The photographer is ready. The silver umbrellas are raised to gather the light. He holds a light meter to the girl’s chest. Hair and Makeup share a cigarette. There are two other models on this trip, and they watch from a distance. The sea mumbles against the dunes. The girl looks especially bare, surrounded by people who are dressed. She is still so new the camera frightens her. Jann has removed it from his tripod and is holding it near her face. “This face,” he says, pausing to glance at the rest of them. “Will you look at this face?”

They look. It is delicate as a birdcage. Jann squints behind his camera. The rhythm of the shutter mingles with the breaking waves. Catching it, the girl begins to move.

“There,” cries Jann, “that’s it!”

They look again. Bernadette looks and sees it, too, feels the others see it. In the way the light falls, there is something; in the girl’s restless hands, her sad mouth. A stillness falls. She is more than a skinny young girl on a beach; she is any young girl, sad and longhaired, watching a frail line of horizon. The camera clicks. Then the moment passes.