by Hawkins, JD
“Hold up,” Bob says, grabbing a bowl of vegetables, “still got to grill these. I can’t remember if Winnie’s a vegan or not these days, so I’m just gonna play it safe.”
“Where’s Melina?” I ask, suddenly realizing I haven’t seen her this whole time.
The two men shrug.
“Why don’t you go find her?” my dad suggests. “Sure she’s around here somewhere.”
“Sounds good. I still haven’t said hello yet,” I say, my pulse spiking inexplicably. I drain the rest of my beer and give the bottle back to my dad.
“Hurry back. Dinner should be done in a few minutes,” Bob says.
I give him a thumbs up and head back through the cooing women into the house.
Melina is Winnie’s younger sister. She’s two years younger than Winnie (and me). Maybe it was the exuberance of her older sister, or maybe it was just an introverted personality type, but Melina always seemed a little less comfortable with these big get-togethers than the rest of us, a little more likely to find a corner and just quietly observe. And I’d always liked her for it.
I could kind of understand. Melina didn’t like to brag or fool around that much. She wasn’t as keen for attention as Winnie, as collected as Becca, as jokey as Aiden. She didn’t have that cool reserve that Cody cruised through everything with. Instead, Melina had that rare combination of a rich private world, and an inability to show any of it. One-on-one, if she trusted you, you could manage to get her to open up, to bloom in front of you—but only for a second. Those big doe eyes would light up, and she’d show you a glimpse of all the color and vibrancy she’d been holding inside, but only a glimpse. I never told anyone this, but I’d always made it my secret goal to get a smile out of Melina at least once during each party. I liked the challenge, and if I’m honest, her smile was a little irresistible to me.
I haven’t seen her in awhile though. Last time I flew out here, she was still away at college and couldn’t make it to the party. I wonder if I can still make her laugh.
As the others start bustling around the house, heading outside to eat and grabbing last minute necessities from the kitchen, I check in the many rooms of the Buchanans’ sizable house. The bathroom, the study, the sun room, Bob’s office.
It turns out I didn’t even need to—I knew exactly where Melina would be all along. The same place she usually went when things got to be a little too much for her, the same place I used to find her when we were kids.
The pantry is tucked away to the side of the kitchen. I head back there, squeezing past the open refrigerator where Aiden and Greg are stacking bottles of coke in their arms to bring out to the garden. Once they’re gone, I close the fridge, push a hand through my hair, and gently swing open the pantry door.
A flash of light strikes my eyes, the sound of a shutter clicking. I stand there, disoriented.
“Ok,” I say, my hands up to feel for the walls. “Now I’m blind.”
Melina and her cameras. She isn’t in a lot of the pictures in the house, and that’s because she took the vast majority of them.
“Sorry,” I hear her say, as my eyes adjust to the dimness of the small, cool room.
I laugh. Sorry is the right word for it. She never could help herself. Taking pictures for her was a compulsion, an addiction, an obsession. The camera a kind of shield, a bridge between her and the world around her. She took pictures because she felt inspired, because she felt sad, because she felt happy, and because she felt anxious—which was probably the reason she’d just blinded me.
The spots in my eyes swirl and fade, revealing her in their midst, as if she’s some kind of fantastical creature appearing by magic. She’s cross-legged on the floor, a family-size bag of animal crackers open beside her.
Her hair is shoulder length and layered, framing a heart-shaped face with dark eyes and olive skin that makes her look almost Mediterranean in some lights. Quarter-length jeans rolled up, white sneakers, and a tight tank top that she probably doesn’t realize is as sexy as it is. There’s not really a word that can describe how Melina looks. If there were, it would be somewhere between beautiful and mysterious, via intriguing and captivating. The French probably have a word for it, but I never paid much attention in class.
“You finally switched away from film?” I say, as she looks away from me shyly to study the screen of her digital camera.
