It is late afternoon by the time Man is ready to help Lee develop her film. She stands in the hallway waiting for him, as excited as she used to be on the first day of school. The developing room, near the end of the hall, was originally a broom closet. Inside it, Man has nailed a plank at counter height, and above that a small shelf with bottles and trays stacked neatly on it. Lee steps in, with Man behind her. The space is tight for one person, claustrophobic for two. Dim light comes from a small hurricane lamp sitting on the counter. Man closes the door and pulls a thick black curtain across it, fussing with it until it falls completely evenly. The room is so close that even when Lee leans against the wall she cannot help but brush against him. She rubs her tongue along her teeth, a nervous habit, and tries to give him room to maneuver in the small space.

Man is in professor mode. “Light is our tool,” he is saying. “Film is just a surface for capturing and holding light, but until the film has been developed, extra light becomes the enemy.” As he talks he arranges the supplies, lined up on the table where he has placed black tape to mark their spots.

“Always put everything in the same order. Otherwise you’ll be fumbling around in here and you’ll drop something. Place the tools in the order you’ll use them: film, church key, scissors, metronome, developer, stop, fix, water bath.” He touches her shoulder and moves behind her, an awkward dance in the small room. “Before you blow out the lamp, put your hands on the supplies and close your eyes so you can remember where they are.”

Eyes shut, Lee moves her hands across the supplies. The room is silent except for the hiss of the lamp’s wick.

“Ready?” Man asks, and when she says yes, he reaches around her and blows out the lamp. The flame turns to a sharp red point and dies out. The small room fills with the smell of smoke. Of course she knew it had to be pitch-black, but somehow it is darker than she thought it would be, the darkness thick and alive and warmer than when the room was lit. She feels Man behind her but cannot see him. His hand hovers over hers, heat radiating off his skin.

“I want you to get the feeling of it. This is where most photographers run into trouble. You can take the best pictures in the world but if you can’t develop them properly you may as well not bother taking them in the first place.”

Her hand is on the canister, his hand is just above hers, and she casually changes her grip so that the back of her hand brushes against his palm. As soon as she does, his comes down fully on hers, warm, his skin dry and a little rough, and then his hand is all she is thinking about, the closeness of it. It is that simple: first she is not thinking about him, and then she is. She has to shake her head to retrain her attention on what he is saying.

“Pick up the church key and pry the canister open,” he says.

Lee follows his instructions. She has to try a few times before she lines up the key with the canister’s lip, but soon she manages it, the top peeling back with a screech of metal on metal.

“Good,” he says. “Now take the film out and try not to get fingerprints on it. Feel the skinny end? That’s the starting point. You have to cut that piece off, and then hold the film by each end so you can dip it in the trays.”

Lee fumbles in the dark for the scissors. Man moves a bit away from her, giving her room. “I think I did it,” she says. She can hear his breath, smell the woodsy scent of his aftershave now that the smoke has dissipated, and by necessity he is practically hugging her as he helps her, checking her work. It is so intimate—she didn’t realize how intimate it would be. She could so easily turn around and face him, and part of her is curious about what would happen if she did, what it would feel like to really touch him. But the dark is playing tricks on her. What she wants is her pictures, to get them right.

“Excellent,” he says. “Now, start up the metronome, and then dip the film strip into the developer, back and forth, so that it all gets an even amount of time in the solution. A few minutes should do it—I usually count to two hundred and then move to the stop bath.”

Again she follows his instructions, reaches out in the dark for the metronome and sets it ticking, then finds both ends of the film and tries to move it smoothly through the water. Once the film is wet, though, it gets slippery, and as she tries to change her grip the whole strip slithers out of her grasp and down to the ground.

“Oh, damn it!” She is mortified, and if it weren’t dark he would see that her face is crimson.

“It’s all right,” he says, patiently. “Don’t move your feet. The last thing you want to do is step on it.”

“But now it’s probably all covered with dust, and—”

He has squatted behind her and she can hear him fumbling along the floor, his head level with her thighs. Lee stands as still and quiet as she can, willing herself not to move, achingly conscious of where his head is.

