Picture Perfect

by Catherine Clark

  “How is she?” I asked.

  “Like, um, a whirling dervish,” Adam said. “Those things that spin around and around.”

  “Whirling dervish? Wow, have you been taking vocab vitamins along with your steroids?” I asked.

  “Shut up.” He gave me a playful—but still possibly bruising, with his strength—hip check as we headed up to the deck. “I don’t take steroids, okay? I mean, I know guys who’ve done it and it’s disgusting. So let’s not talk about that anymore,” Adam said in a more serious tone.

  “Agreed,” I said. “I didn’t really think that, you know.” Although it had kind of crossed my mind, because I didn’t understand how he’d transformed himself. If he’d changed that much…what would Spencer look like? “Anyway, let’s forget we ever said anything, and just eat.”

  “Deal.” Adam picked up a paper plate and started loading it with food. I followed his lead, taking some of almost everything.

  Heather and I sat next to each other on the deck. We both sat cross-legged, in a sort of yoga position. She’s tiny—about five feet tall—and used to do gymnastics at the same level I danced—we were both a little obsessed. She’d always been amazingly flexible, and I was, too, so we used to spend these vacations trying to out-bend each other doing splits, back bends, handstands, and anything else we could do to be pretzel-esque. Adam and Spencer had dubbed us the tumbling twins—or maybe it was the tumbling twits. I suddenly couldn’t remember.

  Maybe there were some things about our last get-together that I’d purposely forgotten, like the look on Spencer’s face when I’d awkwardly tried to tell him how I felt—or the look of his back, rather, when he turned away, ignoring me, as if I hadn’t said anything. A person can forget a lot in two years. But that? No. And if I hadn’t forgotten, I worried he hadn’t, either.

  Maybe the Flanagans won’t come, I thought, looking around at everyone else already gathered. Maybe they decided to stay home. Maybe their car broke down and they’d decided to just can it.

  Oh, relax, I told myself as I bit into a cob of buttery corn. Spencer has moved on, and so have you. You’ve had tons of other guys in your life since then. Sure. There’s that tech guy at the Apple store…and the guy at the Starbucks drive-through you flirted with—once—and…um…

  Adam sat down across from us. “What’s wrong with chairs, anyway? You guys against chairs? Wait, I know. You have to stretch. Isn’t that what you were always doing?”

  “Before I quit gymnastics,” Heather said. “Actually, I just didn’t see enough chairs.”

  “When did you quit gymnastics?” Adam asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

  “After the accident,” she said. “I broke a few ribs, and…it hurt to breathe, never mind flip. Plus I was just ready to make some changes.”

  Adam nodded. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I mean…about everything. Must have been really hard.”

  There was a long pause. I looked at Adam, then at Heather, then at my plate, wishing I could say something decent that didn’t sound completely clichéd.

  “You know what?” Heather suddenly looked up at both of us and smiled. “We have to go out tonight.”

  “We do?” I asked. I hadn’t pictured going out and partying as being in the cards, not with the proportion of parents to us. I mean, it was something I’d hoped to achieve, but only in a fantasy, which is the way most of my daring plans occur.

  “We do. I mean, do you really want to sit around and listen to the guys all night? First they’ll talk about the place where they all lived, and who never washed the dishes, and who did, and who partied the most, and what girl they tried to date but who wasn’t interested in any of them—”

  We all laughed, but I also couldn’t help but wonder if Heather was feeling a little uncomfortable listening to all the guys reminisce, when her dad wasn’t around to join in anymore. As much as hearing my dad’s stories over and over again annoyed me, at least I still had the chance to listen to them.

  I stood up to get a little more food and took a serving of Mrs. Olsen’s famous marshmallow Jell-O salad, which she’s been making for every get-together since forever, and that I’ve been eating for about as long.

  “When did your mom have time to make this?” I asked Heather, taking a bite.

  “This afternoon. We got here earlier today, then went out shopping for new swimsuits,” Heather explained. “There are some amazing shops around here. Where were you guys when we got here?” she asked Adam.

  “Tim and Tyler wanted to go to an amusement park. I think we went on about twelve kiddie pirate rides.”

