Perfect Shot

by Debbie Rigaud

  Their weak excuses were cut off when the door slammed shut.

  “Boys, if y’all don’t stop slamming that door—!” My mom rushed out from the kitchen ready to ream the twins for banging up the house. She always joked about how the house had started aging in dog years once the twins learned how to walk.

  “Sweetie,” she breathed out when she saw the zombielike way I was walking up the stairs. “What’s wrong? How did things go today?”

  “I don’t really wanna talk about it right now.” I stopped midstep. She looked at the sadness drooping my eyes and she backed off.

  “Okay, honey.” She walked closer to me. “Can I get you anything?”

  My mom’s soothing voice was like a switch that turned on the tear production all over again.

  “No.” I hiccupped. “I just want to be alone.”

  “Okay.” She respected my wishes.

  When I reached my bedroom, I grabbed my favorite pillow and clutched it like it was my last lifesaver in a sea of doubt.

  Five weeks had passed since the start of the competition, and I was not as close to Brent or my volleyball tuition as I had planned to be. My dad talked about not regretting my decisions, but with results like these, I couldn’t help wondering what I’d really gotten out of it.

  Brent probably thought I was the biggest head case he’d ever come across. I’d put his job in jeopardy by showing up and being obvious about my feelings for him. I had lost him for sure. To think, I actually was attracted to him and giddy around him. I daydreamed about him whenever I wasn’t with him.

  But now reality was setting in pretty fast and it was time for me to face the facts. Brent and I couldn’t be together. I couldn’t bear to see him because it would only remind me of the crazy encounters and off-the-wall behavior that I’d exhibited these past few weeks. What’s more, I was short five hundred dollars for the summer camp registration fee and there was no way I would earn that money in the two weeks I had left. And with the way my luck was going, I doubt I stood a chance to win that contest cash prize. Besides, that money felt kind of tainted now that the word may be out that Brent told me about it.

  Because of a crazy whim I’d ruined my chances to go to camp. It was something I’d been dreaming about for so long, but I would have to wait another year to get it. That was a tough blow for me to take. Fresh tears streamed down my face.

  Why did I have to screw things up in such a major way? I thought about my parents never straying from their game plan. Had I taken a page from their book, none of this would have ever happened. I would’ve been on track to pay for the volleyball camp fee. But also in that alternate universe, I would not have come to know Brent. And I wouldn’t have realized the things I now know—that I could model and that supporters wished me the best with it.

  A knock on the door snapped me from that alternate universe.

  “London.” It was my mother. “How are you feeling?”

  My back was to the door and I lay clutching my pillow. My shoes were on. I was all dressed up but feeling like crap. A few seconds later, I felt her sit down next to me and rest her hand on my back.

  “Honey, I’ve been thinking about what you must’ve been going through these past few weeks,” she began softly. “And I have to apologize for not considering your feelings so much as pushing for my silly dream to see your face in print.”

  I blinked a few tears out of my flooded eyes but remained silent.

  “It was unfair for me to do that to you, and I’m sorry. When I saw that Kelly Fletcher was in the competition, something totally silly in me just kicked into gear. That is not the type of mother I want to be. And it made me realize that this wasn’t the first time that I’d done this to you. When I think of all the drama I put you through with those castings and competitive ridiculousness with Mrs. Fletcher … honey, I’m so sorry.”

  My tears dried up as I listened to my mother’s words. I hadn’t even realized that she was aware of how she’d carried on back then. But more surprising, I was surprised to feel how much of a relief her words were to hear. A tenseness I hadn’t even known existed in my chest suddenly softened. I felt like I had just sat in front of the Vicks humidifier that Mom used to put on in the boys’ room to clear up their congestion. I breathed easily. That was enough to make me wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes and exhale.

  When I sat up, Mom was there with a warm hug. As I finally pulled away from her, she cupped my face in her hands.

  “You are gorgeous just the way you are, and you don’t have to audition for or win any modeling contest for me to see that.”

