The Time Telephone

by Connie Lacy

  “I saw you talking with Rikki Washington in the lunchroom,” I said, which seemed to catch him off guard.

  “Yeah…”

  “You know her?”

  “We met in a class.”

  “What class?”

  “A photography class.”

  “That’s right, you’re a photographer,” I said, pulling my hood up, trying to keep the wind off my ears.

  “I never said I was a photographer.”

  “Well, you’ve taken a class and you took our picture Saturday and you said you wanted to shoot some black and white photos.”

  “I’m what you might call a profoundly amateur photographer. I just take pictures.”

  I sighed.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I was hoping you could give me some pointers.”

  “Hell, yeah, I can do that. I’m really good at giving people pointers. Let’s stop by my house and get my camera.”

  He lived two streets over in a red brick ranch with a double carport, pink azalea bushes and a couple of big maples out front. He dashed inside to get his camera bag and a photo album but he was gone longer than I expected. I wandered around out front, waiting. I was about to go on home when he hustled out the carport door, a tan camera bag on his shoulder.

  “Had to give Thomas a little attention,” he explained. “Sis is studying for an exam and he was feeling kind of ignored.”

  “Your sister’s in college?”

  “Yeah, Georgia State. She dropped out for a while, had Thomas. Now she’s back on track.”

  Then he changed the subject and started talking photography.

  When we arrived at my house, it was empty. I was more conscious of how the kitchen looked since Kieran was with me. Lots of light. Several potted plants. White appliances, white cabinets. Splashes of green everywhere. Kind of nice, actually.

  Of course, half the kitchen table was covered with a huge jigsaw puzzle of outer space – stars, planets, gas clouds.

  “Want a snack?” I asked.

  “Does a deejay love the sound of his own voice? Does a certain lazy teacher, who shall remain nameless, play computer Solitaire on her laptop in the back of the classroom? Has the cost of higher education risen over a thousand percent in the past thirty years?”

  “Are you auditioning for a sitcom?”

  I got a bag of pretzels from the cabinet and grabbed two diet strawberry-kiwi Snapples from the fridge.

  “But more importantly,” he went on, “does a needle ever get lost in a haystack? Does a politician ever run out of half-truths? Does the high level of e-coli bacteria on surfaces in public places mean that everyone’s lying about washing their hands?”

  “Do you have an ‘off’ button?”

  I set a basket of fruit on the table along with a couple of napkins.

  “These are vital questions,” he said, making a pompous politician’s face.

  I poured some pretzels on a paper plate.

  “Yours?” he asked, nodding at the puzzle.

  “Not even.”

  “So, it’s your grandmother who’s tackling the universe.”

  I peeled a banana halfway, broke off the exposed half and took a bite.

  “Now, I can’t really give you a lesson about the camera itself,” he said. “But I can show you some of the things I’ve learned.”

  He pulled a small photo album from his bag and I scooted my chair around to his side of the table.

  “I thought Grandma was the only person who still printed pictures,” I said.

  “I just print the ones I want to put in my album. Call me old-fashioned, but I like looking at them this way.”

  I had picture albums too but Grandma’s the one who bought them for me and filled them up. She didn’t like to sit at a computer and look at photos.

  “This was when I first got my camera,” he explained. “I was eleven. Really crummy pictures.”

  He popped a couple of grapes in his mouth.

  “They’re not crummy,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes.

  “All right, why are they crummy?” I asked.

  “Because I’m too far away from the subject,” he said with his mouth full.

  In one, there were four boys sitting on the edge of a swimming pool, dangling their legs in the blue water, taken from the other side of the pool. In another, a boy was petting a dog. In another, a woman who had to be his mother was stirring something in a big pot on the stove.

  “Okay, now, look at these,” he said, flipping the album over to the last page.

