Pictures of You

by Juliette Caron

  “September? Hey it’s Becky. How’s it going?”

  “Oh. Hey, Becky. Long time. I’m…good. I’m good. How are you?”

  Becky was a casual friend from high school. So casual, this phone call caught me by surprise. We’d shared two photography classes together—and one science. Human Anatomy, I think it was. We were never very close, but she did go to a few lame parties with Abby and me. Actually, that was how it was with all of my friends, Abby aside, of course. None of them knew the real me. Abby was always enough for me. I never felt I needed to make room in my heart for anyone else—until John came along.

  “September, you’re not going to believe this,” Becky said in a breathy voice, “I’m moving to India.”

  “Wow, no way,” I said, trying to match her enthusiasm, while tearing the house apart in search of my elusive blow dryer. “That’s so—”

  I tripped over poor Tiger, yelping when my bare knees and my right palm hit the unforgiving hardwood floor.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, just super uncoordinated.”

  Becky proceeded to blab for fifteen minutes about some crazy photojournalism internship she’d taken. She was leaving in a week. I fell back into my Tiger-hair-coated couch to nurse my throbbing knees. Finally she said, “Enough about me. What’s new with you?”

  “Oh, same-old, same-old.”

  “Still taking amazing photos?”

  “I try.”

  “How’s Abby?”

  Oh. I guess she hadn’t heard the news. I’d assumed everyone knew by now. I took a deep breath and said, “She’s great.” I didn’t feel like talking about…the thing. It was hard enough in therapy, but in real, everyday life, it was easier just to not think about stuff, let alone say it out loud. “She’ll be thrilled to hear about your exotic adventures,” I said, opening the freezer to grab a bag of peas to use as an ice pack.

  And there it was—the hair dryer—wedged between frozen lasagna and a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

  ***

  At Barnes and Noble the smell of coffee and fresh pastries made my stomach rumble as I browsed the blank notebook section. I have to admit I spend a very uncool amount of time at bookstores, mostly this one.

  Abby loved joining me. She’d grab a pile of Q and Guitar and other music books and magazines while I’d snag Digital Photographer and American Photo and a few biographies. Armed with ample reading material, we’d squeeze into the same overstuffed chair and read for hours, often losing track of time.

  Today I was here for a very specific purpose. Rose, my shrink, had given me a “homework assignment”: to buy a journal in which to record my thoughts and feelings. It was apparently a good way to sort them out on the days I needed someone to talk to (because, unfortunately, they did not make a pocket-sized Rose to take everywhere I went). She said I could also write the things I wished I’d said to Abby, that most people had regrets like that. Maybe use it as a gratitude journal to help me deal with the intense grief I’d be experiencing.

  Would be experiencing. I guess I was still in denial.

  My hand rested on a butterfly journal. Abby loved butterflies. But then I spotted a diary with Van Gogh’s Starry Night, my favorite painting of all time and I chose that one.

  On the L train I sat by a man with B.O. wearing an Armani suit. Although he seemed like a nice guy, I had to breathe shallowly to avoid inhaling the stench too deeply.

  I opened the diary and held a ball point pen over the first line. What should I write? B.O. man sat and watched me write nothing. I looked around me and saw an African lady and her son staring, too, along with an older woman who looked like she’d blow away if someone sneezed in her general direction.

  Finally I wrote:

  Abby,

  Um, hi. It’s me. You know, your best friend? The one you abandoned? I don’t know what to say. I’m so confused about everything. I can’t believe you’re really dead.

  Where are you??? Come back. Now.

  I snapped the diary shut before nosy B.O. man could read it.

  4

  Any sensible kid would be working towards a practical, play-it-safe career. Legal Secretary. Web Developer. Registered Nurse. As for me, I was an aspiring artist. A photographer to be specific. It was my passion. I loved it more than anything. More than my family, more than food and sometimes even more than cute boys. Black-and-white portraits were my specialty. People intrigued me. Captivated me. I currently had work displayed at two local galleries. Actually one was my aunt’s friend’s gallery and the other was a coffee shop just off NYU campus. But art didn’t pay the rent. Not yet, anyway. So on the side, or rather front and center, I worked at Anderson Art and Frame, which was walking distance from my apartment—can’t beat that.

