Black Mirror

by Nancy Werlin

  The one group I took care to avoid, however, was probably the one I should most have persisted with. But after Saskia’s rebuff, I didn’t have the nerve to approach Daniel’s friends from the Unity Service charity group. I did imagine, once or twice, that they were looking over at me. One evening Saskia’s gaze actually intersected mine, and I thought she looked penitent—but out of habit, or fear, or the remains of humiliation, I turned away.

  In my bed now, I sighed. Frustration and anguish fisted, again, in my stomach.

  I’d seen several signs posted for the Unity Service meeting at which they were going to discuss some memorial project in Daniel’s honor. It was tomorrow. Could I just show up? It had said All welcome. They couldn’t throw me out, surely?

  Maybe Saskia and the others just needed to be sure of my sincerity and desire to change.

  My eyes burned. I tried closing them. I longed for sleep.

  It wasn’t that I wasn’t tired. But my brain wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. It was already revving up even more. At lunch with the burnouts, Gail Manuel and Wendell Butler had been talking about how getting high relaxed them, helped them sleep. I was envious.

  I needed air. I pushed back the quilt and got dressed rapidly; baggy old jeans, my biggest sweatshirt, warm wool socks, thick boots. Around my neck I wound an ancient gray knitted scarf that had belonged to Daniel (before Saskia gifted him with a cashmere one). Then I grabbed my coat and quietly slipped out into the hall and down the dorm stairs.

  Of course no one was supposed to leave the dorm after curfew, but our housemother, Mrs. Kingston, was old, and so long as you were careful in the front entryway, it was fairly easy to get past her apartment’s perpetually ajar door. I had no trouble. Soon I was outside and pulling on my mittens.

  It wasn’t difficult to see my way; the campus was thoroughly covered with lighting and the moon was full. Snow crunched beneath my feet as I headed across the girls’ residential quad. There was a wooded area not too far away with a little-known path that took you from Pettengill to Lattimore. It was a place Daniel had liked, and it would be pretty there now in the snow and moonlight. It would feel, perhaps, like I was somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Hokkaido in winter, perhaps. That was where my mother had grown up. I had seen pictures of it.

  “Have you—are you—what about Mother?” I had said to my father. It was the morning of Daniel’s funeral. It had taken me that long to bring it up. To debate internally about calling her myself and realize that I couldn’t. Couldn’t. Unbelievable. But that was my family. Our family. My family.

  We were at the kitchen table, not eating. My father’s hands were cupped around his coffee mug. He was watching the liquid inside as if floating on its surface were some code he might decipher if he squinted hard enough. He said, “I called her. I told her.”

  I thought I heard Bubbe snort. I ignored her. Something in me went very still. “Then is she—”

  He interrupted me, speaking rapidly. “It’s too far for her to come, Frances. She’s upset. Of course she’s upset, in her way. But it would do no good for her to come. It wouldn’t change anything. We—that’s over, Frances. It’s just … it’s over. It’s been over. Sayoko’s not—” He stopped. Then, strongly: “She can’t come.”

  And in my inner ear I heard Daniel whisper: She has found delight in freedom from attachment.

  I don’t know what I felt then. I tried to see my father’s expression, but he was holding up his mug before his face. And so after a minute I simply said, “Oh.” Because I had trained myself: no scenes. No drama.

  I hadn’t believed it, though. I couldn’t believe it. And so I’d taken a deep breath and e-mailed. Three times I e-mailed her, at the general address for the monastery—hating that there was no privacy—and then, finally, she e-mailed back with another Buddhist quote.

  Everything is always changing.

  She had added I love you, Frances, but that hadn’t mattered. It was like getting a reply from Daniel’s book of aphorisms, except Sayoko was serious. She loved no one, it was clear—except Buddha and the hope of enlightenment. My hands had actually been shaking as I deleted the e-mail.

  I was not enlightened.

  Suddenly breathing hard, I plunged into the little wood. A couple of other people had been here before me; the imprint of their footprints glittered on the narrow path in the recent snow. I deliberately stamped my feet into the snowy crust where the other prints weren’t, leaving a distinct trail of my own passing. Left. Right. Left. It was oddly satisfying.

