Fall For Anything (9 page)

The studio is a brick building with huge windows just on the outskirts of Delaney. It’s two stories. The first story is a kind of common area, with separate work spaces. The second story is where the photography happens. There’s a darkroom and a long stretch of space for shoots and equipment. Background paper, lights, soft boxes, umbrellas, and so much other stuff I can’t even remember the names of—I’ve only been here a handful of times in my life and like I said, I’m no artist. I almost tell Culler about the time I accidentally walked in on one of Maggie’s shoots, but I’m glad I think better of it because it was something naked and bondage-y.

I was fifteen.

When Culler and I let ourselves in, Maggie is in the kitchen area, flipping through a magazine. The place is pretty messy, considering so few people work in it. But it’s artfully messy. Pretentiously messy. Artists work here.

“Have you got the key?” Maggie asks. That’s how she greets us. Maggie is a lithe blond thing. She’s twenty-seven. Her work is about sex and gender and violence. I used to love her photos, loved sneaking looks at them and marveling over all of the ways people can fuck and pose and not look like they’re posing.

“Always so good to see you, Maggie,” Culler says, digging into his pocket. He tosses the key at her. It hits the table, slides off, and lands on the floor at her feet.

“I didn’t know you two were friends,” Maggie says. “Hi, Eddie.”

“Where is everyone?” I ask.

“Rick’s not here, surprise, surprise,” she says. Rick Vance is closest to my dad’s age, maybe a little younger. He had his day, I guess, but now he hardly ever works. He pays for the space just in case. Dad used to say he was waiting for Rick to realize his heart wasn’t in it, but he was fine with Rick paying rent until he did. “And Terra’s shooting upstairs, so you can’t go up there right now, but it doesn’t matter—your dad’s stuff is down here anyway.”

She says this so casually, like it’s nothing. Like I’ll just get what my father left behind and take it to the house, where he’s alive and waiting for me.

Not like he’s dead and this is what’s left of him.

“Jesus, Maggie,” Culler says, and I am so glad he’s here with me for this. “Your humanity astounds me. What do you do, save it for your photos? Oh, wait, it’s not in
those
either…”

“Oh, fuck off, you digital dork. God, I’m not going to miss you.”

Culler points to me. “Her dad just died.”

“And Eddie should know my loathing of you does not extend to her father or her.”

“You call an unoriginal photographer unoriginal just
once
,” Culler tells me, “and they never, ever get over it.”

“Uhm, where are his things?” I have no idea what I’ve walked into.

She points behind me. I turn. Against the back wall, underneath the window, is a single, medium-size cardboard box, taped and sealed shut. I don’t know how I keep it together enough to walk over to it. I bite my lip so hard I taste blood. I try to swallow it; I can’t. My legs feel like they’re made of nothing. There has to be more than this.

He wouldn’t just leave us with nothing.

I face her. “Is this it? Did you pack his things?”

“You packed his things?” Culler demands. “What the fuck right of that was yours?”

“I didn’t
touch
his fucking things. That’s what he left.”

“Where’s the rest of it?”

“There is no rest of it,” Maggie says. “He got rid of it and left that box, which has been sitting there forever.”

I turn to Culler. “When did he get rid of everything?”

He looks totally lost. “I wasn’t here the week he … it had to be then, because the week before that…” He faces Maggie. “When did he get rid of everything?”

“I don’t know.”

“What
do
you know, Maggie? Anything?”

“How hard is it to pick up a box and
leave
?” She closes her magazine and gets to her feet. “I didn’t touch his fucking things, Jesus. I didn’t pack that box. I don’t know when he got rid of it. I’m leaving. I’ll be gone for an hour, Culler, and if you’re here when I get back—”

Her voice fades out. Culler starts talking, but he sounds so far away, I can’t get a handle on it. I stare at the box and run my hands over the cardboard. Do you know what this means? I want to ask them that.
Do you know what this means?

The front door slams shut and it’s quiet.

Maggie’s gone.

She wouldn’t care what it meant.

I press my hands against my eyes and exhale slowly. Culler’s footsteps echo through the room as he walks over to me, stands close. He says my name, but if I move my hands I’ll cry. I don’t want to cry in front of Culler. I want to be cool and unflappable. I want to handle this. I have to handle this. I’m supposed to handle this. Beth sent me down here to handle this.

