Picture Perfect

by Catherine Clark

  I quickly sat up, then jumped up from my own striped beach towel and hurried toward him. I ran faster and faster, but my feet kept slipping in the sand. I looked down and realized I had my ballet slippers on, and then I realized I was late for a performance and not only that, I was wearing a bikini instead of my tutu. My trig teacher appeared out of nowhere, asking for my homework. I just ran past her and leaped into his arms.

  “Hey.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and I put my arms around his strong shoulders and he pulled me closer. He lifted me in the air and tried to twirl me around, but unfortunately, something kept getting in the way. Something was wrapped all around my legs and I suddenly couldn’t move. Seaweed—monster-size seaweed—was about to strangle me.

  I sat bolt upright.

  I wasn’t on the beach.

  I was in bed.

  Alone. Very, very alone. And I was tangled up in my bedsheets. There was a magazine on my stomach, which I’d been reading the night before.

  Well, at least I hadn’t failed trig or ended up onstage in a bikini.

  It took me a second to figure out where I was. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a photographer or what, but it seems like I have the most vivid, visual—and unusual—dreams. Sometimes it can really freak me out because I can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t.

  Unfortunately, the dream about next-door guy wasn’t real. The scene of me waking up wrapped like a mummy in my sheets—that was.

  Shoot. No pun intended. I’d planned to get up early and photograph the sunrise. I glanced at the alarm clock and saw that I was about four hours late for that. What had happened? Then again, if I’d been having dreams like that, no wonder I stayed asleep.

  I quickly got dressed, throwing on a pair of white shorts and a pink polka-dot bikini top. The temp outside seemed pretty hot when I opened a window to quickly check it. Besides, I wanted to meet guys, right? When in Rome, and when on the Outer Banks, and all that.

  I left my room and walked out into the fourth-floor hall. The house was four stories, with two large kitchens on the first and third floors. Each family had at least one room, or suite, with an attached bathroom—and some had two, like ours. It was sort of like being inside a hotel that was inside of a house. I was so happy that I didn’t have to share a room with my parents—I had a small bedroom with a miniature bathroom, sort of like a little attic afterthought. The only other person on the fourth floor, with a similar room, was Adam. His door was closed, and I wondered if he—and everyone else in the house—was already up, outside, and on my mom’s latest adventure. Why hadn’t she woken me up? I wondered. That wasn’t like her. Normally she’d pound on my door until I was up. Besides, she had Big Plans for this trip. Things we absolutely had to see.

  I went to the third-floor kitchen, located the coffeemaker, and poured myself a mugful. Then I wandered over to the window to look out at the ocean (my bedroom faced the other way, toward the parking lot) and saw Adam’s little brothers playing in the pool below, with the Thompsons and my mom and dad nearby. I wondered if the guy next door was up yet. Probably—everyone else seemed to be.

  “Sleep much?” A voice behind me nearly made me jump through the window.

  I struggled to keep from spilling my coffee. I turned to find Spencer, who I hadn’t noticed sitting on the sofa in the attached living room. “You scared me!”

  He looked up from the book he was reading. “You scared me,” he replied. “Have you seen your hair?”

  “Shut up.” I glanced at my reflection in the oven door and ruffled my hair a little to make it fall more neatly. I guess I hadn’t really paid much attention to it. “Heather and I stayed up late last night talking,” I explained.

  “Really,” he said. “She’s already out playing volleyball.”

  “With who?” I asked.

  “Some guys. I think they live next door,” Spencer said. “Typical Neanderthals.”

  “Do we have something against Neanderthals?” I asked. “Do we have a complex or something?”

  “Complex. Not usually a word I associate with Neanderthals,” Spencer mused.

  I opened the sliding glass door and walked out onto the upper deck for some fresh air—and a better view. Down on the beach, Adam, Heather, and a couple of guys were playing against my platinum-blond friend and some other people.

  So it’s true, I thought. The early bird catches the hot boy. Or something like that. What was I thinking, sleeping in, when this was waiting for me on the beach?

