Mouse Patterson pushed her way past the crowds of the hallway in Chester Ray High School to approach the two figures standing at the lockers. “Well, where are they?”
Keller and Benny exchanged smiles and then reached into their folders to take out the papers, typed, doubled spaced, MLA format all the way, with a single staple cemented onto the left hand corner. “There you go Mouse,” Benny said, handing her the papers. “You’re a genius, you know that?”
“I know,” Mouse snapped. She was a girl who always seemed aggravated, no matter how well her day had been going. Mouse Patterson was the shortest girl in the senior class, standing at only 4’8, barely weighing ninety pounds. She had no ailing disease, no missing chromosome. She was just short. She had been nicknamed Mouse so long ago that only her immediate friends knew her real name, Susannah, and no one ever used it. Even her teachers called her Mouse.
Her small hands lifted the papers, her brown eyes quickly surfing over the words, and then she abruptly looked up and shoved the papers in her backpack. “You’ll both get them after lunch. I gotta go.”
“You aren’t going to stay and chat?” Benny asked, “Come on, we never get to see you anymore.”
“How about after I finish writing my valedictorian speech, study for the million and one final tests I have, finish outlining my final story for English, and edit those essays you just gave me, I can catch a brief second between the debate club meeting and swim practice to chat it up with you Benny. Ok?”
“Agreed.”
She rolled her eyes and jetted forward, pushing her way once again through the crowds of the hallway and disappearing as soon as she had come.
“So what did you do yesterday afternoon?” Benny asked her.
Keller looked at him normally, showing no signs of alarm, although her heart had quickened its pace. “What do you mean?”
“I called your house and your mom said you were gone.”
“Oh, I went on a walk. I brought my camera and took a couple of pictures of the neighborhood.”
“Again?”
“You act as if I have a lot of options to work with here.”
“You’ve got a point. Oh! That reminds me.” He opened his folder and took out a piece of paper ripped from a magazine. “I found this article yesterday. Actually, it’s not really an article, more like an entry form.”
“A contest?” she said, reading it over. “Benny, you know I don’t like to enter contests.”
“Yea, I know, I know, but look. If you win, you’ll get published, you get a free trip to Chicago, and, if you win the grand prize, they’ll even offer you a position on the magazine! Keller, this is an incredible opportunity I refuse to let you pass up. All you have to do is submit one picture, just one. Besides, you still don’t have a plan for what you’re going to do after graduation.”
“Yes I do, I’m going to New York.”
“How? With what money?”
She couldn’t answer him.
“Just give it a try,” he pleaded, closing his own locker to start heading towards class. “It won’t hurt to just enter, will it?”
She waved good-bye to him and then glanced back at the paper. The last day to enter was today. With a sigh, she put the article in her pocket and then ran down the hallway just as the bell rang.
~~
Keller wiped off the sweat forming on her forehead from the glare of the sun, its rays pounding down on her skin, lighting her already blond hair and sparkling off of the purple and gold pom-pom’s that cluttered the scene in front of her. She didn’t know whether her forming headache was from thinking over the contest so much, or the incessant giggles coming from the group of girls standing a distance away.
They had compromised. The yearbook staff had offered to let her photograph the cheerleaders group shot next to the school gym, just as long as the field next to it was in the picture as well. Keller had agreed since the school gym was a slightly respectable building and she didn’t want to get kicked off of yearbook. It was the only part of school that interested her anymore.
“How long is this going to take?” one of the girl’s whined.
It should have only taken five minutes, ten minutes tops, but the girls refused to keep still. They all complained of the heat, they had to fix their hair or make-up every five seconds, and Keller couldn’t get them into the right pose that she wanted. Every time she looked into the lens she saw blank faces and empty stares, and she thought it would be a crime committed against herself and her camera to take their pictures as they were.
The only one who hadn’t budged or said a word was Faye Masters, their captain. Faye stood like a dark omen disguised in a cheerleader’s uniform. She seemed to disapprove of the entire event, especially the way her squad was acting, but offered no help to Keller to keep them in line.
“You,” Keller pointed, “The one in the middle. Move more to the right.”
“Excuse me?” the girl said. “What did you just call me? I have a name you know.”
“I’m not here to learn names, just to take a picture, so could you please move?”
The girls looked at each other, shocked that this freak, this nobody was speaking to one of their own like that, but Keller paid not attention to them. She didn’t understand why they were surprised, why they expected her to be kind or friendly to any of them. It was business, she had a job to do and she was there to do it, not to make friends.
The girl glared at her, but Keller remained standing, waiting, and the girl finally moved.
She took the picture, trying to convince herself that it was the best she could do, but felt disappointed nonetheless. “Ok, you can go,” she announced, and then started to put her stuff together without glancing again at the group in front of her. As she placed the lens cap on and then put her camera gently into its container, a shadow came over her, blocking out the heat above. When she looked up, she saw Faye Masters standing over her.
