The Mistaken Masterpiece

by Michael D. Beil

  I explain my life-and-literature-connection theory to Livvy as she listens in silence. Sitting there in complete darkness is maddening; now that we have had this little breakthrough, I’m dying to see her face. I confess that a small(ish) part of me is convinced that she’s making faces and obscene gestures at me in the dark.

  “It is kind of ironic, I guess,” she admits. “Especially since we worked on that story together. But I think you’re forgetting something really important. The ending.”

  “What, about the … Oh, yeah.”

  Livvy is right. The ending of “The Interlopers” isn’t exactly like a hug from a warm puppy; it’s more like a bucket of ice water in the face.

  And suddenly that elevator is a very dark and very cold place.

  • • •

  A few minutes after eight. By now, Raf has called and texted me several times (or at least I hope he has) and, as a last resort, probably called the landline in my apartment. I’m hoping—praying, even—that Mom is home, not freaking out too badly, and starting to put two and two together. A call to Michelle, and then another to Margaret, who will call the other girls on the team to find out where I went after we got back to the school. My best friend is an honest-to-God genius, and if anyone can figure out where I am, it’s Margaret.

  “How’re you doing over there, Liv?” I ask. It’s a strange feeling, me asking—sincerely—how she is.

  “My butt hurts.”

  “Yeah, mine too. I’d sit on my coat but then the rest of me would freeze. I had no idea it got so cold in here on the weekends.”

  “Uh, Sophie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I ask you a question? About yesterday, at the diner.”

  Uh-oh. “Um, yeah. What?”

  “I was just wondering—was that really just a coincidence that you guys were there at the same time as me? The reason I’m asking is because we—er, I—go there almost every Friday and I’ve never seen you there. But one other time, two girls with a dog were following me, and I swear it was you and that Leigh Ann girl. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling myself blush. “You’re not paranoid. That was us. I thought for sure we ducked behind that car in time. Jeez, this is embarrassing. We weren’t being intentionally nosy; we were just on our way back from the park and we saw you. I’m sorry. We were just curious—honest.”

  “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

  “I don’t, really. I’m watching her for, um, a friend for a few weeks.”

  I could tell her that it’s Nate Etan’s dog, but one, I doubt that she would believe me, and two, I hate people who name-drop like that. It’s so pretentious.

  But now that we’re on the subject of the diner, I wonder if this is a good time to ask her about the woman in the wheelchair. I don’t want her to think I’m prying into her personal life, even if that is exactly what I’m doing.

  It’s like Livvy reads my mind. “Look, I know you’re wondering who I was with.”

  I play it cool. “Now that you mention it, yeah, I am a little curious.”

  “She’s my old nanny; her name is Julia Demarest, and she basically raised me while my parents were both working a million hours a week and traveling all the time. Then, about four or five years ago, she found out she has MS—multiple sclerosis—and it finally got so bad that she had to stop working.”

  “Ohmigosh. That’s terrible. It’s nice, though, that you help her out like that.”

  I hear Livvy’s coat rustle as she shrugs. “It’s the least I can do. I owe her so much. Everything. She’s amazing. All the good parts of me are because of her.” She lets that sink in for a moment. “I know what you’re thinking: Livvy has good parts? But I do, really.”

  “I believe you,” I say. “Especially now.”

  “And I don’t know why—maybe it’s because she’s more like family than my real family—but I love spending time with her. Here she has this horrible, incredibly painful disease, and she never complains. I know I’m not always a good person … okay, I’m never a good person, but she makes me want to try at least. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s always positive. Even when that awful woman in the diner said that stuff about me and her, she just laughed it off. She’s like, ‘Life is too short to worry about what people like that say.’ God, I can’t believe I’m telling you all this. I’ve never talked about her to anyone.”

  “Well, we all thought you were going to strangle that lady, and we were ready to jump in and help you. We’d been sitting there for a while; she was loony tunes. I mean, I knew there were people like that, but I’ve never actually met one before. Have you ever seen her? I mean, since she lives in the same building as your friend and everything.”

