Lisa, Bright and Dark

by John Neufeld

  Which was fine, and it interested me like crazy, but it wasn’t the best thing to do. For we both should have talked about it—to other people. We shouldn’t have been so cautious and polite. We could have tried to do something for Lisa even then.

  Hindsight, that’s called.

  4

  Lisa next began to stay at home. She wouldn’t go out with Brian if other people were going to be around. Even in school you got the feeling that she wished we would all disappear.

  This was miserably hard on Brian. He and Lisa were the couple in school: bright, popular, organized. They did things. He was captain of the hockey team. She was always at his side when he wanted her, helping and cheering or just standing there smiling with her arm through his. Before. Now, Brian found himself alone too much of the time.

  He talked to M.N. about it, but she couldn’t really do anything. Since Lisa hadn’t mentioned illness to her again, M.N. decided she couldn’t mention it to Brian. And although M.N. tried once or twice to get her to speak of her fears, Lisa said nothing. She still saw a few people in her room at home, but with the shades drawn and one tiny light on only. When she was in school, we began being able to tell when Lisa was having a black day, as we began to call them, and when she was having a fairly good bright day.

  For she jumped from side to side for a while. Sometimes she would be her old self: confident, clever, open with everyone. Other times, she would withdraw, speak in a whisper, avoid meeting people in the hall or at lunch.

  It got to the point where by her clothes you could tell her frame of mind. On good days, she was beautiful. She carried herself well and moved like an older woman who knew what moving one particular way could do to someone watching. On bad days, she wore dark clothing that only pointed out how pale she was, stooped over, with her shoulders hunched in toward her chest and her head down.

  And all the time, Brian was going out of his mind, naturally. He couldn’t figure out what, if anything, he had done. What any of us had done, or what we were supposed to have been doing, which seemed more likely. Lisa decided she didn’t even like going to hockey games with him. Then, when she would go, Brian was so nervous he played terribly. He never knew when she would decide to disappear, which she began doing a lot, or to suddenly arrive when he wasn’t expecting her. He couldn’t accept invitations to parties because he never knew whether Lisa would go with him and he didn’t want to go alone, and he was afraid to find out what she would say if he did. It got so bad he once made a sort of pass at Mary Nell.

  “It’s absolutely true!” M.N. said. “He was just standing there, pawing the ground like an indecisive horse, and he asked me, just like that.”

  “Well,” I said, “what did you say? Just tell me, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I said no, of course. ‘Oh Brian,’ I said, ‘Lisa is one of my best friends. I couldn’t even think of going out with you. I’d die if she ever found out. Besides, her friendship means a lot to me.’”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he knew I’d say that, but he couldn’t think of anyone else to ask Lisa might not hate automatically.”

  “That’s a point.”

  “Still and all,” said M.N.

  “What?”

  “Well, it seems to me that if he really loved Lisa, he would stand by. He could wait. It’s not as though this can go on forever, is it?”

  “If you’re asking me,” I said, “you’ve got the wrong person. I’m not even sure Lisa knows what’s going on. Though I’m just guessing, of course.”

  “Yes, you are,” M.N. reminded me. I didn’t need reminding.

  I felt very sorry for Brian. Especially so a few weeks later. M.N. told me he had broken up with Lisa. I suppose I should have felt sorry for her. After all, Brian Morris is the gasp!!! in our class, and to lose him would kill any girl. But I felt worse for him than for Lisa.

  I knew he hadn’t wanted to stop seeing her. I guess maybe he felt he couldn’t go on without having his own black days, and maybe even the same kind of trouble, whatever it was. It was something he knew he had to do, instinctively, even though it must have hurt very badly.

  None of this touched Lisa. She came to school on good days and bad, and behaved accordingly. On good days she was cheerful and funny and would talk to M.N. about Brian as just a step in growing up, something that after all no one could expect to have lasted forever, and from which she had learned a great, great deal. On bad days, she said nothing to anyone, answering questions in class only with great effort and then almost inaudibly.

