Girl In Snapshot

"Sorry," I said.

"For what?" Ruthie asked. I shuffled my papers together and started to leave the room.

"I'll get out of your way. Just take me a second." I pulled everything into a stack and yanked my backpack off the chair.

"You're not in my way." She took the bag from my hand and looped the strap over the chair again. "Sit, sit. Honestly, Nick, you're not in the way. This is your place now, too."

"I just - I know you've got your own routine here, and I didn't want to change anything." I stood there like an idiot with a slowly sliding pile of papers in my arm and half standing from the chair. She sat at the other side of the small dining table and slid a coaster over for her mug.

"Look, sweetie, if you're in my way I'll let you know, huh?" She winked and sipped from her coffee. I relaxed and sat back down. "Besides, I'm curious to see what you've been working on in here." She slipped a page from the stack and held it up to read it.

"I don't like it," I told her.

"Why not?" She kept reading. "It sounds good to me."

"I don't know. Just don't. I hardly ever like my work." I watched her eyes for any reaction to the page. Each crinkle of her brow and smirk of her lips was like a signal flag snapping in the wind as far as I was concerned.

"You don't write like a kid who can't buy beer yet." She smiled and put the page down. "Did you write a lot in high school?" Her finger slowly twirled at a long, thick lock of hair.

"Yeah. I mean, for myself, not for a class or anything. Just stuff." I was babbling. My sister always did that to me. She was 20 years older than I was, and it made me nervous. There's an expectation of equality between siblings, and when the older sibling is old enough to be your mother, it gets weird. I try too hard to sound mature and the second I speak I'm certain that my youth comes bursting through and makes me sound like an idiot.

Not that Ruthie ever tried to make me feel that way. She's been good to me my whole life. Nevertheless, I can't help think that when she was getting a divorce, I was still playing kick-ball on the playground during recess. When she was celebrating her 30th birthday, I was nervously holding hands with my first girlfriend at the neighborhood Fourth of July party. And when Ruthie was closer to 40 than to 30, I was careening much to fast down the highway with my brand new driver's license in my pocket. No matter how many times I told myself to just relax, I couldn't help but get all nervous about not being a stupid kid in front of her.

Even calling her Ruthie seemed weird, but I think we both liked it. It helped to keep us grounded as brother and sister.

"I always wished I could write like this. Tell stories and come up with the wild stuff you do." She smiled at me and leaned back in her chair. I just sat there and grinned like a doof. I should have said something gracious, or intelligent to confirm her compliment, but I suppose it was destined that I should stand up to get something to drink and hit my head on the light that hung from the ceiling on a small silver flecked chain.

"Oh, Nicky, are you okay?" She was up like a shot checking the top of my head as I bent over in surprise and a sharp bit of pain. I was still unused to having to worry about hitting things as I walked or stood. I'd been average height at best for the majority of my life. Come senior year of high school, I shoot up almost a foot. Clothes didn't fit if I bought from a normal store. Shelves that stuck out far enough were suddenly trying to kill me. My feet never fit under the table without mashing anyone else foolish enough to sit with me. It was just new enough that I was still making an ass of myself.

My sister understood to a degree. She was tall too. Almost six feet. However, tall for a woman and tall for a man is like comparing apples to orange watermelons.

"Does it hurt?" she asked. She was touching my head where I hit the light and wincing each time as she felt for a lump as though she were the one in pain.

"I'm getting used to it." I could smell her perfume. Her leg was pressed tight to my thigh.

"Well, tell you what, why don't you sit and try not to bleed to much and I'll fix dinner."

"It's my turn, I can do it," I said. I started to get up but she laid a hand on my shoulder to keep me in my chair.

"Nonsense. Besides, you look like you were getting into a zone or whatever writers do. Is it a zone?" She smiled brilliant teeth and I laughed.

"Yeah." I sat back. "Thanks."

"My pleasure." She patted my arm and padded off for the kitchen.

I could see her from the table and watched as she slid around the tile in her socks. She zipped around like a teenager left alone for the first night.

"Mind if I turn on the radio," she called over her shoulder.

