The Portrait Was Supposed to Show Me Exactly as I Am — Until I Saw What My Friend Had Softened

PART 12

By spring, the eight-by-ten portrait lived on the bookshelf in my bedroom.

Not over the fireplace.

Not in the hallway where visitors would be forced to interpret it.

On a shelf beside two novels, a ceramic bowl, and a picture of Tess at twelve holding a fish she refused to touch after it was caught.

Some mornings I liked my portrait.

Some mornings I thought my mouth looked severe.

Once, after sleeping badly, I looked at the photograph and wished Beth had kept more of the under-eye correction.

I found that funny.

The point had never become loving every visible inch of myself.

It was knowing which face I had agreed to put on the wall.

Beth and I settled into a friendship with one new rule and several old ones.

The new rule was simple: if she photographed me for anything beyond casual personal use, she showed me the final version before it traveled.

The old rules included coffee, cruel honesty about shoes, and never letting Deirdre organize lodging without checking whether “charming” meant one bathroom for six adults.

Beth eventually entered her self-portrait in a small regional photographers’ show.

She did not tell me until after she submitted it.

When she texted me a picture of the framed print, I wrote, You look like you.

She replied, Rude.

Then, a minute later: Thank you.

In April, Tess came over before brunch and found me in the bathroom trying to decide whether to color the silver at my temple before an office awards dinner.

She leaned in the doorway.

“Are you allowed to do that after the big portrait revolution?”

I looked at her in the mirror.

“I did not join a religion.”

“Just checking.”

I held the temporary color spray beside my head.

The silver streak had widened slightly since the gallery opening.

I could cover it in thirty seconds.

I could also leave it.

Neither choice seemed important enough to prove anything.

I put the can back in the drawer because I was running late.

“Ready?” Tess asked.

“Almost.”

I put on the red reading glasses to check a message, forgot to take them off, and wore them to brunch.

At the restaurant Deirdre lifted her phone for a picture.

My old reflex told me to angle behind Tess.

I stayed where I was.

“Everybody look here,” Deirdre said.

Beth, sitting across from me, did not offer instructions.

The phone clicked once.

Deirdre looked at the screen.

“Cute.”

She passed it around.

Tess approved.

Beth approved.

When the phone reached me, I saw my silver streak, the red glasses, a line across my neck, and the beginning of a laugh.

I handed the phone back.

“Send me that one,” I said.