“Waking Kayleigh”
I used to live with a girl named Sarah. We bought my dog, Chloe, together and we dated for a couple of years. We never fought and when we broke up it seemed to be more of “a break” as she was moving out to attend nursing school. I kept Chloe.
To make a long story short, she came back to the area after nursing school and since she was my “dog co-pet parent,” and because we truly loved each each other in a friendship way, we remain very close today.
I am a writer, photographer, and an artist. I haven’t had much financial success with any of these hobbies unless you count me proofreading emails my boss wrote when I worked at a bank. I worked in the mortgage business and helped people with auto loans for 20 years. Yes, I wore a suit and tie and acted like a normal person for two decades.
I didn’t mind. Normal office people are far from normal. At the happy hours and Christmas parties, we find our own. The freaks come out at night, as they say. So I got by.
So that’s what my life had been like until 2019.
That’s when my father died. He was in the Navy for 26 years and retired as a Master Chief. He said on his deathbed, “I lived a full life… I saw the world and then married the love of my life by the time I was 30. I have no regrets.”
When he died I realized that if I was on my deathbed now, I would have plenty of regrets. I always “went for it” as far as work and girls were concerned. I made decent money and had my share of mornings with blonde hair on my dark suit. But I was getting older and despite random hookups, I was alone. I hadn’t seen the world.
I lived right outside of Washington DC so it’s not like I lived in some hick town. I had traveled enough. I went to New York when I was 18. I stood at the top of the Empire State Building. I swam in the clear blue waters of Cancun in my twenties. I went to Vegas for a bachelor party and had my own “Fear and Loathing” weekend. I visited a friend in LA and saw the Hollywood sign. She took me to the Viper Room where River Phoenix ODed. I saw where John Belushi ODed. I went to the Whiskey A Go-Go and saw a Doors Tribute Band! I flew to Texas for work a lot. My family drove through Chicago when I was a kid. Something was missing.
As a writer and artist who never “made it,” I felt this hole in my heart. The country was also very divided. I am not going to get into politics, so I will confine myself to remarking that my parents and I voted for different people in 2016. I often commented, “My father taught me how to fight, my mother told me when not to.” How could the people responsible for my moral compass have such vastly different political ideas? How could half the country?
I quit my job, I packed up Chloe and we traveled around the country. We went everywhere. It was a months-long adventure. A book on that is coming, trust me. I only stopped when the pandemic hit in 2020.
And that is when I met Amber.
Sarah came over and saw me working on the Amber story. Sarah had been telling me to use models for my art, a suggestion I often ignored. “I create art to avoid people,” I had said once. I explained that Amber’s story inspired me because (if you have not read it, you should – the blog is creatively titled “Amber” https://raleighjonescom.wordpress.com/2021/03/12/amber/)
She escaped an abusive relationship and asked me to take some photos of her because she finally got her confidence back; the confidence he eroded.
Sarah suggested I don’t mind working with models when I really connect with them. In defending my decision to post Amber’s story I pointed out I wasn’t betraying my initial artistic preference to work alone, “I liked Amber but I did not start taking her photo as an art piece. I met her first, got to know her a little, and I really bonded with her. We drank together for hours before taking the first photo. She asked me if I was a photographer after a nice long chat. She even offered to pay me. These photos were for her, a new friend. The more pictures I took, the more I saw her story come into focus. I felt it developing into something that could be inspiring.”
That’s when Sarah told me about Kevin. Sarah bought an old historic house in Virginia when she came back to the area after nursing school. She was renting out rooms. Kevin is in his early thirties and is dating “a super photogenic girl named Kayleigh” in Sarah’s words. Sarah thinks I would like this girl. “She definitely has some layers and I think it would be nice for you to take some pictures of her. You would definitely help her self-esteem.”
“Why? I mean, how?” I asked.
“She’s recently lost some weight and I think she still has that mindset of a chubby girl. If someone stares at Kayleigh, her first instinct is to brace for an insult.” Sarah barters a lot with old items she owns. She also sells a lot of stuff on Facebook. One day she was photographing a grill to sell and caught Kayleigh in the background. She said, “She’s just so amazingly photogenic.”
