Pictures of You (3 page)

             
Maybe he was right. I was being too hard on myself. “I’ll never forgive him, John. What kind of a scumbag leaves two girls for dead, in a mangled car on the side of the road? And the worst part is he will never have to pay for what he did.”

             
“Well maybe it’s a good thing they’ll never find him, because if I ever meet the guy, I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.” He gave me a quick side hug. “I’m so sorry you’re going through this.”

             
“Thanks,” I said, willing myself to cry. No luck.

             
John opened the driver’s door and slid in. “It’s got lower mileage, Tember. Ten thousand less than your old one. You can’t get a nicer car with that money.”

             
“Wait, how did you know what my mileage was?”

             
He laughed. “I’m a guy. We notice these things.”

             
“Okay, I’ll think about it, at least,” I said, to shut him up.

             
“Are you interested in the Beetle?” a middle-aged woman with an Australian accent asked as she approached us. “Would you like to take it for a spin?”

             
“Yes, we would,” John said, fiddling around with the buttons.

             
“Okay, let me know if you have any questions,” she said, handing me the key.

             
“Will you drive?” I asked John, suddenly feeling woozy. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.

             
“Why? We’re car shopping for you.”

             
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I just. I’m…”

             
He shook his head and climbed over to the passenger seat. He popped open the glove box and inspected the contents.

             
I felt sicker by the second as I stood and gazed at the empty the driver’s seat. “Think happy thoughts,” I whispered. “Happy thoughts.”

             
John growled. “Just get in and drive the damn car.”

             
Reluctantly, I slid behind the wheel and started the engine. The car exuded a strange smell I wasn’t used to: cigarettes plus that gross cleaner stuff car dealerships use to mask somebody else’s stench.

             
“Ready?” he said, smiling apologetically for snapping at me. I loved that about him—he could never stay angry for long. Abby thought of John’s mood swings as a manic, but I’d argued it was more of a talent to snap back.

             
“I don’t know.” As soon as I pulled the car into reverse, my lungs seemed to shrink into the size of an apple and my heart began pulverizing my rib cage.

             
“Are you okay, Tember?” John studied my face. His revealed a mix of concern and impatience.

             
“I-I don’t know.”

             
“Deep breaths. Take deep breaths.” He rested a reassuring hand on my knee.

             
As we pulled out onto the road, the cars around us disappeared and were replaced by images of the brown van flying across the freeway. And then I felt the impact, heard the sound of twisting metal.

             
“This can’t be real. This can’t be—”

             
“September? What’s going on? You’re going to get us killed.”

             
There was screaming. Lots of screaming. Was that me?

             
Abby was there beside me as I saw the car flipping through the air. Her green scarf escaped through the window. I saw the blood and Abby’s clawed hand. I smelled that metallic, salty smell, her jasmine perfume. I saw her serene face again.

             
“Abby. Abby. Abby.”

             
“September!”

             
I moaned. “Abby. Abby. Abby.”

             
“Pull over!”

             
Strong, warm hands pried mine from the wheel.

And then I snapped back and saw John sitting next to me, panic written all over his
face. “John, I can’t-I can’t!” I crossed my arms over my face. “I can’t-I can’t-I can’t.”

             
“Come on, September. You can do this.” John helped me steer as we dodged several honking cars and a man mouthing a string of profanities. “Let up on the gas. Shhhh. Calm down, Tember. Let up on the gas. I’ll help you pull over.”

             
I was ready to throw up by the time he managed to direct me to the side of the road. I pushed the door open and my breakfast poured right out, onto the newly paved road.

             
“What
was
that? Are you okay?” John looked almost as freaked out as I was.

             
“I don’t know. I’m so sorry. I just—I saw it all over again. I saw that hideous van. I saw her killed all over again. Oh, John, I can’t do this.”

             
He held me as I trembled. I buried my face in his chest. “We’ll take the car back. You’re not ready.”

             
“I’m not ready,” I said, the words echoing over and over in my mind.

3

              “It’s been two weeks and I haven’t shed a single tear,” I said, ringing the bottom of my t-shirt, growling in frustration.

             
“Everyone deals with grief in different ways, September. I think you’re still in shock. That’s perfectly normal,” my shrink Dr. Griffin said, who insisted I call her by her first name, Rose. Although with her giant poof of frizzy graying hair she looked more like a poodle than an elegant flower. Her jacket and makeup were as outdated as her office furniture. The pastel overstuffed chair I sat on reminded me of one my parents bought when they were newlyweds. And speaking of my parents, they were the ones who insisted I go to therapy, the ones who coughed up the dough for these costly visits. I protested at first, telling them I was fine, but they insisted. Anything to get me back to “normal”, whatever that was.

             
Mom had dropped by twice over the past couple of weeks with a casserole or a basket of fancy cookies and breads. Each time she’d stay for only a few minutes. We weren’t very close and Mom didn’t do messy emotional stuff well.

             
“She was only eighteen. Barely eighteen. People shouldn’t die that young,” I said, toeing the ugly carpet.

