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LESS THAN A MONTH LATER, Mrs. Graham announced one day that Clarissa was going to be leaving Babbington and moving to Sioux City, Iowa, where her father would be devising new uses for setae, snouts, and trotters at Pickled Pork Products, a large and nationally famous company. While Spike was at the front of the room trying to find Iowa on the map of the United States, I looked at Clarissa. She was stroking her muff again.
On Clarissa’s last day, Mrs. Graham threw a party an hour or so before school ended. Clarissa hugged everyone in the class at least once. She and some of the other girls cried and promised to write to each other.
I dawdled after the bell rang, fussing around, helping Mrs. Graham straighten up, because Clarissa had stayed to help her too, and I wanted to say good-bye to Clarissa alone.
When we were finished cleaning up, we walked out to the parking lot. Clarissa’s mother hadn’t arrived to pick her up yet. Mrs. Graham drove off, and we were alone.
“You’ll be late getting home,” Clarissa said.
“Oh, that’s all right,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”
There was a silence. Then she looked at me and said, very softly, “Good-bye, Peter.”
“Good-bye, Clarissa,” I said.
“We had some good times together,” she said. She hugged her muff and looked off into the distance.
“Yes,” I said.
She smiled and poked me with her elbow. “Remember when you tried to make Mrs. Graham think that you knew the times tables?” she asked.
“You mean you knew that I—” I began.
She chuckled. “And remember that Santa Claus suit you wore when you came to my house for dinner?”
“I wouldn’t call it a Santa Claus suit,” I said. I zipped my jacket up tighter.
“And I’ll never forget that joke about the rabbits.” She went into a fit of giggling, and her eyes began to tear.
She stopped giggling and looked hard into my eyes. “Can you forgive me for what I did?” she asked.
“Oh, Clarissa—” I said.
“You still like me, don’t you?” she asked, rotating at the hips, tipping her head to one side. Her cheeks were red with the cold. A cloud of breath hung in front of her while she spoke, then disappeared while she waited for me to answer. She wasn’t smiling now.
“Yes,” I said.
“Will you miss me?”
I looked past her, over her shoulder. “Yes,” I said.
“Will you write to me?”
“I’ll write to you,” I said. “I promise I will.”
“Please don’t forget me.”
“I’ll never forget you,” I said.
She smiled again. “Why don’t you take my picture?” She pointed to my camera, which I was holding by the strap. “You’ll have something to remember me by.”
“Well—” I began.
“Then you’ll always remember me the way I am now,” she said. “You can put the picture on your bedside table in one of those frames that stands up by itself. You can look at it each night and you won’t forget me. Where do you want me to stand?”
I raised the camera to my eye and found her in the viewfinder. I had her walk backwards until all of her fit within the frame. She stood with her feet together, her legs straight, her hands in the muff. She shivered once and then smiled.
I had my finger on the button, but the familiar uncertainty came over me, and I hesitated.
“Are you finished?” she called.
Through the viewfinder, I saw her frown. She wrinkled her nose, and furrows formed across her forehead. She stamped her foot, and I pressed the button at once.
“Got it!” I called back. I brought the camera down from in front of my face and smiled. She smiled back, and I took a slow deep breath to see if anything hurt inside my chest.
Her mother drove into the parking lot and tooted the horn. Clarissa turned and walked away. I wound the cream-colored plastic knob absentmindedly and watched Clarissa walk the length of the parking lot, get into the car, wave to me, and turn away, toward her mother, who drove off.
The next day, I began using film.
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You’ll find an overview of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.
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