  One day I got tired of playing online Scrabble and—coincidentally—finally recovered from my terrible, terrible cough and made it back to work. My boss, Janice, bless her heart, accepted me back with open arms. Okay, maybe not quite with open arms. But thankfully she didn’t fire me.

  “I’m going to be in the back stocking paint,” Janice said, watching me suspiciously through thick glasses, which made her eyes look small and squinty, reminding me of little bugs. Her short, feathered hair and her grandma-style shoes with built-in arch supports added years to her look. You’d never guess she was only forty-two. Today she wore tight white pants that showcased her spongy cellulite thighs.

  “Okay,” I said, straightening the Monet, Klimt and Warhol postcards displayed next to the register, trying to look helpful and busy. The truth: I was pretty much useless today. I may as well have had Alzheimer’s. More than once I had to call Janice over to fix a mess I’d made ringing up a customer. If I kept this up I’d be fired in no time.

  I watched Janice leave before resuming my comatose state on the stool behind the register.

  And then a really hot guy suddenly approached me. He set a Moleskin notebook, plus two of the nicest pens the store offered on the counter. He had disheveled chestnut hair and was maybe a year or two older than me. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t pin down where I’d seen him before. I didn’t notice my mouth gaping open at first, much like a fish, in awe of his masterful face. He was extremely good-looking, but not in the predictable soap-star sort of way. More in the intriguing rock god way. A little flawed, but the flaws only made him more compelling. Also moody. Morose. So brooding, he put James Dean to shame. He did crack a smile when he noticed the look of wonderment frozen to my face.

  With shaky hands I proceeded to ring him up. I wanted to say, “Run away with me, we’d be perfect together,” but instead I said, “Did you find everything you needed?”

  “Yes, thank you,” he said so politely it felt like we were attending an etiquette class. “Pardon me, would you please pass the butter?” “But of course.”

  “Are you an artist?” I asked, my knees turning into pudding.

  “A writer.”

  “I see.” I wanted to add something clever but fear and intimidation paralyzed me.

  Now James Dean studied my face. Suddenly I wished I’d gone to bed earlier last night. Maybe then I wouldn’t have giant duffel bags under my eyes. I regretted not taking an extra five minutes to fine-tune my makeup, perfect my hair. I could’ve done better with my outfit, too. Was that a hole in my shirt? I blushed like a total idiot as I placed his items in a paper bag. He finally fixed his gaze elsewhere, to my relief. He fiddled with stuff around the register, picking up and examining a miniature watercolor set, poking some Life Savers, running a finger along the edge of a Picasso postcard. I stole more sneaky glances while he pawed everything around him—I couldn’t help myself. He was clearly a troubled guy, with sad eyes and shapely lips curled downwards in a slight frown. His asparagus-colored shirt brought out the green in his eyes. He had lovely hands, I couldn’t help but notice.

  Suddenly I felt guilty. Should I be salivating over a guy like this when Abby just died? What the hell was wrong with me?

  “
Two hundred and ten dollars please,” I said, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Excuse me?” He looked at me like I had a whole salad stuck in my teeth. Or did I put my underwear over my clothes today? Was there a large bird nesting in my hair?

  “Two hundred and ten dollars please?” I repeated timidly.

  “All I’m getting is a notebook and two pens. That shouldn’t be more than twenty-five bucks.”

  “Oh, you’re right. I’m so sorry. I must’ve added an extra zero somewhere.”

  Then I remembered I’d have to call Janice over to clean up the mess. Maybe I could fix this one myself, I thought. Save a teaspoon of pride. Not a good idea. I shot my finger forward, aiming for the clear button, but missed, hitting something else entirely. I’m not sure what I pressed, but the total doubled.

  Ready to commit to a nunnery where I’d never have to interact with another cute boy again, I called Janice over. My cheeks scorched, turning a deeper shade of crimson by the second. Was it possible to suffer second degree burns due to blushing?

