The Social Affair: Beth

Josie is crying, which is going to complicate the photograph.

Not sobbing. Nothing that requires anyone to stop enjoying themselves. She keeps touching beneath her eyes with her fingertips while her children laugh at the screen. James is blowing out birthday candles. On the screen, I mean. The actual James is sixteen and has just been given a Volvo.

He should be able to manage a photograph.

I watch another year of his life pass across the projector. Josie laughs at something, then presses her lips together. Grant watches her instead of the screen. He looks pleased with himself.

He should. She has needed this.

Lately, every conversation with Josie requires more effort than it ought to. The questions about June. The resistance over something as simple as an extra day of exercise. She will agree to do a thing and look at me as though I’ve taken it from her.

Tonight, she isn’t looking at me at all.

There she is on the screen, asleep beside her little boy. No shoes in the picture. No jewelry worth mentioning. She looks exhausted. She looks happy.

I look over at Josie. She smiles before she seems to realize she’s doing it.

That is the picture I want. Or as close as we can get with a sixteen-year-old.

✦

“Here,” Grant says, handing me Josie’s phone. “Take a photo of us. Would you?”

“Of course.”

Avery stands beside him. I put James next to his mother and lift the phone. Something is wrong with the arrangement. They look like two separate pairs waiting for permission to leave.

“Scooch in.”

Josie moves closer to her son. He is taller than she is now. She looks up at him, and for a moment her face does something lovely. Unfortunately, Avery is looking away.

“Now, switch.”

I watch them trade places. Grant is patient.

“Haven’t we taken enough photos?” James sighs.

Josie laughs impatiently.

I lower the phone.

“Didn’t your parents just buy you a car?” I shake my head. “Smile.”

He does, technically.

A drink spills nearby. Several people move at once, and I press the button just as Avery turns her head.

Of course.

I check the photograph. “Nope.”

I could tell Josie to fix her expression. She knows the one I mean. Chin slightly down, eyes up. Not too many teeth. We have been doing this long enough.

But she is still looking at her children as though she has misplaced something and found it standing right beside her. Telling her to smile will ruin that.

I lift the phone again.

✦

By the seventh attempt, the children have had enough. Everyone starts moving before I’ve even lowered my arms.

“The last one was perfect,” I tell them.

It is, actually. I enlarge it to check.

Avery is smiling. James has stopped looking as though we’re holding him against his will. Grant looks like a man who appreciates what he has. And Josie’s eyes are still wet.

I nearly missed that. I was so busy worrying about her makeup.

If she looked straight into the camera with that expression, it might seem like too much. But there are her children, pressed close, and her husband beside her. Everything a person needs to understand the tears is right there in the photograph.

I think of the women who follow Josie and haven’t come to New Hope yet. The ones who comment on her flowers and ask where she bought her dress. Some of them will see this while sitting beside a husband who hasn’t looked up all evening.

I want them looking at Josie’s face.

I hand the phone back.

She glances at the screen, then slips it into her pocket. Already someone wants her attention. There are things to clear, people to thank. She will begin tidying before the last guest leaves. I know her.

I let her get a few steps away.

I could remind her that she needs to post it. That would be the quickest way. She would say yes and do it, and we would both know I’d had to ask.

I watch her reach for something that isn’t hers to carry.

“Josie.”

She turns. Her shoulders lift a little, preparing.

“You’ve done well here, Josie.”

I mean it. The food, the house, the children. It would be unkind to suggest otherwise.

Her smile changes. It takes a moment, but I see it. She is pleased, and trying not to show quite how pleased. I realize she expected me to find something wrong.

That irritates me more than it should.

There are forty people here enjoying themselves. Her son has a car. Her husband has made her cry in the nicest possible way. Why should I be the one she braces herself for?

I take her elbow before she can turn back to the clearing up.

“We need to talk about our social strategy.”

Her smile stays in place. The rest of her goes still.

I reach for the phone in her back pocket and bring up the picture.

“We need more of this.”

I hold it where she can see. Let her look at her children instead of me.

“This is what they want. To see behind the scenes. So—” I shrug. “Might as well give it to them.”

“I was just telling Josie that last night,” Grant says. “She doesn’t realize how important her work on social media is.”

She looks at him. A small smile. Then she takes the phone.

“I do realize,” she says, uploading it. “See.”

Grant leans in to inspect the result. He nods.

I look too. No filter. Good. We don’t need one.

The caption is #bestdayever.

For a moment, Josie just stands there looking at it. Then she smiles again, and this time no one has asked her to.

I leave her with that. I want the next photograph to be her idea.