I am apparently the only person left who can handle this.

“Eddie,” Culler says.

I move away from him and lower my hands and I don’t cry, thank God, but I don’t say anything either. Everything I’m feeling is so beyond anything I could say. When I finally do find the words, they fall out of my mouth, my voice breaking. Stupid and confused.

“So he knew he was going to do it for at least a week,” I say. “So there were a few days where he was at home and he knew he was going to kill himself, which means he had time—”

I stop. I can’t.

“Had time for what?” Culler asks.

“To leave behind something more,” I mumble. “Better.”

Sometimes I feel hunted by my grief. It circles me, stalks me. It’s always in my periphery. Sometimes I can fake it out. Sometimes I make myself go so still, it can’t sense that I’m there anymore and it goes away. I do that right now.

I go so still the thing inside me doesn’t know I’m there anymore.

“Eddie?” Culler asks quietly.

I grab the box, but my hands quit on me, my dead hands, and it slips through my fingers and hits the floor. I hear the unmistakable sound of glass breaking and I start apologizing to no one, trying to pick it up again, but I can’t.

I can’t get my hands to work because they’re too cold.

“Sorry.” I can’t grip the box. “I didn’t—it’s my hands. They’re fucked up—”

“It’s okay.” Culler nudges me aside and picks up the box. “I’ve got it.”

“Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”

He nods and I follow him through the door, outside. We put the box into the back of the station wagon without a word and seeing it there, by itself, makes me almost cry again, but I don’t.

“Why are your hands fucked up?” Culler asks.

It’s an empty and painful moment. It is the kind of moment that has me by the throat, the heart. Culler stands there and watches me and doesn’t say anything.

“It’s a long story,” I finally answer.

“I’ve got the time.”

“I don’t really want to tell it.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” he says.

“Why?”

He smiles ruefully. “Because now the only thing left for me to do is take you home.”

Culler has to take photographs of the studio before we leave. He catches me in one of them. I hold up my hands—delayed reaction—and tell him not to.

“Why not?” he asks. “You’re beautiful.”

“You’re full of it,” I say, and then I realize it sounds like I’m fishing for compliments and I don’t want him to think that. “I mean—thank you.”

No one has ever called me beautiful before and I’m surprised by how strange and uncomfortable it makes me feel. It’s not a word I’ve ever considered for myself—or thought that other people would either, I guess.

“You’re welcome,” he says.

In the car, we’re quiet. I don’t know what to say. The box in the backseat makes the silence too heavy to breathe around and I ask Culler if I can open the window. He tells me sure and I roll it all the way down. The wind rushing into the car drowns out the sound of the radio, the sound of my heart beating. The box is still in the backseat, though.

I roll up the window and the silence is immediate. The box, the box. I tuck my hair behind my ears—Beth is right, I really need to cut it—and then I rub my eyes and rest my head against the seat. The box. I close my eyes.

Stop thinking about it.

“You have so many of his mannerisms,” Culler says suddenly. “You move the same way he did. You speak—the way you say certain words, it’s exactly on…”

“Does that freak you out?” I ask.

“No.”

It freaks me out, a little. I am so much my father. I know this. People used to tell me that all the time. I have his hands, his face—the same fine features, brown eyes, and thick brown hair. By the time I started looking like he did when he was my age, strangers were mistaking him for my grandfather. I wonder if that ever bothered him, being so much older than my mom, older than other fathers who had seventeen-year-old daughters. Like, if every time he looked at me, he felt his age and how much closer that made him to death than he used to be, like Beth does, but not like Beth exactly. I wonder if that would be a reason to kill yourself.

Maybe that’s why he killed himself.

It’s so quiet. Being quiet with Culler isn’t the same as being quiet with Milo. It doesn’t feel like something important is missing.

We’re about halfway back to Branford—floating through this town called Corby—when Culler says he has two cases of beer in the back of the station wagon, under the seat. He suggests we make a toast to my father and I agree, even though I hate the taste of beer. I just want to spend more time with him. I don’t want to go home.