"Go ahead. I like to work with distractions." I pulled a pad of paper around and fished my pen out of the stack in the middle of the table. I stared at the pad a moment, trying to get back to my train of thought before Ruthie had walked in earlier.

I heard pans clanging in the next room and looked over. The only thing that separated the dining room from the kitchen was a small bar and an accordion door that was pushed all the way to the side. Ruthie was lost in her own little moment. She was flicking on burners and pulling bags from the freezer, all while dancing in popping movements to some band she's been listening to since before I was born. I was struck by the difference between a pretty girl and an attractive woman. They were two different animals.

I remember thinking how glad I was that I didn't move out west with my parents. I never really had the chance to know my sister any better than I knew some of my cousins, and I was thrilled to see her in her own light. When you only see someone at holidays and family functions, you don't get to see how they really live.

Her long blond hair tumbled around as she moved back and forth. She zipped around and made all sorts of noise as she cooked. I smiled a bit and set to my paper. The words just seemed to flow. It was easy. I didn't need to write fast. I put word after word on paper and each one came as fast as it needed to. I'd finished five or six sheets before she came in with two big bowls of food. She handed me the bigger bowl, heaping with beef and vegetables. I think she was the only woman I'd ever met who fully understood the ravenous hunger of a large, growing 19 year old. It was worse than when I was 16. There was never too much food.

"Let's eat with TV," she said. She always said "TV" like it was a person. We sat on the couch and ate while watching a rerun of a cop drama. It sounds lame, but I was having entirely too much fun just living with my sister. I always wished she were around when I was a kid, but I knew she had her own life. Sometimes I felt like the step-brother around her. As though I was the product of some other union altogether. It was finally starting to feel right, though.

"How's your show going?" she asked one night. We were watching an old movie and I was starting to dose off.

"Good," I said, rubbing an eye with the heel of my palm. I was lucky enough to turn a sample script for a decent budget cable show into a permanent position on the writing staff. One of my best friends from high school had a brother who was the producer for the show. He got me a chance to send a sample in and they liked it a lot. It was killing me though. Once they saw what I could do, they made me a kind of supervising writer. This meant that in addition to the regular episode writing I was doing, I was also expected to read over and fix scripts that I didn't write. By the time I was done with a full day of reading and running around making sure everything was being done, I could barely keep my eyes open past ten at night.

"You look like you're ready to fall over," she laughed.

"I didn't think it'd be this hard." I rolled my head to the side and looked at her. She was curled up with her feet under her body and her shoulder was jammed in the corner of the high back of the couch.

"Is it worth it?"

"Definitely." I smiled at the thought of what I had the opportunity to do every day. "Never mind the fact that I get to write a TV show. Forget that. I'm in charge of other writers. And I'm meeting people that work for all these companies. A couple of them have asked me to meet with them." My excitement had jazzed my brain up a bit. I was sitting up and had an arm over the back of the couch while I turned in my seat to look at her.

"I can't wait to see it. When does it come on?" She pulled a leg up to hold her knee straight at her chest. I didn't immediately notice the way her gray flannel shorts seemed to disappear a little.

"The network's going to run a sneak preview of the pilot episode in a month. We still have to get about six more episodes shot. Which means we'll be writing and re-writing like mad for the next month." She smiled at my happiness. I was struck by how young she seemed. I didn't know what a 39-year-old woman should look like, but she didn't seem to look it. She didn't look 20, but I couldn't get 39 just looking at her.

I felt warm in my chest. There was a taste of adrenalin on the back of my tongue.

"I can't tell you how happy I am for you, Nicky." She pulled a long lock of hair from her face. I noticed faint wrinkles at her eyes. It made her look like she was constantly smiling. She was beautiful in her ease. Suddenly, she jumped from the couch. Her shorts were wedged up between her cheeks giving a glimpse of the firm body no one got to see. She quickly straightened them down with a pinch of her fingers on the tight hem. "I'm...it's been a long day, so I'm going to bed. Good night." She sounded odd, but I ignored it.

"Okay. Good night." She walked quickly to her room and shut the door. I sat there and watched television until I drifted off.

