Black Mirror

by Nancy Werlin

  My father … I swallowed. We’d just had that talk, and he’d advised me to close my eyes, to take the scholarship and ignore my feelings about Patrick Leyden. But I hadn’t known any of this stuff then, and at least I could be sure that my father wouldn’t mean me any harm. That he was a man of integrity.

  But not of courage, or initiative. And he might not believe me either.

  I put my hands up to my face. I couldn’t think what to do. Turn myself in to Ms. Wiles? Tell her I was crazy, that I believed I was crazy? Maybe that would be safest—I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to take even the smallest risk. But if Daniel had been murdered—if Unity was the front for a drug distribution ring, now planning to expand into middle schools—utter evil, going after the younger kids …

  Who knew what Ms. Wiles had already been up to? People might be looking for me—scouring the campus and Lattimore.

  I needed to think. Oh, God. I needed just a little more time and space and then surely, surely, I’d be able to figure out something to do.

  It was then that I remembered Andy Jankowski. Andy, the only person on campus who could not possibly be involved in—whatever this was. Andy, who lived practically next door, above the garage.

  CHAPTER 29

  I could hear no activity in the cottage anymore, so possibly Ms. Wiles had left. But it didn’t really matter; from its previous life as a sunporch, the fake studio had its own door to the outside. I peeked around it cautiously and then slipped out into the calm darkness. It was the work of a moment to cross to the big white garage above which Andy Jankowski had his apartment. The windows on the second floor were dark, however. I lingered in the shadow of the building. What time was it? Could I wake Andy if he was there but asleep? How? Would loud knocking cause too much of a racket? There were other faculty apartments nearby—and people might be looking for me.

  I stood helplessly, unable to move or make another decision.

  And then, like a miracle, above my head a light went on. I stepped away from the side of the garage and looked up and, after a minute or two, a shade went up and Andy’s face appeared at the window. He looked right out at me. I thought about lifting my hand to wave, but I didn’t. It felt too heavy. I just kept staring upward.

  More lights snapped on in the apartment, and then another one appeared behind the downstairs door. The door opened and Andy came outside. He was fully dressed, but with unlaced boots and coatless. He was carrying his coat, however. He came up to me and put it around my shoulders, on top of mine. I looked up at him, but it was too dark to read his expression.

  “Frances Leventhal,” he said. He sounded puzzled, and a little alarmed.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. My temples were pounding. “I needed a place to go. I just needed …” I couldn’t go on. A friend. A real one.

  “I woke up,” Andy said slowly. “You were at Ms. Wiles’s. She was going to help you.”

  “She didn’t help me. I needed a place to go. Could I—please—could I come in? Just for a little while.” I could hear the desperation in my voice. I wondered if Andy would recognize it. If it would mean anything to him.

  He said simply: “Yes. Come in, Frances Leventhal.”

  “Thank you,” I managed. But for some reason I still couldn’t move. Then Andy reached out a hand, took mine in it carefully, gently, and led me up the stairs inside and into his apartment.

  Andy was an awkward host. He ushered me to an old, well-scrubbed kitchen table, removed a cardboard box from the second chair so I could sit there, and sat down himself, looking across at me for a full minute in uncertain silence before suddenly leaping up and pouring me a glass of milk. James’s favorite beverage. I felt my shoulders tighten. I sipped at the milk anyway while Andy drank his own glass with an expression almost of relief at having thought of something to do. He fidgeted in his chair. He shot me frowning, nervous glances. The room was warm. I slipped off Andy’s coat, and my own.

  There was a big clock on the wall. Eleven-thirty, it said.

  “She didn’t help you?” Andy asked suddenly. “That Ms. Wiles?” The huge wrinkle across his forehead was deep.

  I shook my head. I couldn’t look at Andy, so I looked around the apartment.

  It was a single, large room, with the irregular eaves and sloped ceiling of a space that had been created as an afterthought in an attic area. The walls were a bright, clean white and bare of pictures; plain horizontal blinds hung over the windows. Andy’s single bed stood in the far corner against the wall. The living room area was defined by an old brown sofa, a green rug remnant, and a large television. In the kitchen nook, where I now sat, there was a sink and a stove, but no real oven, only a microwave.

