by Nancy Werlin
CHAPTER 3
Bubbe’s house is an old Victorian with a wraparound porch. I ran quickly to the side of the house, where I was less likely to be seen and spoken to. I stood still. The cold air felt wonderful; I gripped my coatless arms and breathed it in. I stared out at the blanket of snow glittering on the ground beneath the moon and wondered: When I got up the nerve to talk to Saskia, how would she react? Did she hate me?
I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder and whipped around, my whole body stiffening with anxiety. I wasn’t ready!
But it wasn’t Saskia who had touched me so tentatively. It was only Andy Jankowski. He had taken off his coat and was holding it out to me. Behind him I saw the porch swing still moving gently and realized that he must have been sitting out here, alone.
I gathered myself. “Hi there, Andy,” I said awkwardly. “I’m not cold.”
Andy nodded as if he understood me, but he still held the coat out. He’s a big, heavy, strong man in his forties, with a deep wrinkle of worry engraved permanently across his forehead. He was wearing layers of flannel shirts; I could count at least three, all identical red and black plaid. He continued to extend the coat toward me, and after a few seconds I felt churlish for continuing to refuse. I slipped the coat on. It was a wool pea coat that fell nearly to my ankles; the sleeves went inches and inches past my hands. It smelled of recent dry cleaning.
I looked at Andy. “Thanks,” I said uncertainly, and he nodded and turned a little aside, looking out again over the snow.
I thought about urging Andy inside the house so that I could be alone. But somehow I couldn’t get the words out, so we just stood, side by side, and stared in the direction of Pettengill. In the moonlight ahead, I could clearly see the white steeple of the school chapel.
Andy is a “gifted arborist,” the Headmaster was known for saying, “whom Pettengill is very lucky indeed to employ.” The Headmaster always made a real point of this, especially with new students, though I believe it had been a long time since any students tormented Andy. In the past I had only said “hello” and “how are you?” to him and to the other “special” employee at the school, a woman who worked in the kitchen. But right now, standing next to Andy and looking out over the snowy night, I was filled with a kind of peace. This was one person who wasn’t going to say meaninglessly: “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.” I could stand there and think my own thoughts. About … No, I would not think about Saskia. Not right now. But about my brother and how The Pettengill School had changed our lives, as freshmen, two years ago.
Pettengill is so close, physically, to the dying town of Lattimore. And yet, it’s located on a different planet.
Pettengill is a private preparatory school. It is quite beautiful. It boasts one of the most acclaimed Georgian campuses in New England. There are no fewer than five brick quadrangles, and in the summer and fall most of the buildings are covered with luxuriant old-growth ivy. The grounds—thanks at least in part to Andy Jankowski—are immaculate; the privileged students and faculty are well-dressed and energetic, full of life, vibrant.
But from the other edge of the campus, in winter, when there’s no screen of foliage, you have a clear view of the boarded-up windows of Lattimore’s old shoe factories. Nothing could look more dead than those buildings. Nothing could be more of a contrast.
When we were much younger and had just come to live in the town of Lattimore, Daniel used to stare whenever we drove by Leventhal Shoes. The name had been painted large in white on the brick side of one of the midsize factories, but by the time we moved to town, the paint had faded and a few of the letters were completely missing. Bubbe had stayed on in Lattimore after Zayde died and the factory closed, rattling around in her big house, too stubborn and too old, she said, to go elsewhere.
When we moved in with her after our mother left, our father claimed that Bubbe needed us. “I can write my novels anywhere,” he said, “and my mother needs the company and the care.”
This last was an outright lie, though I’ve never been sure if my father allowed himself to know it. Bubbe—and I resented the fact that she’d appropriated a title that ought to be grandmotherly, affectionate—was in perfect health. Moreover, she was the most unsociable, unneedy person I’ve ever met, with the possible exception of my mother. But unlike my mother, Bubbe was cutting rather than detached. She called it honest, of course. Forthright.
