Chapter Eleven
The portrait
After school that afternoon,
Ethan spoke to me.
“You are so naïve, Honey. If you
haven’t worked it out, he was arranging to meet up with his old friends to get
wasted. Maybe you need an intervention.”
“He was not,” I said. “Flynn is
very… conscientious. He’s been extremely helpful with our art project. We’re
just about to Skype.”
“He’s a loser.”
“Flynn is not a loser.”
“Then he’s a wastrel and you
shouldn’t hang out with him so much.”
“He is not a wastrel. That just
wouldn’t be cool. And Flynn is… cool. You’re just jealous.”
Ethan shrugged, “Whatever,
don’t say I didn’t warn you. I think it’s interesting that you are so mean
about other girls yet so willing to give Flynn the benefit of the doubt.”
Was Ethan right? At least I
wasn’t mean to other girls.
Next art class, Hilary was sitting beside me on the hill, looking
profoundly bored. Art just isn’t her thing. Flynn had strolled back, busily
texting from behind the tree, as we were trying to work out how to work the
school’s new camera.
“Hey pretties, give it to me,
I’m an expert in all things mechanical.”
A man who knows how to use his hands to fix things is a real find, even
if it’s sexist to assume we couldn’t work it out ourselves. Fixing stuff is hot.
I mean, as girls we should certainly know how to use something as basic as a
camera but with ‘new’ technology, sometimes it’s okay to let guys think they
have the upper hand.
I had to practically step on
Hilly’s toe when she was about to say, “Oh it’s fine, we’ve got it sorted.”
Hilary looked at me quizzically
before she nodded slowly, mouthed the word “Oh,” and guided by me, smiled back whispering,
“gotcha.”
Ethan looked over at me.
“So, which one of you two babes
is going to be my first model?”
I stepped right back.
“Oh,” I said, “I rarely model –
unless it’s for magazines or my own dating blog – but Hilary would be great.”
I nudged my friend forward. She
could thank me later.
“Cool, okay so, I’ll play
photographer then…”
During this process, Flynn even went over and
adjusted Hilary’s hair, the light, the angle she was sitting, everything. He
snapped away like a professional while I giggled on the sidelines. In between
snaps he said things like, “great, looking hot” and “Wow, Miranda… whoa Giselle!
Yeah baby!”
It was kind of funny. If I
didn’t know any better, and from the looks of Flynn’s bloodshot eyes I’d say
he’d been smoking something, but I didn’t really know any better so I’m not
going to call Flynn out on something he may not have done.
When the photos were taken, we
had to choose one that was representative of ‘the group’.
I’d found some old Edwardian
costumes form the school’s production of The
Importance of Being Ernest and draped them and the props around Hilary with
a large hat. It looked like a mix of the very modern and the very new and since
our photo typified ‘vintage teen drama’ I was pretty pleased with the result. We
had to tell a story via six portraits. Flynn and I chose six of the best with
Hilly as a model.
Hilary was taking the costumes
back to class and Flynn and I were trying to pick the photos we’d use in the
final presentation. Flynn was really looking at the digital images closely. I
could tell he was thinking about Hilary’s beauty – which some maintain I have
exaggerated, but really, I don’t think so.
“I like that one,” Flynn said, “she
looks good in that.”
I agreed. Flynn could barely
contain his enthusiasm.
“Oh, but you see – there’s our
shadow in the background on the wall. You can even make us out behind the
camera.”
“Hey babe, that’s why I like it.”
I’m not sure why he started to
call me ‘babe’ that day, it was kind of against everything we’d learned in
English class.
“Well, this one has a clearer
image of Hilary’s pretty face…”
“Oh, right,” Flynn agreed,
“sure, whatever.”
“Great,” I smiled, “so we
should go with these?”
Flynn smiled and nodded.
He moved closer to me to get
the full effect of the image without the harsh glare of the sun. He seemed
transfixed by the photo.
“Yep,” he said, “gotta agree
with you. I like this one. Put it first. You have great taste Honey.”
I knew it. He couldn’t take
his eyes off the picture. Flynn liked Hilary, it was so obvious. And what
happened next just proved it.
“By the way, my uncle owns the
mall – I’m going to make a copy of this photograph and get it professionally
framed at the camera store there.”
“Great, that’ll be fantastic.”
“Sure, it should be ready by
Friday – welcome to an easy A.”
“Well, um, Hilary and I are going shopping for
prom dresses so, we could come with you – make an afternoon of it?”
Sometimes, you have to
physically play matchmaker for a match to work.
“Sure, we could ditch school if you like, it’s
only study hall.”
Now, I wouldn’t normally agree
to this but sometimes socializing is more important than school.
“Wicked,” I said, pulling back
from Flynn’s enthusiasm. It was so obvious now, the picture of Hilary meant
more to him than any normal photograph – Hilary was the woman he’d set his
sights on, the girl (forgive me for the Cinderella euphemism) he’d take to the
ball.
