Black Mirror

by Nancy Werlin

  I realized in that second that I wanted nothing more. My mouth formed a real smile for her. “Oh, yes,” I said. “That would be great.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Just before lunchtime I discovered Saskia waiting for me as I left my English class. She was leaning against the wall, backpack pulling her shoulders down. When she saw me, she straightened and said my name. With one hand she lightly brushed back her hair; then it fell into place, concealing much of her face. Towering over me by inches, she peered from behind the gleaming dark curtain as a harem girl might from behind a veil. It was just the kind of thing, I knew, that drove boys crazy with lust. And she was graceful even in her preppy duck boots. In the back of my mind I wondered why it was that she didn’t look ridiculous in them, especially paired with her—she had just nervously pushed back her hair again—diamond earrings. I blinked. Wait. Diamond earrings? No; they couldn’t be real.

  Again I was nearly overwhelmed with rage at her for being so beautiful. For having, taking, so much.

  “Frances,” she said again. “I just thought … I wanted to ask how you were doing. We—I feel bad about—well, you know. The Unity meeting yesterday. I don’t think Patrick meant to offend you.”

  The corridor around us emptied as everyone rushed off toward the cafeteria for lunch. “I’m fine,” I said stiffly.

  Silence. Then Saskia’s face hardened a little. “Okay. You can’t say I didn’t warn you that—”

  I interrupted. “You warned me I wouldn’t be welcome.” The walls bounced my voice around. I lowered it. “I just want to know one thing,” I said rapidly. “You supposedly loved Daniel. Anyway, you fucked him.” I thought Saskia’s eyes widened in shock or anger, but with all the hair, I couldn’t be sure. And I didn’t care.

  I said, “So, is that how you want to remember him, as some hopeless overdosing drug addict from a ‘disadvantaged background’? Is that what you think the truth is? Or don’t you care, so long as you can please Patrick Leyden?”

  I stopped, a little horrified at myself. I hadn’t even known those words were in me, much less about to emerge. But I also felt exhilaration, as if I’d hurled a rock at a window. The window hadn’t shattered, though, and I wanted it to.

  “Well?” I goaded. “I did notice one thing at that meeting, and that was how you wouldn’t say boo without first looking at Leyden to make sure it was okay. Like some little flunky slave girl. And—”

  Saskia cracked. She reached out quickly, forcefully, with both hands and shoved me. I stumbled and nearly fell before I caught the wall.

  “You ignorant bitch,” Saskia said. She turned away. Her boots stomped down the corridor. I listened to them as she disappeared from view around a corner.

  Half of me wanted to run after her and apologize. The other half was stronger, though. That half meant what it had said. That half wanted her to be in pain.

  The wrong-doer suffers, Daniel mocked. He is tormented to see his own depraved behavior.

  I slumped.

  After that, even though my feet took me automatically to the cafeteria, I realized as soon as I got there that I couldn’t possibly swallow anything. Still, I found myself looking around for James Droussian. Don’t create opportunities for violence. What would James think of the scene just past? Who had created the opportunity, Saskia or me?

  My eyes skimmed past a table of jocks, then one or two of nerds, before I spotted James, stuffing fries into his mouth as rapidly as possible while listening to Margaux Burnett. Seeing him like that confirmed to me that I had been nuts before. Most definitely James was not an adult. Which, I realized, meant that there must have been violence in James’s young life that had taught him what he knew about it.

  I suddenly longed to know what that might have been. But why would James tell me anything? I was no one to him. I spun around and barreled through two sets of double doors, out onto the snow-covered campus.

  I felt a little better once in motion. I sped up to a trot, almost a run, heading more or less randomly across campus.

  Ten minutes later I recognized Andy Jankowski outside the science building. He was working on the far side of the wide steps, methodically attacking the remaining ice with a metal spade.

  My feet slowed and then stopped. My mouth shaped itself into an involuntary smile. “Hey, Andy.”

  He looked up, recognized me, and after a second moved his arm awkwardly in a wave before turning back to his work.

