Five boys sitting on the floor check out my legs when Elisabeth and I walk in. A DJ with headphones is bouncing to the beat. Leave it to Ashley to hire a DJ. A mass of Ashley’s friends huddle together, half-dancing, half-laughing. It smells of shampoo and pot. Shane and Ashley have their arms around each other. His hand sits on her behind. A girl I only sort of know hands me a beer, and I thank her. I take my first swig.
In the far corner, laughing with Ry, stands Jason.
“You look awesome,” a girl from art class wearing pigtails says. “You should dress like that more often.”
“Thanks,” I say. I left Dad’s wearing jeans, which are now stuffed inside my purse. I didn’t want to chance an argument about it. Not tonight. I keep one eye on Jason.
“Are you submitting for the contest this year?” she asks.
“Maybe,” I say.
“But aren’t you, like, Ruth’s pride and joy?”
I shrug. She’s starting to annoy me.
“I’m not,” I say when she rolls her eyes.
“You should be proud,” she says. “It means you’re good at art.”
“Whatever,” I say. But the truth is she’s hit my panic button. Only two more months until the deadline. I take another swig and look for Jason, who’s slipped out of sight.
A few hours and two beers later, though, we almost crash into each other.
“Hey, camera girl,” he says. He’s drunk. “Can I call you that?”
“You can call me whatever you want,” I whisper in his ear. I’m a little drunk myself.
Jason takes me by the hand. He pulls me through the crowd and up the stairs. I am all hands. I am all that hand. The one Jason’s holding. The one Jason Reilly is finally holding.
“Hey, camera girl,” he says again, once we are behind a door. This time he says it up close, near my lips. I close my eyes and feel his warm lips as they reach mine. His hands move down my back to my waist, and then they crawl up again, under my shirt, until they find my bra. He unsnaps it: a pro, but I won’t let myself think about that. Instead I focus on the smell of him: beer and laundry detergent. And the fact that it is perfectly quiet, except for the sound of our breath and the muffled beat of music in a party full of people far away.
He pulls away before I want him to, leaving me breathless, my arms itching to have him back. He smiles, but he’s looking elsewhere. And, in a second, he’s gone again, down the stairs, back into the party, another bottle of beer in his hand. He’s laughing with Ry. He doesn’t notice when I come back to the party, my bra re-snapped, my feet three inches off the ground, and my lips tingling.
In the taxi on the way back to Dad’s apartment, Elisabeth stares out the window. I know she’s mad. I, on the other hand, am euphoric. Our friendship, actually, is getting to be a real drag. Finally she looks at me.
“I can’t believe you,” she says.
“Is it so hard to believe that Jason might really like me?”
“Yes,” she says. “Because he’s a bona fide jerk.”
“You don’t know him,” I tell her.
“And you do?”
“I’m getting to know him,” I say. I think of his scent, and a wave of joy passes through my throat. “You wouldn’t understand,” I say, and as soon as I’ve said it, I know it was a mistake.
“Why?” she says. “Because no boy has ever been interested in me?”
I don’t say anything.
“Is that what you’re saying?” she asks.
I still say nothing.
“Screw you,” she says. It’s almost a swearword, which means we’re officially in a fight. But after being kissed by Jason Reilly I feel as if nothing can penetrate me. It’s like he put an invisible shield over my body with his wandering hands. And I find that I don’t care what Elisabeth thinks. I don’t care one bit.
I wake the next morning to the sound of coffee grinding. I pick my head off the pillow and look around. Anne is already out of bed, nowhere to be seen. Dana is in the kitchen, without Dad. She’s in sweatpants and a T-shirt, and her hair is in a ponytail. She looks barely older than me.
“Did I wake you?” she says when she sees me.
I shrug. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Come in here.”
I glimpse the clock on the wall: 10:15.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
“Robert and Anne are at the grocery store,” she says. It takes me a moment to catch that Robert is Dad. Mom used to call him “Dad.” Now she calls him “your father.” Everyone else calls him Bob. Dana smiles at me. “It’s just you and me.”
I nod. Let the good times begin, I think. Another part of me frowns. Be nice, this part warns.
“So,” I say, heeding the warning. “Where did you and Dad meet?”
Dana smiles to herself as she pours the water into the coffeemaker.
“Your dad was very romantic,” she says.
My dad? I doubt that.
“He left a bouquet of daisies at my desk.”
“You work with him?”
“I’m a graphic designer at Howe Advertising,” she says. The same company where Dad’s an ad exec.
I watch her as she pulls down two mugs from the cabinet. Graphic design means she’s artistic. I guess I hadn’t pegged her as creative. But then, I hadn’t really pegged her as anything. I feel a little guilty since this is the first time I’ve asked her anything about herself.
“Robert tells me you’re a photographer,” she says.
“I try,” I say.
She pours coffee into the mugs and holds up the cream and sugar. I nod to both. “I’d like to see some of your work,” she says.
