The Snow Bunny

Tuesday 2 March 2009

On Monday afternoon, even as the snow came cascading down all round us, Jessy came into my room, naked except for sneakers and socks, and said, 'I got an idea.'

I looked up from poking away at this computer. 'What is it? And aren't you cold?'

'No,' she said. 'I have a fire. I want to go out and take pictures.'

I narrowed my eyes at her, thinking. 'Okay.... What kind of pictures?'

She giggled. 'Cute pictures. Come on.'

Suddenly I realised what she meant. 'You are not thinking--'

'Well, it might be cute, you know. I saw this really good spot--' She leaned over the other chair, across from me, to see out the window. 'Just around the corner from here, against the wall.... I was thinking, just for a minute, I could kind of recline there, and--'

'You imbecile,' I said. 'It's coming down like crazy.'

'But it's supposed to stop, and then--'

'Jessy, you are not serious.'

She stood up straight, glanced at herself in my mirror, and then looked round at me again. 'Well.... I just thought it would be cute.'

'And cold!'

She shrugged. 'Only for a minute, and then I'll come in. My fire is going really well, so--'

'You could catch pneumonia out there!'

She made a face. 'I'm not that sickly,' she said. 'You and I have taken out the trash without coats. Without shoes. Gotten the mail. You know. It's not the end of the world for one minute.'

'It would take me that long to set up the camera,' I said. 'And you know nothing's going to come out with this much snow in the air.' I actually looked then. 'And the light is fading.'

She shrugged, disappointed, and went back to her room.

In a few minutes I followed her. She was right-- her room was toasty warm, illuminated only by the cracking birch-and-hickory fire and the fading lights outside her windows that face the ocean, away from the sunlight. Anyone would have happily taken refuge there from the cold outside. 'And you know,' I said, 'if Daddy ever found out....'

'All right, we won't do it. I just thought it'd be cute.'

I smiled. 'It would be cute,' I said. 'But what would you ever do with those pictures?'

She shrugged, as before. 'Just... have them. You know.'

I smiled at her. 'Just don't put them up on FaceBook!.'

'I can't,' she said. 'I would lose my general rating.'

I nodded. She would, you know.

Over dinner, just to tease her, I mentioned it. Daddy sat back and laughed. Mother looked from one of us to the other with this worried look, as though we were totally serious. 'That's really funny,' Daddy said. 'My cousin had a girlfriend who got him to take her picture lying in the snow in a bikini. But this is not quite the same thing....'

'No,' I said, 'it's not.'

'And,' said Daddy, 'you're not going to do it.'

Jessy nodded, blushing. 'Okay, Daddy.'

Lisa looked wide-eyed from one of us to the other. That evening she came into my room. 'Jessy wants to go outside with no clothes on?'

I nodded.

'Wouldn't that be cold?'

I laughed. 'Terribly.'

'That's silly.'

'She thought it would be cute,' I said.

Lisa giggled. 'It would be. Can I--?'

'No.'

Today (Tuesday) we had school again. The sun came out and the snow began to melt. It was not even very cold at all. Upon returning home we found ourselves alone in the house-- Daddy had gone out somewhere and Mother had taken J.J. to pick up Lisa at school. Jessy was ecstatic. 'Let's do it now!' she said.

'What? No-- you heard what Daddy said.'

'Then we won't tell him! Come on, Janine, please! For me!' And she began peeling off her clothes.

Five minutes later, after standing in Gran's first-floor room studying the corner of the garden wall outside, we had set up the shots. I stood, with no coat even, on a clear place of the garden walk and my twittish sister dropped her robe-- really dropped it in the snow, as there was nothing to hang it on-- and in her sneakers and socks again bounded across some untouched snow to her chosen place along the garden wall. I snapped about 14 pictures of her, standing by the gate, waving, posing, and even reclining in the snow itself. Actually most of them are really cute. Jessy is always cute, and in the bright sunlight, with her hair blown about in the bit of breeze that carried inside the garden, and her skin still carrying a pretty good suntan (yes--all over), she looked great. But she became red and cold and by the time her lips were turning blue there was really no point in taking photos of her any more, so I threw her the robe and ushered her back inside.

The pics are up on her computer and on mine, for safekeeping.

And, NO--- they WILL NOT be made available on FaceBook or by either of us to anyone. Do not ask.

...