Wall Flower

“Enjoy your picnic,” Nick snickered, and he hopped into the passenger seat of Cassandra’s car.

I rolled my window up, clutched my bag filled with fun yet childish things, and grinned to myself. Needless to say, I was anxious.

The drive from the church to Panera was a bit of backtracking, and we were falling behind and driving ahead of Nick and Cassandra a couple times. Either one would wave, make faces, or roll down their windows and try to get our attention whenever we were leveled with them. I was glad when Joe and I pulled into the parking lot of Panera to get our food. I got a sandwich with Asiago cheese baked onto the bread while Joe got a Panini of some sort, and for desserts we bought a couple chocolate chip cookies.

The park was filled halfway; the picnicking families and friends playing volleyball had created a line that looked as though it divided the park. There were less picnicking families than there were volleyball players, and most picnickers were on the farther side of the line, nearer the zoo. Volleyball courts were closer to the parking, where Joe and I were gathering our things. Joe pointed to the zoo doors, though I assumed he meant to silently ask if I would prefer setting up our things there than where the potential to be hit by a stray volleyball was higher. I nodded, knowing very well I would not like to be hit in the head by a stray volleyball, and he nodded in return.

When we crossed the imaginary line, we stopped for a moment to decide where we would set our picnic, Joe looking to his left, me to my right. There were a decent amount of trees providing shade, though most I could see were taken by families and couples. I do not blame them taking the shade, for though the day was not too hot, as it had been this past week, sitting in direct sunlight was a little heated, and for those with fair skin, like me, it meant sunburn.

I was about to tell Joe it looked as though he was going to become more tan, and I was going to become a lobster, when he pointed, Panera bag in hand, to a spot to the far left, where a bamboo wall separated the zoo and the park; a gift shop that I fairly recognized poked out from the zoo side, and a vividly green tree grazed its roof. That tree was wide, and the branches that were not touching the gift shop were entangled with the top branches of another smaller tree, which was as vividly green as its taller companion. In the middle of those trees was a shady spot decorated with flecks of sunlight. No one had seized it, and there were no families or couples within ten feet of it.

Joe and I looked at one another and smiled, for we knew we had found the perfect spot.

We danced through the couples and families, careful not to run into the playing children or accidentally trample a foot hanging off a bench or a blanket. When we arrived at our destination, Joe handed me the Panera bag and folded out the blanket, a plain, fuzzy soft green with yellow trim. It slightly reminded me of a patch of grass surrounded by yellow poppies.

He, too, had a shoulder bag – one that was identical to the one Nick uses for school – that he removed from his shoulder, set it on the blanket, and took a seat beside it. I handed him both bags of Panera food (I had the bag with our desserts before he handed me the one with food), set my bag down, and sat across from him. He took the food out of the bag and handed my sandwich to me.

“Wanna pray, or want me to?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. I noticed he might need a shave soon.

I grinned, said, “I will,” and we bowed our heads. “Dear God, we love you, and we thank you for all that you provide for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for everything. Love you. Amen.”

Joe laughed quietly before he noted, “You pray nicely – I mean, you pray like you’re talking to your dad or something. It’s different from others. I don’t know if you ever notice, but sometimes I hear people praying like they’re scared, or like it’s a chore.”

“They’re either shy or don’t know what to say,” I replied. “Cassandra prays like she has to rush it, though I know, when it’s just her and me, she and I pray the same. Short, sweet, and to the point. Not that there is really a wrong way to pray.” I paused for a moment, took a bite of my sandwich, and asked, though my mouth was full, “Know what I mean?”

He chortled, his mouth full as well, and answered, “Got’cha,” and swallowed.

I glanced curiously at his bag while we ate and made idle chat, and I saw that he was doing the same as I. Through our chat on books – which was mostly one sided because I was the reader, and he was not – and our favorite professors, we ate quickly and kept observing each other’s bags, not even trying to hide it once we got to the deserts.

“Okay, I can’t take it, what’d you bring?” Joe burst after I handed him his cookie.

“Tell me what you brought!” I commanded, and I set my cookie down beside me.

He eyed me curiously for a moment before he said, “You first,” as if we were accusing the other of having a gun in their bag, and were unsure of its size.

I reached for my bag the same moment he did, and we counted slowly to three before I dumped the contents of my bag onto the space between us and he pulled out the clanking thing out of his. We beamed at one another’s treasures.

“Coloring books!” he shouted gleefully, and immediately picked one up, handing out his machine to me.

“A Polaroid camera?” I questioned with a smile. Not only was it Polaroid, it was a vintage one, with a flash bulb on top, camera lens in the middle, and the photo dispenser at the bottom. The flash bulb and the dispenser were black while the middle was a dirty khaki (that sounds more disgusting than it looks). I don’t know where he got it, but I was happy he had it.

“Had it for a while and I got a whole bunch of film for it,” Joe said as he flipped through the coloring book pages.

