The Corner of Bitter and Sweet (25 page)

“You’re taking pictures of
oatmeal
?”

“Yeah,” I replied, snapping away.

“Do you want me to hold the bowl? So I can be in the picture, too?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “No, thanks,” I replied as I snapped away.

When I first started getting into photography, I read a lot of interviews with different famous photographers. I was amazed to learn how many shots they took in order to get just a few that were decent. Maybe that was what life was about—you just kept doing it until you got somewhere within the zip code of “right.”

And then—there it was. The shot. The bowl, with Mom’s hand next to it, her nails short and unpolished. I loved them like that. More than when they were covered with her signature glossy red. I clicked the shutter.

“So are you going to tell me about your date with Matt last night, or are you going to be passive-aggressive and reply with one-word answers until I eventually go away?” she asked.

“It wasn’t a date,” I said as I put the camera down and started eating. I cringed. “How much salt is in this?”

“None. It’s sugar,” she said, holding up a clear jar.

“That’s salt.”

“Oh.”

She had tried. I got up and took out a waffle to nuke.

“So are you going to tell me?”

I shrugged. “It was fun.”

“What’d you do?”

“Hung out and talked.” At least my answers were three and four words instead of the usual one or two.

“What’d you talk about?”

“Stuff.”

“That’s a one-word answer.”

I smiled. “I know.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell Mom about Matt. I did. It was that I didn’t want to have to watch her get all excited that I had met someone and could finally hang up my HEREIN LIES AN UTTER AND COMPLETE FREAKAZOID WHEN IT COMES TO GUYS T-shirt, only to have to put it back on after he decided I was, in fact, a freak and then disappeared. “What did you and
Billy
do?”

“We talked.”

“About what?”

She shrugged. “Swimming with dolphins, therapy, what happens to you when you die, whether it’s worth it to have a manager in addition to an agent or if it’s just a waste of money.”

I hated even to think it, but it sounded like they were meant for each other. I grabbed the waffle out of the microwave and took a bite standing up. “Did you kiss?”

“
No
, we did not kiss,” she said. “But what if we had? Would you have been upset about that?”

“What about Skye?”

“They’re broken up,” she replied. “In fact, if you go onto SimonSez, there’s a photo of her canoodling with Channing Tatum’s stunt double at Soho House.”

“Canoodling or just sitting next to each other?”

“
Canoodling
canoodling,” she replied.

Huh. I’d have to check that out. “Well, what about the fact that you were sixteen years old and already having sex when he was born?”

She cringed. “You don’t have to put it like
that
.”

“Well, you were.”

“Seriously, Annabelle—what if something did end up happening between Billy and me? Not that it has, but what if it did?”

“Then I would say . . . maybe you’d want to do a Google search and take a look at all the girls he’s been with over the years and see for yourself that he met most of them on the sets of his movies, and that when they were done shooting, he was pretty much done with them as well.”

She shook her head. “That was when he was younger. He’s really looking for true intimacy and commitment now. That’s what he’s working on in therapy.”

“If what you mean by ‘younger’ is ‘three months ago,’ then knock yourself out. Plus, you’re not supposed to get into a relationship for a year, remember?”

“That’s just a
suggestion
,” she replied. “Not an order. Willow says it happens all the time. She met her husband when she was thirty days’ sober.”

I joined her at the table with my waffle. “You mean her
ex
-husband? The one she was married to for six weeks?”

She tore off a piece. “Listen, I know you think Billy’s just some hot guy who just spends his time hanging out at clubs and surfing and tweeting, but he’s not,” she said. “I mean, yes, he does that stuff, but there’s a lot more to him. He’s a good guy, Annabelle. I’d really like it if you gave him a chance.”

“Why does it matter if I give him a chance if, after this is over, I’m never going to see him again?”

“Because who’s to say that’s going to be the case?”

“The bloggers who like to call him Billy ‘Location Doesn’t Count’ Barrett?”

She gave a little laugh. “I would think you of all people would know that you can’t trust what those guys say.”

That was true.

She took my hand. “Honey, I know it’s hard to trust people. But just staying closed up and not letting yourself take risks because there’s a chance you
might
get hurt . . . that’s not really a way to live, you know?”