  “I can’t believe they’re already four,” I said. “Seems like they were just born, you know?”

  “Ha! Maybe to you,” Adam said.

  “I always kind of wanted siblings,” I said. “Someone to take the focus off of me.”

  “I hear you,” added Heather with a nod.

  There was a loud knock on the fence surrounding the pool area. “Anyone here?” a deep voice called through the fence.

  “No!” everyone called back at once.

  “Thought so. Let’s go, Spence,” I heard Mr. Flanagan say.

  I kind of held my breath. After Adam, I couldn’t wait to see what Spencer looked like. Would he have changed that much, too? I was nervous, maybe even dreading it a little bit. What if he’d changed? What if he was even more handsome than he had been at sixteen? Or, potentially worse, even more conceited?

  The gate opened—Mrs. Flanagan was towing a large suitcase, while Spencer and his dad carried a kayak over their heads, which they leaned against the fence.

  “You kayaked here?” asked Mr. Thompson. “No wonder it took you so long.”

  “Anything to save gas money,” Mrs. Flanagan answered with a smile.

  Spencer was wearing an orange UVM T-shirt and long khaki shorts. He was barefoot. I suddenly remembered how he liked to go barefoot all the time, and wondered how that worked out during the winters. I rarely saw him during the winter. Maybe he had a completely different look.

  “You’re here!” Heather said, throwing her arms around Spencer.

  Spencer stepped back with an awkward smile, escaping Heather’s grasp. “Hey.”

  “Hey?” Heather repeated. “Is that all you’re going to say?”

  He looked at her and lifted his eyebrows, like he was trying to think of something better to say, but he couldn’t. “Sorry about your dad,” he said.

  “Thanks.” Heather hugged him again. “I appreciate that.” She let him go and looked up at him. “But I didn’t mean that.” There was an awkward pause. “Well? Are you going to hug Emily or not?”

  Good question, I thought. What was the etiquette for this kind of situation? It was like Heather could see that things were awkward, but I’d never told her about my dumb confession of love—or was it like?—to Spencer two years ago.

  He gazed at me for a second, rubbing his eyes, because clearly he’d just woken up after the extremely long car trip. “Emily. That you?” he asked, scratching the side of his face, which looked a little stubbly. He was turning into a grown-up. He had actual stubble.

  I laughed. “Of course it’s me. Who else would it be? Hi.” I punched his arm a little awkwardly, but hit it harder than I meant to, and we sort of hugged, but sort of almost toppled over at the same time.

  “Ouch. You’re tall,” he said.

  “Me? No, I’m the same height I used to be,” I said, pulling a sticky strand of my hair off of my face.

  “You have something in your hair,” Spencer said.

  “Still?” I pulled at a few more hairs, then found a clump of mini-marshmallows. I could feel myself blush as I attempted to pull them out. Fortunately, I have thickish hair—but unfortunately, it’s black, so every speck of marshmallow showed. This wasn’t exactly how I’d wanted my reunion with Spencer to go.

  “It’s the Mello Jell-O,” Heather explained to him.

  Spencer rubbed his forehead. “The what?”

  “My
mom’s famous mold dessert thingy.”

  “Your mom serves mold?”

  “No, stupid, it’s a mold, as in a shape. And it has fruit and marshmallows in it—”

  “Oh, yeah. Now I remember. Well, I guess everyone has to be famous for some thing.”

  Heather shoved him. “Are you dissing my mom?”

  “No, just gelatin. So what happened? Did you dive into the bowl?” Spencer asked me.

  No, I was eating it when you showed up, and I guess I got a little flustered, and my spoon ended up in my hair. “Ha-ha,” I said in a deadpan tone. “It’s a styling product, okay?”

  “Well…style away,” Spencer said, surveying the deck.

  “Same old obnoxious Spencer,” Heather muttered under her breath as Spencer left us to get a burger.

  It was true that he treated us like we were little kids, even though he was only a year older than us. He usually made a big effort to remind us that he was older. Heather, Adam, and I were just so immature. We were like infants, compared to him.

