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Post by Craig on Nov 7, 2010 23:56:03 GMT -5
I'm amazed that I'm staying on pace. I feel like I've barely been writing at all. It mostly comes in spurts (like yesterday's 8pm-1am adventure). I still haven't written the stuff that's really powerful, but I'm glad that I've at least been able to make each chapter so far fit a theme. I don't normally do this, but I'm worried that I'm not developing my characters quite the way I want to. If anyone has some spare time (erm...) and wants to comment on them, feel free to glance at any of these chapters and tell me what you think. “Just crash at my place,” Jesse tells me, as if this is an assumption I should have already made. “You’re more than welcome.”
“Oh,” I say. The word passes through the window, leaving behind a blotch of fog. “No, I wouldn’t want you to go to all that trouble, especially if I don’t end up making it out there.”
“It’s no trouble at all.” His voice sails through the phone, and I feel like I’m being swept along without knowing where I’m going. I stare down at the sidewalk, trying to ground my thoughts as Jesse continues. “I’ll be ready either way. If you’re feeling up to it, I’ll be happy to have you.”
“Thanks. And congratulations, by the way. This sounds like a pretty distinguished honor.”
“I’m really excited. I hope you can make it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Glad to hear it.” Jesse’s voice is running downstream, and I can sense the end of the conversation. “I’ve got a few more calls to make, so I’ll let you go. It’s great talking to you, Bern. Hope I’ll see you around.”
I lean against the windowsill, turning the compact phone over in my hand like a rock from the beach. My eyelids hang low, and I let them close for a moment.
I told Jesse I’m sick, which is true. I’ve had a bad cold for about a week now, and it’s making my brain cloudy. I feel like I’m looking at the world through a plastic lens—everything is blurred.
When I saw Jesse’s name light up on the screen of my cell phone, it took me a few seconds to recognize it. He has probably only called me three or four times ever, and not once in the past four years. After we graduated college and he moved to Chicago, I haven’t spoken to him at all, except for a couple e-mails that trailed off when our graduate work began to pile up.
There’s a frayed envelope sitting next to the tissue box on the kitchen counter. Inside is the invitation I received yesterday, which informs me that I have been designated as a special guest for one Jesse Caldwell, winner of the “Heroes for Life” benefit photography competition. The Chicago Children’s Hospital is sponsoring their 23rd Annual “Heroes” Luncheon on Sunday. At one of the hundreds of tables, there will be a nametag with my name on it.
Maybe it’s because my mind is still fogged, but something isn’t clicking.
“Bern, you’re basically the only photography coach I’ve ever had,” Jesse explained when I asked why he’d included me in his list of guests. “You know I never took a class.”
This is true, but I’m wary to accept any credit for what I’m certain is a natural talent. Jesse’s responses are gracious, but they glide out so smoothly that I can’t help feeling a ribbon of distrust.
Jesse reminds me of the president of the college we attended. In my first year there, I got the chance to join her for dinner and a “fireside chat” with a few other students. We asked questions about her job and learned about her work behind the scenes. The more we talked, the more awed I became of her ability to bend negative ideas into positives, of the subtle way she changed subjects to play to her strengths.
I remember asking her how she developed her public speaking skills. “It’s all about finding your own voice,” she said. “You can’t just look at a successful person and try to adapt their style. If you do that, you’ll discover how difficult it is to remain in character all the time, to always be on stage. You’d have to be a really great actor to pull that off.”
And I was torn, unsure whether she was telling us how genuine her words were, or if she was slyly showing off her acting skill.
I pull on my jacket and step into the hallway, locking the apartment door behind me. I’m running out of tissues, and I decide to pick up a few boxes from the corner store. Outside, the morning is sharp, cold. In the shadow of the building, fallen leaves are coated in sugary ice. I think this is the first frost of the year, but I’m not sure—I generally have pretty tight tunnel vision, so details like this tend to escape me. It’s only when something knocks me out of my routine that I start to notice these small changes.
I stuff my hands into my pockets and head off down the sidewalk, looking around at the symptoms of winter that have snuck up on me.
Sometimes, I’m dangerously oblivious, like I was the day I first saw Jesse’s name.
“Dude, your nose is bleeding,” Graham told me, raising an eyebrow.
The two of us were sitting in our office at the university library going through applications for the Advertising Club’s management positions. In the small trash can next to me, a small mound of tissues had already sprung up like a mushroom. I dug into my pocket for another one.
“Shoot,” I said, stemming the tide that had already stained the paper in front of me on the desk. “This is the second one this week.”
“It’s the stress, man.” Graham’s feet were up on the table, and he put his hands behind his head, balancing a folder in his lap.
“Yeah, seriously.” I dabbed at the tiny puddles with my free hand. “This application was no good anyway.”
“This one here is hardcore.” Graham’s face slid into a smile as he glanced at me. “It’s like a portfolio. Check it out.”
He slid the folder across the desk, and I flipped through it. There were about a dozen photographs taken all over campus, a balanced array of portraits, scenic angles, and action shots. It looked professional.
“I’m thinking photo manager,” said Graham. “This kid is golden.”
I pulled a sheet of paper out of the file. “He doesn’t even have that position marked down. He has ‘general photographer’ checked off, and that’s it.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll have to change that.” Graham lowered his feet and leaned forward, screwing up one eye as his face entered the square of sunlight coming through the window. “Send him an e-mail and tell him we want him for photo manager.”
I nodded, trying to tuck the application back into the folder with one hand.
“Be convincing,” Graham added. “Make friends with this kid, Bern. With you as content manager and him as photo manager, it’ll be like the dream team.” He stretched his arms behind him and puffed his chest out, squinting at me. “Tell him when our first meeting is. Thursday, right?”
“Tuesday.”
“Right.” Graham stood up. “I’ll tell Erin we’ve got our last manager.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed for the door. “You can toss all the reject applications.”
“Do you want me to let them know we’re not taking them on?”
Graham shrugged on his way out. “Knock yourself out.”