  I went up the steps. “How are you today?” Ridiculous, I thought, that the entire width of the steps needed to be salted and cleared, when only the middle portion was really used. It just made extra work for Andy. For an instant I wondered if I could help, but Andy was nearly done.

  “Good,” he said. The edge of his spade smashed the surface of the last expanse of salted ice. He had astonishing physical competence. I watched as he carefully cleared every last bit of ice off the steps. Then, as if it had taken all that while to find the right words, he said, “How are you, Frances Leventhal?”

  There was the usual rote quality to Andy’s voice. But he looked at me quietly and waited, and somehow I couldn’t just say, automatically, “Okay.” I bit my lip. What was it about Andy that made me want to talk? “Not good,” I blurted.

  Andy didn’t say anything.

  “I really miss my brother,” I said. “I don’t know what to do. I thought maybe I could help Unity with the memorial project, but—well, you know. Yesterday. And just now, I—well, anyway.” I stopped. I ducked my head for an instant and then looked back up and shrugged.

  Andy lifted the spade and gestured to the bag of salt. “I need to take these inside now, Frances Leventhal. I’m done with these steps.”

  “I’ll help,” I said. I tried to reach for the spade but Andy shook his head and held it out of my reach. He wouldn’t let me lift the bag of salt either. Uninvited, I trailed him while he carried them inside the building. He stored everything meticulously in a big utility closet, and then swept some stray salt into a dustpan. He made no mention of what I had said; just didn’t respond. I was relieved. And, somehow, calmed. All at once I realized that I wasn’t alone, really. I was having tea with Ms. Wiles in a few hours.

  “What do you have to do next?” I asked Andy conversationally.

  “Go to the gym.”

  “More ice to clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh,” I said. And then, impulsively: “Can I come? I could help.”

  “No,” said Andy, his expression suddenly anxious. “You can’t help, Frances Leventhal. There are rules.”

  “Oh,” I said again. “But—well, can I come just to keep you company?”

  “I guess so,” Andy answered after a moment. He looked puzzled but said nothing more. He closed up the utility closet, and we began to walk together in silence across the campus to the gym. Andy walked slowly, deliberately, and it was easy for me to stay in step with him.

  My feeling of calm grew as we walked, until I was able to say, “Andy? May I ask you a question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why were you at that Unity meeting yesterday? Are you—do you—” I stumbled, trying to formulate the question. I’d wondered if Andy was one of the recipients of Unity charity, like me. But somehow I couldn’t find a way to ask.

  As it turned out, I didn’t need to. “I work at the Unity food pantry,” Andy said simply. “Two afternoons a week. They pay two whole dollars more than minimum wage.” He nodded emphatically. “It’s true. They do.”

  I found myself wondering how much Andy was paid by Pettengill. I guessed his on-campus apartment came with the job, and cafeteria meals too. “Highly skilled” and “gifted” were the words always used to describe Andy’s work with trees and shrubs. “Pettengill is lucky to have him,” they said. But if Andy was well paid, why would he know exactly what the minimum wage was?

  “I saw the poster and thought it was a work meeting that I had to go to,” Andy continued meticulously. “But it wasn’t.”

&
nbsp; “I get it,” I said.

  But Andy wasn’t done. He added matter-of-factly, “There’s never real work for me to do at the pantry, Frances Leventhal. Only pretend work. But I go there and pretend anyway.” He shrugged. “They pay me.”

  “Huh?” I said. “What do you mean, pretend work?” I had only the vaguest idea of what was done at the Unity pantry. “Don’t you pack up clothes and food and stuff?”

  “No.” Andy’s voice rose. “They have me watch the door.”

  “Oh,” I said uncomfortably. I understood. They’d made up a job for Andy. I glanced at his face. He was scowling, watching his feet as he walked beside me. I felt renewed anger at Unity, at Saskia, at all of them. Charity was their business, so couldn’t they understand how demeaning this particular plan was for Andy? He was competent at his job at Pettengill—surely he was fully capable of hauling and packing and sorting, or whatever it was that was needed at the Unity food pantry.

  Then I sighed. Because it wasn’t as if I were doing any better. It wasn’t as if I were helping anyone with anything.

