A couple of weeks ago, it was bitterly cold out, but now it's warm enough that I'm tempted to not only skip wearing a winter coat but also go around in my short sleeves. I resist the temptation. It's March. The temperature can drop forty degrees in the space of minutes this time of year. It has in the past.

Since Lydia and I are planning to do a photo session in the cemetery, I'd rather not be caught outdoors without a coat if temperatures suddenly drop. Yes, it's a short walk from the northern part of the cemetery to the apartment, but it would be a short walk in freezing cold, which I'd rather not have to deal with if all I'm wearing is a short-sleeved tee shirt and leggings.

I could, of course, summon Fire. Summoning enough Fire to keep myself warm for the duration of the walk, though, requires a certain amount of energy, and right now, there are other things I'd like to save my energy for, such as cooking dinner. It's my turn to cook something tonight. We have some tilapia to use up, and I was thinking of steaming it and serving it on top of a lentil and rice pilaf. It's not a very labor-intensive meal to prepare, which is one reason it appeals to me, because I still have my weekly essay to write.

And then Magister has some plans for the evening tonight that he doesn't want to share all the details of, but apparently what he has planned will keep us both busy until well past midnight, so using my energy and willpower to summon Fire to keep myself warm for a brief walk through the cold, resulting in me crashing halfway through the evening and nodding off at the table before the night's festivities have even begun, would not be useful.

Easier to just wear my coat.

"You're so lucky to live across the street from a cemetery," Lydia says. "I wish I did."

"You can look out your living room window and see a lake. With swans swimming on it. That's better. Has the town brought the swans back from their winter home yet?"

"Not yet, but it shouldn't be too much longer. The ice on top of the lake has melted."

We continue to walk south, downhill. The northern part of the cemetery doesn't have much to look at that's interesting, nor does the middle part, unless you want to visit the gravesite of a famous preacher and sobriety advocate, in which case you can look for a plain, modern tombstone that looks like all the other plain, modern tombstones near it. (In June, you can also look for motorcycles and a crowd). There are better photo opportunities in the older section of the cemetery. The monument art there is spectacular.

"Lydia, why did you want to take pictures of me in a cemetery?"

Magister was wondering the same thing just a short while ago when Lydia knocked on our door to come pick me up. Which, in turn, got me wondering. It's not so much the cemetery I'm wondering about - this is Lydia, after all - but why include me in the pictures?

"I thought you'd look really cool standing by the graves and stuff."

Oh. Well, then.

Lydia pulls out her camera - a fancy single-lens reflect camera, the kind that requires the film to be threaded on, and lenses to be manually adjusted - when we are near the bottom of the hill. She takes some pictures of old tombstones that she says are beautiful and deserve to be captured for posterity, then sees the old mausoleum and squeals with delight.

"I have to get your picture here! Oh, my God, it's huge! And look at all this ivy! It's like something out of Edgar Allen Poe. Whose tomb is this?"

"Nobody's. The cemetery built it, but it never got used."

"I wonder why? There. Stand there, in the shady part. That's good." She fidgets with the lens, snaps a couple of pictures, then says, "Take your coat off. I want to get a picture of you that doesn't make it look like you're trying to protect yourself against the cold. Something that makes you look like you belong here."

"Oh, gee, thanks." Anybody other than Lydia would have been wishing me dead with that statement. Fortunately, this is Lydia, so I don't have to worry.

"That's it. Now melt into the ivy."

"Melt into the ivy?"

"Yeah. Bury yourself in it, kind of."

I check to make sure there's no sign of poison ivy growing in or around the English ivy that covers the mausoleum, then do my best to comply. All I have on besides my shoes and socks are my black tee shirt and leggings, now. On the sunny side of the mausoleum, this would be enough, but here in the shade, it's actually chilly. My hands are cold where they encounter the stone of the tomb under the ivy. Underneath my tee shirt, I feel my nipples start to stiffen.

She gets a few pictures of me from various angles, including two close-ups of my face, one with my eyes closed, the other with my eyes open, and then she puts her camera down and stares at me.

"Um. Lydia? Is something wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"No, no, nothing's wrong. It's just. You're so beautiful there."

"I'm beautiful with my backside crushed up against a tomb?"

"Yes. You are."

After we get done exploring the cemetery, we trudge back up the hill to hang out at the apartment for a bit, while we catch our breath. Magister is sprawled on the couch reading an Ursula LeGuin novel. He looks up when we walk in the door.

"Get some good pictures?"

"I did. I think I'll get doubles when I get the film processed; that way you can have copies."

The apartment smells like warm cookie dough. He must have been baking while we were gone.

It occurs to me that I still don't have a single picture of Magister, nor does he have one of me. It's been nearly two years, and we still don't have pictures of each other. I'm not sure why not. Neither of us is exactly camera-shy, although neither of us seeks out opportunities to be photographed, either. It's just something we never got around to doing. We had too many other things to do, maybe.

"Lydia? Could you get a picture of the two of us?"

"I'd love to! There, on the couch - is that good? Maybe you could lower the blinds? I don't want you backlit."

I lower the blinds, and then Magister and I sit close together, his arm around me.

His arm seems a little tighter than it ordinarily might be. He must be more uncomfortable having his picture taken than I thought he was. I should have asked his permission first.

Lydia takes several pictures of us before leaving, including one of us kissing.

There aren't many posh places downtown - this city is one of the rustier parts of the Rust Belt - but there are a few. I found this one when I first moved here and went through the rounds of signing up with several temp agencies, one of which was in this office building. The building has an atrium on the bottom floor, and the atrium has an orangerie in it. There are little bistro tables placed among the potted orange and fig trees. Sometimes I come here to sit and read in between classes and my job, rather than the library.

Lydia and I are sitting at one of the tables, looking through cemetery photos. I've already pulled aside a few copies to take home with me. In the little pile of photographs to take home are also all the pictures of me and Magister sitting together on the couch. There's one I want to frame and put on a bookshelf in the living room; maybe I could put it on the shelf where Magister keeps the books of poetry.

"I'm probably going to need to take out a student loan," Lydia says. "My dad stopped paying my mom child support again, and Mom doesn't want me to get a job to pay for my apartment rent. She says I need to keep my grades up. Dad wants me to move out to where he is and transfer to one of the colleges there. It would be more expensive, though. And I love my dad, but I don't want to leave Mom. I visit Dad during the summers and on holidays. It's not like he never sees me. I think he's just trying to make Mom upset." She sighs. "It's not too late to apply for a student loan, is it? I've never done it before."

"I think if you haven't already submitted a loan application for this year, you should be fine."

"Yeah. I guess. I wish Dad would stop trying to force me to transfer. Portland is a lot nicer in a lot of ways - it's really pretty there, for one thing. There are mountains, and the ocean is nearby, and there are roses. Everywhere. And they're used to people being a little weird. People don't stare at me for wearing black clothes and lipstick. And the city is queer-friendly. Not like this place. Nobody bats an eye there if I say I'm bi. But it's so far away. I don't want to move out there. Not when my friends are here."

Nobody bats an eye there if I say I'm bi.

"Is Portland really that open-minded?"

"Yes. You'd love it. I'd love it if it wasn't so far away. It would be nice to be able to go back and forth between my parents more easily. What about your parents? Do they live here? You don't talk about them much. What are they like? Do they get along better than mine do?"

I take a deep breath. "I don't have any parents anymore."

"You're an orphan? Oh, my God. I'm so sorry..."

"I'm not an orphan. I just don't have parents anymore. Look, let's talk about something else, okay?"

After a few moments of awkward silence, we do.