The drugstore is cold as I step inside. My sickness feels appropriate here; whenever I come to this place, something about the atmosphere—or lack of it—seems to shut down my senses. I think it’s a combination of the fluorescent lights that never seem to be shining at full force, the blandness of the colors, the almost-silence, and the absence of any warmth or smell.
As I tread down the aisle, I wonder if it’s just me who’s so strongly affected by these external changes. I’m like a chameleon, changing my pattern to match those around me, yet utterly dependent on the environment for heat and life.
This is why I seek out nice surroundings. The café at the university library remains one of my favorite places, as much for its ambiance as for its memories. I haven’t been there in so long.
Even though our Ad Club management meetings only consisted of three or four people at most, we always claimed a long table near the window. It looked out toward the fountain near the library entrance. A low-hanging lamp cast an orange glow on the wooden table, and we would cluster around one end, fanning out our assortment of folders, papers, and flyers. The bubbling hum of conversation always filled the café, and to this day I still associate the smell of fresh bread and coffee with those meetings.
Graham was predictably late, so I was the only one at our table when Jesse walked into the café that first time.
I watched as he approached.
“Are you with the Advertising Club?” he said.
I stood up. “Bern Benson, content manager.”
“Jesse Caldwell.” His handshake was assertive. “I like our meeting place.”
“I know, right?” I said as we sat down. Jesse set a notebook on the table and flipped to a blank page. “This is a lot better than meeting in the office, although that’s where we’ll spend most of our time.”
Jesse nodded and fiddled with his pencil. “Your office is here in the library?”
“Yeah, third floor. I think it’s an old group study room, but we’ve got all our stuff in there: computers, desks, bookshelves. That’s where we get everything done.”
“So, this meeting—”
“Just touching base with everyone. Graham isn’t always around, and Erin, the distribution manager, pretty much works on her own.”
I glanced outside, and Jesse leaned back in his chair. When I turned to him again, his eyes left his pencil and met mine. “So, Bern,” he said, as if testing the syllable to see if it would float. “Is that short for something?”
“Bernard.” I felt color flow to my cheeks, even though I’ve never been ashamed of my name. As I watched Jesse tilt his head back in understanding, I noticed that his own cheeks were brushed with red, the dappled sort of birthmark that reminds me of clouds at sunset.
Looking back, I realize that Jesse has always had this effect on me. Even from that first day, it felt like I was trying to rise to some unknown expectation, and his impassive nods put me on guard. When he called me today, there it was again, this tension that crawls between my shoulders and makes me question everything I say.
Jesse and I are similar in a lot of ways. We’re the same age—we were both juniors when he joined the Advertising Club. Now that I think about it, maybe some of my apprehension that day had to do with the fact that we might be competing for Graham’s position the next year. Honestly, though, I don’t think I was threatened by him. It was more a fear that he might look at me too closely and discover that I was a fake—that I was inexperienced, only pretending to be organized and in control. I was worried he might identify some flaw that I myself was not even aware of.
I’ve come to accept the fact that I’ll never know what Jesse is really thinking. He’s not like Graham, whose eyebrows telegraph his emotions like semaphore.
“Here’s the plan,” Graham said when he arrived at the table. “First order of business for the year is getting our name out there. I’m officially cutting our title to two syllables: Ad Club. Easier on the tongue.”
Jesse had stood up from his chair. “Graham Stone?” he said. “I’m Jesse Caldwell. Pleasure to meet you.”
Graham shook his hand and pointed at Jesse with his left index finger, which bore a black band. “Listen to this guy,” he said. “Class act right here.”
I noticed Jesse’s eyes flit to Graham’s earring. He and Erin, who’d started dating the previous year, had gotten piercings together over the summer. I thought Graham pulled off the stud in the upper cartilage of his ear better than Erin wore her new lip ring. Graham could pull off a lot of weird stuff.
“Anyway,” he said, sitting down, “my first assignment for you two is to work on this little campaign for us. Bern, you need to figure out a way to let people know what we’re all about without making them read too much.”
I turned to Jesse. “I’m not sure if you know how the club works.”
“Most people don’t,” said Graham, “which is why we never get cool projects to work on.”
“Basically, we let the other groups on campus submit proposals to us for their upcoming events, fundraisers, or just their general meetings. We choose whatever looks interesting and advertise it as well as we can for them.”
“It’s cool because you can play around with how you do it,” said Graham. “And it’s not like we get paid, so there’s no pressure or anything. We do get some bitter club leaders, though. You know how it is.”
Jesse nodded, leaning forward to fold his hands on the table. His notebook page was still empty.
Graham glanced at me. “So, yeah, that’s about it. No rules—just be creative,” he said. “And get your stuff in on time, or else Erin will come after you.”
“Will do,” Jesse said. “Sounds good.”
“If you could have something by the end of the week, that would be awesome,” said Graham. “Bern, you can send Jesse our e-mail addresses.”
“What is our focus for this campaign?” said Jesse, leaning back in his chair again. He tapped the pencil against his knee. “What do you want me to get photos of?”
We all looked around the café.
Graham folded his hands to his chin. “A focus, good plan. Content manager, I leave this one to you.” He gave me a nod. “Come up with a concept. Work with Jesse for the pictures. Let me know if you have any questions.”
Graham put his hands on the edge of the table, poised to stand up. Jesse gave him a serious nod and said with mock enthusiasm, “We’ve got this.”
Graham grinned. “Alright. Peace.”
As we all got up, I said to Jesse, “Can you give me your number? I’ll call you so we can meet up later this week to figure stuff out.”
“Sure.” He watched me as I typed his name into my cell phone. I already knew how to spell it.
Whenever I see Jesse’s name in writing, it always seems very square, very solid. I’m back from the drugstore, looking at the invitation to the luncheon again, and my eyes keep dropping to that bolded name as if by gravity. It bothers me that it’s so immovable and certain, while my thoughts orbit around it in perpetual doubt.
I’m not sure if I’m going to go. Jesse has filled me in on the lunch menu, has mentioned that he’s having all of his guests back to his apartment after the event. “It won’t cost you anything but gas,” he promised. But something tells me this reunion won’t be that simple.
