Prompt: Write a story about a photograph; start the story with “In this one”

“In this one, you can see who the real photographer is. My sad attempt at taking David’s portrait beside his of me.” She laughed forcibly and put her hand on my back to guide me past the photos and toward the living room.

I laughed politely, but didn’t humor her by denying it. His photo of her was much better. He was backlit, at a questionable angle and somehow the magnificence of the falls behind him felt muted in comparison to his photo of her. His photo was a melding of movements: her hair as she turned, the glare of the sun blending into the blond of her curls, steam from the falls encroaching at the corners of the shot.

She would never admit it, but I could tell that she hated the photos, framed side by side—concrete evidence of his talent and her failure.

I’d known Susan growing up and success had come easy to her. A top student and star tennis player, she balanced clubs, volunteer work, sports and grades with ease. “Wise beyond her years,” my father had remarked after meeting her over dinner. She had dazzled him with her knowledge of current events. My mother and I were more likely to pick up People Magazine than the New York Times, a preference he’d scorned us for many times.

We’d been something like friends then, but I always had the feeling I was a stand-in, acceptable company until she got out of our small town.

She bagged scholarship after scholarship and as her acceptance letters rolled in, so too did my rejection letters. She eventually landed on a pre-law program at University of Chicago and there was a buzzing among the mothers about what she might make of her life. “What a smart girl. I bet she could start her own firm.”

Susan and I lost touch after graduation, but I was kept aware of her whereabouts through unsolicited updates from my mother. She joined a sorority; she met a guy. She wanted to go to law school. But she never did.

“Poor thing just had a full-fledged mental breakdown,” my mom exclaimed on the phone one day. She always shared the local gossip with me after her weekly lunch with Brenda, who had a son my age. “He’s still single,” she would often remind me.
I was half listening as I put groceries in my cart for the lasagna.

“I guess she just couldn’t get the LSAT scores she needed,” she said.

“Mmm,” I responded intermittently.  

“You know though, the breakdown was bound to happen. She was always so tightly wound. And her mother! Always putting pressure on her, even as a child. You’d made one tiny mistake at your fourth-grade piano recital, and I swear, Patty was so smug! Bragging about the difficulty of Susan’s piece and how she’d nailed her performance. ‘But you know, Mary really gave it her best.’ Ugh, I could have hit her.”

She rattled on about how she always encouraged us to make mistakes and how Patty had been too hard on her daughter.

“But anyway, all that to say, I want you to reach out to her.” I stopped looking at the label of the half and half cream I’d been staring at.

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“Oh, come on, Mary. You’ve known her such a long time and she just moved back here. Don’t you think a friendly face will help her at a time like this?”

I exhaled. I loved my mother’s altruistic spirit until it she got me involved in her do-good schemes.

“We haven’t spoken in four years,” I reminded her as I put back the Organic Valley cream in favor of the generic store brand.

“Well, I still think it would mean a lot to her.”

That conversation was ten years ago. Over coffees and glasses of wine, we eventually rekindled our friendship, growing closer than ever.

She’d married the man she’d met in college, David, and though he moved to Bloomington to be with her, his blooming career as a writer and director often meant he was away working in LA. He’d invite her to galas and award shows and while she joined him on occasion, I think she found the experience rather humiliating. She’d attended his last premiere with him and when she reluctantly joined him on the red carpet, a photographer yelled, “OK, can we get one without the girl please? One of just David, yes.”

He’d become something of a minor celebrity in the indie film community after his debut feature was picked up by distributers at Sundance. There was even award season buzz around it after the young starlet at the film’s center was nominated for best actress, but ultimately Meryl Streep swept the category.

As we stepped into the living room guests milled about, picking on the cheese plates, deviled eggs, meatballs and other hors d’oeuvres we’d prepared in the hours preceding the event.

A man in jeans and a blazer approached us, his mouth still full after stuffing in a phyllo cup.

“This is lovely, Susan,” he said between bites. “Did you make this?”

“I did, but I had some help,” she said, nodding in my direction.

“Mary,” I said, reaching out my hand.

“Jonathan. Nice to meet you.” He turned back toward Susan. “You must be so proud of David. I mean, I’ve known for years he’d make it big, but I didn’t know he’d make it this big.”

“Oh, of course I am.”
​
As Susan continued to make her rounds, I found a seat in the corner and watched. She played the role of doting wife well, gushing about his newest film when asked and quietly nodding by his side as he explained new projects in the pipeline. She’d accepted her place in life, even if reluctantly—in her mind she would always be relegated to a supporting role, coming just short of being cast as the lead.