“Show me the picture.”
“Eh, I deleted it.”
I thought about things for a minute; a sad girl worried that people are giggling and whispering about her. I lost about 60 pounds right before I met Sarah in 2009. After years of eating happy hour food and drinking night after night, I put on the pounds. Then one day I went to the doctor who told me I was obese. It shattered me. So, I lost the weight. However, sometimes, on bad days, I still see a porky animal in the mirror. “When I got thin, I remember not getting my confidence back — well, I still don’t have it completely, I guess,” I admitted to Sarah.
“You are an amazing photographer. These Amber photos are just astonishing. Take some photos of Kayleigh just walking around. Meet this girl who is struggling with depression. She is insecure and has no idea how beautiful she is. You can make her feel like a supermodel. And you’ll have an amazing model for your art.”
“OK, sure,” I submitted.
A few days later…
Sarah does weird shit. She once claimed to have never seen a movie. Who would claim such an impossible thing? Anyway, trying to figure out her logic will only frustrate you. So when she said “Be at my place at 7:30 Sunday morning,” I didn’t question it. I assumed Kayleigh had to work so that was the only free time she had available.
Sarah lives an hour away which means I was going to be getting up at 6 a.m. I didn’t care though. This was mid-pandemic, and my hours were all messed up anyway. I was a “self-employed artist” and still living off the money I made at the bank.
However, I got nervous the night before. I knew nothing about this girl. As I have mentioned, I am not a person who relishes meeting new people. I asked Sarah if she would be there and she said, “I’m probably going to be sleeping in. Just drive up and knock on the door.” So just show up and introduce myself and parlay that into a photoshoot? It felt weird.
Still, Sarah was one of the most unique people I knew and someone in her orbit offered endless possibilities. Be that as it may, I started worrying about how Sarah had described me to Kayleigh. Some of the Amber photos were pretty revealing. I hope Sarah didn’t suggest I wanted pictures like that from Kayleigh.
The mounting anxiety of having to create some ghastly small talk was overbearing. I don’t do small talk. I have been accused of asking questions considered too personal. Or revealing info about myself that people are not ready for. I figured I could show her my art so far and get some ideas from her about what she’d be comfortable doing.
A lot of my art up to this point had been of women in poses that would suggest they were sad. I joked that my spirit animal is a depressed teenage girl. I planned to take photos of Kayleigh and incorporate her into my art, but also use the opportunity to capture a lot of what made her unique. Nevertheless, making a plan for that when I didn’t know anything about the girl was impossible. I would have to wing it.
The night before I met Kayleigh I only slept an hour. I don’t sleep much anyway, so I wasn’t just anxious about meeting this girl. Nonetheless, explaining myself to her still weighed on me. I drove down to Virginia a few minutes early.
I parked by the train tracks a block from Sarah’s house as the sun began to rise. I drank two beers. Yes, my alcoholism had survived the extreme dieting and workout regimen I went through to lose weight. Alcoholism is like that. Like one of those weird albino crabs that live in the Mariana Trench and thrive under the 3,000-degree heated water that shoots out of volcano vents, or whatever. Also, at the time I felt alcohol gave me the edge to be talkative; interesting. I drank a third beer (I am currently 120+ days sober, so I write this paragraph with a modicum of shame). Sarah’s house and Kayleigh were literally three houses away. I drove to the home and down the long driveway that lead to Kayleigh’s.
Kayleigh lived in a loft that was separate from Sarah’s house. They had everything; bathroom, kitchen, etc. I know because Sarah asked me to move in there when she was short on tenants. Kevin was offered the space when I said I didn’t want to move to Virginia (a long drive from my mom, no.offense to VA). Eventually, his girlfriend moved in with him.
As she had warned, Sarah was nowhere in sight to broker this meeting.
Kevin was on the balcony when I pulled up. It was a wooden deck with a grill and some other things laying about. He had a cigarette and a cup of coffee and enthusiastically invited me up. Chloe goes everywhere with me and he did not react to my dog in tow like this was anything but welcome addition.
