Summer in the Invisible City (20 page)

Benji and I are alone in his office and it's awkward. My mom had a private meeting with Benji before mine. Now she's waiting for me outside.

“Are you going to fail me?” I ask.

Benji smiles, then frowns, then smiles. But the smile he lands on is not a happy smile. “
I don
't want to.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“I've never failed anyone,” he says. “And you don't deserve to fail, I don't think.”

“Plus, I'm Allan Bell's daughter,” I say. “So . . . there's that.”

Benji shifts uncomfortably. “What does that mean to you?”

“What does it mean to you?” I counter.

Benji blinks. “It means you have a lot to overcome if you want to be an artist.”

That makes me quiet. I've always seen it the other way, like having Allan for a father should make it easier for me to be one, too.

“That's not what I thought you were going to say,” I admit.

“What did you think?” he asks.

“People in the class have been saying you only like me because my father is who he is,” I say. “That I'm not talented.”

Benji leans forward, but he doesn't look angry. “I know.”

My eyes widen. “Wait. What? You know, too?”

“Another student talked to me about it,” Benji says.

I sit bolt upright in my chair.

“When you didn't come to class yesterday, another student, whose name I will keep between myself and her,” Benji continues, “talked to me. And she said that she might have upset you by implying that I play favorites with you because of your dad. She was concerned that she was responsible for your not coming to class.”

“Izzy told you that?” I blurt.

“
I don
't want to name names,” Benji says, but he says it in a way that means
yes.

I'm shocked that Izzy confessed to Benji. I can't process what that means.

“You know that's not true, right?” Benji asks. “
I don
't play favorites.”

“
I don
't know,” I say.

I wait for Benji to go on, but he doesn't. He just looks at me, and I can see him contemplating whether or not he should keep talking. Then he says, “You know I just spoke to your mom.”

I nod.

“She's great,” Benji says. “You're very lucky to have a mother like that. She said you've had a rough time this summer. I hope this is okay, but she told me that your father hasn't been encouraging of you pursuing art.”

I shrug. “Not really.”

“I'm not a therapist or a counselor or whatever,” he says. “But I'll just say this: you don't need your father's approval to be an artist. I'm not close with my family. I never have been. They don't understand what I do. They think I'm crazy for not living in the small town where we grew up and being an insurance salesman. I've always had to look outside my family for role models. And that can be disappointing. But it's also brought a lot of really great people into my life.”

I look at Benji, and for the first time, I wonder about all kinds of things about him that I've never wondered—where he's from, and whether or not he's married, and what his parents look like. If he goes home for Christmas. If he was popular in high school or an outsider.

“Where are you from?” I ask.

“Indiana,” he says. “But, that's not the point. We aren't talking about me. I have a serious question for you.”

“Okay,” I say, wincing a little. This is the longest and most personal conversation I've ever had with a teacher, and it's making me feel embarrassed for both of us.

“Tell me something,” Benji says. “What's your favorite thing about photography? Your answer doesn't have to have anything to do with this class. I'm just curious.”

I swallow. “I love taking pictures. I think I like taking pictures even better than printing them in the darkroom.”

“Okay.” Benji nods. “Good. What do you like about taking pictures?”

“I like how when I'm walking around with my camera on,
I notice things that I wouldn't normally notice. I know this sounds dumb, but it's almost like having the camera gives me a superpower and I can see invisible things.”

Benji smiles slowly. “That's incredible.”

“Not really,” I say, sinking into my seat. “It's cheesy.”

Benji shakes his head. “No. It's not. It's beautiful, really.”

I take a deep breath. Then I blurt, “Am I gonna fail the class because I didn't show up for the final?”

“No,” Benji says without hesitating. “If you do it. If you hand it in to me before grades are due next week.”

“But I haven't even started,” I confess. “
I don
't know what
pictures
I'm going to hand in for the final.”

“You'll figure it out,” he says. “You have a lot of great work to choose from. The only thing you need to do is ask yourself what you're trying to say.”

“I'd need more time,” I admit. “I haven't even started my final prints. So, I'd need . . . like . . .
days
.”

“That'
s fine,
” he says. “You can use the darkroom this week. I'll be in my office grading, but you can print.”

I don
't know what to say to that. I'm trying to formulate the words when Benji stands up, ending the discussion.

He walks me to the door. “Thank you,” I blurt. And then, right before I leave, I turn to him.

“Why are you giving me another chance?” I ask him.

“Because you're up against a lot,” he says, “and I want you to win.”

—

My mom and I walk home together after my meeting with Benji. All traces of the sweet, sparkling early summer have
vanished. Now, the city sinks under the oppressive August heat.

I'm wearing sandals and the back straps are chafing at my ankles from sweat and friction. When I get home, I'll shower and then I'll be clean for five seconds before I start sweating again.

“Benji says you're really talented,” my mom says as we cross First
Avenue.
“He said you're one of the best students he's ever worked with.”

