Page 30 of Elite Player
Then when I move to get out of the car, she stops me again. “Nico. What are you doing?”
“Walking you inside…?”
I suspect she’s only known shitheads in her life, but her blatant bafflement makes me want to drive to her hometown right now with the old hockey stick I have in my trunk. But she gives in and lets me trail her up to her hole-in-the-wall apartment.
“Can I use your bathroom real quick?” I ask as she hangs up her bag on a hook on the wall before pointing me in the direction of it, as if I would get lost.
It only takes me three strides to cross the room, and I close the door, doing my business while inspecting the small space, littered with evidence of who Josephine Atkins is.
A framed black-and-white photograph of one of theGolden Girls—the grumpy one. The only one I know for sure is Betty White, and it’s not her, but it still makes me smile that Jo would have this picture in her bathroom.
As I wash my hands, I read the Post-it stuck on the mirror. The letters are in that sort of short and stubby handwriting all the hot girls in school used, and it reads,I can’t change what anyone thinks or says about me, but I can choose not to think or say them about myself.
Again, I have a tug in my gut to go pound the faces of anyone who ever made Jo feel bad about herself. So much so that she needs a note to remind herself not to believe them.
After I dry my hands and remember that I can protect her now—at least a little bit—I do some snooping into her things. I examine the myriad of face washes and lotions, the cases of makeup. There issomuch makeup, but the only thing I touch is the lip stain that appears purple, and I wonder if that’s what she’s wearing tonight. If she’d ever let me watch her put it on. I fear I could lose a few hours to watching Jojo do anything mundane—lipstick, knitting, brushing her hair. Though, I think I might like to do that, brush her hair.
I force myself to move away from her hairbrush and open the bathroom door to find her playing on her phone. With her long hair down, like a curtain around her face, and her extra-large black clothes all the time, it’s as if she’s trying to blend into the background.
Except now that I’ve seen her, I can’t ignore her.
She will never fade into the background for me.
“What made you want to be a photographer?” I ask once she raises her gaze to me, her eyes reminding me of Los Angeles. Of when the chauffeur used to drive me through the Hollywood Hills to early-morning practices, the air hazy and sky barely lit, with sandstone mountains above and rich brown earth below.
Sinking into those eyes almost feels like going home.
She eventually shrugs. “I’ve always loved it. Ever since mygrandmother gave me a little Polaroid camera when I was a kid.”
I take a chance and join her on the edge of her bed, sitting next to her. “What did you take pictures of?”
She smiles to herself. “I used to think I was Ansel Adams or something, and I’d have all these Polaroids of brown grass or somebody’s shrub, but then I ran out of the film cartridges, and more were too hard to find, so then I started asking for disposable cameras for my birthdays and Christmases. They were cheap enough, but I’d go through one in like an hour, and my dad would get so annoyed with me because I was always asking him to take another one to CVS to get the prints made. Eventually, they bought me a digital camera for my fourteenth birthday, and once I went to high school, I met Mrs. Chambers. She was the art teacher, and even though it wasn’t a big program, she helped me a lot. Pushed me to try things, made me sign up to work on the school newspaper and yearbook, so I could practice taking photos. She was always giving me tips she saw online, sending me notices for classes or things, but…”
“But what?” I urge when Jo trails off. She’d been so animated talking about her past, I immediately miss it.
“But Mrs. Chambers really helped me, that’s all. She was the closest thing I had to a mentor, I guess. Someone in my corner.”
I’m in your corner, I don’t say.
Instead, I ask, “What happened?”
She briefly bites at her lip before explaining, “My family isn’t poor, but we aren’t well-off either, and without any scholarships or anything, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to pay off school, so Mrs. Chambers convinced me to go to community college. She basically held my hand through the whole process. I wasn’t a bad student, but I wasn’t naturally academic, and whenever I needed help or a confidence boost, I could email her, and she was there for me.”
I’m glad Jo had Mrs. Chambers to support her, but it’s soobvious what’s missing in this story—her family. Where was her family in all of this?
“So, I worked in a day care after I earned my certificate while I practiced my photography. Then I started getting hired to take photos for all the local schools and some weddings?—”
“School photos? Like portraits?” When she nods, I glance around her apartment. “Do you have any of your work I can look at? A portfolio or something?”
Her brows knit together. “You want to see it?”
“Of course.”
She stands to reach for a plastic bin under her bed and sets it on my lap. It’s filled with all kinds of prints as well as photo albums. Then she tells me, “I have my digital work online, on my website and social media.”
I huff. “You have a website? Social media? Why didn’t I know this?”
“Why would you know?”
