Photos

Mom backed the car into the garage and shut off the engine. We went into the house and sat in the kitchen. Heather wouldn't be home for another forty five minutes or so, and dad not for another hour or two. Mom had sent dad a text message saying 'Congratulations, it's a girl!" as a little bit of a joke as we had left the doctors office. Dad had sent her a text message back, with LOL and a smiley face in it. Mom looked through the papers that Dr. Francis had given her.

"Zoe, with the paperwork I have here, we could change your name to Zoe." Mom said suddenly. I looked at her.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yep." She glanced at the clock on the microwave. "You want to go shopping or something for a little bit?" I shrugged as shopping hadn't been something that I had enjoyed as Allen, mainly because I couldn't look at the clothing that I wanted to look at without raising suspicion...

"Sure." Mom glanced at me. "We do need to get me a purse or something so I can carry my phone." Mom raised an eyebrow.

"Most girls your age just stick them in their back pocket..." Mom said. I smiled.

"Well, I'm not most girls my age..." I motioned to my body to emphasize what I was wearing. "Plus, where does a girl carry her phone when she has no pockets?" Point and counterpoint, just like we had been brought up. My logic and reasoning were sound. Mom nodded.

"Man we taught you too well. You killed off my argument before I had a chance to present it." I smiled at her as she picked up her purse. "Lets go."

"Well, if we ever get into a situation where we need to argue something, the four of us are a team that I wouldn't want to go against. I can only imagine how you are in court..." Now it was mom's turn to smile. We got back into the car. Mom pulled out of the garage and we headed for the mall that was a lot closer to the house. With school not ending for another twenty minutes at least the mall would be devoid of kids my age. It only took us about five minutes to drive over and get parked. Mom and I walked around the mall until I saw a display that had caught the corner of my eye. The store was a regional chain that catered to tweens. I had gone to their website and looked around, liking most of what I saw. This would be my first hands on experience with the store. Mom followed me into the store, wondering what had attracted my attention until I had walked up to a pair of mannequins that wore the same outfit as in the window. Mom looked at it and nodded, indicating that she liked what she saw. One mannequin wore the outfit in green and the other in red. Both of the mannequins wore a beret that matched the plaid pleated skirts that covered up their bottom halves, white blouses and knee socks that matched the color of the skirts. Slung across their bodies were little purses that were made out of the same plaid fabric as the skirts.

"Green or red?" Mom asked suddenly. I looked at her.

"I like them both." Mom smiled and started grabbing the pieces of both of the outfits. We carried all of the articles of clothing to the back of the store so that we could purchase them. After we had exited the store with the two new outfits. Mom saw a photo studio on the upstairs level.

"Follow me." Mom said, heading for the stairs. I followed her up and into the studio.

"Good afternoon, welcome to Shaeffer Studios, How can I help you today?" The blonde girl behind the counter said, standing so that she could talk to mom. She slid her blue framed glasses back up her nose, her blue eyes sparkling behind the lenses.

"Well, I'd like to get some pictures of my daughter. Today is sort of a..." Mom paused looking for the word that she wanted. "Milestone in her young life."

"Ok, what kind of picture did you have in mind?" The girl, whose name tag read 'Laura' said. There were pins attached to the name badge. She placed a binder on the counter and opened it. I could see that it contained sample photos.

"Something traditional. Kind of like what you would get out of a school portrait." Laura nodded and flipped to a section of the book.

"What are the pins on your name badge for?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

"These are the backgrounds we can offer here in the studio. Was your daughter planning on wearing what she has on now or did you have another outfit in mind?" Laura turned to look at me. "The pins are where I've won an award in our parent companies internal photo competition. For the last four years, I've won the National Grand Champion award after voting from my peers." She said. She wasn't gloating, and her attitude was that of pride. She took pride in what she did, and it showed through her work. "The two years before that, I won the Chairmans Award which is even harder to win than Grand Champion." The turned to the wall behind her. There were several photos mounted on the wall, of individuals and families, including a family with their dog. "In case you are wondering, these two are the two that won the Chairmans Award, and these four won the National Grand Champion." I looked at the photos in disbelief. I knew little about photography except how to make my phone take a picture. Laura, however looked like she could get a great picture from the camera in my phone.

"Well, I was thinking some in what she's wearing, and some in the two outfits we just bought down stairs." Mom held up the bag so that Laura could see it.

"First, may I ask a question and then may I make a suggestion based on what your daughter is wearing as well as her pretty blue eyes?" Mom nodded and Laura looked at me. "What's your name, if I may call you by it?" I smiled at her.

"My name is Zoe." I replied. That felt so nice to be able to finally tell someone that my name was Zoe...

"Ok, Zoe. I'm Laura." She offered her hand, which I shook. "My suggestion is that for the photos of Zoe in the outfit she has on, we use a blue background... It will make her eyes pop..." Mom nodded.

"I was already thinking of that. What would you suggest for this and this?" Mom asked pulling the red and green skirts out of the bag. "There are matching berets that go with them." Laura looked like she was in thought for a second.

"What color shirts?"

"White." Laura stroked her chin for a second.

"An Amber background." She said after a few moments. "At least thats where I'm leaning right now. Once I get behind the camera something else may come to me that will improve the photo." Now I could see how she had won the awards that she had won. Mom nodded. Laura looked at me again. To me it looked like she was planning the upcoming photo shoot in her head. Mom looked at me and then at her.

