“Sure,” I said. Whatever. I was determined not to let Addison’s social climbing bother me today.
“Are we just doing pictures here at the falls?” she asked. After I nodded, she smiled. “If you’d told me about all this before, I could have called my cousin. He works at one of the vineyards nearby. Last year I surprised Rowan with a behind-the-scenes tour of the place. Helovedit. He spent so much time drawing the vines and the leaves. It’s such a great spot for pictures, but it’s not open to the public like the other vineyards around here. Let me know anytime; I’ll call him and get you in.”
That was actually a very generous offer. I was not interested in taking pictures of my stuff surrounded by grapevines...but I knew how rare it was to get behind-the-scenes access to these incredibly photogenic spots.
I smiled. “That’s really cool of you.”
Addison shrugged. “Seriously, though, if you ever need help scouting locations, let me know. I know the area like the back of my hand.”
After finding a clearing, Matteo and I posed in front of the black wrought iron railing with the falls behind us—him standing with his feet shoulder width apart and arms crossed, and me with one arm draped on his shoulder. Gia took the shots.
We took some more of Matteo, and then me alone; then I got some of Gia, and Gia and Cameron, for her Instagram. The light was awesome, and the heavy mist in the air from the water was adding such a cool effect in the pictures. I couldn’t help but be giddy. These were going to looksogood.
“Let’s get one of the four of us!” Gia said, taking my camera from me and handing it to Addison. I dropped my arm around Gia’s neck, resting my head on her shoulder. Matteo had his arm around my waist, and Cameron was nestled in behind Gia. We were laughing as Addison took the picture. Eventually someone offered to take a shot of all five of us, so Addison gave the stranger her phone and joined us.
After Gia, Matteo, and I changed in the bathroom full of soggy tourists in the gift shop near the falls, we walked ten minutes over to our next location. The Clifton Hill district was filled with the absolute cheesiest tacky tourist shops, wax museums, haunted houses, and “believe it or not” emporiums. This was totally an ironic setting for a fashion shoot, and I was excited to see my designs contrasted against the garish backdrops and souvenir T-shirts.
I was wearing an outfit I’d made a few months ago—a body-con jersey calf-length dress made of a double-knit geometric print, with a color-blocked corduroy shirt over it. Matteo was wearing jeans and a shirt with Pollock-esque paint splatters, along with mirrored shades. We looked hot. The pictures were amazing. I especially loved the one with the massive King Kong hanging off a building behind us.
Spending the day with Addison was...not what I expected. She seemed really, genuinely interested in photography. She asked me intelligent questions about our process and was pretty good at picking out what was working and what wasn’t in the shots. I even got her to take some of the shots so Gia, Matteo, and I could be together. Cameron, on the other hand, looked bored after half an hour and made unsubtle hints about his stomach growling. But Addison seemed to understand how important it was to get these pictures perfect.
“There’s a bit of a glare in the ones I took at the upside-down house,” she said, cringing, as I flipped through pictures on the back of the camera. “I’m sorry; we can head back over if you want?”
“Seriously?” Cameron asked. “Does it matter that much?”
Gia looked at me pleadingly. Clearly making her boo happy was as important as achieving perfection in these pictures.
I shook my head. “Nah, it’s fine. I think we’re good.” I meant it. We had a ton of great pictures.
Matteo and I would have been fine if we headed back to Bakewell next, as we were counting on some alone time before he needed to get on the road back to Toronto. But we were outnumbered by the others, so we all packed into a small burger place for a late lunch.
“So, how’re y’all liking living in the magic garden?” Addison asked me after we ordered our meals.
I raised a brow. “Magic garden?”
Cameron laughed. Clearly this was some Bakewell joke. “Last year a bunch of cops showed up at the Johnstons’ to do a search,” he said. “They got a tip someone was operating a grow-op.”
I cringed. I wondered how much this “anonymous tip” had to do with the fact that the Johnstons were one of the only Black families in town. Was this the microaggression Shar had mentioned? It sounded pretty macro to me.
Addison grinned. “The house had been flagged because of the amount of fertilizer and soil Rowan had bought that year. It was a lot,even for Bakewell. But they didn’t find any weed, of course. Rowan’s, like,allergicto anything entertaining, so recreational drugs are beyond him.”
Addison and Cameron laughed again. Clearly, they had no idea of the racial undertones of something like that. Or if they knew, they didn’t care.
Me? I lived in Toronto—one of the most diverse cities in the world—and my neighborhood, Scarborough, had significantly more people of color than white people. And Istillfaced microaggressions and racism at home, not to mention Islamophobia, even though my family wasn’t, like,visiblyMuslim or anything. What would it be like to be one of the only nonwhite families in a small town?
“Kind of insensitive for you to laugh, especially since you dated Rowan. The Johnstons sound like good people,” I said to Addison. She was sitting across from me in the booth of the cheesy sixties-style restaurant, with Gia and Cameron cozied up next to her.
Addison shrugged. “There is no need for you to defend the family. Rowan Johnston cares more about his garden than their reputation.”
Cameron snorted at Addison. “He did care about his sister’s.”
Addison glared at Cameron, then nonchalantly took a sip of her soda. There was clearly a story there.
“Ooh,” Gia said, eyes twinkling. “Does the Bakewell Bookworm have a juicy past we should know about?”
“Juniper?” Cameron asked. “Nah. She’s just kinda strange. She used to do these weird videos on YouTube talking about books and stuff.”
“Really?” Gia asked. “She didn’t tell me she was a YouTuber. Was she popular?”