She barely knew anything about Faye and couldn’t recall a single conversation they had ever had. Only one memory of the girl came to her mind. It had happened her freshman year, the day Mouse turned in a short story that she had been in love with, that she had stayed up the entire night to write in order to make sure she got the extra credit for turning her assignment in early. No one had been sure if Faye had overheard Mouse saying that she had been in such a rush she hadn’t even saved the story, that the one she held in her hand was the only copy of it in existence. All Keller could remember seeing was Faye running across the hallway, grabbing the story out of Mouse’s hand, and ripping it into microscopic pieces, so quick that no one had time to even breath. Then they heard Mouse scream. After that, all she could remember where blurs of events that proceeded, never actual detail.
Mouse had never forgotten that day, neither had the rest of them. Faye had never apologized or given any explanation as to why she had done it.
“Can I help you?” Keller spat out.
“Did you get the shot you wanted?”
“Do you care?”
“I’m in the shot. Obviously I care.”
“No, do you care if it was the shot that I wanted?”
Faye’s smile made it seem like they had just exchanged a private joke amongst the two of them. “We could be great friends Keller.”
“I don’t think so.”
They heard a car horn cut through the air, and both heads turned up to see, a distance away, Justin step out of his car. “Faye, let’s go.”
As she looked at him, Keller found herself wondering what the relationship between Faye and Justin was. She wondered if any of the rumors spread about him involved the popular cheerleading captain as well. Then she realized that she was staring at him, and looked away to see that Faye was looking at her.
“Would you like me to introduce you two?” Faye asked with an amused grin.
“No,” she said.
“I wouldn’t bother. Justin wouldn’t like you anyway.”
Then Faye whirled around and jogged towards the car. Justin waited until Faye was inside, and then he jumped in and they sped away, leaving Keller now alone in the middle of the field. She finished packing her things and then reached into her pocket to take out a tissue to wipe away the sweat on her forehead, but found the magazine contest that Benny had given her instead. She read it over once, then again, and then put it away and grabbed the tissue.
When she was inside of her car and leaving the school parking lot, she thought how convenient it was that she had her portfolio with her, and then began driving in the direction of the local post office.
~~
“I’m telling you, he’s always staring at her.”
Mouse’s room might as well have been wrapped in plastic. The walls were bare except for the Academic letters she had gotten and a single, frameless picture tacked onto her wall. It was a picture of the warehouse on 5th street that Keller had taken. The only other items were a bed with a maroon covering, a large bookcase, and a desk. The white carpet was clean, the limited amount of clothing folded or hung neatly in the closet, and all papers and other random items in its proper places within the desk.
Benny lay on his stomach on the maroon covered bed, Naomi sitting on the floor next to him, and Mouse on the desk chair, her legs barely grazing the floor.
“What are you talking about?” she asked the other girl.
“During the passing periods, in the hallway, Justin’s always looking at her.”
“At Keller?” Benny asked, astonished. “Our Keller?”
“Do you know any others?”
“Why would he look at her? How would he even know which direction in that hallway to look?”
Naomi shrugged. “I have no idea. I was wondering if you two had heard anything?”
Mouse snorted. “You think we hear any of that gossip that goes around? We hear just about as much as you do. Nothing. You know why? Because we don’t care about their mundane, immature gossip. The entire setting in that hallway is so impractical and ridiculous I’m sometimes embarrassed just to be walking through there.”
“Going to write a short story about it?” Benny asked.
She smiled. “Already started it.”
The door to the room opened then, and a tall girl entered. She had long, stringy, natural blond hair, light on the top, fading into a light brown underneath. Her deep blue eyes had their usual tired look and her full lips held the natural pouting expression that was her trademark. Keller was an ordinary kind of beautiful, but her stance, the way her body was always positioned as if it were ready to take on the world, made her stand out.
“How was the rah rah photo shoot?” Benny asked, moving over so she could sit down next to him. “Are you now addicted to hair spray and chewing gum?”
“Bubblicious all the way,” she said with a smile. “What are we discussing?”
The other three exchanged apprehensive looks and then Naomi said, “Nothing much.”
“Can you believe that we’re graduating in three weeks?” Mouse said with an odd expression of nostalgia. Keller gave Benny a concerned look and he just shrugged. Then Mouse sighed. “Thank God, it’s almost over.”
They laughed, and Naomi said, “Finally, we can move on with our lives.”
Neither of them were attached to high school memories in the slightest, had no feelings of remorse or regret that it was over. They had always known that high school was a joke, a passing phase, the final departure into the rest of their lives. They had never considered school dances or popularity positions of any importance to their lives, had always been aware of the vastness of the world, that it didn’t just end with the walls of Chester Ray. Now, as the rest were in tears or muddled in worries of what they would do without Chester Ray, these four were prepared and excited. They had dreams to fulfill and goals to reach. They didn’t have time to cling onto the past.