  I closed the door and ran upstairs to get my camera, then hurried back down, and out onto the lower-level deck. Before they noticed me, I managed to get a few quick shots of everyone. When Heather saw me, she stopped to wave, and the volleyball nearly nailed her in the face. My photo captured her sprawling to the ground, to get out of the way, but grabbing one of the guy’s arms as she fell. I didn’t know whether it was intentional or not, but her move sure worked, and they laughed and fell onto the sand together.

  “Hey! How’s it going?” my sweatshirt-lending friend called over to me.

  “Hi!” I waved back to him. “Great shot!” I said, but the wind caught my hair and whipped it into my mouth, so it came out as more like “GWMFPT!”

  “Game’s almost over!” he called back.

  I wanted to take a picture of him. What could I tell him to get him to pose? I’m taking pictures to make a calendar and I want you to be Mr. July?

  I kept the lens trained on him, catching a few good action shots before the game was over and they stopped for a break. He jogged over to me, with Heather right beside him.

  “Emily, this is Blake,” said Heather.

  Was it me, or was it completely wrong that she was introducing me to the guy that I’d met?

  Not that she wouldn’t have met him on her own, without me. But still. Just because I hadn’t been clever or suave enough to find out his name—and wake up before ten in the morning—that didn’t mean they were supposed to be hanging around without me.

  Blake introduced me to his friends, all of whom seemed to have Southern accents as well, from the hardly noticeable lilt to a heavy drawl.

  “Oh, hold on a second—I have your sweatshirt.” I raced up to the deck to retrieve it. Unfortunately, the sweatshirt had fallen off onto the ground below, plus it had rained overnight, so it was sopping-wet, dirty, and covered with sand.

  I wasn’t sure he’d want it back now, but I walked over to him, holding it out. “Here’s your sweatshirt.” I looked around, wondering where Heather had gone.

  He frowned at me, then gradually his mouth turned upward into a smile. “Remind me never to give you my clothes again.”

  I smiled, feeling my face turn warm, then hot, then scorching. “You know what? Why don’t I see if there’s a washer and dryer here—I can clean it and get it dry and then bring it back to you,” I offered.

  Blake shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just leave it here in the sun to dry. No problem.”

  “You sure?” I asked.

  “I’m sure.” He nodded with a nice smile. “Hey, before I forget—what are y’all doing tomorrow night?”

  “Um, I—I don’t know yet,” I stammered. “Why?”

  “We’re having a party. You should come!”

  “Really?” I asked. “I mean, that sounds great. Cool.” There was a slight pause. “Uh, thanks. We’ll look forward to it.”

  “Don’t expect too much. Just a casual, you know, thing. What are you up to this morning?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. My mom—she tends to plan everything to the hilt, so I’m sure there’s something,” I said.

  We stood side by side, toes in the wet sand, the incoming waves washing over our feet. Where in the world was Heather? Did she expect me to do this all by myself?

  “So, where are you guys from?” asked Blake.

  “All over, actually,” I said. “I’m from Wisconsin—”

  “No kidding? I went there once.”

  “On
ce?” I smiled. “Only once?”

  “It was winter. I didn’t want to go back,” Blake said, and we both laughed. “I think it was a high of ten. I’m not cut out for that. I grew up in Savannah,” he said in his devastatingly cute Southern accent. “Y’all should move. Like, before winter.”

  Another “y’all.” I could kiss him just on the basis of how cute that sounded. Not that it was anything I’d ever done before, just randomly kiss someone, but hey—what was I waiting for?

  “I’ve tried to convince them, believe me,” I told Blake. “I once had an entire lobbying plan to get us all to move to California. Everyone loved the idea, except, well, my mom and dad. My cat loved the idea.”

  He smiled, picking up a shell and skipping it across the incoming wave. “So how do you survive and have fun?”

  “You learn to wear layers. Sometimes you’re wearing so many layers you can’t move,” I explained. “So, um. Have you been here before? To this place?”

  “Once before, when I was a little kid. Maybe six. And then my buddy Trevor—he’s the one with the long brown hair. His family has a house here—that house, I mean. We’re friends from UNC.”