When I was younger, my cousin David and I watched the movie Jurassic Park. A group of scientists found a mosquito trapped in amber, and they were able to extract the DNA of dinosaurs, millions and millions of years old. I had to close my eyes at all the scary parts, but I remember being fascinated by that amber, the idea that something could be forgotten for so long and still return to life.
Jesse isn’t like most of my other friends. We never spent much time together outside the Ad Club, and even though we had several mutual friends, it was always jarring for me to see him anywhere out of context. If I passed him on the way to class, that familiar tension would grip my spine. Often, I wouldn’t even notice it until after we’d said hello and gone our separate ways. Then my muscles would relax, and I would be disoriented for a moment, slightly off-center, as if I had suddenly found myself walking in the road instead of the sidewalk.
That’s why I’m hesitant to crack open this old relationship. I’m fine with everything just the way it is now: I have a job at a major ad agency, and I’m steadily climbing the corporate ladder, one step at a time. As nice as it would be to see Jesse again, as good a friend as he’s been, and as unintentional as it will surely be, I’m still afraid he’ll shake up my plans as he breezes back into my life.
I pull the plastic off a new box of tissues. The cold has clouded my head, but there’s something about being sick that motivates me. When I’m not feeling well, I find myself more resilient, more rebellious.
I remember saying to Graham one time, “I’m not going to let a bloody nose stop me from finishing this project.”
“Rock on,” he’d replied, and I was energized to keep typing.
It probably has something to do with the fact that I know how long a virus lasts. It’s kind of an unfair fight—my opponent can be vanquished in a week or two with the aid of a little sleep and medicine. It might slow me down, but if I work twice as hard, I can accomplish the same amount I would have been able to do anyway. I guess it just ends up as an excuse to meet lower expectations: by achieving the average, I feel justified in celebrating some sort of victory.
I think the kids at the Children’s Hospital are probably up against more than that.
As this thought flickers into my mind, it illuminates a decision that I realize has already been made. I’m going to the luncheon. If it’s sponsored by a charity, they’ll probably have pledge sheets at every table, and I can make a donation, write it up for a tax deduction, and be comfortable in the knowledge that I’m not just there for Jesse.
I pick up my phone to call him back, then stop myself. What will Jesse think if, barely an hour after I told him I’m laid up with an illness, I call to let him know I’ve decided to make the trip to Chicago this weekend?
I scroll through my contact list and stare at his name.
The thin amber shell has been shattered; I can feel it. We’re right back where we used to be, and I’m once again skeptical of my own intentions.
The majority of my thoughts are optimistic. At best, this will be an opportunity for me to reconnect with an old friend and put all these fluttering doubts to rest. At worst, it’ll be two free meals and a hasty farewell.
And yet, something inside me is still tugging in the other direction.
Or maybe it’s me who’s going the wrong way, trying to turn around and look back while my feet are moving forward, twisting myself into uncomfortable shapes because I can’t meet the truth head on. My braid keeps distracting me. I can feel it behind me as I’m driving, as if my shirt is bunched up in the back. It looks pretty, though—I spent twenty minutes pleating it just loosely enough so it looks unintentional. I’ve returned to my natural hair color, the plain brown that I grew up with. I almost told Kelly Caldwell about it when I was on the phone with her the other day, but she was spilling over with too many other thoughts.
“Bridget,” she said, “is it true what Jesse is telling me? You’re getting your PhD?”
“If all goes well,” I said, looking for bruises as I picked through apples at the farmers market. “I’m defending in April.”
I dated Kelly’s son Jesse for about three years in college. She’s labeled me as the daughter she never had, having given up after four boys. Jesse is her oldest, and I think Kelly is still waiting for us to find each other again. I can’t imagine why else she would still be in touch so many years after our breakup.
I think all three of us know that it’s not going to happen, though, so I don’t mind Kelly’s occasional calls. She lets me know which fruits are in season, which diet she’s trying. I buy all my cosmetics from her. She’s a consultant-slash-saleswoman for a salon brand, and she puts all my orders on her employee discount. “Technically, I’m not supposed to do this,” she tells me as I listen to the pitter-patter of her computer keyboard. “It’ll be our little secret.”
I had thought she might be calling to ask if I needed more hair coloring, because it’s been a while since I ran out. But it turned out she wanted to invite me to some honorary luncheon for Jesse.
“You kids are growing up too fast,” she said, as if she’d known me since I was nine instead of nineteen. “You go from winning the spelling bee to winning national photography competitions. It’s just too much. Next thing you know, I’ll be a grandmother.”
“That’s nothing to be upset about,” I said, holding the phone with my shoulder as I reached into a large crate. “What size pumpkin do you think I should get for a pie?”
“Don’t go for the big orange ones. Maybe six pounds, eight at the most. The color doesn’t matter.”
“Thanks,” I said, picking up a good candidate. “They’re practically giving these away—day after Halloween and all. When did you say that luncheon was?”
I have the pie on the passenger seat, so I’m driving more cautiously than usual. It’s still a few hours to Chicago, and my back is already sore. I’m not sure if it’s the braid, the pie, or something else, but I’m feeling tense.
I still haven’t spoken with Jesse. His invitation arrived in the mail the day after Kelly called, and by then I’d already promised her I would be there for both the luncheon and the dinner at Jesse’s apartment afterwards. I’ve always wondered what he thinks about the friendship between his mother and me. Back when we were going out, it seemed like he was glad we got along, but now I’m not so sure. I hear from Kelly more often than I do from Jesse. I know I’d be uncomfortable if my mother called Jesse every couple months. But my mother is different.
My mother was a catalogue model when she was younger. Now, she manages the careers of girls as young as twelve. She’s one of those people who will spot someone at the mall and give them her business card: “I love your look. Give me a call. We’ll chat.”
My mother would do this when I was with her. That’s how I learned which clothing stores were the most fashionable—these were the ones where my mother would hang out on Saturdays and weekday afternoons. When she pulled a girl aside and said, “Your hair is flawless, and those earrings are divine,” I would buy the same pair a week later when I was with my friends. When she whispered to me out of the corner of her mouth, “Look at her skin—what a waste,” I would pray to the mirror for clear pores.