Kevin explained Kayleigh was moving slow because she had a late night. Sarah told me Kayleigh was a bartender. I used to bartend, so I knew about those late nights. But then Kevin said, “But I know you’re on a tight schedule so…”
“Wait, what?” I stopped him, “I’m not on a tight schedule. I thought you guys were on a tight schedule.”
“No, Kayleigh works at 5 tonight but we’re free all day until then.”
“So am I. Free all day. What the hell? Dude, I am so sorry.”
“Fricken Sarah,” Kevin said.
Kevin and I both surmised Sarah seemed to have no real reason for getting us together at 7:30 am. Kevin suggested maybe Sarah was showing the house to another potential tenant and didn’t want us meandering around while she did it.
We talked for a while and I grew more comfortable as we spoke. When a guy meets another guy we can gauge each other’s bravado pretty quickly. We can tell if he’s the kind of guy who is going to call you “gay” for not liking sports. Or if he is the kind of guy who is going to complain about his girlfriend being a pain in the ass the minute she’s out of the room. Misogynists are easy to spot. We live with them every day. Kevin did not strike me as anything but a decent guy.
He came across as very sincere, caring, and said he was glad we met. “A random guy taking your girl out for pictures can be weird. Having talked to you… I feel much better about it.” Kevin is an artist, too. He showed me sketches he had saved on his phone. He was definitely talented.
I heard some rattling around from inside. The sounds of pots and pans banged and clanked for a second. A female gravely voice said, “Goddamn it.” Then I heard a groan like someone was stretching in a way they weren’t used to. A faucet turned on, a quiet pause, then the sound of a glass being set on a counter announced that Kayleigh was preparing for her entrance. My anxiety grew.
Kayleigh finally emerged from the back with a yawn that stretched out her salutation, “Good Morning.” She was wearing a small and, from what I could tell, tight blue dress under a big coat. Her entrance was accompanied with the heavy clopping from old work boots suitable for a construction worker. She labored across the deck clumsily.
The boots looked as if they protected from all sorts of weather and terrain. She shuffled her feet as if moving in this footwear was an unfamiliar chore. Let me be clear: she didn’t look bad, I would have taken her out for photos right then. In fact, I bet that when she took her coat off she would be indistinguishable from a Vogue model. However, she was tired. That notion was conveyed to me with another yawn. Her pure blue eyes looked out, registering nothing as if they were unfocused. My dad used to say “A fifteen-foot stare in a ten-foot room.”
I always liked it when Sarah dressed girlie, yet had some aspect of her outfit betraying that impression. Like an old flaphat, or old, beaten work boots. I assumed Sarah, knowing my taste, had given her the boots. Sarah was a handy kind of girl. Put it this way, in our relationship she hung up stuff while I cooked. I once heard her say, as she was helping a neighbor jump-start her car, “OK, give it some juice!” Like a dad.
“You want to smoke?” Kevin asked and Kayleigh gave an enthusiastic nod. Kevin and Kayleigh lead the way down the stairs. Kevin handed her a cigarette and offered me one.
I explained I didn’t smoke. I said I needed something from my car and snuck a fourth beer. I went back to the couple.
I snuck a picture of her. This is my first picture of Kayleigh. Since then, I have shown her this picture (and all the other ones you will see here) and she has approved of me using it.
Kayleigh and Kevin seemed quiet as they smoked. I looked around to find something to occupy myself during the silence.
I explored a little, finding the knick-knacks and oddities in the surrounding area. Sarah collected some strange stuff. Especially now, during the pandemic. She had no faith in the system, so she thought it would all come down to bartering. She was always picking up discarded things and shaping them up to sell or trade online. She was also making gardens out of everything because in her words we were weeks away from “Mad Max time.” She had a baby’s bassinet on the front porch with something growing out of it. Sarah originally helped me set up my Facebook page and one of my first albums was called “Weird Shit In My Girlfriend’s Bedroom.”
The three of us went back upstairs. Kevin went inside for a moment, leaving Kayleigh and I alone. I hadn’t said a word outside of “Hello,” to Kayleigh until I offered, “Kevin and I can not figure out why Sarah arranged for us to meet this early. I wish she had let you sleep in.”