  In the first one a dog stood on his hind legs and stared into the camera, looking seriously dopey. In another, a man and a woman – definitely Kieran’s mom and dad – sat next to each other on a couch laughing. Then there was a photo of the violet wisteria vines hanging above the pink dogwoods at the farmhouse, which looked like something out of a storybook. And the last picture was of Grandma and me, taken at the farm house. We had smiles on our faces and looked for all the world like we were having a super time together. Like we both had tons of joie de vivre. It occurred to me then that the old saying “pictures never lie” was a lie.

  “Do you see the difference between these,” he said, flipping the album to the first page again, “and these?” he said, turning to the last page.

  “You can see the faces of the people much better in the newer ones,” I said. “You were much closer to your ‘subject.’”

  “You are correct, Miss McConnell. You win the grand prize! A free breakfast sausage syrup egg bacon cheese grits country ham butter cinnamon jelly low fat, low cholesterol combo biscuit at QT!” And he clapped his hands enthusiastically like he was on a game show.

  I couldn’t help laughing.

  He talked a lot about camera angles, framing the picture and lighting, showing me good and bad examples of each. I was fascinated and found myself wishing I had a better camera.

  “Okay, let’s take some pictures!” he said.

  He jumped up and cleared the table off like he was an experienced bus boy. He brought his camera bag and we headed outside. He walked over to the large oak out front. Its arching branches were filling out with small green leaves. The clouds had parted in a few places, allowing scattered shafts of sunlight to brighten the landscape.

  “Here, you lean against the tree,” he said.

  I followed his instructions as he pulled a large, complicated looking camera from his bag.

  He positioned himself so he would be taking the picture from an angle, not straight on.

  “Now, turn your head and look at me,” he said.

  He looked like a professional photographer. His camera wasn’t a little pocket-sized digital like the one Mom had given me for Christmas when I was 11, that’s for sure. It was black and had a big lens on the front. And I was surprised when I heard a loud click as he snapped the picture.

  “I wasn’t ready. You didn’t tell me to smile.”

  “I didn’t want you to smile,” he said. “The picture looked just right. Now, let’s trade places.”

  “Let me see.”

  “The camera?”

  “The picture,” I said, reaching for the camera.

  “It’s not digital. There’s no view screen.”

  My mouth must’ve been hanging open, or something.

  “I do have a digital camera,” he explained. “But I really like using my dad’s old Nikon. I took that photography class, you know. And I even got to develop some film and make a couple of prints in the darkroom.”

  “That’s why you’ve got a picture album. You have to print your pictures.”

  He nodded and handed me the camera, giving me a quick tutorial on how to focus the lens and how to snap the picture. I was amazed – you even had to push a lever to advance the film. It was so retro.

  He draped the strap around my neck before taking his position by the tree, putting his shoulder against it and folding his arms across his chest.

  “What do you see?” he said.<
br />
  “I see a strange tree hugger.”

  He kissed the tree, making a big smooching noise.

  I giggled.

  “Look at what else you can see in the picture. You’ve got to decide how much you want to include. Like, do you want it to be a close-up of my ruggedly handsome face?”

  I couldn’t help chuckling again.

  “Or, do you want to get more of the ruggedly handsome tree?”

  I stepped forward, moving the camera slightly from left to right and back again, trying to decide what looked best. It was very awkward looking through the small viewfinder at first.

  “You can also try a vertical shot instead of horizontal,” he said. “You know, portrait rather than landscape.”

  I turned the camera, noticing how Kieran’s face was partly framed by the bark and partly framed by the grass behind him. Then I looked at his face and eyes. I found myself thinking he was kind of cute. And something about his eyes made me feel like he could see through the lens, right through my eyes, into the neurons in my brain.

  “I like the vertical,” I said. “Can I take the picture?”

  “Can you? I would hypothesize that your index finger is probably dexterous enough to depress the…”

  I snapped the picture.

  “Hey, I was talking,” he said.

  “Well, shut up.”