  About this time I noticed something that M.N. hadn’t. On her bad days, after she and Brian split, Lisa would walk from class to class with Elizabeth Frazer. Not with her, exactly, but at her side. She never spoke to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth hardly ever spoke to her. They just walked through the halls together, Elizabeth saying “hi” to people she knew and Lisa hiding behind her, saying nothing. As a matter of fact, it occurred to me that Elizabeth hardly even looked at Lisa as they walked. And if she spoke to her at all, Elizabeth did it out of the side of her mouth, as though the words were being slipped out secretly in case anyone were listening. It was sort of weird.

  And then, one day, we got down to the nitty-gritty.

  It was one of Lisa’s good days. She had been happy all morning, and nearly brilliant in English class, using words even M.N. hadn’t yet discovered. Her face, which is hard to picture because it can change so fast, was lit up, and her cheeks were flushed so that she looked like an Ivory Soap baby at sixteen—simple, clean, and unbelievably beautiful.

  After English class, we all went to social sciences, which, I might say, is perhaps the major waste of our time each day. It was a day on which we were supposed to have (and did have) a test, so I rushed on alone to take a few last-minute looks at my notes.

  After five minutes or so, everyone was in class and ready to begin except Lisa and Mary Nell. Our teacher passed out blue books and then fiddled around a minute, waiting for the two of them to show up. They didn’t. So she passed out the test, face down, and held us up a minute more, still hoping to see Shilling and Fickett arrive.

  “Betsy,” she finally said, “you’re near the door. Will you walk back and see what, if anything, is holding up those two girls?”

  I stood up, frantically trying to find a way to grab my notes to cram with in the hall. No go.

  It was natural to go back to where we’d been the hour before. I knew Mr. Milne had a break and wouldn’t be around. So it stood to reason that M.N. and Lisa might still be in his room, fooling around and probably exchanging their notes at the last minute.

  I opened Mr. Milne’s door and looked in. I saw M.N. right away at Mr. Milne’s desk, and I started to laugh. Mary Nell looked up at me, and I knew instantly I shouldn’t.

  M.N. had been bent over as I came in, with her head sort of under the desk altogether, doing something I couldn’t see. When she heard me, she looked up terrified, and motioned me to be quiet. I was. Then I moved forward a little.

  “Stop!” M.N. whispered hard. “Just don’t come any closer!”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Never mind,” M.N. hissed. “Just get out of here and get the nurse, fast!”

  “But what—”

  “Will you please just do what I tell you!” M.N. nearly screamed.

  Being curious and a little stubborn, I wasn’t going to go until I knew what was happening. I walked on tiptoes up to Mr. Milne’s desk and looked under it.

  There was Lisa, on her hands and knees, doubled over, busily poking a pin into her wrist—neatly, rhythmically, precisely, watching tiny drops of blood peep out of each hole she punched. And M.N., bent down, not saying a word, kept handing her fresh pieces of tissue that Lisa took with a sort of smile to dab at the blood. She would put the tissue to the wound for a second, throw it behind her, and jab again with the pin. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t say “ouch!” or anything. Just huddled there, busy stabbing and staunching, st
abbing and staunching, and M.N. powerless to do anything but watch and play her own awful part in the horrible thing.

  I turned away and ran for the door.

  5

  This should have alerted everyone—the school, Lisa’s parents (this time for real), and her friends. It didn’t.

  Adults—real ones—insist on thinking “soft” This process consists of looking on the bright side that, in most cases, is the dark one, saying that thus and so is only a phase. They feel there are some things from which “children” should be shielded. Adults are in many ways simply chicken: by protecting us, they protect themselves, which means that no one ever gets to the truth. This is not a good system.

  That it isn’t is what Lisa’s story proves, I guess. For example, after Lisa had been bandaged and sent home, the school psychologist met with her teachers.

  Our psychologist—“counselor” is another word we hear a lot—is a sweet old guy named Jeremy Bernstein. He’s about fifty and wears glasses thicker than mine even. Mr. Bernstein means well. I’m certain of this. His problem is that he just doesn’t know how to go about doing well.