There was only one girl my mother refused to evaluate: me. “Don’t even think about it,” she said when I told her that my friend Cassandra was going to a casting call. “That world is ruthless, Bridget. No matter what you do, you will never be good enough. Trust me, I know.”
As I sulked for the remainder of that evening, I tried to decide if my mother was the one who was ruthless or the one who was never good enough. I think it might have been both.
I never met any of the girls she managed. Sometimes their mothers would call her at home, and she would stretch the telephone cord across the kitchen to slice vegetables while they deliberated. “Let me handle this,” I would hear her say. “I know how to deal with these situations. Just keep her busy and tell her I’ve got it sorted it out. I’ll speak with her on Monday.”
From what I could tell, my mother had a successful career. She was always busy, rushing off to oversee a photo shoot or pick up a girl who was too young to drive. And she was always on the lookout for new faces, because her clients didn’t last long. If they were good, someone else stole them. If they weren’t good, they stopped calling. When I was very young, I kept a tally of the names I would overhear during these telephone conversations. Eventually, the list got so long I had to throw it away.
My mother based her life around other women’s daughters. Each of those names represented someone whom she had called beautiful, or stunning, or gorgeous, honey, just straighten that hair.
I never heard these words from my mother. She avoided both praise and criticism; it was as if her years in the industry had robbed her of the ability to distinguish between the two. They came in pairs, a compliment and a caveat, like two sides of a coin that I wasn’t trusted to carry.
My mother saved her harshest words for my father. They tried to insulate their arguments from the ears of my brother and me by confining them to the upstairs bedroom, but sometimes they seemed to forget we were there, and their voices would grind down through the ceiling.
Whenever this happened, I would turn to my younger brother Mike and say, “I’m going outside.” When he was little, he’d follow me because he didn’t want to be alone in the house. As we got older, he would pick up the basketball and shoot free throws, and I would walk down the street to see if my friend Maggie was home.
Those days remind me of the tornado drills we had in school. As a first grader, I would walk stiffly down the steps to the cafeteria, cover my head with my hands, and curl up into the safety position with the grave silence of a seven-year-old. By the time I reached sixth grade, we’d seen it all, and it was just annoying. But we went through the motions anyway.
When the air in the house grew overcast, Mike and I would roll our eyes and put on our shoes. There were times, occasionally, that he’d stick it out and keep doing homework or turn the volume up on the TV. To me, it felt like he was admitting defeat, like I had lost an ally.
I always left. Even if Maggie wasn’t at her house, I would keep walking. I’d walk to the end of the road and straight out of our neighborhood, and if I was feeling good, I’d make it all the way to the mall. Sometimes I’d go inside, take a sip from the drinking fountain, and sit on the edge of the big pyramid, listening to the water trickle down its sides and into the clear pool below. Sometimes, little girls would tug on their parents’ wrists and ask for pennies to toss in. I watched them hold their breath as the coin glinted in the light and settled to the bottom. I wondered how many of these girls had wished for the chance to have their picture in a magazine. In my secret mind, I added more names to my mother’s list.
There was one time I didn’t go outside. I was fifteen, Mike was fourteen, and we were watching a movie. It must have been sometime in early spring, because it was dark before eight but the rhododendrons were blooming. I remember this because I picked one of the flowers when I finally stormed down the front path, and I pulled the petals off one by one as I walked away.
Mike and I were sitting on opposite sides of the couch. I had the blanket; he had the remote.
“Hit mute,” I said, nudging him with my foot. “I don’t want to hear the commercials.”
He turned to stare at me.
“Hit mute,” I repeated, pushing harder. “They always turn these up louder than the movie.”
Mike lifted the remote and cut the sound. Immediately, my parents’ voices appeared, like shadows on the ceiling, as if they had been lurking there the whole time.
“When you married me,” came the blurred tones of my father, “I was fat and rich.”
“Don’t be such a child.”
“I’m still fat, and I’m still rich.”
“Turn the volume back on.” I prodded Mike. He stared at the TV screen.
“You’re making this into more than it needs to be. I’m already on a diet. Do you want me to just stop eating? Would that fix things for you?”
“How many times did you go to the fitness center last week?”
“What, have you been keeping track?”
“Do we remember who paid for that membership?”
“Maybe you should get your money’s worth and go yourself.”
“I didn’t buy it for me.”
My foot was still pressed against Mike’s thigh. He kept his eyes on the TV, and I stared past him at the wall. I don’t think either of us was scared or angry, but we had been caught off guard. The movie had distracted us from the regular warning signs, drowning out the gale as it brewed above our heads.
“I don’t like it when you look at me that way. Look at my face.”
I noticed that the movie had come back on. The remote sat untouched on Mike’s knee.
“Stop looking at my ass and look at my face next time you talk to me. You’re making me feel like a prostitute. I’ll go to the gym if that’s what you want. Just don’t expect me to be a twig.”
“I didn’t marry a twig, but I did marry a thin woman.”
“For God’s sake—”
“I married a thin woman,” as if the volume of his words could lift them beyond reproach.
“Alright, calm down. I told you I’d work out. What more do you want?”
“I don’t care what you do. I just want back the woman I married. That’s all.”
“Alright. Fine. But you don’t have to be so… so smug about it. It’s making me sick.”
“I still love you. I only want the best for us.”
There was a wooden creak, as if someone had just sat down on the bed. I kicked off the blanket, bunching it up in a pile next to Mike.
“Where are you going?” He finally turned to look at me, but I was already halfway to the door.
Sometimes, I just need to get away.
There are times when the world is too big to swallow. Maybe my mother and I share this problem. We’ve kept our bodies too thin; there’s nowhere to fit those bulky emotions. And since we can’t digest them, it’s better not to touch them at all.
My mother let this eat away at her from the inside, but I found a way to escape it. I got away.