  That made me smile. She continued scanning my face and then asked, “Have you been using that acne cream I gave you?” She cupped my chin, angling my head closer to the light coming in from the window. “You must be doing something out of order because you’re not reaching this area right here—”

  I moved my head from her clutches and backed away to the corner of the bed. “No, Mother.” I shook my head. “And thank you for ruining our little moment.”

  “Nobody’s gonna tell you the truth like your momma can.” She stood up, her playfulness back in full swing the way I like it. “I do it because I luuv ya.”

  “Lucky me,” I told her, pretending to be overly excited.

  “Now, come down and have something to eat. You must be starving.”

  Santogold’s “The Creator” rang out, but I couldn’t figure out where my phone was.

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” I told her before she closed the door behind her.

  I lifted my Olympics pillow and then dug through a few others until I found it.

  “Pam, hey,” I answered before it went to voice mail.

  “Gurrrrl,” she started, “I know you must have crazy stuff to tell me about your morning at Chic Boutique. I already know they’re holding off on choosing the winner until tomorrow, so I’ll go first and tell you what I gotta tell you.”

  Pam didn’t take a breath and I didn’t stop her.

  “Check out what your loverboy Brent posted on Flickr. Do not pass Go and check it out now.”

  I was already firing up my laptop.

  “Okay, give me a few seconds,” I said to slow her down.

  “I always knew that guy was the truth. London, he’s nothing like the triflin’ likes of Rick. I really like him for you. I’ve never seen you this excited about a guy ever.”

  There was a photo of me in the juice bar from the day that Brent and I had our first kiss. He even wrote something to go along with the photo: Introducing the baddest chick on the volleyball court. She’s nasty against the net and has the sweetest personality to match her sweet spiking skills. Watch out.

  “Hello?” I heard Pam call out on the other end. “Are you there?”

  “I … yeah.” I kept rereading Brent’s description of me posted just that morning—hours before my Chic Boutique confession. “I’m just surprised that he feels that way and is open enough to blast it on Flickr!”

  Outside my door, I heard my front doorbell ring. If it was one of my mother’s friends, I would stay inside my room for a little longer. I didn’t feel like playing host to anyone right now.

  “Believe it, London,” Pam was saying. “I think it’s so cool that he’s not caring how it looks and he went for it anyway.”

  At that moment, my mom softly knocked on my door.

  “London,” she whispered when she poked her head in. “There’s a young man downstairs to see you. He says his name is Brent.”

  Nineteen

  “Pam, I gotta go.” I kept my eye on the door on the spot where my mom had just been. “Brent is downstairs waiting to see me.”

  “Aaaah!” Pam almost injured my eardrum. “Go, go, go! And call me back as soon as he leaves.”

  I hung up, then rushed over to my mirror. My eyes looked a little bit bloodshot from all the crying I had done. I rummaged through my drawer and found my tiny emergency bottle of Visine. After squeezing one drop in each eye, I blinked
a few times and straightened up my clothes and smoothed down my hair. I kicked off my shoes and threw on a pair of comfy black flats. My lip color had faded, but the clear lip gloss I threw on worked just fine.

  I didn’t know what to expect, but when I went down to the living room, Brent was sitting on the bench in front of the piano. He stood up as soon as he saw me.

  “Hi, London.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and took a few paces toward me. I recognized that bashful-licious stance from the first day we met.

  “I hope you don’t mind me stopping by. You left before I had the chance to give you this.” Brent went back to the bench and picked up the slim, large object leaning against it. “This is for you, London,” he said, handing it to me. It was a frame and it was heavier than he’d made it seem.

  I held it with both hands but didn’t remove the white tissue paper from around it. My mind was reeling. First I thought about how great it was to see him—here, standing in front of me and in my home. Next the fact that he’d brought something for me was even more touching.

  “Aren’t you gonna look at it?” he asked me.

  “Oh, yeah.” I chuckled. Brent reached out and helped me take off the paper.

