I sat at the park for a long time, running my fingers through the sand. I thought about everything: cheerleading, my bruises, Rogerson's face in the picture I'd taken of him, my mother's chipper voice on the phone, and Corinna at Applebee's, pushing Super Sundaes and dreaming of California. But mostly I thought of Cass, and how I wished she was here to claim this hurt, too.
I was still there when Rogerson slowed down, seeing my car, and pulled in. His headlights moved across the swing and slide and monkey bars to finally find me, staying there like a spotlight. He didn't get out of the car, but just left the engine idling as he waited.
I squinted as I stood up, pulling my jacket around me. Like always, I didn't know what to expect from him. I slid a handful of that sand into my pocket, wondering what relics it had once held. I rubbed the grains between my fingers, like charms, then took a deep breath and stepped into that bright, bright light.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I didn't tell my mother that I'd been kicked off the squad, exactly. In fact, she was so busy winning Cass backâphone call by phone callâshe didn't even question my flimsy explanation about how in the lull between winter and spring sports there were fewer practices. So I began spending more time in the darkroom at the Arts Center when she thought I was doing cheerleader stuff: sticking to my former schedule and going there after school, then showing up at the same time for dinner. On game nights, I'd just call Rina from wherever I was with Rogerson to find out who'd won before I went home.
This was surprisingly easy. My mother was distracted not only with Cass but also with her annual April Fool's party, my father with a new semester, a chancellor search and the men and women's basketball teams in the thick of March Madness. Now it almost seemed that I
was
becoming invisible, passing through the house in my long sleeves and jeansâeven as the weather heated upâmy eyes red regardless of Visine, hardly talking except to answer their standard queries:
How was school? Who won the game? Would you please pass the potatoes?
And the answers came easy, automatically.
Fine. We did. Yes.
The only time I ever felt safe anymore was when I was at the darkroom, in the half-light with the door locked, everything quiet as I worked developing my pictures, watching each of the images come into being right before my eyes. Since Christmas I'd focused mostly on portraits of people. I was fascinated with the way light and angle could completely change the way a person looked, and I'd spent the last two months taking pictures of everyone I knew, trying to capture each one of their different faces.
Behind the camera, I was invisible. When I lifted it up to my eye it was like I crawled into the lens, losing myself there, and everything else fell away.
I'd shot Corinna sitting on her front steps in the sunlight with the dog, Mingus, lying beside her. She was wearing a long, gauzy skirt and a big wool sweater fraying at the cuffs. She'd cocked her head to the side and propped one hand under her chin, her bracelets glinting in the sunshine, the TV in the distance behind her showing static. Her hair was blowing around her face and she was smiling, with Mingus looking up at her adoringly. I'd had the picture framed and gave it to her as a gift. She'd hung it on the wall in the living room, next to a huge Ansel Adams print of a canyon. She said she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a picture of herself that she liked, and sometimes when we were sitting on the couch just hanging out I'd catch her looking at it, studying her own face as it smiled back at her.
I posed Boo sitting in the grass of her backyard, cross-legged, right beside her chipped cement Buddha, both of them smiling and content. And I found my mother, her chair pulled up close to the TV, leaning forward to scan the screen during
Lamont Whipper,
looking for Cass. She'd been so absorbed she hadn't even heard me take the picture, her face hopeful, intent, watching carefully so as not to miss a single thing. That picture I buried deep under my sweaters in a drawer: it just hurt me, somehow, to look at it.
Rogerson didn't have much patience for getting his picture taken, but occasionally I caught him: bending over the engine of the BMW with the hood up, reaching with one hand to brush back his hair. Standing in Corinna's kitchen drinking a Yoo Hoo with that big velvet Elvis taking up the whole frame behind him. Lying on his bed right next to me, the lens just inches from his face, smiling slightly, sleepily, as I clicked the shutter.
