Black Eyed Susan

by Elizabeth Leiknes

  Abigail was eager for progress. “What do you see?”

  “Colors,” I said, stunned by the newness of it all.

  “Are you gonna faint or something?” she said in a harried voice. “You can’t faint until your enlightenment is complete.”

  Instead of answering her, I raised my chin ever so slightly to encourage the little girl in front of me. She took it as permission to continue, and resumed her tea party with Kermit, all the while keeping a diligent watch on her bedroom door.

  “Now what do you see?”

  “She’s waiting,” I said to myself, the significance settling in my sick lungs as I inhaled the stale, oppressive air.

  Abigail grew impatient. “Waiting for what?”

  “For whom,” I corrected her, but just as I said it, the scene disappeared. When I blinked, a new image emerged. The little girl was now a few years older, kneeling under a big tree, looking at her watch. Waiting. Again.

  And then in my peripheral vision, I saw something flash on the wall to my left, so I turned my head. When I did, I looked from floor to ceiling, and saw a fifty-foot wall of mirrors, each ten-by-ten mirror playing a different scene from my life. The other two scenes had been mere warm-ups for the real show, which was beginning on the tower of mirrors before me.

  On the bottom mirror was a scene from my sophomore year acting class. I stood in a roomful of other students waiting their turn, waiting to act out their parts. In my hand, I held a small piece of paper revealing my assigned role—“Person with Nothing to Lose.” Motionless, I stared at the paper, unable to express that emotion, unable to let go.

  The mirror above that one showed me at a Halloween party dressed as Marcel Marceau. With a neutral expression painted on my face, I hid in the corner of the room, observing in silence.

  The third mirror up from the bottom featured my first-ever shift at the radio station, sitting in the play booth, watching the clock on the wall, waiting for the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” to end its three minute, six-second play time.

  The fourth mirror showed me reading and admiring a travel brochure advertising a once-in-a-lifetime trip—“Explore uncharted territory! Swim with sharks! Scale rock walls! Romance a native! Live your dreams!”—and then me, tossing it in the garbage.

  And finally, I tilted my head as far back as I could to see the top mirror, displaying a scene starring Will and me. I figured it was the future, because I didn’t recognize it as the past. I’d fallen into a giant crack in the earth and Will was reaching out his hand, trying to pull me to safety. It looked like I wanted to stretch my hand out to connect with his, but I couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Instead, I remained paralyzed with fear—fear of dying and of getting saved.

  As I watched the scene unfold, I realized it had something in common with all the other scenes. In each one, no matter if I was twelve or twenty, I looked anesthetized, stumbling around in my dress-rehearsal life, waiting for Act One to begin.

  “Ms. Spector?” Abigail’s voice brought me back to an even harsher reality. “Susan? It’s time. She’s here.”

  Christie Brinkley had made her complete transformation from fully clothed valley girl to Billy Joel’s ex-wife in a matching bra and panty set, so the hour was up, and whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon.

  Suddenly, three of the mirrors that were propped up on the floor began rotating. They must have been on some sort of timer, because they moved in sync, one clockwise, the other two counter-clockwise. As they repositioned, they emitted an ominous mechanical sound, the likes of which you’d hear as a missile prepared to launch. And then I heard a loud rumble from above, followed by screeching metal on metal. When I looked up, the mirrored ceiling began to part, exposing at first a sliver of sky, and within seconds, a view that was big enough to reveal a cloudless, sunny day.

  There was a jingling of keys, and then they walked through the door. Abigail came in first, head held high, looking more like Elvira than her former Stevie Nicks knock-off. She still wore her striped socks and sneakers, but her face was more severe than I remembered, more menacing, and more made-up—heavy makeup concealed every flaw. And attached to the waistband of her flowy skirt was some sort of stainless-steel video device, complicated and cartoonish all at the same time, like a jacked-up baby monitor.

  She looked up at the now open-air ceiling, and said, “Almost high noon.” The human sundial raised a crooked, mean finger, simulated the sun’s movement from east to west, and then, using both hands, made the universal gesture for poof!

