Cheese!: A Short Story

“Say Cheese!” 

Francine Truong had never heard these words in her life. Well, at least not from her friends on her birthday. The last all-out birthday bash she could recall was her 2nd, when her parents suited her up in a Dora the Explorer costume, as they stacked presents on the glass door in the house’s guest room, people gathered around on the surrounding couches to sing Francine a happy birthday.  

After that, due to the financial burden of throwing together a large birthday party, Francine’s parents stopped putting together giant parties for their little girl. And so, almost every year on August 6th, any festivities were merely relegated to a wrapped shoe box of gifts, and a small cake bought from the Kent’s Local Bakery. It was always strawberry shortcake, and it always made her happy, just being with her family, but she often wished that she would be able to invite friends over to help celebrate. A) because more friends mean more gifts, and more presents as a kid always is exciting, and B) outside of Mom and Dad, her friends were some of the people she adored the most.  

However, she had come to be saddened by her birthday. It reminded her that no one ever invited her to birthday parties like all the other girls were, and there were disastrous reparations when she was 10. For her fifth-grade birthday party, she invited every girl in her grade to the one birthday party she had in a while. It was quite a hassle, with everyone being on summer break, and this was an era without phones, so you will have to excuse the lack of communication. Francine’s mom had to email her PTA parents, and plead with them to spread the word on the big birthday bash on Ecosiapork Drive. Only three girls showed up, and the neighborhood girl whom Francine didn’t particularly feel comfortable around had to be invited to even it out. As an icebreaker before lunch and cake and present opening, Francine’s mom arranged a hide and seek. Francine found a specific corner of a closet lodged between a vacuum and giant box of clothing, where she hid for twenty minutes, believing that she had found the perfect spot. She was so proud that no one had found her, that after twenty minutes, she decided to walk out and proudly boast to the girls that were sitting on the dining counter that she had the perfect hiding spot. No one was sitting there, and tears started forming from Francine’s eyes. All four girls had decided to leave the party silently without telling anyone.  

Her parents were still the best, and somehow understood Francine’s hobbies and passions better than she herself did. As a kid, she’d always rent out Disney DVDs from the library, and rewatch scenes over and over, and grew attached to the styling of commercials from the 2000s era of Disney. Her parents knew of her affection for Disney films, and as such, they started her up on her lifelong obsession with home media collection with the film Up. Francine would save up money from allowance and from obtaining straight As in order to pay for her burgeoning love for anime blu-rays and films. She had an affinity for film, and she loved filming making home movies with her classmate down the street, and even if some of them had been lost in the process of destroyed/broken video cameras, and loss of videos with the transfer between phones, what she did remember to save was very precious to her. There was this dumb Star Wars spoof about how two friends who disagree over which Fullmetal Alchemist Anime Adaptation was better, and it ended in both characters dying in a lightsaber duel and realizing how one petty argument spiraled into a lifetime of anger and animosity. Obviously it wasn’t a good film, or even a passable one, but the memories for which this film captured, of Francine’s youth, of simply having fun with one of her best friends, of a love for something, everything was laid out there in that home movie, which is now lost, because she switched from an iPhone 7 to an 11.  

 

 

As she grew older, she began to understand her mom’s tendency to photograph nearly every place they went to, and grew to loathe “photoshoot” photos, like the ones her aunt did, where they literally go to a nice-looking flower field just to take photos. How vain it is to trivialize a snapshot in time to something that chalks up to aesthetic value. She was the resident “family photographer” whenever everyone on Ba Ngoai’s side of the family gathered up at the old house on Jensen Avenue, and snapped a photo of everything with her point and shoot camera (which eventually upgraded to a polaroid), from the food, to videoing the recreational basketball skirmish, to even capturing the family’s severe betting addiction with them always buying scratchers and scratching them at every family meet. Each time she looked through every single photo album of all the photos she’s taken that were processed at the local Sam’s Club, emotion welled up inside her, because it is an evocation of a memory that she’ll keep inside her, make physically tangible and preserved forever.  

Francine was in her freshman year of college now. Last summer, she spent her birthday by herself and with her family, and especially her brother. Something nice was that her cousin took her to a multimedia store in LA to let her indulge her crippling film and music addiction. At her college though, there was an irreparable sense of panic which suddenly hit her. “What am I doing with my life? Do I even like being in Engineering? Has pizza always been this mid?” All sensible questions which many have had at one point or another. She barely went out in high school after class, not due to lack of trying, but because no one ever bothered to text her if she wanted to hang out. Now, she’s met quite a lot of people just by walking around campus and participating in clubs. She had a good group of friends from her cultural club and the volleyball recreational team. Yet, just as it almost always does for any person who’s far away from home, homesickness begins to kick in, and there were nights where just seeing her parents on facetime brought Francine into an emotional mess. She began to worry about her father, who recently had to check into the doctor’s office for high blood pressure. To top it off, she realized that the friends she’d made with the lowerclassmen from her high school days were beginning to grow up, and the moments of youthfulness won’t last forever. Eventually, she will have learn that old age isn't just a myth.  

However, this only made her love her friends and her tiny little polaroid all the much more. She would attempt to go out far more often with her friends, and now that she was in group chats that actually talked, whenever she was able to, she’d make plans with them to go out and see them. She began to take skyline photos at sunset, and archive some stories with friends on her instagram. She didn’t have her polaroid with her at college, but if she did, she’d photograph nearly everything, and turn it into a polaroid. It would be tangible, a real memory to hold, in stasis, and crystalized forever. She wrote down more ideas for her film blog which is secretly a front for her to check in with her friends and tell them that she’s doing well mentally and emotionally. Although she didn’t really make many friends with those that lived around her area, she knew that at least they would remember its her birthday due to the miracle of calendars and Facebook birthday reminders.  

Francine came home that summer and had a great time out with old high school friends, who had begun to start hanging out with her now that she was the one taking initiative in instigating meetups and adventuring. It also helps that she was reunited with her favorite brother and polaroid and her beloved blu-rays. Then August 6th rolled around, but this year, it would be different, not because anything would change. No, it was still just the family and the strawberry shortcake. It was different because Francine’s mindset on her birthday had changed. It wasn’t a reminder that she wasn’t special, but that she is, that she’s living her own life right now and celebrating the fact that she could make it through one more year, and that is something that should be cherished. As her family propped the polaroid on the railing in front of the dining table, Francine’s brother asked “Why do you like taking photos with that polaroid so much?”  

  Francine answered: “We aren’t infinite. But in this moment, we are.” 
 
  And as the polaroid began to tilt sideways from a matter of off-balance, and as the timer counted down from ten, Francine felt a sense of warmth and happiness, being surrounded by her family, and knowing that there were people around her in the communities she’s stumbled into that genuinely love her. Every day, with her interactions with people, she was forming something special, and she would hold onto it, and never let it go. Right as the final beep before the photo hit, Francine’s father shouted: 
 

“Say Cheese!” 
 
“Cheese!” 

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