Hold Still Part 15

"It was undoubtedly the most humiliating moment of my life."

Dylan keeps squinting and then smiles wide.

"I'm sorry," she says, "I know it's not funny, I'm sorry. But why why?"

"I don't know. I was just lonely, I guess." I peel a strip off an old flyer stapled to the pole, advertising a garage sale that happened last weekend. I stuff the strip into my hand and peel another.

I try again: "So, we'll go over together, right? On Friday?"

I don't look at Dylan, just peel off another strip. It says HOUSEHOLD appliances! FURNITURE! KNICK-KNACKS! I wait for her to answer.

She doesn't say anything.

I pry a staple out of the wood.

"I really want to see Maddy act," I say.

I try to remember what Maddy said about the light, the aura. I crumple the paper into a ball and put it in my pocket.

Finally, Dylan sighs. "Look," she says. "I don't want to make a huge thing out of this, but I like to be direct about things. I don't know what happened to you at lunch that day, but I have a feeling that it had to do with Ingrid. So, I just want to make this clear: I'm not a replacement for her. If you're trying to make that happen, our friendship isn't going to work. It's not what I want, and it shouldn't be what you want, either."

I sit down next to her. She's looking at me in the way only she can, with all this intensity, not self-conscious at all.

"That's not what I want," I say. Dylan doesn't respond, so I know I have to try harder.

"Remember that day when I showed you the theater?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"You told me that you chose me to be your friend."

"Okay," she says, half defensive, half embarra.s.sed. she says, half defensive, half embarra.s.sed.

"Well," I say. "It's my turn. I choose you."

"What?"

"I choose you. You're my friend now. If I have to stalk you at your locker and, like, beg beg you to go eat with me after school, and trespa.s.s in your backyard, I will." you to go eat with me after school, and trespa.s.s in your backyard, I will."

Dylan rolls her eyes, but when she smiles, her intensity fades into something warmer. "Fine."

"So we'll eat lunch together tomorrow. Preferably not in the bathroom, because even though it's really nice in there, I could use a change of scene."

"But wait," Dylan says, all sarcastically. "If memory serves me correctly, school bathrooms are some of my favorite places."

"If Maddy comes out here one day, you guys can make out in there all you want, but I'd like to eat on the soccer field."

"Okay, fair." Dylan nods.

"And we're going to the play on Friday."

"Fine, but you should ask Taylor because Maddy and I are going to want to hang out after."

"Oh." I nod knowingly. "Hang out." "Hang out."

"You may need to be entertained."

"Okay," I say.

"Okay." She nods. "Good."

16.

After dinner on Sunday night, the phone rings.

"h.e.l.lo, is this Caitlin?" a woman asks.

"Yeah?"

"Caitlin, this is Veena."

The phone suddenly seems heavy.

"Veena Delani."

"Oh," I manage. "Hi."

"I wonder if I could schedule a meeting with you for Monday. Before cla.s.s, or during break. There's something I'd like to discuss with you."

"I'm sorry about sneaking in," I say. "I won't do it anymore."

"That's not what I want to meet with you about."

"Oh," I say. "Well, I didn't want to look at myself like that."

"Sorry?" she asks.

"That's why I didn't turn in a self-portrait."

She says, "Yes, I had noticed that you missed the a.s.signment. To be honest, I'm worried about your standing in the cla.s.s in general."

I don't really know what to say to that, so I don't say anything. "So, when can you meet?"

"I guess before cla.s.s would work," I say.

"Seven-thirty?"

"Okay."

I hang up the phone. I stand in my room and look at my walls, at the picture of Ingrid by the reservoir, at all the magazine ads I cut out because I thought the photography was amazing.

17.

When I walk into advanced photo early Monday morning, Ms. Delani looks up from her desk and actually smiles.

I want to say, Just tell me, just get it over with: I'm actually going to fail photography Just tell me, just get it over with: I'm actually going to fail photography.

She gestures to the chair on the other side of her desk. I do as told, and sit.

She says, "Caitlin, we've gotten off to a rough start this year, haven't we?"

I shrug. She's looking at me, patiently. I'm starting to wonder where this conversation will go.

"To be honest, I was hoping that you wouldn't take my cla.s.s again." Her eyes are intent behind her thin-framed, red gla.s.ses, and as her words register I feel completely numb, like all my blood is being replaced with ice. There isn't anything I can say to her. I want to disappear.

"Have you ever wanted to be a teacher?" she asks casually, as if she hasn't just ripped my heart out.

I manage to shake my head no. I don't know if I will ever speak again.

She leans back in her chair. I want her to stop looking at me. I want to sink into the floor, find somewhere dark and cold, and never come out.

