Was I? I glanced down at my jeans and oversized gray hoodie. What about me made me just anything? Falling asleep? I’d been up a bit late looking over the entries to the Ansel Adams Awards. Nature and conservation photography fascinated me, yet it was hard to catch that sort of thing without leaving the familiarity of my suburb.
“I just thought it would be easy to be straightforward?” I shrugged. “Ask him out. Talk to him yourself. He’s just a guy. Even if the camera likes him.” I glanced at the digital alarm clock on her nightstand. Almost seven. I’d have to get home and make sure I was ready for tomorrow’s shoot.
“Lucas doesn’t date. He says he’s too busy working and keeping his grades up. He tells every girl the same thing, like it’s his mantra or something.”
“Then why are you worried? He probably told Alice the same thing.”
“I heard from a friend of Alice that he was asking questions about me,” Jenny said.
I hated gossip. It was a bad game of telephone and always wrong. “Okay. Again, I say ask him. Maybe he needs a study partner. You’re one of the smartest girls in school.”
“I don’t want to be smart. I want to be pretty and popular.”
“Did you really just say that?”
She sighed. “You know what I mean. It doesn’t have to be Lucas. But I want a guy to look at me like I’m a girl.”
“You are a girl. How do guys not look at you like you’re a girl?” Was there a different way to look at a girl versus a guy? “I’m questioning my whole existence now. Do I look at you wrong?”
She put her hands on her hips. “What do you see when you look at me?”
I shrugged. “Jenny?”
“And what do I look like?”
“Jenny,” I said again looking her over. We weren’t all that much different. Both in jeans and a hoodie, around the same height, slender, not curvy, long hair, hers a bit darker than mine and tinted orange. She didn’t wear glasses, but I guess that meant people saw more of her face. Boy versus girl. I didn’t see much of a difference. “Jenny?”
She growled. “I mean, am I pretty, Tory? Would you date someone like me if you dated anyone at all?”
“Sure,” I agreed. Would I? I had no idea. Dating was as foreign as this whole gossip thing to me.
Jenny paced the room, and Cherry in her cage did the same, racing back and forth like she was mimicking her person. I swallowed a laugh when Jenny threw me a withering look. “The spring dance is in a few weeks. I’d like to go with someone other than you this time.”
Ouch. I’d only gone to homecoming with her because she’d asked. I’d have rather stayed home. “Okay.”
“Okay? You don’t want to go to the dance with some pretty girl?”
“I don’t want to go to the dance at all. Everyone sort of sways like zombies in the movies before they eat your brains. The music is too loud, and the lighting isn’t even good enough to get usable photos.” I got up and stretched, my back popping a few times. “I need to get home before my mom freaks.”
Jenny crossed her arms over her chest. “I really wanted to go dress shopping with you this weekend.”
“I know nothing about dresses,” I pointed out.
“But you’d tell me if it looks dumb. Not smile and lie.”
“Shayla loves shopping with you.” And gossip. “No Tory needed for dress adventures.”
She sighed. “Can I at least send you pictures? You can tell me which you like best?”
“Sure, but I won’t get to them until after the shoot.”
“Okay.” She smiled and hugged me. Everyone liked to hug me. It was a strange thing I never quite understood. “Thanks, Tory.”
“Anytime.” She let me go, and I waved goodbye to her parents, letting myself out and heading for home. The walk home, all of four blocks, was quiet. With the camera slung over my back I stalked toward home examining the change in the coming evening sky. The wash of colors pretty, but also hard to capture. The photos never turned out the way I saw them in real life. People were easier, their angles and contrasts of negative and positive space a good focal center, but I was working on that with my aunt a lot.
I looked forward to the weekends, as I finished my homework in study hall to keep that time free. No parties or weekends out with my friends. I’d rather spend that time behind the camera. Tomorrow’s shoot was going to be long, eight in the morning until after one p.m. if everything went according to schedule, and very little in photography went according to schedule. As my aunt Patricia’s assistant, I worked to keep everyone moving, but sometimes people were late, didn’t show, or suddenly got cold feet.
Her car was in the drive as I walked up. The sound of voices trickling to me before I opened the door. Mom rambling about some new art project the museum had picked up. Sponsorships, and attracting visitors was necessary to the success of each exhibit. The two were alike, but Patty was my dad’s sister.