I woke the next morning with a start. I was still on the couch and the TV was off.

"Ruthie," I called. I checked my watch. It was only 6:30 am. I didn't have to be in for another hour and a half. I stood up and shook the stiffness from my legs. I walked around the couch and down the hall to my room. I looked into Ruthie's open door and called her again. I didn't hear any response.

"Thursday," I said aloud. She went in early on Tuesdays and Thursdays to work out at the 'Y' before work. I was about to leave when I saw her desk by the door. It was covered in photographs. They looked like they were all from when she was in high school and just after. I sat down in her chair and started shuffling through the mess.

I found photographs from her punk phase. Tall pink hair that jabbed at the sky. Black make-up and ripped clothes. It all seemed so interestingly inappropriate on her. She was smiling and laughing in every one. I was seeing her, as I'd never known she could ever be. In these photos was a girl with my sister's eyes. She was skinny in her way. Definitely not the smooth, fit woman she was now.

She had them all marked on the backs with dates. I flipped them all over and pulled out the packets that were still in a shoebox next to the desk. I spent 15 minutes putting them all in order. I turned over my stacks and went through them one by one.

They started when she was 15. I watched her with her friends. I recognized some of them. I was 20 pictures in before I realized that a pretty girl who was always with her was the mother of a friend of mine. I moved through her sophomore year of high school and into her pink hair phase. I saw her at concerts and at a county fair with someone who must have been her boyfriend. I saw her feeding bits of hot dogs to monkeys at the zoo.

I was flipping through them like a slide show. I was seeing her as a person with a life that had nothing to do with my family. I was learning who she was. I was seeing the years go by in a flash. The pretty girl with the spiky pink hair was turning into the pretty, young woman with the intense blue eyes that I knew today.

I flipped from photo to photo and I got to one that was the fall after she graduated high school. She was still into the punk look to a more casual degree than her high school years. The look was more easy going and less intentional. Her hair was a kind of blue at that point. However, that wasn't what struck me. It was one of the few photos of her where she didn't know she was in camera until it was too late. She and her friends seemed to have snuck into the school for a covert bit of swimming. The lights were off except for those under the water. She was standing in a clearing of wet and half naked teenagers as they jumped into the water and laughed and drank beers with the gusto that can only be summoned by children doing something wrong. However, she was standing. Just standing. The flash had gone off and made her turn her head. Long, wet shanks of blue hair froze in an arc around her head as she spun. She was dripping wet and wearing a red bra and a drooping pair of men's briefs that threatened to fall off her slender hips. Her eyes were wide and she looked thoughtful. Whatever had been happening around her, she was deep in thought about something when the person with the camera took the picture.

I just stared at that picture. To me it was everything I wanted to know about her. It was Ruthie stripped of all pretensions, both figuratively and literally. I couldn't take my eyes off it. I fell in love with the girl in the picture. That was Ruthie at my age. She was beautiful. The gap in the leg of her too large briefs around her thigh seemed forbidden and lovely. She was completely at ease and separate from everything around her.

I pushed the pictures away and sat back with that one snapshot. I didn't look at any more, and messed the piles around to leave them as they were when I found them. I didn't think she'd care if I looked at them, but it was already done by the time I realized how silly an act it was. I still had the one in my hand. I was absolutely in love with that girl. She was so young and fresh. Her eyes were bright and unblinking in the wake of the bright flash. Her arms were relaxed and her body had an amazing line to it. I stared at her for a long time.

I checked my watch and got up from the desk. I put the snapshot in my shirt pocket and went to clean up and change. I managed to put it out of my mind at work.

"Cleaning out your closet?" I asked. She looked up from her dinner and cocked her head in question. "I saw the photos on your desk as I was going to my room," I told her. I left out the rest, but I wasn't sure why.

"Oh." She shook her head and smiled. "Just trying to remember what it was like to be young." She didn't sound sad, but rather, she was a bit wistful.

"Ruthie," I started. She looked at me as she chewed. "I don't mean to be personal. Well, I guess I do, but not in a crass kind of way." She narrowed her eyes as she watched me stumble through a simple question.