“I had to for work,” she says wistfully, as I drop down to sit next to her. “But these new Fujis are close—leaf shutter, optical viewfinder, thirty-five mil lens.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, pretending I understand. “But do they double expose if you forget to wind them like that old plastic camera you had?”
“The Smena?” Melina says, setting those big brown eyes on me now, excited to talk cameras. “Or the Diana? Oh, I still use those all the time for double-exposures. You think I’d get rid of my favorites? Never!”
I laugh at how excited she is to nerd out about her cameras, and she laughs once she realizes it too. Mission accomplished, I think to myself. Hers is an infectious laugh, the breathless kind that tumbles out heedlessly, just slightly high-pitched. I’m glad it hasn’t changed.
“It’s good to see you too,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says, getting self-conscious again and looking back down at her camera. “Everyone’s pretty pumped to see you.”
“Yet you’re hiding back here,” I tease.
“I just needed a little breather.” Her eyes meet mine and she smiles apologetically. “There’s only so many childhood stories, or questions about work, I can listen to in one day.”
“I get it. It can be overwhelming.” I nod, my eyes still fixed on hers.
“Yeah…um.” She blushes and looks away. “Would you care for a zebra? Perhaps a giraffe? Here, please.” She offers me the bag of animal crackers and I shake my head.
“Can’t. Dinner’s nearly done—and my mom will strap me to a chair and force-feed me if I don’t eat at least an entire cow. Come on, they’re waiting for us,” I say, getting up and offering my hand.
She looks at it before taking it, as if unsure. When she does, I’m the one who feels a little uncertain. Her grip is cool and solid—just like it always was—and jogs more powerful memories than anything else has so far.
The time we skipped school together, me holding her hand to help her climb down the steep hillside behind her house. Once when we went to a Triangles concert—just the two of us, since none of the other kids liked the band—and the chorus got us in such a rapture we grabbed hands as we held them in the air. The night of my high school graduation party, when we wandered off by ourselves and sat on the lawn to gaze at stars and talk about the future, and just held hands for no reason, never mentioning it then or afterward.
Nobody had ever seemed to notice how my body would tense when I was near Melina, how much more focused I became—maybe not even Melina herself. Everyone was always too busy presuming Winnie and I were a foregone conclusion. Maybe even our families never saw as much in her as I did.
Even now, neither of us lets go after she gets up, nor when I lead her out of the pantry. It’s only when we step out of the kitchen and hear the raucous laughter coming from the dining table outside that we let go, arms dropping to our sides as if nothing happened.
“What’s so funny?” I ask, as we step out into the sunshine, the food getting laid out along the tables to the sound of fizz hitting glasses.
“There she is!” Aiden says, looking up from the phone that he, Winnie, and Cody are crowded around. “Give this girl an Oscar! What are they paying you to do this? ‘Cause whatever it is, it ain’t enough!”
“Aiden,” Marsha says, only half-admonishingly. “Everybody take a seat.”
As we pull up chairs, I shoot a confused look at Melina, who’s smiling even though her eyes aren’t.
“I got this job doing social media promotion for this new health drink,” she explains to me.
“Except it’s disgusting!” Aiden teases, i
n between swigs of beer.
“You’ve tried it?” I ask him.
“No—I’m going by Melina’s expression in this video she put up!”
“I’m a photographer,” Melina protests, her voice going higher though she’s still smiling, “not an actor.”
“I can see that!” Aiden says, causing Winnie to laugh.
“I think it’s filmed beautifully, though,” Becca says, her calm voice cutting through the laughter as she passes around napkins.
“Absolutely,” Aiden says, leaning back in his chair and looking serious for a second, “you really get a sense of how disgusting this stuff is. The lighting on your grimace is just—mwah,” he says, kissing his fingers.
“It’s not that bad,” Melina says, trying not to sound so offended. “And it’s really healthy. It has almost zero calories, and contains twice as many vital bacterias as the most popular competitor on the market. It’s based on a centuries-old recipe from East Asia.”