The only thing that they would miss, was each other.
“You think we’ll still keep in touch after this?” Naomi asked.
“Yes,” Mouse said fiercely. “Of course we will.”
Benny sat up. “I’ve known you guys my entire life. There’s no way I’ll forget to keep in contact.”
“Yea, me too,” Naomi confirmed. Then she looked at Keller. “How about you? Are you going to move to New York, become a famous photographer, and forget about us?”
Keller looked at each face, memorizing each feature. While most of the school had agonized over lost friendships, she had always known what true friends were, she had never had to worry whether or not someone was there for her, because they always were. She smiled as she reached the last face. “I’ll never forget.”
~~
She tried not to think about the contest. By Saturday, however, it was all she could think about. Her pictures were what made her up, they were her life, and the fact that a piece of her was now floating through the U.S. postal service, it’s fate to be determined by a complete stranger in Chicago, hundreds of miles away, was chewing at her consciousness.
Then, like a flash of lightening, she decided to side-track her thoughts of Chicago by thinking about Justin. She pondered over why he saw the world one way, but treated it completely different. What did he see when he looked in that hallway? Why did he let her continue taking pictures of him? What was his master plan? It dawned on her then that he must have had a plan, that she had always known behind the mysterious façade, he had it all figured out, he knew exactly what he was doing.
A random urge to go over to his house, without a camera this time, and look into his room and see what he did when he wasn’t in front of her camera came over her. What was he like when it was just him, alone in a room? Did he keep his cruel sarcasm? Was he always playing the mysterious part? She felt close to him all of a sudden, like maybe she understood him more than she thought. If she were to only think about it harder, try to see him clearer, she could figure something out…
The moment passed. She laughed at herself. What was she thinking? He was just a boy at her school, and she was graduating. Their lives would never cross paths after this, he would no longer have to exist in the world for her, she would finally lose him as a constant in her life. It was strange how that saddened her. He was the only person she had ever wanted to photograph. She would miss his face, she supposed.
~~
“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
The office smelt like cigarettes and coffee, and Keller wondered how long the man sitting behind the cluttered desk in front of her had been awake and when was the last time he had left that chair. “Yes, I guess it is.”
Mr. Ocasik was the kind of guidance counselor that attempted to reach out to his students by proclaiming that he was still “hip with the times” and could relate to the things they were going through. The truth was, Mr. Ocasik had been home-schooled up until college and had absolutely no idea what time it was most of the day, let alone what the hip and trendy things were to kids now.
He smiled at the girl in front of him in order to make her feel more comfortable, but in reality, trying to make his own self more comfortable. There was something about her that was unnerving. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” he repeated, leaning forward to put his forearms on his desk. “What does that phrase mean to you Keller?”
“The truth,” she stated.
“Truth?”
“Yes.”
“Elaborate, please.”
“Well...take New York City for example. It’s this amazing cluster of architecture and creativity, an almost indescribable experience. At least, I think so. So imagine trying to describe New York City to someone who has never seen it before, has never even heard of a skyscraper. That’s an almost impossible task to do, but with a picture, it’s as simple as applying pressure to a button. With that one push, you’ve captured an entire city to take with you wherever you go. There’s no need to find the words to describe the city, it’s right there, for all to see.”
“You’re very passionate about photography, aren’t you?”
“It’s my entire life.”
“Is that wise? To make one thing your entire life?”
“Why shouldn’t my life be my passion?”
He sat back, impressed. He hadn’t expected her to be so eloquent, so emotional. From the limited information he had heard about her, she wasn’t a favorite among the campus, often described to be as friendly as a block of cement. “Have you ever been to New York City?’
“Not yet.”
“You act like you’ve seen it before.”
“Only in pictures so far.”
“You like the skyscrapers?”
“Very much.”
“Why is that?”
“Why is what?”
“Why do you like skyscrapers so much?”
She shrugged, as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. “Architecture is the greatest achievement of the mind.”
“Interesting.” Looking through her thin file, he asked, “I wanted to talk to you about your future. It says here you aren’t planning on going to college.”
“No.”
“May I ask why?”
“Because I know what I want to do and how to do it. There’s no point in learning something I already know.”
“Then what are you planning on doing once you graduate?”
“Going to New York.”
“Ah, I see. I should have expected that, shouldn’t I?” He laughed, but she didn’t seem to find the humor in what he had said. “What’s going to happen in New York?”
“I’ll become a photographer.”
“Of what?”
“Buildings mostly.”
“You know, nature is in real demand these days.”
Her eyes shifted bitterly to the side. “Yes, I’ve noticed that.”
