Chapter 2

Soon I had moved from the fully automatic setting into the semi-auto priority modes, and then finally full manual. Though I find that manual only works well when I have time to set up the shot, like with the portraits I do for the school newspaper.

Most articles about people include a head-shot. Well, I was practicing, so I approached my head-shots more like a fashion shoot. That’s how Lemon described it anyway. I didn’t really think about it, I just did what felt right. I tried different angles, different lighting and lots of different poses. Lemon always took me along for head-shots, she said mine were the best. Pretty soon other reporters were requesting me as well, so I don’t think she was just flattering me.

We were just wrapping up a shoot in the school office when I leaned in to show Lemon the camera display.

“I never thought I’d say this about the vice principle, Julia, but you made her look gorgeous.”

“Thanks!” I said. And then it happened. Lemon kissed me. It was just a little peck on the cheek, and I think it was totally innocent for her, but for me it was absolutely amazing. I felt myself blushing and I didn’t know what to do, so I hid behind the camera and snapped a picture of Lemon. It was completely crooked, and the only thing in focus was her left eye, but it’s so totally her that I saved it and printed an eight by ten.

“You never told me you kept that one!” she complained. A little more stroking of her hair and I had her calmed down again.

“Relax,” I said, “I keep it in my closet so that I can see your face every morning.”

I heard a contented little sigh and felt Lemon’s head settle back onto my thigh.

So now Lemon and I were hanging out even more — lunchtime, journalism class, and photo shoots. She even came to my house for my birthday. It was nice. At lunch, she had pulled a cupcake out of her bag. “Happy birthday!” she exclaimed. “You’re now old enough to vote, just like me. Sorry, it’s a little smooshed. I think my lockermate put her books on it this morning, though she denies it.”

“Thank you, Lemon,” I said and squeezed her hand under the lunch table. I didn’t really mean to do it, it just happened, but she didn’t pull away, so that was nice.

“It was very nice, Julia. I didn’t know you felt that way about me until that day.”

“The decisive moment,” I commented and began stroking her hair again.

After our lunchtime encounter, I got bold and asked Lemon if she wanted to come to my house for birthday cake. I texted my parents and they said it was no problem to set out one more plate. So Lemon came by to meet my folks. They absolutely loved her and I was a little upset that they seemed to be monopolizing her time. Guess who came up with that word, monopolizing.

“She seems like a really nice girl, Julia,” my dad said as Lemon was pulling out of the driveway.

“She is, Dad.” I left it at that. I had no idea how to express my feelings for Lemon. Mom and Dad were always telling me to be careful of boys who might want to take advantage of me because I was pretty. They never mentioned anything about girls. Though I didn’t think Lemon was trying to take advantage of me. I wondered if Dad even knew the feelings I had for Lemon.

“I think he knows now, Julia.”

“Yes he does, but he likes you, so it’s OK,” I said as I bent to kiss her cheek. A little more hair stroking and Lemon fell silent again.

Lemon and I went to each other’s houses a few more times after my birthday. Mostly it was to work on journalism projects together, but a couple of times it was just to hang out and watch Netflix. It turns out we both like some of the same shows. I really enjoyed Lemon’s company. After a while I got bold and held her hand while we sat in front of the TV. Just like lunchtime, she never pulled away.

“So, Lemon,” I said as another episode of Gilmore Girls wound down, “I’ve got a photo assignment from Mr. Reed to cover the prom for the yearbook. Do you think you’d want to go with me? You know, as friends? Unless you’re already going with a boy.”

“Julia, have you ever seen me with a boy?”

“No,” I said. She was right. I guess I just never noticed that much about her outside of the time we spent together. I just assumed she was boy-crazy like nearly every other teenage girl at school.

“I’d love to go to prom with you, Julia,” she said and kissed me. It wasn’t a peck on the cheek like last time. This one was right on the lips. It was absolutely wonderful. Maybe that’s why I decided to kiss her back. The second time was really nice too. And the third. Lemon had me wrapped in her arms and squeezed me tightly to her chest. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go with,” she said.

The next day, my mom took me dress shopping. I don’t know how she figured it out, I thought Lemon and I had been discrete. Moms just know that stuff I guess. “Nothing too fancy, Mom,” I complained, “I still have to be able to take pictures.” Two hours later, I walked out with a simple dress that I thought looked nice and would still allow me to lug my camera gear.

“Nice? You looked totally hot in it.”