  He’s a short man, shaped rather like a C, which surprised me a little because I’ve seen C-shaped people before but they’re usually terribly tall. Mr. Bernstein isn’t, but he’s as self-conscious as if he were, which is why he’s C-shaped, I guess. He’s also very thin.

  I suppose one reason Mr. Bernstein is self-conscious is because he can’t see. And he’s nervous about his job, which is dumb, because about the only people he ever sees are dropouts, or kids who are having difficulty staying in school even though they want to because of family reasons or something.

  Other than this, all Mr. Bernstein has to do is a ritual sort of thing with every senior who wants to go to college. Each one is sent to his office for guidance counseling—picking a college. Mr. Bernstein smiles, tells each to sit down, and then asks what that person’s first three choices are and where to send the transcript of his grades. That’s it. That’s guidance.

  So it wasn’t unusual for Mr. Bernstein never to have run into Lisa Shilling before. What was unusual, I thought, was the way Lisa’s breakdown, if I can call it that for a while, was diagnosed. After short conferences with all her teachers, Mr. Bernstein called Lisa’s home and told her mother that Lisa was suffering from tension (ah-hah!) brought on by exams and by the fact that she and Brian were having some difficulty. He suggested that perhaps the Shillings should take Lisa out of school for a few weeks to rest, take her somewhere she could relax and think and pull herself together.

  And that was that. No suggestion that anything was seriously wrong, or that poking yourself full of holes was anything rare in a sixteen-year-old girl who was supposed to have the world by the tail. (Who knew what the school nurse had reported, or to whom?)

  Lisa’s parents reacted the way we thought they would. They listened, sorted out what they wanted to hear—that Lisa needed a rest—and sent her off to Florida for six weeks. Alone.

  Now, Lisa’s parents are, on the surface, phonies. I can’t talk about their insides. Mr. Shilling is a terribly busy man, always leaping around the countryside in his job, talking big and being maybe big and looking like an older James Fox. He’s as good looking as Brian Morris is but with one difference: Mr. Shilling is flashy. He tries too hard to be clever, too hard to be quick, too hard at everything except at being himself. I’m not sure, after all these years, he could even remember what “himself” is.

  He’s the kind of man who looks great, but every time he stops before a mirror you hear him mentally writing a caption beneath the picture he “sees” in The Times: “Mr. Shilling shops at the better shops; among his favorites are Tripler’s, Neiman Marcus, and Brooks’.”

  In other words, caught by cold hard cash. His wife doesn’t help much to soften him. She’s about forty with a good enough figure and abominable taste in clothes. I can’t describe them because you wouldn’t believe it. Maybe it’s enough to say she looks like Shelley Winters playing a roadhouse pickup (I happen to like Shelley Winters; it’s the look I can’t stand): stretch pants two sizes too small, preshrunk sweaters with classic midriff bulge, a fur coat slung over her shoulders, and a scarf hiding the curlers in her hair.

  Mrs. Shilling is tough clear through. It won’t come as any surprise to find out that she and her husband pay almost no attention to Lisa or to Lisa’s sister, Tracy. The one detail that sums this lady up is that she lives in an enormously expensive house with two living rooms—one all in soft pink (curtains, carpets, furniture), which no one is allowed to enter without first taking off his shoes and which, in fact, seems never to be used; the other, which has been, is so uncomfortable there isn’t one chair in the entire room into which you can sink and feel at ease.

  Mrs. Shilling also talks funny, in a way she must have copied from the movies—through her teeth, with her lips tight and her mouth hardly moving. It’s what, out here on the Island, we call “Locust Valley Lockjaw,” and it’s supposed to belong only to the very rich and the very snooty. Mrs. Shilling tries hard to be both.

  Everything that Lisa’s parents wish they were, and pretend to be, Elizabeth Frazer’s really are. Mr. Frazer is a quiet, distinguished-looking man about sixty who has real style. His clothes may come from the same stores as Mr. Shilling’s do, but on him they look different. Better, of course, and in character. Mr. Frazer can talk with you and make you feel instantly at home. He reminds me of something I read about Franklin Roosevelt, I think it was. That he knew a little something about everything in order to make conversation pleasant for anyone he met. It’s a great thing, and I admire Mr. Frazer for it.

