Having completed self-portraits, our next photography assignment was landscapes. Erica had encouraged us to “redefine the landscape,” whatever that meant. More concretely, she had told us we couldn’t take more than one picture of the river, no matter how beautiful it was. Given that, I’d gotten my one permissible river shot from the condo’s balcony at sunset a few nights ago, the bridge arcing over the water and meeting its own blurry silhouette at the edges. It was nice, but too easy. If photography was art, and art was work—which Erica and Sam had started to convince me it was—landscapes were an appropriately difficult assignment.
When Oma heard about it, she offered to drive me to one of the nearby Civil War battlefields. But the gleam in her eye made me wary of being stuck with her, a lifelong history teacher, on a multihour trip to a historical monument. I declined, saying I wanted to keep photographing the town.
In the moment, this was an excuse, but when I thought about it later, it was true. I was starting to see ordinary things and places differently, using the camera lens as a window to the more beautiful, interesting world hidden inside the mundane. On weekends all through the last month, I had walked around town with my camera when I had nothing to do. Sometimes Oma and Ellie joined me, but mostly, I went out alone. It was one of my favorite parts of the week. I felt my mind clear in the cold. I liked the quiet in the morning and the surprises I stumbled upon: the church sign that had a different religious pun every Saturday, the garden gnome outside the gas station buried, several inches into the ground, upside down. Moving here, I had been so worried about being alone, but these walks, more than anything else, were why I looked forward to the weekends.
Now, I wandered west. I passed the toy store and the insurance office and paused at the Catholic elementary school, which had a small playground and a child-size soccer field. A few jerseys were draped over the fence, and a deflated soccer ball sat in the back of the goal. I backed up across the street, lined up the lens to center on the goal, adjusted the settings, and snapped.
Then, for good measure, I moved to a few different angles with minor changes in settings and took the picture a few more times. That first roll of film, Erica had told me that a lot of my pictures might have been strong but for one or two minor issues. I could correct this pattern, she told me, by taking the same photo more than once. “Give yourself more chances,” she told me. I was trying.
I kept walking for an hour, maybe more. I tried not to check my phone for the time. It was easier than usual, because I wasn’t getting any texts. Jess hadn’t sent me anything today. Normally, I would’ve reached out, but I felt divided from her, as if we’d had a fight, even though nothing of the sort had happened. I couldn’t talk to her until I had sorted through my thoughts, colorful and knotted like a mess of yarn. So I kept my phone in my bag, reaching in only to get another roll of film. The sun would tell me when it was time to go home.
I had gotten to downtown—such as it was, a short row of restaurants and trinket shops—and the sun was dipping lower in the sky when three boys turned the corner toward me. I grinned instinctively and raised my hand in greeting when I saw the one in the middle. Sam was already laughing at something his friend had said, but his smile got wider when he spotted me.
“June!” He gave me a hug. “Having a good Saturday?”
“It started out with Harold’s pancakes, so I’m great.”
Sam groaned in jealousy.
I waved to his two friends. “Hi, I’m June. I go to school with Claire.”
“Alex,” said the taller one.
“Justin,” said the other, adjusting his glasses.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, and done with our formalities, we stood in a loose square, a little awkward, the boys still chuckling from whatever they’d been joking about earlier.
“So what’re you up to?” Sam asked me. “Landscapes?”
I nodded. “Trying to reimagine them. As one does.”
“I’ve been doing the same. Not sure how successfully.”
“Oh, you’re Sam’s photography friend,” Justin said, looking between us. “Now this makes sense. We’ve heard a ton about you.”
“They have not,” Sam protested.
“Well, now I’m insulted.”
“We’ve heard exactly the right amount about you,” Alex said with an eye roll and a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise!” I had heard about them, too. Sam and I didn’t talk much when we weren’t actually in the same place, but during and after class and on the weekends with Claire and Kitty, he mentioned his friends often. Unsurprisingly, they were also frequent photo subjects. They had featured in the first roll of film Sam took for class, and I’d seen a few other photos when he had let me look through his binder of prints.
“What’re y’all up to?”
“Oh, Justin works here on weekends.” Sam gestured to the Italian restaurant to our right. “And we’ve just been inside my house playing video games all day, so Alex and I figured we’d walk him to work.”
“Very gentlemanly,” Justin said. “And speaking of…” He checked the time. “I gotta go. Bye!” He waved as he headed into the restaurant and added, “Nice to meet you, June!”
“You too!” I called.
He had barely opened the door when Alex said cheerfully, “Well, it has been an excellent day, and I’m gonna head home.”
“So soon?” Sam looked surprised. “It’s not that cold out. We could walk around some more.”
Alex glanced at me for the barest flicker of a second, then shrugged at Sam. “I should help my mom with dinner. Have a good night, you two.”
And then it was just me and Sam. You two. I looked at him, focusing somewhere around his shirt collar, suddenly self-conscious. Apart from that one afternoon the week I’d arrived, we hadn’t spent much time alone.
“I was about to head back to my grandmother’s, actually,” I said, nodding in the general direction of the condos. “Sunset is my curfew.”
