By Sage Harper
They’re famous last words:
how hard can it be?
Symphony had blithely uttered them that morning, after receiving a package from her mother. All of Symphony’s life, Amanda Wainwright had been a creative memories consultant, and made beautiful photo albums charting her daughter’s progress and achievements. For her birthday, Amanda had sent a blank album and extra supplies so Symphony could continue the project herself. Captain Blue had shown an interest and eventually the topic of his photographs came up. Seems that like those of most people, his resided in a box all jumbled up.
“Mom sent the stuff, so let’s get cracking.”
Symphony breezed into Blue’s quarters with the package.
“Might need more than one album, and they really
are a mess.”
She rolled her eyes, procrastinating men are so
exasperating.
“Oh for heaven’s sake Adam, how hard can it be?”
Almost an hour later Symphony was sat on the bed,
surrounded by a blizzard of photographs, and rapidly loosing the will to live.
“Now you know why I didn’t want to do this.” Blue
was slumped on the floor slotting photographs into plastic wallets, each now
containing an album page’s worth of pictures.
“Should have done it as you went along.”
“Now you tell me.”
Blue leaned over and rubbed her knee, in an
attempt to cheer her. Didn’t appear to work though, as Symphony seemed engrossed
by one particular image.
“I know that girl,” she said.
“Really?”
They had both lived in Boston, her as a teenager
and Blue his whole life. So it seemed feasible they would have a mutual
acquaintance.
“Yes… argh, what was her name…? Becky
something...”
Grateful for a distraction, Blue cleared a space
on his bed and sat down.
“How did you know her?”
“Through school, I was a junior when she was a
senior. We ended up in the chess club together. I don’t think she had many
friends; a lot of the other girls were bitchy about her. I guess because her
family were really well off, so they figured she must have been stuck up.”
“Can understand that.”
“Yeah, of course.”
Like her friend, Blue’s background was also
privileged. He was always embarrassed about it and tried to avoid any mention of
the subject.
“It wasn’t true though, she was really nice. We
ended up being good mates for a while. Played chess in recess and stuff. She was
very good. Then we saw each other out of school too. Just did all the regular
teenage girl stuff.”
“Oh yeah, shopping, drooling over boys. That kind
of thing, right?”
“No doubt… oh, it’s so annoying I can hardly
remember a thing about her. It’s been like ten years.”
Then something occurred to her.
“We hardly ever hung out at her house. Maybe she
felt I’d be jealous of it being so fancy. Took her ages to pluck up the courage
to invite me over. Well then it made sense, because her folks were loaded. It
was this huge beautiful perfect house, but it didn’t seem all that happy. Her
Dad was never home and her Mom was always a bit awkward around us. After a while
it was okay though, we just hung out in Becky’s room. She had the biggest closet
ever, and an en suite, with Jacuzzi bits in the bath no less. We used to sit in
there and drink wine.”
“Seriously, weren’t you like eleven?”
“Fourteen actually, but I was advanced for my age…
Becky could get away with pretty much anything, being the only girl. She had
three brothers; an annoying kid one, a really little one, he could have only
been about two. Oh, and an older one, but he was never around. Went to Harvard I
think. It was a real sore topic; got the impression that their Mom and Dad were
a bit disappointed with him.”
“You ever meet him?”
“Don't think so. Oh no, wait:
I did once.”
“Go on.” Blue was getting into the story.
“He picked us up from a party, it was real late
and Becky wasn’t in a fit state to drive. They looked very alike, him and Becky;
both tall, blonde and blue-eyed. On the way home, she sat up front with him, and
I was in the back. They yakked away the whole time, catching up on things. Made
me kinda want a big brother too. He was really nice and tried to include me. I
didn’t say much though, felt a bit shy as he was so much older and quite good
looking. Oh God…”
“What?”
“Okay, this was one of the most humiliating
moments of my teens, so don’t laugh. When he dropped me home, well I must have
been drunk because I leant over and kissed him on the cheek. Never normally
would have been so brazen. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but he laughed.”
Blue looked thoughtful.
“Maybe he was embarrassed too. Perhaps he liked
you but didn’t want to be seen making a move on his kid sister’s friend.”
“Perhaps. Well anyway, we never met again, but I
thought about him sometimes, even after Becky graduated and we lost touch.”
“Sounds like he made quite an impression.”
“He did at the time; in a school girl crush kinda
way. Hadn’t thought about it for ages… Wonder what he’s up to now.”
Symphony absent-mindedly picked up another
picture, then stopped, surprised. Staring back at her were the exact two faces
she remembered so vividly from that car ride. She flipped it over.
Adam and Rebecca, Martha’s vineyard, 2057.
Her jaw hung a little with shock.
“She’s your sister.”
Blue nodded with a smile.
“So her brother … my God, that was you!”
Author’s notes:
This story was inspired in part by my mother. She really is a creative memories
consultant, and has made some wonderful albums for our family. I’ve been trying
to work that into a story for ages. For more information on the company and its
products, check out www.creativememories.co.uk. And no,
I’m not getting a penny for this advertising.
With regards the ages and years: I made them up based around what can be discerned from the offical character profiles (Symphony was supposedly a child prodigy). Any errors in that respect are my own.
The character of Becky/Rebecca is entirely my own
creation. Amanda Wainwright is the creation of
Chris Bishop, and the other
characters are just 'borrowed' from Gerry Anderson.