After Image, page 18
A camera flashed behind her. Over Isabel’s shoulder, I saw a woman quickly turn away, having gotten her snapshot. Isabel stepped closer to examine my photographs. If she was aware of the interest she’d stirred by coming here, she showed no sign. She spent a long time looking at my self-portraits, regarding them with a seriousness that I found touching. Eventually, she reached out and tapped the edge of one of the frames.
“This one,” she said. It was a close-up of my face. My features filled the frame, unnervingly large, my freckles standing out on my skin like flecks of paint. “This is something special.” She turned to me. “Is it for sale?”
“For sale? Um, I don’t know.” This was only a student exhibition. I looked around at the other students. “I don’t think anyone else is selling their work.”
She smiled mischievously. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t, does it? Could you make an exception for me? Please?” All of a sudden, she was very Allie-like, her expression pleading.
“Of course she could,” Professor Hadfield said, placing a hand on my shoulder. He’d come up behind me, and now he leaned over to stage-whisper in my ear, “Never pass up the opportunity for a sale.”
Isabel laughed. “Good advice.” She turned her brilliant smile on him. “And you are?”
He held out his hand. “Abe Hadfield. Natasha’s photography professor. I must say, it’s an honor to have you here at our show.”
She grasped his hand in both of hers, squeezing earnestly. “Oh, you’re too kind. It’s a pleasure to be here.” Then she rummaged in her handbag and pulled out a checkbook. “Now, Abe—what would you say is a fair price for a piece like this?”
I glanced back at the photo, which was encased in a cheap frame from Target. “Isabel, I’ll give it to you.”
“No, no,” she chided.
“Please. I’d like you to have it.” The thought of Professor Hadfield naming a price for the photo made me feel a little ill. I took the frame off the wall and handed it to her. “Please.”
She looked between me and Professor Hadfield, then slowly eased her checkbook back in her purse. “Well, all right. If you insist.”
Professor Hadfield shook his head, amused. “Natasha, if you want to make your way in the art world, you’re going to have to change that attitude.”
“Ah, well,” Isabel said lightly. “I’m sure she’ll find that out soon enough.” There was something in her voice that ever so gently conveyed the idea that Professor Hadfield was now dismissed from the conversation.
He pretended he’d caught sight of someone across the room he needed to talk to. “Oh, well, I’ll leave you two to it. Isabel, it was a delight to meet you.”
“Likewise!” Isabel said brightly. Then she turned her attention to the frame in her hands. “This is very kind of you, Natasha.” She flipped the photo toward me so that I was staring at my own face. “Would you mind if I showed this to a photographer friend of mine? He’s been looking for a new model, and I think he’d be very interested in your look.”
I made a startled sound. “Seriously?”
Isabel laughed. “Don’t look so surprised! I spotted you years ago, remember? Back at that Christmas dinner. You have a very striking look. These pictures confirm that. Please? Could I show this to him?”
I felt an unfamiliar warmth in my chest. “Sure,” I said. “Yeah, that would be great.” I lifted my head, feeling my shoulders straighten. Allie hadn’t thought it was worth coming to the exhibition, but Isabel had. And, in me, she’d found something worth paying attention to.
CHAPTER 38
I pick up the eight-by-ten envelope with the PL STUDIOS stamp on it and slide out several matte prints. It’s only the second time I’ve seen these. After the first time, I couldn’t bear to look at them anymore.
In one, I’m wearing a pale sweater that comes down off my shoulders, revealing my freckled skin and the sharp angle of my collarbones. My gaze is fixed on the camera, my eyes impossibly clear and bright. In others, I’m photographed facing away from the camera, my face in profile and the lighting picking up the contours of my back.
Isabel followed through on her promise to show my photo to her photographer friend, who’d then wanted to meet me, to take a few trial photos. I didn’t tell anyone about it, not even Allie.
Especially not Allie.
First of all, she’d hate the fact that I was spending time with Isabel. Second of all, she’d laugh outright at the idea of me modeling. Being in front of the camera—that was her role, not mine.
After sliding the photos out of the envelope, I place them in a line on my bedspread. In another life, the photo shoot might have been important for me. Life changing, even. But a few days later, Allie went missing, and now it all seems like a silly daydream. The girl in the photos has an openness to her face that is lost to me now.
I shove the photos back in the envelope and toss them into the cardboard box. I don’t know why I’m obsessing about that particular week. What’s become clear over the last few days is that the chain of events leading up to Allie’s disappearance stretches back much further than that January. To November of 2012, or even further.
I need to focus. I need to get my head straight about the timeline. Going to my desk, I pull out my school notebook and open it to a blank page. Then I make myself write down every significant thing I can remember about those months.
September 2012
The TMZ photos come out.
Allie is put on academic probation.
Isabel and Giles cut off Allie’s allowance, take away her car.
I glance over at the photos and see one, taken that fall, of Allie sulking on our living room couch after a visit from Isabel. And I remember: the TMZ photos weren’t the only thing fueling Isabel’s and Giles’s fury that month.
Isabel’s earrings go missing.
