Dark Companion

by Marta Acosta

  “I interviewed him for my story on the student aid program.”

  “He’s a darling. My mother loooves him. She has him for tea, and they moan about how no one cares about culture anymore and Art with a capital A, and then she gives him massive checks.”

  “Your mom donates money to the school?”

  “Oodles. As fast as Daddy makes it, she gives it away.”

  “Do you think I could talk to her for my assignment?”

  “Sure. You can come to my house if you promise not to scream when you see my mother’s paintings. They’re scandalous!”

  Mary Violet lived nearby and we walked to her house on narrow streets that didn’t have sidewalks. Often a car would slow down and the driver would call out a hello to her or a kid on a bike would wave and shout to her.

  “It’s an itsy-bitsy little town,” Mary Violet said. “We know all the tedious details about everyone else. That’s why I was ecstatic that you came to Birch Grove. Of course, it would have been more fun if you were secretly a super-dreamy guy dressed in girls’ clothes and hiding out from the Mafia.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Oh, I’m already over it. Not every transfer student can be a super-dreamy guy on the run from the mob.” She sighed. “There isn’t any interesting new talent in Greenwood.”

  “Talent?”

  “You know, guys. You go to preschool and primary school with these boys and you can’t even think of them that way. It’s like incest without the thrilling wrongness. It’s boring wrongness. Brongness.”

  “I used to feel that way about the boys in our group home. The fastest way to get over a crush is to share a bathroom with a guy. It’s way too much information.”

  “Was it a horrible orphanage? Did you eat moldy gruel?”

  “We ate stuff that came in giant cans from the dented warehouse store and could be microwaved. It was a group home, not an orphanage.” I told her a little about the ramshackle house and the rules.

  “That sounds hideous! I could never ever get up at six every day. I’m sure it’s child abuse. How did you get to be so smart?”

  “I had a friend who liked science and told me I should use my brain, so I started sitting at the nerd table in the cafeteria. They decided to use me as the subject in an experiment to see if anyone could be smart. That’s why I freaked out when we had to read Flowers for Algernon last year. I was paranoid that I might revert back to the feral kid I was.”

  “That book is freaky anyway. I swear, the people who pick assigned reading must be high. The Stranger, ugh. How were you feral?”

  I shrugged and my book bag slid from my shoulder. I pushed the strap back up while I thought of my answer. “I didn’t know how to communicate so all I did was cuss.”

  “You?” Her blue eyes widened. “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true. If you removed the obscenities from my vocabulary, the only things left would be you, can, and go. I didn’t have the words to express myself so all I felt was an inchoate anger. Now I know when I’m aggravated, frustrated, anxious, exasperated, exhausted, fretful, infuriated…”

  “Inchoate is an excellent word, but those are all negative feelings. What about when you’re hilarity-ated?”

  “Do you make up words all the time?”

  “Yes, because William Shakespeare made up words and he wrote poems, too, just like me. I believe I’m his spiritual heir.”

  “I don’t think he wrote any poems about roadkill.” I watched a woman walking with a toddler across the road. “I got vexed when I talked to Mr. Shaunessy because he didn’t understand why a foster kid would do anything to be with family. I’d be happy to have even one relative.”

  “Are you talking about Bebe leaving school? It is a little odd, but she had her own agenda. She’s the reason we have to be super careful about texting, because she was caught sexting.”

  “Everyone who has a phone sexts.” I wondered what Lucky sexted.

  “Not me, because I believe women must have mystique to be truly alluring.” When I stopped laughing, she said, “Bebe must have been sexting with someone from the outside because there was a humongous brouhaha that wouldn’t have happened with a Greenwood boy. I think it was someone older, because she was always going on about mature men.”

  “If Bebe ran off with an old guy it would explain why she hasn’t contacted you.”

  “You have a very naughty mind! We thought of that, but Bebe loved it here. We thought she was great, too.”

  “I’m the replacement.”