  I was pretty sure the poof! referred to me, so when I saw Gabby, Abigail’s sister, trail behind her with a much kinder countenance, I was both relieved and confused.

  When Gabby looked at me sitting in my chair, awaiting my fate, she shook her head, and in an embarrassed tone, said, “Hi.” She performed a quick wave with her bandaged right hand, still recovering from the half-house injury engendered by yours truly.

  Gabby, apparently distraught by what she saw, spoke out of one side of her mouth. “Abby, uh, can I talk to you a minute?” She grabbed Abigail’s arm and took her to the corner of the room. I watched their reflections in the mirrors and tried to make out their angry whispers.

  “This has gone too far!” Gabby said, grabbing Abigail’s shoulders.

  Abigail folded her arms in an angry maneuver. “Too far? Doesn’t Susan Spector ruining your life warrant a little retribution?”

  The forced whispers turned into loud declarations. “Abby, it’s over. My hands will recover. I will recover.” She lifted her gauzed hands in the air and laughed. “There’ll be many more hands. Yes, it was a dream of mine to win that championship,” she said, the corners of her mouth perking up. “But for every foiled dream, there is a second chance.” Gabby looked into her sister’s eyes. “What’s happened to you? Fifteen years ago, you were doing pro bono work, helping people who really needed it, and then somewhere along the way, you started this crazy quest to rehabilitate, excuse me …” She rolled her eyes. “… enlighten every wrongdoer you encountered and—”

  “And I have helped many of them get back on the right path, thank you very much.”

  Gabby’s voice took on a sweeter tone, a sisterly tone. “What about your path, Abby? Ever since you got that money …” she said, shaking her head with an air of disgust.

  Abigail Westergaard began to cry. “She has to pay, Gabby.” She swallowed hard, and renewed her resolve. “People who take advantage of others have to pay.”

  And then Abigail’s crying came to a halt when she looked down at the video monitor device hanging from her midsection. The small video screen showed a one-angle shot of Mono and Clyde’s room, but Mono and Clyde were nowhere to be seen. “Where the hell are they?” She exhaled a mean sigh and looked at her watch. “It’s 11:51. They’re supposed to be watching Friday Night Videos!”

  The monitor was obviously wired for audio as well, because I heard the faint sound of Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” coming from its small speakers. Growing impatient, Abigail turned a dial on the monitor, and within seconds, the sound from Mono and Clyde’s room was coming in over the house intercom sound system. It was loud and, well, clearly eighties. “Do you hear any voices?” she said in desperation.

  “You mean besides Simon Le Bon?” I asked. Even though Mono and Clyde had technically abandoned me, I was happy they’d escaped. “Look, don’t bother, Little Miss Puppet Master,” I said. “I’m sure they’re on a plane to Bologna by now.”

  “What?!” Abigail yelled, starting toward the door.

  Gabby was left standing alone in the corner, with Duran Duran playing as the moment’s mood-maker. “Who’s on a plane? What are you talking about?”

  But before I could answer, Mono and Clyde answered for themselves. They stormed through the door, stopping Abigail in mid-scurry, forcing her to walk backwards several feet as they looked her in the eyes for the first time in their lives. “Mono and I were on dee way out, Mees Abigail,” Clyde s
aid, pointing a finger in Abigail’s face. “We were readys to go back to our home in Italia, but we decided we no could leave Mees Spector to get dee poof!”

  “Excuse me?” I said, raising my hand. “I should let you know I’m not breathing well lately … Could we just skip the poof! and maybe do it another time?”

  “Who are these guys, Abby? Do they live here?” Gabby interrupted, turning to Mono and Clyde.

  “Hello, Mees Gabby,” Mono said. “We normally live in dee udder house, dee house of dee L.A., but we stay at dees house when dee business call for it. You not know us because Mees Abigail have us stay in our room when you visit, but we have live with Mees Abigail for berry long times. Ever since we found the key—”

  “Key?” Gabby said, dumbfounded, turning to Abigail, who was now consumed with guilt—the same toxic emotion she tried to obliterate in her “clients.”