  The three of us sat down to finish eating dinner, and Spencer joined us. As soon as Heather tossed her paper plate into the trash can, she stood up, looked at the three of us, and said, “What are you guys waiting for? Come on, let’s get out of here, go out somewhere fun.”

  “Go out? But I just got here,” Spencer protested. “I don’t even know what room I’m in, or where my stuff should go.”

  “We’ll figure it out when we get back. You can unpack later. You’ve got two weeks to unpack.” Heather pulled Spencer to his feet and guided him toward the deck steps.

  “Technically, no, because I’ll have to unpack in order to change my clothes, like tomorrow,” Spencer said. “Anyway, where are we going and what’s the rush?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll find a place,” said Heather confidently, looping her arm through his.

  I interrupted the parents for a second to tell them that the four of us were going for a walk. They barely paused talking long enough to hear what I had to say. Dad mumbled, “That’s great, honey,” then went back to some story about sophomore year and a football game they lost by one point.

  Just before I went to join Spencer, Heather, and Adam, I stopped and took a picture of the three of them as they pushed and shoved each other on the stairs. A lot of things had changed since we first became friends when we were little, but some things hadn’t changed at all.

  I was starting down the stairs when a Frisbee came sailing over the fence and nearly knocked me in the head. I reached up instinctively to shield my face and the Frisbee hit my hands and fell to the deck.

  “Little help?” a guy’s voice called over from next door.

  “Oh. H-hi,” I stammered as he got closer. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like the same guy who’d said hi to me earlier in the car—the one with the short, platinum-blond hair.

  “Did I see you earlier? You took my picture,” he said. “Old car, screechy brakes—that was you, right?”

  Thanks, Dad, I thought, for making such a great impression. I nodded, feeling flustered.

  “You find everything okay?” he asked “Y’all looked a little lost.”

  Y’all. Was that cute or what? “We were. My dad nearly caused a wreck when he stopped and turned. I think I’ve got whiplash.” Of course, maybe that was from looking out the back window at you. “But. Anyway.” I laughed. “We made it.”

  “Cool. Well, ask us if you need to know where to go for stuff. We’ve already been here a week so we know our way around.”

  “Great. That’d be, uh, really, uh, helpful,” I told him. Especially if you decided to give me a personal tour of the town. “Are you, um, here with family, too?” I asked.

  “No, friends,” he said.

  “That sounds fun,” I replied. “So, I’m—”

  “Emily!” my mom suddenly called over to me. “Don’t forget to take your sweater, hon, it might get chilly!”

  “I’ll be fine!” I called back over my shoulder at my mom. I could have killed her right then. She could be so overprotective that she made me seem a lot younger than I actually was. Half the time, she acted as if I didn’t know how to take care of myself.

  “Here.” He tossed a sweatshirt over the fence. “No need to run for a sweater. Just leave this on the railing here when you get back. Or return it to me tomorrow. Whatever.”

  “Really? You sure?” You don’t even know me. And I don’t know you, though I wouldn’t mind.

  “Don’t stress. It’s yours for the night.” He smiled.

  “Well, um, thanks. Cool.” I was trying to act casual, like this was something that happened to me all the time, when in reality, I’d never worn a guy’s clothes before—not any guy I was interested in, anyway. Girls at school were always wearing boyfriends’ sweaters and letter jackets and things like that. The closest I’d ever gotten was borrowing Erik Hansen’s stocking cap on a biology class field trip when it was ten below. Stocking caps belonging to hockey players weren’t exactly sexy. Smelly, yes. “Thanks again. I’m sure I’ll be freezing and I’ll be, you know, so grateful.” I held up the sweatshirt. “So, see you around…?” I paused, waiting for him to tell me his name.

  “No doubt. See you tomorrow!”

  Promise? I thought as I watched him fling the Frisbee to his friends on the other side of the deck and they all jogged down the steps to the beach. Maybe this vacation had a lot more in store for me than I’d thought. Maybe instead of just taking pictures of my friends and their boyfriends, I’d be in the picture, for a change—with what’s his name.

