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Chapter 5 - The First Summer
Amy's time throughout the rest of the summer was divided between her
classes and Suzanne' photo sessions. Suzanne took Amy all over the
Mid-west for photo shoots on weekends and whenever she had a break in
her schedule during the week. They hit all of the Great Lakes, and
traveled as far as Minnesota to the west and Pennsylvania to the east.
Amy saw a huge variety of natural locations during the trips and was
amazed at Suzanne's knowledge of the region. There were always side
trips to historical locations, and of course, to art museums and
galleries. The summer trips opened the world up to Amy in a way she
could never have imagined the year before.
It was during the trips in July and August that Amy began to realize how
good a friend Suzanne really was. For the first time in her life Amy had
found a person she could trust. Unlike Courtney, it would never cross
Suzanne's mind to have Amy do something that would risk injury or
embarrassment. She would never do anything to exploit Amy for her own
pleasure or entertainment. She found it a relief to have a friend who
would never dare her to do something just for fun.
Amy knew that Suzanne was genuinely concerned about her well-being. In
many ways Suzanne was strict with Amy, but always in ways that benefited
her. Amy did well in her classes because of Suzanne. She was in
excellent physical shape because of Suzanne. Her finances were in order
because of Suzanne. She was neat and well organized because of Suzanne.
Amy's character was changing. No longer did she feel that she was out of
control and one step away from being back on the street.
Suzanne only turned tyrant during a photo shoot. Even as Suzanne's harsh
voice snapped at her from behind her camera, Amy realized it was only
because her friend knew what was needed for the photos to be successful.
Modeling for Suzanne had become Amy's job, and Suzanne expected top
performance. However, as soon as the camera went back into its bag, the
Suzanne that Amy loved and trusted was always there for her.
Amy usually enjoyed her time with Suzanne during the modeling sessions.
Increasingly she enjoyed the thrill of the air and sun on her body when
outdoors, the cool breeze blowing between her legs and on her bottom. It
thrilled her to be naked, taking orders, and submitting to her friend's
commands. Amy loved the feel of Suzanne's self-assuredness during the
shoots. Afterwards it thrilled Amy to see herself in galleries and photo
magazines.
Towards the end of the summer Suzanne took a picture of Amy kneeling on
a white surface in a studio, wearing a gardening hat and holding a huge
bouquet of flowers in front of her. From the angle of the picture it was
hard to tell whether Amy was naked or not. This picture became the theme
image for a fall gardening festival and appeared in newspapers all over
Chicago. So was the pretty model behind the bouquet naked? Only Amy and
Suzanne knew for sure.
After several months Amy became as proficient in working with Suzanne's
lab equipment as Suzanne herself. Amy's help freed Suzanne from many of
the more mundane tasks of her profession. Amy became confident in the
darkroom. By the end of the summer she easily could have taken a job at
a photo lab. When Amy was not modeling for Suzanne, for example when
Suzanne was taking landscape pictures, Amy was there with the cameras,
cleaning them, changing lenses and film, taking them out of their cases
and putting them away as needed. Suzanne came to rely on Amy as her
assistant. Amy felt a deep sense of satisfaction knowing that she had
become an important help in Suzanne's life and career, and that her
friend relied on her.
Suzanne was as interested in traveling and showing things to Amy as much
as she was in taking pictures of her. After a while Amy suspected that
Suzanne partly was using the summer photo shoots as an excuse to take
trips with a close traveling companion. It dawned on Amy that in reality
Suzanne was rather lonely, especially following her last break-up during
the sports book photo shoot. Amy did not complain. She did not want to
sit at home during the summer. Nor was there any way that Amy was ready
to take on another relationship with a boyfriend at that point in her
life. She needed to find direction own life first, to determine her own
needs before having to worry about meeting someone else's.
Suzanne and Amy never lacked for topics to discuss during their trips,
given that their life experiences had been so different up until the
time they started living together. Each came from a world so remote to
the other that under any other circumstances they would never have
become friends. Just a year ago Amy would have dismissed Suzanne as an
art nerd, and Suzanne would have seen nothing but a shallow party girl
in Amy. However, they had entered each other's lives in such a way that
they could take an interest in each other. Whenever one of them talked
about herself and her past, the other always learned something new, not
about just her friend, but about life in general.
