Granted, most of the photos weren’t good, per se. There were a lot of unremarkable pictures of trees and the river. Underexposed dorm rooms. Blurry, goofy pictures of other students, poorly composed, the depth of field not quite right.
But some I could tell were great, even from the miniature versions on the contact sheets. I saw a portrait of a beaming girl, her hair streaming out behind her as she catapulted toward the camera as if to give it a hug. The next sheet over held a photo of a cat sitting perfectly still in the middle of the beach. Both of them looked like they could hang in a gallery.
My contact sheet was at the end of the line, and I was grateful that not many people were looking at it. I examined the tiny photographs one by one in the deep red light. My favorite was of a grave with the drugstore blurred in the background, the words in the foreground distinct on the stone. And I liked the one I had taken of the courtyard; the light didn’t look as I had hoped, but it still had a pleasant, peaceful quality.
“You can leave these to dry or take them with you today, your choice,” said Erica. “Your first real assignment is going to be a self-portrait in still lifes, due three weeks from today. I’d like you to make images of items you feel reflect who you are as a person. You’ll need to present between three and five final prints, but I’ll want to see the whole contact sheet. Shoot at least one roll of film; I’d recommend more. The darkroom is open from noon to eight every day, and we’ll spend some time in here during class as well. Any questions?”
Girls were already packing up their bags, securing the black-sheathed bags of photo paper, and clipping their film sheets into sharp new binders.
Erica rolled her eyes. “Okay, lunchtime, I get it. Class dismissed.”
Sam and I took our contact sheets with us, even though they weren’t quite dry, and walked outside together toward the gazebo. The air was freezing, and the sun dazzled against the river. Kitty and Claire weren’t there yet, and I turned to Sam as we walked, half questioning.
“Do you think Claire gave up on her outdoors endeavor?”
“Absolutely not. Never.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’m sure about the strength of her convictions, but also, she texted me. They’ll be here soon.”
“Got it.” We reached the gazebo, and I pulled out my sandwich. “So. Can I see your contact sheet?”
He made a face. “Do you have to?”
“I guess not, but I would like to.”
“It wasn’t my best roll of film,” he said, but he was handing it to me anyway. “If I show you mine…”
“Okay, but if yours isn’t your best, you probably won’t even recognize mine as photography. It’s more like…is there an equivalent of a child’s crayon drawing for art photography?”
He rolled his eyes. “You can’t get out of this.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I gave him my sheet, already examining his. There were three sections of photographs: first, portraits of the woman I had seen earlier, then some of two boys I assumed were his friends, then our morning walking around. The pictures of the people were all carefully posed, his mom in front of a low ranch-style house and his friends in the bleachers of an empty football field. The first two-thirds of the sheet appeared to be attempts to get one or two specific pictures right; the last third was looser.
As if reading my mind, he said, “I usually prefer doing very controlled shooting. But I was experimenting on Saturday. I’m not sure if I like how it turned out.” He looked down at my sheet. “I like yours.”
“You don’t have to say that,” I told him, handing his sheet back to him.
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.” His eyes briefly flickered up and met mine before he looked down again. “I like your style.”
“I don’t have a style.”
“You do. You’re doing some things with light and shadow. And it feels spontaneous. That’s cool. That’s the opposite of what I do.” He gave me back my sheet with a rueful smile. “Ugh. I did it again. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t explain your own photos to you. That’s a dick move. I’m just saying, don’t sell yourself short.”
Claire’s voice pierced the air before I could respond. “Look how enthusiastic you two are about my outdoors initiative!” she shrieked. I turned to see her and Kitty strolling down the hill, Kitty rolling her eyes, Claire beaming. Kitty held two travel mugs, and when they reached the gazebo, she handed one to me.
“Sorry we’re late. I needed more coffee. I thought you might as well.”
“God bless you and keep you,” I said fervently, sipping it immediately. It was exactly the right strength and temperature. As always, the taste of good coffee made me miss Jess, which made me realize that she hadn’t texted me since our normal morning conversation. But then Kitty started telling us about some recent drama in her dorm hall, and I set the thought aside.
Between a lively lunch and the rest of my classes, I didn’t get to send any messages to Jess until I was walking home. what objects best represent me? I asked her, to no response. I checked and rechecked my phone until I got to Oma’s door, and there was still nothing, even though I knew she was out of school. Only two weeks here and already I felt like she was responding more and more slowly.
I was probably imagining it. You’re absurdly insecure, she used to tell me when I would look too long at my body in the mirror or say something self-deprecating about a grade I had received. Why can’t you understand that you’re fucking perfect?
Her tone was always scathing, angrier than made sense, and the compliments were painful. But for days afterward, they ached like a sunburn—I was always poking at them, reminding myself of the radiant light that had hurt me.
Oma wasn’t home yet, so I let myself into the condo, went to my room, and started spreading out my homework on my bed, as had become my routine. I got through my math homework and half a chapter in my history textbook before I gave up. Jess still had not texted me back. ??? I texted her. I looked at my last message: what objects best represent me?