  “She what?”

  “I’m afraid so. We’ve sort of been snooping on her, and she came out of the same building where we saw you that day—over on Ninety-fourth, right?”

  “Why were you snooping on her?”

  “It’s kind of a long story; we’re doing a favor for Father Julian.”

  “A priest hired you to spy on a crazy old lady with fluorescent orange hair?”

  When you put it like that, it does sound a bit peculiar, I guess. “They’re kinda sorta related, and there’s a … ‘family dispute,’ ” I say, adding air quotes even though Livvy can’t see them in the dark.

  “Ohhh.”

  “Livvy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I ask you one more question?”

  She doesn’t answer immediately. Finally, she says, “About that time we ditched you after the meet, right?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Because I know how it must have made you feel. It was stupid, and I am so sorry.”

  “But … why? I mean, we worked on that project in English, and then we were having so much fun on the bus ride back from that meet, and then …”

  Livvy sniffs. “I don’t know why I do it,” she says. “I had this big fight with my parents that morning when they told me that they’ll be leaving me home with my aunt—who I hate—for two months while they go off to Europe for business. Or so they say. They just got back from a month in China. And before that, three weeks in Singapore. So they’re doing all that—without me—but then they say they can’t afford to send me to Quincy, where I really want to go; it’s where all my real friends go. Or at least I thought they were my friends, because that was also the day I found out that one of them had this huge birthday party—and I didn’t get invited. It was just for kids from Quincy, they all said. You have to believe me, Sophie, that when I ditched you, it wasn’t about you. After that day in class, I was actually starting to like you. It was just, well, I was having a really crappy day, and I needed to get even with the world.”

  “And I happened to have a bull’s-eye painted on my back.”

  “Something like that. I know it’s too late now, but I really am sorry. It was a crummy thing to do.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” I lie. “And you know, Livvy, the girls at St. Veronica’s—even Margaret—we’re not so bad, either. Maybe if you gave us a chance. We might surprise you.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” she says.

  Nine twenty-three. I jerk awake, completely disoriented and shivering from the icy floor. Was I dreaming, or did I hear voices outside the elevator? I pull my coat zipper as high as it will go and wrap my arms around myself, listening for sounds other than Livvy’s soft breathing.

  Wait! Voices!

  “Livvy! I think someone’s here. Ring the bell!”

  She fumbles around with her keys for a few seconds, looking for her flashlight, but then gives up and starts pounding away on the panel until she hits the button for the bell. She holds it down for a couple of good long rings, and then we listen.

  “Sophie! Livvy!”

  It’s Michelle, and even through the elevator walls, I can hear the guilt in her voice.

  “Hello!” we shout.

  I hear a few people s
ay “Thank God” on the other side of the elevator door. Mom is there, too, along with Margaret and Sister Bernadette.

  “Are you two okay?” Mom asks.

  “We’re cold. And a little hungry. But yeah, we’re good.”

  Okay. Stop and think about that for a second (I’m sure Margaret did): Livvy and me, together in an elevator for four hours … and we’re good. To some eyes, the fact that we’re both alive could be viewed as a minor miracle.

  “We’re going to get you out of there, but it’s going to take a few minutes,” Sister Bernadette announces. “The last time he was here, the elevator serviceman showed me how to reset the system—sometimes that’s all it needs. Say a little prayer, and sit tight.”

  Livvy snorts. “I don’t think we’re going anywhere.”

  “You poor kids,” Mom says.

  “Ohmigosh, you guys, I am so sorry,” says Michelle. “I feel just terrible.”

  A minute later, the light inside the elevator comes on. Livvy and I shield our eyes and then drop our hands, squinting at each other. I hold out my hand to shake hers. She takes it, a little sheepishly.

  “Thanks, Sophie.”

