Golden Hour

by Chantel Guertin

  Golden Hour

  A Pippa Greene Novel

  Chantel Guertin

  Contents

  Monday, April 24

  Tuesday, April 25

  Wednesday, April 26

  Thursday, April 27

  Friday, April 28

  Saturday, April 29

  Monday, May 1

  Tuesday, May 2

  Wednesday, May 3

  Thursday, May 4

  Friday, May 5

  Saturday, May 6

  Sunday, May 7

  Monday, May 8

  Tuesday, May 9

  Wednesday, May 10

  Thursday, May 11

  Saturday, May 13

  Sunday, May 14

  Monday, May 15

  Wednesday, May 17

  Thursday, May 18

  Friday, May 19

  One Month Later

  Acknowledgments

  About The Author

  Copyright

  For my sister, Danielle

  MONDAY, APRIL 24

  “Did you hear about Emma?” I say as Dace pulls out of the school parking lot and onto Elm Street. Despite its name, Elm Street is actually lined with cherry blossom trees, and they’re in full bloom, dotting the afternoon sky with pinks and whites.

  Dace is bopping her head to the music that’s blaring from the new speaker system her stepdad installed in her white Fiat 500, the car her mom and stepdad bought her after The Incident. She shakes her head, her blonde ponytail swishing, and turns down the volume. She slows to a stop at the red light and turns to look at me. “What about her?”

  “Brown. She got in.”

  “Eek. But please don’t be blue about Brown,” she says, giving me a bright smile. I know she’s just trying to make me laugh, but it’s not working. She knows that every time one of our classmates gets an acceptance, I retreat a little further into my den of doom. I still haven’t heard a peep out of Tisch.

  “I’m more like green. With envy. Also, the light.” I point to the stoplight.

  Dace hits the gas, then taps the screen on the dashboard and the sound of loons and trickling water fills the car. “You need a Zen moment.”

  I make a face. Dace found Buddha in January, and now she’s all boho hippie. Which means she wears a lot of embroidered tunics and floral kaftans and says things like “Find your inner calm” and “Be mindful.”

  Dace taps her gold nails on the steering wheel. She still paints her nails and wears hot pink lipstick though. She’s a girl in transition, figuring out her new post-model identity. “Isn’t this making you feel better?”

  “It’s making me have to pee.”

  “So what if Emma got into Brown? You don’t want to go to Brown. You didn’t even apply to Brown. You don’t even know where Brown is.” She smacks her hot pink lips together as though to punctuate her point.

  “Providence, Rhode Island, actually.”

  “Noted. Point is, I bet you’re going to hear from Tisch any day now.”

  “Uh huh.” I pull my phone out of my black backpack and click on the email icon for the 427th time today. My phone pings every time I get a new email, but obviously I can’t rely on technology, so I just check it manually every three to five minutes. Or so. When we’re not in class, that is, due to the super-frustrating rule that we can’t use our phones in class.

  My inbox refreshes. Nothing. I shove my phone back into my bag.

  “If you happen to see my mom, don’t mention Brown. I fake applied to Brown.”

  “Oh. My. Gotthard. You and the fake applying. I don’t know how you keep it all straight.”

  “Gotthard?”

  “Gotthard Base Tunnel. Longest train tunnel in the world. It’s in the Swiss Alps.”

  Ever since Dace decided she was going to take a gap year to travel after graduation, she’s been full of travel facts. We’re going to backpack together for a month this summer, before I go to Tisch. If I get into Tisch. Usually I find her fun facts amusing, except when I’m in a bad mood about college. Which seems like most of the time, lately. Sometimes I wish I could be like Dace and take a slacker year to live life, but it’s just not me. To put off real life for a whole year. But of course I’ve never told her I think that. Or that I secretly call it a slacker year.

  “What are you going to do when your mom starts asking why you haven’t received your acceptances from the colleges you fake applied to?” Dace makes a right onto Calcutta and slows down as a couple of kids cross the street up ahead.

  “As soon as I get my offer from Tisch, my mom’ll forget all about the other schools. Hopefully.” I hold my crossed fingers in the air.

  “And then you can end your Black Period and start having fun again? Because between your all-work attitude and your all-black clothes, you’ve been kind of a buzzkill these past few months. Still my best friend, and totally understandable, but—a buzzkill. Remember, I’m supposed to be all Good Vibes Only–ing.”

  “May I point out that my Black Period is less a state of mind than a state of style? So you shouldn’t let my outfits get to you. Every legit photographer, ever, wears black. It’s the unofficial uniform. Like saying, ‘Don’t worry, this pic I’m taking? It’s not for likes.’”

  Dace exhales dramatically. “You and your Insta judginess.” She’s teasing, but it’s definitely a bit of a touchy subject. Photography was always my thing. But now it feels like everyone thinks they’re a photographer, just because they have an iPhone and an Instagram account. Which wouldn’t be so bad except that no one cares about anything that actually goes into taking a good photo: lighting, composition, depth of field, rule of thirds. Nothing. Just faux-arty shoe snaps with a filter slapped on and they get a bazillion likes. And if they don’t? Delete. It’s so irritating. My Instagram grid is the exact opposite.