  It was a black wooden-framed picture of me on the court from the day Brent came to shadow me. I was holding up my hand with the number one sign in the air. The proud look on my face said it all—I felt good about myself and it showed. Seeing how happy I looked made me smile. I remembered the exact moment when that shot was taken. I was looking up to the stands at Pam, right after she called my name.

  “This is amazing.” My voice was quiet because I was so humbled by his gesture. “Thank you so much.”

  I didn’t look up from the frame. The look in my eyes would’ve definitely given me away, and I wanted to play it cool. It was bad enough that he knew that I’d signed up for the competition just to meet him. What if he also thought I had followed him to work from Art Attack? The risk of acting like a total stalker was too high. If I looked up, he would’ve read in my eyes that I was head over heels and wanted to stick a GPS chip on his sneaker laces so we could always cross paths.

  Okay, maybe that was a bit much. But if you stripped down the Pamisms, the point was that I didn’t want him to know that I liked him a lot. I’d embarrassed myself enough as it was.

  “London, I don’t know if this is worth anything, but I’m sorry for the way things went down.” Brent sounded like he was confessing something he wasn’t proud of. “When Kelly and Rick talked to me that day at your game, I didn’t know what to think. I should’ve reached out to you to hear your side of the story, but at the time, I felt played in a way. A few days before, when you and Kelly had it out, I spoke up for you. I told Didier that things might not have gone down as they seemed to. And then when Kelly insinuated that you told her about the cash prize, I felt played for having risked my job to defend you.”

  I hadn’t realized that he’d done that. Only a good friend would stick their neck out for someone like that. The complete opposite of what a foe would do. A foe with a faux personality, like Kelly. I felt my lips tighten in growing anger at the thought of Kelly lying about me to Brent. She insinuated that I told him about the cash prize? My heart rate quickened. But in the next breath, I caught myself. I was playing right into that tit-for-tat cycle from hell—Kelly pushes my button, I get heated and then push back. And when the smoke clears, the only straight-thinking person left standing is Brent, defending me to his boss.

  “Wow,” I finally said. “You told Didier that?”

  Brent smirked and nodded. “I know—stupid, huh?”

  “More like sweet.” I nodded. “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. The way I exposed you to the ridiculousness between me and Kelly was wrong. I’m sorry for sticking you in the middle of Kelly, Rick, and this whole mess.”

  “But I created this mess by telling you about the prize. I told Didier what I’d done, and understandably, he terminated my internship.”

  My eyes welled up with tears and I covered my mouth in shock. I felt horrible.

  Brent put his hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed.

  “It’s okay. This is how it had to go down. I wouldn’t feel right if they’d ask me to stay. Besides, sports photography is opening up some doors for me. That’s the direction I want to be heading in anyway.”

  I nodded and swallowed hard.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Still in shock?”

  “No, I’m just surprised he didn’t sic Asha on you. That woman’s chin is a deadly weapon.”

  We both cracked up. It felt good to laugh it off.

  “But don’t sleep on Asha—she had your back too,” Brent said.

  “That’s something I find very hard to believe,” I told him. She was the last person I believed had any interest in me. “Asha was the one who always had this air of disappointment when she looked at me.” I shook my head, doubting that he’d read the judgmental judge right.

  “Well, that may be, but homegirl was the only one who agreed with me. She said that you didn’t seem like the type to break out like a diva for no reason.”

  This was definitely the flip side of how I thought things would go today.

  “I feel horrible about the way I behaved every time Kelly baited me. I don’t know why anyone would bother to have my back after the way that I acted.”

  “It’s because they also know that you are a sweet, funny person with a lot of heart on and off the court. And like me, they admire your natural beauty.” Brent locked his eyes with mine. I was mesmerized by them. The dimple on the right side of his face deepened as he smirked again. He was probably laughing at how lost I was getting in his eyes. I blinked and looked back at the photo.

  “You know, in a couple of years, a photo by Brent St. John is gonna go for a brick on eBay,” I said in an effort to change the subject.

