The Black Butterfly

by Shirley Reva Vernick

  “You like this space?” she asked.

  “I love it.”

  “A little small for a working kitchen, but I make do with what I have.” She tied on an apron, a yellow one with the words Etoile Rouge stitched at the top. Then we both washed our hands.

  “We blanch the almonds first,” she explained. “That means we take the brown skin off.”

  I picked a nut out of the jar. “Do we use a knife?”

  “No,” she laughed, “we boil them.” She took the jar from me and poured the nuts into the boiling pot. The water hissed and jumped up at her and then calmed into a rippling simmer. “These are ready now,” she said after a few seconds, taking the pot from the stove and draining the water into the sink. She picked up a single steaming almond and slipped her thumbnail under the puckering skin, which slid away to reveal the creamy meat within. “You try,” she said, tossing the nut into a bowl and taking another.

  This had to be one of those things that looked a lot easier than it was, like on those cable cooking shows. I picked up a warm nut and examined it, hoping to find some hidden zipper to part the skin. Failing that, I tried Rita’s technique and—eureka!—I was holding a blanched almond. “Hey, this really works,” I said. But Rita was already sifting flour and cinnamon into a bowl and stirring in clumps of brown sugar, so I kept working.

  When I finished peeling the nuts, Rita used a rounded blade to chop them. Then she added the nuts to the flour mixture, along with butter, brandy, honey and milk—all in no particular measure, just feeling her way. “Now we work the dough,” she said, stepping back to let me in.

  I had no idea what it meant to work dough, so I stood there feeling and probably looking dumb.

  “With your fingers,” Rita explained. “Until it is like clay.” She took my hands and pushed them into the dough. Her fingers felt strong and sure of themselves. “Relax. This is the fun part. Pretend you are a child in mud. Play with it.”

  I plunged my fingers deeper into the dough, feeling the grit of the almonds and the silk of the butter against my skin. Just like mud, only without the earthworms. The more I mixed and scrunched, the stronger the fragrance, until I could almost taste the brandy.

  “This is good, yes?” Rita said.

  “This is good, yes.”

  “Now we shape it into a ball. You let me do this. Very sticky.” She rubbed her hands with flour before dumping the dough onto the butcher block and forming the blob into a sphere. “There.”

  “So now we bake?” I asked, eager for our creation to take its final form.

  “No.” She carried the ball to the fridge, a coppery Sub-Zero number. “Now we chill. Tomorrow we bake. But if you like, we could start on something else. Hold on, let me get some things. I have an idea.” She gave me a quick smile and disappeared into the pantry.

  No sooner was Rita out of sight than George ambled into the kitchen. He was wearing faded blue jeans with a small hole that offered a peek at his muscular thigh. His navy sweatshirt said C.I.A. in large white letters. He still needed a shave, but his hair was freshly washed and drying wavy. Stopping short when he spotted me, George’s mouth opened, but no words came out. I knew what he was thinking though: there was a non-Henion in the kitchen. I felt the blood color my cheeks.

  Suddenly Rita was standing next to me. “I could not find what I needed, I am afraid,” she said. “Oh, hello, George. Penny and I had important work here this morning.” She winked at me.

  George folded his arms and took me in. With daylight on his face, I was getting my first good glimpse of his eyes, only I couldn’t tell what color they were. Either bluish green or greenish blue. No, that wasn’t it. He turned his head slightly, and then I got it. His eyes were two different colors—one green, one blue, like a peridot and a sapphire, or maybe jade and lapis. He uncrossed his arms long enough to rub his neck—did my stare make him uneasy?—and a necklace spilled out from under his shirt. It was a crescent moon-shaped pendant with a stone the same shade of blue as his right eye. Dangling from a slender gold chain, it looked like an expensive piece of jewelry, and I had to wonder if it was from a girl.

  “George, can I get something for you?” Rita asked. “Maybe a—”

  “No, nothing,” he said, still looking my way. “I was just going to…but never mind. I didn’t realize the kitchen was in use.”