These were pictures I rushed to develop, holding my breath as they emerged before me. I'd examined them so closely, as if they were proof, absolute documentation that he wasn't a monster, that he was still the guy I'd fallen in love with. I'd bring them home and stick them in my dream journal, as if him smiling here or looking at me nicely there would balance out the truths I'd written to Cass in those same pages.
I kept collecting faces, as if by holding all these people in my hands I could convince myself that everything was still okay. So I had Dave, rubbing his eyes with hair askew, half a frozen burrito in one hand. Rina in her cat's-eye sunglasses and cheerleading uniform, smoking a cigarette and sticking out her tongue. My father in his chair, watching a basketball game, his face so expectant as the seconds ticked down and his team took a last-chance, do-or-die shot. And Rogerson, again and again, smiling, not smiling, scowling, laughing, glaring. The only expression I didn't have of his was the one I knew by heart: the dark eyes, angry face, flushed skinâthe last thing I usually saw before squeezing my eyes shut and bearing down.
My favorite picture, though, was one I hadn't even taken. Rogerson and I had been at Corinna's, sitting at their kitchen table, when she'd picked up my camera and leaned in close to us, telling us to say cheese. The day before, Rogerson had gotten upset with me for some reasonâit was easier, sometimes, to just forget the specificsâand punched me in the arm, which meant in the picture I was in my safe zone, when he was trying to make up with me. In the picture I'm on his lap as he sits at the table, my head against his chest. He has one arm around my waist, and just as Corinna hit the shutter he'd tickled me, making me burst out laughing, and he had, too. It is one of those great moments, the kind you can't plan. Sometimes the light or the expression is just perfect, and you're lucky enough to catch it, usually accidentally.
I spent a lot of time looking at that picture. Wondering what I'd think of that girl, if I was someone else, seeing how easily she sits in her boyfriend's lap, laughing, with his arms around her. I would have thought her life was perfect, the way I once thought Cass's was. It was too easy, I was learning, to just assume things.
One day I took all my pictures and hung them around my room, tacking them to the walls, the mirror, even the ceiling. Then I stood and stared at each of the faces, studying them one at a time. I learned them carefully, aware of every nuance in their expressions. They stared back at me, frozen, but even though I could read their entire world in their faces, none of them were looking that closely at me.
Â
Cass usually called after dinner, when I was already long gone out the door to another “cheerleading meeting,” or on the weekends, when I was locked in the darkroom or with Rogerson. But one late Sunday afternoon I was the only one home when the phone rang.
“Caitlin?”
It was so strange to hear her voice, and I felt myself catch my breath. But I didn't say anything.
“Caitlin. It's me,” she said. She sounded so far away. “It's Cass. I can't believe you're finally there when I called. How are you?”
I swallowed, hard, and looked out the window. I could see Boo in her backyard, misting a row of ferns.
“Caitlin.” She sounded confused. “Hello?”
I ran a finger up and over my neck, feeling down to the spot below my collar where I'd hit the top of my seat belt the night before when Rogerson had pushed me. I pressed down on the bruise: It didn't hurt that badly. I was learning even the smallest push could bring a swelling, blue-black spot, the body infinitely more dramatic than it needed to be.
“Hello?” she said again, and I closed my eyes. “Caitlin? Are you there?”
I could see her in my mind, that time on the
Lamont Whipper
Show, ducking her head and smiling as she wrote something on her clipboard, and the way she glanced up for that one second, like she was looking right at me. Like she could see me, sitting on Corinna's couch, stoned and lost.
“I understand if you're upset with me,” she said, suddenly. “But I had to leave. My whole future had been planned but it wasn't what
I
wanted. It was like I had no choice anymore. That's a terrible feeling, Caitlin.”
I could see her reaching out with a finger, smoothing over the scar, and sighing.
She looks just like you,
Corinna had said. She could be
you.
“Caitlin?” Cass said, and I turned away from the window, looking down the stairs and out the front door, trying to picture her making that walk away from this. It seemed like so far, and I was so tired. Tired of keeping time, of studying faces, of hiding bruises. Of disappearing, bit by bit, while my world kept going without me, even as I slipped farther beneath the water, drowning.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Talk to me.”
