Part 6 (1/2)

We split the bill, but Dylan leaves the tip because she ends up ordering a third cup of coffee to go.

As we walk out of the restaurant, Dylan says, ”By the way, in case you were wondering-my dad got transferred. He can't stand commuting, so we moved.”

We head away from the strip mall, past the identical, million-dollar houses, the chain restaurants, the new white, stucco city-hall building with its two skinny, sad palm trees on either side, and onto a narrow gravel street behind it all.

”So, this is it,” I say. ”My favorite part of Los Cerros.” I sweep my arm up to the sky.

It's an old movie theater, standing by itself on a shabby street where no one ever walks or drives. It's hidden, it's out of place, it's run-down and forgotten and empty. But it towers above us, as real as the Starbucks and the Safeway. Most of its windows are boarded up and its paint has mostly peeled off, but someone once painted a mural on the side and you can still see traces of the colors it used to be: yellow and light blue and green. It's falling apart, but I love it.

”The town's going to tear it down,” I tell Dylan. The planning has been going on for years, but it's still hard for me to believe that soon it will be gone forever.

Dylan squints against the sun to read the marquee with its missing letters: GO DBYE & tha K YOU.

I can't tell what she sees-a broken-down, rotting old building with weeds waist-high around it, or a place that was clearly amazing before it was forgotten.

Dylan rocks back on her feet, sips her coffee, and heads toward the small circular windows on the four heavy doors. As I watch her peering in, guilt settles in my stomach. The only person I ever came here with was Ingrid. I want to travel back in time a few minutes and decide against leading Dylan here. At the same time I want to join her in her explorations. I want to push my face against the windows like Ingrid and I did a thousand times and stare at the darkened lobby with its empty concession stand.

I wonder if this is what betrayal feels like.

Dylan heads around the side of the theater, but I don't follow her. I know what she'll find: more weeds, a locked back door, a long rectangular window with a heavy curtain on the inside making it impossible to see through.

I sit against the ticket booth to wait for her. Trace my fingers along the edges of the tiled floor. Watch the tips of the weeds sway in the slight breeze. Listen to the traffic sounds from a distant street.

She emerges from the opposite side and leans against the booth.

”I wonder what the last movie that played here was,” she says. I smile up at her, feel another pang in my stomach. It's something Ingrid and I used to wonder about all the time.

”I like it here,” Dylan says. It sounds simple, honest. ”I'm glad I chose you to be friends with.”

She pries the plastic lid off her coffee cup and looks disappoint edly inside. Empty. I place my hand on my backpack. This is the first afternoon since I discovered it that I haven't gone straight home to read Ingrid's journal.

Without thinking, I say, ”We used to sit here all the time.”

Facing out, across the street, she says, ”Your friend died, didn't she?”

I nod, even though I know she isn't looking at me.

”That's rough,” she says, and I'm so used to hearing people tell me things like that, but it's the way that she says it-so calm and solemn-that makes me want to cry.

I don't say anything back for a while. I'm thinking about how Ingrid always made huge elaborate plans for everything. One of them involved getting rich somehow and buying the theater and fixing it up and reopening it to show indie films. Instead of soda, we'd sell tea at the concession stand, and we might even have some photographs or books for sale. It would be more than a theater. It would be a place to escape to when people felt stifled by the chain stores and lonely in their ma.s.sive houses. I can't understand why she would make plans like that if she wasn't planning on actually doing any of it.

Dylan slides down the side of the ticket booth, until she's sitting next to me. She doesn't try to hug me, she doesn't even sit that close.

I decide that if this is a new friends.h.i.+p, if that's what this is, then I'm going to start things out honestly.

So I say, ”It actually feels strange to be here with someone else.”

And I don't know how that sounds, and I hope that it doesn't seem like I want her to leave. I hold my breath and she says, ”Yeah, it must,” and she doesn't sound offended, and she doesn't get up to go, and I am filled with grat.i.tude because it's been way too long since I've just spent time with another person. I'm not ready for it to end yet.

24.

It's been weeks since junior year started, and Ms. Delani still isn't looking at me. We spend first period in the dark, looking at projections of famous landscapes. Even though I wish I could hate everything she shows me, I get caught up in the photographs. We start with Ansel Adams, who is pretty overused by now. I mean, his stuff is all over inspirational posters and calendars, but the landscapes are still amazing. The entire front of the cla.s.sroom goes from wa terfalls to forests to mountains to ocean. Looking at them makes me feel small, in a good way.

We move on to Marilyn Bridges. Ms. Delani stands at her desk, stating the obvious.

”Here we have a cityscape. Notice that the sun is brightest on the focal point. The surrounding buildings are in shadow.”

She goes through a few more, then says, ”Now let me show some examples of student work from past years.”

She sits down and opens a new file on her computer. And I know that this is a stupid thing to wish for, but I hope that one of the photos she's about to show will be mine. I know she didn't like my picture of Oakland, but I took so many last year that I thought were pretty good. I took one of the Golden Gate Bridge from right below it, looking up. It was cool because it was of something that's been photographed a million times, but I'd never seen a picture taken from that angle. I picture the image big, covering the wall. In my head I hear Ms. Delani saying, Excellent work, Caitlin Excellent work, Caitlin. I hear it so clearly, every syllable.

An image of cranes on an open field appears on the screen.

”See the nice use of line in this piece?”

Click. Sand and waves and Alcatraz in the distance. Sand and waves and Alcatraz in the distance. Click Click. A strange rock formation. Click Click. A hill with little flowers on it and clear blue sky.

I blink. I've never seen Ingrid's hill this big. The flowers look so full. I can see individual blades of gra.s.s. I want to close my eyes and be transported there, to that place, to that day. I remember the ground, cold under my bare feet. Ingrid's purple scarf wrapped around her neck.

Ms. Delani clicks the hill away and there's another landscape, but I don't see it. Instead, I see Ingrid's eyes up close, so blue, the way they looked through the lens of my camera.

Click.

Ingrid's fingers covered in silver rings.

Click.

Her careful, delicate handwriting.

”See how interesting the negative s.p.a.ce is here?”

Click.

The huge red sungla.s.ses that covered half her face.

Click.

The pink-and-white scars on her stomach.

”Look at the contrast.”

Click.