“Did you drive far?” Kayleigh asked, seeming to hope I was not inconvenienced.
“About an hour, but it’s Ok, I am kind of a morning person,” I lied.
Kevin’s face appeared at the door, “You cold, babe?” Kevin asked as she sat down and shook her head to indicate she was.”You guys talk for a minute while I go get something warm for you.”
It was not cold out, but Kayleigh was shivering. She explained, “I’m anemic. So I get cold easily.”
“Oh, I am too. I think it manifests itself differently for different people. My iron got really low at one point and I got obsessed with chewing ice cubes. I couldn’t freeze them fast enough. Some people even eat dirt. We’re lucky we don’t have that one.” I said.
Kayleigh exhaled a sound I interpreted as the smallest attempt to laugh. I didn’t take it personally. I assumed she was just too zoned out from lack of sleep.
Chloe padded over to her. She began to wag her tail slowly as she sniffed the air around Kayleigh. She gave Chloe a little pat on the head and scratch behind the ears. From that point, Chloe stayed at her side.
I broke the silence with: “Sarah tells me you’re a model,” she let out a laugh that ended in a little snort. I imagine she would have spit out her coffee if she had been drinking it.
I dug through my bookbag to retrieve a hardbound book of my favorite pictures. It contained shots that showcase my ability to capture a scene; the dad and daughter holding hands and looking at a statue of FDR in DC. The wasp I caught on the other side of a window. Chloe looking majestic. I told her Google Photos makes the books and I can do one for her if she wanted a portfolio for modeling.
Kevin had put me at ease but now that I was alone with Kayleigh I was nervous again. I suddenly felt the need to explain/apologize for using my phone’s camera and having no professional lights or equipment.
“Hun,” she said, “I don’t know what Sarah told you but I’m not a model. I’m a bartender. I slept about two hours. I’m exhausted and if you want to tell me what you had in mind maybe we could get started.”
The “hun” could be taken as condescending but it wasn’t. I believed her shortness originated from the fact that Sarah took it upon herself to arrange for this meeting so early in the morning when it was not necessary. Kayleigh confirmed later that this was accurate.
I told her Amber’s story. I explained how I got to know her as we took more photos. I explained how I had struggled with depression and painted abstract art to illustrate that inner turmoil. “I think it draws more attention when the subject is a female. When a man is the subject of depression, it’s just kind of sad. When the subject of a woman people actually care.”
I showed her some examples. “Mmm… I like these.”
“To be honest, I don’t know what I had in mind for you. Most people like my photos at family functions and work events. I like catching people talking, looking at their food, I like taking pictures of the people taking pictures; a whole row of grandmas with their phones out as a kid is blowing out birthday candles. When you tell someone to say cheese, you always get the dumbest smile, the fakest smile. No one really looks like that. I don’t have an agenda. I don’t do poses. When I snap photos of people not anticipating it, I capture the real person, or so I am told. I want to walk around town for a while and take pictures of you just looking at things, pet random dogs, walk along the train tracks and I want you to just be yourself. Ignore that the camera is there. Which sounds hard, but we’ll get the hang of it.”
Sarah bought this house in Olde Town Manassas. It’s a historic site and seems to be ripped from 1950s Americana. The small town is also known for being the location of two Civil War battles. So the suggestion of walking around and just chatting was not as boring as it sounds. Kayleigh seemed interested but still distant. She just stared at me and blinked. Once, twice. It reminded me of Dora The Explorer waiting for the kids at home to reply to her Spanish question. But unlike Dora, I wasn’t let off the hook with “That’s right, kids, it’s a casa.”
My art has an emphasis on depression. I showed her some more examples of recent paintings and explained, “Right now my art has heart, it says a lot. But it has no real soul. I was hoping someone could give my art that boost. I was hoping for it to be you…”
She leaned forward, interested. She nodded very slightly, but I took that as an invitation to say more.
