"Sophie!" Beth yells through the gauzy, white fabric of her beautiful white shirt as she disrobes in her own bedroom. "Change into a tank top!"

"What? Why?" yells Sophie.

"Just do what I say!"

All of Beth's tank tops are black, so she re-dresses in a flash. She waits for her girls at the top of the stairs, in the hallway of sad and lonely picture frames, each second smacking the center of her forehead as it ticks by. Sophie, surprisingly, is the first to join her. She's wearing a red tank top, no words, and she looks great, except for her face.

"Excuse me, are you wearing makeup?" asks Beth.

"Only a little."

"Where did you get it?"

"Alena. Her mother lets her wear it."

"Well, your mother doesn't."

"So not fair."

"Life's not fair. Come here."

Beth looks at Sophie's made-up eyes, which are a striking blue and only a couple of inches below Beth's. She won't be able to keep her oldest daughter from wearing makeup for too much longer, but she can at least keep it off for this picture.

She resists the urge to lick her hand and wipe Sophie's face with her own spit and instead grabs her by the hand and pulls her into the bathroom. She pumps some hand soap into a facecloth, wets it in the sink, and scrubs Sophie's eyes and cheeks clean.

"Ow, my zit!"

"Sorry. You can keep the lip gloss on, but that's it."

The other two are now in the hallway. Gracie is in a pink tank top, and Jessica is in blue. No words. No stains.

"Okay! Let's go!"

They run down the stairs, Beth claps and calls for Grover to follow them, and they all race into the car. Beth eyeb.a.l.l.s her girls in the backseat through the rearview mirror as she slides the key into the ignition. Gracie's eyes are puffy from crying. Sophie's face is splotchy from being rubbed too hard with the facecloth, and she does have one honker of a zit on her cheek. Jessica's jaw is clenched, and her arms are folded. She looks angry, but Beth can't imagine why. They're all wearing different colored tops, and Beth's face still feels red-hot.

They're all supposed to be wearing white. They're all supposed to be calm and happy. They're supposed to be on time. And Jimmy. It's their family portrait. Their family is supposed to include Jimmy.

Maybe she should call and cancel. She thinks about the beautiful gauzy, white shirts and her hallway of sad and lonely frames. She looks back at her three girls again and then at the empty pa.s.senger seat. This is her family. She takes a deep breath, blows it out through her mouth, shifts the car into reverse, and drives her late, mismatched, puffy, splotchy, zitty, angry, Jimmy-less family to Cis...o...b..ach.

CHAPTER 20.

Olivia checks her watch. Her client is late. This, she has already found in her brief experience, is typical. If it isn't the entire family, then it's a stray cousin who didn't get the directions, or it's an indispensable sister who is coming straight from the ferry, or it's a father who is actually here, but he's still in the car wrapping up a call from work. He'll be done in a minute. Or thirty.

This is why she started toting a beach chair to these portrait sessions. She doesn't mind waiting on a beautiful beach if she has somewhere to sit. Today was overcast, threatening rain all day, and Olivia doubts that the beach was crowded at any point. It's mostly emptied out now. There are more seagulls here than people.

Olivia likes the seagulls on Nantucket, which resemble the seagulls on Nantasket Beach-the beach she always went to when she lived in Hingham-only in that they're both white-and-gray sh.o.r.ebirds. Those gulls from Nantasket are insatiable, thieving rats with wings that prey upon anything labeled Nabisco or Frito-Lay. They stalk the edges of beach blankets, waiting for an unguarded moment to peck open a sealed bag of potato chips or fly off with an entire tuna sandwich.

The seagulls here pay little attention to people and their processed food. She watches one nab a crab from the shallow water, then settle into a warm dimple of sand, where it rips off the legs and devours the meaty body. She watches another fly overhead to the parking lot, where it drops a clam on the pavement, cracking open the sh.e.l.l. Why settle for cheese puffs when an abundance of fresh seafood is on the menu? These gulls are handsome and respectable birds.

