Read Online Blood Relations by Barbara Parker - Free Book Online

proof. This camera held instant film so they could check the lighting and composition.
    She raised her sunglasses to look at it while Tommy changed cameras. They would shoot three or four rolls of 120-millimeter film, 30 exposures per roll.
    Caitlin had been a model till a few years ago. She had picked up photography as a hobby in New York, but on South Beach it had become a way to survive. Getting this job had been a stroke of luck: her boyfriend knew the man in charge of the project. Caidin knew she was good at what she did, but nobody was down at her end of the beach kissing her ass, as they did with most photographers. The two girls in swimsuits she had finished shooting earlier were hanging out on weathered, wood-slatted beach loungers, smoking. They had showered the salt water out of their hair in the production van, which was parked in the metered lot next to the beach. They sipped water out of bright containers with plastic lids and bendable straws. Caitlin could hear bits of chirpy conversation. The van owner sat in a folding chair reading the paper, a fishing hat to keep the sun off his bald spot. It was his kid playing the son in the tourist family.
    The art director, a blond woman named Uta, was fussing unnecessarily with the female model’s skirt. The model smiled at her. Yes, kiss the art director’s fanny, Caitlin thought. Everybody did that.
    Tommy took off down the beach to hold a reflector and passed Rafael Soto, the hair and makeup designer, coming the other way. Rafael trudged through the sand in high-top red canvas sneakers.
    Stopping under Caitlin’s umbrella, he dug a lighter and cigarettes out of his pocket, lit one. The flame reflected in his big round sunglasses. He asked, “How’s her hair look?
    I sprayed the hell out of it.”
    She told him it looked fine. Caitlin had last seen this model half-dressed in a magazine ad for a South Beach lingerie boutique, but Rafael had made her look like a Girl Scout troop leader from the suburbs.
    Holding a meter to the light, Tommy called out the exposure. “Eightfive, eight-two. Wait. There’s a cloud. Just a second. Okay, coming out. Eight-eight. Eleven. Blue sky, here we go.”
    The camera whirred and clicked at two frames per second. The models walked along the same few yards of sand again and again, backing up, going forward, pretending to have a fabulous time. Swinging the little boy by the hands. Laughing. Kicking up the surf.
    The art director yelled to the man not to get his trousers wet.
    Rafael gossiped with Caitlin while Tommy reloaded the camera, marked the film canister, and sprinted back to the models. Tommy scooped up a reflector and tossed it up and caught it, a giant silver circle. Caitlin took her cap off for a minute to redo her hair into a ponytail.
    “Uh-oh. Your roots are starting to show,” Rafael scolded, standing on his toes to look. “Want me to fix it for you sometime?”
    “Yeah, do me a new head.” She looked longingly at his cigarette. “Let me have a drag. One?”
    “No! You told me not to.” He held it out of reach.
    “Selfish. You should quit, too, you know.”
    “Why? Everyone needs at least one vice in order to remain humble.” Rafael smiled, putting the cigarette to his lips. He inhaled greedily.
    Sighing, Caitlin peered through the viewfinder again.
    “What the hell?” She cupped her hands around her mouth.
    “Tommy!” He looked around. “Tell him to take off his nipple ring! Every time the wind opens his shirt, I can see it.”
    “He wore that to a shoot?” Rafael laughed.
    “Better than the time that girl showed up with a spider tattoo on her butt, and we were doing swimsuits, remember that?”
    “WOW, “God, yes. I had to put on the Dermablend with a putty knife!” His laughter trailed off into a muttered “Oh, shit.”
    Caitlin turned to see what he was staring at-a man standing by the production van, a tall blond in loose khakis and a white shirt with the cuffs rolled up. Caitlin recognized