AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nervous.” I shrugged. She nodded as if she agreed.
I ducked into our office and set my things down on the desk. It truly was a small space. One desk shoved against the far wall, a filing cabinet next to it. There was a small table set up behind the door with two chairs on either side. There was no way we’d both fit comfortably at the same time. After I’d set my things down and stepped back out of the cramped office, I found Penelope leaned back against the counter with a stack of papers in her hands. She held an arm out to me.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Our schedules,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ve outlined when each of us have our classes and our prep periods. When we’ll each need to use the room and the office. We have separate prep periods but the same lunch. I normally eat with Macie or Christine anyway, so that shouldn’t be a problem.” There was an edge in her voice that wracked me to my core. “Anyway, my prep period is during your study hall, but that’s fine. I’ll use Christine’s office during that period so you can use ours.”
“You don’t have to do that, Pep–”
“Really, it’s fine. I’d rather have the space.”
I didn’t say anything else as I took the schedule from her. Looking it over, I realized she had organized things to the point that would cause us to have almost zero interaction with each other. She wanted to be as far away from me as possible.
“I’ve organized the classroom,” she continued. She pointed to one side of the room. “All of my supplies are in those cabinets, and they’re organized so don’t touch them.” She then pointed at a set of two more full-sized cabinets in the corner of the room. “Those are yours. I haven’t touched anything, but all the cameras are in there.” Lastly, she pointed at the closet next to our office. “I think there are some things in there you could use so I took out anything I’ll need. You can do what you want with that space.”
“Er– Thank you,” was all I could get out.
She nodded. “I know you’ve got class first. I’ll be heading to Christine’s room shortly to get out of your hair. I’m just finishing up some things.”
“You’re notin my hair, Penelope,” I said, my own tone turning chilly.
She stiffened and inhaled through her nose but didn’t turn to look at me, nor did she respond. I began working around her, setting out the things I’d need. We moved in silence, only the quiet sound of the music she had been playing floating around us.
Not more than twenty minutes before class was set to start, Macie and the ginger-haired man, Jeremy, entered the room. Macie kind of looked like how I would imagine Tinker Bell looked if she was a real person. She couldn’t be taller than five-foot-two, her hair was dishwater blonde and highlighted. She had tight curls that she’d pulled into a bun on top of her head. She was wearing ballet slippers, and she walked with a graceful skip in her step that almost made it seem like she was floating. She was bubbly, charming– almost like she glittered. I could tell she loves attention, too.
I hadn’t had a single conversation with Jeremy since I’d met him, other than greetings and farewells. He watched Macie intently, seeming to fade into the shadows behind her. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Sometimes when she made a particularly outrageous comment, he’d cringe like he was embarrassed. Sometimes he’d squeeze her arm to get her to stop speaking. There were moments when I couldn’t disagree with him, because Macie seemed to have no filter at all. But other times, it seemed like Jeremy was trying to dull the sparkle that existed beneath Macie’s skin. I didn’t know Macie well, but that bothered me. Penelope might not always sparkle, but she glowed. Like the moon. The thought of someone trying to dampen it– I hated that.
I kept to my corner of the classroom as Macie floated through the room to Penelope. Jeremy nodded at me but lingered beside the door. “I thought I’d find you here,” she said as she pulled Penelope in for a hug. I noticed Penelope roll her eyes, but a smile hinted at her cheeks. “It looks so good! Are you excited?”
Penelope’s only response was a shrug.
Macie laughed musically. “You’ll be great. Or, well, I think you will. It’s not like you’ve shown me your artwork or anything.” She nudged Penelope with her elbow.
“You or anyone else,” Penelope muttered. “And it wasn’t even art. It was just something I did because I was bored. And I haven’t touched a sketchbook in years. It’s really not anything worth seeing, I promise. The school was just desperate.”
“I’ve seen your sketches,” I found myself saying. “They’re incredible. There was that one you did of the Mayan Ruins in Mexico. I mean,GodPenelope, it felt like I was standing right there! And–” She leveled me a raised brow, a silent demand to change the subject. “And,” I continued, “insinuating the school was desperate and would hirejust anyoneis kind of an insult, y’know? This is my profession.” I tried to add a glimmer to the last part of my sentence, but I was only half-kidding.
I knew she’d likely never seen my work. It wasn’t as if my father was keen to show me off, but even if she had, I wouldn’t have been insulted by her. I just wanted her to realize that whether or not she took it seriously, she was talented. She should be proud.
Macie nodded at me. “Suppose you have no issues showing off your work, then?”
I smiled. “Not at all.”
I popped into the office and grabbed my laptop off the desk before carrying back out to one of the tables. I pulled up my portfolio website before sliding the screen around to face Macie. Penelope was attempting to look uninterested, but her eyes kept darting to the screen as Macie scrolled through.
I made most of my money selling my work to stock-image websites. I also worked with freelance writers to provide accompanying photos to their articles, particularly travel writers. I tried my hand at photographing a few surf competitions also, but I’d quickly found that shooting action—people in general—was not something I was interested in. I’d been picked up by a couple of resorts and travel agencies in Oahu to provide photos for their brochures and websites. That had been easy in Hawaii. There was a never-ending landscape to photograph, and a never-ending line-up of people to buy them to market their tourist attractions. I knew it’d be harder here. I’d have to work more, trek deeper, and produce images more unique, and more creative than anything I’d done before. But I’d been looking forward to the challenge.
I could see the reflection of my images in Macie’s wide, dark eyes. The sprawling cliffs, crashing waves. All the green, blue, and gold. Photos of turtles, the reefs, the waterfalls. The crest of a wave within the setting sun. The shadows of palm trees dotted along the sand beneath the morning sunrise. “I’ve never wanted to go on vacation more than I do right now,” she said.
I laughed. “Yeah, that’s pretty much the point of it.”
Penelope’s eyes were softer than I’d seen them since I’d found her back in my life. “How do you do it?” she asked. “The photos, I mean. How do you make them look so good?”
“Well, the camera does a lot of the work. I’ve taken more than a few photoshop classes also. Otherwise, though, it’s about timing, lighting, and calculations.” I pulled the computer back and scrolled up to the first photo I’d ever sold. A cresting wave, in the second before it’d crash. The sun was directly underneath it, just falling behind the horizon. “Patience, too. I was in the water forhourstrying to get this shot. When I came out, I was so pruned I could hardly walk.” I pointed at the sun. “I had to wait until the sun was in the perfect spot on the horizon. Then, I had to wade in and out of the waves until I found the best spot for the sun to fit inside. After that, it was all about waiting for the perfect wave to come. Taking a million photographs until I caught just the right angle, just the right light, and just the right second for the sun to dip beneath the crest of the wave like that,” I said. “I took over a thousand photos that day. This was the only one I kept.”
Macie and Jeremy were both staring, nodding. I was only looking at Penelope. Her green eyes pulsated. She nodded, and then her cheeks began to redden. She looked away suddenly. “It’s…beautiful,” she said. “You should make a slideshow of your best work to show the students. It’ll make them take you more seriously.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Jeremy agreed.
