Calico

by Callie Hart

  “Fine. Tell me what it is so I can tell you no again and hang up.”

  Angela grumbles in the receiver, making displeased noises. She’s not used to having to pitch jobs to photographers. Normally photographers are clawing each other’s eyes out to get a foot in the door with them. “We want you to take some political shots. Alberto Capali is being sworn in as the new mayor of New York, and we want you to go to his house and take shots of his family, his home, him fucking walking his fucking dog if you like. But we want candid shots. No propaganda. If you see something that looks strange, shoot it. If he argues with his wife or his kid, shoot it. If you think Capali standing out in the freezing cold in his boxer shorts would make an amazing photograph, then you take the damn photograph. He’s agreed to be an open book.”

  “I don’t do political work, Angela. You know this.”

  “Bullshit. Every single picture you take is political. And the magazine has a budget of thirty grand for the piece.” She pauses. When I don’t make any comment, she says, “ Did you hear me, Cross? That’s thirty grand for a couple of days’ work. Normally you’d have to slave away for two months to get a paycheck like that.”

  Thirty grand is a lot of money. And she’s right: it does take me a couple of months to get paid out like that. “All right. Since it’s a New York job, I’ll consider it. Send through the information. When I get back, I’ll take a proper look at it.”

  “Come on, Cross. You should know better than that. This has to happen this weekend. I’ll have to put you on a flight first thing in the morning, and you’ll have to go straight from the airport to Capali’s place. That’s the only catch.”

  “Right.” So this will be it. I’ll only have tonight left in Port Royal if I take this job. Shane can obviously hear what’s been said on the phone. He quirks an eyebrow at me, waiting to hear what my response will be. I sigh, then take a swig from my beer.

  “Okay. Fine. Send me the ticket. I’ll come back to New York in the morning.”

  I hang up, and Shane thumps me on the arm. “Man, I didn’t think you were gonna agree to that.”

  “What do you mean? You were telling me five seconds ago that I should be excited to go back home.”

  He frowns. “Yeah, well. I don’t know. I didn’t really think you’d listen to me. I thought you’d stick it out here, figure this shit out with her. You’re a stubborn motherfucker, Callan. When you have your heart set on something, you don’t normally give in all that easy.”

  “Mmm.” I finish my beer, moving onto the next. “I guess. But you know what they say about the definitely of insanity. Repeating the same acts over and over again, expecting a different outcome. I’m done chasing this down, Shane. She was right all along. Too much pain has passed between us. Too much suffering. I don’t know that anyone would ever be able to overcome what we’ve been through. I have to be smart. I have to know when to call it a day. And right now, I think that time has come.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CORALIE

  End of the Road

  NOW

  The past is like a foreign country. It seems as though I visited long ago, but I have no idea how to get back there. And even if I could get back there, I don’t know that I’d ever want to take such a perilous, awful journey. Sometimes, I don’t get a choice, though. There are occasions when I’m dragged back there by my boot heels and I can’t stop the process no matter how hard I kick and scream and cry.

  I travel back to that first night in the basement all the time. For a while, making myself throw up was the only way to stop the violent memories hitting me over and over again. Throwing up was the only way to break the cycle.

  I thought once I’d left Port Royal, everything would get better. It didn’t, though. For years I was sick, distraught over what had happened. And losing Jo. Not being able to say goodbye to her. Mostly, I was torn to pieces over losing Callan. In my head, I had to cling onto the idea that I was mad at him. That I did hate him for selling that photograph of me to the world. It made it easier that he was gone. That I’d walked away.

  Now it seems like he’s walking away, and I don’t blame him. I can’t. I mean, I’ve had well over a decade to come to terms with what happened and I still haven’t managed it. How can I expect him to get his head around it and accept it in less than twenty-four hours? And how can I expect him to forgive me for keeping it a secret? My father should have gone to jail for what he did, both to me and to our baby, and I let him get away with it. I couldn’t have faced reporting the crime. It took me years to even confess it to a therapist, and I had a major panic attack when I did get the words out. That’s when my eating disorder was at it’s worst. When my drinking was beyond out of control. I’ve never been as close to spiraling down that rabbit hole again as I have been the past few weeks. I’m not frightened about losing control anymore, though. I was afraid because I knew I was going to have to tell Callan, and now that I have, despite how terrible and hard it was, I feel a little lighter. I don’t want to pour a bottle of vodka down my throat. I don’t want to puke hard enough to tear my esophagus.

  It’s a relief.

  “You’re a foolish child,” Friday tells me, handing me a glass of sweet tea. “You shoulda done tol’ me ‘bout all this nonsense back when it happened. I get it, though. I do. Sometimes the only thing that can fix things is time, and you gotta just get there on yo’ own. Ain’t a journey that other people can take for you. Or even ride along on.”

  I don’t have anything to say to that. I don’t talk about my emotions easily. There’s always been this block inside me, this insurmountable wall that I can never overcome. Climbing the wall or trying to knock it down has always been a futile task. Now that I seem to have managed it, I’m content to take things slowly, one step at a time.

