by Anna Martin
Taking pictures was one thing. Caleb could spend hours with his camera around his neck, snapping one image after another. Honing them down was more difficult. He had to pick the single best image from a day’s work, just the one, to post online. Caleb had quickly learned people were rarely interested in seeing more than one picture from a collection. It flew in the face of nearly everything he’d learned about exhibiting his work in a gallery, where continuity and collections were valued. On the Internet, the consumer looked, appreciated, then wanted to be entertained with something new.
It had been a steep learning curve, and a valuable one.
Caleb finished off a homework assignment and saved the file to a USB drive, ready to take into school the next morning. Then, because he couldn’t help himself, he switched back to his blog.
There was a notification he was now being followed by “Luc-le-Beau.” He had yet to explore Luc’s blog. It seemed like an excellent time to do so. Caleb quickly scrolled through the pages. Most of them were photos of bands or music clips, although there were some text posts too. For a moment he hesitated over reading those, feeling like it was an invasion of privacy.
The cursor lingered over the “read more” button as Caleb deliberated clicking on it, wondering if he had permission to know personal things about “Luc-le-Beau.” Then the light above his desk flashed. It was his parent’s way of knocking on his door. There was a standard doorbell on the doorframe which was hooked up to the light. He quickly glanced at his clock—it was nearly eleven, his lights-out time.
Caleb minimized the window and went to open the door to his mother, who was already in her pajamas.
“Came to say good night,” she signed.
He smiled and nodded and leaned in to let her kiss him on the cheek.
“Good night.”
Since he had to be up for school in the morning, Caleb turned the computer off and quickly changed for bed, knowing if he sat back down at the desk, he’d quickly get caught up in the blog.
As he lay in bed, Caleb wondered what Luc-le-Beau looked like. It was a train of thought that took him all the way to sleep.
The hardest part about school was when Caleb’s teacher gave half his lecture while facing the board, writing things down as he went. Actually, it wasn’t just Mr. Graff that did it. Quite a few of his teachers didn’t listen when he asked them to face the front so he could lip read. Which was ironic, really.
His grades never slipped, though. His parents would never let that happen. Most nights when he got home from school, Caleb sat down at the kitchen table and went over everything from his classes that day to make sure he understood, before he even got started on homework. While other kids his age watched TV or played video games or went online, he was stuck in front of a pile of books, relearning what his teachers were too ignorant to teach in a way that meant he could learn like everyone else.
It was for that reason that Caleb’s parents had enrolled him in five different schools before he finally settled in a regular, mainstream high school. A couple of those had been schools specifically for deaf kids, but he’d never felt like he fit in at those. Nearly all the kids at deaf schools excelled in an environment that catered to their needs. Not Caleb.
Feathered neatly with his deafness were layers of social anxiety Caleb had spent most of his teenage years battling. In twelve years he hadn’t attempted any kind of speech. The beautiful range of body and facial expressions that characterized ASL didn’t come naturally to him, and his reluctance to show his emotions on his face, as well as with his hands, eventually alienated him from his deaf friends. He just wanted to be like everyone else, not in some school where his signing, lacking in expression and emotion, was more difficult for his peers to understand. Plus there were always therapists at “special” schools: language therapists, emotional well-being therapists, speech therapists.
Awkward was redefined when he sat in a room with a speech therapist for an hour a week and didn’t open his mouth once the whole time he was there. That lasted a year. When he left that school, his parents finally relented and sent him to the local high school. It was overcrowded, slightly run down, full of cliques and teams and special little groups he wasn’t part of. It was what he’d always wanted—to be normal.
There were some teachers who were awesome. There was an option to take a photography course as an extracurricular activity, and Caleb had signed up as soon as he could. In fact, he was currently on his third rotation, when students were only supposed to get one place per year. But Mr. Andrews was really nice. He had learned some sign language so he could better get to know Caleb as a person, not just as the deaf kid in school. After Caleb’s second rotation, he’d created an assistant position so Caleb could stay in the photography project for as long as he wanted, on the condition that he helped clean up the developing chemicals and take down the prints from the drying room after class.
Mr. Andrews was young, for a teacher. Caleb guessed he wasn’t thirty yet, probably mid-twenties. During the week he was one of the art teachers, and he was a working artist too. After a quick search on the Internet, Caleb had found Mr. Andrews’s website, with pictures of his pieces in different mediums: sculptures, oil paintings, sketches, illustrations, photography.
On the nights he was in the photography studio—Tuesdays and Wednesdays—Caleb’s mom came to collect him so he didn’t have to take the late bus on his own. There had only been one time he’d ever had trouble, but that was enough as far as his mom was concerned. It wasn’t even anything terrible, just some guys flicking things at the back of his head from the other side of the bus. Caleb had guessed they were calling him names too. He’d shrugged it off, determined this was just another thing normal kids went through, so he wasn’t going to make a big deal of it. Then the next day he had been called to the principal’s office, and his parents were there, and his dad had translated Caleb’s version of events to the principal. Apparently the bus driver had seen—and heard—it all and reported back to the school. And since then his mom wouldn’t let him get the bus on his own.
