Exposure (4 page)

“But how can you see what you're doing?”

“I can't. If you expose the film to any amount of light, no matter how minute, the whole batch is pretty much ruined. Some people use a lightproof changing bag to transfer the film, but it's easier for me to feel my way in the dark. I really don't have to see to know what's what.”

Whenever I was alone in the darkroom, I felt safe, like I was sheltered in a warm cocoon. Now, with Craig just a few feet away, I could hear him breathing and hoped that he couldn't hear my heart pounding like a stereo with a busted treble dial. The moment seemed rife with possibility.

Still groping in the dark, I placed the spool with its now-transferred film into the stainless steel developing canister and popped on the lightproof lid, then reached for the light switch. Instead, I accidentally flipped on the red safelight I used when making prints. Looking at Craig for a moment, his face was highlighted with red shadows. His eyes were pools of blackness … almost diabolical. Of course, I must have appeared equally
Dawn-of-the-Dead
-ish. The effect of the unnatural light was both eerie and intimate, as if we had suddenly been transported to some other freaky dimension.

“Whoops, wrong light,” I said, flipping the safelight off and turning the regular overhead light back on. Craig winced at the sudden brightness as he snooped through a paint can full of red grease pencils.

“It's cool that you can have something that you're so into,” he said. I reached past him to grab the bottle of developing solution.

“What do you mean? You have hockey.”

“Yeah, I guess. But I'm talking about something more long term. I can't play hockey forever.”

“I thought your dad had it all mapped out for you.”

“Yeah. Go to Yale, pass the bar exam, then onto corporate law. Kill me now.” He looked toward the floor, and pulled the drawstring at the bottom of his jacket back-and-forth, deep in thought. I replaced the cap on the unused bottle of developing solution — it could wait — and turned to give him my undivided attention.

“You know, Craig, you may find this hard to believe, but you are in control of your own destiny. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“Thanks for the self-help seminar, but it doesn't quite work that way in the MacKenzie household.”

“Yeah, well, God-willing, we'll all make it through to adulthood — we're in the homestretch, after all. You can make your own choices then, for better or worse.”

That phrase made me think of Beth. Would those two actually get married some day or would he come to his senses first? I could picture her as a complete Bridezilla, barking orders to her bridesmaids as she marched down the aisle.

Craig began flipping through a binder that housed strips of my archived negatives, each tucked in plastic sleeves.

“I think your friends hate me,” he remarked.

“What friends?” I said. “Oh, you mean Kaya and the girls?”

“Yeah.”

“Don't sweat it. They can be a little abrasive at times, but they're totally cool.”

“I still feel a little strange about the whole thing.”

“Forget it, really. It's fine.”

“No, I mean strange as in creepy. It's hard to describe, but when that tribal mask went up to my face, it felt intense …
weird
.”

No, I thought to myself. Weird would describe the way your axis-of-evil girlfriend insists on wearing three-inch heels to school when there's fifteen inches of snow on the ground.

I purposely avoided bringing Beth's name into any of my conversations with Craig. He rarely mentioned her, either. Call it a mutual understanding we had with each other. I suspected that he knew how much I reviled her. Maybe to some small degree, he reviled himself for dating her. In any case, discussing his succubus of a girlfriend wasn't within either of our respective comfort zones. Tonight, for some reason, was an exception.

“I showed Beth some of my still-life sketches the other day,” he said.

“And …?”

“Not exactly a rousing response from the cheering section.”

“I don't get the impression Beth has the makings of an art critic. Your pictures are incredible.”

“It was kind of demoralizing, though. I hardly show anyone those drawings. I guess I just thought she'd be more supportive.”

“Well,” I said, trying to be tactful, “I'm sure she brings other positive attributes to the table. Otherwise, you wouldn't be dating her.”

“I guess there's a strength to her that I appreciate.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “She's ambitious, and she's sure of herself, and she knows where she's going in life.”

I realized that I didn't share any of those particular attributes. I was insecure and unsure about so many things.

“Holy hell, Beanpole, is that
me?
” he said, bending closer to the binder and pointing to a row of negatives. I looked closer.

“I don't know, let me see.” I removed the strip of negatives from its plastic slot and held it up to the light. I knew it was him without having to scrutinize the portrait subject's dark skin and white, ghoulish eyes. “Yeah, that's you. That was from the scrimmage game a few weeks ago.”

“God, I look
demonic
.”

“Everyone looks that way in a negative. But huh …
that's
funny …”

“What?”

“The way you've got your hockey helmet flipped back in this picture, it kind of looks like you're wearing a crown. You know, that's probably what Cat meant when she'd said you'd be a ‘warrior king.'”

His face registered concern. “Yeah, but what about that death part?”

“Oh jeez, lighten up, Mac … it was only a papier-mâché mask!”

“But, I mean, it seemed like those girls, those friends of yours, sort of bought into the predictions. Do you think they were just putting one over on us?”

“I think it's pretty safe to say their so-called predictions were total B.S. But don't quote me on that. Besides, I kind of like what they envisioned for
my
future.”

I carefully placed the negative back in its binder and put the developing tank with the film from tonight's game in a drawer for safekeeping. I'd come back to develop it on Monday morning. With Craig in here there was no way I could focus properly, anyway.

Craig grabbed his jacket and I opened up the closet door. As we headed for the exit, I stifled a yawn, but Craig seemed amped up.

“Want to come along to the Hurlyburly … help celebrate the win … grab a burger?”

My heart literally performed a double-twisting back somersault in my chest. He was inviting me to hang out? In
public
?! Was this actually happening?

“Really?” I half-swooned. “I don't know … who's gonna be there?”