During their travels it was inevitable that Suzanne and Amy would talk
about their relationships with guys. Neither had much experience with
stable relationships, but for totally different reasons.
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Suzanne's reasons for not having had a stable relationship differed now
than they did when she was in high school. In high school she had
largely kept to herself due to problems she was having at home. She
hinted to Amy that she had serious problems with her father while in
school, but did not tell her what those problems had been. She did tell
Amy that the few times she dated in high school she had gone to great
lengths to not let her father know about it.
Suzanne had another problem in high school that kept her alone. Her
personality was too serious for most of her classmates to be interested
in her. At an early age she became interested in photography. As Amy was
well aware from her numerous trips with her friend and the countless
hours spent in the photo lab, pointing the camera was only a small part
of being a photographer. Suzanne took her work as the high school year
photographer way too seriously. The commitment that Suzanne's photos
demanded prevented her from doing much else during her free time. The
result of Suzanne's dedication was a yearbook that received
commendations for three years. However, the other result was that
everyone thought of Suzanne as "the school photographer" instead of
thinking of Suzanne as a human being with emotional needs and a desire
for companionship.
Suzanne's solitude fed upon itself. Her pursuits were quiet ones. She
listened to instrumental music and became hooked on New Age and
classical. She could not stand the rap and heavy metal that her
classmates enjoyed. Sports, cheerleading, and other school activities
did not interest her, unless there was an opportunity to take pictures.
She retreated into her studies, invariably doing well in all her classes
and being liked by her teachers. She never caused any problems in
school, never raised her voice, never drank or smoked. The only movies
she was interested in were foreign ones. She turned her nose up at the
Hollywood pop culture that so captivated everyone else her age.
In high school Suzanne only had one serious boyfriend, during the second
half of her junior year. He was a member of the marching band, and
shared Suzanne's interest in music. He did not find it strange that
Suzanne did not want her father to know about him, because he did not
get along with his parents either. For the first time in her life
Suzanne was able to open up to another person.
Suzanne's brief interlude of happiness only lasted about 5 months. Her
boyfriend was a senior. He graduated, and not knowing what to do with
his life, went in the Army. He chose a specialty that required a lengthy
stint of hard training in Ft Benning, Georgia, following completion of
basic training. After six months of training his unit was mobilized, and
he departed immediately overseas. Suzanne did not see him after that.
Suzanne spent her entire senior year writing him and waiting for him to
come back. He never did. Right after Suzanne graduated from high school,
she learned that he had been killed overseas in a training accident. In
spite of the loss, Suzanne moved on in her life. She already had endured
many unpleasant experiences and her boyfriend's death was just one more.
Suzanne's time in college was not much happier as far as personal
relationships were concerned. She entered the university thinking that,
being with other art majors, she would have an easy time finding someone
who shared her interests. Most certainly she did, mixing with other
students who also, for the most part, had not fit in their high schools.
What Suzanne had not anticipated was how self-centered most of her art
classmates were. Suzanne quickly became sick of her peers who thought
they were the next Van Gogh or the next Mapplethorpe, when it was
obvious their talent was mediocre at best. If there was one thing
Suzanne could not stand, it was a person on an ego trip.
Suzanne's first boyfriend in college gave her a rude shock. A few weeks
after they started going out he started asking her for loans. Suzanne
had no money herself and her boyfriend knew that. Still, he insisted and
finally she gave him what little she had to live on that week. Within
days he started demanding more.
Suzanne had nothing more to give him. She was wondering herself where
she would get enough to pay her food for the rest of the week. She lost
her temper and broke off the relationship. For several months afterwards
her ex-boyfriend stalked her, until finally she obtained a restraining
order.
Unlike Amy, Suzanne was the sort of person who quickly learned from her
mistakes. She learned to quickly size up potential partners, looking for
signs of financial dependency, unrealistic expectations from life, and
abusive personalities. She learned, the hard way, that finding a
reliable partner in the art department would be much more difficult than
she had anticipated upon entering college.
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Amy's reason for never having a stable relationship came down to a
single word, Courtney.
At this point in her life Amy still adamantly defended Courtney.
However, Suzanne picked up enough hints in her conversations with Amy to
indicate that Amy was starting to recognize some of Courtney's faults.