  But then I noticed how pathetically small my footprints were. Anyone coming up this path would think they had been made by a child. Would smile at the thought. Would perhaps imagine a cute little girl in a pink snowsuit, happy, delighting in winter.

  The idea infuriated me. I could kick the path clear of snow, I thought. I could stomp up and down until it was trampled flat; until I had destroyed the big footprints; until the only path here was the one I had made. No sooner had I had the thought than I began to execute it. With the side of my boot I swept sideways at the crust of snow on the path. I jumped up and down to destroy the larger footprints. With my head down, I went furiously forward, crunching, stomping, jumping, flailing, sweeping, kicking.

  I don’t know why I looked up.

  There were two figures just ahead. Even in the moonlit dark, I could see that they were bulky figures with shoulders. Men. Not boys, not students. One was seated on a large rock, the other leaned against a tree trunk. There was something stealthy about their appearance. Until they heard me, they had clearly been deep in conversation. But at my noisy approach, their heads lifted quickly and turned toward me. And although I couldn’t see their features or expressions, I didn’t need to. They were looking straight at me, and they were not pleased at being interrupted.

  What I did next was stupid. But I couldn’t help it.

  Instinctively I turned and ran.

  CHAPTER 6

  Even for the tall, strong, and athletically fit, I wouldn’t recommend running through the snow at night in heavy boots. For me it was pure disaster within thirty strides. No sooner had I emerged from the wooded area back onto the well-lit grounds of Pettengill than my left foot struck something beneath the snow and I went sprawling onto my hands and knees.

  I screamed. And while I fell, somehow I had enough time for the flashing thought that Saskia wouldn’t have tripped, wouldn’t have fallen.

  She wouldn’t have been out alone at night either.

  I had lost my right mitten; my fingers were bare and icy, clutching snow. There was a dull roaring in my ears—my own inner panic. Frantically I began to clamber to my feet.

  And then a pair of arms grabbed me at the waist and assisted me the rest of the way upright. Worried eyes peered down. “Frances? Are you okay? I didn’t mean to scare you, back in the woods. It’s the middle of the night! What are you doing out here?”

  I blinked, astonished at being towered over, held, and yet apparently unthreatened. After a second or two the face and voice and words all came together in familiarity and began to make sense. James Droussian, post-grad student and drug dealer, frowning at me in what appeared to be genuine concern and breathing perfectly normally, just as if he hadn’t been running after me. The contrast with my own labored panting was very obvious.

  Apparently I had not after all been in mortal danger.

  “Are you okay? Frances?”

  My knees hurt. So did the heels of both hands. And so did the mysterious organs of humiliation, located in invisible pouches just below each eye and in the center of the throat.

  “Yeah,” I managed.

  I found my gaze drifting beyond James, toward the woods. I saw no one else there, or anywhere around. It had obviously been James I’d just seen in the woods, even though he was a boy, not a man. My mistake, in the dark. Had the other figure been a boy too? Another Pettengill student? Somehow it didn’t seem possible; there had been something so mature about the stance�
�well, I’d thought that instantly of both figures, and been wrong. One had been James. Still … what had they been doing? At this hour? Something about how they looked had panicked me …

  “Frances? Say something. Anything. You’re really okay?”

  “Yes,” I said absently to James as I still watched the edge of the woods. “I’m fine. Thanks.” Then I gathered myself and looked straight up at him. “But what are you doing out here? It’s got to be four in the morning! And who was that with you in the woods just now?” The words spilled out quickly, suspiciously. I didn’t care. His behavior was suspicious. What was he up to? Middle of the night drug deals? I put my hands on my hips. “Well?” I said defiantly. “Why did you chase me like that?”

  James reached into a pocket and withdrew something. Grinning, he dangled it above my nose. “To give you back your mitten.”

  I felt myself blush. I snatched the mitten but didn’t back down. “What are you doing out here?”

  He countered, easily, “Stuff. How about you?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I needed some air.”