  I’m ashamed of my own sister, Daniel had said.

  We had reached the gym. Andy hunched his shoulders as he moved toward the entrance. “Well,” I said, “if you really don’t think I can help—”

  “Those people think I don’t notice,” Andy burst out, and jerked open the gym doors. “They keep all the real work for themselves. But I’m not that stupid. And it’s boring, watching the door.” We stepped inside the gym.

  I didn’t know what to do; how to comfort him. Finally I reached out and put my hand on his coat sleeve. “I’m sorry,” I said feebly. “I don’t know what they’re thinking. Of course you can do real work. You do it all the time here at Pettengill.”

  “That’s right. I do!”

  “That’s right. But you said they pay well, at least.”

  “Yes.” Andy stopped scowling. “Two dollars an hour more than minimum wage, Frances Leventhal. That’s something.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I guess it is.”

  Another moment passed, and then: “Oh, well,” said Andy philosophically. “I have real work to do here.” He smiled at me, and though he still looked a little sad, I was relieved to see he seemed to know how to cope with it. “I need to work now, Frances Leventhal. You can’t help. You go away.” He opened another utility closet and took out a shovel and a bag of salt.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you around.”

  “Good-bye, Frances Leventhal.”

  I trudged away.

  CHAPTER 12

  Ms. Wiles’s on-campus apartment was part of a little cluster of small, cottage-like faculty homes located behind the science building, a seven- or eight-minute walk from my dorm. She had a charming little white cottage all to herself.

  It was dusk now, with dark drawing on fast. I arrived at Ms. Wiles’s door ten minutes earlier than I should have, and when I knocked, there was no answer. Her windows were dark. I sat down on a nearby bench, hunched into my coat, and hoped she wouldn’t be long.

  Already the campus lighting was on. As I sat on my bench, I watched a couple of other faculty members let themselves into cottages. A little further away I saw Andy Jankowski enter a small garage; a minute later, lights went on in the windows of the eaves, and I realized that his apartment must be located there, built into the loft story. I watched his silhouette as he pulled down the shades in each window one by one.

  Like a glass held beneath an open faucet, I felt myself fill slowly, inexorably, with sadness. With thoughts of Daniel. I held my arms and hunched over a little. I closed my eyes. Suicide. How could I not have known?

  We had even talked about suicide once, Daniel and I.

  In one of my father’s early science fiction novels—written before his prose style got so convoluted that it was almost impossible to read—he had created a religious oracle who lived in seclusion. Very rarely, the oracle would be visited by a pilgrim with a desperate question. I say desperate because, if the oracle chose to answer, the price for the questioner was instant death.

  Think about it, I’d said to Daniel after making him read the relevant passages. I’d wanted to talk about the book’s ideas, but I certainly wasn’t going to ask my father. You’d be deciding that sometimes pure knowledge, just in the abstract, is more important than your own life.

  Is that what our dear parent says in the book? He’s full of it. You could have other reasons, even stupid ones, to go talk to this oracle.

  Like what? I was a little indignant. After all, I’d read the entire book, and Daniel hadn’t.

  Curiosity. Plain curiosity about something.

  Oh, really? You’d choose to die just because you were curious?

  Curiosity killed the cat. Hey, I don’t know. Some people will do just about anything out of curiosity. He laughed as I made a face. Okay, not you, Frances.

  Not anyone! Not if you knew, knew for sure, that it would kill you.

  Daniel shrugged, not really caring. Frances, you’re forgetting that some people can’t control themselves. But all right then. What about suicide?

  Huh?

  What if you went to visit this oracle because you didn’t want to live anyway? You’re picking death, not knowledge. You just don’t have the guts to do it yourself, or maybe you figure you might as well get some big answer on the way out.

  I was silenced. It was plausible. More than plausible.

  Gotcha. Daniel tossed the book back at me.

  I’d caught it and gone away, brooding. And now I wondered, bitterly, if Daniel had gotten any big answers on his way out. I would never know. I put my mittened hands to my cheeks.