Corby is nice. Culler drives us to this Catholic high school, St. Peter’s, and parks sideways in the parking lot. We sit on the pavement, behind the car, our backs against it, out of sight of any passersby. It feels wrong and right at the same time. Summer vacation looks great on schools. I’m dreading senior year.

I glance at Culler. He’s taking the caps off the bottles with his teeth, which is vaguely impressive. He’s so past high school. He must think I’m a little kid. He passes me a bottle.

Or maybe not.

“To Seth,” he says.

“My dad.”

We clink bottles and swig the beer in unison. It’s warm. Gross.

“The last time I was at that studio…” He trails off and takes another swig from his bottle. I wonder if the objective is to be drunk and stuck here until we sober up. “The last time I was at that studio … he had contact sheets, negatives, equipment—and he just … got rid of it.”

“Did you want it?” I ask. “I would’ve let you have it.” It’s out of my mouth before I know if I mean it, but then I decide that I mean it. If my dad had left it all behind, I would have let Culler take what he wanted. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” he says. He gives me a small smile. “Don’t be. That’s very sweet.”

He thinks I’m a little kid.

I finish off the beer and wait to feel something, but I don’t feel anything except sort of tired and sad. Culler doesn’t touch his beer and it’s more than half full and I think that means it’s time to go, but I don’t want to leave just yet.

I don’t want to go home.

“What’s with you and Maggie?” I ask.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Try me,” I say.

“We had a thing…”

“A thing?” I repeat, and then he looks at me and I feel my face turn totally red and he laughs again and I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. “Oh God …
Maggie?
” And then I make it even worse: “She doesn’t seem like…”

“Oh, I know,” Culler says. “I know. I mean, it was okay, I guess.” He shrugs. “She got to the point where she wanted to know what I really thought of her work and I felt like it would be okay to tell her.”

I cringe. “Honesty is not the best policy?”

“She’s very unoriginal.”

“She’s fairly well-known.”

“Most unoriginal people are.”

“Does that mean my father was unoriginal?”

“No. Besides, by the time he died, he wasn’t that well-known.” He pauses and laughs again, looking away from me like I’ve unnerved him a little. “I’m just talking.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Should we go?”

I don’t want to go back. I don’t. The idea of going back makes me feel so sick, now that I’m so far from home. And then I have this crazy vision of Culler and me traveling so far away together. It’s insane but I’m desperate not to go back to Mom, to Beth, to Milo. I search for something to say and there’s nothing. My eyes travel to the station wagon.

The box inside.

I glance at Culler. He stares up at the sky and then stands and my heart jumps. I grab his leg without thinking and before he can ask me what’s going on, I say, “I wonder what he thought was worth leaving behind.”

Culler looks at me. “You want to open the box?”

At first, I thought I’d wait until I was alone to open it because it’s private, but I’d never get that moment. Beth would be on me from the minute I brought it into the house and who knows how Mom would deal with it. Not that this truly matters, since I’m just using it as an excuse to stay longer. Still. Culler is probably the best person to do this with. Logically.

“Yeah,” I say. “If you’ll—if you want to…”

“I’d be honored,” he says, and then his face reddens when he realizes how formal it sounds coming out of his mouth. “I mean it, though. I would be.”

He holds out his hand and helps me to my feet. We stand there for a second, staring at the box, and my heart pounds and I realize how big this is and how I used it, just so I could spend more time with Culler.

Now I feel really sick.

But I pretend like it’s nothing I can’t handle. I open the door and pull the box out and my hands hang on tight this time. Glass clinks inside and I don’t want to think about what I broke, but I’ll know in a second.

I set the box on the pavement and we stare at it. The seams are taped perfectly, and my skin crawls at the idea of him taping this up, knowing the whole time he would kill himself and I would come here and find it. Anger wells up inside me, turns my blood hot. He knew. Of course he knew. Duh. But I feel dumb because some part of me was pretending his death was something he committed to on the spur of the moment. Not an intention he kept with him, close to his heart, while he was with us.

Acting like everything was fine.

