The Seal Wife - Kathryn Harrison [70]
“Secretary to Mears. Engineering Commission.” Davison looks past Bigelow into the station house, the drafting table with its piles of drawings. “You’re the kite operator,” he says.
Bigelow steps back from the doorway, inviting him inside. “I’m . . . I work for the Weather Bureau.”
Davison nods. “You flew the kite. The box kite.” With his hat, he gestures in the direction of the town. “They said this is where you live.”
Gone, Bigelow is about to tell him, but instead he answers, “Yes.”
“We need aerial photographs.” Davison pulls out the one chair from where Bigelow tucked it under his table. He sits, leaning forward, an elbow on each knee. “We have the camera. Aluminum body. Weighs only four pounds. One exposure at a go. Then you have to reel it back in. Change the plate.
“What we need is this, we need survey photographs. Topographical, for the port. Deepwater port. There’s five sites proposed, and we need to pick the right one. Need to see as much as we can. From above.” Davison stands and walks once around the table, looking at the drawings. He picks one up, studies it, replaces it on top of the others. Then he looks at Bigelow. With his hands shoved in his pockets, he rocks back and forth on his heels.
“Commission’s looking for an experienced operator. Someone who can fly a camera over the water. We had a fellow lined up, fellow with a biplane, but the wind’s not right. He backed out.” He shrugs. “The camera equipment’s not complicated. Automatic shutter. But getting it into position—that’s the trick. Timing device activates the shutter. Gives you as long as you need to get it where you want it. Hour. Half hour. You set it.” Davison points out the door. “Photographs of the town, the creek, the inlet. All the environs.”
“Environs.” Bigelow repeats the word. A word like a cuff link, gleaming in his station house, calling attention to itself. He says nothing more, and the man, Davison, seems to interpret this as reluctance.
“Commission’ll advance you more than enough to cover expenses,” he offers, and as if he’s already paid Bigelow for the privilege, he picks up the whole sheaf of drawings. But he doesn’t look at them. His eyes are on Bigelow.
“How much?” Bigelow asks.
Davison replaces the drawings on the table. “Five hundred up front. Another fifteen hundred when we get the photographs. Satisfactory photographs,” he adds.
Bigelow nods, mouth shut, determined not to betray any surprise.
“Two thousand total,” Davison says, to emphasize. And Bigelow puts out his hand, the hand with the scars.
“When?” Davison asks, grasping the hand, not letting go. His palm is dry and hot. “How soon?”
Bigelow points at the table, his drawings. “I’m building a new kite. Better than the last one. Easier to control. Certainly at the altitudes you’d want for survey photographs. That’s what, four, five thousand feet?”
Davison shrugs.
“But it will take—I don’t know—a month. Two.”
Davison lets him go. “June?”
“Maybe. The sewing’s what’s slow.”
“Five hundred dollars,” Davison says. “Up front.” He puts his hand in his pocket as if about to produce the money. But then he leaves it there. “Hire someone,” he says.
“Maybe.”
“June?” Davison asks again, and Bigelow nods.
“I’ll have an agreement drafted. You can stop in the commission office on Monday to sign. Take a look at the camera. Collect your advance.”
From the station window, Bigelow watches Davison walk back toward town, his shadow so long it spills off the road. Then he puts on his coat and hurries after him, running where the man had walked.
At the woman’s house he knocks at the door and then, when she doesn’t answer, comes around to her window, cupping his hands to see past the reflection of his own face.
“Marry me,” he