To my own surprise, my photography homework was the only assignment I wanted to do.
The problem was doing it. I looked around my room, at the sparse walls and the lonely windowsill. There were barely any objects at all, let alone objects that represented me. My personality was nowhere, if—as I was now beginning to question—I had a personality at all. I raised the camera to my eye, then set it down.
My phone buzzed. I snatched it up. Jess: I JUST HAD THE WILDEST AFTERNOON I NEED TO TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT BUT I CANT IM GOING TO A MOVIE WITH PATRICK
!!!!! I responded. I paused for a moment, not sure what to say next, and she responded with six hearts and the message ok previews starting love you bye!
I stared at the message. There was no follow-up.
I flopped back on my bed and put a pillow over my face.
I lay there glumly for a few minutes, but it got stuffy, and my legs felt restless, and I still had tons of homework. So I gathered up all my things and moved to the kitchen table. Eleanor Roosevelt curled up by my feet, and I did my best to focus on Spanish. It was there that Oma found me when she arrived home.
“She emerges,” Oma said. She unraveled her scarf and hung it up. “I thought you only did homework in your room.”
I shrugged.
“What are you working on?”
“I’m supposed to translate this poem from Spanish to English.”
“I assume from your expression it’s not going well.” Having removed all her winter gear, Oma stretched and went into the kitchen. I heard the sound of the sink running. “Do you want a glass of water?”
“Yes, please.” She brought it to me, and I took a sip. “It’s only that my vocabulary is behind.”
Oma disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared with her own glass of water and an apple on a cutting board. She sat down across from me an
d started to slice the apple into crisp eighths. “You’re not behind on everything, right?”
“No. I have no idea how to do photography, but I don’t really know how that’s graded.”
Oma slid a napkin across the table, half the apple in neat slices. “I’ve talked to Erica. It’s fifty percent homework, twenty percent quizzes, and thirty percent final project.”
“No, I know that, I just mean—” A thought occurred to me. “Wait, why did you talk to Erica about the grading for my photography class?”
“Your mother wanted to know.”
Of course. I clenched my jaw.
Oma bit into an apple slice, swallowed. “But I was curious, too.”
“Mom could’ve asked me. I would’ve told her.”
Oma gave me a look.
“Anyway,” I said, annoyed, “what I meant was I don’t know how she grades each assignment. In terms of the quality.”
“Give me an example. And eat your apple. You look like you have low blood sugar.”
My mom was always talking about low blood sugar. If the twins or I were sluggish or grumpy, that was what she blamed it on. It was infuriating, but eating something did usually help me feel better, so it was hard to be too mad about it. Now I knew where she got it from.
I ate an apple slice, then answered. “Like this homework assignment. We have to create a self-portrait in objects. Things that represent who we are. But I just…” I gestured to the empty air around me. “First of all, I don’t have any things here. And second, I don’t know what I’d take a photo of if I did. Much less how I’d make it interesting.”
“Do you want to brainstorm?”
“No.”
She gave me that same look again and changed the subject. “You keep looking at your phone. Expecting a call?”
“No.” I deflated a little as I picked up another apple slice. I hadn’t realized I was checking it more than usual. I guess I was hoping that Jess would text me even though the movie had started. When we used to go to movies together, we would sit in the back row, and she would respond to Patrick’s texts no matter what. But maybe she had changed.
“Okay.” Oma kept eying my phone. I did not want her to ask again. I was finding it difficult to lie to her, and the last thing I wanted was to explain all my stupid insecurities about my best friend, especially when I knew my parents had warned her about Jess.
“Let’s brainstorm,” I said. “I changed my mind.”
Oma grinned, as though she’d won a point in a game. “Great. You start.”
“That’s not brainstorming,” I protested. “That’s just turning it around on me.”
“We’re only a two-person team. One person has to start. It might as well be the person doing the assignment.”
I sighed. “Okay. Fine.” I thought about my bedroom here. “I think Rosemary is a good representation of myself.”
Oma furrowed her brow. “Well, that’s a start. I guess I could get some fresh from Nadine if you—”
“Rosemary is the name of my cactus,” I corrected her.
“Oh. Okay. Well then.”
“Your turn.”
She looked thoughtfully at the river for a moment, then turned back to me. “You could get your parents to send you something from home and take a picture of it here.”
I tried to think about what object I would use if I were at home. Then I imagined the conversation with my parents: Well, is it small enough to put into an envelope? No? It’s not cheap to send a box. Can it wait until the next time we’re up there? I don’t know if we have time to get to the post office this week. Candace’s rehearsal schedule…
“I don’t think that’ll work,” I said.
Oma shrugged. “Okay. Your turn.”
“It’s impossible. The only things I have here are my clothes and the stuff on the windowsill in my room.”
“Then you’ve got it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have a bunch of clothes. And there are at least ten or twelve books on that windowsill. You only need three photos, right?”
“Three to five. And those things aren’t photogenic.”
Oma got up from the table, picking up the knife and empty cutting board. “Well, sometimes the best representations of ourselves aren’t the most aesthetically pleasing.”