“How quaint,” he replied, smiling. I let my eyes flicker up to meet his, warm and dark. “I’ll walk you home?”
I appreciated that it was a question. “Yeah, sure.”
We set off that way, quiet at first. Around us, the town was about as lively as I’d seen it, restaurants opening up and people streaming in from nearby parking lots to window-shop or eat dinner. Bundled in coats and scarves, everyone seemed comfortable despite the cold.
“This is nice,” I said, gesturing around me, and at the exact same time, Sam started to say something.
“Huh?” we said at the same time, and he looked bashful.
“You first,” I said.
“No, you.”
“Mine was nothing. I insist.”
“I was saying, I heard Ms. Nolan let you out of the house last night.”
“Oh.” I laughed. “Yes. My first sleepover. It’s like I’m back in fourth grade.”
“How were the dorms?” There was genuine curiosity in his voice. “I’ve never seen them,” he explained. “There is no way to sneak a boy in there. Claire’s showed me pictures of her room, but that’s all.”
“Her place is pretty amazing,” I admitted. “But the dorms in general are only okay. It was nice to hang out with them past curfew, though. How was your Friday?”
He shrugged. “Good. Fine. Dinner with my parents, went to bed early. Not to brag, but I’m kind of a thrill seeker.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
We ambled through the golden hour as the cold slowly deepened. I stopped to take a picture a few times. The sidewalk was narrow, and we walked close together. His hands were thrust into his pockets, and mine were tucked into my armpits, my arms tightly folded, but I let myself imagine a warmer day, when our hands swung next to us and brushed. In class sometimes, I looked at his hands, slim and strong and nimble.
Then an
image of Jess forced itself into my mind, a memory of her doubled over in laughter as we cut across the soccer field on our way to get coffee after school. The green of the grass behind her and her hair flying everywhere, her eyes like sunlight on water.
What did her hands look like? For the life of me, I couldn’t remember. All I could think of were her fingernails. She bit them if she wasn’t careful, so they were always too short and covered in colorful, chipping polish, the cuticles peeling away like dried paint.
I edged a little closer to the grass, away from Sam. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. I wanted to talk to him about it, Jess and the conversation with Kitty last night, but he was a part of it, too, my thoughts about him and his hands. I wished I could call Jess and tell her everything. I wished I felt nothing at all.
But we were still a mile from home, and I couldn’t think of much else.
I was grateful when Sam broke the silence: “I hear Italian Night at the cafeteria is next Friday.”
“Yeah, Kitty’s getting me a guest pass. Are you coming? The meatballs are supposed to be amazing.”
He chuckled. “No, my family usually does Friday night dinner all together. Also, I can’t eat meatballs.”
“Are you allergic to Italian spices? Or delicious things?”
“No,” he sighed. “It is something of an embarrassing story.”
“Well, now you have to tell me.”
“If you insist.” He grinned at me. “It’s not that interesting. Just, when my parents sprang the sex talk on me, it was at dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs. And they gave me the lecture about—you know—what to do in the event of, whether the whole thing was with a girl or if it was with a boy. It was extremely detailed. I’m glad my parents have a ‘you love who you love’ approach to all this. I just don’t love the fact that they gave me an in-depth tutorial on safe sex practices at a formative age while I had a plate full of meatballs in front of me.”
I laughed. He was beet-red but smiling.
“So you can’t eat meatballs,” I teased, “but has the spaghetti curse worn off?”
“I strongly prefer penne.” He nudged me very lightly with his shoulder. And even through the shirts and sweaters and coats between us, I still felt a spark, small and effervescent as a firefly. I tried to hold it in my hands, but it flickered away.
We crested a hill and came into view of the river, glittering in the sunset. I looked at Sam next to me. Strong jawline, hair all over the place, ears big enough that someone probably made fun of him in elementary school.
He caught my eye, and I looked away and then I looked back. I thought about telling him: Kitty thinks I’m bisexual. Maybe I am. It wouldn’t be that big a deal. He wouldn’t think about me any differently.
But I couldn’t say it. The words felt foreign in my throat, and even though I knew it was fine, I stayed quiet. I needed more time.
We came to a stop in front of the gates of the condo. Sam turned so he was facing me.
“It was nice to walk with you,” he said softly. “Have a good rest of your evening.”
“Thanks.” I looked down at my camera, fiddling with the strap. “I hope you get the hang of landscapes.”
“You too,” he said.
He stood there, shifting from side to side, and I said, “Well, see you soon,” and hugged him. I held on tightly for a long moment, breathing in the scent of wool and shampoo that lingered around his neck. How good it would be—how perfect—if we could just stand like this, warming each other against the cold of the world, for minutes or hours, and when we separated, not ascribe it any meaning. If we could take comfort in each other without taking anything else.
But that was not how the world worked. There was a column for boyfriend or girlfriend that meant someone who would hold you for as long as you needed to be held. And there was another column for friend, which didn’t allow for hugs longer than a few good seconds. Never the two shall meet, I guess. I released him and stepped back.
“Bye,” he said.