I bend down and dig at the tape but my fingernails are useless against it. Culler bends down beside me and he has a Swiss Army knife attached to his car keys. He runs it down the middle of the tape, cutting a perfect line. The cardboard releases its hold. A sharp little sound. He steps back and waits for me to open it. I will open it. I’ll open it. I open it.

I pull the cardboard flaps aside and stare into the box.

The edges of six frames stare up at us.

Six photographs.

Culler and I look at each other. I sit down and he sits next to me and I pull the first frame out and the next, and the next, and the next. The fifth one is the one I broke. I want to pick the ragged glass edges out of the black border but I don’t. I lay them all out, until we’re surrounded.

The photographs are of six locations. All black-and-white. I only recognize one of them—Tarver’s. It’s the third photograph I set out. It was taken at night and the building looks like it’s glowing, and I don’t even know how that’s possible because there are no lights at Tarver’s.

The stars are all behind it.

For a second, I can feel myself up on the roof. At night. I can feel it like I’m in the photograph. My head spins a little. I close my eyes for a second and then I open them again.

“Tarver’s,” Culler says, following my gaze. He points to the first photograph I set out, a run-down-looking barn. “That’s an abandoned barn … I was there when he took that one…” He points to the third photograph I set out: an empty house. The doors and windows are boarded up. “I was there for that one too.”

He skips over Tarver’s and goes straight to the fourth photograph. It’s of a beaten, falling-apart gazebo in the middle of a field. He shakes his head.

“But not that one.” He moves on to the next. “That’s an old, abandoned one-room schoolhouse. I was with him for that one too…” And then there is the last photo. A worn-down, tired-looking church. “Not that one.”

He leans back and takes a longer look at them, totally awed in a way I am just not comprehending.

“Jesus,” he says quietly. “These are the last photographs he worked on…”

He’s thinking that’s amazing and I am thinking:

These are what my dad thought was worth leaving behind and they are nothing.

“You should have them,” I say abruptly.

Culler’s head jerks up. “What?”

I grab the photos and start putting them back in the box. I want to throw them, but I don’t. I’m shaking. “You should have them. They mean something to you. I don’t get art, really, so I want you to have them—”

“Eddie—”

“No, I’m serious.” My eyes burn. “I want you to have them, Culler.”

“Eddie—”

“Just say you’ll take them,” I snap, and then I feel bad. “Sorry.”

“I’ll take them,” he says. I move to get up, but I can’t. I press my palms into the concrete and I feel his eyes on me. “Eddie … what were you expecting?”

The question takes it out of me and I feel tiredness seeping into my bones from no place I can source. Nothing is right.

“More,” I say.

Culler moves closer to me. “I’m sorry.”

“You know what his note said? It said he had to leave.” My voice breaks. I swallow hard. “That’s it. That’s so much nothing.” I gesture to the box. “And those—aren’t even great photographs. They’re nothing too.”

And then I feel really bad for saying that.

“Eddie,” Culler says. He reaches out and presses his hands against my face. Our eyes meet. “Do you really want me to have the photographs?”

“Take them. They don’t mean anything to me,” I say. “They don’t mean … anything … I thought…” I shake my head. God, I’m going to cry. “I thought they’d mean something—tell me…” And then I do start to cry and I can’t stop. “I needed it to.”

Our eyes meet and something changes. Something changes in him. I feel it through his hands against my face, like everything inside him stops. And then starts again.

He brushes my tears away with his thumbs.

“It’s okay,” he says, but it’s not okay. “Eddie, it’s okay. I understand.”

He leans forward and kisses me.

It’s not just a kiss. His lips are insistent, searching, trying to get the feel of me, and my heart is so heavy and sad. I feel that from him too. This is a funeral kiss. This is a kiss for the dead. We miss my father too much for it to mean more. But it’s still the nicest thing that’s happened to me lately. He feels warm. His tongue is in my mouth.

I think the dumbest thing:
I would take off all my clothes for you.

It’s so dumb, but it’s the thought his mouth on my mouth puts into my head.

And when he pulls away, I say the dumbest thing: “I’m seventeen.”

He laughs.

We don’t talk a lot on the way back to Branford. I’m glad because I’m not sure I could trust myself to speak. By the time he drops me back off at Fuller’s, long after Milo’s shift has ended, we say good-bye like nothing happened.