She and her father crawled outside onto the narrow exterior workmen’s ledge so she could photograph the city from two hundred feet in the air. Stepping out into the bright sunlight had been awe-inspiring, but the wind tearing at her hair and clothing had been the biggest surprise. She’d gotten spectacular panoramic photographs of the city, as well as some close-ups of the embellishments on the Capitol dome.
She described the process of getting onto the dome, and Luke seemed both fascinated and appalled that she had done such a thing.
“My father was with me the whole time,” she said.
“He actually permitted you to do such a foolhardy thing?”
“My father has never stopped me from doing anything I truly wanted,” she replied. “Just the opposite. From the time I was a child, he taught me to dream big, and that if I wanted something badly enough, he’d let me fight for it. It didn’t matter that I was a girl. I’ve always known that he would be behind me the whole way.”
“Your father sounds like a wise man.”
She nodded. “I’m very lucky. Now, tell me which of the dome photos you think I should enlarge. I can only do four close-ups and five cityscapes.”
Luke handed the stack back to her. “I’m not an artist. You pick.”
She quickly selected the shots that showed the dome at its worst. An appropriations bill for restoring government buildings would be voted on soon, and the top of the dome wasn’t something officials could examine themselves.
She attached a large piece of bromide paper to a frame on one end of the enlarging box, then slid the original negative into a smaller frame on the other side.
“Now we need to darken the room, but I’m going to use the arc lamp to send a bright beam of light through the lens and then wait two minutes. The image will be imprinted on the larger piece of paper.”
She pulled the drapes closed, plunging the room into darkness, then switched on the tungsten bulb to provide a dim amber glow in the room. The arc lamp at the small end of the enlarging box beamed through the negative, casting the image onto the bromide paper.
“I feel like I should whisper,” Luke murmured in the darkness.
“You don’t have to,” she whispered back. “All we have to do is hold still and not jostle the box. The chemicals are doing all the work.”
She repeated the process to enlarge twelve additional pictures, then began the process of developing the photographs.
“This is the stinky part,” she warned as she poured solution into the developing trays. She set the first page into the chemical bath, and Luke stood by her shoulder, watching as she gently tipped the tray to keep the liquid gently washing the paper. The images developed quickly, but if she didn’t lift them from the solution in time, they darkened to an unacceptable degree. After a minute, she lifted the paper out with tongs and set it in the stop bath to neutralize the chemicals. Ten seconds later, she set it in the final tray to fix the image. Then she clipped the photograph onto a clothesline to dry.
After Luke watched the process a few times, he wanted to try. He caught on quickly, and soon she happily turned the task over to him. He was fun to watch as he went through the steps she’d taught him.
“Do you like being a government photographer?” he asked as he clipped another photograph to the clothesline.
“I love it. Developing the pictures is the most tedious part, but now that I’ve got you on the job, my life is just about perfect.”
He smiled, but it vanished quickly. “I’ve heard some rumors about the photographers who work at your department.”
She wondered about the note of concern in his voice. “That they’re going to give us the axe?”
“That’s the one.”
“Maybe. All the photographers are compiling portfolios of our best work. The hope is that we can convince the department that a picture can tell an important story, but I’ll be fine no matter what happens. My father won’t let me starve.”
Luke continued clipping up her photographs, and even in the dim light she could see the affection on his face. “If your father lets you down, let me know,” he said. “I like rescuing damsels in distress.”
“I’m not a damsel in distress.”
“Could you pretend? I’m actually just searching for an excuse to see you again. Do you think that’s something we can arrange?”
“I hope so.” She’d never in her life been so attracted to a man, and she scrambled for an opportunity for them to be together. “My father has tickets to a performance at the Lafayette Square Opera House. He’ll let us use them if I ask nicely.”
Luke let out a low whistle. “He must be well-connected. I tried and failed to get tickets.”
“He’s a congressman. People tend to offer him things like that.”
Luke swiveled to look at her. “Oh? Who is he?”
“Clyde Magruder, representative from the fourth district in Maryland.”
Luke blanched and swallowed hard. She smiled, because despite her father’s lofty title, he wasn’t an intimidating person.
“Your father is Clyde Magruder?” he asked in an awful whisper.
“Yes. Do you know him?” It could be the only reason for his strange behavior.
“Did you know my last name is Delacroix?”
It felt like her heart stopped beating. She blinked, hoping she had misunderstood. “As in Delacroix Global Spice?” she finally stammered. “Are you joking?”
“I wish I was.”
She felt like a sleepwalker as she wandered to the window. The Delacroixs were terrible people. They were arrogant, privileged snobs who looked down on hardworking people like her father and grandfather.
“Your brother has said horrible things about my family,” she managed to say. “Unforgivable things.”
“That was a long time ago,” Luke said.
Not long enough for her to forget. She still remembered coming home from school one blustery autumn day, delighted that she’d finally passed her math class, only to see her mother’s tear-stained face as she held a magazine on her lap. Gray Delacroix thought nothing of slandering them in the press, and that interview in which he attacked their entire family caused her parents no end of pain. Her grandfather won a libel suit against him, and the Delacroixs had to pay a shocking settlement fee, but money couldn’t restore a tainted reputation.
Her mother wasn’t the sort of person who could absorb a punch. Words could leave scars, and that was one her mother still carried.
“Your brother said my grandfather had dirt beneath his fingernails,” she said in a pained voice. “That he wasn’t fit to be in the food industry.”
“That was my brother, not me.”
She placed a hand over her heart, willing it to stop racing. She couldn’t blame Luke for something his brother had said. After all, it was years ago, and Luke was too young to have been involved in that nasty lawsuit. He was a good man. He risked his life to save Bandit. They held hands and laughed on the ice, even though they’d both been afraid. The Delacroixs had been trying to drive her family out of business for decades, but surely that was other people in his family, not Luke.
She risked a glance at him. “You don’t believe all those terrible things your brother said about us, do you?”