Polaroid Dreams

           I moved into my new apartment on Forest Avenue in Ridgewood just a block from the elevated M train, and I haggled with the landlord about the monthly rent because of the noise and rattling of the rooms when the train went by. Instead of lowering the rent, he agreed to include utilities in what I was paying, so I was happy about that.

           When I moved in that spring with the trees budding outside my third-floor windows, I did a deep cleaning of the place. The kitchen was a mess, so I got down on my hands and knees to scrub out the cabinets and drawers before any of my dishes, utensils, cups, and glasses could be stored.

           When I opened the garbage can door, it would automatically pop out. The can was filthy with old food and mold, so I yanked it out and put it into a big garbage bag. As I leaned down to clean the area before putting my new pail in place, I saw a polaroid photograph stuck to the side of the cabinet. As luck would have it, a piece of wax paper had somehow been sandwiched between the picture side and the cabinet wall.

           As I peeled the wax paper off, a picture of a beautiful young woman stared back at me. She was leaning on a railing and staring at the camera lovingly, her strawberry blonde hair glowing in the sun. I looked at the back of the picture, and I could make out the blurry letters – Emma/Antibes/2022 – so the lovely face had a name.

           I stopped what I was doing and flopped on the sofa, staring at the picture as if I were in a trance. The contours of her face were soft, the nose slightly turned up, the eyebrows the same color as her hair. Her eyes were somewhere between green and hazel, but they were large and seemed to be peering into my soul somehow. And her lips, they were curved into a beautiful smile exposing perfectly white teeth.

           My phone rang, and I saw it was my friend Steve. “Hey, how are you doing, man?” At first, I didn’t know how to speak. I mumbled something, and Steve asked, “Greg, are you okay?

           I shook my head and leaned it back against the sofa and stared at a crack in the ceiling I would have to fix. “I…I’m just deep cleaning the kitchen.”

           “And you’re tongue-tied? That’s not exactly brain surgery.”

           I rubbed my hand over my face and took a deep breath. “I…I found a picture when I was cleaning.”

           “What?”

           “A polaroid of this beautiful girl. I think she must be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

           “Okay, Greg, it’s just a picture. She can’t be prettier than Holly.”

           Holly was my ex-girlfriend, and our recent breakup was why I moved into my new place. Holly was very pretty, but Emma was beautiful beyond the definition of that word. “Uhm, they are just different kinds of pretty.”

           “You know, Greg, I told you that I saw all the signs that you guys were in trouble.”

           I kept staring at Emma’s picture. “Yeah, well, I guess I wasn’t listening.”

           “What was the last straw?” Greg recalled his last moments with Holly.                  

           “Greg, what are you telling me?” Holly screamed.

           “I needed a change,” Greg whispered.

           “You quit your job?”

           Greg nodded. “Yeah, I couldn’t take it anymore.”

           Holly slammed the tea kettle onto the stove and turned on the burner. “You had a really good job, Greg. What were you thinking?”

           Greg held her by the arms and said, “I was being stifled creatively. I want to be my own boss; I want to do what I want to do!”

           Holly yanked herself away from him. “So, all our plans? All of what we hoped for in the future?”

           “We can still have it all,” Greg said. “I’m going to start my own business.”

           “Are you nuts?”

           “I have clients who will come with me,” Greg said.

           “Greg, they were with Matlaw and Marlowe because of the company; they weren’t there for Greg Miller. What’s wrong with you?”

           “No, you’ll see. I’ll set up an office in the spare bedroom and…”

           Holly’s face contorted in anger as the tea kettle started to whistle. She pointed toward the door and screamed, “Get out!”

           “Get out?”

           “Get out of my apartment now!” Holly yelled.

           “I…I just didn’t think things through,” I whispered.

           “You should have talked with me before quitting,” Steve said.

           I looked out the window, feeling the room start to rumble as the M train came into the station up the block. “Yeah, I know.”

*

           Emma’s picture was taped to my refrigerator door for weeks. Every morning, I would get up, make coffee, and talk to her. “Good morning, Emma,” I would say.

           As I ate and sipped my coffee, I stared at her. “I’m not working today because it’s too beautiful out there.”

           I shoved a forkful of eggs into my mouth, looked up, and saw Emma standing there in my kitchen. She was wearing the polka dot blouse from the picture and white shorts and sneakers – I couldn’t see her bottom half in the picture. “Hey, Greg, where are we going to go?”

           I sipped my coffee and blinked my eyes – she was still standing there! “Emma?”

           Emma grabbed a cup from the drainboard, poured herself some coffee, pulled out a chair, and sat down at the table. “Yeah, it’s me. You’ve been talking to me for the last few weeks, right?”

           I nodded as I watched her sip the coffee and reached over and touched her arm. It was warm and soft and pale white with freckles. “That’s a real arm!”