“If you say ‘yes,’ I am not going to ask you to pose. I just want to take pictures that capture YOU. Not just your face, but what’s behind it. I don’t know you yet, but I think the more we talk, unless it goes off the rails right away, maybe we can get comfortable enough with each other to take some cool pictures. Every girl has those little things like wrinkling her nose or tugging on her hair when she thinks. Having a little snort when she laughs unexpectedly,” I smiled at her, hoping she knew I was referencing her chortle earlier.
She didn’t respond but I felt she was listening. Is she painfully shy? Out of the need to fill the silence, and my mounting buzz from four beers on an empty stomach, I continued, “Everything has been done. Chicks with guns, girls stretching out on hot cars, I am not going to dress you up as Rosie the Riveter or Harley Quinn. Anyone can put on a costume. But there is only one you.”
She gave me a sliver of a smile. I saw the hint of a grin. Maybe I overdid it a bit. Maybe I could have crystallized my point with “I want to find out who you are.”
She tilted her head. A few more blinks. I thought she noticed that every lull in the conversation prompted me to ramble more vaguely coherent thoughts. In my mind, for a brief moment, she was enjoying watching me squirm. When I did not know what to say next, I took a long look at her. I realized that I had been thinking about it all wrong.
Sarah had described Kayleigh as depressed. When my conversational lures failed to bait her into some banter, I recognized that it had nothing to do with me. Sarah described herself as bipolar and when we lived together, she spent days in bed when she was in the middle of an episode. I wondered if Kayleigh was going through something similar. Had she struggled to get out of bed, to get dressed, to present herself? Maybe the girl was just exhausted from lack of sleep, or maybe I was intruding and making her uncomfortable.
I learned from Sarah that when it’s the chemicals in your brain, when you are clinically depressed, no one can bring you out of it. I couldn’t clown and make her smile. It would only make her feel worse for not being able to engage. I just had to wait for Sarah to come out of it.
With that in mind, I decided to give Kayleigh an “out.” I suggested, “I’ll do this now if you want to tough it out, but since you don’t normally get up this early, why don’t we do this another day? I’m free any time. I really wanted to chat a little and get to know you beyond Sarah’s brief description, which was ‘you’ll like her.’ We can meet again when we both have had a little more sleep. And this also gives you an escape clause if you think I’m weird or whatever.”
Kayleigh cleared her throat, “The thing is, Sarah mentioned some money. And we kind of really need it.”
Sarah had said, “She’ll do it for 20 bucks.”
I turned red and fumbled for my wallet, “Oh yeah, almost forgot. Sarah mentioned twenty dollars and I have to say that’s ridiculous.”
Kayleigh looked disappointed, she lowered her head and sighed.
“No, no, no, you misunderstand— here.” I handed her what turned out to be $87 dollars, “You’re going to spend some time with me and let me use your image in my weird art. This is all I have on me. Tell Sarah I gave you the $20. Take this now… for getting up so early, for being a good sport about it. I promise you, I’m funny, we’ll have a good time. But still, if you decide this isn’t for you and I never hear from you again, it’s cool. You don’t owe me anything.”
She took the money. She folded it over and held it in her hand for a minute. Her eyes darted back and forth and I imagined her struggling to find the right response. These are all my interpretations of her thoughts, but Kayleigh later read this very account and didn’t ask me to change anything when I wrote about her thought process. Maybe she just didn’t want me to know the truth.
She finally spoke, “I agree that another day would be better but… ” Her voice trailed off. Where was this girl? Her mind seemed to be weighing out decisions so much heavier than the ones I was presenting to her. Finally, she said something defiantly, emphasizing each word. “I am in,” I imagine if she were texting, a period would make a one-word sentence out of each syllable. “I’m glad we got to talk too, I feel better about what you want from me. Which is ME, I guess. Whatever that means.”
“We’ll figure it out and make it up as we go along.”
Chloe sat by Kayleigh’s side. Kayleigh looked cold, squeezing her limbs close to her body to maintain body heat. I snapped a quick picture without her noticing.
