make sure you don’t break it,” I said. “We got a big lecture on how fragile they are.”
“Oh,” she said, “you’re coming. I don’t know how to work the camera by myself.”
Right away we ran into trouble. We spent a Saturday standing outside the big, dilapidated row house where Daniel lived, waiting for him to come out. It was October, not cold yet but getting there, with that gold pretty light that falls across the Midwest right before winter, and for a while I felt good, standing out there with my sister, showing her the few things I’d learned. But Daniel never came out, and the next day in English the guys who sat in the back made fun of me.
“I hear your sister’s a stalker,” said one.
That was not what either of us needed.
“Can’t you make a different movie?” I asked her.
“Why?” she asked.
“Daniel’s friends are starting to talk shit,” I said.
We were at her place for once, an apartment above a bar that she shared with a med student. Her kitchen was clean and organized, with a bowl of fruit on the table next to a loaf of her roommate’s homemade bread. Sophie’s food tastes had stalled out around age ten, and she kept all her own food—oatmeal packets and canned fruit and white bread and sugar—in her bedroom, which looked like a homeless person’s shopping cart, like if she didn’t keep everything she owned in a giant pile right next to her body, someone would steal it or throw it away. She cleared a space for herself amid all the papers and socks and candy wrappers on her bed and sat down.
“Are you worried about this because you want to hang out with those guys?” she asked me.
Sometimes I assumed that because Sophie didn’t care what was going on around her, she didn’t understand it either. I was always wrong.
“No,” I said. “I just— Why don’t you make a movie about someone who wants to have a movie made about them?”
Sophie cleared a space for me to sit, too. Her messy room looked and smelled like home, and I missed the years when I couldn’t sleep and she’d make a space for me on the floor next to her bed. Sometimes she was the one who couldn’t get to sleep; she had night terrors that made her howl in fear with her eyes wide open, and I was the only one who could comfort her. I’d put my two hands around her head and squeeze gently, like I was holding her brains together, and slowly she’d calm down and sleep.
“If you want to try and be friends with them,” she said, “you should go ahead. They have a lot of parties. They get a lot of girls.”
From someone else this could’ve been manipulative, but Sophie always meant what she said. And she was right—I did want partiesand girls. The closest I’d come to sex was a party senior year of high school when Tracy Schneider stuck her hand down my pants and stroked me until I was hard, then mysteriously lost interest and walked away. What I didn’t understand was why Sophie didn’t want the same things. She might not care about making friends, but she did care about Daniel. Sophie was weird, but I was old enough to know she wouldn’t be the first person to fake being normal in order to get laid.
“Maybe you should go to parties,” I said. “Talk to people. Talk to Daniel. That’s a better way of getting his attention than stalking him with a camera.”
Sophie got a crumpled look on her face then that I’d only seen a handful of times before.
“You think I don’t try,” she said, “but I try.”
She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them.
“When I first came here,” she went on, “I decided I was going to fit in. I got a haircut. I got a short skirt.”
I tried to imagine my sister dressing like the other girls. I tried to imagine her looking like them, her face all happy and nervous as she laughed with them on the way to class.
“And what happened?” I asked.
“It worked. I had girlfriends. I had these girls, and we went out for pizza together,
“Oh,” she said, “you’re coming. I don’t know how to work the camera by myself.”
Right away we ran into trouble. We spent a Saturday standing outside the big, dilapidated row house where Daniel lived, waiting for him to come out. It was October, not cold yet but getting there, with that gold pretty light that falls across the Midwest right before winter, and for a while I felt good, standing out there with my sister, showing her the few things I’d learned. But Daniel never came out, and the next day in English the guys who sat in the back made fun of me.
“I hear your sister’s a stalker,” said one.
That was not what either of us needed.
“Can’t you make a different movie?” I asked her.
“Why?” she asked.
“Daniel’s friends are starting to talk shit,” I said.
We were at her place for once, an apartment above a bar that she shared with a med student. Her kitchen was clean and organized, with a bowl of fruit on the table next to a loaf of her roommate’s homemade bread. Sophie’s food tastes had stalled out around age ten, and she kept all her own food—oatmeal packets and canned fruit and white bread and sugar—in her bedroom, which looked like a homeless person’s shopping cart, like if she didn’t keep everything she owned in a giant pile right next to her body, someone would steal it or throw it away. She cleared a space for herself amid all the papers and socks and candy wrappers on her bed and sat down.
“Are you worried about this because you want to hang out with those guys?” she asked me.
Sometimes I assumed that because Sophie didn’t care what was going on around her, she didn’t understand it either. I was always wrong.
“No,” I said. “I just— Why don’t you make a movie about someone who wants to have a movie made about them?”
Sophie cleared a space for me to sit, too. Her messy room looked and smelled like home, and I missed the years when I couldn’t sleep and she’d make a space for me on the floor next to her bed. Sometimes she was the one who couldn’t get to sleep; she had night terrors that made her howl in fear with her eyes wide open, and I was the only one who could comfort her. I’d put my two hands around her head and squeeze gently, like I was holding her brains together, and slowly she’d calm down and sleep.
“If you want to try and be friends with them,” she said, “you should go ahead. They have a lot of parties. They get a lot of girls.”
From someone else this could’ve been manipulative, but Sophie always meant what she said. And she was right—I did want partiesand girls. The closest I’d come to sex was a party senior year of high school when Tracy Schneider stuck her hand down my pants and stroked me until I was hard, then mysteriously lost interest and walked away. What I didn’t understand was why Sophie didn’t want the same things. She might not care about making friends, but she did care about Daniel. Sophie was weird, but I was old enough to know she wouldn’t be the first person to fake being normal in order to get laid.
“Maybe you should go to parties,” I said. “Talk to people. Talk to Daniel. That’s a better way of getting his attention than stalking him with a camera.”
Sophie got a crumpled look on her face then that I’d only seen a handful of times before.
“You think I don’t try,” she said, “but I try.”
She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them.
“When I first came here,” she went on, “I decided I was going to fit in. I got a haircut. I got a short skirt.”
I tried to imagine my sister dressing like the other girls. I tried to imagine her looking like them, her face all happy and nervous as she laughed with them on the way to class.
“And what happened?” I asked.
“It worked. I had girlfriends. I had these girls, and we went out for pizza together,
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