           “Uh, yeah,” Emma said.

           I looked around behind me and into the living room, wondering if someone was there filming us as part of a prank TV show. “What’s going on?”

           She touched my arm with a warm hand and said, “You talked me out of the picture.”

           “I did what?”

           “You talked so much that I was able to leave the picture,” Emma said nonchalantly and then sipped her coffee.

           “So, it’s not really you?”

           “Oh, I’m totally me,” Emma smiled the smile from the picture with which I had fallen in love.    

           Emma opened a drawer in the table to pull out a fork – she could have only known that the drawer was there from watching me from her picture on the fridge. She leaned over, took some eggs, and put them into her mouth. “Hmm, those are delish!”

           “You can eat?”

           “Of course, why not?” She grabbed a piece of my toast and bit into it.

           “You seem to be starving,” I noted.

           “Uh, yeah, haven’t eaten since the summer of ’22,” she said, looking adorable as she chewed and talked.

           “It says that on the back of your picture,” I said.

           “It does indeed,” Emma said.

           When we were done eating, I put the dishes in the sink and asked, “Where would you like to go? The park? A beach?”

           “Oh, no beaches for me,” Emma said. “I’d like the park though.”

           “The park it is,” I said. I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and put on a Mets T-shirt. When I came back into the living room, I found Emma staring out the window looking at the budding trees and the train station behind them. I said, “Let’s go.” I started for the door and opened it.

           “Hey, silly, I can’t leave without the picture,” Emma said.

           I was confused and asked, “Why is that?”

           Emma took the picture from the fridge door, and put it in the back pocket of my cargo pants. “Now, I can go with you anywhere.”

           We walked up to Myrtle Avenue and waited for the bus. She looked around at the buildings and said, “I don’t know this area.”

           “Where are you from?”

           “Oh, originally from Iowa,” Emma said. “I moved here when I was 18 to live with my cousin Sarah in Connecticut.”

           “Oh, okay,” I said. “Iowa, huh?”

           “Yeah, but I like NYC a lot.”

           The bus came and we got on and sat on the only two seats available right behind the driver. She put her head on my shoulder and said, “I’m going to take a little nap, okay?”

           “Yeah.” She leaned against me, shut her pretty eyes, and I felt a surge through my body that was a mixture of passion and affection. I knew loving her was insane, but I was crazy enough not to care.

*

           After a nice day of walking around Forest Park, we took the bus back home, and I bought a pizza in the restaurant on the corner. We walked back up Forest Avenue to my place, and Emma went into the bathroom as I placed the pizza on the kitchen table. I set the table, took a beer from the fridge, and sat down at the table. I waited a long time, and then I got up and knocked on the door. When she didn’t answer, I opened the door and found Emma on the floor sleeping.

           I carried her to the sofa and put her down. She opened her eyes and mumbled, “The picture.”

           “What about it?”

           “Get the picture out,” she whispered.

           I pulled the picture out of my back pocket. “Here it is.”

           Emma touched it with her now translucent fingertips and disappeared. I stared at the picture, and there she was smiling as always. I staggered to the table, sat down, and sipped my beer.

           After eating a slice of pizza and gulping down two beers, I put the picture back on the fridge and sat down at my laptop. She told me her name was Emma Gray and that she came from Iowa and had lived in Connecticut. Using these tips for my search, I learned that she graduated from high school in 2018 and had been in small way off Broadway productions here in New York City until the pandemic. After that there was no trace of her? Did she go back to Iowa? I was able to find her cousin Sarah Gray’s address in Westport, so I figured that would be my next stop.

*

           To get my car, I took the M train to Metropolitan Avenue, and then I walked along the cemetery gate and turned on 69^th Street and walked down to 66^th Road to the garage I was still renting near Holly’s place. I hadn’t looked for a garage yet near my new apartment, but I would have to do so sooner or later because this trip to get the car was a drag.

           I got off the exit for Westport and drove over a bridge filled with fluttering American flags. It was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, so I was lucky because the traffic had been light. I discovered Sarah’s house, just a few blocks off the main street. I hoped that Sarah would be home because of the holiday.

           I parked the car in front of the house. When I rang the bell, something dropped in my stomach like I didn’t want to be there. A young girl around Emma’s age opened the door wearing an NYU sweatshirt and jeans. She had long dark hair and brown eyes. She said, “Can I help you?”

           “Hi, I’m Greg Miller,” I said. “Are you Sarah Gray?”

           “Yes. What do you want?” she asked with skewed eyebrows.

           I took the picture from my pocket and held it up in front of me. “Is this your cousin Emma?”

           Sarah’s expression changed from slightly angry to solemn. She nodded her head and said, “Yes, that was Emma. I took that picture on a boat in France.”

           “Was?”