“Is that…” I screwed up my face. “An insult? Are you trying to say something about how I look?”
Oma laughed. She disappeared into the kitchen for a moment and reappeared, hands empty, before coming over and lightly stroking the side of my face. I looked up, only somewhat unwilling. Her eyes were kind and wrinkled.
“You’re beautiful, my summer girl,” she said. “But you don’t have to be beautiful all the time.”
The next morning, I woke up early. Sam had said the light was soft in the morning, and it turned out he was right. I took a photo of Rosemary with the sun brushing up against her spines. And then, in case that image didn’t work out, I took five or six more, positioning her in different places on the windowsill. For the last one, I used the camera’s timer to snap a photo of her cradled in my hands, taking as much care as I could to touch only the ceramic pot.
As the sun slowly rose outside the window, I sat on the floor and looked at the room. Bed, table, lamp, none of it mine. The only things that I could call my own were the clothes in the closet and the things I had stacked on the windowsill. I pulled a book down at random and opened it.
It was a poetry anthology, the cover blue with gold accents. On the first inside page, Jess had scrawled a message in her hurried handwriting: June—think you’ll love this one. Try pg 29, 85, 116, 163, & esp. 77.
My breath hitched. I hadn’t known she had written messages in the books like this.
I laid the book carefully on the floor and framed her message in my camera. I turned the focus ring until all you could read was my name, June, in her handwriting and took the picture.
I put the book back on the sill beside Rosemary without reading any more. It didn’t matter much what she had picked out. It was enough, more than enough, to know that she had looked at a poem and thought of me.
Ten
“Would you let me put up a few photos? Or some posters?”
“I don’t really need them. I like the walls as they are. And see, there’s a photo of us.”
“Yeah, one photo. It’s clinical.”
“It’s neat. And clean.”
“It’s killing me.”
Kitty grinned as Claire fell back into her lap with an exaggerated moan. She ruffled Claire’s hair affectionately. “Really, I wouldn’t mind you decorating, but this is way more fun.”
It was finally February, it was finally Friday, and I had gotten an A on my self-portrait assignment, which had consisted of—as Oma suggested—only three prints. (For the third, in an act of pure desperation, I had photographed my coffee mug on the balcony. The steam looked nice, at least.) Claire, Kitty, and I were celebrating all these things with a sleepover in Kitty’s room. We had just finished watching an old movie on Claire’s laptop.
“This would have been way better if we’d done it in my room,” Claire grumped. “It’s ideal for activities.”
“Well, Penny is home for the weekend and Fiona is not, so I’m gonna stick with my place being the better option.”
Claire hopped down from the bed to sort through the tray of cookies we had nabbed from the cafeteria earlier, selecting an oatmeal raisin. She gave me a chocolate chip before climbing back into the bed and snuggling into Kitty’s side. Kitty unwrapped a piece of candy from the bag next to her, and the three of us sat there, looking at one another and eating contentedly.
“This is really nice,” I said.
“Glad we could arrange it,” Kitty replied, rolling her eyes and smiling.
The eye roll was deserv
ed. I’d never had to spend so much time coordinating a sleepover. At home, Jess and I were at each other’s houses practically every weekend. Here, because I wasn’t a boarding student, having me stay in a dorm room overnight required consent forms from Kitty, her roommate, and both of their parents, plus a short interview with Rebecca, the dour residential supervisor. The list of rules for overnight guests was three pages long, covering both the standard rules for residents (no candles, no boys, obviously no alcohol) and a special set of rules for visitors (no staying more than one night, no sleeping in common spaces, and no borrowing keys).
And all that was nothing next to the conversation with Oma. She had been so supportive of my friendship with Claire and Kitty that I hadn’t expected any pushback, but when I’d asked her about the sleepover over dinner, she’d just looked at me skeptically. We sat there for a long minute as it became clear she was not going to give me an answer without more information.
“It’s only Kitty’s dorm room,” I said, hearing how defensive I sounded. “You wouldn’t believe how many rules there are.”
“I would,” she said. “I helped write them.”
“Then you should know there’s no way I’m going to get into trouble.”
“I don’t know,” she muttered. “Girls manage.”
“I’m not going to try anything.”
“You’d be out from under my roof for an entire night.” Her expression was both concerned and annoyed. “I promised your parents I’d take care of you, you know. If you fuck up, they’ll blame me.”
It was the first time I’d heard Oma curse, and it pleased me. I didn’t mind this kind of back-and-forth. I was used to negotiations. “I won’t mess up,” I told her.
“Well, June,” she said, “you don’t have a great track record.”
All my arguments fell away, and I looked down at my empty plate.
It was a colossally unfair thing to say. I had done nothing wrong since I got here, nothing. I hadn’t had even one sip of alcohol, had never stayed out past my absurdly early sunset curfew. Apart from spending a few evenings in the library with Kitty and Claire—which Oma allowed only because her friend Deirdre, the librarian, would keep track of me—I hadn’t gone out at night at all. No drugs, no trouble with teachers, no boys except Sam, who was only a friend. No nothing. And still.
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