I put my hands in picture-taking position with my finger ready to press the button to snap a photo like a trigger-happy soldier. I looked up from the Polaroid camera in my lap and at Joe. The scene was perfect: Joe was idly thumbing through the coloring book, face relaxed but eyes curious; small windows in the threes above reflected specks of light onto his side-profile, neck, chest and arms. It was just what the doctor ordered, as the phrase goes, for my wanna-be artsy soul and I shot a photo without hesitation.

When the camera and light clicked, Joe averted his eyes from the coloring book and set them on me as I grinned innocently. His left eyebrow, the one closest to me, went up slowly as the picture slid out from the mouth of the camera.

I caught it before it fell, and, as I shook it to rid it of the dullness, Joe pointed out, “I’m not going to be the picturee, you know; I want to be the picturerer, too.”

“I don’t like photos of me,” I notified him. “Therefore I shall be the taker of photographs.”

“It’ll be weird if all I have are pictures of me!” His eye caught sight of something and he whooped, “You brought sharpies with the coloring pencils, and blank paper!” (The sharpies were the skinnier sharpies.)

“Thou hast a dysfunction in your span of attentiveness, child,” I chortled, and I chortled more when he raised both eyebrows and pondered what I said for a moment.

“Callin’ me ADHD?” he asked, and I nodded. “That is . . . correct. A bit.” He chuckled, lied down on his stomach, and spread the coloring book of cutesy, baby cartoon animals in front of him.

“No more than Cass,” I conveyed. “She was diagnosed when she was younger, actually. She had to take medication for it.”

“Seriously? Taking meds as a kid? That kinda sucks. I’m assuming she grew out of it? I haven’t seen her take meds. . . .”

“Affirmative, she did grow out of it; however, like you did moments ago, she has bouts of it.” I ceased shaking the photo, examined it, and very much admired the simple beauty and surprising color. “What’s more, you are as photogenic as she. I shall give you credit for that. I find myself becoming slightly envious at this new finding.”

I handed him the photo and he scrutinized it for a moment with a furrowed brow. A moment later he handed it back to me and concluded that the picture “is only good because you have a good, artsy fartsy eye for pictures like this.”

I rolled my eyes and lied down beside him, my head parallel to the coloring book and my now shoeless feet engulfed in cool grass. I gazed up at the trees, pondered their vivid green leaves for a moment, admired our Creator’s artsy fartsy hand, and snapped a photo of the sunshine peaking through the leaves.

“I am more artsy fartsy than I once though myself to be,” I supposed as I shook the dispersed photo.

I glanced over and watched as Joe colored the page with a cute zebra and giraffe standing by a palm tree (when did those get there in the middle of the Sahara, as the photo suggested?) with much concentration. I finished shaking the photo, rested the Polaroid on my stomach, and admired the plainness of the photo. I looked back at Joe and held it out to him as a flock of birds chattered excitedly somewhere in the distance. (Perhaps it was the chitter chatter of the tropical birds in the zoo?) Joe glanced up, took the photo that I held out to him, grinned, and looked back at me. He squinted for a moment, still grinning slightly. I could see the wheels turning in his head and I awkwardly glanced away, for he kept staring, and I couldn’t stand staring into his eyes for such a prolonged moment of time. I looked at his soft eyes, away, back, and away once more.

“Camera, but don’t move your head too much,” he ordered, and I hesitantly obeyed. “Now grin again, like you were when you handed me the photo.”

“Joe,” I warned.

“Trust me,” said he, and it made me grin, for he ought to know I trusted him a lot more than he could possibly handle. If he asked me, I would tell him everything I am without hesitation.

After rolling into a discomfited position to get the angle he wanted, the camera clicked and I watched the photo fall out of the camera’s mouth. Joe sat on his knees and I rolled on my stomach to get a better look at him. (If I stayed in the position I was he would have been upside down.) He shook the dullness out of the photo and chuckled.

“Don’t look so worried!” he sniggered at me. “It was a good one. I think I found my inner artsy fartsyness!”

I, too, laughed. I then examined his coloring. He colored the zebra purple with aqua-blue stripes and half-way colored the giraffe’s body a lime green. The spots were yet to be colored.

“See?” Joe asked, and when I turned my head the photo was right there. I was pleasantly surprised, for I actually looked . . . pretty. Had Joe seen that in me?

“See?” he repeated, and put the photo of me and of the tree/sunlight on my stomach – it filled with butterflies –with the first photo. He lied back on his stomach, grunted, and, after getting comfortable, continued, “You look pretty, so stop complaining, little dragon.”

I rolled my eyes, refusing to reply. We fell silent, but the people and zoo did not. As both people and some animals chattered, I rolled back onto my back and watched him color the rest of the giraffe. He colored the spots orange and began adding color to the palm tree. When he began coloring the leaves of the palm tree a dark green I decided to be a dork: I raised the camera at arm’s length, pointed the lens at me and Joe, made a confused facial expression (highly raised one eyebrow, lips slightly pulled to the side), and, without announcing any of this to Joe, took a picture.