“It’s okay. It’s not the worst thing.”

Lee takes a shallow breath. “What’s the worst thing?”

“When you’re commissioned to take pictures of Pablo Picasso and you get what you think are the best shots of your career and then you manage to mix up the developer and stop bath so that not one—not a single picture—is usable. That is the worst thing.”

As he’s talking he has found the film. He stands back up and takes his free hand and rubs it down her forearm until he finds her hand, and the feeling makes her shiver. When he holds her hand for what seems to be a beat too long she stays perfectly still, waiting, before he gives the film back to her.

“What did you do?” she asks.

“Bought the Master a drink at his favorite bar and begged him to let me take pictures of him at his home the next day.”

“Did he let you?”

“Yes, actually. I’ll show you the prints sometime.”

Lee holds the film and begins to dip it back in the tray. The metronome is like another heartbeat in the room with them. She lets out her breath in a rush.

“Almost there. Another minute, maybe, then move the film to the stop.”

As she does it he rests his hands on hers again. It is less startling now. She lets him guide her, and the strip moves smoothly in their grasp. It is only a few short minutes, but it feels longer. When they get the film into the final water bath, the metronome has stopped and the room is silent. “Excellent work,” Man says. In the dark, Lee smiles.

Without thinking too much about it, she flails her hand around until she finds his, and gives it a squeeze. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing—you’re here to learn, as well as work.”

“I know… but still. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says. His voice is quiet and she likes the way it sounds, raspy around the edges. She wants to say something more, but nothing comes to her, and eventually he says, “Ready for the light?”

“Ready,” she says, but she’s not ready at all. She wishes they could stay in that darkroom for hours. As Man turns, she could swear he brushes against her unnecessarily. He pulls back the curtain and opens the door, and she is startled by the sudden brightness. It calls to mind emerging from the cinema after a film, the confusion of finding the day just as she left it.

In the bright hallway light, she looks at Man. There are grooves on either side of his mouth she has never noticed before, and when he drops his head for a moment, she notices the neat way he has parted his hair. She pictures him standing in front of his bathroom mirror, going through his morning routine. There is something so private and vulnerable about the white line in his scalp, and she goes warm with a rush of emotion and moves her gaze to the floor.

“I have a few more rolls to develop,” she says to the carpet.

“Yes. Do you want my help with that too?” His tone is all business, and he shakes his watch down his wrist and glances at its face.

She doesn’t know what to think. He seemed so eager to help, and now he seems eager to get away from her.

“No, I can do it.”

“Good. I have to—I’ll be in the office if you need me.” He turns and disappears down the hallway.

Lee goes back into the developing closet. Part of her wishes she asked Man to help her. She thinks of his body behind hers. There is something so electric about him, a coiled energy that animates him and makes people—herself included—want to be close to him. But he is not interested in her. If there is one thing she is good at, it’s telling when a man is interested, and—with the exception of bringing her the hot toddy—Man has shown none of the signs she is used to.

Lee peels open the next roll of film and then dips the film in the developer in a rhythmic back and forth motion. When she has finished all of her rolls, she turns on the overhead light and holds up the strips to it. A few of the images at the beginnings and ends seem underdeveloped, but she counts at least five or six that have come out. There is her lake picture, the picture of the woman’s hand, all the images reversed so the duck is a white blob on black water and the woman’s nails are dark spots against the brilliant white of her hair. Lee doesn’t yet know if they are good, but right now she only cares that they are hers.

She hangs up the film on the clothesline to dry and is surprised to see that it is already five o’clock. The day has gone by quickly. As she goes back through the studio and into Man’s office, she decides she will ask him to get a drink with her, to celebrate this small accomplishment, the first photos she’s developed herself. Why not? But the office is empty and so is the parlor. Lee’s giddiness seeps out of her like a pinpricked balloon. She so wanted to share this feeling with someone. Perhaps Man has just gone outside for a cigarette.