Chapter 22
Ava
Tucker was good. Life with him was easy again.
My photography, however, was slow going.
One Friday, Vinnie and I sat at the don’t-drink-coffee table and reviewed prints of photos I’d taken of people at a park.
Most of them were of him in various light situations.
Full sun, partial shade, full shade. But we’d run into a family who came to Big Harry’s fairly often, and they were willing to let me practice on them.
“So, look at my nose in this one versus this one,” Vinnie said, putting two images of him side by side. “Can you see the difference?”
“Your nose is huge in that one,” I said. “Like it got squashed.”
“My nose is a thing of beauty,” Vinnie said with a laugh. “But if you flash it directly from the front, it will destroy my Calvin Klein aesthetic.”
Fortunately, I’d seen Calvin Klein ads in Flo’s magazine, so I knew what he was trying to say. I sometimes studied the photographs in those, looking at the poses, the shadows, the light sources. I took confusing ones to Vinnie to decipher, and he said, “Oh, that is just some bad Photoshop work.”
Photoshop was an entirely different beast. I was expected to get rid of blemishes and bruises. Vinnie had showed me how to use a digital pen to push in a roll of skin that spilled out over a waistband or to minimize a double chin.
That seemed like cheating to me, but Vinnie said people didn’t pay big bucks for professional photographers to look like their iPhone photos. They wanted to see the very best versions of themselves.
I preferred the flowers and the animals to people, but Vinnie said editorial work or photographic art was not an easy way to pay the bills.
And bills were important. Old Ava had worried a lot about covering rent and electric and making it on her own. It was all over her scrapbook. I was starting to understand it.
“Do you and Tucker have a date tonight?” Vinnie asked, gathering the photos.
“Yes, we’re making chicken spaghetti, which I had to ask about because I didn’t see how to make long skinny noodles out of chicken meat.”
Vinnie laughed. “Ava, Mija, you are a card.”
I’d come to understand that cards and decks of cards and card games were a popular way to describe situations. Maybe I would have Tucker teach me how to play.
“Vinnie, have I always used Ava Flowers for my pictures instead of my real name?” He’d known me since community college at ACC.
“No. I met you as Ava Roberts, and when you are in a class, you don’t get to use a fake name.
But then that tonto in Fundamentals of Studio Lighting uploaded an image of you and tagged your name in it.
” Vinnie used his hands to make great flourishes in the air.
“Your mother showed up from nowhere like la bruja, and you got very spooked.”
Only Tucker knew about the incident with my mother following me. “I saw her a few weeks ago.”
Vinnie hands froze in midair. “Where?”
“Walking home. She was in the neighborhood.”
Vinnie touched his forehead and both shoulders. “What did she say?”
“She tried to convince me to do some other treatment. She knew the wedding hadn’t happened.”
Vinnie shook his head. “She’s checking up on you. Be careful, Mija.”
“I know. I’m taking self-defense classes.”
He nodded. “Good. She’s a real Mommie Dearest. Be very careful.”
“Mommie Dearest?”
“It’s a movie about a very bad mother. One of the classics.” Vinnie slid the images into an envelope. “I think you’re ready to do a real shoot. You want to try?”
“When?”
“Saturday evening. The golden hour. Seven, as the sun goes now. Zilker Park.”
I’d read about that park. Tucker and I went there on our second date. “Okay. Sure.”
“I will come for you at six-fifteen. Wear jeans. We kneel a lot. There are ninos involved.”
Now, I got it. “You don’t love kids.”
Vinnie stood up and lifted his camera bag. “They are good money, of course. They order so much. But you definitely handle them better. And you did so good on these!” He tapped the envelope. “With the littles, it’s more about personality than anything. They are tyrants and drive me loco.”
“I bet so.” Huh. That phrase had popped out of me. A bet. Back to cards again.
He headed for the door. “See you Saturday!”
When he left, I pulled out the photos to look over the images I’d taken of the children. They laughed, clutching their bellies, or did silly poses. It was very different from the more formal posing Vinnie himself had done. I guessed I was ready. I liked the kids better than the adults, anyway.
I flopped back onto the sofa. Tucker wasn’t due for over an hour for dinner. I could watch something. I’d run out of Schitt’s Creek.
On a whim, I pulled up the search function and typed in Mommie Dearest. Might be interesting to compare someone else’s bad mom to mine.
Within an hour, I knew I shouldn’t have watched it. She locked Christina in a room. She cut off her hair. She controlled her by being nice and then by being mean. She took her daughter’s dolls, like mine had taken my journals.
Tucker came over while it was on, and I didn’t even go to the door, curled up in a ball on the corner of the sofa.
When he sat down, the mother was hitting the little girl with coat hangers. I couldn’t move, my nose buried in my knees, but my eyes glued to the screen.
Tucker snatched the remote and tried to turn it off, but I’d shouted at him not to. There were some things I needed to see.
He held onto me as we finished it out. I was relieved when the mother died.
“You mother wasn’t like that,” he said as the screen went dark. “She didn’t hit you. But she undermined you like that one. She made you feel uncertain and unsafe.”
“Do you think the movie mother is worse than mine?” I relaxed into his embrace.
“I think they’re both pretty awful.” He squeezed my shoulders. “Did you ever tell your dad you saw your mom?”
“No. I didn’t want him to make me move to Houston.”
He drew me close to him again. “I’m glad. You can handle anything. You kicked a knife out of my hand, remember?”
“I do.”
He stroked my hair. “You go through more than anybody I know.”
I curled against his shoulder. “But you. Your mother and father. Your brother.”
“But that’s over. I got through it. You live with your challenges every day.”
He was right. “Tell me about your mother. I want to hear about a good one.”
His body tensed next to mine, and I almost wished I hadn’t asked. But then it relaxed again. “She was a great mom. She was strict, you know. We had to clean up after ourselves. And she was forever telling us not to leave toothpaste in the sink.”
“I do that sometimes,” I said.
“You always have.” He touched the tip of my nose. “It’s cute.”
Something else about old Ava I had retained. “What else?”
“She loved baking things. Cookies. Pies. Cakes. Dad always said she was going to fatten us all up.”
“Did she?”
“Nah. We were busy. Yard work. Dad and Stephen had sports. She did Jazzercise.”
“We haven’t baked anything like that. Just dinners.”
“We could. I could get things for a pie.”
“Did I have a favorite before?”
“Cherry. Always cherry.”
We had cherry pie at Big Harry’s, but I’d never tried it. “I didn’t know that.”
“Once you eat it, you’ll remember.”
“Well, not exactly remember.” I socked his arm.
“Your mouth will remember.”
“Is that better than my heart?”
His face got all serious at that. “The heart is protective. Maybe the mouth has an easier time.”
Did it? I had spit out a thing or two that I hadn’t wanted to eat. I was in the cilantro is soap camp. And tapioca pudding made me gag. Maybe my heart did the same thing, at least at first, when it was being protective. Spit things out. Made me want to get away.
But I was better. I wasn’t scared all the time.
Other than when Mother showed up unexpectedly.
That had been bad. I wondered what she would do if I called her that.
Mommie Dearest.