  Everything seemed extremely clean, and in perfect order. But the place was also very cluttered; there were piles of what looked like opened envelopes and catalogs on the floor and on most surfaces, and stacks of pristine cardboard boxes wherever they would fit. On the sides of some of them I could see original labeling: Bounty paper towels, 16 count. Windex, 20 count. All the stacks were in perfect alignment.

  Even if Unity had had real work, Andy was too good for them.

  Having examined the room, I studied the worn white spots on the kitchen table. It looked like it had been rescued from its tenth stay at the Salvation Army. There was something comforting about that, I thought. It was homely, and still useful.

  Finally I could look at Andy. He was looking back at me quietly. He said, “She should have helped you.”

  I nodded. I still couldn’t speak. I wanted to thank him for taking me in. I wondered if I could find the words to ask if I could sleep on his sofa. If I could just stay for the remainder of the night while I figured out what to do. I opened my mouth to try to get those things out. But instead I blurted, urgently: “Please can I use your bathroom?”

  “Yes,” Andy said. “It’s that door over there, Frances Leventhal.”

  I felt panic nearly overcome me the moment I was alone in the tiny bathroom. Tears ran down my face. I turned on the cold water and bathed my cheeks and eyes for long minutes. Then, slowly, I raised my gaze to the mirror above the sink and looked at myself.

  That blotchy face. The frozen expression.

  That delicate yet sturdy-looking girl with the bushy hair and the Asian eyes.

  Me. No. I still felt no kinship with her, but she was in trouble; she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t belong here, or anywhere. I pitied her. I feared for her.

  I closed my eyes. I breathed. I splashed more water on the face that felt so disconnected from my inner self.

  Finally I came out to find Andy pacing. He glanced at the door and my heart sank. Was he planning to escort me back to the dorm? Would he turn me in? Or maybe he’d done that already; my eyes flitted around the apartment until they found the telephone. Andy was, after all, a member of the school staff. It was probably his responsibility to turn me in.

  “Did you call somebody about me?”

  Andy stared. “Call?”

  I faced him. “Please don’t! Please don’t turn me in, Andy. I just want—I just—please, Andy, please be my friend. I need help—I need …” I stopped talking. I looked down. I couldn’t look at Andy. I hated myself. He was retarded. He had ten million problems of his own every day, I was sure. How dared I come to him? What was wrong with me? I was scaring him, I knew it. I had to stop, had to apologize, had to leave—right now, before I did any more damage to this nice man who was already the best friend he could be.

  “I need someone,” I said frantically again, instead. “I need a friend.” I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t help saying it. The words just came out. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong person. Wrong me.

  There was just silence.

  I managed not to say anything else. I found my way to the sofa. I sat. I couldn’t look at anything but my own forearms clutched to my stomach. Selfish, cowardly, stupid, weak, thoughtless, needy. Ugly Frances—

  “Only Debbie ever asked me that before,” Andy
said.

  “Only Debbie is my friend.” His voice wasn’t angry or upset. There was something else in it. Something I couldn’t quite identify, but even so, the vicious lecture in my head paused in its headlong pace and then … stopped. This was clearly important to Andy. This mattered.

  I found the strength, the space in myself, to look up. Debbie. That was the woman who used to work in the cafeteria. I was suddenly sure of it. I thought Andy had mentioned her once before too. I said, “Tell me about Debbie.”

  Andy sat down across from me. His voice was slow and sad. “Debbie Angelakis. She needs help too.”

  Astonishingly, I felt a pang of jealousy for this Debbie, who was Andy’s friend already. I swallowed it. “What kind of help?”

  Andy leaned forward. “Debbie needs everything,” he said simply. “But I don’t know where she is now.”

  I was just feeling my way blindly here. “You don’t know where she is?”

