What, forgot your beach read? Not to worry. One of our country’s top female writers, Curtis Sittenfeld, has written a short story exclusively for Glamour. Curl up…and escape.
We met on a March morning in Long Island City, near the Pepsi sign. He needed publicity shots for his first album.
He had bright blue eyes and stubble and was wearing jeans, a jean jacket, and a faded T-shirt with a deer on it. I wondered if this was how he thought a rocker should dress—if his T-shirt was in fact brand-new from Urban Outfitters—but this was my last snotty observation, because it soon became clear that he was a completely nice and down-to-earth person.
As I checked the exposure on my camera and adjusted the aperture, he asked, “Does everyone feel this ridiculous having their picture taken?”
“Pretty much,” I said.
“Am I the least famous person you’ve ever photographed?”
“If you were,” I said, “I’d probably have three assistants.” I
was doing decently careerwise, but sometimes on weekends I was shooting bar mitzvahs in Jersey.
After I’d taken a bunch of pictures with the Manhattan skyline behind him, I wanted some with cars moving in the foreground, so I asked, “How would you feel about standing in the street?”
He laughed, then said, “Oh, you’re serious. OK, but if I get run over, you’re the one who has to explain it to my parents.”
So we dodged cars for a while, dashing onto 47th Ave- nue when the traffic was light. It wasn’t very safe, but it was weirdly fun. As we walked back into the park, he asked about how I’d become a photographer, and I asked about his music. There’s a way that posers talk about their art, with a cheesy reverence, and that just wasn’t what he was like at all. I’d been wrong.
I had him stand by a tree 20 feet away, then walk toward me slowly. After we’d done it a bunch of times, he began to look amused, and I said, “Are you running out of patience?” and he said, “Not at all.” I lowered my camera. He had a silly smile on his face, and I thought, Is he about to kiss me? Our faces were inches apart. He didn’t move and I didn’t move, and he didn’t say anything and I didn’t say anything, and the wind rose across the East River. Without a doubt I wanted him to kiss me, which makes it hard to explain what made me then say, “OK, go back to the tree.” I think—and I’m still not sure if this is lame or respectable on my part—that I didn’t let us kiss because I thought it would be unprofessional.
We finished close to 1:00 P.M. By then I was wondering if I’d imagined the attraction between us. Before he headed toward Brooklyn and I got back on the 7 train to Manhattan, he patted my shoulder and said, “This was fun.” I couldn’t tell if he was flirting—possibly he was being brotherly, or just polite—and even though I wanted to convey that I was interested, I lost my nerve.
The next day I posted the photos to an online album, sending the link to him and his publicist. Although I could see that they’d both viewed the album, he didn’t try to get in touch; I got paid through my rep. It was May when I first heard him on the radio. I recognized his voice right away. I thought, Good for him, and felt a little bit sad. Later that day I heard the song again, in a cab. It was only after I’d heard it a third time, the following day, that I understood he had the hit song of the summer, the one that makes you feel young and hopeful about the world’s possibilities. A week later he was on the cover of Rolling Stone—not, I might add, in a photo I’d taken.
All of this was a few years ago. He’s become a bona fide celebrity—definitely, by far, the most famous person I’ve ever photographed. He’s won Grammys, sold 20 million albums, and had a baby with a South African model. After he got big, I thought of emailing him to say congratulations, but then I figured he was probably hearing from everyone he’d ever known, so what was the point? Maybe I didn’t want to be bummed out if he didn’t respond.
I live in San Francisco now, and I still don’t have three assistants, but I do have one. This morning when I stopped on the way to my studio to buy coffee, I heard a new song in the café, and as always, I knew his voice immediately. I didn’t catch all the words, but the chorus went, “And still I think of our almost kiss / almost this.” The name of the song—I looked it up while waiting for my latte—is “Long Island City.”
Curtis Sittenfeld is the best-selling author of the novels Prep and American Wife. Her latest book, Sisterland, the story of twin sisters with psychic powers, is in bookstores now.
To read more exclusive short stories from our August issue, download the digital edition now (it’s packed with bonus app-only exclusives!), or pick a copy on newsstands.
