Chapter 26

I was sitting on the floor in my studio, my legs crossed, holding the infamous picture of Laura under the tree. I had just finished putting it in one of the black frames Mom and I had picked up as my mind remembered that day, and how everything that had happened to me this year was almost solely because of this picture.

A smile spread across my face; it was all so ridiculous, honesty. But as much as it turned my life upside down, I wouldn’t go back and change any of it for a moment ... well, except for the whole photoshoot with the cheerleaders and how that all went down afterwards. That was bad, really bad.

I looked at the wall where the other pictures I had framed were hanging. I loved those ones, but this one didn’t fit. Honestly, I didn’t want this one next to those. I didn’t even want it in the studio. Dana’s plan for the hallway might turn out to be a great idea, just not how she envisioned it.

The hallway wasn’t all that long, maybe ten feet in total, but it was broken up on both sides by doors, with one at the end of the hall leading to the garage. On the left were two doors: one led upstairs, while another door concealed storage under the staircase. On the other side of the hallway was the door to the laundry room and furnace stuff. There was a small bathroom in there too. Next to that door was about five feet of old ugly wood paneling.

This would be the best place to hang it. There was a basic light on the ceiling there too, which could help to show it off. I grabbed my dad’s tape measure and got to work finding the center of the wall.

It was now the last week of April, and everything started to get a bit crazy. There was only a month or so left of my freshman year and it seemed every teacher from every class was suddenly trying to cram in every bit of schooling they could or were supposed to before the official start of summer.

I had so much to do before the school year ended. I was supposed to take pictures of my mom, and I was still worried about how that was going to go. Then I had April’s photoshoot, which for the first time there was a real meaning, and reason behind it for me. She had a dream and was relying on me to help her make it come true. We hadn’t hashed out all the details on exactly when yet, but we were supposed to talk about it this coming weekend, which reminded me that I needed to check on the progress of my surprise for her.

I had the final project for Professor Zarnick’s class. I still didn’t have any clue what I was going to do for that. I had tried to come up with a few ideas, but nothing really came to me. One of the biggest or most important things he had told us over and over all semester was not to force it, let it come naturally. That’s exactly what I was doing, just nothing was coming. I still had time, but it was growing shorter by the day, literally.

One thing was for sure though, I was going to have to take a step back from the Thursday photoshoots with my club, at least for now. It sucked because those shoots were a lot of fun.

When April called to talk to me about her shoot, I wasn’t home. I wish I had been, but I was over at Laura’s house for another dinner and a movie. It wasn’t just me and Laura, though. Dana had come too, with some urging from Laura. Those two had come up with the plan that if Dana were there with us, Mrs. Satori wouldn’t have to be with us the entire time.

The night started out weird right from the get-go. Laura’s mom actually welcomed me when we got there. That was not at all normal. Laura and Dana were both smiling proudly like a pair of young peacocks at how their plan was falling perfectly into place.

In theory, it was as sound of a plan as there could possibly be. The only problem was that Laura’s mom didn’t truly fit into any mold the two girls had dreamed up prior to Dana and me showing up.

So, it was the four of us sitting in the living room watching a movie: Dana, Laura, me, and of course, Mrs. Satori. Dana sat on the loveseat, just off to our right while I sat on the end of the couch, with Laura in the middle and her mom on the other end. Needless to say, there was little, if any, contact beyond hand holding between me and Laura.

The girls were still pleased with how things were going, even with Mrs. Satori sitting on the couch with us. They thought she wouldn’t stay throughout the whole movie, even when it was Laura’s mom who picked the movie.

There was no confusing the attitudes of the girls, including Laura’s mom after the first hour. Both Laura and Dana were glowering throughout the whole movie. Mrs. Satori, however, was smirking. The thing was, she never once turned to look at me and Laura. She didn’t have to, and she knew it. Her presence alone was more than enough to put a stop to any shenanigans that could potentially happen.

The other side effect I was sure Mrs. Satori was aware of before the movie was that with her constantly around us, keeping us in line of sight, our desire to keep hanging out on the couch was thoroughly and completely destroyed.

So, when the movie ended, Dana was already on her feet, making excuses for why she and I needed to leave. All the while, Laura was nodding gravely along with everything Dana said. Mrs. Satori, just to rub a bit of salt in the open wound, pleaded her case that we didn’t need to leave.

“Come on Dana, it’s the weekend. Surely you don’t really need to go quite this soon,” Mrs. Satori said.

The way she said it made you think she was being genuine, and she might very well have been, but Dana and Laura had seen enough, not even taking a nibble of the crumbs Laura’s mom was laying out for them.

“I would love to, but unfortunately I have some, uh, homework to do,” Dana managed to stammer out with only a slight pause as she made up the flimsiest excuse possible.

“It’s only a little after nine. I know you stay up until after midnight on the weekends all the time.” Mrs. Satori grinned like a predator, convincing its prey that it wasn’t hungry ... yet.

“I have homework too!” Laura said a little too quickly, trying to jump on the same train Dana was getting on.

“Weren’t you doing that while I was making the casserole in the kitchen earlier?” her mom asked, her eyebrow raised in question.

“Yeah, umm, that was just my math homework. I still have chemistry to do.” Laura’s face was red from nervousness.

It was clear to a blind man she was lying, but her mom didn’t call her on it. She was getting exactly what she wanted and there was no reason to ruin that.

