Picture Perfect

“I am not responsible for your insecurities.”

Scott had a vision board in his mind that belied the one that hung on his wall above his iMac. The physical board was a colorful hodgepodge adorned with Pantone® color chips, a fashion show of typography and a smattering of inspiring logos Scott had admired or created himself.  His mental vision board was scattered with words and phrases he couldn’t seem to throw away and littered with garish decorations like so many sparkly, glitter stars.

Most perfectionists had monuments of beauty and excellence behind their eyelids. Scott’s mind was a treacherous minefield. Instead, his environment projected all the meticulous daring of his desires.

The words that floated behind his eyelids now were the last words Ashleigh had spoken to him before slamming her car door and speeding away from Scott nearly six years ago. The words kept company with: “Have you ever considered that maybe it’s you?” (Jane, four years ago); and, “I could introduce you to someone,” (Beth, Scott’s sister, who gave up on saying these words two years ago); and, “I only want you to be happy,” (Mom, every Sunday).

But it was the poisonous truth of Ashleigh’s words that flashed in fuchsia across his imaginary board tonight. In the moment he had absorbed them, his arms crossed his chest in what he thought looked like defiance, he rolled his eyes and huffed. What an obvious projection! It wasn’t his fault she was so flawed. But tonight, years away, he remembered secretly worrying about the steep angles of his girlfriend’s career growth – two title changes and a raise in ten months. Scott was a graphic designer. His career slopes would be subtle and sweeping in fast or slow curves. He didn’t see it then – and he didn’t see it, yet – but he looked for tiny ways to diminish her – that maybe they could equal each other out and she wouldn’t ultimately leave him.

And he didn’t want her to leave him.

The sincerest part of him tried to push himself harder to match pace with Ashleigh – that she might be wooed by the effort. He started picking up every freelance project he could. When he wasn’t working his 9-5, he was designing brochures for small businesses that wouldn’t make it three years or laying out a product catalogue for a local machine shop. He also spent Saturday mornings working on his portfolio and bidding on the next job. In the fractional time that remained, he burrowed into the numbing comfort of video games. There was little time left for the girlfriend he was trying desperately to keep.

So, naturally, she left him.

For a long time, Scott told himself the comforting lie that Ashleigh left because she was “ambitious,” self-serving and, most importantly, deeply insecure.

When he dated Jane long enough to trade battle-scar stories, he told her as much regarding Ashleigh. It took only three months for Jane to turn the words around on him. Pots and black kettles.

It didn’t matter. Jane had never finished college. And she had weird gap between two of her top front teeth, but not the middle two. She was therefore, clearly, a flake. Amanda lasted six weeks. She had too many tattoos and had been raised Jehovah’s Witness. He assumed he wouldn’t have time for that psychological unpacking. He dated a different Ashley for two weeks before seeing the inside of her incredibly dirty car. How could he ever respect a slob?

Scott’s dating life dwindled until romance was only the occasional innocuous double-entendre shared with Theresa, the business administrator at the company where they both worked – a wildly successful furniture store. When the owner was convicted of tax evasion, there was no longer a need for a graphic designer – thus ending Scott’s remotest possibility of a love life.

Scott really wasn’t terribly rattled. His day job had done nothing to build his credibility. He had been embarrassed by the hokey graphics on the company’s website and ad bumpers. While he had envisioned helping the company meet the aesthetic expectations of the 2020s, his boss demanded blaring yellow lettering, red drop-shadows, novelty fonts, diagonal banners and all the best banes of 1996.

He was capable of so much more.

So, Scott was grateful for becoming “his own boss.” Every time he worried about not having insurance to look into how his ears started ringing when he was stressed out, he reminded himself that he could, if he really needed to, fire a client who asked for more “pop” on a logo but couldn’t explain what “pop” meant. A sudden adjustment to working from home isn’t easy for many people, but for Scott, it was like taking off a necktie.

Scott was already acclimated to stay-at-home life when the quarantine happened. Companies raced to create calm, confident messaging, and, to his happy surprise, Scott found himself in demand. He was too busy to miss leaving the house.

The greengrocer needed a few webpages that reminded shoppers that they were pleased to support the community. It was the perfect chance for Scott to dust off his subscription access to a collection of stock-images. He hadn’t used it in a while and scrolling through the hundreds of images looking for the perfect picture for his projects was a secret occupational pleasure. He once wasted an hour finding the perfect garden image for an advertorial insert promoting a home and garden store.

The young woman was wearing a green apron and standing behind a counter. She smiled way too warmly to actually be that happy to be a grocery-store clerk. But today she was. Tomorrow she would be just as excited about making smoothies or using an exercise machine. Stock-image models lived lives of infinite possibility. But today, she was going to be the welcoming beacon of joy at the neighborhood organic co-op.