It was Bubbe’s opinion that my mother’s call to spirituality was a cover for the fact that she had gotten tired of supporting my father’s delusions as he wrote one after another obscure, unreadable, low-paying, and eventually unpublishable science fiction novel. Daniel and I knew this was Bubbe’s opinion because she aired it regularly. It was one of the reasons—one of the many, many reasons—that we were overjoyed when Pettengill—well, actually Unity Service—made their offer to the dying town of Lattimore.
“Through the generous offices of our chapter of the Unity Service Foundation, headed by Pettengill board member and Internet entrepreneur Patrick Leyden, our school has the resources,” declared the announcement in the Lattimore Weekly News. “And our local students have the need. We will join forces for the future so that all our children, rich and poor, have access to the best possible education.”
It was a forward-thinking, heartwarming, and generous concept on the part of Unity Service, said the local—and then suddenly the national—news media. It was a shining example of the power of young people to do good. Donations poured into the Unity Service coffers, and within months Unity chapters around the country were setting similar programs in place. New Unity chapters sprouted up overnight. There’d been articles in many major newspapers, magazines, and websites. And at the end of last year the President of the United States had actually given the organization, in the person of Patrick Leyden, a Freedom Award.
At the time, however, all Daniel and I thought about was that we were miraculously enabled to move out of Bubbe’s house. “Unity scholarship students at Pettengill will belong to the regular boarding student body, with full access to the school’s myriad programs and facilities.” It was the escape from Bubbe’s house that Daniel and I had dreamed of, and it had come years earlier than we had believed possible.
Of course, we’d had no idea how it would actually feel for us to be on Unity scholarships. No idea at all. Freshman year, we were completely at the bottom of the Pettengill social barrel. And we were supposed to be grateful for it too. Daniel had been. Saskia, who was also from the town of Lattimore, had been. But I—
I shivered. What was wrong with me?
“… cold?”
It took me a moment to realize that Andy had spoken. Before I knew it, he was offering to give me one of his shirts too. “No, no,” I said quickly. “I’m not cold. Your coat is wonderfully warm. I was just thinking about something.”
“Oh,” said Andy. He returned to being silent. I was abruptly aware that Andy would have given me all his shirts and never suggested that I go inside. I was filled with a new appreciation for him. Whatever his disabilities—some kind of mild mental retardation, I supposed—Andy Jankowski was a person who wouldn’t hurt, wouldn’t betray.
“Thank you for coming over tonight, Andy,” I said.
He began absently to strike his left forearm with the open palm of his right hand. “My father died,” he said. “And now Debbie is gone. She might be dead too. I don’t know.”
I looked the long distance up at him. His profile was impassive. I didn’t know what to say. Even if I had known, I was suddenly incapable of speech.
“When you’re dead,” Andy added, “people can’t see you ever again. And they miss you.”
I turned my head away. The moonlit glare off the snow hurt my eyes. I hugged Andy’s coat around myself and stood quite still next to him on the porch.
Sweet and clear came a voice behind us. “Frances?” said Saskia Sweeney. “Please, can we speak?”
CHAPTER 4
Eleanor Roosev
elt once said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I’ve read several biographies about her. She was plain and intense. When she and her beautiful, popular cousin Alice were society debutantes, Alice laughed at Eleanor and told everyone she was boring. Eleanor felt inferior then, I’m certain. She tried to hide.
I wonder—looking at pictures of the mature Eleanor, with her buck teeth and her hunched posture and her stubborn, thoughtful eyes—if her feelings of inferiority ever truly changed, at base? Completely? I just don’t see how they could have.
I know that’s not the popular view. I know that’s not what we wish to believe.
I was overwhelmingly conscious, as I slowly turned to face Saskia Sweeney, that she, and not I, would be the one of whom Eleanor Roosevelt would approve. Beautiful Saskia (with the Pre-Raphaelite heaps of hair, and the wide-set eyes, and the creamy skin, and the tall slender body, and, somehow, the exactly-right clothes) was also Saskia of the warm heart and the open hands. Who on earth wouldn’t approve of the tirelessly do-gooding Student President of the Pettengill chapter of Unity Service?