  “For what?”

  “For listening. For just being, I don’t know, a friend. In case you hadn’t noticed, most of my other friends are jerks. I don’t want to go all Breakfast Club on you, but you’re, um, okay.”

  “Yeah, you too. But I forget—on Monday morning, didn’t all those kids go back to who they were before?”

  She hesitates just a moment too long before insisting that isn’t going to happen. “We’re more like those two guys in ‘The Interlopers’ than those dumb kids in the movie,” she says. “Remember, after they become friends, they talk about how surprised everyone will be when they walk into town together. That’ll be us.”

  I nod at her, touching her on the arm.

  We’ll see. I haven’t forgotten how that story ends.

  In the last few lines, the two men are still trapped, their feud now a thing of the past, with the temperature, darkness, and snow falling all around them. Suddenly one of the men spots several figures running toward them, and the only question remaining seems to be whether they’re Georg’s or Ulrich’s men.

  When Mr. Eliot gave us the copies of the story, he deliberately left off the last line, which answers the question. We had a great discussion about how the story should end. In wrapping things up, the writer had a choice: the “happy” ending, in which the two former enemies are rescued and we can imagine them going forward with their lives as friends; the “realistic” ending, in which they are rescued but immediately resume their quarrel; or the cruelly ironic ending, where fate takes a hand.

  The class was about evenly divided among the three endings. For me, though, there was no choice; the writer absolutely had to go with the ironic one. What would be the point, I argued, of a story like that with a happy ending? The two men walking off into the sunset together and unharmed isn’t an ending—it’s a cop-out.

  Saki, apparently, agreed with me.

  The story’s last sentence: “Wolves.”

  Now that’s an ending.

  A few minutes later, the elevator lurches, and four hours after we began our journey from the fifth floor, Livvy and I reach our destination. The door opens and I am immediately smothered by my mom, who is crying uncontrollably. Michelle is hugging Livvy, apologizing over and over, and explaining how it all happened.

  “I went into the office to make a quick call, and when I came out, the other girls said that everyone was out of the bathrooms. They said you two were nowhere in sight—that you must have been in a hurry and taken off.”

  “We went to our lockers,” I say. “And then …”

  “Margaret figured it out,” Mom says. “She knew exactly where you’d be.”

  I give Margaret a big hug. “I knew she would. That’s why I love her.”

  Meanwhile, I realize that poor Raf is just standing there looking extremely cute, and more than a little lost at the back of this pack of very emotional women.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him. Even though I’m dying to throw my arms around him and give him a big kiss, I’m not ready to do that in front of Mom—or, for that matter, Sister Bernadette. So I take his hands and ask, “How long did you wait for me?”

  “At first, I just figured you forgot to charge your phone again. But after about half an hour, I called your apartment.”

  “And scared me to death!” says Mom. “I thought you were late getting back from New Jersey, and then when no one could get hold of you …”

  More sobbing.

  “Well, thank the Lord we have a happy ending,” says Sister Bernadette. “Miss Klack, do you need to call anyone?”

  “Nobody will be home, anyway,” Livvy says matter-of-factly. “My parents have plans, I’m sure.”

  “Then you’re coming with us,” Mom announces. “You girls must be starving. And freezing. Come on, what is everybody hungry for? My treat.”

  I consider my favorite sushi place because it is nearby, but my body is crying out for something besides cold, raw fish. I need a hot, juicy burger. With lots of gooey cheese. And onion rings. And maybe an order of fried calamari to start. (All right, so maybe it’s not going to be the healthiest dinner ever, but I just lived through a traumatic experience.)

  We try our best, but there’s no talking Livvy into joining us.

  I can kind of see why. Being stuck in the elevator with me is one thing; it was neutral territory. Dinner with my mom, my best friend, and my friend-who’s-a-boy-but-not-my-boyfriend, on the other hand, is a whole different kettle of crustaceans.