  “No, you mean a photo of gold medalist London Abrams is gonna be valuable.”

  “Just don’t forget to tell everyone where you got your start in sports photography, n’kay?”

  “Look for me—I’ll be the one getting knocked over by Lebron James when he chases a ball off the court.”

  “Those poor bastards—I always feel bad when that happens.”

  Even though we were joking, Brent seemed concerned about the sad and slightly bloodshot look in my eyes.

  “How are we gonna cheer each other up?” he asked.

  My eyebrows perked up. “I’ve got an idea, but you gotta leave behind your camera for one evening.”

  “I’m listening,” Brent responded cautiously.

  “Will you be my date for tomorrow’s Face of Spring Gala?”

  “If I can get past the bouncers on the lookout for ex-interns, yes.”

  We busted out laughing again. In the next moment, Brent reached out and pulled me in for a warm hug. It felt nice being in his arms. After a few moments, we didn’t step away from each other. Instead, Brent looked down and found my lips with his. It was a picture-perfect kiss.

  Later that day, I met Pam at her house so that we could check out Facemag.com together. After a trying, drama-filled day of emotional roller coasters, I couldn’t bear getting into something else—at least, not alone. Plus, her house was the most private place (meaning a Warren-and-Wyatt-free zone) for us to assess the damage.

  “Okay, here goes.” Pam prepared me before clicking around on her screen. I was on her king-size bed, hugging my legs and resting my chin on my knees while watching Pam at her desk.

  “The video posts are up of the Q and A,” she announced. “Are you sure you want to see it? Because you don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to. If you think it’ll just make you feel worse, then don’t bother.”

  I stopped gnawing on my lower lip to say, “No, I want to know just what I’m dealing with so that I’ll be ready for whatever people throw my way. Start it.”

  Pam didn’t click the play button at first. She waited until she was convince
d by the look in my eyes.

  I pulled up a chair next to her and for the next ten minutes, we watched in silence. The video was edited to include reaction shots from the judges that I hadn’t seen. Everyone looked slightly different on film. For one, all of our heads looked so much bigger.

  When it was my turn in the hot spot, I cringed when I saw just how many twitches and weird facial expressions I make when talking.

  “Stop—you look fine, London,” Pam scolded me when I winced and backed away from my face on the screen.

  It was all there for anyone who visited the site to see. Me in my teary confession. My effort to control the tears by looking at the ceiling was a smart decision. It didn’t look as bad as I thought it would. No runny nose or awkward hiccups. That happened later, after I got home.

  “Wow,” Pam whispered. When I looked at her, her eyes were a bit glassy.

  “You okay?” I asked her.

  “That was a bold thing to do, London,” she said. “I admire that about you. It shows that you have integrity.”

  “Gurl, if she had given me the same question she asked everyone else, I wouldn’t have even went there,” I admitted. “But you know what? I’m glad she did.”

  The next morning, the judges were prepared to announce their choice for the Chic Boutique model for the upcoming spring season. The scene in the store was more lowkey. Just the judges and two photographers were there with Cynthea Bey.

  The famous supermodel was early for this meeting and didn’t waste any time getting down to business. Kelly and Pixie were dressed down in jeans, as was I. It felt great to be able to relax in my favorite pair of American Eagle jeans and, yes, my volleyball jersey. At that point, I figured I had nothing else to lose.

  “Ladies, this is the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” Cynthea started. Even she was rocking some laid-back fuzzy boots and tights with a minidress. “And I have to say, it was a tough decision to make, so the judges and I took an unconventional approach.”

  Kelly, Pixie, and I weren’t holding hands and hugging one another while awaiting the decision like they do in the Miss America pageant. But somehow, I felt like we were more on the same wavelength than we’d been during the entire contest. We shot glances at one another as if to wish one another good luck. Pixie and I went so far as to nod kindly to each other. Something had changed between the day before and now. The pressure to measure up was gone. The dust had cleared for the most part, and we were left with some unlikely bond for having been through it together.