           Sarah leaned against the door jamb, folded her arms, and nodded her head. “She died in a car accident right after that trip.”

           “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, feeling like I got ten gut punches.

           “Where did you get that picture?” Sarah asked as tears ran down her cheeks.

           “I found it in my new apartment in Ridgewood.”

           Sarah’s eyes widened. “Forest Avenue?”

           I was shocked. “Yeah, how do you know that?”

           “That was her old boyfriend Bobby’s apartment,” Sarah said. “She sent him that picture when were in France that summer.”

           “Old boyfriend?”

           “Yeah, they broke up because he cheated on her before we left on the trip, so she sent him that to show him she was having a great time without him.”

           “What happened with the accident?”

           “When we got back from France, she went back home to live with her folks,” Sarah said, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the side of her hand. “She died coming home from a party with her best friend. No one in our family has ever been the same.”

           “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said, trying to hand the picture to Sarah.

           She pushed it back at me saying “No, you keep it” and shutting the door in my face.

           When I got back in the car, Emma was sitting in the passenger seat and looking at me solemnly. “Now you know everything,” she whispered and then disappeared.

*

            I got home late after bringing the car back to Middle Village and taking the train. There seemed to be a fog in the apartment; as day turned to night; my lamps and lights all seemed blurry. It felt like Emma was there but not making herself known. I pulled the picture out of my pocket and put it back on the fridge. “This way you can see everything!”

           Grabbing a beer from the fridge and a bottle of Jack from my shelf, I plopped on the sofa and swigged the bourbon and drank some beer. I hated myself now for caring again too soon after Holly. I was not ready, but then Emma came along. Except Emma was dead, and whether she was a specter or my imagination, it could not go on.

           Steve called and said, “Come on, meet me tonight. I’m going to this new bar down on the water. Lots of ladies, my friend.”

           “Did you seriously read my texts?”

           “Yes, of course.”

           “Did you really? You don’t seem too concerned about me being in love with a ghost from a photo.”

           “Look, Greg, you’re vulnerable. I told you not to sell your place and move in with Hollyweird, but you wouldn’t listen.”

           “I know.”

           “So now you need something to fill the void, so along comes Ghost of Polaroid Past and voila!”

           “You’re not funny, Steve,” I said, even though he was on target.

           “Come on, come out with me tonight.”

           I looked at the picture on the fridge, took a swig of Jack, and said, “No, I have to settle this tonight.”

           “Okay, if you change your mind, let me know.”

           I flipped my phone onto the sofa, got up, and walked with the Jack in my hand. I stared at the picture and screamed, “Where are you?”

           “I’m here,” Emma said, and I turned around to see her standing there amidst the foggy lighting. “You missed me, right?”

           “This isn’t a game,” I said.

           Emma put her arms around my neck and put her lips against mine and said, “I know.” She started kissing me, and her tongue was soft and welcome.

           But then my mind shot down my heart, and I slammed the Jack on the counter and yanked her arms away from me. “No matter how real you seem, you are not real.” She tried to touch me again, and I backed away from her. “Why did Bobby move?”

           “I don’t know,” Emma whispered like she was lying.

           “Why did he throw your picture in the garbage?”

           “Well, he actually didn’t, he missed,” Emma grinned. She was reaching out to me, her fingers looking like ghostly tentacles. “I can be here for you. We can have something that most people never have.”

           “No,” I said putting my hand up in front of my chest. “This has to end.”

           Emma shook her head. “Don’t you see how the picture works? Your desire for me gives me the ability to materialize. If you want me, I can always be here for you. No more games, no dating apps, no bars on the water with Steve.”

           “You’re watching everything I do, aren’t you?”

           “Yes, when I’m in the picture, I’m building the strength to come out again and be with you. We can eat together, make love – we haven’t gotten to that part yet – and have everything any couple has.”

           I held the sides my head and said, “No, no, no! I can’t live like this. This is all wrong.”

           “Greg, please,” she said as she came at me again and flung her arms around me. “Give us a chance. We can be perfect together.”

           I wanted her, and the heart started fighting back against the mind. We started kissing again, and I felt her body against mine. No matter how inexplicable it was, Emma was warm flesh and her curves felt good against me. As she pushed me up against the counter, I started unbuttoning her blouse when I glanced over her shoulder. Emma in the picture was now a bloody fleshed ghoul – her true appearance.

           “What’s wrong?” Emma asked as I pushed her away.

           I started thinking straight. “This is wrong!” I screamed as I pulled the picture from the fridge. “You need to rest in peace.” I started tearing up the picture, and she fell on the floor screaming. I turned on the burner and dropped the pieces into the flame. Emma disintegrated into nothingness, and the picture was just ashes now.

           I staggered to the window and sat there all night drinking Jack and watching trains go by with their flashing windows against the darkness, with no hope left in me at all.