             
“This is good. Let it out,” Rose said, nodding in encouragement.

             
“Every day—sometimes two or three times a day even—I go into her room to complain about something or to show her my latest photos, or to borrow a CD. But I have to face it all over again: she’s not there.”

             
“And how does that make you feel?” Rose leaned back in her chair, pen on notepad, scribbling down notes.

             
I didn’t know how I felt. I guess I felt a lot of things. And nothing at all.

             
Numb.

             
I looked around the office, studied a photo of a group of people in matching white tops and dark denim, framed on the desk. Rose’s family, I presumed. I counted the heads. Fourteen people. Three with Rose’s frizzy hair. Eight grandchildren?

             
I saw books, probably hundreds of books.
Why Men Hate Women.
(Nice.)
I’m OK, You’re OK.
(Oh good, everyone’s okay!)
Ten Days to Self-Esteem
. (More like ten years.)

             
Behind Rose, I saw two or three dozen troll dolls neatly lined atop her filing cabinet. The creepy bug-eyed dolls with unruly hair (not much unlike Rose’s mop, actually) seemed to be staring down at me. Judging me. Taunting me.
Your best friend’s dead and you can’t cry. You’re dead inside. Dead inside
…Abby had collected troll dolls herself when she was about eleven. She’d find them at yard sales and on eBay. She had at least a hundred. Sometimes she’d use her entire month’s allowance on the ugly little beasts. I wondered if she still had them around and the idea of starting my own collection was strangely tempting all of a sudden.

             
The tapping of Rose’s press-on nails against her Formica desk brought me back to her question:
How does that make you feel?
How
did
I feel?

             
“I just don’t believe she’s dead.”

***

              On eBay they had 1,466 troll dolls listed. I found myself bidding on seven of them, including two with bright tangerine hair which reminded me of Abby. Because I was already on the computer, I spent two hours on another online shopping site, I’m embarrassed to admit. I ordered three books I’d been meaning to read, four CDs, two boxes of gourmet Belgian white chocolate peanut butter cups and an at-home microdermabrasion kit, which promised to clear up my acne and shrink my pores. The damage? $189. But I didn’t feel too guilty, I simply “borrowed” from my backpacking Europe fund. Although Abby and I had finally scraped together enough money to take our coast-to-coast road trip, I had been secretly setting aside money for three years for part two: Europe. I was going to surprise her with tickets on her birthday.

             
After the online shopping spree, I took a long, hot shower and used Abby’s expensive almond honey shampoo. I was sure she wouldn’t mind. By the time I got out, the bathroom was so humid I had to wipe the mirror with a tissue to see myself. I studied my face, my tired mud-brown eyes. I hardly recognized the girl staring back. Not necessarily because I looked awful—the junk food and sleepless nights were taking a toll—but because of the strange, haunted look in my eyes.

             
And because now that Abby was gone, I didn’t know who I was anymore.

             
We’d been besties for so long and we were so much alike, I sometimes didn’t know where I ended and she began. I guess you could say we were like conjoined twins, only we were always together by choice. She was the only one who really knew me. The real
me. She knew all my crap, my darkest secrets, all my hopes and dreams, my fears, my quirks. I hadn’t been close to anyone in my family for years (April and I were good friends when we were little) and not even John understood me the way Abby did.

             
In the mirror I watched a single drop of shower water begin to slide down my dewy face, mimicking a tear. I yanked my chin upward in an attempt to immobilize the drop and rushed into my bedroom to grab my Nikon DSLR. I turned it on, put it on the black and white setting, increased the ISO rating and took a few shots of my face. The white curtain in the bathroom window softened the late morning sun, resulting in perfect ambient lighting.

             
For a small moment I got lost in the magic of creativity. I felt the familiar rush, the rush I got whenever I was in the process of making something beautiful, something unique. One of a kind. My very own. Beauty could be found anywhere, sometimes where and when you least expect it.

             
I put my camera back into the bag and watched the droplet leap from my jaw onto my bathroom robe. I took a shaky breath.

             
Was this the closest to crying I was going to get?

             
After the impromptu photo shoot, I finished dressing myself. I towel dried my hair with one hand and rummaged through drawers looking for the hair dryer with the other.

             
My phone rang, making me jump.

             
“Er, hello?”

             
“September? Hey it’s Becky. How’s it going?”

             
“Oh. Hey, Becky. Long time. I’m…good. I’m good. How are you?”

             
Becky was a casual friend from high school. So casual, this phone call caught me by surprise. We’d shared two photography classes together—and one science. Human Anatomy, I think it was. We were never very close, but she did go to a few lame parties with Abby and me. Actually, that was how it was with all of my friends, Abby aside, of course. None of them knew the real me. Abby was always enough for me. I never felt I needed to make room in my heart for anyone else—until John came along.

             
“September, you’re not going to believe this,” Becky said in a breathy voice, “I’m moving to India.”

             
“Wow, no way,” I said, trying to match her enthusiasm, while tearing the house apart in search of my elusive blow dryer. “That’s so—”