn’t originally plan to be a hand model. I was an art student at NYU. Not even Margo knows that.”
“Was photography your medium?”
I shake my head. “I loved working with charcoal. I had to give it up when I started modeling. The charcoal stains your fingertips and nails. That’s a huge no-no in the modeling world. I was expected to keep my hands flawlessly clean. No charcoal smudges allowed.”
“Not even Margo knows,” he says thoughtfully. “But you told me? Does that mean you forgive me for costing you the modeling job.”
I shake my head. “Not entirely. I’m getting there, though.” I scan the ocean for sea life, gasping when I notice a pod of dolphins. “Look!”
“Quick,” Victor says, “Snap some pictures. Dolphins are on the scavenger hunt list! I’d do it, but…” his voice trails off as he holds up his hands, covered in wet sand from the sandcastle build.
Laughing, I chase the dolphin pod down the beach, snapping photo after photo with the hope that just one of them will turn out to be a keeper.
I dash back to Victor’s side, and we lean over the phone together to look at the photographs. Most are blurry, or worse, crystal clear but with no dolphins in the picture. Then we find the perfect one. A dolphin leaps out of a cresting wave, making the photograph look like a postcard.
Victor whistles. “That’s a beauty. You really do have an eye for art.”
I beam at him, even though I know that there was zero skill involved in snapping this particular photograph. “Are you trying to butter me up?”
“I mean…” A boyish grin crosses his face. “I don’t really enjoy being hated by the most beautiful woman in Friendly.”
My cheeks feel like tiny furnaces. “You think I’m beautiful?”
“Obviously. You are a model, after all.”