"Ask me whatever you want. No secrets here."

"Okay. Ah, anyway, I've been thinking. I've been living here about three months now, and I was thinking, that maybe sometimes you'd want me to take off for a while, you know." She just stared at me. Writers are often the most inarticulate boobs on the planet when it comes to speaking to someone.

"I don't follow."

"You know. It just - I kind of moved in pretty sudden and we never got a few things very clear. Relationships and...well, stuff."

"Oh," she said in a long dragged out line. "Stuff. You mean like if I were to have 'company' over." She was enjoying my discomfort.

"Yeah. I just wanted you to know that I understand we all have lives and if you ever wanted the place to yourself for a night every once in a while it's fine with me. Just let me know and I'll scoot."

"How long have you been working up the nerve to have this conversation?"

"No more than a month." She laughed at my joke. Imagine her mirth had she known I wasn't kidding. I could never think of a tactful or easy way to bring it up. It wasn't a problem for me. I was working so much that I went straight from work to home and did it all over again every day. Weekends were just more of the same, only I worked at home.

"Well, I suppose it's a good idea to let each other know if we need some privacy, huh?" She smiled and went on with her dinner.

We let the matter drop and talked about little things that made the days go by. I was only half listening as I was thinking about the blue-haired Ruthie in the snapshot. I knew why I was in love with the girl in the snapshot. I'd figured it out while I was cooking dinner. I saw in that girl, everything that my sister was today, but my age. She was approachable and attainable. I could love her. I could be with her. I could have her. I couldn't have my Ruthie.

I'd loved Ruthie forever. I never knew it. I never put it together. I knew it now, though.

"Why'd you jump up and run off the other night?" As soon as I said it, I couldn't figure out why I'd asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I was telling you about the show and you just bolted out of the room. Why?" I put down my fork and watched her rub a hand along her slender neck. She looked at me and then gave a short, almost confused laugh.

"I just got worried." She dropped her hands to her lap and seemed to be picking at a loose thread in her pants. "I was watching you get excited about your show and it hit me that those times are all gone for me. I'm going to be 40 years old next birthday. 40. I guess I've been ignoring all that."

"Until I came along," I said quietly.

"No." She was stern and serious. "No. I can't tell you how glad I am that you came to live with me. We never got a chance to really know each other, and this has been the highlight of my decade. I'm serious. Tell me you understand that."

"I do."

"Good." She sighed. "It's not a big deal. I was thinking about a lot of stuff the other night and it all just rushed in and hit me at the same time. I went to my room and got out my old photos. Trying to relive my youth as much as remember it. Don't worry. I'm fine." She got up and took our plates to the kitchen to rinse them.

We sat in the living room that night watching a movie. I didn't pay attention to it. I was thinking of the snapshot. I wanted her to be like the girl again. Not the age. That was stupid. The look. I hadn't seen that look in her eyes before. In that one look was everything about Ruthie, but I'd never seen it all in one look before. She was missing something.

I watched her breathe as she stared at the TV. Her lower lip would disappear into her mouth a moment as she lightly chewed it and then it was back, glistening slightly in the wavering light of the television. Her delicate throat gently undulated as she swallowed. I wanted to touch her face. Just touch it. Let my fingers slide over her cheek. To me, it was all just part of wanting to know Ruthie. It wasn't until I saw the girl in the snapshot that I knew. That was just the last part of the puzzle.

I felt sick. I tried to keep my eyes focused. I was just a kid to her, but I couldn't put her out of my head. Heat spread from around my neck to go up over my scalp.

I watched as a tear slid down from the corner of her eye and around her cheek to roll out of sight under her jaw.

I was sitting at my desk waiting for a set of notes to come back on a two-part script. I had the snapshot of Ruthie propped up on my desktop against a coffee cup. Her skin was slick and bright. The tight snaking curve of her body was so right. I was seeing her like that today. The body was a little different, but that was it. I wanted to see her like that.

The phone rang. I grabbed it on the end of the first ring.

"Nick?"

"Ruthie?"

"Hey. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"