Excuse the amount of time I took to update. I'm bad.
Tara22, Boschi and tcurti3, thanks for continuing to read. *pats my darling readers*
4
It doesn't matter if you study history, popular culture or sociology; trends don't make any sense. When we were in high school, kids teased Laura about the way she looked. She kept her nails long and sharp, her eyes lined in kohl and her lips colourless, while the others had French manicures, violet eye shadow and glossy lips.
Our classmates would whisper about Laura reading poetry books in the playground, and the way her lips moved as she read, even though she was one of the top English students. She would sigh and put down her book if someone approached her, as though she had to force herself to move between the fictional world and reality. It wasn’t hard to guess which one she preferred.
They left me alone, despite my association with Laura. This could have been because I dressed the same way they did, treated my textbooks with disdain and passed notes with the others. I wasn’t a follower. It was a fluke that I fit in so well; there happened to be nothing more to my personality than casual clothes and a smile.
They weren’t happy when I continued to hang around Laura, talking and laughing with her, unable to see what made her different to me. One girl pulled me aside during a class, whispering so close to my ear that I could smell her body wash. “All our parents are saying we should stay away from Laura.” I was so shocked by her words that I couldn’t respond, which made me ashamed of myself for a long time.
As a teacher now, I see girls crowding around their lockers before class, showing off leather wristbands beneath their striped shirts, or plastic studs to keep their piercings intact during the school week. I see crucifixes and pentagrams, badges and folders with political slogans. The popular students at this school are the ones who stand out. They’re louder and angrier, and will do anything to their appearance to make this known. I think Laura would have been considered ‘cool’ by these kids.
As soon as I unlocked the dark room, I leaned against the wall so that my students could rush past without maiming me. This was our tenth lesson together, and to the shock of the principal, parents and teachers, these students were responding to my teaching.
They belonged to a group known as the After School Kids, ASK, or Don’t Ask, as the teachers joked. ASK was a mixed bag of students. Some had repeatedly failed classes, some had parents who felt they needed additional activities and some had chosen to be there for various reasons.
During our first lesson, as I explained how to turn a negative into a photographic print, I found that one of the boys had written ‘I ♥ pussy’ on his forehead. Having focussed more on the humour than the intricacies of his task, his words were written backwards. While my students practically wet themselves, I wondered why I had accepted the job.
I didn’t give up. I went through the month long theory component of the course, and then progressed to field work. Despite what the school principal said, I was unable to imagine anyone not finding the next lessons enjoyable, even those brats. I loaded them all up with old SLR cameras and took them out for an afternoon in the park. The next week we developed the film and, to my great satisfaction, they were awestruck. Every time one of them produced a print, regardless of the quality, they brought it over for me to inspect, like a child bringing home a smudged handprint.
I had discovered photography when I was fifteen, when our school decided we were old enough for the elective. My classmates were putting their faces over the containers of chemicals, staggering about and pretending to be high. I'm sure I looked more drugged than them, tilting my head as I gazed at the array of equipment and pointing things out to my friends in a hushed tone.
My art teacher had watched with bemusement, and said she wished I was as reverent when it came to Church. She had also been my religious studies teacher, which made art quite unappealing.
I had enjoyed studying religious iconography and symbolism with the previous art teacher. She was able to enthuse us so much with the passion and drama of religious art that some of the students started going to Church again, while others were inspired to go to art galleries in their spare time. Best of all, we knew she prayed to multiple Gods, which we thought was weird but admirable all the same. When she left our school it was not to take up another teaching position, but to study at an Ashram in India.
There was just something about photography that did it for me. My teacher's best efforts weren't enough to ruin photography for me, the way she had destroyed my love of sculpture. Until then, I had considered myself a passionless person. Other people yearned to act, to write or to make money, while I floated through classes and career talks with a blank mind.
“Move down," one of my students said, while I walked around the room, distracted. "I'm working with Lauren today."
"Screw that. I'm not moving. You said you would work with me."
Even after I turned off the lights, I could see a short frame standing stubbornly by the table.
"Can you not be selfish, like, for once in your life?"
"What's the problem?" I walked over to them with a sour expression on my face, which was wasted in the darkness.
"Is that you, Ms Mears?"
"Yes. Could you tell by the gritted teeth?" I swung around to address the first girl. "I have an idea; how about we move you today?"
I made her follow me across the room, planning to seat her in a corner, and she dropped complaints as she walked.
"You're so mean," she said, keeping her voice low, which did little to disguise the fact that she sounded like a member of the kindergarten art group.
"Does enjoying this make me mean?" I put her books on the floor next to a chair in the corner, ensuring that the new spot made it hard for her to speak to her friends.
There was a pause. "Yes." She put her hand against the wall, and I guessed she was disorientated in the darkness.
"In that case, I'm a horrible human being."
As soon as my students were organised and focussed on their work, I went to the drying racks to check out the progress of my own prints. I had taken a series of nature photographs, innocent pictures that I planned to frame and put on my newly painted walls. There was one shot of three cactii, their sharp needles reflecting the lights I had set up when I took the pictures.
I had taken down the old prints from the living room after my friend, Chris, said they made me look like a stalker. They had been on my wall for years, kept there for sentimental value. They were photographs of the first model I worked with, in a style some would refer to as glamour photography. Really, though, there had been nothing glamorous about it. Some people imagined a nude photography session to be rich with wine, jazz, innuendo and neglected clothing, followed by breathless lovemaking, all in the name of art.
In reality, she had laughed and touched her hair while I set up my camera and tried to adjust the light in the room. Our conversation, even after more than four sessions, had been stilted and uncomfortable.
”Ms Mears?”
My troublemaker came up behind me, making me drop the print back onto the rack. “What is it?”
“It’s really hot in here. I don’t want to, like, pass out. I feel gross.”
I sighed. It really was hot in the dark room and my students were intense enough without the addition of heat stroke.
“Okay, we’ll finish earlier today.”
Although summer started a month ago, the neighbourhood was just starting to feel the heat. I found it humming in my ears as I tried to sleep, the crickets calling, the cars rushing past, the laughter coming from the balcony next door. Living near the ocean didn’t dilute the heat, I discovered years ago. It enhanced it, so that every time I wiped my forehead I found a sticky substance, almost as thick as blood.
I regretted the clothing I had chosen that morning, shades of khaki and olive that were ideal for a safari, not a classroom. In my walk-in-wardrobe, the outfit had looked ideal for the hot weather. Almost immediately, I found the shorts clinging to my thighs. I spent the day attempting to peel them away, an embarrassingly public exfoliation.
Early in my teaching career, I had noticed how I didn't fit in with the other teachers. They wore pressed suits and pointed shoes, and talked about their work gravely, as though they were doing the world a favour by explaining a formula or correcting grammar. Still, we got along well, both curious about the other.
I was able to come out casually. I was asked, "Are you bringing anyone special to the Christmas party?" and replied, "No, she's working that night." They didn't even blink. Sometimes I wondered if they compared me to Tamara, one of the newer teachers, who had short hair and wore a rainbow pendant on a chain around her neck. I had no visible pride items, nothing about my appearance that would match any stereotype in their minds. I stood out in other ways, from my clothing to my unusual attitudes towards discipline and education.
It was as though Laura and I had switched roles since leaving school. I went out of my way to be different, to make people ask questions about what they regarded as the norm. Laura hadn't chosen to be different; in the past she had done so effortlessly. Now she didn't stand out at all.
When she lined up with the other mothers to pick up her kids, she had the same hair and clothing, the same harried look after rushing around the city to get things done. If you didn't know her, you would think she was like them, but I knew better.