  I advanced the film and then snapped another shot. It was weird how loud the camera was, but I liked it. My mom had a camera something like this when she was young. She used to send film to Grandma to be processed at Wolf’s. That’s how I got to see the world – through the snapshots taken at cafés and hotels where she was staying.

  Then we wandered around the neighborhood taking pictures of a dog, a couple of kids, a car and some more shots of Kieran. I posed him leaning against a beat-up old pickup truck. I took my time framing the picture, deciding how much of the truck I wanted in the shot. But I also sneaked glances at him. He was more than just kind of cute.

  Then I took a picture of him on the chin-up bars at the elementary school. He was hanging upside down and waving his arms around. Then he took the camera and insisted on taking another one of me.

  “Sit on the swing,” he commanded.

  I sat on the middle swing and held onto the chains. He lay on the grass at my feet so he had to shoot up at me. He looked through the camera and then scooted a little closer.

  “The sky looks really nice behind you,” he said. “The clouds are very theatrical.”

  I moistened my lips.

  “Pull your hair forward over your shoulders.”

  I did as he said.

  “Yeah, that looks super. Now angle your face away from me just a little. That’s good. But keep your eyes on me. Great. This is going to be a great cover for Seventeen magazine.”

  Which made me smile and he snapped the picture. He lowered the camera but continued looking at me. I felt a tingle in my stomach and turned my face to the sky, trying not to let him look into my eyes and read my thoughts.

  He cleared his throat.

  “I’ll drop the film off tonight and pick up the prints tomorrow,” he said.

  He got up and stowed the camera in the bag as I pushed off. Then he hopped on the swing to my right. Soon we were swinging as high as we could go. It felt good to pump my legs and fly. And having Kieran with me made me feel more alive somehow. I didn’t realize I was smiling until I noticed my teeth were cold.

  Wind in my hair, sun in my eyes, pumping, pumping.

  Swing higher, swing higher, legs jumping, jumping.

  When I was a little girl I loved to swing high. I always planned on letting go and leaping from the swing like some of my friends did but I could never quite work up the nerve. I was sure my mother had jumped from swings when she was a kid and I wanted to be brave like her. Not afraid to “grab the gusto.”

  I remembered when I was about eight I decided I wanted to grow up and be a TV reporter like my mother and then the two of us could travel the world together. I daydreamed that the news anchor would introduce us saying something like “reporting live from Beijing, here now are Jody McConnell and Megan McConnell.”

  I dreamed I would look like my mother. Of course, that would mean I’d have to bleach my hair blonde and wear lots of make-up. But I thought that would be part of the fun. And I figured we could wear the same clothes. One day, we could do our live shot with red jackets on. Another day we could both wear pink sweaters with matching bows in our yellow hair.

  Sometimes when I was in my room I would draw pictures of the two of us, our faces framed by a TV screen. I would carefully color the pictures, spending a lot of time choosing just the right colors for our identical clothes. I would draw happy smiles on our faces. I hid the pictures in a school folder with unicorns on the front in the bottom drawer of my dresser.

  Then, before I lost my nerve, I let go of the chains and soared through the air, tumbling as I landed on the hard ground. I heard Kieran’s voice shouting behind me. I lay on my back on the cold dirt, looking up at the “theatrical” clouds Kieran had admired. He appeared above me.

  “You okay?” he asked, kneeling beside me.

  “I always wanted to do that when I was a kid.”

  My eyes began to water.

  “But I wasn’t brave enough,” I whispered.

  “I wasn’t brave enough either.”

  “You lie.”

  “I never lie.”

  He took hold of my hands and pulled me to my feet.

  “You’re lying. I know you are,” I said. “Just to make me feel better.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too,” I said, brushing the grass from my jeans.

  “Am not.”

  “You’re just saying that,” I said, giving him a little shove.

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.”

  “Am not.”

  He pushed me back, none too gently, using his shoulder against my shoulder.

  “Are too.”

  We went faster and faster.

  “Am not. Are too! Am not! Are too!”