"Sounds good to me, You seem like you have all of your ducks in a row when it comes to what you do, I will defer to your expertise." Mom said. "I'd like to go shopping for a few things for Zoe, but as a surprise, can I leave her with you and go take care of that?" Laura smiled.

"Is she older than ten?" Mom chuckled.

"Yep. And she will listen to what you tell her to do."

"Then she can stay. Zoe, are you ready?" She smiled.

"Yes." I said. Mom bent over and gave me a kiss on the top of the head.

"Zoe, be good and listen to Laura. If she has any questions, call me, ok?" I nodded and watched mom go.

"Zoe, if you would come this way..." Laura said, heading through a door that was to the right of the counter.

#
I looked at myself in the mirror. I had just changed into the red skirt and red beret and slipped the little purse over my shoulder across my body. I looked at my self in the mirror and smiled. I really liked the way the green looked on me, but the red had become a close second. I adjusted my shirt, and then opened the door to reveal Laura standing there. She smiled at me.

"Hmm. I think the green looks better but the red looks cute too." She said.

"I was just thinking that." I said, smiling back at her. I had lost count of how many pictures that we had taken already. I just knew that mom would have quite a few photos to go through when she got back from her shopping. Some of them Laura had reached over to the computer and marked somehow. I knew that there were a few that I had liked when I saw them pop up next to her on the monitor. She had come up with the idea of a photo of me in a chair in front of a 'fireplace' while I still had on the blue skirt and blouse that I really liked. I wondered if mom would buy that one. As I walked back over to where the camera and stuff were set up, I heard a chime.

"I'll be right back." Laura said, disappearing through the door back toward the front of the studio. A few moments later her and mom walked through the door. Mom looked at me.

"I like it." Mom said. "I can only imagine what the green looked like."

"Well, Laura and I agree that the green looks a lot better on me than the red, but I like them both." I said. "I was thinking of the green outfit for tomorrow." I said, mom looked at me.

"I don't know if they will let you wear the beret to school..." She said. That was one rule that I had never understood. I pouted.

"Ok, you look like your sister when you do that, and it's cute, but it hasn't worked before, and I don't think it's going to start working because everything about you has changed in the last week..." Mom said, with a chuckle. Laura looked like she didn't know whether to laugh or not, especially with her not getting the hidden meaning in the statement.

"You don't think they'll let me wear my cute beret?"

"We're going to have a hard enough fight tomorrow morning as it is. You heard what Dr. Francis said, You're the first student in the district that she's aware of." Laura looked from me to mom.

"Dr. Emily Francis?" She asked. Mom raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, do you know of her?" Mom asked.

"Know of her? I'm her daughter. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't be here..." Laura looked at me, a little closer than she did ten minutes before. "I would have never guessed, and Zoe, I can usually tell." She smiled. Another ally when I wasn't' looking for one. "I vote for the beret tomorrow. You never know, they may let you wear it..."

"I doubt it..." Mom's phone chimed, she pulled it out and looked at it.

"Heather is home." She said. "She's probably..." Mom stopped talking as Heather called her.

"Zoe, lets finish up. I know what we could do that we didn't do with the green set." She said, leading me away from where mom stood. She pulled a prop out that looked like a cement railing on the side of a foot bridge. She walked around behind it, where I would be and got down on her knees. She gently leaned on the prop, folding her hands and gently resting her chin on them. "This is what I want you to do. I'll get your head where I want it after you get in position." I nodded and then replaced her behind the prop. She walked over to the camera and looked at me. "Ok, tilt your head just a little bit to your left, ok. Eyes right here." She pointed at the lens and then I saw a bright flash of light as the lights all did their thing... She pulled a stool over and then carried the prop back to where it started. I sat on the stool, my hands in my lap and let her fuss over me for a few seconds, making sure everything was right. When she walked back to the camera, she took four pictures. One with an amber background, another with a red background, the third with a blue background, and the fourth with a grey background. Laura turned to mom.

"Mrs. Franks, are there any other photos of Zoe that you would like me to take?" Mom thought for a few seconds.

"A family portrait, but we don't have everyone here so that will have to wait, and I would need to talk to my husband about that one... Other than that, I can't think of anything." Mom said.

"Ok, Lets go back out front and we can look at all of the pictures that Zoe and I took." I looked at mom.

"Do you want me to change or should I just wear this home?" Mom looked at me.

"Just keep that on. I think it looks really good on you and your dad gets to meet you tonight." Mom said, following Laura to a small office that I had somehow missed when we walked in...

#
Mom selected four pictures of me that she liked and had a proof sheet printed out so that she could show dad and see if he wanted any additional pictures. Mom had ordered an eight by ten of the photo of me wearing the green beret and skirt to hang on the wall in place of Allen's current photo. Since she couldn't make up her mind on which photos she wanted for her desk at work and which one dad would want, she ordered the one of each of the three head and shoulders photos in each outfit and the one with my hands folded under my chin in five by sevens. She ordered wallets of me in the blue blouse as well as of me in the green beret.

"Mom, don't you think you are buying a lot of pictures?" I asked.

"Not at all. We need to put Zoe's picture in place of Allen's picture." Laura gave mea strange look.

"You don't look like an Allen..." Laura said. Mom and I looked at each other and then I started laughing.

"I've thought that for a while..." I said. Laura smiled. "It needed to change so I became Zoe." Laura nodded. Mom handed her credit card over and paid for the pictures and then we were off for more shopping…