  Andy nodded. “I sent letters to them at the hospital. Three times. I told them I could take care of her. I have a job and an apartment. The dean’s secretary typed the letters for me on her computer so that they would look good. But no one answered. And now I don’t know where Debbie is. I send letters to her too, but for a whole month the letters have been coming back. Return to sender. The dean called the hospital, and he says she isn’t there anymore, and no one knows where she is, and there’s nothing anyone can do.”

  I stared at Andy. I wasn’t sure what had shocked me more: what he’d said—the terrors it so matter-of-factly implied—or the glimpse it gave me of Andy’s life, bigger, more complicated, more real, somehow, than I’d ever dreamed.

  “I hope Debbie’s not dead,” Andy said starkly.

  I was horrified. “But if she was okay a few weeks ago, then she can’t possibly be—”

  “She could so be dead.” Never had I seen such naked fear—or helpless rage—in anyone’s face. “They just put her on the street. That’s what they do to people. And things happen. Things happen, Frances Leventhal, and nobody cares. Even if she’s not dead, she’s out there somewhere. Alone. With no money or home. I want to go look for her. I would look on every street in Boston.” He turned away suddenly. “But I have to wait for winter vacation.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Oh. I’m so sorry.” And I was. I didn’t know what to do, or how to help. I blinked hard.

  Silence then. But tentatively, warily, I looked up and so did Andy. “You really want me to be your friend?” Andy asked.

  I nodded. Then I said, aloud, “Yes. And I want to be yours. I’m—I don’t have much practice, but I think I could be a good friend, Andy.”

  He watched me. I realized I was holding my breath. I was filled with a kind of longing. It wasn’t unlike the way I’d felt when I’d realized I was in love with James Droussian, and yet, at the same time, it was completely different.

  Then Andy said, “I’ll help you now, Frances Leventhal. We will try to be friends.”

  We reached out simultaneously. We clasped hands and shook, formally. Then, awkwardly, our hands fell apart.

  “What do you need right now?” Andy added attentively. “What can I do?”

  He’s great, I realized. This man is great.

  “What can I do?” said Andy again.

  Whatever was happening with Unity, there was still only one thing I—we—could possibly do. Even though it might not necessarily help, I knew that we should simply go right away and tell the police what I knew, or thought I knew.

  Right then, Andy’s telephone rang loudly.

  CHAPTER 30

  Every muscle in my body tightened. “Don’t answer it,” I said.

  “Okay,” Andy said affably. We listened while the phone rang. Six, seven, eight times. Only then did I realize that Andy must not have any kind of answering machine or voice mail service. I bit my lip. Thirteen, fourteen … there were twenty insistent shrills before the ringing ceased.

  I felt like there was a stone in my windpipe. I tried to swallow. It might have been Andy’s friend Debbie, urgently trying to reach him. Or somebody else; who knew who? This was Andy’s apartment, Andy’s life. I had no right to assume the call was about me. No right to tell Andy what to do or not do in his own home.

  I blurted: “I’m sorry. I was afraid it was Ms. Wiles, looking for me.”

  Andy nodded, as if I’d had every right to tell him what to do. “She wouldn’t help you before,” he said.

  I managed to take a deep breath. Later I would try to think of a way to help Andy find Debbie. Somehow I knew I had to do that. If I was his friend.

  But now—I wasn’t imagining things about Unity. This was urgent also. Andy wouldn’t be able to help as much as Ms. Wiles—the Ms. Wiles of my imagination—could have. If she had existed. If she had really been my friend.

  But Andy was the one who was here.

  “Like I said before, I need your help,” I said.

  Andy nodded patiently. “Yes?”

  How much did Andy need to know? How much would he understand? Carefully I said, “The stuff you told me about the fake work at the Unity food pantry? About the boxes that are always the same?”

  “You believe me.”

  “Yes. I believe you.” Then, all in a rush, I said, “Andy, would you be willing to come with me to the town police and tell them the same things?”

  The deep wrinkle appeared again, straight across Andy’s forehead. “The police,” Andy said softly, reflectively.