Olivia follows the flight of another seagull across the cloudy horizon and wonders if it's possible ever to grow indifferent to this view. The water closest to the S-shaped sh.o.r.eline is a metallic blue dance of rippling waves, but as her gaze travels out to sea, everything goes still and flat and almost white. A laser-sharp line of crisp, dark blue separates the ocean from the blushing pink sky at the horizon. Gorgeous.

The gull disappears in the distance. Olivia checks her watch. At thirty minutes late, she makes a point of calling the clients to verify that they are in fact coming and haven't forgotten or changed their minds. As she digs through her camera bag for her schedule sheet and phone, she sees them walking toward her, the mother and leashed dog leading the charge, three girls in different-colored tanks and jeans lagging behind.

"Olivia? Hi, I'm Beth Ellis. Sorry we're late."

"Hi, Beth. No problem."

"We had a wardrobe issue. I know everyone normally matches. Do you think this will look okay?"

Beth's right. Every family always wears matching outfits, like uniforms on the same team. All faded-blue shirts and khakis or all white shirts and Nantucket reds. The matching theme looks nice, but it's hardly necessary. She wonders who came up with this very autistic rule about family portraits.

"You look great."

Beth rolls her eyes. "We looked great a half hour ago. I'm hoping for not too embarra.s.sing."

"No, the colors are fun."

"Again, so sorry. Before we get started, my oldest would like to know if you can Photoshop out her pimple."

"Mom!" says the oldest.

All three girls are now gathered behind Beth. Olivia glances down at her schedule sheet. Sophie, Jessica, and Gracie.

"Consider it gone, Sophie. No one will ever see it," says Olivia.

Sophie smiles just enough to be polite. That pimple looks painful.

"Can you get rid of this line right here while you're at it?" asks Beth, pointing to a deep vertical crease between her eyebrows. "And anything that looks over thirty-five around my eyes?"

Digital plastic surgery. Olivia can erase all evidence of dark circles, crow's-feet, and age spots with a few precise clicks of her computer mouse. Whatever else her photographs have going for them-magic hour, the correct f-stop, composition, meaningful expressions captured at just the right moment, everyone smiling with their eyes open-her ability to subtly edit years off a woman's face is probably her most marketable skill.

"You won't look a day over thirty. Let's start over by the water."

Olivia has developed an Eat Your Veggies First philosophy when it comes to beach portraits. She always takes the most difficult shot first. Ninety-nine percent of the time, this is the photo of everyone in front of the ocean, the one necessary photograph her client came here for, the one her client will be p.i.s.sed about if it isn't perfect. All the other pictures, individuals and pairs and combinations of various people and pets and backgrounds, are bonus. Those are the Dessert shots.

Today, the Veggie shot will be easy. Three well-behaved-if-a-little-grumpy girls, a mellow dog, and a mother. No crying babies, no sugar-crazed toddlers h.e.l.l-bent on running into the ocean, no preschoolers who refuse to smile, no preschoolers who refuse to do anything but smile, freezing their faces into the most unnatural-looking Cheese, and no husband.

Although couples don't openly fight right there on the beach in front of her, and Olivia never witnesses the actual argument, she's seen it too many times now. Irritation, blame, contempt, the negative energy between husband and wife over whatever skirmish they had earlier still simmering, bleeding through their eyes and smiles, as obvious as the zit on Sophie's cheek. And there's not a tool in Photoshop that can edit that out.

It's also a small group, much easier to catch eight eyeb.a.l.l.s open than twenty. Groups of ten and more are truly difficult. Someone is always misbehaving, not looking at the camera, out of place, blinking. Four is a piece of cake. She'll snap about six hundred shots with the expectation of producing about two hundred quality pictures for Beth to choose from.

They line up in a straight row in front of the incoming tide.

"Smile. Look at me," says Olivia.

They all do, except for the middle girl.