That night, after all the rhododendron petals had been shed, I walked past Maggie’s house without knocking. I walked past the mall. Even though it was dark and I didn’t have a coat, I wasn’t cold. My legs burned my unhappiness as fuel. They hit the pavement as if it was a runway, and I followed the coaching my mother had delivered through the phone so many times: shoulders back, strong steps, eyes forward.
My hair whipped behind me with each long stride, and the wind lifted it like a bride’s train. My gaze was fixed, but as I passed under the downtown streetlights, I was aware of each person that looked my way. I wanted them to look. I wanted them to wonder where I was going with such speed and purpose. Maybe I was hoping that their imagined thoughts would answer the question that pounded in my mind with every step.
I had to get away, but get away where? Where was I going? What would it take to satisfy me before I turned around?
What it took was the bridge that marked city limits. I called Maggie from a payphone, and she came and got me.
Even though it’s November, I find myself rolling the window down for a few seconds, just to feel the breeze. The smell of pumpkin pie has soaked into the car, and the blast of cold air is like a splash of water. I’m tempted to close my eyes.
I’m not the safest driver. I’ll lose myself in a daydream and miss a stop sign, or I’ll get distracted by the radio and pass my highway exit. I love the rhythm of driving, the speed and the ever-changing landscape. The best roads are out in the country, where you can cruise for miles without slowing down and there’s nothing but horizon in front of you.
I will never take this freedom for granted—not after what I had to go through to acquire it.
Looking back, maybe it was a bad idea to take my driver’s test in the winter. “They’ll go easier on you,” assured Maggie, and she might have been right. Maybe the instructor was making an effort to be nicer. I was too preoccupied with my mother to notice.
“What did you think I was going to do, stand in the parking lot?” she said as I hesitated next to the driver’s side door. “What difference does it make if I’m in the car with you?”
I stared desperately at the flurries of snow that drifted down between us.
“Your hands are going to go numb and you won’t be able to grip the steering wheel.” She stepped into the backseat.
My fingers were unsteady as I fastened my seatbelt and put the key in the ignition. I thought they would relax once I warmed up, but it didn’t happen.
As the instructor directed me toward cones and parking spaces, I could see part of my mother’s face in the rearview mirror. I was afraid to look directly at her, in case we made sudden eye contact, so I averted my gaze and used the other side of the mirror.
Miraculously, I passed through all the parking tests and made it out on the road. I kept catching glimpses of my mother as she leaned to look at the road ahead, obviously unused to sitting in the rear. I wondered if she could hear the thoughts that were buzzing excitedly in my brain, the vibrating hope that was so close to bursting free.
So what if she could? As long as I passed the test, I would get my license on my birthday in two weeks. My dad had already promised to buy me a car. I could go wherever I wanted—go to the mall with friends, go out with boys, or just follow the wind. My mother wouldn’t care. “Just be safe,” she would tell me. Neutral guidance that pretty much let me do whatever I felt like.
Images of late nights and open road quickly overtook my mother as the primary distraction, and I tried to contain myself as the instructor guided me back to the parking lot. We pulled into the neighborhood, and I held the steering wheel with tingling fingers as I braked at the four-way stop.
I glanced around the bend to the right, then craned my head to look past the bush to the left. I could see the orange cones rising up from the pavement like arborvitaes.
I lifted my foot off the pedal, and as I nosed into the intersection, the sound of a blaring horn sliced through the snow and impaled me, throwing my head forward as I slammed on the break.
The pain seared for a solid two seconds, and it echoed even after the man released his hand from the horn, threw it palm-up in the air, and give me a look of disgust.
My foot was glued down. I had only moved a few feet forward, and our vehicles were a safe distance apart, but that guy’s face could have slaughtered a child. He shook his head and drove on, and I was left stricken, unable to think.
“You’re fine, go ahead,” said the instructor.
For a brief moment, I deliriously believed that this mistake might be overlooked. But as I completed the turn and glimpsed my mother’s eyes directed at the ceiling, I knew.
“You almost had it,” the instructor said, as if I might be comforted by this observation. “I’m sure you’ll get it on the next try.”
At that time, I wasn’t aware that I could take the test again within the week. All I knew was that I had done the unthinkable, and there was no taking it back. I had let my one chance for independence fly away from me. And I had let this happen in front of my mother.
As she drove us home, I waited for her to ask me why I hadn’t been paying attention. I watched the lines of her face in the reflection of the window. It looked like she was concentrating very hard, perhaps trying to package her thoughts into the right-sized words.
For a moment, I thought maybe she was going to make an attempt to console me somehow. When her lips parted as we pulled into the driveway, this is what came out: “Bridget, I just can’t think of a time next week when I’ll be free in the afternoon. If you want to register for a retake before your birthday, you’ll have to have your father help you.”
I could tell that this wasn’t what she had been thinking about, and I felt a lump swell in my throat as I wondered what words had died on the journey from her heart to her tongue. My mother had been defeated in some inner struggle, but I was the one who felt like a failure as I followed her into the house. I never got around to calling Jesse back. It kept slipping my mind—or maybe I was avoiding it, unsure of what to say. Now, as the thought steps around a corner and into my consciousness, it’s too late to say anything. I’m already here.
I parked in the lot outside the hotel, and my ears are still thawing from the walk to the door. I had to register at the front desk and pick up a preprinted nametag before I could gain access to the ballroom where the luncheon is being held.
The room is incredibly long, reminding me of those thin drawers that store cadavers. There’s a raised platform against the wall in the center, decorated with a black and white skirt. Similar hangings, draped loosely behind it, frame a podium embossed with the round “Heroes for Life” logo. Round tables speckle the floor like polka dots, and there are displays set up all along the outer walls. Everyone is dressed up, and as I merge with the crowd, I’m glad I wore my suit.
There’s only one person here I know, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to go looking for him just yet. Immersed in anonymity, I decide to take a while and just browse.
“Bern?”
I turn around. “No way.” My face breaks into a smile as Bridget Riley walks up to me. “What are you doing here?”
She gives me a hug. “Jesse invited me. Did you guys both win awards, or are you here for him too?”
