Mis-Matched Shoes

Picture Perfect

Ever met someone who just couldn’t seem to get it together? (Maybe you ARE that someone!) My heroine in Picture Perfect is a wedding photographer named Hannah McDermott. Though she tries valiantly to look and act like a pro, Hannah often ends up looking (and feeling) like a goober. Check out this scene from chapter two, where Hannah meets with a reporter from Texas Bride magazine. In the middle of the interview, Hannah’s chief competitor, Drew Kincaid, enters the Starbuck’s. His presence unnerves her, but she does her best to remain calm, until. . .

I fidgeted with my necklace, a lovely silver cross Grandpa Aengus had given me for my thirteenth birthday. Afterwards, I happened to glance down and did a double take as my gaze landed on my feet. On my left foot—a comfy black flat. On my right—a luscious, brown strappy sandal.

What in the world?

I looked again, just to be sure. Yep. Two mismatched shoes stared back at me. So much for looking and acting like a pro.

Stay calm, Hannah. Stay. Calm.

I shifted my gaze back up to Dani and Drew, but they were both staring down at my feet, cockeyed grins on their faces. Now what?

“I, um. . .it’s ‘Wear Your Mis-Matched Shoes to Work Day.’ I’m surprised you two didn’t get the memo.”

I reached down to grab my now-lukewarm coffee and offered Dani what I hoped would look like a confident smile. “Well, thanks for your time. Have a good day.”

“Happy to meet you.”

Judging from the fact that she never even looked up from my feet, I rather doubted it.

I gave her a curt nod, pivoted on the heel of my black flat, caught the toe of my brown sandal on the leg of Drew’s chair. . .and promptly dropped my cup of coffee into his lap.

This is the first of many such mishaps on Hannah’s part.

The story is filled with such instances. But she learns some lessons about herself by the end of the tale!

I gave up about halfway into the broken doorknob fiasco. Not that I’d ever been one to accomplish multiple things simultaneously. To me, multitasking simply meant messing up several things at once.

Though I attempted to give it my best shot, I couldn’t focus. My thoughts, as always, were on the inevitable conversation with Bella. Well, that, and the fact that I’d somehow forgotten to put my right earring on this morning.

What’s wrong with you, Hannah?

At some point about an hour later, I had a revelation. In that moment, I realized a painful truth: In my attempts to double my efforts to keep this business alive, I’d been cutting things in half: makeup half done, mismatched shoes, cups of coffee and tea poured but never drunk, food half-eaten, earrings half-worn. All of these things I’d done because of distraction. How could a photographer make her way in the world if she went on missing the finer points? The details?

A sigh escaped as I realized how deep this problem went: I’d given my relationships a halfhearted effort, only nodding at them instead of actually enjoying and living them. So many areas of my life had been sacrificed, and all in the name of building my business. And all for what? To lose the biggest client of all, due to a technicality?