  “Also, I had to get serious this year. That’s how you get good grades, good enough SAT scores and a half-decent portfolio to send to Tisch. This is the dream, Dace. The dream.”

  In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea to only apply to Tisch but at the time, I thought I was making a strategic move. And it wasn’t about the application fees. Or the work it takes to apply. It was the fact that I don’t want to go to any other schools, so why should I make up some reason on my essay that I want to go, and then possibly get accepted and then cause someone else total misery because they didn’t get into the only school they ever wanted to go to, because I did. Not applying was actually an act of public service, thank you very much. Also I had this thought like, What if colleges can tell which other schools you applied to, and so when they saw that I only applied to Tisch they’d know how serious I was, and then maybe that would work in my favor. Only apparently that’s not how it works. I sort of mentioned something about it to Mr. Aquila, our guidance counselor, who set me straight. And then I just pretended I totally knew that anyway.

  Dace pulls into my driveway, puts the car in park and swivels in her seat to face me. “All right, I take your point. All I’m saying is I can’t wait until you get that acceptance so we can spend the rest of our senior year goofing off and making bad decisions.”

  I unbuckle my seatbelt and give her a sidelong look. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “See you later, Darth.”

  Once I’m through the front door, I kick off my black leather high-tops. The house is quiet, and I remember that Mom is working the four-to-midnight shift tonight. When my stomach unclenches, I realize how tense I’ve been since leaving school. I walk into the kitchen to grab a glass of orange juice. There’s a vase
filled with lilacs on the kitchen table. I’ve been doing this thing with my Instagram feed, where I choose a color for the week and each day I post a shot of something that color. (Except Sundays when I don’t post because seven shots screws up my feed, whereas six shots looks perfect.) I don’t get many likes, despite all my deliberation, but I just haven’t found my audience yet. I’m building my brand, and it’ll all pay off in a few years when I’m surrounded by real photographers in New York. Anyway, this week I’m shooting purples. I already have my shot for today, ready to edit before posting, but the lavender flowers, shot against the white wall behind the kitchen table with the natural light streaming in through the back patio doors, would make a really clean, gorgeous shot to post later in the week. I pull a few stems out of the vase. As I do, a small white card drops to the table, face up. I tilt my head to read the message.

  Holly,

  You’re the best thing that’s happened to me.

  Happy 15th monthiversary.

  All my love, Hank

  Ick.

  Monthiversary? Double ick.

  Also, when the flowers for your mom are from your English Lit teacher? Triple ick.

  I grab my camera from my backpack and try to block out the fact that my mom and Hank’s relationship is apparently still super hot. Then I arrange the flowers into a cluster and hold the stems with my left hand, my camera with my right. I’m usually all about the rule of thirds in photos, but sometimes, rules are meant to be broken, and I frame the shot so that the flowers are perfectly centered, my arm a leading line from the bottom left-hand corner to the center of the photo. I snap off a dozen shots, making small tweaks with the angles and the flowers, and then scroll back through the photos to see the results. Satisfied, I replace the flowers in the vase, nestle the card into the petals and take a sip of orange juice. As usual, taking a photo has calmed me. I put my camera back in my bag and head upstairs just as my phone dings. Hands shaking, I pull out my phone and touch the mail icon.

  From: admissions@tisch.org

  Subject: Status on your application

  You have a change in the status of one or more of your applications. Please log in to your account using the link below.

  I put a hand out. The wall accepts my weight, which is lucky because otherwise I’d be a heap on the carpet. Should I call Dace? I should call Dace. The silence of the house is overwhelming. She’d probably find it Zen. Meanwhile how awful would it be if the email says no? No, they don’t want me, no, I’m not getting in, and all around me was the Zen silence cut only by my many, many sobs?

  It just takes a moment to log in.

  Status on application to Tisch School of the Arts: Waitlisted

  Wait—what?

  And below, the letter. Key words jump out immediately, as if typed in bolder font than the rest.

  Regret

  Unfortunately

  Unable

  Best of luck

  My back hits the wall, my butt hits the floor. The room gets all wavy as my eyes get wet. I close my eyes. I have to tell Mom. I need to tell Mom. Even if it means telling her everything—that I have no backup plan. My phone’s still in my hand; she’s the first on my Favorites. It rings and rings and then goes to her voicemail. I hang up and then open the text bubble.

  My hands shake too much to type out the word waitlisted. Do I just tell her I didn’t get in? Because isn’t that essentially what waitlisted means? Who’s going to turn down a spot in the best photography program in the country so that I can get in? I decide to just tell her that I know. That I got the email. I can explain the rest when I see her.

  Me: I got it.

  I hit send and toss my phone on the floor beside me then lean forward, closing my eyes and pressing my face into my knees to block out any possible light.

  My phone rings and I lift my head and grab my phone. Mom. I click Accept but before I can say anything she is squealing in my ear. Black spots appear before my eyes. I have broken her.

