Chapter 6 - The Photograph Table
The lights dimmed just enough for the chandeliers to throw a softer glow, and the MC tapped the microphone at the front of the ballroom. I had just settled back into my chair, my water glass back in its ring of condensation on the white tablecloth, when his voice came over the speakers.
"Alright, Class of '09, before we get to dessert, we've got a walk down memory lane for you."
Lauren slid back into her seat beside me a few seconds before that, careful not to look directly at me. Her burgundy gown rustled as she sat, and she smoothed it over her knees with both hands. The diamond ring caught the light even with the dimmer setting. We hadn't finished anything we'd started in the hallway, and now there wasn't time.
The big screen at the front flickered on. A slideshow started, set to a song I vaguely remembered from a pep rally. Bad resolution photos of us at seventeen.
There we were. Junior year field day. Lauren in the center of a group of girls on the bleachers, blonde ponytail high, varsity jacket, laughing with her head thrown back. I was on the far edge of that same photo, in a plain gray t-shirt, hair pulled back, holding a clipboard for student council and not looking at the camera. Then another — prom committee. Lauren crowned as Spirit Queen, sash across her dress, surrounded. I was two rows back, half out of frame, adjusting the balloon arch.
You could see it clearly, the way it had been. She had been the center. I hadn't minded then. I still didn't. But the whole table could see it now in the dark, and I felt the quiet comparison happening without anyone saying it out loud.
"Oh my god, look at my bangs," Lauren said, and she forced a laugh that was a little too loud for the moment. She turned to the woman across the table, a classmate named Jessica I remembered from chemistry. "I swear I thought I was so cool. Emily, did you ever think I'd actually peak in high school? Because apparently the camera did."
She was smiling when she said it, poking fun at herself. It was smart. The tension that had been sitting over our table for the last twenty minutes — the whispers after Michael had greeted me, the way people kept glancing over — needed somewhere to go, and she gave them a place to like her again. Jessica laughed, and a couple of other people at the table laughed too, warmer this time.
"Please, you looked exactly the same," Jessica said. "We were all terrified of you a little."
"Good," Lauren said, and held up her hands. "At least I was consistent."
People chuckled. I saw her shoulders drop a fraction. She was doing what she'd always done well — working the table, reading it.
The MC let the slideshow run through homecoming, graduation, a blurry photo of the old gym. Then he clicked to a black slide and cleared his throat.
"One more thing before we keep eating. We wanted to recognize a few of our classmates who've gone on to do some pretty incredible things. And we are so lucky to have one of them here tonight."
My stomach tightened. I knew what was coming a second before he said it.
"Emily Carter," he said into the mic, smiling out toward the tables. "Emily, would you want to say a few words? I know a lot of us have followed your work, and the committee would love to hear from you."
Every head at our table turned. I could feel Lauren go still beside me. The spotlight wasn't even on me — just the overhead chandeliers — but it felt like it.
I hadn't told the reunion committee my title when I RSVP'd. I'd just checked the box for attendance and written my maiden name in parentheses so they'd place me. Someone had done their homework anyway.
I pushed my chair back just enough to stand, but I didn't step out from behind the table. I kept one hand light on the back of my chair.
"Thank you," I said. My voice sounded smaller through the mic the MC held out toward me, but it carried. "I appreciate that, but I really came tonight to catch up, not to talk about work. It's so nice to see everyone. Mr. Davidson — thank you for still making that slideshow on the same laptop from 2008."
A ripple of laughter moved through the ballroom. Mr. Davidson, our old history teacher near the memory table, raised his hands and laughed loudest.
"I'd rather we just keep remembering each other the way we were," I said. "That's why I came. So thank you for having me."
I sat down. It was short on purpose. I didn't say Chairman. I didn't say company. I didn't correct anything. I wanted to take the air out of it before it became a moment.
The MC nodded, a little surprised but gracious, and moved on to announce that the memory table by the double doors had yearbooks and printed photos to take home, and dessert would be out in five minutes. The chatter rose again as the lights came back up.
But something had shifted. As people stood to stretch or head for the memory table, I caught the way conversations started in low pairs.
"Wait, that's Emily Carter? Carter Industries?"
"I think that's her, yeah. I read —"
"She didn't say anything, did she?"
May you like
The whisper network had started, quiet and fast, moving from table to table the way it does when people realize they've been sitting next to a name they've only seen on a building downtown. No one came straight up to me, but I felt their curiosity now, eyes flicking over more often, trying to place the ivory dress and the low bun against whatever headline they'd half-remembered.
Lauren heard it too. She was standing by our table, her hand resting on the back of her gold chair, watching two women by the slideshow whisper and glance our way. She didn't try to reclaim the conversation this time. She just tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, her ring flashing once, and stared at the empty dance floor like she was trying to figure out where to stand now that the spotlight had slid off her without her being able to call it back.