  James nodded. “Stuff of your own, huh?” Then in some subtle way his body shifted, and even in the dark he looked somehow … cheerful. Cheerful and dumb. “So hey, can I walk you back to your dorm?” James asked. “Maybe you can, you know, still get an hour or two of sleep.” In a curiously graceful, courtly gesture, he offered an arm.

  I didn’t move. James probably was dumb. Why else would anyone deliberately do an extra year of high school? You had to be either dumb or insane. Although James might have business reasons for staying in high school. No better clients than a bunch of rich preppies, after all.

  Daniel hadn’t been a rich preppy. Again I wondered, How had he afforded his drug habit?

  Focus. I had to focus. “James, you didn’t say who that was with you,” I repeated. “Or what you were doing.”

  He gave me that smile of his, but this time I didn’t feel charmed. He said cheerily, “I’m not answering those questions, little Frances. It’s business, okay?”

  Business. Little Frances.

  In my mind’s eye I could see Daniel again. No. Not Daniel. Daniel’s corpse.

  James was still offering me his arm. His face was all dumb concern again. Or still. I wasn’t sure. I found I had taken his arm. I allowed him to guide me back toward Pettengill. Suddenly, intensely, I knew that whoever was back there in the woods, whoever it was that I had glimpsed was someone I did not want to meet.

  Business.

  And then the organs of humiliation pulsed. They pushed against my tear ducts. Business. James’s dumb grin. Grinning, while my brother was dead.

  James was talking. “Seriously, you should’ve seen yourself. You came along, stomping the ground like you thought you were the Fee Fie Foe Giant. Then you took one look at us and ran like Bambi. It was pretty hilarious.”

  Hilarious. He was going on. On and on …

  “Shut up,” I whispered fiercely. Then I screamed it. “Shut up! Shut up!”

  I could feel James’s surprise. I didn’t look at him. I wanted to say it again but I didn’t have the extra breath. I found I was already using everything I had.

  “Hey,” James was saying. “Hey, Frances.” Still holding my arm, he stopped walking and swung around to face me. I stopped too. We had reached the main part of campus. The lighting was stronger, and I could see James’s expression clearly. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I understand you’re upset. You have a right. You’ve had a tough time. I was trying to, um, to distract you.”

  “Distract me.” I discovered that, after all, I had plenty of breath. Rage consumed me. I wasn’t afraid of James Droussian, no matter how many Evil Drug Distribution Men he hung out with in the woods.

  James was still looking down at me. Then he said earnestly, “I’ve thought about Daniel a lot.”

  “Oh, really?” I said. “Why would that be? Let me think. Could it be that Daniel was a good customer of yours? Are you feeling guilty?”

  “Frances, Daniel and I got high together a couple of times, no big deal, but that was all—”

  “Business,” I mimicked recklessly. “Just business. Is that what you tell yourself?”

  James tugged at his ponytail. “Frances, I swear to you, I never sold Daniel smack. I swear. I had nothing to do with—”

  “Right,” I said. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

  I began marching across the quad alone. I felt James fall into step beside me again, loping easily while I was moving as rapidly as I could without running. This would probably make a funny cartoon too. Bambi and the Fee Fie Foe Giant. Ha. But wait—why did I care? So what if James Droussian found me funny? Who cared? What was wrong with me?

  “Believe me, I would never sell smack,” James was insisting. “Some things are okay, you know, but others—”

  I couldn’t leave that alone. I stopped again. “Oh, you have principles. You make distinctions. Isn’t that nice? I feel much better.”

  “Listen, Frances, Daniel was responsible for his own actions. Just like you’re responsible for yours. And I am for mine.”

  “Whose stupid philosophy is that? Cain’s?”

  “Huh?” James couldn’t follow me.

  “You remember Cain,” I said rapidly. “Brother of Abel. Killer of Abel. ‘I am not my brother’s keeper.’ That’s your philosophy. That’s what you’re saying.”

  James’s forehead furrowed. “What?” He bent down to look solemnly into my eyes. “No, I’m not. He wasn’t my brother. Frances, what are you trying to say? That you feel responsible for Daniel’s death?”

