Picture Perfect

by Catherine Clark

  “What I said this morning—I mean, I was just—that was me being stupid. You’re not immature, Emily. You’re the opposite of immature.” He tried to touch my arm, but I pulled away and shifted to the other side of the table to collect more prints.

  “Now you make me sound like I’m ready for a nursing home,” I said. “Which is it?”

  “Be quiet—I mean, don’t joke around, I’m trying to say something and you’re not listening,” Spencer pleaded.

  “Oh. Wow. I’ve never heard of that happening,” I said drily.

  “You had the guts to say what I was supposed to say—and do. You’re brave enough to face everyone with this and just deal with it. But—what if—what if it didn’t work out with us?” Spencer asked in a quiet voice. “I just felt embarrassed. I’d told you so much. About dropping out and how I felt, and I—what if you change your mind? What if it doesn’t work out?”

  I finally managed to look up at him. “It’s not like I wasn’t taking that risk, too. And Spencer, we’ve known each other for so long. I think we both knew it was a good idea.”

  “Was?” he blurted.

  “What’s a good idea?”

  I looked up and saw Spencer’s parents, who seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. They came over to the table.

  “They dropped me off then went next door to shop,” he explained under his breath. “Sorry. I didn’t think they’d come back.”

  “Um.” I coughed. “Making prints before my memory card gets full. Or erased. Or lost.”

  “Ah. What’s taking you so long, Spencer?” Mr. Flanagan asked.

  “I needed new sunglasses. I was, uh, asking Emily for her advice on picking out another pair, but then she started showing me her great photographs, and—”

  “You lost another pair? That’s two so far,” commented Mr. Flanagan.

  “I know, I know. I guess I, uh, dropped them,” Spencer said. “On the ferry. I called, ‘Shades overboard!’ but nobody seemed to care.”

  “Emily, how are you after your overnight adventure?” asked Mrs. Flanagan, browsing the nearby shelves, while Spencer turned a rack of bumper stickers around and around.

  “Fine. Just fine,” I said, casting a glance at Spencer, wondering if visual death rays were just a myth.

  “Can you believe how many bumper stickers there are?” he said. “I mean, look at this.” He held one out to me that had the standard abbreviation for Outer Banks, OBX, only on this sticker the O was the shape of two lips giving a lipstick kiss.

  I raised my eyebrow. Interesting choice.

  “What are you doing over here, Emily?” Spencer’s father asked as his mother grabbed some items and headed for the register to checkout.

  “Nothing. I mean, it’s a surprise. Or at least it was.” I laughed nervously.

  Spencer’s mom returned from the counter, while his dad went up front to buy some candy and chips. “Here, Emily.” Mrs. Flanagan handed me a travel kit filled with tiny bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and shower gel. “Happy early birthday. Or late birthday. Whatever.” She smiled.

  “For me? Am I going somewhere?” I asked.

  Spencer laughed. “Good one.”

  I glared at him. Great. Now he’s probably convinced his parents to leave early, just in case something else happens between us and he can’t deal with that, either. Or wait. Maybe they’re kicking ME off the island.

  “It’s for when you get to Linden. You need your little kit in case you don’t always spend the night in your dorm room,” Mrs. Flanagan said as if that were the most natural thing in the world.

  “Mom!” Spencer exclaimed. “Jeez.”

  “Oh.” She giggled. “I didn’t mean that. Emily’s not that kind of…Anyway, all I meant was that she’s going to take road trips with her friends, her roommates. You can have this kit and think of this great vacation whenever you use it. One whiff of that saltwater ocean lotion and you’ll come right back here.”

  “Really,” I murmured. The question is: Will I want to?

  “Mom. You’re hopeless,” Spencer said.

  “What?” She put her hand to her throat, adjusting a patterned scarf she was wearing.

  “You’re not selling the product, okay? You’re buying it. You don’t need to convince other people to use it,” he argued.

  Wow. He’s even that rude to his mom, I thought.

  “Well, excuse me for caring. I wasn’t forcing anyone to do anything,” she said.

