I tear into the package, prepared to give an Oscar-worthy performance of Best Reaction to a Bad Present. Historically, Mom has exploited gift-buying opportunities as chances to make me more girly. A baby-blue eyelet blouse with cap sleeves to soften my angular boyish figure. A palette of sparkly eye shadows to brighten my strikingly plain face. Some dangly earrings that get swallowed up by my dark, thick hair. I never begrudge her thinly veiled makeover attempts. It just seems stupid to keep things I’m never going to use. So I trade the goods for credit at the thrift store and get presents more my style. Like old camp T-shirts from summers before I was born, jeans so worn you could trace the white outline of the pocket where the previous owner’s wallet was kept, or those striped socks that have little sections for each of your toes.
But Mom promised this year would be different. That I was going to “absolutely die” when I saw her present. She’s been all goofy over finally cracking the code to her daughter’s weirdness, a proud moment for a single parent whose kid turned out to be nothing like her. I only hope I can act my way out of disappointing her. After all, she’s trying. And trying should count for something.
“Read the card! The card!” Mom says, rescuing it from the shreds of wrapping paper I’ve tossed aside. But I’m already inside the box. When I unfold the flaps of tissue, my mouth drops open and I swallow the whole roomful of air in surprise.
My hands hold an old Polaroid camera. It’s tan and black, with three retro racing stripes of red, yellow, and blue darting down the front. There’s a tower of four flashcubes, like miniature disco balls stacked on top of each other. A nylon lariat threads through a loop of plastic on the back. I slip it over my head and the cord digs into the back of my neck. It feels wonderfully clunky.
“I found it at the camera shop on West Market. I wanted to splurge on one of those digital cameras, but once I spotted this on a shelf behind the register, I knew you’d get a real kick out of it. The man said it’s in perfect condition, though it took me half a roll of paper towels to wipe away all the dust.” She reaches underneath the tissue and hands me two boxes of film, which she explains are standard and still available at CVS.
It takes a few tries, but I figure out how to load the film into the front hatch. Then I frame Mom’s face in the viewfinder and pull the orange trigger. The room flashes and the camera roars. Seconds later, it spits out a foggy white square.
I’ve never owned a real camera before. Just those cheap disposables you can buy at the drugstore. I didn’t even know I wanted one. It’s not like many moments in my life are picture worthy. But now that I do, well . . . it couldn’t be a more perfect present.
“Mom,” I say, but she cuts me off with a shhh before I can get sappy. We are very anti-sap.
“Here. You’re supposed to at least pretend like you’re interested in this.” Mom replaces the photo in my hand with an envelope. She’s not annoyed or anything. I can tell by the way she’s grinning.
The card is her plain cream-colored stationery, folded once along the middle. There’s no flowery Hallmarkian poem with twirly golden script about how I’m now a real woman and blah-blah-barf. I am so thankful that hormone-soaked sentiment is not our relationship. It just makes things uncomfortable. Especially with a history like ours.
I crack it open.
Ruby,
Make wonderful memories.
Love, Mom
I look up at her and smile, but she’s already returned to dish duty. Her photograph lies on the table. Even partially developed, my mom is so pretty — a stark contrast from the peeling linoleum of our kitchen floor, a stark contrast from me.
The doorbell rings. Three times, rapid fire.
“Now, who on earth could that be?” Mom asks in a sugary way. She peers over her shoulder and winks, because we both already know.
I run out of the kitchen, hurdle the living room coffee table, and position myself steps away from our front door. Raising the camera to my eye, I fight to keep the laughter inside my mouth. “It’s open!”
Beth is wearing a green mohair cardigan over a gray tank top, dark skinny jeans, and pointy brown leather flats. The sides of her wavy auburn hair are pinned back with a few bobby pins and her face is tinged pink from her brisk walk around the block. She steps into my house but freezes in action pose as the flash pops.
“Surprise!” I shout, before she can wish me a happy birthday for the fiftieth time today. Beth was the first to call me, at exactly 12:01 A.M. She bought me a birthday egg-and-cheese bagel and delivered it to my homeroom. She covered my locker with pictures of birthday cakes from an old cookbook, threw two fists of three-hole-punch confetti on me at the lunch table, and forced me to tie a helium balloon to the strap of my book bag and keep it there for the entire day.
“Ruby!” she screams and lunges with wiggling peach-polished fingers. I am seven inches taller than Beth, so I hold the photo over my head, comically out of her reach. But she’s not afraid to exploit my weakness. She jabs a finger into my armpit and I recoil in a fit of laughter.
I hustle backward to the kitchen and Beth makes chase. We circle the table and both of us are screaming and laughing so hard the windows shake in their frames. Beth slows down only to kiss my mom hello on the cheek.
I am way out of breath, so I stop. Beth throws her arms around my neck and sinks us to the floor. We stare at the photo in my hands. As our panting subsides, her face emerges from the mist of the film. Her hazel eyes are wide open and her mouth is a perfect O.
“Ha! I look like you!” she says, because I’m notorious for making stupid faces in pictures while everyone else around me smiles like normal.
“No, you don’t,” I say, pointing to the gap in my front teeth. A genetic gift from my dad that I absolutely hate. It’s wide enough to slide a nickel through, like I’m a human slot machine. Beth’s teeth are naturally perfect. She’s never had braces or even any cavities. They’re all tiny and straight and white, like Chiclets. I stick my tongue out at her.
“I like your little space,” she says. “It’s cute.”
I roll my eyes. “You think everything is cute. Even dog poop.”
“Shut up! Dog poop can be cute,” she says, matter-of-factly. “But not as cute as rabbit poop.” We both laugh and my mom calls us crazy.
The doorbell rings.
“Ooh! That’s Katherine!” Beth says, glancing at the clock over the sink. “Her mom was going to drop her off after her basketball game.”
She wants us to surprise Katherine with another guerrilla picture, but suddenly I’m worried about conserving my film. That, and Katherine gets on my nerves. But Beth is so excited, hopping up and down like a little kid who has to pee, I shrug and follow her lead.
Beth readies her hand on the brass knob and I crouch down near the recliner. The bell rings again, this time long and impatient. As Beth swings the door open, I spring up like a jack-in-the-box. We both scream our heads off.
The flash pops, but Katherine doesn’t even blink. Instead, she leans against the door frame in her yellow track pants and navy Akron High School varsity basketball sweatshirt. Her chapped lips wrinkle around a brown filter, and she takes the last deep drag of her cigarette before casting it off into my neighbor’s bushes.
“I could seriously kill my parents,” she says. A combination of smoke and her hot breath in the cold air clouds her face.
The three of us head into the kitchen while Katherine rambles off a crazy recap of her parents fighting in the bleachers over who will keep which half of their sectional sofa. Beth gets her a glass of water. I quietly watch the picture develop in my hands. With her stick-straight blonde hair and icy blue eyes, Katherine is too pretty to be a smoker.
Beth taps Katherine