When you put it like that, no.

But was she talking about her or me, or both of us?

THINGS I’M NOT USED TO

• My mother making breakfast for me.
  
• Having a Conversation-with-a-capital-C with Mom that did not turn into a fight.
  
• People following through on things they say they’re going to do.
  

So when Matt called at eleven o’clock that morning, which is what he’d said he’d do after I had texted him back that, yes, I’d like to hang out the next day, I was surprised. Pleasantly surprised, for sure, but surprised.

I walked into the living room to find Mom studying her script as she did crunches while a recording of herself reciting Emily Dickinson’s poems blared from the iPod speakers. When it came to work, her power to multitask was beyond impressive.

“Since you have your hair and makeup tests this afternoon, I’m going to go out and do some exploring, okay?”

“Okay,” she replied. Even with the crunches, her voice was completely normal. I, on the other hand, sounded like I was two breaths away from dying when I tried to talk while exercising. “Alone?”

“No.”

“With Matt?”

“Yes,” I sighed.

She was so coordinated with her multitasking that even the clap and squeal she gave upon hearing the news didn’t screw up her rhythm. “Where are you going?”

“Some hike over in Woodstock,” I replied. “What time will you be back from the camera tests?”

“They got moved to tomorrow.”

“Oh. What are you going to do then?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Are you going to go to a meeting?”

She got up and started to do some squats. “Maybe.”

“Are you going to hang out with Billy?”

“I don’t know, Annabelle.”

“I can call Matt to see if we can do it tomorrow instead,” I said. “He already told me he’s not working until Thursday and—”

“You’re going,” she cut me off. “Now go get dressed,” she ordered. “And then I’ll do your makeup.”

MORE THINGS I’M NOT USED TO

• Being asked questions instead of listening to a running monologue.
  
• Being listened to when answering the question, without the other person’s mouth twitching because they’re in such a hurry to be the one talking again.
  

Which is why, when Matt picked me up at one (the time he said he would), the drive over to Woodstock felt more like a police interrogation than a conversation. They weren’t hard questions, or stuff that was all that personal. It was standard small-talk stuff: What kind of music do you like? (Me: ’70s stuff, i.e., Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac. Him: emo-ish, but not annoyingly-so indie stuff, i.e., Bon Iver, Band of Horses, The Shins.) What are some of your favorite movies? (Me: smart indie rom-coms where people ended up living happily ever after but not sickeningly sweetly so, and some vintage Nora Ephron stuff. Him: Mark Duplass Mumblecore stuff, in which people talk a lot about relationships but, despite all the talk, still can’t manage to do them all that successfully.) What reality show are you most embarrassed to say you watch on a regular basis? (Both of us:
My Strange Addiction
, which was weird and comforting at the same time.)

But after I’d answer, he’d remain quiet, as if taking in what I’d said and reflecting on it before responding. It was hard to get used to that. In our house, “reflecting” was only used in terms of mirrors.

“So this is Woodstock,” he announced as we drove into a little town full of cafés and shops.

“It doesn’t look very hippyish,” I said, as we passed an upscale clothing store.

“It’s not,” he agreed. “It’s so expensive now that the only people who can afford to buy houses are people from Manhattan who work in finance.”

After driving about a quarter mile up a mountain, we got to Overlook and parked. Across the street from the parking lot, I saw a bunch of brightly colored flags fluttering in the wind. “What’s that?” I asked as I grabbed my camera bag.

“Tibetan Buddhist monastery,” he replied, as he reached into the backseat to grab a couple of baseball hats. He took a Boston Celtics one and put it on my head. “It gets pretty hot out here. You like the Celts?”

“That’s baseball, right?” I asked, my stomach fluttering a bit as he adjusted the hat. Was it weird that he hadn’t asked first if I even wanted a hat? Or was it nice that he felt comfortable enough with me just to put it on me? And why, oh
why
, hadn’t I popped off the head of the Ken doll that I had found in a box in the basement the other day when Mom sent me to check if there were any gardening tools. She had woken up with a “
hankering
to garden” (she actually used the word
hankering
before I told her that no one in modern-day America really said that); I reminded her that she had killed every houseplant we ever had.