“Hey,” he objected, ceasing the coloring of the palm tree that now had blue and brown stripes. “Not fair. You’re supposed to warn me!”

“When did we set this rule?” I argued. “Besides, this will be funny.” I smiled at him and shook the picture all the while.

When the photo was ready we looked at it together and laughed. I was right about it being funny. Joe suggested we title it and the others, so we grabbed two sharpies each – not planned – and, as I flipped onto my stomach, Joe closed his coloring book, grabbed another, laid it down in front of me, and I laid down the four photos we had on top of the two coloring books. Joe flipped the picture of the tree/sunlight and the one of him over so they were right-side up for him and upside down for me.

“Well,” he contemplated, “this one” – he pointed at the three/sunlight photo – “could maybe be called, ‘Awe’, and ‘Heavenly Chorus’ in parenthesis.”

I laughed and wrote “Awe (Heavenly Chorus)” on the white space beneath the picture in the grass green sharpie.

“And the one of you with the coloring book,” added I, “can be called this: ‘If I keep looking at this, maybe she won’t suspect that I’m planning to destroy earth!’” And he snickered and wrote it in orange.

“The one with us,” he continued, “can be called. . . .” Once again with the orange sharpie he wrote, “What? That’s – that’s not a dead body! No! Why would you think that? Hehehe. . . . ” I laughed and put a shocked-face emoticon at the end.

As I criticized myself on the same photo, I saw, from my peripheral vision, Joe scrutinizing another. I put the photo in my hand down and looked at the remaining photos, wondering which one Joe was holding. When I inferred that he was scrutinizing the photo of me, four things happened: First, a feeling of self-consciousness spread through my veins like ice cold water but solidified to lead; he used the purple sharpie he grabbed to give it a title; he held it out for me to see; and suddenly a warmth spread through my blood and nerves to melt the lead.

“She’s so pretty, oh so pretty – she’s so pretty and witty and . . .” garnished the photo like flowers on a windowsill. Joe was complimenting me and I literally prayed that he would not see how I was more than merely flattered.

“You don’t see it,” Joe chuckled, though I could hear the lack of humor in it. I shook my head slowly in answer and avoided his eyes; I stared intently at the navy blue and forest green sharpies lying on the coloring books before me. He spoke during my silence; he simply said, “Loraine. . . .”

I had not heard my name used as tenderly before, not sincerely as he had. It was free of hidden impurities and sick desires; clean of lies and false security. Joanne has said my name tenderly, but not like this; she is my sister, therefore she could never have coveted lust laced in my name whenever it escaped her lips. No, the last time a man has said my name like that was . . . was when . . .

Something soft and surprisingly warm touched my face, and since I had emotionally blacked out reality and reluctantly allowed suppressed (not well suppressed, I might add) memories overwhelm my mind, I flinched. I stared at Joe with wide eyes, quivering limbs, and a palpitating heart, and what I saw in his eyes scared me: A reflection of my fear.

Like I share his pain, he apparently shares mine.

“What happened to you?” he asked in a small voice. I have not heard that tone used by him before; it was probably what frightened me most.

“What happened?” he echoed.

Moments ago I thought, If he asked me, I would tell him everything I am without hesitation.Now, I was unsure; naturally, I was hesitant. However, I trusted him so much I wanted to tell him; I wanted to let it out of my system. I had not spoken of my past for years. I hated talking about it, though, for I hated people seeing my impurities and weakness. What was more dominating, however, was the fact that I wanted and needed to speak of it once again. God, I needed to let it out.

(Dear God, give me strength to talk about this once more. Please.)

I had not been aware of it, but tears had slid from my eyes and down my cheeks. I opened my mouth, whispered an apology, and wiped my tears.

“No, don’t – don’t say that,” whispered Joe. “If you don’t want -”

“But I do,” I breathed. I rose to my knees, shuffled around till my knees were up to my chest, and inhaled deeply.

I watched intently as Joe situated himself until he was cross legged and had his hands folded casually in his lap. I measured him for a moment in silence: I wondered how sincere his wanting to find out about my past was, how trustworthy and worried he had been. Would he judge me? Would he look at me differently from now on, and would it be with caution, or skepticism, or sympathy? – these were thoughts that greatly occupied my mind in those short seconds as he made himself comfortable.

I whispered, “Will you think differently of me after I confess my darkest secret to you?”

Moments ticked by until he declared, “If you think I’m going to judge you, never. I’ve got some skeletons, too, Loraine. I couldn’t think badly of you if I tried. I’ll confess today, too, okay?” I opened my mouth, but he put up one finger to silence me. “I want to. I trust you enough to where I actually want to tell you.”

“As do I,” I confided.

I waited patiently while he situated himself a little more, pulling his Panera drink closer and taking a quick sip. I thus began to vent my past.