“Me?” I fumble with my words as my thoughts veer. I had forgotten about their relationship. Bridget stands in front of me, eyes locked to mine, and I wrestle my mind back on track. “No, yeah, I’m just here for Jesse. But it does look like there were a few other contests besides the photography one. They’ve got a bunch of stuff on display.”
“Which table are you at?” She reaches out and lifts my nametag between two fingers, searching out a number in the corner that I hadn’t realized was there. “Eighteen. You’re with me.”
“That must be the Jesse table.” I cover the feeble comment with a grin. “Have you seen him yet?”
“No, not yet. I saw his winning photograph, though.”
“Where is it?”
She hooked her hand behind my elbow. “Come on, I’ll show you. It’s beautiful.” I felt her fingers slide down the sleeve of my jacket and then disappear as she pulled me after her and led the way toward the other end of the ballroom.
I don’t remember when I first met Bridget. It feels like her name has always been familiar to me. We’re from the same hometown, and even though we went to different high schools, we had a lot of overlapping friends. I’d see her at basketball games or hear her name come up in conversation, but we didn’t get to know each other personally until our first year of college. The two of us ended up in the same dormitory, so we would get rides home together now and then. A lot of people from our area would hang out on the weekends, especially during the first month or so when nobody had branched off and made new friends. I think it was in the second or third week of classes that I actually talked to Bridget for the first time. I was taking my clothes down to the laundry room, and she was in the empty elevator when I stepped inside.
It was a Tuesday, or maybe a Thursday. I remember because the first thing Bridget said was, “Guess we had the same idea. I figured today would be a good day for laundry.”
“A weekday afternoon,” I nodded. “Definitely not the prime time.”
I knew who she was, but I wasn’t sure if she knew me. Before I could decide whether or not to introduce myself, the elevator doors opened, and she stepped into the hallway. I followed her into the laundry room, and as I was heaping my clothes into an empty machine, I realized that I’d forgotten to grab my roll of quarters on the way out of my room.
I snuck a glance at Bridget. She seemed occupied with her white hamper, and I wondered what she would think if I loaded a washing machine and then left without turning it on. And if she saw me come back with the quarters, she’d understand my stupid oversight. I couldn’t allow that.
I calmly withdrew my cell phone and pretended to type a text message. My mind felt like a heat sensitive camera, constantly aware of Bridget’s presence in my peripheral vision. I didn’t dare look up and make eye contact, so I couldn’t tell exactly what she was doing—whatever it was, it was taking a long time.
I started to feel conspicuous, standing next to a half-loaded washing machine composing an imaginary novel on my phone. Surely, Bridget was growing suspicious.
At last, I admitted defeat. I fled the room, ran up the staircase, snatched my quarters as if they were to blame, and returned to the laundry room. Bridget was gone.
I didn’t see her again until she appeared at my table in the cafeteria one morning a few days later. “Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all.” I leaned back and gestured to the empty chair. “Please do.”
As long as I have control over my circumstances, I’m not an awkward person. I get along with people really well, and I have no trouble sustaining a conversation—I am in advertising, after all. I can read people and maneuver my questions to match their interests. I’ve always had a knack for coloring my words to complement the situation at hand. Unlike most people, whose personalities are clearly patterned, mine is bleached clean—bland at times, perhaps, but free to be doodled upon and matched to the person across from me.
When I was little, I used this ability for selfish purposes.
In elementary school, I made up games to play with other kids at recess. Equipped with my fierce imagination, I turned play structures into ice caves and woodchips into lava. “If the zombie touches you, you die, and you’re a zombie. Last person alive wins.”
I was never satisfied with the long-standing playground conventions. Mere “tag” was not good enough for us, and my friends agreed. I crafted games that were fun, with enough rules to make them dynamic but not so many that it got confusing. I think this is what earned me my success: I wasn’t the kid who changed the rules midway through the game when the tide turned against him. My rules were rigid and fair; as the creator, I was not exempt from them. I sensed—or maybe I learned, after a few failed attempts—that no one would play with me if I always won.
I’m still developing that instinct. When I enter conversations with people, I try to guess when they’re starting to get bored, and I save them the trouble of brushing me off by steering us to an endpoint on my own. That morning I had breakfast with Bridget in the cafeteria, I remember pacing myself so we finished eating at the same time.
This might not be such a healthy thing, though. Sometimes, I’m so careful not to step in other people’s way that I end up avoiding them before our paths even cross.
“You should come out with us on Friday,” Bridget said as we were clearing our trays. “You know Ashley and Emma and Joey and all them, right?”
“Yeah, I know them a little,” I said. “Where are you going?”
“I’m not sure yet. Joey’s brother might be having a party, so we’ll probably go there. You really should come with us. You’ll have a great time.” She looked at me earnestly, as if this were some sort of favor.
“Well, just let me know when you’re leaving.”
“I will. Thanks, Bern. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
As we walked out of the cafeteria, I wondered why she felt the need to be so convincing. I knew it couldn’t really make much of a difference whether or not I came with them—we barely knew each other. Did I come across as someone who needs to be coaxed out past midnight? Was I so transparent?
That Friday night, I responded to Bridget’s “We’re leaving from the lobby!” text with an apologetic refusal, citing my lab report as the reason I couldn’t go out with them. She seemed disappointed. I was sure she wasn’t.
“This weekend was ridiculous,” she told me on Monday during our math class. I hadn’t even known we were in the same section until she waved me over from across the lecture hall. “Ashley threw up on the futon. I had to wash it like three times yesterday. Did you get your lab report done?”
Monday swiftly developed into a routine. Bridget would sit down next to me and say, “How was your weekend, Bern?” and I would shrug. As our Survey of Calculus professor plodded through the notes, Bridget gave me the recap of Thursday night through Sunday morning. I was able to nod at the right moments, interject appropriate questions to prove my interest, and still copy every theorem and graph into my notebook.