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Flanagan. I really appreciate the gift—your thinking of me. I love little mini products like this.”

  “You do?” Spencer looked like he’d just lost all faith in the human race, like I’d committed a felony. “You’re into products?”

  I finished packing up my stuff. “Don’t you have sunglasses to pick out?”

  “Fine.” He headed for the twirling sunglasses post.

  “And don’t get the same ones again!” I called after him. “Those were hideous.”

  His forehead creased with concern as he looked over his shoulder. “I thought you liked them.”

  “Yeah. I thought I did, too, but the longer you wore them…not so much.” I turned and walked out of the drugstore, clutching my prints, calendars…and all-natural organic travel tote. That might come in handy when Heather and I left Linden for California.

  Chapter 19

  The next morning, I was sipping coffee and eating a piece of cinnamon toast in the third-floor kitchen, where everyone tended to gather. Almost everyone was already up and accounted for, before Spencer wandered in and sat at the table across from me. He silently shook out a bowl of cereal and kept looking up at me, as if he was waiting for something. As if I would talk first, but why would I talk to him? I’d been avoiding him ever since the drugstore incident. I’d gone out with Heather and Dean the night before, just so I’d be out of the house—we’d gone to dinner and a movie, but the whole time I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Spencer.

  So this was what really falling for someone meant. It ruined your life.

  I’d only bared my soul to him and what did I get in return? He told me I was immature.

  Well, I wasn’t.

  Except that if he tried to say I was immature again, I’d say something in return like, “I know you are, but what am I?” which would only prove that I was in fact immature.

  I had the potential to be immature, but I didn’t exercise it. He did.

  Adam came up the stairs in running shirt and shorts, carrying a bright red piece of something in his hand. “Excuse me, but what’s this?” he asked the group.

  “What is it?” his dad asked.

  “I don’t know—I just found it in the parking lot.” He turned it over in his hand, and a piece of paper fell out onto the floor.

  Spencer’s eyebrows shot up. “I was trying to make a mini kite to sail, and that was the basket—” He leaped up from the table, nearly flattening Tyler, and tried to grab the paper off the floor.

  Mr. Thompson got it first. He unrolled a note that was attached by a piece of tape and a string to the small piece of red fabric. He read out loud:

  “E,

  You were right. I was wrong.

  I guess maybe I’m falling in love. I’ve never been in love before. So what do I know what we’re supposed to do?

  But I don’t care if everyone knows. You’re worth the embarrassment.

  You’re the Emiliest of the Emilies. (Sorry.)

  OBX XOXO,

  S.”

  I felt my face get warm. Then my neck. Then my arms.

  “Woo-hoo! This is hot stuff!” Mr. Thompson said, fanning himself with the note.

  “Wait a second. Did that say ‘Emily’? As in, this Emily?” Heather’s mom asked.

  “Who’s writing you notes?” asked Adam.

  “What does OBXXOXO mean?” asked Spencer’s dad. “Is that some sort of code?”

  “Are you getting secret messages?” my father asked, peering at me as if he suddenly
didn’t know me anymore.

  I wanted to hear the note again. And again. Spencer was falling in love? With me? Had he actually confessed that? To a crowd?

  “Wow. Must be left over from some other people. Must have blown down the beach,” Spencer began. “Whole message-in-a-bottle-type thing—”

  “Wait a second,” Adam said. “Wait a second. S? Are you S?”

  “Yes, Sherlock Holmes. You figured it out,” Spencer said in a grumpy voice.

  “Ha!” Adam laughed.

  Spencer came back over to the table and crouched down beside me, putting his hands on my legs. “I thought I threw that little parachute onto your balcony last night, but I guess it blew off. So, I apologize for the public reading of my note.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said.

  “Well, I do,” Spencer grumbled. Then he smiled. “Yes, it was corny. Still, I mean every word of it. Even the dumb words.”

  I smiled at him. “So…you’re okay with this?” I asked, as around us, everyone was murmuring and then shouting things like, “You? And her?” And “Her? And him?” and “THEM?”