  And then, out of some animal instinct, I opened my eyes and sat up straight.

  “Frances!” Ms. Wiles said. “Hello!” She was standing before me, holding her keys in one gloved hand and a bag of groceries in the other. “You must be freezing! I’m so sorry I’m late—there was a longer line at the store than I’d expected.”

  I stood up hastily. “I was early,” I said apologetically.

  “Come in,” she said. “I bought us a lemon poppy seed cake.”

  “Yum,” I answered, following her gratefully into the warmth.

  I had been in Ms. Wiles’s cottage three or four times, but I always needed to look around and admire it all over again. It was small, yes; just a combined kitchen and living room, a tiny bathroom and bedroom, and a heated sun porch that she used as her art studio and that, unfortunately, had always been closed off when I visited. (“I’m sorry, Frances. I’ve never been comfortable showing my works in progress.”) But despite—or maybe partly because of—its size, Ms. Wiles had managed to make the cottage so vivid.

  She had painted the living room walls a deep rose; the bedroom was cameo blue. Most of her eclectic collection of wooden furniture (“nearly all scavenged off the street”) was painted white so that all the pieces looked intentional together. She had simply thrown loose fabric over the sofa and her ancient overstuffed chair. (“Lovely material? You think? Oh, I’m laughing—the one on the chair where you’re sitting is just a sheet from Kmart!”)

  And, she had such great things. She owned a sparkly turquoise floor lamp made from an old-fashioned, wheeled hair dryer, and a clock fashioned from a hubcap. (“My college lover was good at that kind of thing. Would you believe he’s in advertising now? Every now and again I see one of his commercials on TV. What a bloody waste.”) One whole wall was sturdy cement-block-and-pine-board shelving, crammed with wonderful art books (“It’s a terrible weakness of mine; they’re all so expensive”) and a very few lovely curios. On the walls she had hung many black-and-white photographs of old people. (“No, they’re not family. I have no idea who any of them are. I buy them in antique shops.”) Finally, she had an actual sterling silver tea set, the creamer of which I had noticed her caressing fondly the first time she invited me over for tea. (“Oh, you caught me. But I can’t help it. I love this tea set.”)

  Tonight I sat
on the edge of her overstuffed chair, teacup and saucer in hand, and took it all in like super-oxygenated air. It was all so civilized, so wonderful. I wanted to grow up and live in a place like this. No; I wanted it to happen immediately.

  “Feeling a little more relaxed now?” said Ms. Wiles sympathetically.

  “Yes,” I answered. And it was true. I smiled at her. “This is such good tea,” I said, knowing it would please her. “What kind is it?”

  “It’s called Blue Sapphire. It’s a special blend from the Ritz-Carlton in Boston. They know how to do a high tea.”

  “Umm,” I said, sipping.

  We drank our tea and ate our lemon poppy seed cake and talked about regular stuff for a few minutes. Then Ms. Wiles leaned forward and asked, “How are you, Frances?” Which was the awful question, of course; the one to which there was really no answer. But I didn’t mind it from Ms. Wiles.

  “I’m doing all right,” I said. I looked straight at her, and she looked straight back, and after a couple of seconds I had to look down at my tea.

  “Frances?” she said tentatively. “Listen, please. Yesterday at the Unity meeting—I think you misinterpreted things. No one wanted to hurt your feelings about your brother. That boy—what’s that boy’s name? James Something? Anyway, he—”

  “Droussian,” I interrupted. “James Droussian.” It came out a little accusingly.

  Ms. Wiles shrugged. “Well, he’s not one of my students. How should I know what his name is?” She frowned. “Or care. I hear things about that boy, Frances. You shouldn’t go by his interpretation of things. No—no vampirism was meant. And no insult.”

  “I wasn’t going by James’s interpretation!” I was indignant. “I can take offense for myself.” I paused. It was unexpectedly difficult to defend my feelings about yesterday’s meeting in Ms. Wiles’s presence, and against her opinion. “And—and I did take offense.”

  “I see,” said Ms. Wiles, and took a tiny sip of her tea.

  “On my own,” I said.