  Mrs. Frazer, too, is truly interested in what we’re doing. The only difference is that she seems busier than Mr. Frazer. The Frazers have an apartment in New York as well as their big house in our town, and Mrs. Frazer’s attention seems broken into two pieces like her homes. You can be listening to her talk about one thing and then, without your being aware of the shift, she’s talking about something else at the same speed. It’s a little unnerving. Still, she is a lady and she went to Smith, which is where I would like to go but where I’ll probably never even see a blade of grass. We just haven’t got that kind of cash, one, and two, I suspect I’m not that smart

  I can’t complain though, for in some ways I guess I’m the luckiest of us four. My father is an insurance salesman. He has always been one, and I don’t think it bothers him that he always will be. He makes a good living, good enough, he says, to take care of his family as they should be, and to have a little fun when we can. He’s about medium height and looks about medium in every respect. I like him and I think he likes me. As a person, I mean, not just as his daughter. This matters a lot to me. It means we can talk when we have to, and be calm and look at things realistically.

  My mother, of course, would like Daddy to want to be something more than he is. But she doesn’t complain with any real strength. She adores him. Although she rules the house when he’s in town during the day, she’s quick to turn it back over to him when he comes home each night. Not that she’s weak at all. It’s just that she feels she has so many other things to do.

  And she has. My mother is a joiner. She’s always been homeroom mother either for my sister (who’s four years older than I am and left college to marry a really sweet guy) or for my class or for my brother Ben’s. She’s on P.T.A. committees, on a Planned Parenthood board of some kind, is neighborhood captain or chief or whatever of the Cancer Fund. This, plus raising the three of us and keeping Daddy happy. There is less time for talk with Mother than with my father, but when something is really important she stops, takes a breath, sits down wishing like mad for a cigarette (she gave them up a year ago), and then gives you her undivided attention and advice.

  Advice is something Mary Nell’s father gives, too, but it’s not always easy to understand. The Reverend Mr. Fickett is a handsome man, but you get the feeling he’s not as strong as you would like a minister to
be. He’s always enthusiastic, but then he has to stop to be practical. He’s better at being enthusiastic.

  Mary Nell’s mother is a dream. She’s had four kids and at the same time has always had to be mother to a whole community. Mrs. Fickett is very tall, and gray, and looks like what my idea of an old-fashioned New England first lady must have looked like. She’s thin, with very strong features, and has a way of talking to you that really makes you feel like the most interesting person in the world. Her bright blue eyes sparkle, her mouth turns up in a smile that lasts as long as it should and no more, and her questions and interest aren’t pretended. I like her a lot…

  And now I’ll tell you something terrible. While Lisa was away M.N. and I began to doubt. We began to think that maybe Mr. Bernstein and the Shillings did know what they were doing. That maybe all Lisa needed was a rest and a chance to think, time to discover that what was bugging her was just that—something that was simply bugging her and not at all as serious as she had imagined.

  I guess this was because we were still younger than those people and, for all our determination and sympathy, still unsure. But it embarrasses me now to think about it, just the same. Because when Lisa came back, you could see at first glance that her trip wasn’t all she had needed. It wasn’t what she needed at all.

  6

  Lisa’s first day back at school was difficult for everyone. Teachers treated her tentatively, as though they were afraid she might go off the deep end any minute. We—us kids—weren’t sure what to do either, except pretend nothing had happened and wait for Lisa to give us the lead.

  On the surface, Lisa looked well. Her eyes were unbelievably clear, her face tanned, and she seemed calm.

  If you looked a second time, or looked the first time more closely, you could see underneath the calm. The eyes were clear, but wild, close to hysteria. Her voice was louder than before and her speech was faster, as though by being both loud and fast she were drowning out something the rest of us couldn’t hear.