The Christmas Pic

6. Jo

CHAPTER 6

JO

Emma and I sit in stunned silence, the truck idling in my mother’s driveway. Emma speaks first.

“What… just happened?”

“I’m not entirely sure.”

That’s the honest truth. How did we end up here?

“You definitely spoke your mind,” Emma remarks.

My dad would be laughing at me right now. My mom always said I was his mini-me, but Dad would retort that I was merely a sleeper cell of my mom. He claimed my sharp tongue could be awakened by the proper circumstances, often when others least expected it. I can admit it gets the better of me at times ( see: recent events ).

“Let’s get you home.” I pull out of the driveway, purposely not looking at Emma.

“Jo, being in shock doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss the utterly insane thing that just happened between the youngest Fortune 5 CEO and you on national radio.”

“I don’t regret giving her a piece of my mind, but I also don’t think anything is gonna change.”

Emma scoffs. “You heard her, she pledged to save the truck on the most-listened to show on the air! How could she go back on that?”

We’re at a stop sign so I turn to Emma, who has a giddy grin on her face. I need to let her down easy.

“Big companies make gestures and promises all the time for PR, and when it’s for PR, that means the outcome doesn’t matter, so long as people are buying the story they’re selling.”

“Oh, so you’re a marketing whizz now, huh?” she goads. “What if we can hold Ava to it? Don’t you want help? A cash infusion could save us right now.”

“First of all, she didn’t promise a cash infusion, she promised herself coming to ‘fix’ everything that’s apparently wrong with our business. I’ve never wanted a partner on this truck and I definitely don’t want her .”

Emma winces. “Um, ouch?”

“Oh, Em, I didn’t mean it like that.” Why did I bother scarfing down dinner when I’ve been eating my words all day?

We pull into the parking lot of Emma’s apartment complex and I pointedly unlock the doors. Emma pauses before she gets out.

“We need help, Jo. On the off chance that this offer is real, we should take it, whether it’s coming from a good place or not.”

I love Emma and I don’t want to crush her precious optimism. So I make a promise I'm sure is moot. “If there’s a real offer, we will… consider it.”

“Thanks Joj, get home safe. Bring some leftover meatloaf for lunch tomorrow?”

With that, she flounces off into the night.

I drive home in silence, parking down the street so I can sneak into the backhouse and avoid a run-in with my mother.

When my dad passed away five years ago, I moved out of my apartment in downtown Harmony Springs and into my childhood bedroom to be there for my mom. Lena was living in Portland, chasing her Etsy-selling dreams, and my dad had made me promise before he died that I wouldn’t let my mom isolate herself. My mom and I made it about eight weeks before both of us decided we needed a bit more space. My dad had a small life insurance policy, so we used it to build the backhouse. I could live there for the foreseeable future, with the bonus of the ADU increasing the value of the property. They say not to make major life decisions when grieving, but the backhouse made so much sense at the time. We were both desperate to honor his wishes without killing each other in the process.

I don’t regret moving in when I did, but I never imagined I’d stay this long. I thought I’d eventually get married and find my own place. But I haven’t found my person, and my mom likes having me close. Somehow, five years slipped by in the blink of an eye, and our once-separate lives have blurred into a complicated, codependent tangle.

Locking the door behind me, I flip on the lights and take in my safe space. The ADU isn’t some prefab box-in-a-box XXL shed from Home Depot. Jeffrey oversaw the construction, and dozens of townsfolk chipped in with finishes and free services to honor my father, whose legacy of communal spirit was storied amongst Harmony Springsers.

My photographs are hung on every surface, harking back to my high school years when photography was purely a passion, untainted by the need to earn a living. I loved hanging out in my dad’s tiny darkroom while he taught me about every film photography technique imaginable. I was sixteen when my dad initiated me into the enchanting world of cyanotypes. I was captivated by the poetic interplay of light and chemicals, a process that I could only describe as painting with the sun. Among my cherished works in the backhouse are a series of cyanotype portraits from that time: little Emma in silhouette, her features softened into whispers of blue, and a street scene of Harmony Springs’ Pride parade, where blurred, ecstatic passersby are immortalized in a moment of ethereal stillness. My days now leave little room for artistic indulgence, but I gaze at those portraits often, attempting to remind myself of the unadulterated essence of my passion in that formative period in my life.

Sharing wall space with my art are a select few framed concert posters for the musicians I have a soul connection with. Connie Converse, Alice Coltrane, Sinead O’Connor, Kate Bush, Brandi Carlile. I was lucky enough to see Sinead before she passed, may God rest her soul. I’ve seen Brandi multiple times because of an obsessed ex-girlfriend. She stole every last temperature-curated lightbulb from my apartment when we broke up, but I forgive her because she introduced me to the queen of lesbian Americana.

I’m a photographer through and through; that is my art form, my passion, my proficiency. But in my soul there is also music, and the music I listen to fuels my artistry as a photographer. I inherited my dad’s massive record collection, and listening to his vinyls always feels like time spent with him, however fleeting. I’m lovingly thumbing through a few Magnetic Fields albums when–

Bzzzzzzt . My phone lights up with an unknown number. It’s Mikey. He can do it for $1800 with salvage parts, which is more than we’ve made in the last six weeks.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt. I wonder why Mikey is bothering to call after he just texted. Surely he’s not taking some sick glee from making me tell him over the phone that we can’t afford his cut-rate services.

“I appreciate you drafting up the numbers, though I’m not sure why my mother needed to be involved. But that’s neither here nor there because we can’t afford–”

“Am I speaking to Jolene Fisher?” An unfamiliar voice cuts me off.

“This is sh–sorry, who is this? ”

“Max Navarro.” There’s a loud sigh on the other end. “I work with Ava Garcia-Greene.”

In my defense, I had a long day. I had a glass of chardonnay at dinner. A showdown on national radio while digesting my dessert. My filter was long gone.

“Well, fuck me.”