  “Don’t be like that. I like you more because you have a fabulous sense of humor and, besides, Bebe always seemed like she was only half listening to me while she was secretly plotting world domination.”

  One thing caught my attention. “You think I have a sense of humor? Really?”

  “Mais certainment!” Mary Violet opened a gate in a hedge. “That’s French for ‘true dat.’ Home sweet home.”

  The house was painted taupe and the paned windows had snowy-white trim. Ivy grew up to the second-floor balconies, and a brick path curved through a lush lawn to the red front door.

  “It’s wonderful,” I said.

  “It is, isn’t it? But wait until you see my mother’s Exposition of Vulgarity. She doesn’t call it that, though, so just tell her how lovely everything is.”

  Mary Violet walked to the side of the house. “My mom says children shouldn’t use the front entrance because we are too messy, even though I’ve explained to her that I am an elegant young lady now.” She opened a door and we walked onto a back porch. MV dropped her bag and book satchel on the floor beside a coatrack. Through the doorway ahead, I glimpsed stainless steel, pale stone countertops, and a huge butcher block island.

  “I’m home, Teresa!”

  A short, stocky woman came to the kitchen doorway. She wore high-waisted mom jeans and a pink sweatshirt. She scanned the floor. “Hang up your bag, baby.” She spoke with a Spanish accent.

  “Yes, boss.” Mary Violet sighed loudly and went back to pick up her things. “Teresa, this is Jane. Jane’s new at school.”

  “’ello, Yane.”

  “Hello, señora,” I said as I followed Mary Violet. My mother had cleaned houses and now the image of yellow rubber gloves and a bucket of soapy water came and went as quickly as a billboard sighted out of a moving bus.

  “Teresa thinks she is the boss of me,” Mary Violet said.

  The woman made a face and then tapped her own cheek. “Besito.”

  Mary Violet gave her a hug and kissed her cheek. “Who’s home?”

  “Your mama is in her studio and Bobby is upstairs. The Baby is at practice.”

  Had my mother been close to another family? I wondered, and felt an ache inside.

  Mary Violet said to Teresa, “Okay. We’re going up to my room for a while.”

  On the other side of the kitchen was a narrow staircase and we went to the second floor. “Teresa’s from El Salvador. Her kids are still there because she wants them to be with their family.”

  I was sure the reasons were far more complicated.

  Mary Violet led me down a hallway decorated with photos. “Behold, the family gallery. Thank God, my mom hasn’t put her paintings here. Yet. We live in terror that she will.”

  A thick rug in shades of blue and butter-yellow cushioned our steps. We walked by a bedroom with an open door and my friend called out, “Hey, Bobby,” and then said to me, “That’s my little brother, and he’s a pestilence upon this earth. My sister, Agnes, aka the Baby, is okay. She’s always off doing one of her sports things.”

  We went past a wide staircase with polished wood bannisters, and I glimpsed a luxurious living room below. “Is Agnes at Birch Grove?”

  “She’ll be coming next year. She’s in eighth grade now at Town School, which is where we all go before the boys and girls are separated because our parents believe raging hormones turn us into crazed sex fiends.”

  At the end of the hall was
her room, all done in pink and white with gilt-trimmed mirrors. Makeup and accessories completely covered the top of a dresser, and clothes spilled out of a closet.

  “Are all these clothes yours?”

  “They pile up somehow. I think they have coitus while I’m asleep and replicate.”

  “Why do the girls here say ‘coitus’ all the time?”

  “Because you can tell someone to coitus off and you won’t get detention. Besides, everyone uses the F word now, so it’s not special anymore. I’m fanatical about special words.” She kicked clothes into the closet. “My mother says that one day I’ll be buried under an avalanche of clothes and no one will ever find my body.” She forced shut the double closet doors with a small grunt.

  “MV, I heard that one of the teachers here committed suicide. Who was it?”