It was stupid, but she was overprotective of him at the best of times, and he knew letting him go to a mainstream school was a big thing for her.
He wasn’t quite finished working on the digital photo, but there wasn’t time to complete what he’d hoped to achieve that afternoon. With a small sigh, Caleb saved his work and turned off the computer, grabbed his bag, then went down to Mr. Andrews’s office to say good night.
“Is your mom picking you up?”
Caleb could lip read well. Extraordinarily well, in fact.
“Yes,” he signed, knowing Mr. Andrews could understand.
“Okay. Good night.”
“Thanks. Good night.”
As expected, Caleb’s mom was waiting for him in her bashed-up old Volvo. He was running just a few minutes late, and as he approached, Caleb noticed her head was tilted back on the headrest, her eyes closed. She hadn’t even changed out of her mint-green scrubs.
His mom’s job as a labor and delivery nurse meant she worked long shifts and odd hours. He could remember her saying it wasn’t the sort of job she could just do for the heck of it. It was a calling, to bring new life into the world. She was also pretty convinced her job wasn’t about babies, it was about women.
He’d been to Boston Medical Center a few times before to see one doctor or another regarding his hearing—or lack thereof. In the past year, since he’d been driving himself around, he liked to drop in to the ward to see his mom, just to say hello.
However, the labor and delivery wards scared him. Caleb’s excuse was that he was a teenage boy, and babies and women in labor were fucking scary. His mom was different when she was at work too. Once he’d gone in with a bag of M&M’s for her because she was working a twelve-hour shift, and he thought it would be nice.
The girl on the desk recognized him and signed hello, then put a call through for Nurse Stone.
Caleb took after his mother in many of h
is features. He got her slim body and blond hair, although he’d inherited the curls from his dad. His mom kept her hair long so she could easily tie it back at work, which had always made her look younger.
When she strode through the ward to the front desk, he thought she looked terrifying with power. For all of the peace and calm she usually brought to those around her, especially at home, in the right circumstances she could, apparently, be a warrior.
Caleb had silently handed her the packet of candy, which had broken through the armor and forced her face to split into a smile. She’d thanked him, pulled him down into a hug (and placed a little kiss on his cheek), then asked him to come with her.
He’d followed blindly. He always would, where his mom was concerned. She took him through to the nursery and pointed out her miracle of the day. The baby’s face was red and white, with pouting, shiny pink lips and a shock of dark hair peeking out from under a pink cap.
“It was supposed to be a boy,” his mom had told him. “The mother has three sons already. They called her Trinity, so she’s named after her brothers.”
She always remembered her miracle babies.
Caleb approached the car and watched her snoozing for a moment, then knocked lightly on the window to get her attention. His mom startled awake, then noticed him and rubbed her eyes with one hand as she pressed the button to unlock the door.
“How was your day?” she asked, shifting in the seat to face him.
“You look tired,” he signed back.
Carrie-Anne shook her head. “It was a long shift.”
“I started a new project in the lab,” Caleb said in response. “I’ll tell you after dinner.”
Car rides could be awkward when there was a deaf person in the car. Carrie-Anne would always leave the radio on for herself, since there was no way of signing to Caleb and driving at the same time. He was used to sitting and watching the scenery go by, even though they’d driven this route a hundred times before. Or, since he had his iPad now, he sometimes checked the few blogs he followed, although reading in the car always made him feel sick.
Caleb sometimes wondered what his relationship with his parents would be like if he wasn’t deaf. His mom had once said they’d hoped for a big family, with lots of kids running around, but by the time he was a year old they had a pretty good idea about the extent of his disability, and she’d decided to dedicate her time and attention to the baby who needed her, rather than try for more. It wasn’t long after that she decided to change disciplines as a nurse and move from the ward where she cared for elderly patients to retrain as a labor and delivery nurse. She claimed she’d never looked back.
Sometimes Caleb thought she replaced all of her “what-if” babies by bringing other people’s children into the world. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like if he did have brothers and sisters. He thought maybe his mom and dad wouldn’t be so clingy toward him if they had other kids to divert their attention. What if, what if.
They pulled into the drive next to the neat front yard, and Caleb stretched as he unfolded himself from the car. From the smell of things, his dad had made it home first and had started dinner. That meant one of the five meals he was able to cook without supervision. Even Caleb was able to cook a wider variety of meals than his dad, but he’d learned not to push for more. Not since the barbeque sauce bolognaise disaster.
Caleb went straight to the kitchen and said hello to his dad, lifting the lids on the pots on the stove to determine what they were eating. Chili. That was fairly safe.
“Do I have time to go for a run?” he asked, feeling tense and wanting to let it all go.
His dad raised his eyebrows in question. Caleb rarely went running if he’d been to the lab. It was already getting dark outside.
“Is your mom coming too?” his dad said, signing as he spoke.
“No. She’s tired. I don’t want to ask.”
“Okay. Not too long, you know we don’t like you running in the dark.”
Caleb nodded, not wanting to argue, and rushed to his bedroom to change into a T-shirt and his running pants.