"As a teacher, you dream of finding the perfect student, the most promising student." I stare at the floor and nod. "It's partially selfish, really. We, as teachers, like to think that we play an integral role in our students' development. We dream of being that one teacher that people remember all their lives, the one who inspired them to achieve great things."

I keep nodding.

"I found that student in Ingrid."

I stop.

"Then I lost her."

I feel like dirt. My face burns.

"I'll drop the cla.s.s if you want me to. I can transfer into study hall."

She shakes her head. She says, "Let me finish. I was lucky. I found two two students." students."

She's leaning on her desk toward me. "The other one was you."

"Yeah, right," I say. "You think my work is s.h.i.t."

"Why would you say that?"

"Just look up," I say. "You stuck my picture in the corner, as out of the way as possible."

"I see that my lesson on how the eye moves through a piece of art wasn't very memorable," she says. "When someone looks at something, the eye is immediately drawn to the top left corner. Ingrid's three photographs are in the center because they are the most complex and evocative. I wanted people to linger on them. But yours is in the left corner because it is immediately striking, and I wanted people to see it first when they walked into the cla.s.sroom."

This lesson sounds vaguely familiar, but I still don't know if I believe her.

"Ingrid's natural talent surpa.s.sed that of any student I've ever had. She turned photographs in to me all the time, almost every day, photographs that weren't even a.s.signed. She had pa.s.sion, ambition. I was certain that she would make it in the art world." I want to say, So was I, So was I, but Ms. Delani doesn't pause long enough to let me. but Ms. Delani doesn't pause long enough to let me.

"But you," she says. "You are growing so much. Even though you don't want me to see it. I went back to the darkroom on Sat.u.r.day, after you'd gone. I saw the print you left drying. That was excellent work, Caitlin. Not only was it technically impressive-that you could capture the house at night, show the darkness without compromising the detail-but it told a story. In the dead of night, two lights are on in a house. In a window, a woman's silhouette. It makes me wonder what is happening in that house, why the woman isn't sleeping, who is taking the photograph, why she isn't inside . . .

"Stay here," she says, and retreats into her back office. She comes out carrying a large frame. I can only see the back.

"I don't know if Ingrid told you, but I convinced her to enter a national student photography contest. It was only a few weeks before she took her life."

"No," I say. "I didn't know that," and as I say it I feel flooded with bitterness at all the things Ingrid kept secret from me.

"She had gathered somewhere that judges look down at portraits, that it's considered more artistic not to photograph people, so at first she submitted that sweet shot of the hill. I like that photograph; I don't think it's her strongest strongest image, but I like it. Anyway, on the morning of the deadline, she changed her mind and came to me with this." image, but I like it. Anyway, on the morning of the deadline, she changed her mind and came to me with this."

Ms Delani lifts the frame and turns it to face me. It's a large print, black-and-white, of me in my messy room. The lighting is very dramatic, mostly dim except for the light my floor lamp casts on me, sitting in the corner. Around me are all of my magazine clippings tacked up on the walls, and my books and CDs and clothes are strewn across the floor. My bedspread is rumpled; the top of my chest of drawers is covered with papers and clothes. I'm staring at the camera with a look that says, Stop looking Stop looking.

I stare harder at the face in the photograph. Is it possible that I've ever looked this intense?

"Look," Ms. Delani says, and hands me a certificate. "She won."

The certificate says, First Prize: First Prize: Caitlin in her room, Caitlin in her room, by Ingrid Bauer by Ingrid Bauer.

"I have so many photographs of you, photographs that I will never throw away. Some of them are like this one. You're very self-aware, very cognizant of being watched, but in others you aren't. She took them from across a room, or outside at a distance. You're bent over a desk, reading, or walking with your back to her, or laughing at someone else's joke. Or simply lost in thought. There are even some of you sleeping. I don't know if you realize the extent to which you inspired her. All of these photographs that she took of you . . . they fill a drawer drawer in my office." in my office."

I try to grasp what she's saying. I knew that Ingrid took a lot of pictures of me, but she took a lot of pictures of everything. She always had her camera. She was always pointing it at something.

She says, "Her suicide shook me deeply. It changed so much about how I view myself, the work I do with all of you."

She sighs.

"How can I explain this?" she murmurs.

"What was it you two wrote . . ." She settles into her chair, takes her gla.s.ses off, and places them on the table. " ' Picture Ms. Delani pouring spoiled milk down her drain. Picture her getting a physical. Picture her emptying her cat's litter box.' "

My throat tightens, but she smiles.

"I found one of your notes. I always wondered what you two wrote about so intently."

"I'm sorry," I say. "It was this stupid thing we did. You just always seemed so perfect."