  I kicked him in the butt.

  “Admit it,” he cried. “I’m a big chicken! Admit it!”

  “Never!” I shouted.

  He wrapped his left arm around my waist, twisting my right arm behind me.

  “Admit it or I won’t let go!”

  “Never,” I said, hoping to prolong the moment, feeling his breath on my cheek. “You’re brave and strong!” I yelled.

  He relaxed his hold but I didn’t try to escape. I liked having his arms around me and his body so close to mine. Then he sniffed really loud and sniffed again.

  “You’re right about one thing,” he said, releasing me. “I am strong. I think I forgot to use my deodorant this morning.”

  Which cracked me up.

  About halfway home I asked him about his sister. But that caused his mood to do a one-eighty.

  “What’s she majoring in?” I asked.

  “Husband hunting.”

  “Aren’t you Mister Snide.”

  “Actually, she’s minoring in husband hunting and majoring in hotel management.”

  “And what’s wrong with hotel management?”

  He gave me a sarcastic look like his sister was a total ditz.

  “That’s a little harsh,” I said.

  “Of course, maybe she’s got the right idea because Nina’s not exactly what you’d call PhD material, if you know what I mean.”

  “So much for your being a super nice guy.”

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong,” he continued, “I’m glad she’s back in school. But how stupid is it to get pregnant when you’re eighteen and totally screw up your life?”

  “She’s back in school, isn’t she?”

  He continued as though he hadn’t heard me.

  “But I think a lot of girls are, you know, kind of short sighted.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Not you, of course.”

&nb
sp; “What about the Einstein who got her pregnant?”

  “Well…”

  “Mm-hm.”

  ~Eight~

  Lies

  In my room that night, I pulled out my picture albums. I realized now what good photographs they were. Kieran would be impressed. There were pictures of dance recitals, concerts, soccer games, Christmas mornings, birthdays, vacations, and, of course, every visit from my mother.

  Anyone looking through these albums would think I’d led a picture perfect life – literally. Smiles in every photo, all my old girlfriends, beach towels, cakes, skates, bikes, stuffed animals, pretty dresses.

  I had always loved the picture of me and Mom on the roller coaster at Six Flags, both of us with our mouths wide open, screaming like maniacs. How had Grandma gotten such a good shot? Another of my favorites was the one of me and my mother building a big sand castle on the beach at Hilton Head Island. In fact, now that I thought back on it, Grandma had done a lot of the work on that castle. But she wasn’t in the picture.

  There were pictures of our visit to the Statue of Liberty, the Grand Canyon, the White House and Niagara Falls. I looked closely at the one of me and Mom on the Maid of the Mist boat with our thin, blue plastic rain coats whipping around our legs. The spray from the falls was drenching our faces as the water cascaded into the river behind us. It was a cool picture. Kieran would like that one. You’d never even know Grandma went with us, unless you knew she was the official family photographer who kept her camera in her purse at all times. And there I was zooming down a slide at the park when I was six. Here I was riding my shiny new purple bike on Christmas morning when I was eight, with Mom standing in the background, smiling and holding a mug of coffee. And I’d always loved the picture of me and Mom playing horseshoes when I was twelve.

  We looked like we were best buddies. Her arm was draped over my shoulder in a lot of the shots. And then I realized something. Grandma was only in a couple of the pictures. You’d think from looking at these albums that my grandmother only came to visit now and then and I lived with my mother.

  But as I continued to browse through the albums I discovered something else that was obvious only if you paid attention. My mother was not in the pictures taken at school on Awards Day or the Christmas play. Her face was nowhere to be found in the pictures of me all duded up on Easter Sunday or dressed as a witch on Halloween with my curly orange wig and my wonderful witch’s hat and broom that Grandma bought me at Target. Or the pictures of me racing clumsily down the soccer field chasing the ball. But Grandma was there. Here were the pictures to prove it. How interesting I’d never thought of it that way before.