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Shiny rays of sunlight filter through trees, creating a pattern of shadows on the pavement, and a bright red popsicle melts down Nancy Wheeler’s fingers. Sticky juice drips to her wrist, and she sticks her tongue out, licking it off before biting down on the frozen ice. She’s laughing, head tilted back, and she chases the ice pop with her mouth, catching a bit of popsicle, the ice melting and separating.
Barbara Holland offers her a napkin, but Nancy waves her off, finishing the last of her popsicle, biting on the wooden stick. It hangs out of her mouth a bit, but she leaves it there, jaw tight to keep it in place, as she listens to her friend, the pair of them flicking through this month’s Tiger Beat. Nancy only pulls the stick out of her mouth when it’s her turn to talk.
There’s a reddish tint to her lips, and if Jonathan had a camera, he might be tempted to photograph her. The sheen of sweat glistening at her temples, the summer camp bracelet fraying on her wrist. He could zoom in just on that bruise on her knee, capture the yellowing green of it, the way it contrasts her pale skin. Or, maybe he’d take a wide shot, get Nancy and Barb and the bench they’re sharing, the little window of Melvald’s in the background.
If he had a camera, he could blame his staring on trying to capture the right angle, position the right shot, judge the lighting. He doesn’t have a camera, though.
He’d like one. More than most things, Jonathan wants a real camera— not one of those instant polaroid ones his classmates have, but a real film one that needs special chemicals and one of those neat red lightbulbs Mom says they have in the dark room at Hawkins High. Maybe he’ll get to sneak in there in the next month when he starts as a freshman. Maybe by then he’ll have saved enough for a camera.
Jonathan spends what most would consider an unreasonable amount of time inside Melvald’s, staring at the cameras and canisters of film locked in the glass display case. He’s spent most of the summer mowing lawns and cleaning pools, saving up money, and he’s made about a third of what he needs. He would’ve had half, but he spent a portion of it on replacing Will’s oil pastels after Dad refused to unlock his car for him to get them. They’d fallen out of his bag onto the backseat, and the blazing sun melted the whole box through the windshield. Will had stood outside, wide eyes staring through the window, watching them melt. Dad had watched too, car keys tight in his fist, smirk crawling up his lips, and all it took was one laugh for Jonathan to decide. His camera could wait, Will needed new pastels more.
See, Jonathan wants a camera more than most things, but not more than he wants to see his brother smile. Not more than he wants his mom to be proud of him, or his dad to get off his back. He’s not sure if he wants a camera more than he wants Nancy Wheeler to talk to him, but maybe he doesn’t have to decide between the two because she’s looking at him now.
Popsicle stick between her teeth again, Nancy’s eyes squint in focus, staring across the street, right at Jonathan. She mutters something to Barb who does a poor job of pretending not to also look at Jonathan, and this makes Nancy grit her teeth and elbow her friend in the shoulder.
It’s then that Jonathan realizes he’s just been standing here, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He fidgets with the change in his right side pocket, lifting his left arm in an awkward wave of acknowledgment. Hi.
Nancy tilts her head, puzzled, but she waves back, Hello, the motion half-covered as a light blue Ford Escort speeds between them down main street. The driver flicks a cigarette out the window, the little paper tube smoldering on hot asphalt until the back wheel rolls over it.
When the car passes, Barb’s flipping through the magazine again, but Nancy’s still looking at Jonathan, curious. Her stare is like a telephoto lens, magnifying every expression on Jonathan’s face, scanning the raise of his brows, the dampness of sweat making his hair stick to his temples and forehead. Nancy is the only person he knows that makes him feel observed. Most people look past him, around him, or not in his direction at all. Not Nancy, though. Nancy always looks right at his center.
Maybe that’s why he wants to photograph her so desperately. Maybe, if he snaps at the right moment, captures the magnetic field she wields, he might be able to make Nancy feel the way he does whenever she looks at him. He might make her feel seen.
Jonathan crosses the street without thinking, walking right past Nancy and Barb. The bell above the door jingles as he steps into Melvald’s.
“Hi, uh—” he starts, approaching the counter. “Is my mom here?”
Mr Melvald smiles at him, looking up from the cashbox as it slides closed. “Had to go pick up your brother,” he says. “Told me you’d drop by, though.”
“Oh,” Jonathan swallows. She went to get Will? “Is he— Is everything okay?”
Mr Melvald shrugs. “Said to make sure you didn’t worry, but that’s all,” he says. “Say, I owe you a birthday wish, don’t I?”
“Not till tomorrow,” Jonathan huffs out a laugh. “But thanks. Hey, did she leave something for me? Should be a paper bag, I think.” Mom always puts together a little something from the clearance section the day before birthdays— so you can enjoy it the whole day, not just at the end, she always says.
“Yes, that’s right,” Mr Melvald says, reaching below the counter. “Here you are, son.”
“Thanks.” Jonathan nods, accepting the parcel. It’s heftier than the usual discount candy and comics, and he almost drops it as he pushes out onto the sidewalk, the glass door clinking shut behind him.