  “Come on, Emily! We’re waiting!” Heather yelled to me from the town-side of the house, yanking me back to reality.

  Chapter 3

  “You still walk funny,” Spencer commented as he followed me into a coffee shop we’d found on the busy main drag, not too far from our rental house.

  “Thanks,” I said, looking around the place for a table. “Thanks so much.”

  “So do you.” Heather jabbed Spencer in the back as we stood at the counter to order.

  “It wasn’t an insult. I’m just saying she still walks like a ballerina,” said Spencer.

  “How would you know how a ballerina walks?” asked Heather. “Don’t tell me one actually dated you.”

  I didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Anyway, it’s ballet dancer, not ballerina. Not that I’m particular or anything.” I pulled at the light blue sweatshirt I’d wrapped around my waist. His light blue sweatshirt. Whoever he was. Sigh.

  I probably would have worn it no matter what, just because, but the air-conditioning was turned up high—or down low, rather—and I was already freezing, with goose bumps covering my arms. I hate it when my mother turns out to be right, that when she tells me to take another layer, I do turn out to need one. She’s spent lots of years being a stage mom, I guess, and she’s used to the role even if I’ve outgrown it.

  But if my mother found out I was putting on a sweatshirt that belonged to some guy I didn’t even know, she’d have a heart attack—and, at the same time, before she crumpled to the ground, she’d spray me down with extra-strength antibacterial gel.

  The cotton sweatshirt material was very soft, like it had been worn and washed a hundred times. I loved how it felt, especially that it was an extra-baggy extra-large. It was like wearing a fleece blanket.

  “UNC? Is that where you’re going?” Spencer asked, pointing to the initials on the front of the sweatshirt.

  “Uh—me? No,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to tell him that I’d borrowed it from our hot next-door neighbor. For one thing, he wouldn’t agree on the “hot” description, and for another, he’d immediately start teasing me about chasing after guys, as if it was something I regularly did. In truth, I only managed to do it on these vacations, with Heather. The rest of my life was usually so over-scheduled that I didn’t often have the chance to talk to guys, much less borrow sweatshirts from them. “It’s, um, borrowed.”

  “Borrowed? From
who, your dad?” Spencer asked.

  “No,” I said, not wanting to get into it.

  “Oh, my God—it’s your boyfriend’s, isn’t it?” Heather cried. “You finally have a boyfriend and you’re holding out on me?” she announced to nearly the entire coffee shop.

  Did she have to say “finally”?

  I wanted to put up the sweatshirt hood, cover my face with it, draw the strings into a knot, and disappear. “It’s not…no,” I stammered. At least, not yet.

  Heather peered at me with narrow, suspicious eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure. Let’s change the subject,” I suggested. I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t even look at Adam and Spencer.

  “Okay, I’ll save you,” Spencer volunteered. “So, about that weird walk of yours. Are you still into ballet?”

  “I didn’t know you cared,” Heather teased him.

  “I don’t. I’m just trying to make conversation that isn’t about guys,” he said as he stirred a packet of raw sugar into his iced coffee. “So we don’t end up discussing all your crushes, like we did on the rest of all our trips.”

  “Jealous or something? Should we only talk about you?” Heather asked, and we all laughed.

  “I’m sure we’ll be doing that enough,” I muttered.

  “What’s that?” Spencer asked.

  “Nothing.” I sipped my strawberry smoothie. “Back to ballet. I’ve really scaled back a lot. I no longer train six hours a day and make my entire schedule around it.”

  “But you were such a good dancer. Ballerina. Whatever. Weren’t you?” asked Adam.

  “Thanks, yeah, I was okay. But you know. Things change.” I shrugged.

  “What happened?” Spencer asked. “I mean, last I knew, you got some big part. That’s all your parents wrote about in their Christmas letter.”

  Our parents are all nuts about sending out these long, complicated letters every Christmas to update each other, with embarrassing details about us and our “phases.” Heather and I once completely rewrote our parents’ letters and sent each other parodies of them. In my version, I’d gone through a brilliant-actor phase and gone on to star on Broadway; in hers, she’d entered a genius phase and become the youngest-ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.