I raised a hand in farewell and stepped through the gate. Walking across the courtyard, I looked up at the windows of all the condos, little squares of yellow light or gray shadow in the near-dark air. Oma’s was in the upper right, and as I glanced up, I saw her standing there, leaning over the railing and looking at the river. She looked down as if expecting me and waved. I waved back.
Twelve
February and March brought routine. After the four tentative weeks of January, I had settled in. I left home at the same time every morning, my not-quite-right cup of French press in hand, and shivered my way to school. I ate lunch with Claire and Kitty, loyally spending the requisite time outside while Claire crowed and Kitty complained. On photography days, Sam joined us, with his quiet jokes and big smile. My classes got harder; I did my homework.
At night, Oma made dinner or got food delivered, and we ate at the table or sometimes in the living room watching TV. I did the chores I was supposed to, which were a lot easier with two people than they had been at home with five. I talked to Jess on the phone every other day and texted her…well, almost as much as I always had. On Wednesdays and Sundays, I video chatted with my family, and on weekends, I slept in and did homework and hung out in Claire’s and Kitty’s dorm rooms, gossiping and arguing and laughing.
Bedtime each night was eleven, given how early I had to get up. But I could never sleep. I worried. I got sad. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about Jess and my parents and the twins and Sam and guilt and love and my next photography assignment until at last, worn out by thinking, I fell asleep.
One day in February, it snowed. Class was canceled, and the whole school had a snowball fight on the riverbank, girls shrieking and laughing in the powder. I saw the whole thing starting from Oma’s balcony and tossed on my coat and scarf, running up to the school just in time to throw a snowball at Kitty as she was taking her first steps out of her dorm.
My favorite part of my routine was my afternoons in the art building. I liked developing film, and I loved making prints in the darkroom. A lot of the other girls in the class tried to fit most of their printmaking into our Thursday darkroom classes. I didn’t fault them; at the beginning of the semester, I had expected to be one of them. But I adored printmaking, the tuning and experimentation needed to make a picture not fine but great, and I wanted to see as many of my photos blown up as possible.
As a result, I frequently found myself alone. While I was working, the only thing to do was handle each step one by one, and they all required waiting. I had to make a test strip before I could make a contact sheet before I could make a print. Each of those things took time. And I had to be deliberate. Not only could I lose half an hour on a bad print, but the paper was precious. I had paid blanket lab fees that covered some film and photo paper, but if I went over my allotment, I’d have to buy my own.
With the eerie red light and the white noise from the running water in the rinse tray, the darkroom was a meditative space. I got to focus and be productive but still think in the background. And if my thoughts became too much for me, well, I could concentrate harder. It helped that I couldn’t use my phone. No one could find me or talk to me. In the darkroom, I was in a world entirely my own.
Which was why I started with surprise on the Thursday before spring break when the rotating door opened and my grandmother emerged, blinking to adjust to the darkness. Fortunately, I had just dropped a print into the development bath, and my small jump served only to agitate the solution more.
“There you are,” Oma said. “I’ve been texting you.”
“Sorry, my phone’s in the classroom. I can’t use it in here. Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yes. Your mother was asking what time we’re planning on meeting her tomorrow.”
“Was it that urgent that you had to come find me?” I glanced at the clock and picked up the print with t
he tongs, shaking off the excess developer and moving it to the stop bath.
“I didn’t have to,” Oma replied with the tiny edge in her voice that I had come to recognize as a warning: Calm down. I’m not the enemy. “I figured you’d be here, and I wanted to come see the darkroom. I haven’t been up here in years.”
She walked around the room slowly, peering at the enlargers.
“I was thinking we could leave at six tomorrow, if that’s okay with you,” I said after a minute. “Miss most of the Friday night traffic.”
“And meet your mother around eight. Yes, that’s what I was thinking. She was talking about maybe doing all this on Saturday morning, but I told her I had plans.”
“Do you?” I moved the print to the fix.
“Yes, I’ll be taking Ellie for a walk with Nadine and going to the farmers market,” Oma said, serene, and smiled at me from across the room.
“Thanks,” I said. I smiled back, but I was having a hard time not gritting my teeth, thinking about Mom trying to postpone my homecoming for spring break. Of course she was. We had made the plans weeks ago: Oma and I would leave on Friday and meet Mom in a little town in Virginia halfway between St. Anne’s and home. Minimal driving for everyone involved, and I would be back in my old bed well before midnight, ready for Jess to pick me up for our first day back together on Saturday morning.
Until my family phone call last night, however, I had forgotten to tell my parents that Jess and I were spending the day together. And despite the fact that Mom and Dad had no plans for Saturday, as soon as I mentioned Jess, they were full of ideas and excuses. After an hour of protests, I had worn them down to just dinner and game night with the twins, keeping most of the day for myself.
But now here came Mom, trying to take more of my time with my best friend.
I transferred the print into the rinse, where it could roll around in the water indefinitely, and returned to my enlarger. I took a couple of deep breaths. There was no reason to get angry. I had won, after all. And thankfully, Greenmont’s spring break lined up with mine, so Jess and I would have the whole week together.
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