He cringed. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. It’s basketball.”

“Right. Now I remember,” I said, totally lying.

“Don’t worry—I’m not a sports freak,” he said. “Basketball’s the only guy thing I’m really into. It’s the only thing that makes my grandfather think I might actually be straight.”

I laughed as I reached into my bag and took out my camera and snapped a few shots of the flapping flags. I turned to him. “I promise I won’t be that annoying person who stops every two seconds to take pictures.”

He shrugged. “It’s cool. If I had your talent with that thing, I would, too.”

I felt myself blush. A few minutes into the hike, I was glad to have the hat. Not only did it help with the sun, but it made the stream of sweat that was pouring down my face after a few minutes of what was turning out to be a pretty steep climb less evident.
Note to self
, I thought as I struggled to keep up with him,
if a guy ever suggests another physical activity as a date again, tell him you have really bad allergies and therefore your doctor has suggested you stay inside in air-conditioning at all times
.

Occasionally, I’d stop to take a photo. Random things—a Yoo-Hoo bottle cap. An uncapped pen next to a log. A dusty, dried-up snakeskin. (That one? Made me nervous.)

“I like how you focus on small, specific things,” Matt said as I zoomed in on an empty crumbled Marlboro Lights box.

“Yeah, I’ve never been big on regular pictures,” I admitted. “You know, like, ‘And here’s the Eiffel Tower’ and ‘This is the Statue of Liberty.’ I like things that just . . . jump-start the memory. So that when you look at it later, what comes in is more how you felt rather than what it looked like.”

He cocked his head as he thought about it for a second before slowly nodding. “Jump-start the memory. I like that. That’s good. It feels like a title for an exhibition or a show of your pictures or something.”

There
was
something in there. Not that I’d ever be good enough to have a show.

He scratched the side of his nose and took a deep breath. “So there’s something else I should tell you.”

This was it—the girlfriend he hadn’t mentioned last night but needed to now so I didn’t get the idea that this was a
date
date, and not just an outing between two people who simply didn’t have anything better to do today. I was glad I was wearing the hat. Hopefully, it hid the disappointment.

“What?” I asked, wondering if, after he told me, I’d have to continue the hike or if I could come up with an excuse about why I needed to get back.

“I, um, came across your Tumblr last night,” he confessed.

The relief that a girlfriend was still nonexistent quickly morphed into feeling like my insides had just been X-rayed. “How’d you figure out it was my Tumblr?” I asked suspiciously. “It’s anonymous.” And the reason it was anonymous was so that no one would find it.

“I know. But I decided to put in a Los Angeles tag, and then I figured it out from that series of photos you did where you contrasted your old house with your new apartment,” he explained. “It sounds stalkerish, I know,” he admitted. “But I’m not. Really.
I swear
,” he said. “It’s just . . . I’m a little OCD-ish, and I have insomnia sometimes. I think it may have been because I had an iced Americano at six. For some reason I always think that something about the ice will water it down and make it less caffeine-y, you know? But it doesn’t. And I’ve experimented enough with drinking it at different times over the years to know that three p.m. is the latest I can drink any sort of coffee drink and not have it interfere with my sleep.”

Wow. Matt was a total BWNer (BWN = babbles when nervous = a term Walter and I had come up with to describe the kids in Alateen who kept going on even when the “spiritual timekeeper” had signaled that their three-minute share was up).

“I’m babbling,” he said, as if reading my mind.

I shrugged. “That’s cool. I like babblers,” I said with a smile.

“You do?”

I nodded. It was a bit of a lie. Usually, I found it annoying. Mom had a black belt in babbling. But with Matt, it wasn’t annoying, it was . . . sweet. And not only that, it was . . . attractive.

“Good,” he said, sounding relieved. “Anyway, I debated about whether to tell you I had found it,” he said. “Not just because of the stalkerlike quality of it, but also because of the anonymous thing of it all. But then, once I found it, I felt like not telling you would be a lie. Not a lie lie. More like one of those sins-of-omission things.”