  “Now, just wait a minute. Everybody calm down,” Abigail said.

  “These two found the key, Abigail?” an accusatory Gabby asked.

  Mono confirmed. “Yes, many of dee years ago, we found dee key next to a gutter on dee boulevard of Hollywood. We had just come to the America, and Mees Abigail, she walk by and she say she will help us find what dee key opens.” He shrugged. “And then next day, she invite us come live at her house. And we be working for her ever since.”

  “They found the key? That money was theirs, Abigail!” A look of horror engulfed Gabby’s face.

  I raised my hand again to attempt being noticed. “Uh, I really do have somewhere to be, so if we could put the financial discussion on the back burner for a sec, that’d be awesome.”

  A somber Clyde turned to Abigail. “What money, Mees Abigail?”

  Gabby folded her arms and shook her head in disbelief. “What money?” Gabby said. “Um, millions of dollars found sitting in a safety deposit box that nobody ever claimed. And that key you found, Clyde? It opened the box.”

  Abigail was quick to defend herself. “I’m the one who figured out what the key opened, and I’m the one who waited to see if anyone would claim it, and I’m the one who has fed and clothed these two morons for the last two decades.”

  “Do parachute pants really qualify as clothes?” I asked, but nobody answered me.

  The sinner continued her defense. “Look at them,” Abigail said, pointing to Mono and Clyde. “Do you think they would’ve made it on their own? They came here to live the American Dream and I gave it to them. They live in a beautiful house, with no stress, no financial worries. They don’t have to think about a thing.”

  “Except if T.J. Hooker is a rerun,” I said. I was anxious to get out of there, but this was becoming intriguing. “Let me get this straight,” I said, my eyes widening. “You stole their money, hid them away from the world, and held them captive, frozen in 1989 time, so they wouldn’t catch on to your devious ways?” I let out a satisfied sigh. “Just face it, Abigail Westergaard—you’re a bad, bad person. And you know it. That’s why you obsess over others’ flaws. Just own it.”

  Gabby hung her head. “Abby, you need help.”

  A pissed-off Clyde took action for the second time that day, and probably the second time in twenty years. “She berry bad—she need the chair and the poof!”

  I concurred, so I jumped up while Clyde threw Abigail in the chair.

  Just then, Hall & Oates replaced Duran Duran on the intercom. Boy, did MTV have it right this time. As we watched a snotty Abigail roll her eyes, Daryl Hall sang, “It’s a bitch, girl, and it’s gone too far … You’re a rich girl …”

  Mono looked up through the open ceiling toward the exposed sky and said, “Dee timing ees perfection.”

  After looking up, too, Abigail tried to get out of the chair. “I’m leaving,” she said, but Clyde stepped in front of her.

  “No move, Mees Abigail, or I will call dee police and tell them how you had Mono and I kidnap Mees Spector.”

  “Kidnap?!” Gabby yelled.

  With that, Abigail sat back down. And as soon as she did, the midday sun, which had reached its apex, shot down a ray of light that struck one of the small mirrors propped up in the southeast corner of the floor. And then, as if the sun itself were playing connect the dots, the ray of light fired over to the next mirror, and the next, until there was an intricate web of light rays filling the room. The four of us stood still in amazement, while Abigail began to squirm in the chair.

  A mischievous Clyde raised his eyebrows. “Dat ees nothing. Just wait.”

  “This isn’t going to kill her or anything, is it?” Gabby asked as a good sister should.

  “No,” Mono said, shrugging. “Maybe minor burns.”

  Gabby looked unnerved by it all, but before she had a chance to stop what had already started, one of the convex mirrors on the floor made another mechanical rotation, and when it did, it collected all the light rays, concentrating them into one enormous dazzling beam of light. With one more slight change in angle, the giant beam was finally in place, pointed directly at Ms. Abigail’s face. The heat it generated must have been intense, because Abigail squinted and immediately started sweating. When she tried to get up again, Clyde reminded her he could have the police there within minutes, and then he used her own words against her.