  James Dean smiled politely—too politely—and tapped his slender fingers on the counter. Even his nails were perfectly groomed. I had to restrain my eyes from wandering over to my own, far inferior, fingertips. I didn’t have to look to remember my red polish was peeling like a long abandoned home.

  I heard grumbling before I saw my boss, hands on her hips, eyes rolling. “What now, September?”

  I cleared my throat, three times. (Curse the mucus-producing bread-and-cheese sandwich I’d eaten at lunch!) “I overcharged him.”

  Janice sighed heavily as James Dean glanced at his watch. Like a mother speaking condescendingly to her pregnant, heroin addicted thirteen-year-old, she said, “September, when are you going to learn?”

  Now I was ready to die.

  ***

  “Tell me about the past week, September,” Rose said, scratching the side of her nose with a leaky pen, rubbing a path of blue ink into her skin.

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m…I don’t know…” I crossed my arms and began counting tiles in the water stained ceiling. Rose fell silent for a moment and looked over her notes. We could hear the clock ticking impatiently, bustling traffic outside, a woman sobbing from the office next door.

  I let out a theatrical sigh and forced myself to focus on the frizzy-haired woman in front of me, who was wearing waaaay too much foundation. She practically looked like a clown with the stuff caked on so thick. Her orange face sharply contrasted her cauliflower-white neck. Why do old people go out in public looking like that? I’m never going to be old.

  It was kind of funny, actually. Every week I had to see this goofy looking lady—someone who was a stranger to me a few weeks ago—and spill my guts out. Share things I wouldn’t have shared with anyone but Abby. Although I felt vulnerable, I also kind of liked having an audience, someone to watch me wallow. Someone who was paid to care about my miserable life. It was almost like having my own reality TV show, only with an audience of one.

  Another sigh. “I’m ticked, actually.”

  Rose seemed pleased with this. Her usual tired-looking gray eyes lit up like Las Vegas at night. “You’re angry. Good. Why are you feeling angry, September?”

  “They say there are five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. There must be something seriously wrong with me. It’s been three weeks since Abby died and I’m only now entering stage two.” I’d read all about it in Kubler-Ross’s book, On Death and Dying. “Not to mention no tears.”

  “Everyone deals with grief in their own way. Some people skip phases or jump around. Your friend meant a lot to you. This isn’t something you’re going to get through instantly. Grieving takes time. It’s not like cooking ramen noodles.”

  Ramen noodles? I laughed a full-throttle, gut-busting laugh.

  “It’s nice to see you laugh,” Rose said, resting her elbows on the desk, smiling.

  Between the ink on her nose, the sinister trolls hovering over us and the ramen noodle comment, I was now in hysterics. And once I start, I can’t quit. Tears began cascading down my face.

  It finally hit me like a fallen plane: Abby was gone.

  Just as quickly as my laughing episode began, I began crying. Three weeks worth of stored up tears poured out of me. Snot, too. Rose leaned across the desk, resting a hand on mine. Another hand slid a tissue box over. I grabbed fistfuls and started wiping, blowing and tossing them aside until, like giant popcorn kernels, white balls encircled my ankles on the floor.

  “Tears,” Rose said, frowning sympathetically.

  At the end of our fifty minute session (which ended up being two percent talking and ninety-eight percent crying), Rose scribbled something on her notepad, ripped out the page and slid it across her coffee-stained desk. “Your homework for this week.”

  Express your anger in constructive ways.

  “Like how?” I said as worked my way out of the spongy couch.

  “Go somewhere private and scream. Beat a pillow. Break something,” she said as she opened the heavy office door. A man with wet hair, a crooked tie and plastic grocery bags covering his feet sat in the waiting area.

  “Hello, Steve,” I heard Rose say as I swung the glass door of the main entrance open. Hamster-sized drops of rain greeted me outside.