“All the guys: Duncan, Brett, Nick, Sean … plus Beth, Kristy, Tiffany … probably some other Ice Girls.”

He may as well have asked a baby sea lion to attend a Great White convention. I switched off the lights to the art room and braced myself for the Arctic chill.

“Hmmm. I've got to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to babysit my brother. I'd better just bag it.”

“Maybe some other time, then.”

I drove out of the school parking lot feeling a little bit trembly and numb, annoyed with myself in one respect and yet totally exhilarated. How is it that in one single night I managed to
accept
a total dork's invitation to the prom and also
decline
an invitation from the guy I was madly in love with? Naturally, I could never hang out with that crowd at the Hurlyburly. I would be absolutely paralyzed! But still … Craig had invited me! Not
exactly
immortality, to use Kaya's words — but a start.

WE WEREN'T EXACTLY the
Washington Post
, but that didn't stop Jillian from acting like every routine fire drill or addition to the cafeteria menu was a story of Watergate proportions. The girl was Lois Lane personified, ferreting out the most hard-hitting stories that could be mustered from an uneventful American high school like ours. She'd done investigative reports on the efficacy of Scantron machines at reading No. 2 pencils. She'd gotten an exclusive with the only celebrity alumnus (a no-name soap star) to ever attend East Anchorage High. She'd refused to reveal her source in a story about rampant graffiti in the second floor women's restroom after the principal, Mr. Schaeffer, ordered her to identify the tagger.

She could be nosy to a fault, incredibly crass, loud, and a little bit bossy, but to the staff members of the
Polar Bear Post
, Jillian was our fearless leader. As I sat at the computer mocking up the cover page for Wednesday's issue, she hovered over my shoulder, her brown springy tresses dangling just inside my peripheral vision.

“Your picture of Craig from the game Friday goes above the fold, Skye.” She turned to look at my unwanted paramour working on the other computer in the office. “Leonard, write to half a page, and pad it if you have to.”

“You're leading with sports
again
?” said reporter Megan Riordan. “But what about the debate team's trouncing of St. Mary's?”

Jillian sighed. “Did anyone sever their jugular at the microphone, Megan? If it bleeds, it leads, but otherwise, we stick with the fan favorites. The
New York Times
doesn't run a city council piece the morning after the Super Bowl. Did you interview Jenna yet about her run-in with the law over the weekend? That's the story I want to see.”

Jenna Powell, our crusader for environmental
anything
, had made the local TV news over the weekend when she attended a downtown protest against the oil companies wearing a piece of duct tape over her mouth and not a stitch of clothing aside from some strategically placed dollar bills. It was only twenty-eight degrees outside at the time so, naturally, her wardrobe caused quite a stir. All day at school, people had been going up to her asking if she could spare some change.

“I'm keeping ‘abreast' of the situation,” joked Megan, which garnered a droll ‘hardee-har-har' from the rest of us. Jillian returned the focus to the issue at hand, literally.

“Editorial page. Who's got ideas?”

“College acceptance angst?” Typical Megan, jonesing for another byline.

“Uggh. Thick envelope? Thin envelope? It's already cliché and it's only October.”

The very mention of the topic made my heart hurt a little. It would soon be time to start submitting college applications, and the entire process was both daunting and dreadful. I had my A wish list and my B wish list, and even my “resign yourself to a life of jobless obscurity” C wish list. Grade-wise, I had what it took, but paying for it all was going to require climbing a beanstalk and beseeching a sinister giant to front my tuition. My dad had reassured me that we'd find a way to make it work, but I knew behind his chipper façade that money was tight, and that, for a variety of reasons, I might still end up trading Ivy League for bush league: a local community college.

Still wracking our brains for a column idea that would win Jillian's approval, Lenny leaned precariously back on the legs of his desk chair, seemingly much better at courting a spinal cord injury than courting me.

“What about ‘Do You Believe In Miracles?: East Anchorage's Dream Team,'” he said.

“Last time I checked our banner did not read
Sports Illustrated
.”

“Oh I'm sorry, Megan, did you say something? I fell asleep there for a second reading your last article on the broken vending machine. Ground-breaking stuff.” Megan and Lenny's distaste for one another occasionally flared up into these momentary spats. Sensing an opportunity to get Craig some more good press, I opted to choose sides.

“I think Lenny's got a good point. Nobody expected the Ravens to be contenders this season. Everyone's been talking about it.”

Lenny beamed at me, lovestruck, as if I'd just announced that I wanted to meet him under the bleachers after class. I'd be paying for this later, I was sure.

“True,” conceded Jillian, pushing a chunk of hair behind her ear. “The guys at the
Daily News
are already predicting they could take all-city this year.”

It was fairly typical at our weekly staff meetings for Jillian to invoke the sacred name of the
Daily News
, Anchorage's city paper at which she'd been participating in a work-study program for the past six months. Her reverence and idolatry for the journalists was comical at times but, on occasion, her access to their reportage had helped us publish some noteworthy gems. Jillian liked to remind us that she was connected to the big boys.

“And they're doing it all without Duff Wallace on the team,” I added. “Craig really filled the void and surprised everyone.”

“Okay, we'll go with that angle then. Lenny, you know what to do.” Jillian's eyes narrowed as if struck by another thought. “Speaking of Duff, I think there's another story there. Apparently a marked interest in seeing the world was
not
what prompted him to sign up for a semester in Scotland. I have it on good authority that he needed to get the heck out of Dodge. Lawyers were involved. Keep your ears open on that one and see what surfaces. And don't forget! Next week is Halloween! Skye, get as many costume shots as you can.”