Those Mondays remind me of a time back when online chatting first became popular. I was in fifth or sixth grade, and there was one day after school when I was carrying on separate conversations with five different kids at the same time. One of my friends was watching over my shoulder as I deftly clicked between screens and typed out rapidfire responses. It was like playing Space Invaders. “The coolest thing about this,” he laughed, “is that all these people think they’re the only one talking to you.” My adrenaline soared.
Juggling variables like this has always thrilled me. On the first day of my fourth grade gym class, our teacher took us outside to play capture-the-flag on the soccer field. He set up an orange cone at each goal line and divided us into two teams. There were only three rules: get the other team’s cone across the midline, return the cone to its starting point if you’re tagged by a defender, and no physical contact.
I positioned myself on defense. If someone picked up our cone, I cut them off at an angle and tagged them. I knew I could beat anyone in a sprint—especially if they were carrying a big cone—so it just came down to strategic positioning. And I knew how to get into position.
Gradually, more and more of my teammates trickled over to the other side of the field, bored by my efficient defending. After several minutes, I was the only defender remaining. No matter who picked up our cone, I intercepted them. I had it all figured out.
Then, the other kids started whispering. One of them grabbed the cone and started running, and the others mobbed me. “You can’t do that,” I said, trying to push through. “No physical contact. It’s the rules.”
Rules didn’t matter when the gym teacher had moved to the more eventful side of the field. All he saw was the cone crossing the line.
Being defeated in this way motivated me: I would win playing by the rules even if everyone else broke them.
I think this is part of the reason I started pushing myself in school. I sought out areas I could dominate. It didn’t matter what it was—art, spelling, basketball—I just wanted to be the best.
There was a boy in my class who would write poetry on notebook paper during class and pass it around at lunch. All the girls were taken by it, and I’d watch them huddle around the frayed piece of paper as if it had been etched by Moses. One day, I got my hands on one of these poems. The pencil marks were smudged, the paper wrinkled from being handled by too many impatient fingers, but its words were readable in their preteen scrawl.
I was not impressed. Clichés squatted at the end of each line, where rhymes stumbled to match each other, tripping over an uneven rhythm. It was as if this guy had bent his words over backwards and shoved them into place to keep them within poetic boundaries. I recognized the vague declarations that must have snared the girls, phrases such as “can’t breathe when you’re not here” and “drowning in an ocean of my own tears.” I imagined all these popular girls as baby birds, stretching their necks to get a mouthful of regurgitated goop.
“He’s so deep,” I overheard one of them say at recess, and I resolved to prove her wrong.
I went home that afternoon and carved a wrenching poem of my own. I counted each syllable, measured the stress of every word, and dug for unanticipated rhymes. By the time it got dark, I was convinced I had created a masterpiece. It was certainly better than anything my competitor had written.
When I woke up the next morning, though, I grew nervous. I had exposed myself on that page. How could I show this to anyone? The cushion of familiar clichés was absent, and the carefully crafted structure betrayed the many hours I’d spent writing. This couldn’t be read as something thrown together in history class. This was real.
I ended up leaving it on an empty lunch table and holding my breath for the rest of the day. If anyone read it, they never said a word.
Over time, I grew accustomed to these disappointments. When I was a sophomore in high school, I took an economics class that had upperclassmen in it. Near the end of the year, one of the seniors I was friends with said to me, “You need to bulk up a little, buddy.” He squeezed my arm. “Do a little lifting.”
At that moment, I realized that it didn’t matter if I had the highest test average. As long as I looked like a scrawny sophomore, I was still a sidekick.
Over the next year and a half, I worked out as much as I could. I lifted weights, ran on the track, and did crunches on my bedroom floor. By the time I graduated high school, I was in the best shape of my life. But I was still the same person.
I had thought that having thicker arms might make it easier to wrap them around someone’s waist, but even in college, my hands were as clunky as ever. I was always awestruck by Bridget’s ability to bump my elbow with just the right amount of force, by the way she walked and looked over her shoulder, and how easily she could get someone’s attention without even raising her voice.
These qualities are so visual, so physical. It seems like all my talents are buried. Occasionally, natural forces will erode a little of the surface, exposing the glint of what has been there all along, and the people around me will be surprised and impressed, mining my talents as if they are the first to have discovered them.
“I didn’t know you could draw,” Bridget said to me once, watching me sketch a caricature of her on the dry-erase refrigerator in her dorm room. “You’re a really good artist.”
Her roommate Ashley looked up and said, “Draw something for me too.”
It’s not that I’m bitter about having these invisible talents. When I was little, I got indignant when I wasn’t recognized. I wanted someone to give me a gold sticker for everything I was the best at, as if I was going to hoard them in a box and bring them out all at once to dazzle anyone who doubted me. As I grew older, I realized that the box was better kept closed. I learned that if I try to force these buried secrets to the surface, they’ll burn in the sun.
It wasn’t until the seventh grade that I understood why it was best to keep silent. Instead of sending us to recess one afternoon, our teachers said that we had to go to a “bonding exercise” in the gymnasium. When we filed in and set our backpacks down, I saw that the basketball court had been marked into three sections with lines of tape. Our teachers told us that all the kids with brown eyes had to sit in the first section, green or hazel in the second, and blue in the third.
After I took my place in the blue section and everyone had quieted down, the principal addressed us, explaining that the school had recently obtained the results of a new scientific study. It had been determined that the pigment resulting in brown eye color had a direct correlation to better decision-making skills and maturity in teenagers, whereas the pigment for blue eyes indicated the opposite. As a result of these findings, the students with brown eyes were to be given candy, and the students with blue eyes were prohibited from speaking. As the other teachers turned on some music and started passing out treats in the brown section, the principal told us that there would be consequences for any blue-eyed student who talked, crossed the boundary of the section, or was otherwise disruptive.
I was instantly skeptical. Why hadn’t the school notified our parents of this new study? What kind of study was this, anyway? Before we came down to the gym, our teacher had described the recess replacement as “bonding,” not a segregation exercise. And what in the world did eye pigment have to do with decision-making?
