“I don’t want you to . . .” she whispered.
“Yes?” I urged impatiently.
Her eyes looked impossibly big, and her lips pressed together.
I let the camera fall to my side. I spoke gentler this time. “Marlow. It’s only me. Isla. Remember?”
She nodded, an electric relief taking over as she shook her hands out.
“I’ll try to make it quick. Okay?”
She walked away from me and then turned back, looking over her shoulder. The fleshiness of her upper lip looked so pink. It seemed to curl up and almost touch the end of her nose as she smiled and laughed at me. She seemed to melt into some other form of herself. Another Marlow who loved the camera.
“Should I twirl?” She placed her hands down at her sides and spun.
Even behind the small, dirty lens of the old camera, it was hard not to recognize the splendor she held in every movement of her frame.
“Sure,” I said. “Go for it.”
She suddenly turned straight toward me and widened her stance. She spread one hand over her face, her eye caught between her index and middle fingers.
“What do you think? Good enough for Vogue?” she quipped.
I snapped a few photos.
“Isla?”
“Just keep going,” I said.
Later that week, in the darkroom, I finally got around to developing the roll of film I took of her. I submerged the pearly-white photo paper. It shimmered under the red light. I let it go back and forth gently until it floated up like a drowned body emerging from the sea.
She formed.
Her mouth first and then her eyes. I stared down at her, unaware of how long it had been until I pulled the photo out with tongs and clipped it up.
I didn’t know. Or maybe I did know. This was the picture that would change everything.
CHAPTER 28
ISLA
2005
I opened my mouth to taste the snowflakes, each one a slippery drop on my tongue. My hair was covered in them, a net of lace. I adjusted my yellow knit hat and shook my head.
“Marlow, you’re going to make us late again!” Oliver called out, his arm draped over the open passenger door.
“You know she isn’t coming down until she’s ready. Why go through this every time?”
“Because I like shouting at her,” he said, putting his hand up as if it were an obvious answer.
I reached in to turn the heat on, twisting the dial extra hard to the right to get it going, a quirk of the old Jeep that Dad had passed down to me when he got a new car. He had handed over the keys, proud and nervous.
“Take care of her, Isla. She’s had a lot of mileage but she’s still a good one,” he had said with a little sadness. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was attached to the Jeep or because it meant I was growing up. It had taken much convincing, even though I was newly eighteen, to complete that transaction.
“Marlow!” Oliver shouted again, this time tossing his head back and shimmying. He gave me a cheeky smile as I rolled my eyes.
The front door flung open and Marlow stood there, statuesque and leggy. She had on light-gray leather boots that went above the knees, and a soft, white beret. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her wavy hair cascaded down her chest.
“Oliver. You little shit,” she said, swinging the door closed behind her.
“Yes, but I’m your little shit.” He ducked to get in the Jeep.
“Why do you get to ride shotgun?” Marlow whined.
I got inside to warm up and looked in the rearview mirror to see Sawyer coming toward us. He walked with such purpose now. Not the lagging little boy or the sulky preteen, but sturdy with each step. He wore his hair shorter, and it made him look older. I wasn’t sure if I would recognize him in a crowd, the way his shoulders had become so broad and full. He had spent part of the summer detasseling corn for a friend of Ada’s. There was a certainty he wore on his face, a watchfulness I wasn’t familiar with.
“Scoot over, boots,” he said, nudging Marlow.
“Making fun of my boots now, huh?” She hopped closer to Oliver’s side.
“I would never make fun of you, Marlow.” Sawyer held his backpack in his lap and then set it on the floor.
She smiled and elbowed him.
I readjusted the mirror and reversed the Jeep.
When we arrived at school, I could see her in the corner of the mirror, adjusting her hat and fluffing her hair. She was a girl who already knew how to make an entrance. High school had come even easier to Marlow. It was her playground, and she was the muse for both the male and female student bodies. I imagined it felt like walking on water for her, the rest of us underneath, some near the surface, some trying not to drown, floundering as she traipsed above. A water nymph content and unaware of any troubles below.