I wanted to. But the words just wouldn't come. And when I hung up, she didn't call back.
Â
The next day, when I pulled up to Corinna's after school, the front door was open. As soon as I stepped into the living room, I could hear them.
“I just don't understand
why
you took the money out,” Corinna was saying. “This was, like, our last chance with them.”
“It'll be all right,” I heard Dave say. “Calm down. We'll get the money. ”
“How? Tell me.”
“I told you I know that guy at the auto shop. He said to come in anytime, he'd hire me. I'll go tomorrow. It's no big deal.”
Corinna sighed, loudly, and I heard her bracelets jingle. I stepped back out on the porch, easing the door shut behind me. Mingus, lying next to the rocking chair, closed his eyes as I leaned over to scratch his ears.
“They needed the rent today, David,” Corinna said. “The check bounced last week.”
“I thought we had it covered.”
“We would have if you hadn't taken the money out,” she said, exasperated. “I mean, we've
talked
about this. More than once.”
“I told you, Corinna,” Dave said, and now he sounded irritated, “I needed it. Okay?”
“Just like you needed the power bill money. And the money I set aside for Mingus to go to the vet.” Corinna strode into the living room, snatched her cigarettes off the table, and then walked back through the swinging door to the kitchen. “David, I'm working my butt off in this crappy job for that money. There's no way I can do more than I'm already doing. And we'll never get to California if we don't startâ”
“Oh, man,” Dave said. “Don't bring that California shit up again.”
“Well, if you could just find a way to bring in some money we could save up enoughâ”
“I knew it,” Dave said angrily, his voice rising. Mingus lifted his head. “It
always
comes back to me. I can't keep a job, I can't bring home the money you need for La-La Land. Well, Corinna, I'm sorry I'm such a
failure
to you. I guess your mom was right, huh?”
“David, no,” Corinna said, and her voice sounded choked. “It's just that we'd do better if you could justâ”
“You don't seem to have any trouble smoking the pot I get for you,” Dave went on. I felt uncomfortable: I'd never heard him yell before. “You take that with
no
problem. But you want me to go work at the Fast Fare for six bucks an hour
before
taxes just so you can take the damn dog to the vet?”
“I don't want us to have to struggle so much,” Corinna said, and now I could tell she was crying. I remembered how they'd looked that day in the kitchen, dancing around the dog bowl, how happy she'd been. So in love, like I imagined Cass was. Like I wanted to be.
“Well, I'm sorry I can't give you everything you want,” Dave said, and I could tell he was coming closer even before he pushed the kitchen door open with a bang. I tried to step out of sight but he saw me, stopping suddenly in front of the TV. “Ohâhey, Caitlin.”
“Hi,” I said, as Mingus wagged his tail beside me, thumping against the porch. “I was justâ”
Corinna stepped out of the kitchen, her arms crossed against her chest. Her face was streaked with tears and she wouldn't look at me. “Caitlin,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear, “this isn't a good time, okay?”
They were both just standing there, and I suddenly felt stupid and helpless, like I didn't belong anywhere. “Yeah,” I said. “Sure. I'll just, um, see you later.”
I turned around and started down the steps, and Mingus followed me across the yard. He ran behind my car all the way down the bumpy dirt road, stopping to sit by the mailbox, as if he knew he couldn't go any farther. After I turned onto the highway I looked back and could barely make him out in the settling dust, watching me as I left him behind.
Â
There were some timesâwhen things got badâthat I saw something flash across Rogerson's face, like he couldn't believe what he'd done. Like he'd just woken up and found himself standing over me, fist still clenched, looking down in disbelief at the place on my shoulder /arm/stomach/back/leg where he'd just hit me. I wondered if he was thinking of his father, and the marks he'd left behind. And even as I felt the spot with my own fingers, knowing already what the bruise would look like, I felt
sorry
for him, like for that one second he was just as scared as I was. It was so strange.
Sorry
for him.