Sometimes there are only written descriptions of how Assignments went, but often Zed seems to require “proof.” Without faces and with so much anonymity, “proof” only really goes so far, but it looks like everyone takes it seriously.
This chick I am totally girl-crushing on, Star, posts pictures of her Assignments, filtered with some kind of vintage-y green look, and they all look vaguely magical and strange. There’s one of her feet, and each toe is wearing an expensive-looking ring. Diamond. Emerald. Sapphire. Ruby. I guess she’s sort of this major klepto. I like that she has her own style of picture taking. Agnes’s pictures are more straightforward. Roxie uses audio files. Elfboy obviously has some crappy old-school camera and an even crappier scanner, because his photos are all blurry and pixelated. @sshole draws pictures, which isn’t proof exactly, but he’s been a member for years, so no one is questioning it, I guess.
A girl named Brenda (seriously? Brenda is your magical nickname?) has amazing photos. Like every photograph on the site, they are faceless. Usually knees-down, sometimes neck-down, expertly anonymous. Hers are black and white, classically beautiful, and obviously taken on a real camera, not a phone. One Assignment Zed gave her was to crash her estranged father’s wedding, and she did it in an actual wedding gown. Her mother’s old wedding gown. She managed a photograph of the cumbersome gown and its long train as she stepped off a horse-drawn carriage she hired for the event.
I’m dying to see her face. I’m dying to see all their faces. It’s strange, entering into their faceless universe. Unsettling. Cool.
In the best photo she’s lifting the gown, so we can see her sneakers underneath.
It’s in black and white, except for the purple sneakers. I mean, it’s basically the best photograph I’ve ever seen. Her description of completing the Assignment is great too. I can’t stop cringing, reading it. She says she could see every realization on her father’s face: the fact that his daughter was there, the fact that she was wearing a wedding gown, the fact that it was the wedding gown of the woman he last married.
It was bad for a while. Her dad was obviously pissed. Like, shaking-with-anger, wouldn’t-return-her-phone-calls-for-months pissed. But he ended up not marrying the obviously evil would-be stepmother, because she flipped out when Brenda made a scene. And from what I can gather, when the anger faded, he realized that he’d been ignoring Brenda and started making an effort to see more of her.
BRENDA: I did something. An unfixable problem got solved. My dad’s making steak tonight. For me and him. He’s making pancakes for dessert, since he knows those are my favorite foods. Steak and pancake dinner with my father. WTF life is crazy.
A few days later, Brenda posted a picture of steak and pancakes on a huge ceramic plate. I laugh out loud. My eyes go a little watery.
BITTY: YES!
It’s like dipping a pinkie toe in the waters. The picture is from a week ago, and I’m not exactly adding to the conversation, but it’s something. It’s saying, I don’t know, maybe I’m ready. Maybe I’m one of you.
I click over to Star’s profile, to see if she’s as ridiculously cool as what little I’ve seen of her so far suggests. She’s in college, which about half the members seem to be. She uses a lot of caps locks and comments on other people’s posts pretty often. Her picture is barefoot and barelegged. Freckled knees and red toenails stretched out in the sand. Her most recent secret (posted just an hour ago) intrigues me:
Secret: I’m obsessed with someone who lives across the country and probably forgets my name.
When my eyes start to hurt, I turn away from the computer for just a moment and notice my hands are clenched and my toes are cramping from the way I am scrunching them up in my slippers. It feels like my whole body is one huge fist with nothing to punch.
My screen reloads, and I see that a few people commented on Star’s secret, and that Zed has already decided on an Assignment based on just an enthusiastic Go for it or two.
ASSIGNMENT, silvery bold font screams across the screen. Go get him. Book a flight. Find him. Tell him you can’t stop thinking about him.
I smile.
Not because I think it’s a great idea; I don’t. But it is something someone in a movie would do, and it’s scary and delightful and hopeful and sweet. And I guess everyone needs something hopeful. It may be a crazy-person thing to do, but at least it’s powerful and optimistic.
I tear up, the way I do watching the end of Pretty Woman, when Richard Gere climbs up the fire escape and Julia Roberts lets him meet her up there, and her smile is so big and toothy and absurd that life seems like it might actually be mostly good instead of mostly annoying.
STAR: Ticket bought.