  “Actually, I was just leaving,” I said. And it was true. As soon as he showed up, I decided I was just leaving.

  “No, no,” he insisted. “You finish up your—whatever it is. I’m not really hungry anyway. I’m…yeah.” He about-faced and walked out the door without another word.

  “What’s the matter with him anyway?” I asked after the door swung closed behind him. “I mean, what’ve I ever done to him?”

  Rita wiped her wrists on her apron, leaving two floury splotches. “Do not take it personally, my dear. He gets big headaches—migraines—that is all.”

  But I didn’t believe that was all. Something wasn’t right. Bubbles treating me like her long lost godchild. George treating me like a leper. Not to mention the fact that Mom never so much as uttered the Henion name before last week.

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?” I said.

  “Something else?” Rita made a point of not looking up.

  “Something I did. Or something I said. Maybe just being here, cutting into George’s space.”

  “I think…” she started. “No, I do not know.”

  “Don’t you?”

  She shook her head. “Perhaps I have said too much already.”

  “Rita—”

  “I know you have a curious mind, but some of the things you wish to know are not for me to tell.”

  “But we’re kindred spirits, you and me, right?”

  She pinched her lips shut.

  “It’s just—I’m all alone here, and I don’t know what’s going on. If you could just throw me a lifeline…”

  Still no response.

  “You know what?” I said. “I’m sorry. This is obviously a sensitive subject. I’m sorry if I intruded.” Confession time: this is a ploy Mom taught me. When someone resists answering your question, you apologize for having asked. That usually guilts the person into answering. They feel sorry for having put you in an awkward position, even though you’re the one who actually put them in a difficult spot.

  “Okay, all right, you have me,” Rita said. “Come, sit.”

  Bingo. I dropped onto a stool while Rita stood leaning against the island, looking uneasy. “Penny,” she said, fumbling with her apron strings, “do you have any idea why Bubbles and your mother are no longer best friends?”

  “They were best friends?”

  “They were very close. But when your mother called to ask if you could stay here, they had not spoken for a long time—years.”

  “Oh, God, what did Mom do?”

  Rita sat on the edge of the stool next to mine. “Your mother came to visit one summer when I was still fairly new here. And what happened was…” She drew a warning breath. “What happened was, your mother got the idea that the inn was haunted. She said the TV kept turning on all by itself, that the phone in her room would ring, but no one would be there when she answered it. Things like that.”

  I stifled a moan.

  “Your mother thought it was wonderful. She wanted to—how you say—promote the ‘haunted inn.’ She called the newspaper. She called a TV station on the mainland.”

  “Poor Bubbles.”

  “Now, for some reason, your mother thought the crawlspace had something to do with the ghost—there is a crawlspace right over here, behind that potted plant. So one afternoon when the kitchen was empty, she went into the space to have a look, which would not have been so terrible except that she left the door open. Little George—he was just a toddler—wandered into the crawlspace. Climbed the stairs inside. Fell. And ended up at Jonesport Hospital with a concussion and a gash on his forehead.” She pointed to her eyebrow.

 
I winced. How could Mom have been so careless, so thoughtless?

  Rita stood up and began filling the sink with dish soap. “Your mother left the very next day. As far as I know, the two of them did not talk again, until last week.”

  I spun around to face her. “So George has spent his life hearing the story of the nut who got him hurt then.”

  “Not so,” Rita said. “Bubbles never talked of it. And George does not remember the accident. No, I do not think George knew anything, not until last week when your mother called and Bubbles got a little crazy. Who knows what she finally told him? But, well, I imagine it makes him…”

  “…suspicious? Like I’m picking up the ghost trail where she left off? Rita, you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t know about any of this. If I did, I’d’ve run away from home rather than show my face here…did he go ballistic when he found out I was coming?”

  “You wish to know all the details. I understand. But later. Tonight, in the study.” She tipped her head toward the door.

