“Psst,” he murmurs as we spin, “what’s with the sofa hiding behind curtains?”
“For sipping drinks and swapping scandalous stories, of course.”
Grandpa snorts. “Most of these guys are divorced, widowed, or lifelong flirts. You better head there regularly with a torch to keep things PG.”
Behind us, a tinkering laugh. “Let’s see if you still got it. Foxtrot with me, you coward.”
Grandpa halts after another spin, breath coming a little harder. I quickly hand him back his stick. He leans on it, smirking.
“Photo station,” he declares. His gaze twinkles as it lands on me. “There’s no photo of you in the hall.”
A lump lodges in my throat. He wants Ika on the family wall.
I’d asked Trent once: why did he think I could get away with being Ika? He’d said it wasn’t just the scent of my skin, or the shape of my face, or the matching hair colour (just without the teenage acne and unfortunate haircut.) It was that, in every photo they had of him, he was frozen in childhood.
Ika had stopped letting people take his picture the moment he hit his pre-teens. The only photo of him on the wall past the age of twelve? He’s got his hands covering his face.
With Grandpa’s declining vision, his slipping memory, and his belief that Ika was out there somewhere... accepting me as him wasn’t difficult.
But can I really put my face on his family wall?
Why does that feel like going too far, when I’m okay living in his wake?
Is it the permanence? That a photo outlives a person, that it cements history, turns something into forever? That once I’m on that wall, I’m not just playing a part, I’m etched into their family’s past?
Or is it because, deep down... I want to be up there as me?
As a defacto grandson.
As Dylan.
Grandpa taps his cane. “Come along.” He ushers me towards the photo booth. And suddenly, I’m okay in front of the Polaroid, because I’m neither me nor Ika. I’m a man in a feather boa and fat-rimmed glasses.
Grandpa dons a wig. “There, just as handsome as I used to be.”
We practice dramatic poses. “If I’m going on the wall,” I say. “May as well make it fabulous.”
“You look just as handsome as me back in the day.”
My smile wavers, but Trent has slipped free of the mocktail bar and is coming over, so I slick it back on. The way his eyes are on me... it’s like he’s already seen it. Seen and understood.I shiver. “Come on, quick. Let’s take the shot before Trent photobombs.”
Grandpa nods sombrely. “Can’t have him overshadowing all this!”
Trent grabs the developed photo before we can and shakes it as he holds it hostage. He glances from it to us, to me. “The camera likes you. I hope this is for our hall, Grandpa?”
“Where else would it go?”
“Your wallet,” Trent says.
Grandpa’s eyes sparkle. “Trent, get in here.”
And suddenly Trent is squeezing between us, an arm around Grandpa, another around me. A gentle weight, like he’s aware and wants me comfortable. But also an insistent weight, with his fingers pushing me by the arm, just a little bit closer. All this, while he looks right ahead at the camera.
My stomach hops. I’ve forgotten how to smile. I’m staring at Trent’s profile.
Maybe I would’ve whipped my head around in time for the flash. But I don’t. I’m suddenly taken hostage by the edges of his lips curling. A smile. Maybe not a real one. Maybe only staged for the Polaroid. But his lips are turned up and his eyes crinkle with it.
I breathe out hard. He feels it on his cheek and turns.
