I guess I was a little excited about that, but while on the tour I was more excited for Alice, and for Jenny too. I’d had to read Al’s book in secret. It was great, and although it made me hurt because of the pain I felt in it, I thought it was amazing and that she’d done an incredible job. Shane thought so too; she told me so as she read the book on the tour. She’d obviously already read Jenny’s, but I hadn’t, so while Shane read Alice’s book, I read that. It was really good too, and I came to realize just how much she’d actually gone through and the lasting effects it had on her.

They both spoke really well at all their engagements, and Shane managed to get some great shots of both of them. I teased her a little for taking pictures, but she took one of my favorite pictures of Alice ever while on that tour. I framed it and hung it above the fireplace on the den, much to Alice’s embarrassment. I just told her that it captured her at a really important moment in her life, and I wanted to commemorate that. She blushed and told me I was weird, but she agreed. That photo has been over the fireplace for the last three plus decades, and every time I see it, I grin.

We were in New York City toward the end of the tour, having just done a day of sightseeing, when Jenny mentioned how much she hated the photographs of her that had started to appear in magazines and papers since the book tour began. She said she always wound up looking stupid, but Shane just told her to relax and that she’d take care of it. After Letterman that night, Shane got a great shot of Jenny just as she was coming out of the theater, and Jenny insisted that it be used for the next article about her.

We got home from the tour and didn’t give it much more thought, but Jenny was still insistent that she loved Shane’s photo and wanted it to be used for anything in the press. Alice agreed that she wanted Shane to do all her press photos, even for the Chart.

That was what started Shane off. She’d been taking pictures for awhile, but we all thought it had just been a hobby. I guess it still was, but after the photo she took of Jenny that wound up in Time when Jenny’s book sales went to the top ten in the nation, Shane started to get asked to shoot for several other magazines. She did, but she was usually freelance so she could do her own thing. Not that it mattered much; just about every photo she took was able to be sold somewhere.

**********

I woke up with a start when I heard voices coming from the living room. I hadn’t meant to sleep as long as I had; the sun had already gone down. I got up blearily and walked out to the living room, where containers of Chinese food were set up on the coffee table.

“Sorry we woke you,” Jenny said when she noticed me in the doorway. I waved her words away and told them that I hadn’t meant to sleep so long.

“It’s okay, you need it,” Charlie told me. “I just stopped by a little bit ago, figured you’d all be home by now.

“Sorry,” I told him, feeling guilty when I remembered that I’d been supposed to call him. He just shrugged and said it was no big deal, so I sat down and had some lo mein with them. I felt pretty good, both physically and emotionally, and I was looking forward to getting to see Alice again the next day.