Running was a habit he’d picked up from his mother and hadn’t abandoned even when she’d started working more hours and lost the extra time she’d used to take him out. When he was a child, it was a good way of making him burn off surplus energy while his mom kept fit. Now it was time he spent clearing his head.
From the house there were several routes he could take around the area of the city they lived in. One took him through the park, but Caleb knew his parents wouldn’t really approve of him going that way when the light was falling rapidly. No, it was best to stick to the streets, under the cover of the streetlights that were starting to flicker on.
He took a moment to stretch his calves and shoulders before breaking into a loose jog, turning left out of the front yard and back down the road toward the school. On the weekends, when his mom wasn’t working, sometimes the two of them got in the car and drove out to Worlds End Park to properly stretch out and cover some distance. That hadn’t happened in a while.
Through the day Caleb hadn’t allowed himself to dwell for too long on the few messages he’d been exchanging with his new Tumblr friend. Now was the perfect time to let his mind wander to what the guy looked like, whether the two of them had shared interests in movies or books, if the guy would figure Caleb was too much hassle because he was deaf.
He thought about sex and wondered if his friend was having it. Those thoughts led to uncomfortable stirrings, though, so he forced his mind in another direction.
As his long legs ate up the sidewalk and he hit his stride, a faster pace than usual, he started to compose the next post for his blog. He’d wanted to talk about the art of photography for a while but wasn’t sure how to approach the subject without sounding like a know-it-all.
By the time he’d finished the loop he was out of breath, muscles burning, but he felt good. Caleb stretched again lightly and went upstairs to shower and change before heading down to dinner.
Over the course of the evening he finished two pieces of homework, made a start on a longer assignment, and drafted the blog post. Since he’d sent the last message to Luc-le-Beau he didn’t want to be the one to send the next one, even though their last exchange was a good-night. He didn’t want to look desperate.
Instead he cast his eye over the post about his photography and clicked the button to post it to his blog, then sat back in his chair and wondered if Luc-le-Beau would see it.
3. IM
Hi, how are you?
Hey. Are you online?
Yes!
Do you have Skype?
Yeah. Of course.
Cool. Look me up—Luc-le-Beau, same as on here.
Luc: Can you see me?
Caleb: Yes!
Luc: Hello, Caleb Stone.
Caleb: You full-named me. I feel like I’m in trouble now. Is Lucien Le Bautillier your real name?
Luc: Ugh, yes. People just call me Luc, tho. Like “Luke.”
Caleb: It’s a nice name.
Luc: It’s my grandfather’s. He died on the day I was born. Apparently he’d been dying for, like, ages, and he hung on until my mom had me.
Caleb: That’s kinda awesome. Do you have any brothers and sisters?
Luc: Yeah. 1 brother and 1 sister. Johannes and Ilse.
Caleb: You all got beautiful names, then.
Luc: Thank you :)
Caleb: How are you?
Luc: Good, thanks. Really good. Did you know you have your webcam on? ;)
Caleb: Damn. No. Well, there’s no point in me turning it off now. You’ve seen me already!
Luc: Let me turn mine on.
Caleb: OK.
Caleb: I have seen pictures of you before. You post them to your blog.
Luc: That’s true. I haven’t seen you before, tho.
Caleb: Yeah, I guess so. I can see you now, btw.
Luc: Hi!
Caleb: Hi back!
Luc: So, w
hat have you been up to?
Caleb: Not much. I’ve just had to hand in two big assignments for school, so the past couple of days have been crazy busy.
Luc: Tell me about it. What is it about this time of year that makes teachers go insane?!
Caleb: College applications?
Luc: Ah, yeah. That. Have you put yours in yet?
Caleb: No, I’m still working on them. You?
Luc: I just did mine this week. My mom is making me apply to NYU even though I don’t want to go there.
Caleb: No way! I applied there too. NYU, Northeastern and BU.
Luc: I applied to NYU, UDub and UCLA.
Caleb: You want to move to the west coast?
Luc: Fuck, yeah. I wanna get the hell out of this city. This fucking state.
Caleb: Wow.
Luc: I’ve been through a lot of shit already this year. I just want a fresh start in a new town, you know?
Caleb: Oh, I can understand that. That’s why I applied for NYU—my parents want me to stay in Boston, but I want some independence, you know?
Luc: Definitely.
Caleb: Hey, I need to run, but do you have Snapchat? I’ll find you and send you a message tomorrow.
Luc: Sure! It’s @Luc-le-Beau. I pretty much use that handle everywhere.
Caleb: Cool. I’ll find you, yeah?
Luc: Yeah, do. I’ll catch you soon.
Caleb: Later.
Caleb sat back from his computer and rubbed the heel of his hand over his rapidly beating heart. He’d thought it might burst right out of his chest when Luc had said the webcam was on, but Luc seemed nice. It was only a brief conversation, a friendly chat, and Caleb didn’t want to read too much into it.
But he’d been surfing message boards and blogs for a few weeks now, and he’d never had a conversation like that with anyone else.