  I was dismissed.

  The universe is made of stories, not atoms.

  —Muriel Rukeyser

  With nowhere else to go, I went back to my room, where I attempted to distract myself by reading, working on my short story assignment, checking out the furniture. Whenever I peeked out the window, I saw Vincent shoveling the back walk or carrying in firewood from the shed. Later, dinner smells started wafting through the floorboards, and I knew Rita was directly below me. Nice, but not nice enough to ward off my boredom and loneliness, much less my outrage at Mom.

  For the first time ever, I found myself wishing I knew more about Mom’s past. As it was, I’d only heard a couple of her stories, none of them firsthand. From Grandpa Quinn, I knew she collected imaginary friends worryingly late into childhood. From Uncle Cosmo, I learned about her stash of books on the occult. And from Great Aunt Aggie, I found out about Mom’s infamous high school career. It didn’t start out so bad, actually. In fact, when she was a sophomore, she got an academic scholarship to some chichi private school on the North Shore of Boston. Things were okay there until her Spanish class took a trip to Mexico junior year. P.S., Mom got sent home early with the “suggestion” that she seek “other educational opportunities.” So what went down in those Mexican ruins—boys, drugs? Whatever it was, Mom was sufficiently unnerved that to this day she won’t talk about it.

  Apparently, she wasn’t so unhappy about the expulsion though. She gladly traded her pleated skirt uniform for a pair of grungy jeans, hopped the city bus for the crowded public school, and joined the photography club that met at the local library. Wait, was it the photography club or the paranormal club? I couldn’t remember. I knew my mother better than I knew The Donor, but I didn’t really know her, not by a long shot.

  Just as the afternoon sun was taking its last gasp, the phone on my nightstand rang—loudly—and I jumped up. “Hello?”

  “Hi honey, it’s Mom.”

  Mom, oh God! Should I confront her about what I now knew? Should I make her admit that she dropped me in the middle of the minefield she planted all those years ago? I was dying to tackle her on this. I was furious with her, and I needed her to know it.

  “Honey?” she repeated.

  “Right here, Mom.”

  “How are you settling in? You’ll never guess where I am.”

  “Aren’t you still in Idaho?”

  “Yes, of course, but wait till you hear this. I’m in Boise, the capital, and I’m at the big radio station here. I’m going to interview the owner of the Shotgun Murder Mansion and the President!”

  “The President?”

  “Of the Paranormal Society, silly. Right after he does a call-in show about the sighting at the mansion, he’s going to talk to me. Can you believe it?”

  “No kidding.”

  “Anyway, what about you? And Bubbles? How is she?”

  “To tell the truth, I haven’t seen much of her yet. We’re having supper together tonight, so I guess I’ll—”

  “Get her to tell you about our old bra designing contests,” Mom giggled. “She’ll have you peeing in your pants…oh my golly” (I swear, she actually said ‘oh my golly’), “I think I just saw the President walk by. It must be almost show time. I should probably—”

  “No, Mom, don’t go yet. We need to talk.” A zap of static came over the line. “Mom?”

  “Right here, honey. What’s up? Is everything all right?”

  I collapsed onto the bed. “No, everything is not all right. Everything is awful. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you at least warn me about you and Bubbles, about what happened, how you haven’t talked in years?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Jesus, why did you send me to a place where we’re persona non grata?”

  “Persona non grata—what are you talking about, Penny? Someone has you thinking I’m on the outs?”

  “Spare me the act, Mom. I know all about the crawlspace accident.”

  There was a short silence on the line followed by more static.

  “Mom, are you still there?”

  “It’s my battery, I think—it’s starting to go. Look, I want to tell you something before this phone dies completely. It’s true that when I phoned Bubbles last week, we hadn’t talked in, what, sixteen, seventeen years. But it’s not my fault. It’s not anything I did.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Penny, did you hear me?”

  “I heard you. I just, I don’t think I believe you.”