  “You and him were never meant to stay here, Coralie. You was both meant to leave and see what was what out in the world. The circumstances for you both leaving were the worst kind, but it was your fate. And now fate has brought you both back here again to heal your wounds.”

  “Callan’s wounds are too fresh. They’re going to take a long time to heal.”

  Friday shrugs, looking off into the distance. Behind us, I can hear the gentle susurrus of the river, the same cadence and chatter it’s been whispering for as long as I can remember. Cicadas roar and quiet in turn, a bizarre and beautiful symphony. “Men are strange creatures, Coralie,” Friday tells me softly. “They recover from their injuries different to womenfolk. Who knows how long that boy’s heart will take to come back together. May not be as long as you think.”

  We both sit, watching the world go on slowly around us. After a long while, Callan arrives in his beaten up Ford, pulling into his driveway on the other side of the street, and I realize for the first time that it’s his mother’s old car—the one he used to drive on errands for her back when we were kids.

  “You gonna go talk to him, child?” Friday asks.

  I think about this for a moment, and then I shake my head. “I’ve said everything I can say, Friday. It’s done now. It’s over.” My eyes flicker toward the house next to Callan’s—old colonial columns cracked, paint peeling, window frames choked with ivy, kudzu draped in graceful bows over the porch—and I really see the place for the first time since I got back. I’ve avoided looking at it, not wanting to see it, to relive any of the hurt that went on there, and now that I’m facing it, letting it in, nothing happens. I’m not scared like I thought I’d be. I remember my mother pushing me on a tire swing in the front yard when I was tiny. I remember hours at night spent talking to Callan across the seven-meter gap that stands between the properties. That’s it. Nothing else.

  Callan climbs out of his car and stands beside it, staring at the ground for a moment. Eventually he looks up and gives us a brief wave. Two days ago, he would have been over here like a shot, trying to talk to me, to get me to hear him out. It seems as though his priorities have changed, though. He gives us a tight smile and heads insi
de his place. I consider bursting into tears.

  “Let him breathe, child. Let him work through this a while. I’ve been watching you together for years now. I know it ain’t done. Believe me, the two of you have still got a long road ahead of you, and you’ll be walking it together, no doubt about it.”

  Callan closes the front door behind him, swallowed by the darkness inside the house, and my heart splinters a little more. “I don’t know about that, Friday. I think our road has finally come to an end. I think this is where I go my way and he goes his. For good this time.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CALLAN

  Bluebird

  NOW

  Seeing Coralie over at Friday’s was hard. Every molecule inside my body was drawn to her, wanted me to go over there and take her in my arms, hug her to me and never let go. For years I’ve felt that way. It’s going to take more than five minutes to break that need for her, even if I don’t want to feel that way anymore. And I can’t figure out if that’s even what I want.

  God. Why did she have to keep secrets from me like that? On one hand, I get it. It must have been awful for her to go through that. Victims of abuse are often so mentally distressed by what’s happened to them that they never really admit it to anyone at all. I’ve read about it before. Seen it often enough in the models I shoot from time to time. I just never thought I’d be so blind to it, especially in someone I was so close to at the time, though. Makes me feel like I failed her. And she failed me. What a fucking mess.

  Should I go over there and say goodbye to her? Should I even tell her that I’m leaving? I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m so turned around by the events of the last few days that I can’t trust myself to make the right decision. I pace the house, trying to think, but an hour later nothing is clearer. My flight back to New York is in just over twelve hours. This job with Capali should be a good distraction, but there’s a solid chance my head simply won’t be in the game. If that happens, my work will be for shit.

  Damn it. Maybe I should just get moving. Head to the airport early, see if there are any earlier flights. I stand in the living room, assaulted by visions of what happened in here with Coralie when she was over last, and I find myself torn again. I push the feelings down though. I just have to fucking leave. I need to get the hell out of here.

  Running upstairs, I head to my room and grab my bag. I reach over my bed, about to hit the light switch so I can leave, when I kick something heavy under the bed. A part of my brain already knows what it is, but I find myself looking anyway, crouching down and flinging back the duvet to reveal the wicker basket Mom used to keep my Legos in when I was younger. I’d dumped them out when I was thirteen, though. Started using it for my photography equipment. My hand rests on top of the woven wood, my heart aching in my chest all of a sudden. If I open this and see what’s inside, I know perfectly well what will happen.

  One, two, three, four, five, six…

  I count to twenty before I make up my mind and pull the basket out. I wait another full minute with both my hands covering my mouth, breathing hard, before I unfasten the catch and lift back the lid.

  Disposable cameras. At least thirty of them. Half of them are mine; half of them are Coralie’s. Inside those cameras are over eighteen months’ worth of memories, love, hurt, joy, suffering and pain. We agreed we would wait to develop them—they were supposed to be printed after ten years on the anniversary we started dating. They’ve sat in here two years longer than they were ever meant to. Back when I was seventeen, I was looking forward to developing these so much. I envisioned Coralie and I locking ourselves away in a dark room together and watching over each exposure, waiting with baited breath while a snapshot of our past blossomed into existence. It was supposed to be a beautiful moment. It was supposed to be special.