Suzanne did not like Courtney from Amy's description of her. However,
Suzanne said nothing to Amy about her opinions about Courtney, wanting
to give Amy time to question her past at her own pace. Amy was just
beginning to realize that perhaps Courtney had not been such a great
influence in her life. She was not ready to admit that out loud, not to
Suzanne or to anyone else.
Deep down inside Amy realized that Courtney had bullied her mercilessly
in school through peer pressure and by convincing Amy that only what
Courtney approved of could be considered "cool". Amy began to realize
that there had been many lost opportunities during her high school years
due to Courtney's influence over her. This was especially true when it
came to boyfriends. It was true with everything else in Amy's life as
well, her classes, her relationship with her father, even her health.
Amy met Courtney in middle school the year that her mother died from
cancer. Amy needed someone to look up to at the time and saw that in her
classmate. Courtney seemed so self-confident, so arrogant to the guys,
so sure that she knew how to be cool. Courtney had a comeback for
anything anyone said to her. Amy loved the fact that no one could insult
Courtney without receiving a sarcastic response that made everyone
listening squirm. Some of Amy's teachers seemed almost afraid of her new
friend. Amy stuck with Courtney, first out of insecurity, then out of
not knowing anything else. Amy learned to talk with the same sarcastic
in-your-face manner as Courtney, learned to use the same come-backs
whenever anyone tried to insult her, learned to dress to draw guys'
attention to her adolescent body.
Courtney loved living on the edge. She was what some people would call
an adrenaline junkie, long before she became a junkie of much more
dangerous substances. Courtney drank heavily. Later in high school she
loved drag-racing. She tried anything at parties being passed around.
Any new substance she immediately pressed on Amy, which was part of the
reason why at first Amy was so surprised that Courtney would not let her
try heroin.
Throughout high school the last thing Courtney wanted was calm in her
life. She was impatient and became bored very easily. She was repelled
by safe, stable guys. She gravitated towards the ones who led to trouble
and saw to it that Amy did the same.
As her 18th birthday approached, Courtney realized that the final
restraint on her having fun as she defined it was about to come to an
end. Upon turning 18 she could take off and do whatever she wanted. All
she needed was money, and during her final month in high school she
plotted how to finance her upcoming road-trip from her mother's bank
account. By the time they left, Amy was so conditioned to doing anything
Courtney described as "fun" or "cool" that the idea of not taking off
with her friend never crossed her mind.
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Amy and Suzanne had dinner with Robert several times over the summer.
Suzanne seemed to trust Robert for legal advice and always showed him
any contract she needed to sign. Robert spent hours with Suzanne and
gave her hundreds of dollars worth of legal advice for free. Amy
reflected that it seemed strange that Suzanne went to Robert for advice
when Suzanne's own father was a lawyer and just as competent at
reviewing contracts.
It was clear that Robert liked Suzanne. He seemed to enjoy talking to
her. At first most of their conversation concentrated on how to study
contracts to tell the difference between a good contract and a bad one.
Suzanne had to tell Robert about her work to give Robert an
idea about her legal needs. Robert increasingly seemed to take interest
in Suzanne's photography and her life in general as the summer ended and
the fall semester started.
Every so often Amy noticed Robert looking at Suzanne with a longing in
his expression. It was true that Suzanne had a sexiness about her, that
she was mature for her age, and had a quiet, dignified manner of
carrying herself. It was true that Robert had now gone a year alone
since Tricia had died. However it was also true that Robert and Suzanne
had absolutely nothing in common. Amy realized that nothing could ever
come of Robert's thoughts about Suzanne, whatever they happened to be.
Even so, Amy was jealous that Robert was looking at Suzanne instead of
at her.
Robert was pleased about the influence that Suzanne had on Amy's life.
He was hugely relieved at the thought of no longer having to act as a
surrogate parent to a girl who had a crush on him. Being Amy's roommate,
Suzanne had taken over that role.
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Amy felt much more relaxed as she started the fall semester. She no
longer felt so tense about doing well in her classes. She started
relaxing more and more. Although Suzanne was every bit as adamant about
forcing Amy out of the apartment in time to make her classes as she had
been during the spring, she could not stand over Amy and force her to
keep track of her assignments. As the fall semester progressed Amy
started to let her guard down. By the end of October Amy's attitude
would land her into serious trouble with one of her professors.
The Wanderings of Amy - Chapter 6