  “Cool,” I commented, sounding uncool.

  “So, are you going to school anywhere warm, at least? Like, I don’t know. Alaska?” Blake teased me.

  “Not quite. Northern Michigan,” I said.

  “Ouch. Y’all are crazy.” He laughed. “Well, you can always transfer. You could be a Tarheel.”

  “A what?”

  “That’s what they call us at UNC. Tarheels.”

  I peered down at his foot and saw that his ankle had a light black, slightly faded tattoo around it. I couldn’t see what shape it was, exactly. “I don’t see any tar,” I said. “Maybe you’re more of a sand heel?”

  “Yo, Blake! Let’s move! Tee time in ten!”

  “We’re going golfing. Hey, see y’all for beach volleyball later, all right?”

  “Sure—sure thing,” I said, not that I played beach volleyball, or any kind of volleyball. But I’d try. “Sounds great!”

  “Cool. Later, Em!” he called with a little wave over his shoulder.

  Great. Sounds…great. Also? Looks great, I thought as I watched him jog up the steps to his house’s deck, and that was the last I could see of him.

  “Emily. Emily!” My mother suddenly appeared, waving a brochure in front of my face. “Earth to Emily! We’re going on a lighthouse tour this morning. Well, what’s left of the morning. Then we’ll go out for lunch, so why don’t you go get dressed?” she asked.

  I glanced down at my clothes. “I am dressed.”

  She cleared her throat. “More dressed.”

  “Mom, it’s the beach, it’s vacation,” I argued. “Everyone here dresses really casually.”

  “Yes, but where we’re going they might have the AC on. You’d freeze.” She flashed a tight-lipped smile at me, and then pointed to the house. “Go change, or at least find another layer.”

  As much as I loved my mom, I was really looking forward to not being told what to do all the time, come fall. I might be homesick, living away from home for the first time ever, but I could use a little freedom in my life. Plus, my mom had this image of me as a fourteen-year-old in her head that she could not seem to get out. I was perpetually fourteen, being driven to lessons or going to the city to watch performances or spending vacations at ballet camp, all arranged by her. Not that I had a problem with it at the time—but in retrospect? I’d have to say my life was a little one-sided back then. I’d missed junior prom to appear in a dance recital. Need I say more?

  I was on the way to reconfigure my outfit when I saw Spencer staring out at the ocean from the upstairs deck, where he was standing, book in hand. “You going with us?” I called up to him.

  “Going with you where?” he replied.

  “Lighthouses,” I said. “Or at least one. Then lunch, I guess.”

  “Do I have a choice?” Spencer asked.

  “Not according to her.” I pointed to my mother. “Everyone’s going.”

  “Then I’d hate to be left behind,” he said. “But, you know, if you’ve seen one lighthouse, you’ve seen ’em all. And I hate feeling like such a tourist.”

  “So…don’t come, then,” I suggested.

  “Why wouldn’t I come? I mean, just because I might hate every second, that’s no reason not to come along.”

  I looked at him, wondering when he’d turned into such an antisocial being. “You’re weird. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “Oh, sure. I’m very, very strange,” he said.

  “Well, as long as you can admit it.” I hurried into the house. On the stairs, I ran into Heather, who had already changed out of her sand-covered clothes and was on her way down. “Did I see you talking to Blake out there?” she asked.

  “Yeah. What happened to you?”

  “I was too sticky—I had to change. So, how’d it go?”

  “You know what? He’s really nice,” I said.

  “Awesome. Did you get his number?”

  “No,” I admitted. “Anyway, why do we need his number? He’s next door!”

  “Emily. Are you completely clueless?” she asked. “You get a guy’s phone number. It tells him you’re interested.”

  “Oh. Well, I got his name,” I said in self-defense, somewhat feebly, knowing she was right about the clueless aspect.

  “No, I got his name,” Heather corrected me with a playful swat on my arm.

  “Right.” I laughed. “Well, I did talk to him, and he invited me—us—to a party they’re having tomorrow night.”

