Friday went by, and the weekend, and two more days, and Tillie successfully dodged Jake. She did everything possible to avoid him at school. She waited outside in the mornings until the majority of kids had entered the building, arriving a little late to her class, just so she wouldn’t see him before first hour. She took alternate routes to her classes to make sure she didn’t pass his locker. She ate lunch in the math teacher’s room, where kids were welcome if they wanted to do homework. She scribbled random numbers into her notebook.
And then, on Wednesday at lunchtime, Abby stopped her in the hall.
“Where have you been?” she asked. “Come eat with us.”
Before Tillie could protest, Abby added, “And hey, is Jake okay? Seriously. He’s been at your old table all week.”
Really? She could hardly imagine it.
“Oh,” Tillie said. “I actually really don’t know.”
Abby shrugged. “Okay.” She linked her arm through Tillie’s and walked her toward the cafeteria.
As Tillie made her way into the lunchroom with Abby, she saw Jake seated where she used to sit, slouched over his tray, headphones on. She didn’t have to worry about catching his eye because his focus stayed entirely downward.
When they joined the group at the table, Abby started asking Tillie about when she got into photography. As Tillie haltingly began to tell the story about her grandpa and the Polaroids she heard someone say “Jake” from a little ways down the table. Tillie paused to listen.
“He’s over there at the Lost and Found table,” she heard Ian say.
“Yeah, is he the new Lost and Found or something?” Emma said.
“Maybe he’ll come in tomorrow lugging a weird old camera,” Ian said.
The group of them laughed.
Abby turned to Tillie, and then back to her crowd. “She’s right here, guys! Can we get a little respect?”
“Oh, hey, Tillie,” Ian said. “We were just messing around. No hurt feelings, right?”
Tillie ate her grapes and meatloaf in silence. She couldn’t escape to her old table because it wasn’t hers anymore. Her cafeteria hideout had been stolen.
Abby leaned in to whisper in her ear. “News flash—Ian is kind of a jerk.” She nudged Tillie’s shoulder and smiled. Tillie did her best to smile back.
She tried to ignore Jake, even though he was all she could think about.
She promised herself she would never eat lunch in the cafeteria again.
* * *
In Tillie’s first art class since her fight with Jake, Ms. Martinez talked them through a watercolor of an orange and an apple. “Use a thick brush to create the background space, covering your canvas. Use a small brush to add detail. Pay attention to the light. Don’t be afraid to mess up. Colors are malleable.”
The fruit bowl sat in the center of the room and the kids worked on stained wooden easels the school must have been using for two decades.
Tillie fantasized about spending the class pretending to draw the apple and orange and then when they turned their easels around to show what they’d done, she would reveal a painting of Ms. Martinez kissing Jake’s dad.
As Ms. Martinez walked past Tillie’s canvas she said, “Good job.” But it was like an outline of “Good job,” with none of the color it usually had.
Tillie forced herself to look up at Ms. Martinez and act like everything was normal.
“Thanks,” she started to say, but as she took in Ms. Martinez’s face, she stopped. Ms. Martinez’s eyes were glued on her, as if she’d just been waiting for the chance to share one small, private glance, and her expression told Tillie that she knew everything. Her brow furrowed, not in anger, but in an awful mixture of sadness and disappointment. She pointed toward her glasses and said, “Got them back,” in a low, deliberate voice. Then she shook her head slightly, as if shooing away some unpleasant thought, and moved on to the next student’s work.
So she knew what Tillie had seen. Who else knew? Had Jake confronted his parents? Had Jake’s dad told Ms. Martinez about the girl at his office? It didn’t really matter. It was done.
When the bell rang, Tillie rushed out of the room without looking at Ms. Martinez’s face.
* * *
Her dad—never home right after school—was in her room. Waiting for her.
He sat on her bed, surrounded by pictures.
“Matilda…” he said when she opened the door. He didn’t look at her. His eyes were fixed on the images before him, toppling over his thighs and onto the bed. Some were on the floor.
She wanted to say, “Whatever the teacher or grown-up who called you said is wrong. I didn’t do anything, I was just trying to help someone.” But she didn’t. She couldn’t. All she managed to say was, “Why aren’t you at work? Where’s Mom?”
Tillie’s dad didn’t respond.
And then another possibility occurred to her. Maybe, after all this time, he had discovered her photos’ worth, their beauty. Maybe he wasn’t mad about the search for Jake’s dad. Maybe he was too awed to speak.
“I find things for people, with my camera.” She’d always wanted to tell him this. “They call me Lost and Found.” She nodded toward the puddle of photographs.
She forced a small laugh, as if to signal it was no big deal. At the same time, she checked his face to see if there was any reaction. But he remained blank.
So she stood still and waited. Her leg was starting to hurt from standing in one place for too long. Her dad picked up a picture and then put it back down.
“Dad…” She came toward him to sit on the bed.
But before she got there, her dad lifted up a picture. He stared right at her, with a tight mouth and a locked jaw. He turned the image toward Tillie. Her dad held a picture of himself, with a tiny flash of her mom’s cheek. It was a photo she’d taken through the keyhole in their bedroom door. A close-up of his face. In the photograph his face was absent of feeling in that way a face gets when a person becomes overwhelmed and needs to just shut down. It was a photo Tillie had spent a lot of time looking at, wondering if he was thinking of her and her leg, or her mom, or something else—some mysterious something else that made him so unknowable.
She looked at the photograph and then back at him.
“What is this?”
“A picture,” Tillie whispered.
There was a long pause.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“You know I use my camera a lot,” Tillie said, trying to make her voice light. She wished she could say, “You know I love my camera more than anything.”
“You’ve been looking at your mom and me? When we’re in private?”
She couldn’t speak.
Her dad stood up and began to pace. His voice, which rarely held much expression in it at all, boomed and filled the room.
“Your mom made me come in here. To see what might be true about a call from that boy’s mother.”
So Jake had told his mother he knew. His mother had told his dad. His dad had told Ms. Martinez about the office showdown and with the details from Jake’s mom she must have put it all together. Tillie cursed Jake in her head.
“And this is what I find,” he went on. “Me and your mother.” He paused and stopped in place, shaking his head at all that lay before him. “And so much of me…” He bent and sifted through some pictures on the bed. Tillie saw that it was the “Dad” file.
“Talk about invading privacy,” Tillie said under her breath.
“So I’ll ask you again. What is the meaning of this?”
Tillie tried to remember the last time he’d been in her room this long.
“I love to take pictures.” Tillie’s voice shook. The pain in her back and leg had tripled since the morning. “Like Vivian Maier. I Googled her, Dad.” Tillie paused, waiting for something, anything. “I could be as good as her one day,” she added desperately.
Tillie’s dad looked her up and down. “I can’t believe this.” He put his hand to his head. “You’re nearly thirteen years old, and all you do is watch other people. Like a … a stalker.”
Tillie’s mouth parted, but no sound came out.
“I’m so sorry, Tillie. I’m so sorry for what I did to you,” he said. He started to walk out of the room, but he stopped when he was next to her and said, “But this has to stop. No more camera. No more pictures. Nothing. You’re not okay.”