“It’s true, you did. And stroking my hair again is not going to get me to shut up about it. I know what you’ve been doing, Julia.”

She might be on to me, but it didn’t stop me from running my fingers through her soft, silky locks anyway. “I like your hair, Lemon.”

“So you’ve shown me, Julia.”

Lemon knew exactly what I was doing now, but the trick still worked. Soon her head was resting on my thigh again. I really liked it there.

Mom and Dad completely surprised me that night at dinnertime. “Honey, we got you a room for after prom. It’s in the hotel attached to the ballroom. It’s a double, so you and Lemon can stay there together if it’s OK with her folks. Prom can go late and we don’t want you two driving home tired and being on the road with people who have been drinking.”

“Thanks, guys, that’s really nice.”

“Just try not to rack up too much on room service. OK, honey?” my dad teased.

So the big day was finally here. Lemon was looking very attractive as she stood at my front door to pick me up. She was wearing a skirt of course, but she had a jacket to go with it. She wore a big smile too.

“Come on in,” I said, “Mom and Dad want to get a picture of us first, if that’s OK.”

“Sure,” she said as I led her inside.

“OK Dad, just press the button.” I had the camera all set up on a tripod and the display screen was rotated so that I could see it. Not that I didn’t trust my parents to take a good picture … OK, I didn’t.

“Got everything you need, honey? Camera? Batteries? Film?”

“Mom, there’s no film anymore. I’m fine. Bye!” And with that I hopped into Lemon’s car as she held the door open for me.

We decided against dinner at the hotel. It was part of the prom package, but we were both going on a press pass, so dinner was not included for us. “I didn’t know anybody else liked Thai,” I said as I tried to be graceful about getting my noodles to my mouth. “Usually Mom and I will go when my dad’s out of town.”

“Pad Thai is one of my favorites, Julia.”

I reached across the table and stroked Lemon’s arm. She smiled back at me and set her chopsticks down long enough to take my hand in hers. “I feel kind of guilty, stealing you away for dinner. Shouldn’t you be snapping pictures of people?”

“Nobody wants to have their picture taken when they’re eating,” I assured her, “I think we’re OK.”

“This is nice,” she said giving my hand a quick squeeze before picking up her chopsticks again.

After dinner, a lot of the night was a blur. I was busy taking pictures of anybody and everybody, and Lemon was off getting quotes for the yearbook. Though we did get to dance together a few times. I particularly enjoyed the slow songs, because I got to rest my head on Lemon’s shoulder as we held each other. It was wonderful and she smells really good.

“It was wonderful, Julia. I wish I had a picture of it. We could replace that one you keep in your closet.”

“It’s hard for me to take a selfie while we’re dancing. You’d probably still look dorky though. Ow! Did you just pinch me?”

“You said I looked dorky!” she teased.

“You are dorky, but you’re my dork,” I answered as I began stroking her hair again.

“Aren’t you going to write about what we did after the prom?” Lemon sighed.

“I thought maybe we could just recreate it instead.” That night after prom was the first time for both of us, and we were tired, because we had actually been working instead of partying like the rest of our classmates. I was anxious to see how things would go the second time.

“Your parents are downstairs, Julia.”

“I don’t think they care. They like you, Lemon, and it’s not like they have to worry that you’re going to get me knocked up.”

“That’s fine, baby, just as long as you let people know that I was chivalrous on prom night.”

“OK, fine.” For the record, Lemon was perfectly content to sleep in separate beds that night after prom. I was the one who crawled in with her. “But I didn’t hear you complaining about it when I did.”

“No, I didn’t complain, Julia. Just like I’m not complaining now.”

I reached over and stroked Lemon’s hair some more.

“You know, Julia, you’ve got me in your bed again. So maybe you could stop trying to lull me to sleep and just kiss me already.”

I set the laptop aside and did just that. I leaned down and took Lemon’s face between my hands and brought her lips to mine. The rest of this story might be kind of sketchy, because it’s all from memory. As I said, I put the laptop aside so that we could concentrate on other things. Things like the feeling of Lemon’s lips pressed against mine. That was the first thing I noticed.

Lemon and I have kissed a few times, but now we were starting to get good at it. She knew what I liked and I knew what she liked. I knew that she liked it slow, so I was using my tongue to trace around her lips before I kissed her again. She said the anticipation was sometimes better than the end result, so I had my lips poised less than an inch from hers. They were close enough to feel the warmth of her breath, but still not touching.