  She made an almost laugh. “Let me get this straight. You’re going to believe someone you just met over your own mother?”

  “I guess you’re going to have to convince me. Convince me that there’s some other explanation.”

  “I will not,” she barked. “It’s nothing I want to talk about, nothing I’ve ever told anyone, and I’m certainly not going to start by telling you. If it’s details you want, I’m sorry. I’m not going there.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  “I guess there’s nothing else to talk about then. Goodbye, Mom.”

  “Penny, wait. Let’s not end like this. I hate to hear you so upset.”

  “Then help me.”

  “Not the way you’re asking me to help you. Let’s try—”

  “Goodbye.” I hung up, feeling more miserable than ever. It was bad enough that Mom omitted vital information before sending me here. But now, to lie about it when I asked, that was unforgiveable. She really must not give a damn about me.

  I was thinking very seriously about having myself a good cry—I was already looking around for some tissues—when there was a knock at my door. Wiping my eyes on the back of my hand, I pulled myself up off the bed and answered it.

  I found a nice-looking guy leaning against the doorframe. Thick black hair hung over his chestnut eyes, and a few freckles punctuated his caramel face. He wore work boots, jeans and a maroon flannel shirt. He wasn’t much taller than me, but his athletic build made him look bigger.

  “I’m here to double-check the windows,” he said. “The temperature in some of the rooms is a little low, and we’re trying to figure out why. Is this a good time?”

  So Vincent had some help around the place—good. “Sure,” I said, waving him in.

  “I’m Blue,” he said.

  “Join the club.”

  “No, I mean, my name is Blue.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. Penny,” I said and stuck out my hand.

  Instead of shaking it, he went straight to the windows and ran his fingers along the frame. “Good to meet you.” He pulled a screwdriver out of his pocket and began fiddling with the latches. “I don’t see any problems here, but I’ll tighten things up just to be sure.”

  “Great, thanks.”

  “All set,” he said after a minute. He turned around, twiddling the screwdriver between his fingers. “See you around then, I guess.” He smiled then and when he did, his eyes shimmered, as if backlit from behind. It threw m
e off guard, and I didn’t speak. “Right,” he said and let himself out.

  Conversation is the enemy of good wine and food.

  –Alfred Hitchcock

  Bubbles showed up at the dining room by herself, claiming that George was sleeping off a “nasty something.” She assured me she’d given him a hefty dose of Echinacea and ordered the poor boy to bed.

  A different table was set tonight, this one closer to the kitchen and farther from the fireplace. “I hope you don’t mind, dear,” Bubbles said as we sat down. “That fire makes me sweat.” She was wearing a hot pink sweater over black stretch pants that hugged her a little too tightly. In place of her faux fur slippers she wore mules, and every time she turned her head, her feather earrings swayed. I see this outfit a lot on the Revere boardwalk—the New England trash look.

  It was nice to have a dinner companion, though I didn’t know how to begin a conversation with Bubbles. There was no menu to discuss. There’d been no change in the weather, good or bad. I wanted to know why she’d missed last night’s dinner but didn’t want to ask outright. And of course I was dying to know what George’s deal was, but no, I couldn’t ask that either. So I decided to wait for her to speak. And did she ever! That woman could talk. During the first course—these amazing spicy meatballs that Vincent called vitoulets—Bubbles described her short-lived stint as a professional party planner. Over the palate cleanser—ice water for me, a whiskey sour for her—she rhapsodized over some band called The Big Stuck. This segued into a monologue about the entertainment industry, which took us straight through the salad course—braised endive with black currants and Cajun crabmeat.

  While Bubbles nursed her second mixed drink, I decided to take the plunge. “So Bubbles, how long have you known my mom?”

  “Gosh, must be about, what, almost thirty years now.”

  “Did you meet in school?”

  “No,” she said, playing with her paper umbrella. “We never lived in the same state. We worked summers together at a kids’ camp. She…didn’t tell you?”