Isabel owned a pair of antique pearl earrings that she kept in a jewelry box in her bedroom. Apparently, they were worth thousands of dollars. In September, not long after Allie and I had gone over to the Malibu house for a visit, the earrings went missing, and Isabel was convinced that Allie had taken them.
She says I stole them to pay for drugs, Allie snorted. I mean, c’mon.
I knew Allie didn’t need money for drugs. Greg kept her supplied for free. So I’d believed her. Or, I’d 80 percent believed her. The other 20 percent of me remembered that Christmas Eve when Allie stole Isabel’s pills, just for fun. Just to mess with her head.
October 2012
Allie bails on Greg’s Halloween party to go to Vegas.
Greg had been pissed about that. He and Allie had planned the party together, were even supposed to have matching costumes, but at the last minute, she’d flaked. Some childhood friends of hers were going to Vegas, she said, and she’d decided to go with them. Greg and Allie had fought about it. And then, a few weeks later, Greg told me Allie had never been in Vegas at all. He was drunk when he told me, drunk enough to make me suspect he was just stirring up drama. Eva and Christie were in Vegas that weekend, he said. With those girls Allie said invited her. And there was no fucking sign of Allie.
I add a note to that last bullet point: But maybe she wasn’t in Vegas? Then I keep writing.
November 2012
Starts going to therapy?
Starts attending classes, making better grades, stops drinking
Signs up for Macnamara’s seminar
Starts seeing Macnamara
December 2012
Writes essay for Macnamara’s class
Macnamara wants to help Allie publish.
January 2013
Allie tells Isabel about the essay.
Isabel threatens Macnamara if he doesn’t stop Allie from publishing.
Macnamara tries to get Allie to hold off on publishing the essay.
I’m scribbling faster now. I’m at the point in the timeline that connects to the last week before Allie’s disappearance, the series of events I thought I knew so well.
January 9
Allie breaks up with Macnamara.
January 10
2:15 pm: Allie drives to Mom’s house in Reseda.
My pen hovers over the page. This detail still nags at me. I’d never known Allie to go to Mom’s place on her own. We always went together. What had she been doing there?
January 11
Sometime before 10 pm: Allie and Greg fight about Allie’s money—where was it coming from? Allie takes Greg’s car and cash.
10:40 pm: Allie comes back to our apartment.
11:02 pm: Allie withdraws money from ATM.
11:23 pm: Arrives at Barclay’s
11:39 pm: Receives phone call and leaves Barclay’s
I sit back and look over what I’ve written. Allie’s disappearance still doesn’t make sense, but I’m seeing more of the picture than I ever have before. It’s clear now that something was happening with her in the months before she went missing. But I still have no idea what it was.
Help me out, Allie.
I need her to show me what I’m missing. What I can’t see. But for once, I can’t hear her voice in my head. Tonight, Allie—who loves to explain things to me, to be my life coach, my analyst—has nothing to say.
CHAPTER 39
In the morning, I take an Uber to Mom’s house. This is a tradition now—in the first week of January, before the anniversary of Allie’s disappearance, Mom makes sure that we spend quality time together. I know she means it as a supportive gesture, but these visits tend to put me on edge. During them, I can feel her watching me, looking for reassurances that I’m okay. And so I do my best to appear upbeat, resilient.
It’s exhausting.
At least today, I’ll have an excuse to leave early—Matthew’s reception is at three, and he’s sending a car to take me to Isabel’s house in Malibu.
When I arrive at Mom’s, I stand on the sidewalk outside her house for a minute. I need some time to gather myself. Mom asks a lot of questions, and it’ll require some creativity to avoid talking about what’s really been going on this week.
The morning light paints the windows of her modest bungalow a bright gold. Mom bought the place with the money from the divorce settlement, and at first I’d hated it—how small the house was, how ordinary, how far from the ocean. Now, though, I have to admit it looks cozy. Potted ferns line the patio, and a wind chime sways next to the front door.
Slowly, I walk up the front path and take the two stairs up to the patio. As soon as Mom answers the door, she pulls me into a tight hug.
“Hey, let me breathe,” I joke.
She releases me with a funny little laugh. “Sorry. It’s just . . . it seems like forever since I last saw you.”
We spent Christmas together less than two weeks ago. But I don’t remind her of that fact. Mom gets agitated around the anniversary of Allie’s disappearance, as if whatever happened to Allie might somehow happen to me too.
I step into the living room, where I can see the lines her vacuum has left in the carpet.
“Can I get you some tea?” she asks, following close behind me.
“Sure, sounds great.” I sling my bag onto the couch and try not to notice the way her eyes run over my body, trying to assess whether I’ve been eating properly.
“And a cookie?” she suggests.
“No, thanks,” I say. She’s hovering in a way that makes my eyelids twitch. “Just tea is great.”
I follow her into the kitchen, where she fills the kettle and sets it on the stove to boil.
“How was Joshua Tree?” I ask, forestalling her inevitable questions. Yesterday, when she returned home, she’d called me, worried about the news of the body in Turnbull Canyon. How was I coping? Had I made an appointment with Dr. Rajmani?
