Fantasy Summer

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  “So I should keep my mind open,” Robin said.

  “That’s it exactly,” Ms. King said. “Would you like to come to my studio someday this summer and see how it’s set up?”

  “Could I really?” Robin asked. “That would be wonderful.”

  “Here’s my card,” Ms. King said, digging one out of her bag. “Call me one day next week and we’ll set something up.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Robin said, not believing her luck. But before she had a chance to thank Ms. King more profusely, the photographer had walked away.

  Robin stared at the business card and thought about the advice she’d been given. She was supposed to keep her mind open. That was no problem. The challenge, Robin knew, was going to be keeping her eyes open for the rest of the day.

  9

  “Oh, please say I can.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Herb said to Robin. He was obviously enjoying watching her beg. “Some bigwig here thinks you can be trusted to take a few black-and-white pictures of a TV star, and they want me to lend you a camera to do this?”

  “Jennifer Fitzhugh,” Robin said. “She’s the star of Highwater. You must have heard of it.”

  “I never watch television,” Herb replied. “I read books. You might try that sometime yourself.”

  “If I promise to read a book, will you let me use a camera?” Robin asked.

  “I suppose you’ll want film too,” Herb grumbled. “A man gets a job, works hard at it, devotes himself to immortalizing cupcakes for the children of America, and what’s his reward? Teenagers beg him for expensive cameras and film to play photographer with.”

  “You don’t own the camera,” Robin pointed out. “You didn’t pay for the film. You’re just in charge of them.”

  “Well, if you put it that way, how can I say no,” Herb replied. “You absolutely swear to guard the camera with your life? I don’t want to see a scratch on it when I get it back.”

  “It’ll be scratchless,” Robin said. “Herb, can I have the camera tonight?”

  “I thought you said this fabulous opportunity was happening tomorrow,” Herb said.

  “It is,” Robin said. “But I want to get a feel for the camera. I thought I might ask the other girls if they’d be stand-ins tonight, so I can get an idea of what kinds of pictures to take.”

  “That’s actually not a bad idea,” Herb said.

  “You taught it to me,” Robin replied.

  “You’re going to go far, kid,” Herb said. “Okay. One camera tonight, and a roll of film tomorrow.”

  “Just one roll?”

  “You mean you think you’ll need more than that? Okay. Three rolls. Amateurs!”

  Robin hoped Herb had enjoyed their little game. It was unlikely that he would have turned down her request, although he did have the right to, since he was in charge of all the photography equipment. But they worked well together, and Robin was confident that Herb would trust her. She hadn’t been so sure that he’d agree to letting her take the camera the night before, though. That had been a gamble, and she felt good that it had paid off.

  She called Tim and rearranged their plans for that evening, since she wanted time at the hotel with the other girls for her rehearsal. Tim agreed to meet her directly after work for a long walk and a light supper. The girls’ makeover date had been officially announced for a week from Thursday, and Robin was determined to be as slim as possible.

  Later that afternoon she ran into Torey in the ladies’ room. “Aren’t you nervous about tomorrow?” she asked. Torey would do the interview, while Robin took pictures. It was easily the most responsible job Torey had been given in their four weeks here.

  “Should I be?” Torey asked, apparently sincerely.

  “Not unless you want to be,” Robin replied. She certainly would be, in Torey’s place. But Torey always seemed to do things differently. “Are you going to be in tonight, or do you have a date with Ned?” Robin asked.

  “In,” Torey said, combing her hair in front of one of the mirrors. “I don’t know what to do about him. He keeps asking me out.”

  “You could try saying yes,” Robin said, washing her hands. “He’s really great-looking.”

  “He’s very nice, too,” Torey said. “But I don’t think it’s fair to Mrs. Brundege if one of the interns is dating her son.”

  “I’m sure she’d let Ned know if she didn’t want him to,” Robin said. “Why can’t you just relax and have a good time, Torey? Don’t make an issue out of everything.”

