Chapter 13 Penguins #2
“Photo station,” he declares. His gaze twinkles as it lands on me. “There’s no photo of you in the hall.”
A lump lodges in my throat. He wants Ika on the family wall.
I’d asked Trent once: why did he think I could get away with being Ika?
He’d said it wasn’t just the scent of my skin, or the shape of my face, or the matching hair colour (just without the teenage acne and unfortunate haircut.) It was that, in every photo they had of him, he was frozen in childhood.
Ika had stopped letting people take his picture the moment he hit his pre-teens. The only photo of him on the wall past the age of twelve? He’s got his hands covering his face.
With Grandpa’s declining vision, his slipping memory, and his belief that Ika was out there somewhere . . . accepting me as him wasn’t difficult.
But can I really put my face on his family wall?
Why does that feel like going too far, when I’m okay living in his wake?
Is it the permanence? That a photo outlives a person, that it cements history, turns something into forever? That once I’m on that wall, I’m not just playing a part, I’m etched into their family’s past?
Or is it because, deep down . . . I want to be up there as me?
As a defacto grandson.
As Dylan.
Grandpa taps his cane. “Come along.” He ushers me towards the photo booth. And suddenly, I’m okay in front of the Polaroid, because I’m neither me nor Ika. I’m a man in a feather boa and fat-rimmed glasses.
Grandpa dons a wig. “There, just as handsome as I used to be.”
We practice dramatic poses. “If I’m going on the wall,” I say. “May as well make it fabulous.”
“You look just as handsome as me back in the day.”
My smile wavers, but Trent has slipped free of the mocktail bar and is coming over, so I slick it back on. The way his eyes are on me . . . it’s like he’s already seen it. Seen and understood. I shiver. “Come on, quick. Let’s take the shot before Trent photobombs.”
Grandpa nods sombrely. “Can’t have him overshadowing all this!”
Trent grabs the developed photo before we can and shakes it as he holds it hostage. He glances from it to us, to me. “The camera likes you. I hope this is for our hall, Grandpa?”
“Where else would it go?”
“Your wallet,” Trent says.
Grandpa’s eyes sparkle. “Trent, get in here.”
And suddenly Trent is squeezing between us, an arm around Grandpa, another around me. A gentle weight, like he’s aware and wants me comfortable. But also an insistent weight, with his fingers pushing me by the arm, just a little bit closer. All this, while he looks right ahead at the camera.
My stomach hops. I’ve forgotten how to smile. I’m staring at Trent’s profile.
Maybe I would’ve whipped my head around in time for the flash. But I don’t. I’m suddenly taken hostage by the edges of his lips curling. A smile. Maybe not a real one. Maybe only staged for the Polaroid. But his lips are turned up and his eyes crinkle with it.
I breathe out hard. He feels it on his cheek and turns.
The camera flashes. Click!
A moment trapped.
Trent’s arm is still around me, his warmth still pressed against my side.
The afterimage of his almost-smile burns into my mind.
And now, it’s not just in my mind, it’s in the Polaroid.
Proof that for one fraction of a second, I stood too close, looking at him while he looked back with a smile at me.
Trent plucks the photo before I can, shaking it like it’s just another snapshot. But I already know.
It’s not just another snapshot. It’s one of my secrets exposed.
“Trent,” I whisper, tugging his sleeve.
Behind him, Grandpa is being pulled away into another dance. He turns into me, a heavy warmth, too close. He’s still shaking the photo, but less vigorously; more like for something to do. Or . . . for more air between us.
My lungs feel tight, and yet . . . I step further into the cocoon of it. Just him and me and my panic. “Trent, that photo . . .” I shake my head. “Grandpa can’t see it.”
His fingers stop waving it. “Can I?”
I hesitate. Shake my head. “Get rid of it.”
He pauses, and I think he’ll look, but he lowers his hand. “Give me your wallet.”
His voice is steady, controlled, and . . . I do as he asks. I find and hand over my wallet.