“Oh, really good.” She looks good. Tan. Happy. “Everyone had so much fun. Since I’ve been back, though, I’ve been flat out, preparing for the new semester.” She teaches at a school in Granada Hills now, and the job suits her.
As I watch her tear open the tea bags, I wonder if she’s seeing anyone. As far as I know, she hasn’t dated anybody since Giles. But maybe she has and just hasn’t told me. I suppose we both keep things from each other.
“I wish I’d stayed home, though,” she says, pouring hot water into two mugs. “When I came back and heard the news . . .”
“Mmm,” I say, walking into the living room and gazing out at the front yard. I didn’t tell her, when we spoke yesterday, that I’d gone down to the station on Sunday to see if I could identify the belongings found on the body. I’m hoping that’s information I can continue to keep under wraps.
“Sorry,” she says, coming into the room and handing me a mug. “We don’t have to talk about that.”
“It’s okay.” I take a sip of the tea, wincing as it burns my tongue.
“Let’s talk about something else,” she says as she sits down on the couch. “Are you excited for school to start back up again?”
I settle into one of the armchairs and rest my tea precariously on its arm. “Sure.” I haven’t thought about school once in the past week. In this moment, I can’t imagine going back, focusing on textbooks, exams.
Mom smiles, tucking her legs underneath her on the couch. “I’m so proud of you, you know. It can’t be easy, going back to school after all this time off. But you’re doing so well. I’ve been telling all my friends how great you’re doing.”
She means well with her encouragement—so why does it leave me feeling on edge? It’s been this way ever since I can remember: her celebrating my accomplishments, then nudging me to achieve even more. I used to think that was just how she was; she didn’t know any other way to be. But she wasn’t like that with Allie. With Allie, she was like a whole different person.
One afternoon during our senior year, not long after Mom and Giles had separated, I’d come home from school to find Mom and Allie ensconced on the couch watching a movie. All the curtains in the living room were drawn, creating a cave-like atmosphere.
Allie glanced over her shoulder at me. “We’re watching First Wives Club.”
She was sipping a smoothie. Mom was clutching a glass of wine. My whole life, I’d never seen Mom drink more than a glass of wine over the course of an evening, but these days, there always seemed to be a fresh glass in her hand.
“Come watch with us,” Allie said. She’d brought her manicure kit downstairs from her room, and it was spread out on the coffee table next to the wine bottle. “What color, Elena?” she asked, thwacking a nail polish bottle against her palm. And when Mom picked out a pale-neutral color, Allie shook her head. “Screw that. You’re in postbreakup mode here. You want something that screams: ‘I’m single, motherfuckers!’”
I frowned, waiting for Mom to react to Allie’s language, but she only laughed.
“This is exactly what you need,” Allie said, vigorously shaking a bottle of fuchsia polish. “It’s called Kiss My Sass.”
“It does look nice,” Mom allowed, as Allie painted her right thumbnail.
“See, she loves it,” Allie said to me, grinning as if she suddenly knew my mother better than I did.
Now, I draw my attention back to Mom, who’s still rattling on about law school from her seat on the couch.
“And have you been thinking about internships? For the summer, I mean. I did a little googling last night, and it seems like it’s very important to get the right one—”
“Do we have to talk about this?” I snap.
She looks startled. “Tasha. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s fine.” I stand up, tilting my head from one side to the other, trying to work out the tension in my neck. “I just don’t want to talk about internships right now.”
Why did Mom always act so differently around Allie? Allie was allowed to swear, to fail classes, to talk shit about Giles behind his back. And it wasn’t even the double standard that bothered me most. No, it was the way Mom would open up around Allie, telling stories about her first boyfriend, the time she’d gotten suspended her senior year of high school—stories she’d never told me. Around Allie, my mom seemed more comfortable. More real.
Stupidly, I feel myself getting teary eyed.
It wasn’t fair. Allie did all the wrong things, and people still loved her. And I did all the right things, and it never seemed to count.
I press my hands over my eyes. “Just . . . I need a minute.”
I walk into the hallway and make my way to the bathroom. Once inside, I close the door behind me, pull down the toilet seat lid, and sit, resting my head in my hands. What’s the matter with me? I’m supposed to be convincing Mom I’m fine.
After a while, I make myself stand up and go to the sink, where I splash some water on my face. Allie was right, all those years ago. The trick, which you have not figured out yet, is to keep expectations low. She’d tried to tell me: You didn’t win anything by trying to be perfect. And now I know she was right.
I don’t even want to go to law school, I realize suddenly. The thought is so clear and obvious that it might as well be written in capital letters on the mirror. I only applied because Mom wanted me to. Because it seemed like the thing that successful people do.
I pick up a clean towel and press it over my eyes.
When I come back into the living room, my mother turns from the window that looks out onto the back garden. “Tasha, what’s the matter?”
My hands are shaking. “I want you to answer a question for me. About Allie.”
She tenses. She doesn’t like talking about Allie. About two years ago, she decided: We had to move on. She put Allie’s things into boxes and erased her presence from the third bedroom. It’s not helping you to see this stuff all the time, she said.