I have spent more time walking this earth than Kayleigh’s life doubled. I have had my heart broken a million times. I have had friends and my father die. I came across an accident once and held a man’s hand when he thought his life was slipping away. However, the depth of any despair I have ever felt did not compare to what I imagined going through that girl’s mind. Her face conveyed an anguish and a hopelessness that I have never felt myself. I took this photo at that very moment:
Kevin came out with a big, heavy coat. A workman’s coat; old leather. When Kevin put the coat over her legs I snapped another photo. He did it with such concern, tucking the coat under her, pulling it tight to keep the chill out. She looked so tired and even sad. Her face kind of mesmerized me to the point where I wanted to snap another quick picture (again, she has approved me using these photos here).
My eyes were glued to her. I looked down and, although I felt the morning air was warm enough, I could see goose bumps on her legs. Just by Kayleigh suggesting she was uncomfortable, she garnered the attention one would expect a gunshot victim to earn. Moreover, she wasn’t demanding it. She would never feel she deserved it. Even Chloe was looking up at her like, “Are you ok, lady?” I felt this girl had the awareness of every living creature on the deck. I’m surprised a little spider didn’t spin a word of encouragement in its web like Charlotte.
Kevin went back inside and I snapped a few more shots. I felt weird sneaking the photos so I admitted to it. “OK, I did take a picture of you two – him with the coat. It was sweet. I’ll delete it if you don’t want—” She held up a hand as if to say it was fine. She didn’t even ask to see it.
Most girls want to see it right away and demand, before I can crop and make edits, “send it to me!” Over and over until their phone dings with the arrival of the aforementioned picture. Then they look at it from every angle before we can continue. But not her. She raised a hand and made a brush-off motion to indicate she didn’t care.
Bruce Springsteen has a song called “Queen Of The Supermarket.” It’s about the cashier in his grocery store that has no idea she is beautiful. It’s a goofy song but I love it. Toward the end he says “I move along with my cart and I turn and catch a smile that blows the whole fucking place apart.” Bruce doesn’t drop many f-bombs. I love it. (Note: since writing this I came across a YouTube video of the Top 10 horrible songs by artists we otherwise love – this song made that list so now I feel lame for loving it)
“Can I snap one or two more? Just to remember this face while we’re planning our next move.”
She looked over at me. She pointed to herself and smiled, “This face?”
I took aim and when I did she smiled, not for the camera, but for me. The fact that I had read nothing but anguish in her demeanor and facial expressions made that smile one of the greatest things I have ever captured with my camera. It was like God knew the shape and size of the hole in my broken heart and He created her smile to be the perfect size to fill it.
“Since we’re agreeing on doing this later, do you mind if I change into something more comfortable?” She asked.
“Of course…” When she came back out I was amazed, delighted, amused… they say a picture is worth a thousand words and I could easily give your 997 more, but I let it do the talking:
We laughed and I offered, “Well, it could have been the only thing clean.”
Which, again, produced a chortle that was almost a snort, “They’re not.”
“Not the only thing clean? Or not clean?”
We laughed again.
We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to make the plans ourselves next time. We never saw Sarah that day. I guess she assumed we’d hit it off.
I drove up the street and stopped at the tracks, this time because a train was coming. I fumbled with my phone to save her number. Right when I was about to wonder how to spell her name, was is “Kaylee?” I heard a “ding” and saw a friend request from Kayleigh on Facebook.
I decided to try to do something quick to make her smile. I pulled up the photos I took that day. I went to an app I use called PicsArt which is great for creative types. I came up with this and said, “Look at us, making art already…”
Her text reply: “lol, luv it!!”
Kayleigh and I connected on Instagram, and some of the other socials, too. In a few days, we had our photoshoot. I don’t do small talk and she does not either. We went from strangers to friends in one night. And since then we have developed an amazing friendship.
We may be from different generations but certain things are universal. Kayleigh and I have had a lot of similar life experiences so we got along well. I included some of the photos from our first shoot and the art I made with them. But I do plan to write about that first shoot with more depth and details in my next Kayleigh blog.
She has the ability to look cute, sophisticated, beautiful, girly, and able to handle herself regardless of the situation. I look forward to showing you the many faces of Kayleigh and her story in the weeks to come.
Raleigh Jones Artist 
Hey, you wanna make a podcast?
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