  I stare down at the date-labeled cameras and I consider taking them out into the back yard, tossing them into a trashcan and setting them alight. For a moment, I think it would feel like a release, like letting go. But then I imagine the sense of loss after the plastic, cardboard and the film had been eaten away by the flames, and I feel empty inside.

  I stand up and hurry downstairs, heading straight for the kitchen. I haven’t bought food here, there’s nothing in the fridge, but thankfully I did switch the refrigerator on when I got back. The freezer’s made just enough ice cubes in the tray for my purpose. I grab them in an old mixing bowl and then head back upstairs. I close my bedroom door, pulling my worn old dressing gown off the hook on the back, and I toss it on the floor, kicking it up against the gap to block out any ambient light. Next, I pull down the blackout blinds I convinced my mother to install for me and I switch on the red light hanging over my bed. The room is lit then by a dim crimson glow, providing enough contrast and shadow that I can see what I’m doing. All of my old developing equipment is still in the basket along with the cameras. Developer, my old stop bath, fixer, LFN—everything is exactly where I left it. I already have an unopened bottle of distilled water by my bedside from when I was hung over the other day. There’s a good chance that the fixer and the developer in my kit have chemically altered over the years they’ve been sitting gathering dust but I’m willing to risk ruining a few images to find out.

  I work quickly as I set up the rest of the equipment I need on my old desk: measuring cups, my reels, cassette opener, changing bag, thermometer and timer. I’m so well versed in dark room practices now that I don’t need to use a thermometer and timer anymore. I have developing down to a fine art. Still, I set everything up the way I used to when I was younger, following the exact process I did back then. It was almost a religious ritual for me, something I took such huge fucking pride in.

  The developer’s too warm to be any good right now. I pour out a cup and place it into my makeshift ice bath, and then I wait. Selecting a camera to use in this experiment is tough. There’s a good chance this won’t work and I’ll end up destroying the roll, so I have to be okay with losing whatever I open up. It’s so hard to remember what was happening and when during the time we spent jumping out on each other and taking pictures. March? What the fuck was happening in March? Spring was launching into full effect early that year. It was abnormally hot. I remember Coralie covered in flowers, the two of us lying on our backs on the riverbank, the sky so blue overhead. I remember Coralie sneaking into my house for the first time, after me trying to talk her into it for weeks. Knowing what I know now, she’d been so brave to do it at all. I would never have tried to convince her to do it if I’d known how crazy her father was. What it would have meant for her if she’d been caught.

  I put March back in the basket. June next. I was teaching her to drive during our free periods. Her father wouldn’t let her get a car, wouldn’t even pay for her to have lessons. He told her that she wasn’t competent enough to drive, and that giving her the means to drive a car would only get her hurt. I’m willing to bet that he didn’t want to give her the necessary skills to escape him, though.

  October. October was the month before Coralie had sprung the news on me that she was pregnant. It was the only time we’d ever fought. She’d seemed highly-strung and nervous all the time. We argued constantly for three days and then we hadn’t spoken for a whole week. It had sucked. There won’t be a better month to choose than this one if I need to find images I don’t mind losing. The whole film is probably full of shots of Callan Cross voodoo dolls with pins sticking out of their eyeballs.

  I crack the cassette and prep the film. The developer’s ready so I mix up the solution and go to work. I pace up and down while I wait for the first of the images to develop. I can only soak five sheets at a time, so I have to do them in stages. Eventually the shots start to emerge onto the paper.

  The first image is a picture of Coralie and I together, two idiots grinning into the camera lens. We look so young. So happy. So ridiculously in love. It’s amazing how little she’s changed since then. I look a little older, I guess. Harder, somehow, like there’s
a barrier between me and the outside world now.

  The second is a picture of Friday and her crazy little dog. Coralie composed the image to make it look like some sort of Victorian family portrait, Friday glancing austerely down the lens out of her eye as she petted Algie. The third image is of me—a profile shot. The background is bright and overblown, so much so that I’m almost completely in silhouette. I can still make out the deep frown on my face, though. The look of intense concentration in my eyes. I have no idea what I’m doing or why I look so focused. After a while, Coralie grew clever about the way she took her photos. She would find the right moment when I was well and truly distracted or involved in some task and that’s when she would get me, like a goddamn sniper.

  I move onto image number four and disappointment wells up deep inside me. Seems I am going to lose a few of the photographs after all. The paper remains white. I give it an extra minute to make sure nothing will develop on it, but it remains blank. Or at least I think it does until I’m taking it out of the developer, letting the fluid run off it, and I notice the small dark smudge in the bottom left hand corner. I squint at it, trying to figure out if it’s an accidental shot Coralie took or if it’s something else. The small dark patch is too small to be sure either way, so I slide it into the fixer and let it sit while I move onto the next image. It’s the same deal. A bigger dark patch this time, a scribble of black against a white background. It’s definitely something. Perhaps writing? Something she wrote out for me?