Without looking at the snapshot, he slips it inside. It’s too big to fit and part of our heads peek over the top of the leather, but I think I understand. Keep your secret. Until you’re ready to bring it out yourself.
I fumble with the wallet and drop it. Cards spill out between our feet, but the photo stays lodged inside.
Trent crouches, helping me pick them up. Then, he pauses, staring at one card. “You can drive. You have a restricted license.”
I stiffen.
I stole back one secret only to give another away.
Trent stares at it again. “Ah, it’s expired. You can get another without having to sit the theory again—”
I snatch it off him and stuff it back in the wallet. “I’m good.”
He remains crouched, staring at the spot I was just in, taking a few extra beats before he too rises. His eyes search for mine under the spin of the disco ball and it’s too much, too intimate. The kind of eyes that . . . that . . .
I wave to no one on the other side of the room and plough my way over, leaving Trent behind. I end up at the mocktail bar. John’s behind it now, and winks as he sneaks out a flask. I snicker and nod. I need it.
I take my very potent cocktail to the card table and play a game of poker with Dev.
Then I play against Lipstick, Natalie. Then Clara.
Then Mr Stevenson. And Jack. Grandpa has a turn, swearing heartily when he too loses.
Every time one gets up to leave, I snag another before Trent can sweep in from the sides. He’s watching. Waiting.
I can’t face his curiosity right now.
Cards are easy.
Grandpa shakes his head, rising.
“Play another game,” I plead as he rises.
“You’ve thoroughly robbed me.”
“But—”
“I’ll play.” I stiffen. Trent settles with quiet calm into the chair opposite me.
Grandpa grins like this should be a fun match, and he starts shuffling the deck.
I shut my eyes for a moment and will myself to loosen. Poker is the ultimate game of bluffing, and I sure have enough practice. I ping my eyes open and smirk at Trent across from me.
His brow lifts slightly in challenge, as if to remind me he’s always been able to read me. Right from the beginning.
Grandpa deals the cards, grinning. He knows where this is heading.
The oldies all gather around taking bets on who’ll crack first.
I blow a sigh up my face. “What’s the buy-in?”
Trent says dryly, “If I win, we do another Polaroid. Just you and me.”
Grandpa sighs. “Trenty, you could’ve wagered anything.”
Yes, anything. He could have wagered me to renew my license, or to answer any question of his honestly. He could have wagered something to make my bones tremble, to make me fear, to give this game the highest stakes it could have.
But he wagered another picture.
And he’s telling the oldies that the picture earlier didn’t develop. That his bro is the hardest to get in front of the camera, and that it’ll be nice to get a shot of just us. Brothers. For Grandpa’s wallet.
I stare at his mouth, the words coming out of it. How many of them does he believe? How much is he aware of his own bluffing?
Why do I dislike every one of his words, and yet like them for protecting me?
We play.
I bluff hard. Trent plays tight.
The oldies eat it all up.
I have nothing, but I raise aggressively.
Trent calls me every time. Calm, measured, letting me dig my own way to the Polaroid camera.
The turn.
Grandpa whistles low.
The river.
Trent knows I’m overplaying my hand. He raises.
I push all in, looking right at him. “Afraid?”
Trent murmurs, holding my gaze, “Of the moment of truth? Yes.”
My breath hitches. I hesitate.
It feels like a disaster. My pair of twos. His full house.
I’ve been obliterated.
I face the camera again.
Trent leans in for the photo just like before. Shoulder to shoulder, light casual smile.
But his thumb brushes mine at our sides. Barely there. But there enough.
I bare my teeth. The camera can’t tell the difference between that and a smile.
Click.
Another moment, caught in the frame.
I find John and his flask and down a few more spiked mocktails after that.
The oldies and I have a great time on the dance floor until one by one, they start sinking into seats and nodding off.
The van is called, there are hiccupped goodbyes, and sober Trent drives me and Grandpa home while we sing Crowded House in the back seat. “Four Seasons In One Day!”
“What is this under my butt?”
Grandpa pulls at it and rope uncoils slowly from under me.