  “You’re probably right,” she replied. “See you later, Robin.”

  “Right,” Robin said, and began combing her own hair. Torey always seemed to get worked up about the easy things, and stayed far too calm about the important stuff. As much as she liked her, Robin doubted she’d ever understand her.

  Tim met her in the Image reception room. He took the camera case from her, and they rode down in the elevator together. Even though it was hot, the idea of a walk through the park felt good to Robin. Sometimes she felt cooped up inside the office building all day long.

  “How was your day?” Tim asked as they started their walk.

  “Great,” Robin said. “But tomorrow is going to be better. Tomorrow I get to take pictures of Jennifer Fitzhugh.”

  “From Highwater?” Tim asked.

  Robin nodded. “She’s in New York, and she’s doing a fashion spread for Image. They’re sending Torey and me to her hotel room tomorrow to interview her and take pictures.”

  “That’s great,” Tim declared. “You must be really excited. I know you’ve been wanting to show them what kind of work you’re capable of.”

  “I just hope I don’t goof up,” Robin said. “Torey has nerves of steel. She didn’t even seem to know she should be scared. But I keep thinking of all the things that could go wrong, and my stomach aches and I wonder why I ever agreed to do it in the first place.”

  “Oh, no,” Tim said. “Not another one of those speeches.”

  “What speeches?” Robin asked.

  “I really don’t know how to say this tactfully,” Tim began. “But sometimes, Robin, you put yourself down so hard, it just drives me crazy.”

  “I do?” Robin said.

  “Yeah,” Tim replied. “You’ll mention how much prettier Ashley is than you, or how much smarter Annie is, or how much more competent Torey is. Or you’ll start moaning about your stupid demographics, like you really believe that’s the only reason you were picked for the internship.”

  “It might be,” Robin said.

  “Don’t be silly,” he replied. “There are millions of girls with your same demographics, and none of them got picked. Image liked your pictures. They liked your essay. They liked the way you looked. And they liked your demographics.”

  “I don’t whine, do I?” Robin asked. “I hate whiners.”

  “It isn’t like that,” Tim said. “It’s hard to explain. It’s more like you keep waiting for someone to confirm that you aren’t special, when of course you are. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

  “Some,” Robin admitted. She found a bench conveniently free of bums and sat down. Tim joined her.

  “Girls do that sometimes,” Tim continued. “More than boys. Like it’s good somehow to think you aren’t so great, even if you really are. False modesty, I guess. It drives me crazy.”

  “But it isn’t always false modesty,” Robin said. “Sometimes it’s genuine insecurity.”

  “What do you have to be insecure about?” Tim asked. “How can you possibly think you’re inadequate?”

  Robin shook her head. “That’s easy,” she said. “All I have to do is compare myself to Caro.”

  “Your sister,” Tim said.

  “My sister,” Robin said. “You have to understand about Caro. She was wonderful. She was everything you could dream of in an older sister. She let me hang out with her, try on her clothes, play with her makeup. When her friends teased me, she made them stop. She was three
years older than me, but she was my best friend.”

  “You must miss her a lot,” Tim said, putting his arm around Robin.

  “Of course I miss her,” Robin said. “But that’s not the point. The thing is, Caro was perfect. She got straight A’s in school. She was always being elected president of her class. She did volunteer work at the senior citizens’ center, and she won every award they had at our school. Everybody loved her. She was never nasty to people, or short with them, and even the jerks and the losers knew she cared about them.”

  “That must have been a tough act to follow,” Tim said.

  “But then she was in the accident,” Robin continued, her voice quavering. “It was really so crazy. She was such a careful driver, just the way you’d have expected her to be, and it was all such a fluke. It was a dark rainy evening, and she was doing the speed limit on a back road, so she was going around forty-five, when a kid ran out into the road, and she swerved to avoid hitting him. That was so typical of her, to risk her own life rather than hurt somebody else. She probably would have been okay if the ground hadn’t been so wet, but she skidded and lost control of the car and rammed into a tree. The kid ran to get help, but she was still stuck in the car for about half an hour.”