Dana grabbed my arm and actually dragged me behind her towards the front door. There was one last protest, albeit a weak one from Laura’s mom for us to stay a bit longer but Dana didn’t even acknowledge it as she opened the door.

“Call you later!” Dana yelled.

“Bye!” I said and was yanked the rest of the way out the door before Dana closed it nearly on my face.

“Let’s go,” Dana grumbled as she hurried to her car.

“How’d it go?” my mom asked when she heard me, and Dana come in the front door.

“It was good,” I answered.

“No, it wasn’t!” Dana snapped. “I wish Laura’s mom was as cool as you, Mrs. Davis.”

I was already on the first step heading to the basement before I noticed Dana wasn’t behind me. I turned around to see Dana head up to the living room where Mom was sitting on the couch looking down over the back at the landing by the door.

“Oh no,” Mom answered, sounding shocked. “What happened?”

“You won’t believe it!” Dana said, climbing the stairs to sit and talk with my mom.

I rolled my eyes and reluctantly followed a few steps behind.

Dana flopped down next to Mom on the couch and proceeded to tell her how terrible Laura’s mom was.

My dad was sitting right next to my mom but gave up his seat when the two women started talking. Instead, he came over to where I was standing by the railing. He gave me a questioning look and I just lowered my head and shook it, hoping he wouldn’t ask. Thankfully, he didn’t.

“Someone called for you while you were gone,” Dad told me, his eyes flicking toward the kitchen. “Your mom wrote down a message for you.”

“Do you know who it was?” I asked.

“I think it was April.”

“Oh!” I gasped and raced to the kitchen to find the message.

The note was indeed from April, telling me to give her a call back when I had some time to talk. I was smiling ear to ear when I came back into the living room holding the note in my hand. I thought Dana would be excited about it too, but she was fully engaged in “girl talk” with my mom.

“You might as well head downstairs,” Dad said quietly. “I’ll tell Dana where to find you.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I replied and hustled down the stairs.

About twenty minutes later Dana finally decided to join me.

“I can’t believe your mom did that!” Dana told Laura on the phone.

My dad must have told Dana to grab the phone because she brought it with her when she came downstairs; that’s what I assumed at least. I was wrong.

“I know. It’s totally not fair for you and Josh,” Dana replied to whatever Laura was saying. “Right? Josh’s mom told me to tell you that you’re welcome to come over to Josh’s house any time you want.”

Dana hadn’t put the phone on speakerphone, so I had no clue what Laura was saying on her end of the line and only getting half of the conversation was annoying and incredibly frustrating. To make it worse, I still hadn’t gotten a chance to call April back yet. Heck, Dana hadn’t even given me a chance to tell her about the note at all.

I sat there for a few minutes listening to one side of the conversation.

Dana barked a laugh and my head snapped in her direction. Her face was red, and she was trying to muffle the laugh with her free hand covering her mouth. I gave her a questioning look, but she didn’t respond to it.

“He’s so innocent, trust me.” Dana nodded, her shoulders still shaking with mirth. “Right? He’s completely harmless.”

Laura must have said something funny because Dana started laughing again, her head falling back, her cheeks bulging around the hand that was back covering her mouth again. I scowled at her, but again, she didn’t pay me any attention whatsoever, totally engrossed in her conversation to care what reactions I was having.

“It’s not like you and Josh were going to have sex on the couch! It’s crazy, I know!”

I growled, surprisingly angry at Dana and by default, Laura.

That was all I could take. I got up from the loveseat and stomped towards my darkroom. Just as I walked into the spinning door I heard Dana reply to something else, but I couldn’t make it out as the darkroom door finished closing behind me.

When Dana finally finished talking to Laura, it was after midnight. I had been fighting a losing battle against a serious case of the yawns for almost an hour by then and was ready to go to bed. I couldn’t though, not yet anyway. I grabbed the phone from the love seat, where Dana had left it, and called April back.

“Who are you calling?” Dana asked. “Laura had to go to sleep. I heard her mom yelling in the background about chemistry homework.”

“April,” I answered. “She called while we were hanging out at Laura’s.”

“Oh, why didn’t you tell me? We should have called her earlier.”

I glared at Dana who had the decency to blush and mouthed the word, ‘sorry.’

The phone rang three times before someone on the other end picked up.

“Hey, it’s Josh. Josh Davis,” I said. “Yeah, sorry. My friend Dana was hogging the phone.”

It was Dana’s turn to give me a sour look. I stuck my tongue out at her like a five-year-old child.

“Next weekend? Let me check.”

I gave Dana a questioning look. She thought about it for a second and then shrugged and nodded.

“Yeah, next weekend should work.”

Dana gave me a thumbs up, but it was a question and not just some agreeable statement. I nodded and she smiled brightly in response.

“Great! Next Saturday, after eight o’clock. Sounds good, see you then.” I hung up the phone, smiling.

“Okay, I would love to hang out some more, but I need to go if we are going to have her surprise ready,” Dana announced.

I could see a renewed excitement in her eyes, and I couldn’t help but be pulled into it along with her.

“Cool, let me know.”

She didn’t even give me a backwards glance as she hurried down the hall and up the stairs to the front door.

I stood there, all alone in my studio for a minute, looking at the backdrops and trying to come up with ideas. I had a lot of them, way too many to be honest. Luckily, my brainstorming session answered one question I had about April’s photoshoot I had been debating internally for a while. I was going to need another pinhole camera or two.

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Pinhole - Higher Learning

Fanlon

90,515 Words.

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$6.99