“All of the current magazines have spreads upon spreads of wildlife, famous gardens, even the models they’re using are almost always found in nature. It’s very popular.”
“I’ve never been popular,” she said.
“You’re not interested in nature?”
“No.”
“But, why not? It’s beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as a building.”
“What about people?” he asked. “Are you going to take any pictures with models in it?”
“Probably not. I’ve never been…” her voice faded slightly, but then returned back to normal. “There hasn’t been many people I’ve been interested in.”
“I see.” Mr. Ocasik was in awe of how sure of herself she was, how she never hesitated in answering anything he asked her. He wanted to convince her to go to college, to lay thick the usual speech he gave to most children considering jumping into the world on their own, but he had the eerie feeling that anything he said to her would make no difference either way. He was beginning to understand why the word cement was associated with her. “Keller, what’s going to happen if this photography career doesn’t pull through? What do you have to fall back on?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“Aren’t you worried about that?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She looked at him firmly and said, “Because my photography career is going to pull through.”
~~
Walk down two blocks, make a sharp left, cut through the storm drains, and walk through the rusted gate that was always unlocked.
She hadn’t told him she was coming.
Usually, whenever she wanted to meet with him, she would slip a simple, impersonal note into his locker before first period started and that was it. He would always be there whenever she came; they had never needed to communicate in the open. It was a silent agreement they both had; tell no one. She knew her reasons. Her friends would be shocked, appalled, confused, and there would be too much unnecessary explaining she would need to do that she wanted to avoid it and instead hide the first thing ever from them. His reasons, she assumed, was to spare his reputation.
As she neared the window, she noticed that the blinds were open. Odd. They were never open. Assuming that he must have had a different routine whenever he didn’t expect her, she walked over to knock on the glass, but then stopped. Inside she heard the sound of guitar chords and leaned in closer to take a look.
He sat on the bed, acoustic guitar in hand, absorbed entirely in the music he made by simply strumming the chords. It took her awhile to notice that his mouth was moving, that he must have been singing. She tried to listen to what the words were, but couldn’t make out the sounds that she heard. She couldn’t stop staring at his expression, how concentrated he was, how his hands had mastered the instrument, like he was in complete control of everything.
Then he stopped and looked up.
He froze entirely. Although she couldn’t tell, he must have been shocked, because he just kept looking at her. Then he put the guitar down and went to the window to open it. Once it slid open, his face had changed, had become completely readable. Justin was angry.
“What are you doing here?”
“I…I…” She cleared her throat to regain her composure. “Why else would I be here?”
“You didn’t leave a note.”
“I forgot.”
“You forgot? What if Faye or Andrew were here?”
“So what?” she said. “Tell them some story about how I come to your window sporadically to harass you or something. Make up some gossip about how I lust after you. Lie for all I care.”
“You don’t want to be associated with me in any way, especially not in the gossip circle of the hallway.”
“Do you honestly think I care what any of them, or you, or your friends think? So what if I’m another rumor? You’ve got so many floating around, I’m sure they won’t be able to decipher me from the other half of the senior class.”
His smile was derisive, cold, cruel, his smile of choice. It made her feel more comfortable. It was the face she associated with him.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I could say the same for you,” she muttered, turning to leave.
“I know one thing.”
She looked back and saw that he had jumped out of his window and was now standing before her. “What do you know?”
“That you want to go to New York.” Her eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he continued, taking a slow step forward. “That it’s your dream. You’ll never make it, you know. You don’t have what it takes. You think you have talent, that you’re any good? Well, maybe you are, but you’re not what they’re looking for. New York will never want you, they’ll never accept you. You’ll drown there, you’ll never be able to survive.”
“How can you…” She stopped herself. She would have asked, how can you look like a man who could rule the world, and yet talk to me about being accepted, being like all the rest. She couldn’t ask that, however, because a part of her didn’t want to show him that she cared and another part of her didn’t want to know the answer. “I’m going to New York. Are you done?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She left the backyard with him standing there, slamming the gate behind her. It was halfway to her house when she started to run, for no reason she could understand. She just needed to be moving, fast. The feeling of the pavement slamming into her feet calmed her, let her release the anger she didn’t understand. By the time she reached her house, she was gasping for air, her back drenched in sweat as the Wyoming sun beamed down on her mercilessly.
Leaning on her knees to catch her breath, she felt another surge of anger come over her as Justin came to mind, and she walked over to her metal mailbox and hit it, causing the wooden stake to tip slightly and the front to open, spilling out the contents into the street.
“Figures,” she mumbled, and bent over to pick up the letters and magazines. One letter, a plain white envelope, caught her eye, and she noticed the upper left hand corner was post marked Chicago. Dropping the others, she ripped open the letter and pulled out the single white sheet of paper, reading over the typed paragraph. Then she sat back, dropping that paper to the ground as well.
Keller had won the contest.