  Tim sat absolutely still. Around them, people continued to play Frisbee, jog in perfect rhythm, and use the park for their own enjoyment.

  “The doctors operated on her all night long,” Robin said. “They thought it was amazing she was still alive. She was a mess of internal injuries. But Caro wasn’t going to give up living that easily. She made it through surgery, and then a few days later she started bleeding internally again, and they had to operate again, and she made it through that too.”

  Robin swallowed hard. “All that happened right before graduation. Caro wanted to go to graduation so badly, but of course she couldn’t. She begged everybody, doctors, nurses, my parents, even me, but there just wasn’t any way she could have gone. She was wired up, on IV and that sort of thing, and she was stuck in the hospital bed. But the kids in her high-school class wanted her there too. They even tried to convince the hospital that Caro should be allowed a ceremony in her hospital room, but the problem was, no more than four of them would have been allowed in, and even that was breaking lots of rules, and they couldn’t decide which four should get to go. So instead they had the graduation indoors in the gym, instead of outside, the way they had originally planned, and they set up speakers and they called up Caro when the graduation began and she got to be there by phone. She heard everything, and she said a few words to everybody there about how she’d be seeing them all soon. She won two awards that night, and every time her name was mentioned, even when it was just time for her to get her diploma, everybody cheered. We didn’t have a conference phone at our end, but it didn’t matter, the cheers were so loud we could all hear them all over the room. And the doctors and nurses came in, and we were all cheering there too, and Caro was lying on her bed giggling away.”

  “She died soon after that?” Tim asked very softly. Robin was already crying. He found a handkerchief and handed it to her.

  “Two weeks later,” Robin said. “We all kept thinking if she’d made it through both operations she was bound to recover completely. We knew it would take a long time, and she’d have to have lots of physical therapy, but you could just see she was getting stronger. The doctors kept telling us she wasn’t out of the woods, but I don’t think any of us really believed them. They didn’t know Caro. Caro wasn’t going to give up. Not after she’d been through so much. Only she went into kidney failure and she got pneumonia and all of a sudden she was dead. Three days before, she’d been laughing and making plans, and then she was dead.”

  She paused for a moment, and in spite of the warmth of the day, shivered from the memory. “We had a funeral for the family only. But a couple of days later, there was a memorial service. School was already out, and a lot of the kids from Caro’s class had jobs, but every single kid came. All the teachers did too. Every single one. Mom cried for three days after that. She just couldn’t stop crying because everybody came. That’s what Caro was like.”

  “But you’re special too,” Tim said. “Nobody thinks you’re something less, just because you aren’t Caro.”

  “I think it,” Robin said, and blew her nose with Tim’s handkerchief. “I think it, and I always will. Caro is the standard I measure my life by, and no matter what I do, I never measure up.”

  “Do you think Caro would want you to do that?” Tim asked.

  “No, of course not,” Robin replied. “But not even Caro always got what she wanted. When she swerved to avoid hitting the kid, it never occurred to her that she might die as a result. Caro never thought she could just die. Even when she was in the hospital, even between the operations, which was the scariest time for all of us, she never thought she would die. She was worried about being crippled, about having to start college a year late, about what the accident was costing. She even worried about the kid, and how he was feeling, and how Mom and Dad were managing without the car. Death wasn’t a possibility at all until it happened. That was something not even Caro could control.”

  “I don’t think any of us can really control death,” Tim said. “Or life, for that matter.”

  “Exactly,” Robin said. “So if I don’t feel inadequate because I don’t measure up to Caro, I feel helpless and out of control. Great combination, right?”

  “I love you,” Tim said. “You. Robin Louise Schyler. No matter how you feel about yourself, I love you, and I wish I could make the pain go away.”