  “The Lattimore police,” I confirmed.

  I was completely tense again. It wasn’t that I believed it would necessarily do much good. I knew exactly how credible Andy and I would look. A retarded man and a teenage girl—one who’d recently lost a brother and had just had some kind of tantrum or breakdown in the school cafeteria. And I was overwhelmingly aware of the power and influence wielded by Patrick Leyden. By The Pettengill School, which might even have been involved in ways I couldn’t begin to imagine. I thought it very likely that a junior cop would listen to us and then show us the door.

  But none of that could matter. When you think you have knowledge of criminal activities, you ought to go to the police. That is what you ought to do. And … hope.

  And—I thought of my mother in her Buddhist monastery—pray.

  “Okay,” Andy said simply. He stood up. “Let’s go.”

  I blinked up at him. Somehow I hadn’t expected that we’d go immediately.

  “You’ll tell them about the boxes and about the fake work at Unity,” I said again to Andy. “And I’ll tell them what I know. That’s all we have to do.”

  “I understand,” said Andy.

  “Wait,” I said. I bit my lip. Maybe I was being ridiculous, but I found myself imagining Ms. Wiles, and all kinds of Unity associates—Saskia, George de Witt, other teachers, maybe, possibly even James—discreetly combing the campus for me at this very moment. Untimely death—drug overdose—a faked suicide … another faked suicide …

  A wave of pain for Daniel threatened to crash down on me, to drown me. I fought it—now was not the time …

  Then, like a life preserver, an idea came to me. I grabbed at it frantically. “Wait!” I said again to Andy. “I think—I’m not sure, but I think that my dad might come with us. If I asked him. I could call him from here.” I could trust my father; he wasn’t perfect, but I could trust him. “He could come and get us in the car.”

  “Okay,” said Andy. “Call him.” He sat down again.

  A minute passed.

  I looked at the telephone. I didn’t move.

  Another minute passed.

  “Frances Leventhal,” said Andy gently. “Are you scared?”

  I shut my eyes. Then I opened them again and looked at Andy’s kind, guileless face. I moved my head up and down.

  “They killed your brother,” Andy said.

  For a moment I couldn’t think a single coherent thought. How did Andy know about Daniel? Had he seen—? Did he have real facts he could tell
the police? Had Andy all along been sitting on information—?

  I managed to stutter, “How—how do you know that?”

  “You said so,” Andy answered. “Tonight, when we were walking home. Before I took you to Ms. Wiles’s apartment.”

  I had no memory of that at all. “I guess I forgot I said it.”

  “You didn’t really notice me,” Andy said, as if it didn’t matter. “You were sort of talking to yourself.”

  I took in a shallow breath. “Oh.”

  “Do you really think that?” Andy asked. “About your brother.”

  I could almost feel the wave of pain as it towered before me, above me. It would engulf me if I let it—if I let myself know and feel everything at once. I could not. Not now.

  “Yes,” I said quietly. I looked down at my hands. “I really think that.”

  Andy nodded. “Then we have to go to the police,” he said matter-of-factly.

  I said, “I know.” I stood up then, and so did Andy.

  “I’ll call my father,” I said, though I didn’t know what I would say to him, how I could formulate the words. I grasped the memory of my last conversation with him, of that fragile connection we’d forged. Then, with a sweaty palm, I reached for the phone and dialed.

  It rang once, and then I was diverted to voice mail. I hung up hastily. I wondered who my father, or Bubbe, was talking to at—I finally looked at my watch—12:45 A.M.

  Then, on impulse, I moved to Andy’s window and looked out on the Pettengill campus.

  I felt Andy come up next to me. “It’s snowing!” he said delightedly.

  It was true, although it wasn’t what I’d been staring at. Thick soft flakes were falling softly, beautifully, gently, turning the campus into a postcard—almost—of a New England night.

  But the campus at this hour should have been much darker than it was. Instead the buildings that formed the main dormitory quad were all awake, alive. Light burned in nearly every window.

  “What’s going on?” Andy asked. “Why is everybody up?”