Me. That was who. And even though I’d vowed to change, it was Saskia who had come to look for me tonight, not the other way around. In my head Daniel’s voice jeered: Oh, Frances! A bhikkhu who envies others does not achieve stillness of mind.
“I’m sorry for barging in on you,” Saskia said, “but, well, I needed to tell you that—” Suddenly she looked disconcerted. “Andy! I was so focused on Frances, I didn’t notice you at first.” I saw her eyes flick over Andy’s coat as it hung about me and then her smile flashed brighter than ever. “I see you’re taking good care of Frances! Isn’t she lucky to have a friend like you!”
For some reason I always heard subtle slurs, condescension, a malicious little something, twisted into whatever Saskia said. Daniel had jumped down my throat the one time I mentioned it. It was a month into our first term at Pettengill. He had said I was jealous of her. She was never anything but kind to everyone else, he said, no matter how freakish they might be. In fact, she was extra kind in that case.
You know that, Frances. I mean, she even sat down next to you at lunch the other day! Or last week, whenever it was. What more do you want? Why are you always so negative about everyone? If there’s anyone you ought to feel comfortable with, it’s Saskia. You’re not even trying here!
I wanted to change. I did.
I said, “I’m glad you came out here, Saskia. I wanted to say something to you tonight, but I felt awkward …”
“I understand.” Saskia stepped forward. She is one of those people who always stands a half-step too close. She looked down earnestly into my face. “Don’t feel awkward. Please. I—we’re both grieving. I know that. Whatever our differences, Frances—we both loved Daniel.”
Her gaze was very intense. I felt like an ant captured beneath a magnifying glass. I was even more ashamed of myself than before. I should have been the one saying these things to her.
“Thank you,” I managed. “I know you cared for him. And I know—” Involuntarily, I found I had taken a step back. “I know he cared a great deal about you.”
I thought I heard the porch swing creak, and I guessed that Andy had sat back down there. Vaguely I wished he had not left my side.
Saskia said nothing, but all at once she enveloped me in a quick, light embrace. I wasn’t prepared. I stiffened. I did not embrace her back. She felt my rejection, and stepped away herself. Her face was as rigid as mine now. “Well, that’s all I had to say.” She turned.
“Wait!” I said.
I thought she wouldn’t, but then she did turn back. I searched desperately for words. “Thanks for coming out here. For talking to me.”
“It’s nothing.”
Not her fault that I heard You’re nothing.
I swallowed. “Saskia. I heard that Unity Service was planning to do some kind of … of memorial for Daniel. Is that true?”
“Yes,” Saskia said after a moment. Her voice was very reserved now. “People seem to think it would be a nice gesture. We’re not sure yet what it will be. Some kind of project, probably.”
“Well, I was wondering … um, that is—could I help? I’d like to be part of that.”
Saskia’s mouth literally dropped open in astonishment.
I hurried on. “I know it will look odd. I know I haven’t had anything to do with Unity before. But—well, this is for Daniel, and besides that, I really would like to help out. I’d do anything.”
There. However clumsily, I had said it. But as the silence continued, I felt a slow flush begin to cover my face.
“I’m sorry, Frances. I—people are very sorry for you, but I don’t think that … Well, I have to be honest here. You haven’t been a part of Unity, and Daniel was, and people might resent—I mean … oh, God. This is difficult.”
I blurted, “I was only thinking that—”
Saskia cut me off. “I’m sorry, Frances. I’ll ask people, but I just don’t think you’d be welcome.” She had taken a step or two forward again. She put her hand on my arm. “I’m sorry. I really am. Maybe you and I can figure out something else, some other way that—”
I found myself ducking down and darting sideways, away from Saskia. She looked startled. I backed away even more, skidding a little on the light drifts of snow that had settled on the porch floorboards. “Okay, I have to go inside now,” I said. “I just came out to get some air, but my father will be wondering where I am—there’s people to talk to. It’s okay, about Unity. About the memorial. It was just an idea.”