  “Yeah. I am. I’m more than okay,” Spencer said. “I guess I was just in shock and I kind of overreacted. Maybe I ate too many weird gingerbread pancakes. I don’t know, but I’m sorry—I acted like a jerk. You’re right—this is a great idea.”

  “You guys! I can’t believe it.” Adam shook his head as he looked at us hug. “Dude. That’s awesome.”

  “Well, I, for one, am not surprised at all.” My mother smiled and looked very pleased with herself, as if she’d predicted it, which was ridiculous because even I didn’t predict it. “Didn’t I tell you? These things have a way of happening.”

  “Say something,” Spencer urged me.

  “Um…” I had no idea what I should say at a moment like this. It’s one thing to have your first boyfriend and have him say he’s falling for you. It’s a whole other thing to have everyone in the world find out about it the same time that you do. And still another to have it be your parents and their friends. I leaned closer to Spencer and whispered in his ear, “Do you think we could go somewhere a little more…private?”

  He nodded. “But you forgive me, right? You still think I…we…”

  “Me and you? Oh, yeah. As long as you keep saying that you were wrong and I was right,” I said.

  “Don’t get used to it,” he shot back. Then we both laughed and hugged.

  “Aren’t they so cute?” said Spencer’s mom. “They’re so right for each other. How could we not have noticed?”

  “Got bad news for you, Em. If your dad pays for the wedding, it’s going to be an outdoor event,” Mr. Thompson teased. “Hot dogs, maybe. Generic chips and water. Not bottled water, either. Strictly from the tap.”

  “Give me a break, guys. What do you think I’ve been saving for all these years?” my dad cried. “Duh. She can have the wedding of her dreams. The in-laws, however, are going to be a major problem—”

  “We’re not getting married! Would everyone please shut up?” I said, getting to my feet.

  But the guys were so busy arguing and laughing that they didn’t even notice us slip away. Or so I thought.

  “Hey! Where are you going?” Spencer’s dad called after us as we headed for the deck outside.

  “If you don’t mind, we’d like to be alone,” I said.

  “Ooohhh, they want to be alone!” several of the guys repeated after me, in singsong voices.

  My mother narrowed her eyes. “How alone?”

  “See what I was saying? This is going to be awful,” Spencer said as we closed the door behind us.

  “Terrible,” I agreed, taking his hand and squeezing it tightly.

  We looked at each other and smiled.

  “Somehow we’ll just have to deal with it, I guess,” he said, slipping his arms around my waist. “In the meantime, we have one week left here, and I don’t intend to waste it.”

  “Hey! You guys!” Heather shouted from down below by the pool. Dean was sitting next to her and they were drinking coffee together, snuggled on a chaise together. “Knock it off already!”

  I waved down to her. “See, it won’t be that bad,” I said to Spencer as we stood by the deck railing. “Just occasionally mortifying. Come on, let’s go tell Heather the good news.”

  “What good news?” asked Spencer as we headed inside and past the still-talking-about-us group in the kitchen.

  “Don’t make me—” I threatened as I stopped halfway down the stairs.

  “Kidding!” Spencer cried, colliding into me. “I was kidding!” He grabbed my hands and pulled me closer toward him, kissing me. “You know, we have to stop meeting on stairs.”

  “Do we? I kind of like it,” I said, kissing him back.

  We ran outside and joined Dean and Heather by the pool.

  “You guys did it, didn’t you?” asked Heather as Spencer and I sat down on the pool deck beside their chair, and put our feet in the water.

  “Did what?”

  “Made up! And went public!” Heather cried. She looked really happy and I couldn’t wait to tell her about the note I’d managed to shove in my pocket when no one was looking. No way was I leaving that around for someone else to read again.

  “We heard everything. The windows are open,” Dean said. “We thought there was a fire or something, from how loud everyone was yelling. ‘You, and him? You, and her?’”

  “The ’rents are a little overexcited,” Spencer said, nodding. “It’s sickening.”

  “Or it would be sickening, if it weren’t so great. Right?” I corrected him.

  “Exactly.” Spencer put his arm around my waist and scooted closer.