“—ew, no way!” Nancy is giggling, pushing her sweaty hair away from her face. “I’m not going to shake pom poms for a gang of sweaty guys.”
“But you’ll come to the games, right?” Barb asks, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Oh, suddenly you’re all about football?” Nancy teases her, eyes flicking to Jonathan as he approaches the edge of the curb. “I thought you said that only neanderthals play organized sports.”
Jonathan snorts a laugh, then covers it with a cough to avoid looking like he’s eavesdropping.
“No, I— Okay, so maybe I said that,” Barb huffs. “But I’m trying out for band, I told you that.”
“Yeah, just—” Nancy stops mid-sentence, eyes flicking from Jonathan’s face to the large paper bag in his hands. There’s sharpie scrawled on the side in Mom’s looping cursive, Happy Birthday to my boy. “Hey!” she calls, waving again.
Jonathan takes that as an invitation, walking over to hover near their bench. “Uh, Nancy. Barbara. Hi.”
“Hi,” Barb says, polite, but uninterested. She shoots a look at Nancy, clearly perturbed at her cutting short their pre-high school gossip session.
“Super uh— Super hot day out, right?” Jonathan says, feeling a bead of sweat drip down his spine.
“It’s not so bad,” Nancy disagrees, though her hair is tied up in a ponytail, which she doesn’t wear so often these days. Only ever when it’s too hot outside.
Jonathan adjusts his hold on the parcel again, shuffling to hold it with both arms. “So—”
“What’s in the bag?” Barb cuts in, smirking.
“Oh, uh, I dunno,” Jonathan admits. “It’s sort of an early birthday thing from my mom. Haven’t opened it yet.”
Nancy’s eyes widen. “Oh, that’s right! Happy birthday, Jonathan.”
“Thanks,” he says. Nancy hasn’t wished him a happy birthday since about fifth grade. Their brothers may be best friends, but now that they’re old enough to ride bikes without training wheels, Nancy and Jonathan have lost their posts as tag-team babysitters. It’s made Jonathan realize that they never really were friends. They were just conveniently the same age, often grouped together when their respective brothers or mothers would meet up and drag them along.
“You should open it,” Nancy says, scooting over to make room on the bench.
“I—”
“Come on,” she insists. “I know it’s always candy and stuff, but what if it’s ice cream, huh? Wouldn’t want it to melt.”
“Thought you said it wasn’t hot out,” Jonathan manages a smile with that comment, but he finds himself sitting down anyway, peeling open the paper bag. There’s an X-Men comic— the serial number covered by the clearance sticker, but he’ll probably give it to Will so it doesn’t matter— and a packet of Skittles, and there, at the bottom of the bag is—
“A camera,” Barb says, reopening her Tiger Beat. “Nice.”
Jonathan clutches the camera in his hand, mustering up all of his grateful energy. He knows how hard Mom had to work to get this for him, and he knows she’s heard him rambling about saving for a camera, it’s just—
Well, it’s a polaroid.
Not the kind he’s been saving for. It doesn’t need special chemicals or one of those neat red lightbulbs. It doesn’t need anything at all. It’ll spit out a photograph without any of the dark room developing.
“Wow, that’s great,” Nancy smiles. “My cousin has one like that.”
It takes Nancy Wheeler’s bright, squinty smile for Jonathan to realize; it may not be the one he wanted, but it’s still a camera. It’s a camera, and she’s sitting right there.
“Hey,” Jonathan says, using every ounce of his nerve. “Want to be my first shot?”
Nancy rolls her eyes. “I’m covered in melted popsicle.” She gestures to a red stain on her shirt, one that he hadn’t noticed from across the street.
“Oh, come on,” he insists. “Just a test shot? It’s my birthday, you have to say yes.” He’s already standing, already fiddling with the camera. It’s loaded up with film, leftovers from whoever donated it. Mom bought it second-hand, that much is clear from the scratch on the side.
“What should I do?” Nancy asks, shoulders tensing. “Barb, be in it with me? Please?”
“Fine,” Barb agrees, and the pair of girls smile like crescent moons, posing for the lens.
Jonathan peers through the view finder, setting up the shot. He takes his time, deciding the best angle, and it’s only after the shutter clicks that he realizes he’s completely cut Barb out, too focused on Nancy’s eyelashes and the red stain of popsicle on her chapped lips. The camera spits out a photo that he sticks into his back pocket immediately. There’s no way he’s letting them see how he sees Nancy. Maybe it’s weird, but he’d like to keep it, and if Nancy and Barb see it they might want to take it from him. They still might ask him for it, actually, and—
“Well, Nance and I gotta run,” Barb says, standing up from the bench.
“Happy birthday,” Nancy says, giving him one last smile before trailing after her friend.
Jonathan sits on the bench, camera in his lap, photo burning a hole in his back pocket. He thought that photographing Nancy would make her feel seen, but maybe it’s just another invitation into his own soul. It’d be revealing, to show someone a picture like that, to share how it is he looks at them. Jonathan’s not sure he’s ready for that.