  My jaw dropped. For a second I just gaped. Idiot! How dare he? James Droussian wasn’t even someone who could be respected.

  I slapped him.

  CHAPTER 7

  If only I could be invisible. That lingering fantasy from childhood swept over me the next afternoon as I crossed the main Pettengill quad to the stark New England Congregational chapel where Unity Service conducted their meetings. I’d only ever come to the chapel for large assemblies, during which the building’s main entrance was thrown open, so this time the weight of the heavy wooden double doors was a surprise to me. I pulled hard at one of them. The door shifted a few unwilling inches, and I was able to slip inside before it thudded shut. I felt I’d barely escaped being crushed.

  For some reason I thought of James Droussian and the dumbfounded yet knowing look on his face after I’d slapped him early that morning. A feeble wash of renewed anger stirred inside me. Somehow it strengthened me a little.

  Right now I had the exact same feeling in my stomach that I’d had the one time I’d made myself go to a school dance. Daniel and I had both been freshmen.

  Are you going? I’d asked Daniel, trying not to sound desperate, trying not to sound scared. Will you hang out with me if I come?

  Sure. Don’t be an idiot. There’ll be people to talk to. It’ll be fine, Frances.

  But it hadn’t been fine. I was dressed all wrong; I couldn’t think of anything to say to anyone. And then Saskia had come over to Daniel as he stood a little apart from me, and she’d smiled, shyly, and I’d noticed her hair had gotten longer, and she wasn’t wearing her glasses anymore … and she’d asked Daniel if he wanted to dance, and he’d said Yes.

  For a moment I thought again of not attending the Unity meeting. I was already late; I’d dithered so much about coming. I could still return to my room—my safe room with its satisfying, dark paintings. But then I remembered what else was now on the wall of my room. The mirror with its drape of black silk. The mirror that said: You owe your brother. The mirror that said: You were so wrong about everything.

  I marched myself toward the meeting room.

  Almost at once I heard several voices clearly. I peered into the room and saw a clump of Unity Service people in a large circle of folding chairs. They were intent on one another; no one noticed me at first as I lingered just outside the door with my doubts. But then
Wallace Chan looked up. “Frances!” He sounded shocked.

  Everyone stopped talking. People turned toward me. Everyone stared. Their faces all blurred together and for a few seconds I couldn’t have put a name to any of them.

  I stood in the doorway. I couldn’t move.

  Then I heard a wonderful familiar voice saying my name. Ms. Wiles, my art teacher, was there in front of me. I was surprised to see her, and then relieved. “Come sit with me,” she said. “We’re just getting started.”

  My lips moved in the semblance of a smile. I settled uneasily on the edge of the chair beside her. At least Saskia was a few chairs away. “Hi,” I said to the air, aware that I sounded dreadfully shy and unsure. I slid my backpack to the floor. I thought about at least unwinding Daniel’s scarf; everyone else had taken off their outdoor things. But I didn’t.

  As the awkward silence continued, I looked covertly around the circle. Besides Saskia and Wallace, I noted Patrick Leyden. A few teachers; the associate dean. And lots of students: George de Witt; Julie Binell; Jim Amara; a couple of other Lattimore-scholarship students, José Lamas and Pammy Rosenfeld. Eric Zhu. Robert Jenkins. Allysa Axelband. A freshman. No idea. Jenny Rubin. Mandy Somebody. James—

  James! To my knowledge he wasn’t a Unity member. What was he doing here? His chair was pushed slightly back and out of perfect alignment with the circle. I felt personally affronted by his presence. I hurried my eyes past him. Margaux Burnett. No idea. Sean Van Dorpe. Mahmoud Hassona. Laurel Boylan. Nicole Ruffine. I gave up on names and just counted. Twenty-nine.

  No, thirty. Andy Jankowski was not part of the circle, but sat against the wall on the other side from where I was. He smiled tentatively at me, and I found myself smiling back. I straightened in my chair.

  I looked at Saskia. She was looking at Patrick Leyden. Patrick Leyden, God’s gift to Pettengill. Saskia seemed to be asking a question with her expression.