“But, Frances …”
From the corner of my eye I saw Andy, sitting on the swing with his feet positioned carefully below him, for all the world as if he were ready to jump up at a moment’s notice. Jump to my defense. Now there was a preposterous thought. I somehow managed to smile at him. Then I looked back at Saskia. “I’ve got to go now,” I said, and backed away. Away, away.
Inside, the house was even more densely packed with people than it had been before. I was conscious that Andy had silently followed me in and, obscurely, I was glad. I’d get him some cookies. I kept my head down. I made my way through the crowds as quickly as I could, trying to think only of getting cookies to give Andy.
But when I saw that the downstairs bathroom was unoccupied, instead I slipped inside and closed the door and locked it. I leaned against it. I held my elbows and took in some deep breaths. I closed my eyes. I breathed.
Occasions of hatred are certainly never settled by hatred. They are settled by freedom from hatred. This is the eternal law.
Shut up, Daniel, I thought. Shut up!
Tomorrow I would go back to school.
CHAPTER 5
Long is the night for the sleepless.
At three in the morning nearly a week later, I gave up and turned on my bedside lamp. I looked around my little shoebox-shaped dorm room and thought about how much it had pleased me, once upon a time. Freshman year I’d worked hard to imprint my own personality on the room—the first room that had ever felt wholly mine, even if it did really belong to Pettengill. I’d liked the result so much that I’d declined to enter the upperclassman lottery for a bigger room. Even now, sleepless, thinking obsessively about Daniel, I was insensibly comforted by being there, under the threadbare but beautiful blue and white pinwheel quilt I’d found at a yard sale, with the plain white cotton pillows around me. I kept the room impeccably clean and neat. Coming here during the day between classes and meals and enforced activities, being here at night … kept me sane. Even during the moment of silence in Daniel’s memory at this week’s school assembly, I had been able to imagine myself here, alone. Safe.
Sitting up in bed, I tightened my arms around my stomach. I had cramps, but they actually weren’t too bad this time, and I knew they weren’t the cause of my wakefulness. In the dimness, I could see the shadowy edges of the two blue rag rugs that warmed the floor; of the school-provided computer on my desk; of the big acrylic p
aintings on the walls.
Until now the acrylics, which I had joyously labored over in the art studio, were the only things I’d allowed on the walls. I’d loved the contrast of the ferocious acrylics with the gentle quilt and rugs. And I’d loved Ms. Wiles for her reaction to them. I’d shown them to her, shyly, when she came to Pettengill to teach. She hadn’t made the mistake of thinking my paintings were simply blank dark squares. “Good God, Frances,” she’d said. “You can live with those? They don’t give you nightmares?”
I’d shaken my head, and she’d laughed a little. Except for Daniel, early freshman year, she was the only person I’d ever invited into my room.
But now something else had joined the acrylic paintings on the walls. I didn’t really want to look at the new addition, but I did. It was an oval mirror, swiped from my room at Bubbe’s. I had put it up here, and draped it in the black of mourning. A length of black silk, also swiped from Bubbe’s. I supposed I could have chosen Buddhist white, rather than Jewish black, but the black had been available. And it didn’t really matter to me which religion I expressed mourning in. The cloth was a personal symbol. It was so that I would have a visible reminder of Daniel’s death at all times. It was so that I would remember my failure.
In the past days back at school I had made no progress in becoming more like the sister that Daniel would have wanted; the sister who might have helped him; the sister in whom he might have confided. I had tried, feebly. Instead of sitting alone at meals, I had steeled myself to go over and sit with some other kids. I’d tried various groups. The studious geeks one day. The burnouts another. The music freaks on a third occasion. Even the artsy types, a group with which anyone would have thought I’d fit in smoothly. But I didn’t. I didn’t fit in anywhere.
No one told me to go away or indicated in any way that I wasn’t welcome. In fact, everybody was scrupulously polite to me. But all I could do was listen to the other kids talk about things I didn’t care about or was not part of. Who was seeing whom. SATs. Weekend plans. I couldn’t make myself participate. And I could tell they wondered what I was doing there.