“What’s the rope for?” I ask, rubbing the burn Grandpa left behind.
Trent murmurs drily, “Always have rope in the truck. Never know when you might need to tie up some drunken idiots.”
“Quick,” Grandpa says. “Open the window, I’ll toss it.”
The rope gets squished into the back alongside a sleeping bag instead. And then suddenly the door is whipped open, and we’re back home. Just a small hill to climb.
Trent helps Grandpa inside and into bed first, and I become an interior designer in the hall deciding exactly where my photo should go.
Oof. The photos are blurring a bit.
“Here!” I say when Trent’s form appears again in the hall. “I go here.” Hiccup. “Right between this one of Grandpa and you graduating uni.” I squint at the picture. “You don’t look that much younger than now.”
“Mature student. I quit for a while, then went back at twenty-five.”
I poke the picture. “When’s this?”
“May last year.”
“And a doctorate! So smart.” Instead of the photo, I’m prodding him now, between the buttons of his shirt. “Even smarter in the penguin suit.”
He captures my wrist and holds it still, and I feel the rub of cord and cold fish under his grip. He slowly lowers my hand. “Earlier,” he says. “It felt so genuine. Was that penguin prince story . . . your story?”
The hallway swims and then I’m laughing again as I push past him towards the kitchen. “Not my story. Beth’s.”
Trent is a sigh right behind me. “Okay, okay. If you say so.”
I lunge for the pantry and swing the doors open with a gust of air. Only to come eye to eye with a chicken on the shelf. Just chilling there in a basket lined with serviettes.
“Trent!”
Trent mutters in disbelief, scoops up the basket and returns it to the pen while I find a pack of cookies and start cramming them into my mouth.
Somehow, I end up sprawled over the counter in a pool of crumbs, my head on my arm as I blow them towards the sink.
Trent returns as a shadow and something that sounds like a snort. He says stuff, but I’m not quite sure, and suddenly, like the chicken, I’m being scooped up and marched to my pen.
A soft, incredulous breath escapes him. Half snort, half sigh. “Okay, okay,” he murmurs, and this time there’s no bite to it. Just low amusement. Familiar. Warm. His hands are on my hips with gentle pressure, steady but unhurried. Not rough, not impatient.
My breath catches a little as I tip onto a bed, the world tilting with it, and I don’t even resist. “This is your bed.”
“I don’t want you getting hurt trying to reach the top bunk. Let’s swap for tonight.”
I don’t argue. I breathe in his scent on the pillow. Sigh.
He pauses, fingers curling tighter into the blanket. Then he resumes, slow and deliberate, tucking it up beneath my chin.
“I’m still in my clothes.”
“Sleep in them,” he murmurs, quiet and final. Then his weight lifts, warmth pulling away, and the bunk creaks faintly above me.
I yawn into his pillow. “I stand in Ika’s scent every day. I feel your protection of him in everything I do. I’m drowning in his stead . . . and I don’t even know him.”
The bunk is very quiet for a long time. Not a single groan.
And then, gravelly, “He doesn’t have a penguin story.” He exhales. “And I wasn’t always the brother I should have been.”
“You had fights?”
A long pause. “Mm.”
“I mean . . . you shared a room. If you didn’t annoy one another that would be strange.”
His voice sounds muffled, like he might have an arm thrown over his face.
“Once he wrote all his wishes in a letter and sealed it into a bottle. He threw it out to sea, and I got mad. Told him off. He really wanted me to let it go; to let his wishes be carried over oceans. But I . . .” Trent breathes out shakily. “I fished it out of the sea.”
“You were worried about pollution?”
“More than his wishes.”
I curl on my side, whisper, “Do you think you made them not come true?”
He breathes out, long and ragged.
It’s easier, talking in the dark.
Easier talking drunk.
“Did you ever open the bottle?”
The silence stretches, long and uncertain. A breath. A shift above me. Maybe his arm moving, or just the mattress stretching around the shape of him.
I don’t think he’ll answer.
And then, on the quietest breath:
“I thought about it.”