I kind of knew Sally from some committees we were on together at the school, the Academic Excellence Committee and the Teacher Appreciation Committee. I won't bore you with details, these were just about what they sound like. Six or eight parents would meet in the library at the school every few weeks and plan award ceremonies and special things. I was being a good parent, and did not find that the other good parents were very interesting. Privately I used to refer to the mothers of the school as "cows," which is not very nice, I know. Fat and dumpy were the norm. And dumb, they seemed dull and petty as a rule. My wife did not like me calling them that.
Sally was not a cow. She was very small and slender. I admit that at first I did not find her attractive, in fact I did not pay any attention to her at all. She is what is technically known as a chatterbox; she could be carrying on four or five conversations simultaneously at our meetings, on all levels from the most businesslike to the most personal details, yacking away. Her voice was white noise to me, a background sound. She wore her hair short, like a dyke, but I did not take her for a lesbian, it actually seemed more like she just didn't care how she looked. She had a fit, petite body, and dressed in ill-fitting jeans and t-shirts or whatever they sell at Target or Wal-Mart, she had no sense of fashion or apparent awareness of her own-self-presentation and how she came off to people. She was full of energy, almost to the point of obnoxiousness, and that turned out to be great for the committees, because she would take notes, organize everything, make the phone calls, keep track of the budget. She couldn't help herself.
She had a kind of endearing way of empathizing with the women in the meetings and in discussions before and after, where she seemed to understand their frustration and their needs in an entirely direct way, and she had a twinkle of the eye for some of the men. She was a hugger, and the kind that puts her hand on your forearm when she is talking to you.
The meetings always ended up on the sidewalk in front of the school with a bunch of moms showing each other pictures on their phones. The guys would scram as soon as the meeting was over, and the ladies would stand outside the administration office. Some nights I would leave and then drive past an hour later on the way to the store or somewhere, and they'd be out there in the dark in front of the school, passing phones around with pictures of their kids doing cute shit. And that is how this started.
The AEC meeting had ended, I went to my car, and was almost out of the parking lot when I realized I had left my cell phone on the desk in the classroom. I parked in the Principal's space and trotted into the building to retrieve it, and when I came back, Sally was just saying good-bye to the last mom.
As I hurried toward my car, she said, "We were just looking at pictures."
I said something like, "Yeah, I saw."
"Here, let me show you," she said.
So I found myself standing on the school grounds for another twenty minutes looking at tiny photographs of kids playing. She told me their names, the whole story, it went in one ear and out the other. She had her hand on my arm sometimes. I liked that, and kept listening and watching. She would look up at me sometimes and smile knowingly, teasingly, touching me lightly. It was harmless.
The next day she sent a note to my home email address while I was at work. Subject line: "Photos." The email just said, "How'd you like those pictures? -Sally"
The committees generate a lot of emails and text messages, and most of it is off-topic chitchat. It was just before lunch, and or some reason last night's laughing voice and her fingertips on my arm came back to me. It was a nice, warm feeling, and I felt playful. I replied: "Pretty good, but you were not in any of them."
Her reply came in a minute: "No, the pictures of me are on my husband's phone. -Sally"
I wrote: "I guess I'll never see them."
In another minute I got an email with a photo in it. It was apparently Sally, perhaps fifteen years earlier, sitting on a brick wall in a forest somewhere. "Our honeymoon," she wrote. "All I've got. Sorry. -Sally" Her hair, even back then, was the same dyke cut, she was a little slimmer than she was now, skinny even. She had the same toothy grin.
"Guess I'll never see the good ones," I wrote. I felt that this minor flirtation had run its course, and did not expect to hear any more from her.
After lunch I did get another message from her: "There aren't any 'good ones' -Sally"
I replied: "Not on your husbands phone?"
She replied immediately" "No none. I wish there were -Sally"
Me: "Didn't you say the pictures of you are on his phone?"
Her: "Yes, me playing with the kids, me eating, me giving a presentation -Sally"
Me: "I see. Those don't sound very interesting, I agree."
Her: "Your not missing anything -Sally"
She sounded sad, even in the sterile medium of email. I don't know how that works. No facial expression, no tone of voice, no gestures. I guess you call it "reading between the lines."
I felt bad for her, but was not quite sure why. I replied, "Maybe he can take some."
Less than a minute later: "It would never occur to him -Sally"
"His loss," I typed, hoping the conversation was ending. Also hoping it was not ending.
It was not.
"Are you good with a camera? -Sally"
I gave this one some thought before I replied: "I don't know. I don't have one."