“You sure they didn’t mean it’s centuries old?” Aiden quips.
Melina just scowls. Or tries to. On her it’s cute.
With authority in my voice, I stand over the table, hand out, and say, “Let me have a look at that.” Once I get the phone I check the picture out, then look at Melina. “This isn’t a bad picture, actually. You’ve gotten quite a few likes on it. Comments too.”
“Yeah,” Aiden says, “but half of them are arguing the drink is foul.”
I hand the phone back to him, face a little serious.
“Good or bad—it’s still publicity. And publicity works.”
“All I know,” Aiden says with a grin, “is that I’m not interested in trying that drink.”
“Doesn’t look like you’re in danger of trying anything healthy for a while,” I say. “When’s the last time you pulled something green out of your fridge? Mountain Dew doesn’t count.”
Cody and Winnie laugh, Aiden putting his hands on his hips in an exaggerated gesture of shocked offense.
“Are you saying I’m getting fat?”
I look at him in confusion.
“Getting fat? Looks like you haven’t deviated from that strict regimen of Taco Bell and online gaming every weekend.”
“That’s it,” he says, pointing at me across the table. “You and me, arm wrestle, now!”
Sabine slaps Aiden’s arm down as she reaches for the pulled pork.
“No arm wrestling. Now we eat.”
The words cause all of us to grab at the food in the middle of the table, talk replaced by requests to pass this condiment or that plate. I steal a glance at Melina, waiting for everyone to finish grabbing so she can fill her own plate, her face firmly composed, but her eyes looking like she’s a million miles away. It’s a look of hers that I know well.
I reach under the table, my hand going to her thigh and giving it a little squeeze through her jeans. She jumps a little, then relaxes under my touch and looks at me. A private smile, intimate even here, surrounded by everyone else. Me letting her know that I won’t ever let her get that distant—not from me, anyway.
Maybe moving back home won’t turn out to be so hard after all.
2
Melina
As I sit in brain-numbing rush hour traffic on my way to work Monday morning, I try to clear my mind of everything that’s been weighing me down since yesterday. I really wish I could let it all go. That all their comments and jokes didn’t stick into me like arrows, but I’m just not that type.
I know Aiden was just being Aiden, I know that nobody in the family thinks I’m bad at my job, I know the punchline for them is that I should be doing something so much better than trying to promote an undrinkable drink—but it still stings.
Even seeing Wyatt wasn’t quite enough to soothe those burns. Even with how good he looks now, how calm I felt when my hand was clasped in his…how he immediately picked up on how uncomfortable I was at dinner and came to my defense, steering the conversation away from my work. Even knowing that this time he’s staying.
If anything, having Wyatt back only serves to confuse and disorient me further—especially when he’s still showing me that he’s always got my back like he did yesterday. Resurfacing those complex, private feelings that always sat unsaid, deep inside of me. A crush that I had as soon as I was old enough to have one. The first guy to show me what desire and yearning was—even though he never knew he was doing it. My first broken heart, sophomore year, when Winnie told me they were dating and I knew I had to bury my stupid crush for good. Except I never really could.
I flip my turn signal on and start inching into the exit lane, shooting a grateful wave at the harried-looking mom in the SUV who lets me over. As I zip down the ramp and turn onto Grand, my turmoil resurfaces.
Every time our parents talked about ‘how sweet’ Winnie and Wyatt looked together at the barbecue, every unfunny joke about him ‘coming back home for Winnie,’ reminding me of how hopeless it had always been to have feelings for him.
And seeing that prom photo of theirs hanging in the Buchanans’ hallway again—looking so perfect together it still feels like only a matter of time before they run back into each other’s arms. That photo’s haunted me for years, the first thing I think of when it comes to Wyatt and romance. Him already handsome, Winnie already perfect in her sparkling prom queen crown—I can’t even imagine myself there instead of her. It was the first—and toughest—time I realized that you don’t always get what you want in life, no matter how hard you want it. Not like Wyatt’s ever thought of me as anything more than a baby sister, though.