  Shaking his finger in the air, Clyde said, “No squinting, Mees Abigail. Remember what you say to dee others: ‘You must keep your eyes open to the possibility of change.’”

  Abby had watched many of her clients undergo the same scorching experience, but until that day, she’d never felt its wrath. With the power of a laser, the light beam began to dissolve Abigail Westergaard. The makeup was the first to go. Clay-like and pasty, her foundation softened in the heat, and began to slide off her face like a mini-mudslide. After several blinks, her fake black eyelashes detached and stuck to her cheeks like two black widows stuck in muck. As heavy eyeliner smeared down, relentless and unforgiving, it settled in all her imperfections, like it’d been ordered to highlight her shortcomings. A scar on her left cheek was now jagged and dark, along with several pits in her complexion, and her cleft chin looked downright wicked.

  Gabby might have been a world-class poker player, capable of a million-dollar bluff, but as she watched her sister Abby endure the heat, her emotions were transparent.

  “My God, look at her! She’s melting! What’s the point of this?” said Gabby, performing a series of frantic gestures and waiting for someone to respond.

  Mono tried to comfort her. “She be okay, Mees Gabby. It all part of dee poof! Mees Abigail, she designed it she self. She says when you turn dee heat on someone, show them dee light, it heals them, makes them change their ways. She say dee transformation is like dee magic, so we call it dee poof!”

  When he said the word “heal,” I wondered whether it was naïve to still feel hopeful. Before I made up my mind, I began to cough—a lot. My cancer was acting up.

  “Are you okay, Mees Spector?” Clyde asked. “You no sound so good.”

  Considering the circumstances, I actually did feel good. Great, really. In fact, for a dying girl who’d been held in a cement fortress, I felt excellent. I thought of Will, and said to myself, “Fucking fantastic.”

  Abigail Westergaard was getting what she deserved, and as I watched the merciless beam of light burn her indiscretions away, I felt empowered. For me, no more quitting shy of the finish line. And with that, I channeled the moxie of every girl rocker who ever kicked butt. I became Joan Jett in her tightest tomboy hip-huggers. I borrowed Chrissie Hynde’s bitchin’ guitar strap, Blondie’s luscious lips, and Sheryl Crow’s tight ass.

  When I stepped toward Abigail, now practically liquefied, I fantasized about beating the shit out of her, beating her to a literal and metaphorical pulp, but when I looked into her eyes, all I could say was, “You look awful.”

  Today was the first day of the rest of her life. Today was the beginning of her second chance.

  “Come, Mono, we fly,” Clyde said, grabbing both me and Mono
. “We bring Mees Spector to her sister.”

  Gabby’s voice was showing signs of serious stress. “You’re just gonna leave us here like this?”

  Mono again tried to alleviate her fears. “She be fine, Gabby. Dee poof! ees almost over.” Most of Abigail’s makeup was now gone, and physically she was a mess, but the look in her eyes was no longer cruel and resentful, but sorry, and almost forgiving.

  So I had witnessed my first exorcism, which wasn’t even on my to-do list, and I’d concluded this: Finding peace is a gnarly process.

  Mono pointed up to the sun, instructing Abigail to keep going until the entire sun beam had dissipated, and then gave the same advice a doctor gives when he prescribes antibiotics: “Ees only effective if you finish it.”

  Great. Everyone was on track but me.

  What I needed was to get to my sister.

  What I needed was every ounce of faith I could muster.

  What I needed was to somehow stop time, at least long enough to evolve into a better, more interesting person.

  What I needed was … a soundtrack.

  Poof!

  When I first heard it, I laughed, but then I succumbed to the fact that Calliope was right. This little thing called destiny is really a massive, unstoppable force, ready to fuck with you at any unsuspecting moment. The sound from Mono and Clyde’s room was still being broadcast over the sound system, and Hall & Oates had finished up when Friday Night Videos continued with a very recognizable, husky, exotic voice—Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPiere, or, as I knew her from my nightmares, Cher.

  As Mono, Clyde, and I ran out of dee room, and made our way down an enormous, open, winding stairway, Cher sang an anthem just for me: