Emily heard a few gasps, a few swells of laughter, and, as the last photo faded and the stage lights rose, thundering applause.
She couldn’t help it, she grinned. She smiled until her cheeks ached, then gave a little wave and pushed her cart off stage. Johnson and a few kids were standing there, offering fist bumps and high fives, telling her it had been “awesome” and “rad” and “sick.” She decided right then she wasn’t going to adopt an aw shucks attitude. She’d worked hard on her presentation. “Thanks!” she bubbled.
The halls were bright compared to the auditorium. When she got to her backpack, she had three texts. Kristen: Good wrk, sis! Ryan: Blwn Awy. Thomas, who texted in full words and sentences: I’m going to take you out for a magnum of champagne. Epic, girl. Epic!
Emily couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so creatively satisfied. So vindicated. And she didn’t know how long the feeling would last, so she was going to enjoy it.
Melissa showed up then and hugged Emily. When she pulled back, Melissa’s eyes brimmed. She nodded and looked away. She whispered, “I took video of that for your dad.”
Emily nodded. She couldn’t speak or she’d start to cry.
Trix sat in the dark auditorium. She’d never seen the photo Emily had taken of her and shown the entire school. Staring up at it on the huge screen, the theater full of hundreds of hushed kids and parents, she’d felt an avalanche of emotion: shock, respect for Emily and her talent to capture moments, trauma at the torment on her own face, serious annoyance.
Now a freshman was doing an Irish dance that Trix didn’t know if she could sit through. She needed to splash her face with cool water, maybe smoke, though she was trying to quit. She whispered to Irony (a real name for a real girl whom Trix had been hanging out with lately), “I need a break.”
Irony nodded. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Want me to come with you?”
“Nah,” Trix said, and crept up the aisle, trying not to look at the faces she passed.
She blinked in the light of the hallway and shot to the bathroom. It was blissfully empty. She turned on a faucet, as cold as it would go, and cupped her hands under the running water. Trix could see her reflection; her lined eyes staring back at her, and decided not to ruin her makeup. Opening her fingers, she let the water run through them, turned off the tap, and stood there, wondering where to go next.
That was when she heard the toilet flush and saw, in the mirror, Emily emerge from a stall.
“Hey,” Trix said, stiffening. She grabbed a rough paper towel, drying her hands and throwing it in the garbage.
“Hey,” Emily said, her voice slow and gentle, as if she were talking to a wild animal she was trying not to scare away. “What’d you think?
“Of?” She still had a wall up when it came to Emily.
“The photo of you. From Green Lake.”
“I don’t even remember you taking it.”
“Oh, well. You were pretty … distraught.” Trix remembered well the days when Emily was her go-to if she was unglued. Luckily, the ungluing happened less now. “So,” Emily said. “How are things?”
Trix looked at her ex-friend. Only, instead of feeling torn up inside, a sort of dull, nostalgic placidity fell over her. They’d had a lot of good times. And, though they both knew their friendship was basically over, it didn’t have to be horrendously awkward when they ran into each other. They could make eye contact and say Hey. Right? They could be adults about this. She just hoped Emily wouldn’t say she missed her, or try to get her to talk about the downward spiral she’d been coasting on until a few months ago.
“Things are great,” Trix said and shrugged. She was mostly telling the truth. She’d shaken Marjorie and her druggie friends loose in a knock-down-drag-out the day after Christmas during which they screamed at each other in a Safeway parking lot.
Trix’s mom had broken up with Rodney the Octopus guy after realizing he was stealing from her, too.
There were no boys for Trix. After Jamie at the beach, she’d understood that she needed to pull her act together before she could go out with anyone. So, to reduce temptation, she wasn’t drinking, either. Which, considering that she was underage, was probably for the best.
“I noticed you’ve been in class more,” Emily said warily.
“Yeah,” Trix crossed her arms over her chest. “School’s good. I mean, it’s school, so how good can it be? But, it’s better.” She’d gotten her grades back up and was on track to graduate at the end of her junior year. She was going to apply to the Art Institute, and Irony’s friends, some who were already professional graphic designers and seamstresses and painters who’d gone there, said Trix would definitely make it.
Emily said, “I’m glad.”
“And you’re still taking photos I see.”
“My first love,” Emily said and winced. She cleared her throat.
Clearly, they wouldn’t touch the topic of Ryan.
Trix poked at her eyeliner in the mirror, then moved toward the door. “Okay, well, see you.”
“Around. Yeah.”
Trix was preternaturally calm as she found her way back to her seat, feeling oddly cleansed by her face to face with Emily and brimming with a sense of possibility. She imagined a bird—a sparrow or pigeon that had somehow swooped in through the front doors and flew around the auditorium’s rafters.
Below the bird, notes were passed, insults were whispered, kisses were exchanged, feelings were hurt, friendships dissolved while others solidified.
And from up there, no one looked so different from anyone else, they were all just one big, undulating mass of people in various states of learning that they were okay.
Acknowledgments: I’d like to thank Kristy Alley for being such an astute and helpful reader, Tricia Scott for her discerning critique of Spectacle’s cover, Betsy Hudson for her keen eye and mad copyediting skills, Sarah Piazza for catching several of my ridiculous errors, my husband and kids for their patience while I wrote and revised and wrote and revised, Alice Peck for her encouragement, and the literary agents whose rejections led me to pursue my exciting e-publishing path.
About the Author
Angie McCullagh, who is crazy tall herself, has published several short stories in various literary journals. She also blogs, enjoys photography, and alternately struggles with the fit of her jeans and existential angst. She lives with her husband, two kids, and imaginary cat in Seattle, Washington.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
1. Tall Pride
2. Trailer
3. Crush
4. Evil X-Ray Machine
5. Dad? And a Cat
6. Excessive Inches
7. Into the Night
8. Party
9. Tryst
10. Hostility
11. Regret
12. The Runaway’s Daughter
13. Hassled
14. If I Could Chat with Anyone , It Would Be You
15. Home Alone
16. First Date
17. Mean Girls
18. Crash
19. Marjorie
20. Found
21. Shaky Alliance
22. Flying Solo
23. Everyone Wants To Be Liked
24. Bad Scene
25. Cleanup in Aisle Emily
26. Fun House
27. Fading to Black
28. Reveal
29. Nonparent #1
30. Girlfriend
31. Sweatshop
32. Idiots Suck
33. The High Life
34. Attention, Unwanted
35. A Disappointment to Everyone
36. Nonparent #2
37. Friendship Mashup
38. Weary
39. The Stepmom Conundrum
40. Gym Hell
41. Inked
42. Warning
43. Rave
44. Confrontation
45. The Mea
ningful Email
46. Worse Than Nothing
47. Slipping Away
48. Sadness/Hope/Remorse
49. Applying Herself
50. Tricky Times
51. Triptych
52. Fear and Loathing on the Dark Side
53. Helpless
54. Shock and Horror
55. I don’t know what I know
56. Pressure
57. Lift Off
58. Christmas Eve
59. Landed
60. Peace on Earth
61. Welcome?
62. Joy to the World
63. Unwanted
64. Giving It Up
65. Not The Mother She Would Have Chosen
66. Escape
67. Where Am I?
Postscript
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Spectacle (A Young Adult Novel) Page 21