I wish I wasn’t still hung up on everyone’s teasing. But as I make my way toward another endless day at my soul-sucking job, it’s the only thing I can think about. When I finished studying photography at the Brooks Institute, it seemed like the world was about to open up, that the possibilities were infinite, and that each one was exciting and inspiring. Maybe I’d end up in Africa, photographing savannah sunsets and endangered species, or maybe I’d travel the big cities of Europe taking photographs of cutting edge fashion against classic architecture, or perhaps I’d work in clean, beautiful studios filled with equipment, constructing the iconography of the next big life-changing product.
I knew I was good enough. I knew I had it in me to do all of those things. But talent and hard work alone weren’t enough—not in an age where everyone has a camera in their pocket, and everybody thinks they’re a photographer.
The truth is, I was too introverted to make the connections I needed to land one of those bigger, better jobs. Too self-conscious to push my own portfolio online, begging for likes and follows on social media. Too obsessed with the art of photography to figure out how to treat it like a product and sell it.
And now here I am, taking pictures for barely-followed social media accounts, advertising a drink that tastes like sewage, for a company that’s insane.
Mind, Energy, and Spirit Syndicate, Inc. is the brainchild of Jim Aster. Once upon a time, Jim was a stockbroker on Wall Street—all fast cars and American Psycho intensity—but then, when the crash happened, Jim lost it all. So he went to India to study Buddhism, take up meditation, and ‘reconnect.’ He had a vision of his future, and although I’m not sure if that vision involved an office where Birkenstocks and tie-dye were basically company code, that’s what he ended up creating when he came back to the US. Its first product was a kombucha drink made from an ancient recipe Jim had ‘discovered’ himself.
If you want a clue as to how well-run and carefully thought-out this company was—just notice that Mind, Energy, and Spirit Syndicate abbreviates to MESS, which is possibly the most accurate word for it.
The office is a two-story building in a sketchy part of downtown, a half-finished mural of the Buddha on one of its walls (the artist quit once she got tired of Jim’s micro-management). After I park my car I take a deep breath and head toward the glass entryway, forcing myself to keep my chin up as I stride through the doors. There are no ID checks
at the desk, but every employee has to write down what state of mind they’re in when they enter.
I take the clipboard from the bored receptionist and write content—the way I’ve done for most of the days since I started working here six months ago.
It’s a lie, of course. Others have written things like ‘dragon energy’ and ‘feeling flowerful.’ One person has taken up three lines with a list of body areas in which their chi is currently being blocked.
I take the stairs up to the second floor—a group of people listening to a man playing the guitar badly on the landing—and look for a place to set up. At MESS you don’t get your own desk, since that’s too ‘constricting’ to allow a ‘free flow of energy’…so you pretty much just have to set up where you can. (Of course, Jim got the corner office himself, and we still have to knock.) Half the desks don’t even have computers, and the one machine with a monitor color-calibrated enough to do my photo editing on is always being used by Jim’s teenage nephew to play games on. His job title is ‘Yang Energy Enhancer.’
I find a computer on a desk that’s messy with the burnt ash of incense sticks and decorated with a bong in the shape of a rastafarian, and hit the power button. I’m halfway through wrestling with the display cord, which isn’t connected properly, when Jim calls to me.
“Melina!”
I look up from my crouched position behind the desk.
“Hi Jim. How are y—”
“Just who I wanted to see—meeting in my office,” he says. “Now! Walk with me.”
He’s barefoot and wearing worn khakis under an African-patterned shirt, unbuttoned down to the grey hairs on his chest. His bald head and puffy eyes make him look a little like a tourist at the end of an over-indulgent holiday.
I give the cable one last push—it doesn’t work—before I give up and start walking beside my boss.
“How’s your energy today?” he asks.
“Good,” I say. Then, holding back a wince, “Umm, flowerful?”