  “It’s nice that you want to,” Robin said, managing a small smile. “But it isn’t the sort of pain that ever goes away.”

  “It’s a beautiful day,” Tim said. “And you’re in New York, and you’re with me, and tomorrow you’re going to be taking pictures of a famous TV star, and those pictures are going to be appearing in a big national magazine. Because those pictures are going to be perfect. Did I mention that before?”

  “Not often enough,” Robin said, snuggling next to Tim.

  “Well, they are,” he said. “You’ll probably win a Pulitzer Prize for them.”

  “No,” Robin said. “I’m tired of those fantasies.”

  “Okay,” Tim said. “Forget the Pulitzer. It’s going to be accomplishment enough that the pictures will turn out well and get published. And that will be something you did, Robin, all by yourself. We’ll all be very proud of you, and maybe then you’ll have some idea of just how amazing you really are.”

  Robin knew it would take a lot more than that. But she also knew taking the best possible pictures of Jennifer Fitzhugh would be a good place to start.

  “Do you mind if we skip supper?” she asked. “I’m really not very hungry.”

  “Are you going to go out afterward and eat junk food instead?” Tim asked mock sternly.

  “Probably,” Robin admitted.

  “Okay, fine,” he said. “Then you can skip supper.”

  Robin laughed. “I think I’ll feel better about things if I give myself a lot of rehearsal time,” she told him. “I think I should go back to the hotel, find some willing models, and make believe I’m a big-time magazine photographer, at least for tonight.”

  “And then tomorrow you’ll be one,” he said.

  “I’ll sure give it my best shot,” she replied. “Okay, Tim?”

  “Okay,” he said, and they got up and started walking toward the hotel. “You know, Robin, girls aren’t the only ones who get insecure about things,” he said as they walked past three jugglers and a mime. Central Park never failed to astound Robin.

  “It never occurred to me they were,” Robin said. “What makes you insecure? Your parents’ divorce?”

  “No, that’s okay now,” he said. “That’s just part of life now. Not that I’d mind if they got back together.”

  “What then?” she asked, feeling better than she had in a long time. “School?”

&nbs
p; “No, I do pretty well in school,” he replied. “I think I’ll be able to get into a good college somewhere.”

  “Pimples,” Robin said. “You worry about your complexion.”

  “No!” Tim said sharply. “Should I?”

  Robin laughed. “Absolutely not,” she said, planting a kiss on Tim’s pimple-free cheek. “I was just teasing.”

  “You should never tease about important things like pimples,” he informed her. “Pimples and bad breath and dandruff. Those are not amusing topics.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Robin said. “Sorry. So what does make you insecure, Mr. Perfect?”

  “Girls,” Tim said. “Not all girls. Just one. Just you. You make me insecure, Robin.”

  “Me?” Robin squeaked. “I spill out my guts to you in the middle of Central Park, and I make you insecure?”

  “I told you I loved you,” he said. “I called you by your complete name and told you I loved you. And all you did was cry.”

  “I wasn’t crying about that,” Robin said. “You know that, Tim.”

  “Yes, I do,” he admitted. “But it makes me nervous when you don’t tell me how you feel.”

  “You know how I feel,” Robin said. “Don’t you?”

  “I have a sneaking suspicion,” he said. “But I wouldn’t mind if you confirmed it for me.”

  “I love you, Timothy Alden,” Robin said. “What’s your middle name?”

  “James,” Tim said.

  “You mean you’re Tim Jim?” Robin asked.

  “No,” Tim replied. “I can honestly say nobody has ever called me that before. Or ever will again, if they cherish their lives.”

  “I love you, Timothy James Alden,” Robin announced. “I do, you know. I really do.”

  “You don’t have to sound so surprised about it,” Tim said, but he was laughing, and soon Robin was too, and they didn’t let pocketbooks, or camera bags, or eight million gawking pedestrians keep them from a celebratory kiss.