"Sorry, in the blue, what's your name?" asks Olivia, looking up over her camera.

"Jessica."

"Jessica, give me a big smile."

"She won't," says Beth. "She has braces. She won't show her teeth."

"Uh, okay," says Olivia. "How about just less angry?"

"Jess, look happy," says Beth.

"But I'm not," says Jessica.

"Then fake it, please," says Beth through a clenched smile, in a threatening singsong voice.

"Fine."

Jessica pulls her pursed lips into the shape of slight amus.e.m.e.nt. Close enough. Olivia clicks away. She checks her LCD display and scrolls through the images. Veggies done. Now on to Dessert.

She shoots the girls in all possible combinations together without their mother, with and without the dog, sitting and standing. She shoots Beth with each daughter, then each girl alone, then the dog alone.

"Now how about just you?" asks Olivia.

"Me? By myself?" asks Beth.

"Yeah."

"No, I don't need one of just me."

Olivia has also learned this-a client can't purchase a shot that doesn't exist. Get every shot.

"Let's shoot it anyway. You don't have to decide if you want it now."

She might want a headshot for her job, whatever it is that she does. She's a young, single mother. She might want it for Facebook or Match.com.

"Okay," Beth says.

"Great. Look at me. Chin up, shoulders down."

Click. Click. Click.

After Olivia finishes with Beth, they all move over to the dunes and smile at the camera in a similar round of poses. Even though the Veggie shot comes first, Olivia has often found that the second round of pictures is better. Everyone is more relaxed in the new location, and true personalities and relationships begin to emerge here. She can now see that Sophie and Jessica are close, that Sophie is edgy and bossy, and Jessica idolizes her. Gracie is goofy, and despite being around nine or ten, she is still Beth's baby girl. In the solo shots of Beth up against the dunes, Olivia sees a resolve peeking through a well-worn uncertainty, an openness in her posture, an authentic happiness alive in her smile.

After an hour and 652 images in the camera, Olivia declares that they're finished.

"Girls, go walk Grover for a few minutes while I talk to the photographer. Here's a baggie."

Beth follows Olivia over to Olivia's camera bag and beach chair.

"So when will the photos be ready?"

"I'm running about six to eight weeks."

"Wow, that long?"

"They might be sooner, but, yeah, probably at least six weeks."

To her own pleased amazement, Olivia's had steady business all summer. She's done an average of five portraits each week, which means she's actually earning a living. But the editing piece of this beach-portrait-photography gig is more labor-intensive than she antic.i.p.ated, and she's now considerably backed up. Editing the large family portraits is particularly time-consuming. She had one family of thirty-two who were gathered on Nantucket for the grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary. Editing that session was a beast. And erasing any signs of aging on all these women takes time.

"And that's when we'll get the proof book?"

"Yes, I'll e-mail you the link."

"Link?"

"Yes, it's all online."

"Oh, so we don't look through an actual book?"

"No, I do it all online."

"Oh," says Beth, sounding disappointed.

"It's great. You'll like it. You can choose the size, black-and-white or color. It's easy to navigate, but if you have any questions, feel free to get in touch."

Olivia places her camera in her bag and zips it shut. She folds her beach chair. It's time to go. She will happily hold Beth's hand via phone or e-mail through any step of the purchasing, but this is the end of the face-to-face part of this relationship.

"Okay. Thanks. Sorry about Jessica's sour puss."

"She was fine. She'll look great."

"I think she was upset that her father wasn't here. We separated this winter, and it's been hard on them."

"I'm sorry." Olivia stands with her heavy camera bag over one shoulder and her beach chair tucked under the other.

"It's been hard for me, too. Do you see this a lot? Families without the father?"

Struck by something familiar in Beth's question, Olivia pauses in her haste to leave. She studies the expression on Beth's face, and it registers. The need to feel normal. The desire to be accepted.

"All the time," Olivia lies.

Beth smiles, grateful.