Among hundreds of “grocery store,” + “clerk” images, Scott chose hers because that too-warm smile did something that most models couldn’t pull off with any great authenticity: it started in her eyes and spread to her whole face. She glowed slightly, as if she had just been told that someone she loved had great news. She seemed like the type of person who would be genuinely happy about other people’s good news. Imagining that she was that good gave Scott a little smile.

He thought about her the next day when his sister called to tell him that she was getting married. Scott practiced smiling like the stock-image model, trying to see if it could make him glow with someone else’s joy. He felt stupid doing it. Disingenuous. But after he teased Beth about her shrill, ridiculous squeals of, “I’m getting maaaaarrieeed,” and hearing her giggle through being fake-offended, he really did feel happy for his sister.

A week or two later, Scott needed to create an image for a recruiting firm that assured jobseekers and job-posters that they could “help you get to work.” Their newsletter site page was full of mostly-canned advice from “hiring consultants” on how to land, keep or leave your next job. They were running a timely article on “The Do’s & Don’ts of Video Conferencing.”

And there she was again. Staring in quarter profile intently at her computer monitor with her hand raised to ask a question. Her lips were only very slightly parted as if frozen in the beginning of a grin. Her caramel eyes sparkled with knowing. The imaginary person she was video-conferencing had her full and rapt attention. He wished for a second that he was that imaginary person. What might it feel like to be paid attention to like that?

When Scott was putting something together for a fitness site, he found her again, in athletic wear, running. Her dark hair was tied messily back in a ponytail so that some strands fell against her daintily sweaty face. As generic as she was supposed to look, she didn’t. Her eyes narrowed in determination. The requisite smile wasn’t toothy and open-mouthed but was resolute and confident. She looked like someone who knew what failure felt like, but who had kept trying anyway. At least, that’s what Scott saw.

He printed the picture out and put it on the vision board above his computer. Then he printed out the others. At odd moments throughout his days, he would stare up at her – pasted neatly next to sleek cover designs and color palettes – and he would think about determination. Or being happy for other people. Or paying more attention to other people.

He tried to imagine her in scenarios beyond the ones in the pictures, but no less standardized. What did she look like when she was clapping in an audience, or spilling milk, or holding the key that would open the door to her new house? How would she look holding someone’s hand affectionately? How would he feel to see her so human?

While he searched for more images of her, he also searched for small ways to be the kind of man that might be worthy of a woman like her, even if it sometimes made him feel like a faker. He listened with greater patience to his mother on their weekly calls. He volunteered to make an engagement website for Beth. He started running.

While calls from old friends became a hallmark of quarantine days, Scott didn’t receive many, nor expect to. He was startled when Ashleigh sent a message asking if he wanted to “catch up.”

He wasn’t sure that he did. But he was also ready to replace her last words to him with something fresh – and maybe a little less painful.

“You know, getting a lot of calls from friends and it gets you thinking about other friends you haven’t talked to in a long time. You get busy and then next thing you know, four or five years have passed,” she said.

“Try six years,” Scott said just a little bitterly.

He heard her exhale slightly before gracefully ignoring the comment. He noticed his private relief and gratitude to her for that and checked his defensiveness. He had always wondered if he’d ever speak to her again, and had always assumed that if he did, it would involve some sort of dreadful reckoning. The pre-supposed scenario was another years-long installment on the mental board that needed updating.

The chat started safe with the well-rehearsed job summaries with the kind of polish that comes from many interviews and networking events. The chat became a little more personal with updates on their respective parents and siblings.  He didn’t dare to ask about her romantic life, but relaxed when she made a remark about how the quarantine might be more bearable if she didn’t have to spend it in solitude. They reminisced about the time a storm kept them hunkered down together for two days, passing the time with wine and board games. A little drunk on the memory, Scott started to laugh more easily. He smiled at her revelation that she had just finished a master’s degree and was kicking butt at her job. He really did. He imagined the long hours after work that she must have put into writing papers. He acknowledged her hard work.

He could hear her smile. All his previous defensives fell down. And then the reckoning came.

“Scott, we didn’t break up because I stopped loving you. I was just making myself sick trying to match the ideal you had in your head for me.”

Something in her voice made Scott pay even closer attention. He could swear he heard hope, forgiveness and invitation there.

At that moment, Scott, who had been idly, unconsciously scrolling through stock-images and found again his model. She was waving goodbye to someone. Scott could tell it was a goodbye and not a hello because she had this sweet, sad twinkle in her eyes. She was wishing someone good luck and goodbye. Her too-warm smile conveyed gratitude and understanding. Scott was surprised to brush a tear from his cheek before closing the screen.

“Ashleigh,” Scott swallowed. “You were not responsible for my insecurities. I’m so sorry I couldn’t see you the right way back then.”

And just like that, Scott felt better. He didn’t feel perfect – he didn’t want to feel perfect. He just felt better.