It took me about fifteen seconds to realize what was going on. As some of the other kids in my section dissolved into tears, I identified the strategy. The school must have been trying to demonstrate the harmful effects of bullying. When the hour was up, they were probably going to tell us that the study was a fake, that everyone was really equal on the inside, but did we understand now how hurtful it is when we discriminate against one another?
I was sickened, half because I had almost been fooled by the combination of the principal’s grave tone, the intimidating taped-down prison lines, and the silent submission of my peers. That silence was what accounted for the other half. I was horrified to see blue-eyed kids crying as if their deepest insecurities had at last been confirmed, brown-eyed kids throwing candy wrappers into the air in heartless celebration, and green-eyed kids watching with blank expressions, accepting this new truth without a single apparent impulse of thought.
Gradually, I felt my spirit dribble back into my body. I had identified the situation. I was aware of my boundaries. But I wanted to show those teachers that I, and I alone, had them figured out.
Breaking the rules, even if they were deliberately unjust ones, did not even cross my mind. In silence, I crawled toward the edge of our small section, where my backpack was just barely within reach.
As I unzipped the pocket and pulled out my notebook, one of my classmates poked me. She widened her eyes and shook her head, glancing over her shoulder at the teachers. I could see how scared she was, so I leaned toward her and whispered, “It’s okay. It’s not real. It’s just a bullying thing.”
She drew back as if she hadn’t heard me, and I was energized to put a halt to this ridiculous experiment. I tore out two notebook pages, uncapped a marker, and wrote a large word on each makeshift sign: “NOT FAIR.”
Holding one in each hand, I stood up.
Pairs of eyes drifted my way like grass bending in the wind.
The girl pulled my leg and tried to make me sit down, but I held my ground as the principal approached.
He stood across from me on the other side of the piece of tape. This man, who controlled our permanent records and could expel us with the flick of his wrist, moved his face within inches of mine.
He snatched the signs out of my hands.
“One more rule,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. He ripped the two notebook pages down the middle. “No writing.” The shreds fluttered to the ground. “Five hundred word essay, young man. And if anyone else breaks the rules, it’ll be a thousand.”
I almost broke then. Even if they hadn’t succeeded in making me believe in their pretend research, the school had slapped me down with their “no bullying” message.
As I sat down again, my fear precipitated into resentment. If this is the game they were playing, I wasn’t going to let them win.
So I started whispering. Whenever the teachers turned their heads, I would tell one more kid, “This isn’t real. It’s a bullying thing. My cousin told me they do it every year.” None of the rules said No Lying.
It didn’t take long for the rumor to spread, and even though a lot of kids remained stricken with terror, a lot of them seemed to open their eyes.
I passed around sheets of notebook paper and markers. We disguised our signs behind other kids’ backs. We mouthed encouragement to each other when no one was looking. When I stood up to raise my new banner, there were at least a dozen other kids who did the same.
The principal stormed over, followed by one of the teachers and everyone’s faces.
He put his hands on his hips and glared at us, shaking his head. “You leave me no choice.” Everyone was silent. I wasn’t afraid anymore. He signaled to the other teachers. “Turn off the music.”
After they explained everything to us, the teachers asked us how the exercise made us feel. “I felt bad for the blue-eyed kids,” said one of the girls in the brown section. “I wanted to give them some candy, but we couldn’t.”
I rolled my eyes as a bunch of other students nodded their heads. I didn’t believe her for a second. Five minutes ago, this girl had been dancing with her hands in the air. I didn’t believe any of them, and I didn’t think they learned anything either, even after the question and answer session was concluded and we dispersed into the hallway.
As we were walking back to the classrooms, my homeroom teacher came up next to me. “I think you were being very disrespectful in there,” she said as we walked up a set of steps. “The school works very hard to make activities like this meaningful, and you undermined that.”
It still amazes me how quickly the floor can fall through.
No matter how confident I am, how certain of my position, I can be toppled by a few well-placed sentences.
In fact, the more I build myself up, the easier it is to tip me over. Maybe I just have a tendency to let my head grow too big. People can’t resist poking it and watching as it deflates.
This is why I learned to lock up my triumphs in a box. I listened to them roll around in the back of my head, these secret eggs that shone gold when I peered down at them in private. As for everyone else, they were happier not knowing.
I trapped the spirit of a ruthless competitor in a jar and hid it behind my eyes. My cousin tells me I give away my thoughts in my eyes sometimes. He says he can tell when I’m bored or curious. I’m not sure if I believe him, because he often guesses wrong.
My eyes work the other way. They see everything, can identify weakness and appreciate strength. My eyes observe what other people overlook while they’re busy moving their lips. I can see when a person is ready to end a conversation, but I can also see when they want to ask a question. I notice where they hesitate—when they’re struggling for a word, I can fill it in for them. I can make them believe that what they’re saying is important.
When I’m around another person, I try to figure out what makes them funny or shy or mean. If I can’t, then I know that they’re worth being friends with, because this means that they too have a spirit behind their eyes.
Sometimes I want to tell people what I see in them, but that would be unthinkable.
I’m fine with only telling them what I see in other things.
“I can understand why the panel chose this picture,” I say to Bridget as we stand side by side in front of a section of white wall that looks like it was transplanted from an art museum. A blown-up print of Jesse’s winning photograph is its only feature. “It’s incredible.”
“It’s beautiful.”
In shades of black and white, an old man with glasses stares into the distance above the camera. The angle is close enough to see all the wrinkles in his face, and even though the wheels are partially cropped from view, the man’s wheelchair is easily visible. Small fingers wrap around the handles on either side of his head. A small, smooth head peeps out from behind the chair. The little boy is unsmiling, straining up on his tip-toes, his face displaying the focus of an adult. The blurred background might be a hospital hallway, perhaps one of the corridors of the Children’s Hospital itself. I wonder to myself if Jesse volunteers there, or if he visited for the sole purpose of capturing this photograph.
I look into the old man’s glasses. There’s a shadow across them, and I let myself imagine that it’s Jesse’s reflection, crouched down on one knee, his camera held steady against his face, a single eye looking through and seeing that this is something special. You'll probably have to copy/paste them into a document, because they're hard to read here on the forum. >_> |
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