“It'
s so weird,
” I say. “This girl in my class, who I thought was my friend, told me that Benji only likes me because Allan is an artist.”

“She's wrong,” my mother says firmly. “I think you know that. And this person is clearly a jerk.”

“But still,” I say. “It's just so annoying. Even if I get into art school, everyone is always gonna think it's because of Allan. Even though it's the opposite and he's so discouraging.”

My mom and I walk carefully around a pile of trash bags that are leaking a stream of brown fluid. The sour smell of garbage washes over us.

“I wish I could say you're wrong,” my mom says. “But you're not. That used to happen with me all the time when I was a student. Because, you know, I had this . . . relationship with a principal dancer and he taught a lot of our classes. So whenever I got praise from him, everyone always thought it was because of our relationship.”

I look at my mom. I can easily picture her being a young dancer. She was probably the prettiest girl in the class. No wonder her teacher singled her out.

“How did you know you wanted to be a dancer?” I ask her.

“
I don
't know, exactly,” she says. “It started because I was good at it. That helped a lot. But also I enjoyed it. Even though it was hard. It was grueling at times. Bleeding feet and bunions and exhaustion and all of that. You know the stories.”

“How did you enjoy something so hard?” I ask. “It sounds awful.”

“Maybe enjoyment isn't the word,” she says. “It was bigger than enjoyment. It's like, the world made sense to me when I was dancing in a way that it didn't anywhere else. I just, always understood what was happening in ballet class. I never felt . . . lost. Does that make sense?”

It does, because that's exactly how I feel about photography.

“And you think that's enough reason to do something with your life? Just 'cause you like it and you're good at it?” I ask.

“I think so,” she says simply.

“Did it bother you that nobody really goes to see ballet anymore? I just feel like, why should I work so hard at photography when there's, like, nothing really earth-changing about doing it. That if I didn't do it, the world wouldn't be a worse place,” I say.

“The world would be a worse place without your pictures,” she counters. “You are bringing order and beauty into the world. And that's how I felt about ballet. And that's enough.”

“What if that's not enough?”

My mom stops walking and looks at me.

“Sadie, I don't have all the answers,” she declares.

That's not what I wanted to hear. But there's something comforting about hearing the truth, even when it's not perfect.

“You're gonna have to get your own answers,” she continues. “But if there is one thing I want for you, it's for you to fight for the person you want to be and for the things that you love. Do you think it was easy being a dancer? Or being a mother? None of it has been easy. I fought for it and I still fight for it. And it's worth every single second because I love you. If you don't fight, you'll never find out what you're capable of.”

—

Back in my room, I examine the picture of the boy on the subway I took earlier in the summer. It's good. Izzy was wrong that Benji is only nice to me because of Allan. She knows it. And deep down, I know it, too.

I look at the postcards on my wall. Their fake cheerfulness, which has always made me happy, seems so dark now. They taunt me by showing me this phony world that doesn't exist, where the sunset splinters into a zillion vivid colors and the city is made of glass. Why do I save these stupid things anyway? They erase everything and everyone I care about. In these pictures you can't see the way the city is constantly decaying and being repaired, or the heavy machinery and the rank tunnels. You can't see the way that grass sprouts up in the wrong places, or all the rusted fire escapes and the graffiti on the subway ads or any of the millions of people who live here. All that's left in these pictures are hollow buildings and empty streets.

I sink onto the floor with the photo books that Benji lent me and thumb through their pages. They are full of photographs of the way things actually are, the opposite of the postcards. Here is a lonely gas station on the side of a wide freeway. Here is a woman in a diner by herself, sadly sipping coffee that looks weak. Here are a group of sweaty teenagers at a concert. Their bodies are inked up with tattoos; their faces are red and pulsing with rage. This is the real world. The complicated, messy, invisible world that you don't see when all you're looking for is a prize.

Sad things are a part of life. Some sad things are big, like dads who don't care about their kids or moms who have you in high school and then have too many boyfriends and make you move around too much. Some are medium sized, like people who you think are your friends but who turn out to be strangers. And some are small, like grown-ups eating dessert alone. Like walking past my mom's bedroom at night and seeing the light on in her room, but not going in.

One of the pushpins that never stays put falls out of my board and onto the floor. The postcard drops, swinging crookedly from the one remaining tack. It's a postcard of the Brooklyn Bridge beneath a rainbow, with the words “I ♥ NY” stamped across the too-blue sky.

I stand up and take the postcard down off the wall. I remember when I bought it. My mom and I had just gone to see
The
Nutcracker
and then we stopped for hot chocolate at a deli afterward where I bought this card.

I pick up my phone and text Sam. We haven't spoken
or texted since he left, but I write:
what's your mailing address?

A minute later, he responds. No questions, no emojis, just the information. Still, it feels good to see his name on my phone again. I text back:
thanx.
He writes:
it's really good to hear from you.
I write back an emoticon of a person sticking out their tongue. He writes:
is that all I get?
I laugh. Then I write back:
for now.
Then, I sit down at my desk with the postcard and take a pen out of my drawer. And I write.