  She leaned against the doors. “Mr. Mason’s wife. That’s why he’s such a disaster. Mrs. Radcliffe was devastated, too, since her family, the Belvederes, sponsored Mrs. Mason to Rich Loathe. She was like an aunt to Jack and Lucky.”

  “I thought the school was nicknamed Bitch Grave.”

  “Yes, but polite haters call it Rich Loathe, even though it’s a crummy rhyme.”

  I noticed a slim lavender laptop set on a mirrored antique vanity table. “I can’t believe we can’t use computers at school. Would you mind if I checked in with some friends?”

  “Go ahead, but don’t download anything because my parents spy on all our online stuff since the PTA had a consultant come in last year to warn them about the dangers of the Internets.”

  “There are ways to bypass monitoring, but it’s harder when you’re all on a private ISP. It’s the same thing with phones. Dealers use burners, you know, those prepaid phones they can toss away.” I tried to sign into my e-mail, but I got a message saying ID Closed. “Oh, coitus. City Central must have cancelled my student account.”

  “Don’t you have another e-mail account?”

  “Yes, but I had phone numbers and addresses on this one. I guess this is why Ms. Chu makes us print out hard copies. I’ll have to get the information again somehow because I want to buy a phone.” I closed the laptop.

  “Well, when you get one, don’t tell Mrs. Radcliffe because of her issues,” Mary Violet said. “Come on and I’ll introduce you to my mom. Try not to stare.”

  “I don’t stare.”

  “Uhm, maybe not stare, but you have a uniquely piercing look as though you’ve got a caustic and contemptuous interior monologue going. Quick, tell me what you’re thinking!”

  “I’m thinking that you should come with footnotes so I can understand what you’re saying.” I followed her out of the room and down the main staircase. “Also, you let your imagination run amok.”

  “I adore that word, amok. What’s the fun of having an imagination if you don’t let it run amok?”

  “I think reality is difficult enough to deal with.”

  “Jane, it will be my life’s mission to funnify you.”

  “Now I’m the one living in terror.”

  As we went through the luxurious living room, I glanced up at an enormous painting in beiges and pinks above the white stone fireplace. After several seconds, I registered that the painting was of a nude woman in way too much detail.

  Mary Violet gave a small shriek. “You are staring! The art studio is horrifyingly gynecological, and my mother uses explicit anatomical terms like they’re perfectly normal, so whatever you do, don’t ask her about her Art.”

  We went down a hall to a sunroom and I felt the marvelous heat of the room seeping into me. All around us were easels with paintings similar to the one in the living room. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t know where to look.

  “Hello, honey.” A woman came from behind an easel. She was wearing paint-smudged denim overalls and her curly auburn hair was cut close to her head, making her appear young and boyish. She looked at me and said, “Hello. I’m Mrs. Holiday.”

  “Hi, Mommy. This is Jane Williams. Remember I told you she transferred in? She wants to interview you for a story she’s writing for the Weekly about the scholarship program.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jane. I’m happy to talk to you about the school fund. Come sit with me. Mary Violet, would you get us some tea, please?”

  “Everyone thinks she’s the boss of me,” MV grumbled cheerfully as she left us.

  I wove through a maze of paintings to join Mrs. Holiday at a yellow wicker patio set. This close, I could see the small wrinkles radiating from the outer corners of her gray eyes, like she’d smiled a lot. “What would you like to know, Jane?”

  I took a notebook and pen from my school tote. “Why is it important for you to donate money for scholarships?”

  She said the things I expected and then sighed. “Between us, no matter how much I give, I’ll never be in the inner circle since I’m only a second-generation Birch Grove girl. Hyacinth Radcliffe and her family go all the way back to the founding of the school.”

  “Does it really make a difference? It’s only a high school.”

  “Oh, it’s much more than that. Our lives in Greenwood revolve around it in one way or another. Sometimes I feel, I don’t know, left out. Maybe I make these donations for approval and acceptance.”