  “You’re kidding!” Heather said.

  “Like, oh, my God!” Spencer squealed, coming up the stairs behind me.

  Heather turned and gave him a disparaging look. “Who invited you? This is a private conversation.”

  “Then don’t have it on the stairs. Because other people have to use them,” Spencer said. “I’m only getting ready because she told me to.” He pointed at me. “But you’re going to do it again, aren’t you?”

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Spend the trip being boy crazy,” Spencer said. “Just like last time.”

  “No, not like last time,” Heather said.

  I coughed. “Definitely not.”

  “Unlike you, we’ve actually gotten more mature,” Heather said. “So it’s not the same thing as being what you call ‘boy crazy,’ because that was us when we were eleven.”

  “Fifteen,” Spencer coughed.

  “Plus, we go out more often. Unlike you, I’m betting,” Heather said.

  “We do?” I said. “Right. We do. All the time. Constantly going out.”

  Spencer laughed in my face. “Yeah. Right.”

  How was it he could always manage to see right through me?

  And how was it that I didn’t punch him?

  Chapter 5

  “Everybody say ‘squeeze!’”

  “Squeeze!” Heather and Adam yelled, while Spencer stood a little sullenly off to one side. I didn’t mind. I was actually getting good shots of him being less posed. This way, I’d get his true, miffed, unpleasant expression.

  “Whatever happened to saying cheese?” he complained.

  “We’re from Wisconsin,” I reminded him. “People call us cheeseheads. It’s a bad stereotype.”

  “Too cheesy,” Heather said.

  We were standing on the observation deck of Currituck Lighthouse, and so far I’d taken pictures of everything: the tall grasses below, the ocean sound between the strips of land, the lighthouse and its 214 spiral steps to the top, which had made us all break a sweat but had given me very cool photos.

  Before the lighthouse tour, we’d gone on a short hike, looking for the wild mustangs that supposedly roamed the area. We only ended up seeing one horse, and it was so hot and buggy that we’d made a dash for the van after not too long. My dad wouldn’t stop singing this old U2 song, “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Hors
es?”, only changing the lyrics to “Who’s gonna find those wild horses?”

  My dad has to sing a lot. In public. It doesn’t make sense, given the fact he’s an accountant, and they’re supposed to be stable, boring types. It’s because he was in a band in college—I’ve seen the videos and he wasn’t half bad (back then, anyway).

  Still, despite my dad’s occasional bursting into song, I’d gotten a sense of how beautiful the area was, and how amazing it must have been in the past, before people like us were tromping all over the place, scaring off the wild horses.

  “Take it already,” Spencer said to me. “How many group photos do we need?”

  “I’m getting it. I want the shot to be perfect,” I said. “We need the lighthouse in the background and—”

  Spencer let out a loud and overly obvious sigh. “It’s like I said. Seen one lighthouse, you’ve seen them all,” he said.

  “Your enthusiasm is so refreshing,” Heather commented, shoving him so hard that he moved out of my view just as I pressed the button.

  “Perfect,” I said. I turned off my camera and put it into my bag. “So, what’s next?”

  “We have to meet at the van at one,” Adam said. “According to your mom. Who told me that about six times.”

  “Why do I feel like we’re on a school field trip?” Heather asked.

  “I know,” said Spencer. “We have to take off on our own tomorrow. It’s not like we don’t have enough vehicles—and do we really have to go everywhere together?”

  “My mom would never let me leave the group,” I began to explain.

  “Mine either,” Heather added.

  Spencer stepped back, putting his hand on his chest. “Not even with a reliable older person like me?”

  I shook my head.

  He looked a little shocked. “What, I’m not good enough?”

  “Please. You’re only ten months older than us,” I said.

  “If that,” added Heather.

  “I think I know when my birthday is,” Spencer said with a laugh.

  “Look, who cares? We can always just ask if we can go somewhere together without parental supervision,” Adam said. “We’ll phrase it in a way that they’ll have to say yes. We’ll tell them we’re going somewhere safe.”