  “Hey, if you guys want to be alone…” Heather teased.

  “We’re fine right where we are,” I told her.

  A few nights later, our parents hosted yet another big party to celebrate all of us going to Linden. Mom had made a special cake, and a giant banner was strung across the deck that said: WELCOME LINDENITES!

  “Do you feel like they had that banner made when we were two years old? And they’ve just been dying to use it?” Heather asked me.

  “It does look a little dusty,” I said. “And dated.”

  One afternoon, a large brown box had arrived, full of new Linden sweatshirts for all of us freshmen, plus two for the twins—Adam’s stepmom had ordered them as soon as she found out Adam had gotten in. I took a group picture of everyone, including Dean, using the camera’s self-timer and the TV stand as an impromptu tripod.

  “Linden, my Linden…your tree is everlasting,” my dad started to sing, in a deep—and deeply embarrassing—baritone.

  “Sounds like ‘O Christmas Tree’ to me,” Spencer said under his breath.

  “I think it is,” I agreed.

  “You know what they say. Heard one school song, you’ve heard ’em all.” He grinned, but seconds later an empty can of pop flew across the room and hit him in the head. “Who threw that?” he asked. “No, seriously. Who threw that?”

  “So. We haven’t really discussed this yet,” I began as I started putting away the camera. “But what do we do when we actually get to school? Is it going to be too weird?”

  Spencer looked at me and lifted a strand of my hair that had come loose when I pulled on my sweatshirt, pushing it back behind my ear. “Why would it be weird? I think it’s great.”

  “You, Mr. Let’s Keep This to Ourselves?”

  “I’m over that,” said Spencer. “Can’t you tell? I’ve practically had my arm around you all day.”

  “True. And I love it, by the way,” I said. “But what do I know about going to college and having a boyfriend? Nothing.”

  “Well, if you’re still feeling weird about it, why not take a year off and do whatever we want?”

  I laughed. “Excuse me, but didn’t you just do that?”

  “Oh. Right.” He smiled. “Yeah, but we could do it together.”

  As tempting as the offer wa
s, I had goals I wasn’t really ready to just toss aside. Plus, I could just imagine what my parents would have to say. “How about if we go be freshmen together, and sophomores and juniors and seniors, and graduate together? Then we can take a year off.”

  Spencer nodded. “Agreed. Except I’d like to skip the sophomore part, I hear that’s a hard year.”

  “We’ll go to Europe or something.”

  “Right. We’ll do that, we’ll totally do that.”

  I stepped back from him. “Are you mocking me? Again?”

  “Would I ever mock you?” he asked. “Sorry. Okay, let’s start small. What do you want to do tomorrow? Where should we go?”

  “I don’t know. Should we see what my mom has planned?” I asked.

  “No, definitely not.” Spencer laughed. “I’ve seen enough lighthouses to last a lifetime.”

  “You’re just afraid you’ll have to climb all those steps again.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid? Really.”

  “Then again, if we ditch the group, like last time…”

  “We’re pretty good at not staying with the group, aren’t we?” He held my hand, and I leaned against him.

  “We can take off in the Rustbucket first thing in the morning.”

  Spencer kissed me. “If it starts, that is. Where should we go first?”

  “I don’t know, but we should probably avoid places with balconies,” I said.

  “And pink rooms—”

  “And kayaks—”

  “And family members,” Spencer said as we spotted our moms sitting over on the corner of the deck, pretending to have a conversation, but spying on us.

  “Okay, kids. Name the president of the college during the tumultuous seventies!” Adam’s dad cried.

  Adam groaned. “You said this was a trivia test. Not an ancient history quiz.”

  “Oh! That’s low! I think I need another beer,” said his father, heading for the cooler. “Harsh.”

  “I thought they’d never end the quiz,” I said. “Good job, Adam—way to appeal to their age.”

  “No problem. And by the way? Great cake.”

  “Thank you, Adam.” My mother beamed at the compliment on her Linden leaf-shaped cake, which she’d worked on all afternoon. “You know, you can buy the pan at the campus bookstore.”