  “But you also paint these, uhm … you express yourself in these paintings and they’re very individual.”

  Mrs. Holiday patted my hand. “Jane, I appreciate what you’re not saying as much as what you are saying. Yes, there is a dissonance in my individualism and my desire for acceptance. I still don’t know all the reasons I do the things I do.”

  “Why is it important to know why we do things so long as we do the right things? The result is the same.”

  “Alexander Pope wrote that the proper study of mankind is man. In my case, it’s woman. If we don’t scrutinize our own psyches, how can we expect to truly comprehend others? The internal and the external are all of a piece.”

  “I’m interested in what people do, not why they do it.”

  “Why do you do what you do, Jane? You must be exceptional to have been invited to Birch Grove.”

  “I’m not. I’m ordinary, but I’m diligent because I want to succeed and have a secure career and a home.”

  “That’s a practical approach to life. But where’s the joy in practicality?”

  I hesitated. “There’s not much joy in living without security, Mrs. Holiday.”

  She put her fingers together like a teepee, the apex touching her lips. After a few seconds, she said, “I didn’t mean to romanticize poverty, Jane, but I believe that joy is essential to a worthwhile existence. Finding joy is a survival skill.”

  I thought of how Wilde’s lively personality got her through dark days. “Mary Violet has a plan to funnify me.”

  Mrs. Holiday laughed. “Come, let me show you my Art while we wait for our tea.” She tried to explain her paintings to me and talked about the “ripeness and fecundity of the female body.”

  I nodded my head like I was listening, but I was focused on a painting that was set on the floor, leaning against other canvases. It had vivid splashes of grassy green, yellow-green, and streaks of sooty black and ivory. “What’s that?”

  “Ah, my Lady of the Wood series.” Mrs. Holiday wrested out the painting and the canvases behind it to show several variations of the theme. “These paintings are based on the mythology and folk stories about birches. Birches grow all over the world, and they’re one of the first trees to leaf out in spring, so they symbolize rebirth to many cultures. They also represent a connection with the world of the dead.”

  “So they’re ghost stories?”

  “Oh, no! The Lady of the Wood is a good spirit who inhabits the trees. She helps those in need.”

  “The bark makes them look like they have faces. Especially at night.”

  “That’s why I love the grove. I never feel alone there. It’s as if the Lady of the Wood is with me. I know it’s only my fantasy.”

 
A chill ran down my spine as I thought of the way I’d imagined a woman smiling at me. “I’ve had strange moments in the grove when I could swear I see something … but it’s only the shadows.”

  Mrs. Holiday scratched at a splotch of paint on her overalls. “You may have learned in Biology that the human eye actually sees the world upside down, but our brains reverse images so they make sense to us. I sometimes wonder what else our brain tricks us into seeing differently.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe our brain only lets us see what we are prepared to see.” She smiled. “Well, it’s one of my theories.”

  Mary Violet came in with a tray of tea things and almond cookies and set it on the wicker table. After serving us, she asked innocently, “Did you enjoy my mother’s paintings?”

  “They’re very interesting.” I kicked her foot under the table.

  “Jane liked my Lady of the Wood series.”

  Mary Violet stood, knocking against the table and making the teacups rattle on the saucers. She threw out her arms dramatically and recited:

  “So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

  And so I dream of going back to be.

  It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

  And life is too much like a pathless wood

  Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

  Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

  From a twig’s having lashed across it open.

  I’d like to get away from earth awhile

  And then come back to it and begin over.”

  The poem sent an eerie yet hopeful sensation through me, and we were all silent for a moment. Then Mary Violet sat, bumping the table again. “That’s from Robert Frost’s ‘Birches.’ I did a term paper last year on poems dedicated to the birch and I should have gotten an A-plus, but I got a B. It was a dreadful travesty of justice.”

  “Your teacher told you not to use purple ink,” Mrs. Holiday said. “I’m sure your prose was purple, too.”