Nights in the Pool

Angela turned eighteen that year, living in Viersen, one of those towns in western Germany you drive through without noticing. Between school and shifts at a perfume counter—selling expensive poison to rich old women—she’d disappear into the night with tequila, more of it than should be possible, though it barely seemed to touch her.

She was always going to be rich and famous, said it the way people say obvious things, with that certainty that makes them both inevitable and impossible at once. Porn got mentioned early, seriously, then stopped being part of the conversation. What she was actually doing was art. Photography mostly. Other people, but mostly herself. There was a series shot one night in a pool that stayed with me—no pretense, no setup, just someone young enough to look at the camera without flinching.