  “Thanks, but I’m going home and going right to bed,” Livvy says, and I think I believe her.

  “See you Monday,” I say as we prepare to go our separate ways.

  With a quick wave, but not another word, she turns and walks off into the cold New York night.

  And there’s not a single wolf in sight.

  Margaret Wrobel: blackmailer, rabble-rouser

  “What did you two do for four hours?” Margaret asks, handing me another napkin to wipe the cheeseburger juice from my chin.

  “Froze, mostly. It was dark. And really cold.”

  “But, you know, what did you do? What did you talk about?”

  I give her a very uncharacteristic shrug. Maybe I’m just hungry and trying to get my body temperature up above ninety-five degrees, but I really don’t feel like talking about Livvy and everything that happened in the elevator. Livvy and I have had some ups and downs in the past, but I saw a different, private side of her and don’t feel like I need to blab about it to everyone—or even to Margaret.

  “Oh, nothing. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  Margaret’s eyes narrow and she leans her head across the table, motioning to Raf and me to come closer.

  Uh-oh. I can tell she means it, so I lean in and take what I have coming.

  “Now you listen to me, Sophie Jeanette,” she says. “I understand you’ve had a long day. However, unless you two would like me to share with your mom a certain story about a ride around the city with a certain boy on a certain motorized vehicle, I would advise you to start talking. Fast. So, one more time: what happened on that elevator for four hours?”

  “Tell her,” says Raf. “Unless you want your dad to use those crazy knives of his on me.”

  “All right, all right,” I say.

  I don’t tell her everything, but I do hit most of the important stuff. Margaret is not happy when I get to the part where Livvy was laughing about how good it felt to clunk me on the head.

  “No, really, it’s okay,” I assure her. “We’re cool.”

  “Humph.” Clearly, she is not at all convinced that Livvy is worthy of my trust.

  “So, how did you figure out where I was, anyway?” I ask, hoping to change the subject.

  “Simple logic, really,” Margaret says. “It only took me a few phone calls to the other girls on the team for M
ichelle and me to figure out that no one actually saw either you or Livvy leave the building. Since nobody could get in touch with either of you, it made sense that you were together. I also remembered that you mentioned to me that you forgot your math book yesterday. That is why you went upstairs in the first place, isn’t it?”

  “Right again, Sherlock,” I admit.

  “After that, the hard part was convincing Sister Bernadette to meet us at the school. She thought it was some kind of practical joke. I had to put your mom on the phone to convince her.”

  Mom raises her glass of soda for a toast. “Thank you—all of you—for finding my Sophie. She is very lucky to have such wonderful friends.”

  As the waitress clears away my plate—so clean it looks like Tillie licked it—Margaret puts her arm around my shoulders. “I know you didn’t tell me everything that went on in there,” she says. “But I’m willing to wait for the rest.”

  As she’s talking, I reach under the table to give Raf’s hand a squeeze. He locks his fingers into mine, and in two seconds, he warms me up more than the half-pound burger I’ve just devoured.

  Mom is right about one thing, at least: I do have wonderful friends. And unless I’m really mistaken about what happened in that elevator, I have one more than I did when the day started.

  Even with all the extra attention I get from my parents on Sunday (Dad cooks me all of my favorites and Mom surprises me with a gift certificate to a bookstore on the Upper West Side that specializes in mysteries), Monday comes quickly.

  “So, guess what?” Margaret says as we all take our usual seats in the cafeteria before the first-period bell. “I saw Father Julian after Mass yesterday; he’s really nervous that we’re planning something illegal.”

  “Are we?” I’m thinking it might be good to know.

  Margaret gives me her don’t-worry grin and a wave of her hand. “It’s kind of a gray area. He’s dying to know what we’re doing, but he doesn’t want to just come out and ask, because he’s afraid to know the truth. I told him about our plan to pay Prunella a visit. He almost had a heart attack when I told him I was thinking about taking Elizabeth with us.”