Hi, Sam,

I don'
t know why I'm sending you a postcard of New York because I know you know what the city looks like, plus if you didn't, this postcard wouldn't help since it's the fakest thing ever.

I've thought about you every day since you've been gone. I miss you. How is being back? Tell me everything.

Sadie

Benji is giving me a second chance and I can't let him down. I have to make this the best Photo 2 final ever. This must be what my mom meant about fighting for things you want.

The idea came to me when I sent Sam the postcard with the Brooklyn Bridge on it. The next morning, I went to the big professional photo store on Eighth Avenue to see if they carried what I needed to make my project real, and they did.

I bought five packs of light-sensitive-postcard paper. Each piece of paper is regular postcard size, four by six inches, and the back is lined so that you can actually write in an address, put a stamp on it, and send it in the mail.

I arrive at the classroom ten minutes before Benji, because I want him to know that I'm all-in. On the first morning, Benji shows me how to mix the chemicals myself, which is a responsibility that's usually reserved for seniors. But Benji
says he has too much grading to do, and if I want to use the darkroom, I have to set up and clean up myself.

For the next three days, I'm in the darkroom from seven thirty a.m. to four p.m. when Benji leaves. I only take breaks to eat and drink sodas from the vending machine on the empty quad. The days are getting shorter. It's crazy to think that in a few weeks, school will be packed.

I print seven postcards each day, laboring over the light settings so that these are the best prints of the summer. I print all my favorite pictures—ones I handed in for critiques, like the boy on the subway and the inside of my drawer, and also ones that I took for fun. Like the picture I took with the four by five of my mom in the kitchen and all of the lotions lined up in the bathroom. I even print a photograph I took one afternoon that just shows a cloud shaped like a hand. I want the collection of images to come together to make a tapestry of summer that is as much about the city and the sky as it is about my personal experience and all the things that happen behind closed doors.

I know Benji knows what I'm working on, because he sometimes walks through the lab and sees me hanging my test prints on the clothesline to dry, but he doesn't ask me about it. I think he can sense that I'm focused and he doesn't want to disrupt my flow.

After I'm done printing on the third day, I go to a stationery store and buy a pretty cardboard box, just the right size for my project. Later, I sit at my desk in my room and put stamps on the back of each of my postcards.

Part of my idea is that I want Benji to actually use the postcards. I want him to write notes to friends and family from other parts of the world and send them in the mail. I wish I could be there when some
one
who I've never met gets the postcard and sees my photograph. For that moment, the photograph will tie me together with this stranger, the way that all the books I've read and the movies I've seen and the photos that I love tie me to the people who made them. It's a mysterious bond, but a real one. I think, maybe, it's something worth fighting for.

I arrange the postcards neatly in the small box. On the outside, I write,
“Postcards from the Invisible City—Sadie Bell. Final Project. Photo 2.”

It feels like a lot of things are ending all of a sudden. When I hand in this project tomorrow, it will be the end of Photo 2. In a few weeks, school will start and it will be the end of the best and worst summer of my life. And in nine or ten months, it will be the end of high school all together.

I pick up my smooth box of postcards. It's heavy from all the paper inside. I run my fingers over its clean
surface.
Soon, my postcards will slowly be scattered into the world. It might take Benji years to get through all of them. It's nice to remember that not everything is ending. Some things have only just begun.

—

“Knock knock,” I say out loud, because the door to Benji's office is open.

“
Hi, Sadie,
” Benji says. “Can I help you?”

“I'
m done,
” I say. I place the box of postcards on his desk. “I cleaned up the darkroom and dumped the developer into the chemical bins.”

“Good, thank you,” Benji says, but he's staring at the box.

He picks it up. Carefully opens the lid. Thumbs through the photographs.

“These are gorgeous,” he says. “The print quality is beautiful. Look at the value of the sky there—wow. Nicely done.”

After that, Benji asks me what I'm going to do with the rest of my summer, and he tells me that he is going to visit friends in upstate New York for a week before school starts.

“I should get back to grading,” he says, after a few minutes. “This is my least favorite part of my job.”

“Okay, I'll go,” I say.

Before I leave, Benji says, “I'm impressed. Thank you for . . .
I don
't know. A great summer.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you for everything. Seriously. I was about to quit.”

He sticks out his hand.

I'm surprised. I've never touched, let alone shaken hands with a teacher. I take his hand and he shakes it firmly. He holds my gaze steadily as he does it. It feels like a real, adult handshake and while it makes me feel sort of embarrassed, it mainly makes me feel proud.

He knows what I know, I think. We might have had some hard times this summer, and we might never know each other outside the walls of this school, but we have a bond that is stronger than time. He wants me to be an artist like
him, and he is going to show me how to do it. Or maybe it's not that he wants me to be like him. Maybe it's just that he believes in me. And I think that might be contagious, because right now, I do too.