  5

  Twinkies. I love them. Too much, maybe. But you see, Twinkies and I have a love-hate relationship. So you may or may not be surprised to hear that, for the past three years, Twinkies and I hadn’t been on speaking terms. While I allowed myself a respectable portion of dessert on special occasions—a sliver of cake at a birthday party, three bites of rich cheesecake at a wedding, two or three red vines at the end of a long day—I vowed to give up Twinkies when I reached a size fourteen my freshman year of high school. It was the only time I ever struggled with weight. It was the same year my parents separated for eight months and my next door neighbor, Adam Christensen, turned into a vegetable after bashing his head in a skateboarding accident. You see I love Twinkies, but Twinkies don’t love me. I’m allergic to them. They make my thighs swell.

  So there I sat on Abby’s bed, armed with a box of Twinkies. Although my happy-go-lucky size four jeans screamed in protest, my longtime lust for creamy, spongy goodness forced me to succumb. I carefully opened the box and laid out all ten oblong shapes of heaven in a neat row. I squeezed, poked, prodded and lifted one to my nose to inhale the sugary vanilla scent. Prudently, I placed it back on the bed.

  Looking around me, I noted the room was exactly as Abby had left it. Her neatly made bed clashed with the tornado-hit room. She’d made her bed every morning, but rarely touched the dust-collecting crap on the floor. “It gives me a sense of order. Having all my stuff laid out in clear view,” she’d once explained when I questioned her. Rumpled clothes, chunky boots and Rolling Stone magazines camouflaged every inch of the ancient orangey-brown carpet. Dripping candles, odd knickknacks and guitar picks covered every surface of furniture in the room. Postcards, magazine clippings and posters of rock stars dotted plum-colored walls. Her favorite poster of the ‘80s Goth band, The Cure, hung on the ceiling directly above the pillow on her bed. She would gaze into singer Robert Smith’s heavily made up face as she drifted off each night. April said a face like that would give her nightmares, but Abby loved her men moody and weird. A younger version of Robert Smith was Abby’s dream boy.

  Actually, we were both huge ‘80s music fans, which is pretty rare for people our age. We both got a real kick out of the big, teased hair, the heavy eye makeup, the melodramatic vocals, the robotic synthesizers. We liked most of the stuff from the era, but considered New Wave the best. We loved to mimic some of the over-the-top fashion we’d see in music videos on YouTube. We’d go to ‘80s theme parties wearing thrashed-and-safety-pinned t-shirts, florescent leggings and fedoras or big obnoxious bows in our hair. We watched Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off more times than I can count. We had several lines from The Br
eakfast Club memorized. Molly Ringwald was our hero. Abby would often joke we were born in the wrong era.

  I ripped the Twinkie wrapper open just a tad to get a better whiff. Three years of self-control dissolved as I took my first bite. Sticky sweet love exploded in my mouth. I savored the first cake, but barely noticed my rebellious hands tearing through the plastic barrier of cake number two.

  It didn’t make sense, how Abby’s material stuff carried on, life as usual, while her lifeless body was stuck in a box, buried deep in the earth. Shouldn’t her earthly treasures disappear in a poof like she did? Even her alarm clock acted as if nothing happened, obnoxious and perky, stating the time in bright red numbers. I grabbed the gloating machine, ripping the plug out of its socket and threw it across the room. I was pleased when it hit the wall and tore one of Abby’s Morrissey posters. There. Now something was different. The room needed to know Abby was not here. That she would never be here again.

  I began to nibble on cake number three. The experience brought me back to scorching summer days, Abby and I sprawled on her living room floor, like cats, too hot to move. A vintage fan blew cool relief, the breeze running its fingers through our sweaty hair. Twinkie wrappers ever encircled us. Like dozens of other times, we played our favorite game, Would You Rather…? Go a week without makeup or a month without shaving your legs? Lose your hearing or become paraplegic? Make out with the young version of U2’s Bono or have the perfect boyfriend?

  When we wore that out Abby said, “What’s your greatest fear?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe going blind. Not being able to see the beauty around me. Not being able to take another photo. Why?” I rolled onto my side to study her face. She was beautiful even at fourteen, with unlawfully clear skin, chopstick thighs and silky orange hair.

  “I don’t know. Just wondering.” She bit her lip.

  “What’s yours?”