“I could do that,” I say. I take the steaming mug from her.
“My real love is painting,” she tells me. I lean against the counter and blow on the coffee, wanting to hear more. “I’ve been using oils since I was your age.”
“Do you still?” I ask.
“Whenever I can.” She leans against the opposite counter. “It’s hard to fit into a forty-hour week. But I make time. I have to,” she says, looking at me more intensely. “You know?”
I nod. I do know. Dad and Anne burst in the door with bags of groceries. Dad sees us standing together in the kitchen.
“How nice to see two of my three favorite girls communing in my kitchen,” he says, smiling. I take my mug and head back into the living room. He makes it sound as though I’m some little kid. But Dana was talking to me as her equal. Like I could understand what really matters in life. I liked it.
On Monday I see Jason near his locker. Josh, Shane, and Ashley are there too. I comb my fingers through my hair and walk by, doing my best impression of someone who is at ease with the fact that Jason Reilly kissed her, and now here he is again, ripe for the picking.
“Hey,” I say
He turns around. “Oh,” he says. “Hey.”
His friends are silent. The air, a second ago vibrating with possibility, goes flat and still.
“How’s it going?” I ask.
Jason shrugs.
An eternity passes. Then, his lips, the lips that kissed me, say, “Is there anything else? Because we’re kind of talking about something here.”
“No,” I say. I make a beeline for the girls’ bathroom. My face is burning. I feel like I might throw up. As soon as I get there, I lean against the wall and press my forehead to it. Right at my eye level someone has written, TIFFANY DOES IT DOGGIE STYLE.
“What’s the matter?”
I turn my head to see Elisabeth there. Perfect.
“I thought you weren’t talking to me,” I say.
“I’m talking to you if something bad has happened,” she says. “I’m still your best friend. Your codependent best friend,” she adds with a half smile.
I drop my hands, relieved. I do need a friend right now.
“You promise you won’t say ‘I told you so’?”
Elisabeth takes my hands and walks me to the sink. “Oh, no,” she says. “What did that jerk-off do?”
In the mirror I look horrible. My face is red. My eyes are watery. No wonder he doesn’t like me. She turns on the cold water and puts a cool, wet hand on my forehead. She always knows exactly what I need.
“He treated me like garbage.” I close my eyes, focusing on Elisabeth’s hands, remembering his hands. My throat aches. “I like him so much,” I whisper.
Elisabeth, bless her heart, says nothing.
When I get home, I call Ted.
I sit on my bed. The door is closed so Anne won’t hear.
“I’m not gorgeous,” I say.
“That’s your opinion.”
I wait, hoping he’ll say more.
“I want to see you,” he says.
“Meet me at the end of my street.”
After we hang up, I stand before the mirror. I am not quite as horrible as I was before. I try to see what Ted sees. I try to see “gorgeous.” I pull my hair up, yank a few strands down to frame my face. I turn my face to the side. I can almost see it.
Fifteen minutes later I’m in his car, and his lips are on mine, erasing Jason’s.
“Let’s go to my place,” he whispers.
“Not yet,” I say.
“Come on.” He pulls me into him, kissing my neck.
“No,” I say. “Not yet.”
His hands wander my skin, sliding beneath my bra straps. “You’re a tease,” he says. I think he’s making a joke, but I take it under advisement.
In the darkroom I make prints of my self-portraits and dip them in the fixing bath. I hang the photographs, all twenty-four, and wait for them to show themselves. One by one they come to light, and one by one I see I have failed again. Some look like Sears portraits. Others resemble glamour shots. All of them show a girl with nothing unique to say. More time wasted. I close my eyes, letting the world go away for a moment. I wonder what’s happened, why I can’t seem to take a worthwhile photo of myself. I used to not have to think, just lift my camera and snap the shutter, confident I would find whatever was worth seeing. Now I can’t even find myself.
Tiffany is the only other person on the late bus. She sees me near the back when she walks on, and sits in the front row. From where I sit, I can see her profile. She has dark curly hair and a petite nose. She’s kind of pretty, actually. She pulls her history book from her bag and looks down at it. The driver starts up the motor. It is quiet, and I feel sort of bad, like maybe I should say something. Maybe I should be nice to her, unlike everybody else. After all, we used to sing songs from the radio together. We vowed we’d start a band when we grew up. I imagine moving to sit next to her and telling her about my walks and Ted. I imagine telling her the things I’ve been holding on to, afraid to let out. Things that, if I think about them too long, make me feel nervous and out of control. Because, of all the people I know, maybe Tiffany will understand and won’t squint with disgust or decide I’ve lost my mind. Maybe, after all Tiffany has endured, she will know what it’s like to want badly for someone to love her and not know a better way to get it. I imagine this conversation all the way to her stop, when she puts her book back in the bag and steps down from the bus, unaware I’ve been thinking about her at all.