  “Mom?” I say tentatively.

  “Oh Pippa, I’m soooooo proud of you! I just knew you could do it. All your hard work and your focus and your dedication. At times I thought, Oh gosh, do I need to help her to expand her interests a little because, you know, you can be so into photography, but you knew. You knew that all that focus and shutting out everything else would be exactly what you needed to get in. And Tisch! Tisch, Pippa! Your father would be so proud of you. I know it shouldn’t matter, and of course I would’ve been proud of you if you had gotten into one of your other schools—but oh it’s just like you really are following in his footsteps, and it’s just . . .” She sighs. “It makes me feel like a bit of your father is with us right now. Like you’re carrying a piece of him with you.” She rambles on while I listen, speechless. How am I going to interrupt her, correct her to tell her that she has it wrong, that I didn’t get in. Finally she says she has a dog with three legs to see but we will celebrate later. She hangs up and I pull the phone away from my ear. My text is still there on the screen. I stare at it in disbelief.

  I got in.

  The message from me says I got in, not I got it.

  TUESDAY, APRIL 25

  I’m leaning against my locker, soggy and uncomfortable because I walked to school in the rain, when Dace saunters up in a long, flowy dress and Birks with slouchy rainbow socks, which only she can pull off, and a massive purple backpack that practically runs the entire length of her body, which is saying something because she’s five foot eleven. A pair of brand new hot pink hiking boots dangle on the side, and there’s a purple ombre S’well bottle in the side pocket. She’s swinging her collapsed umbrella.

  “Where were you this morning? I stopped by your house to give you a ride but your mom said you left before she even woke up.”

  “What’s with the backpack?”

  “I see you’re fully implementing the avoidance technique. So you walked to school in a torrential downpour instead? You seriously need to get your license. I don’t understand how times like this don’t motivate you to just book the test. Then we could just make like Thelma and Louise this summer. Drive across America. Open road. Wind in our hair. Minus the murder and running from the cops part.”

  On the long list of things I’ve cut out of my life this year—part-time job, guys, fun—is taking my driving test. After I had to retake my SATs to get my score up to 1250 from 900, the last thing I wanted to add to my list of failures was my driver’s test. Plus, there was this little voice in the back of my mind that kept reminding me that I’d be spending the next four years in New York, and what good would a driver’s license do in a city where no one drives?

  “At least I got exercise,” I grumble.

  “When are you going to tell your mom?” After getting off the phone with Mom last night, I called Dace to tell her about the whole Tisch email and the Mom mistype.

  “I dunno, 2043? Never? So what’s with the pack?”

  “That was a smooth pivot, but I’ll take it. Isn’t it so me?” Dace turns from side to side, as though modeling her new backpack. “Cost me 200 dollars but I think it is worth every dollar. I picked it up at REI last night. I read that if you’re planning to backpack, you should actually practice walking around with your backpack on. You know, so you don’t pull a muscle or something. Remember that scene in Wild where she was just so tired from carrying her pack and her toe was bleeding and then her hiking boot fell over the cliff? PSA for being prepared.” She gives the pack a little bump up and tightens the straps. “You should get one too. Then we can be backpack besties.”

  “Yeah,” I say, but I get this pain like a small rodent is eating through my stomach from the inside out. The plan has always been to backpack for a month this summer, then Dace would continue backpacking while I came back, got ready for college and moved to New York. But that was when I was going to Tisch and hoped to get a scholarship. Even if I somehow get into Tisch, a scholarship’s going to be totally
out of the question, so that travel money I’d saved up from birthdays and Christmases? I’m going to need that to pay for tuition and rent and food and a phone plan, not flitting around Europe for a month. Not that the money I’ve saved up is going to cover even a teensy tiny portion of that. Ugh.

  “So, you’re going to carry your entire locker around all day?” I fiddle with my lock. Now is not the time to bring any of this up with Dace.

  “God, no. Why would I do that? For one thing, textbooks are way too heavy. And it’s not like I’m going to be backpacking with books. I filled it with all my favorite clothes. And beauty products. Ooh, that reminds me. I got you something.” She reaches into a side pocket and pulls out a small pink lipgloss. “Teensy tiny cosmetics. Isn’t it adorable? From now on, everything I buy is going to be teensy tiny. Even my underwear. Thongs all the time. To make more space for shoes.”

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the lipgloss tube and turning it over. “At least I can look pretty when I’m working at the gas station next year.”

  Dace makes a face. “You are not going to be working at a gas station. In fact, I already have a plan for you. Are you ready to hear it?”

  “Does it involve me going to Tisch?” I shove my backpack in my locker and grab my purple binder.

  “No. Even better. You’re going to forget all about college, take a gap year and backpack with me.” Dace holds her hands up in the air, like she’s just won a race. “Best. Idea. Ever. Amiright?”

  I give her a weak smile and shake my head. “Domo arigato, but I can’t do it. I can’t afford it, and I can’t give up on Tisch. Not yet.” I point to her S’well bottle. “Can I borrow that for a second?”