Black Mirror (11 page)

My bewilderment was beginning to change into some kind of relief. If Ms. Wiles agreed with me about Patrick Leyden, then all was well. I was still a bit confused, though. “But you recommended I work with him. With Unity.”

“Yes.” Her voice was suddenly serious and firm. “And I still do.”

“But if he’s such a—” I discovered that I couldn’t say
dickhead
to my teacher, even though she had used it herself a moment ago. “Such a jerk, then I don’t understand.”

“The best leadership doesn’t always come from the people you’d pick as your friends, Frances. Sometimes you have to be able to work with—and for—someone you dislike, for the purpose of a higher goal.”

“Oh,” I said, then we both fell silent.

When Ms. Wiles spoke again, her voice was very gentle. “But more importantly, Frances, I think you need to participate in something. Even if you have to force yourself a little bit. You need to be part of something that involves other people. It will do you good.”

“Oh,” I said again, cringing. Beneath her words, I heard all kinds of things that she hadn’t actually said. Did
she
see me as a pathetic loner too, then? I supposed she must.

Another long silence.

“Well,” said Ms. Wiles finally. “I need to go now, Frances. But think a little more about what I’ve said, okay?”

I couldn’t bear to have her think me pathetic. I needed—needed—

If it ought to be done, then apply yourself to it strenuously
, Daniel said in my head. I could almost see him, looking down at his folded hands and with that supercilious Buddha-quoting expression on his face.

“Wait,” I said. “I’ve thought enough. I know you’re right. I’ll join Unity and help out all I can. I’ve made up my mind.”

And I felt a great peace sweep over me. This, at long last, was the right decision.

I
was looking at
Beloved
, which I still hadn’t even begun reading, when the phone rang again. Twice in one evening? Maybe it was Ms. Wiles calling back. I answered tentatively.

The voice was feminine, sweet, assured—and somehow also tense. “Frances? I’m in your dorm right now. Downstairs. I want to talk to you. Can I come up?”

She hadn’t identified herself, but then, she didn’t need to. It was Saskia.

I reminded myself that I was going to join Unity and that, as Ms. Wiles had said, I’d need to work with people I maybe didn’t like.

“Yes,” I said. I cleared my throat and said it again more strongly. “Yes, sure.” And then, hating myself but feeling it was best to start on a friendly note, added sweetly: “Please come up.”

“See you in a second, then,” said Saskia.

Numb, I put down the phone. Frantically my eyes scanned the room and my heart rate increased again. My place, mine—private! I was stupid and slow. Why hadn’t I just said I’d come down?

Then I heard an imperious triple rap at the door. It was too late for second thoughts. I tried to relax. I moved to let Saskia in.

In my room the jarring effect (which I love) is caused by the way the “normal” things—the quilt, the pillows, the rag rugs—clash with the ferocity and darkness of the acrylic paintings on the walls.

My paintings.

There are three of them. One is relatively large; the others smaller. I can’t describe them well, except to say that I’m still not the Picasso fan that Ms. Wiles is. I have no desire to emulate him in any way. It’s not that I don’t agree he was a genius. It’s that—well, he was a little too deliberate, a little too controlled, for my taste. He always knew what he was doing.

Me, I like it when artists just throw things into their paintings. I like a sense of danger and risk; a
lack
of control. It’s hard to explain, especially since achieving that particular effect in a piece of art actually requires a tremendous amount of control. Of your medium. Of your hands. Of yourself. You create, very precisely, something that is—wild.

At least, that’s how it is for me.

Not that I think my paintings fully achieved that wildness. I’m not good enough yet; that’s the simple truth. But there’s definitely something there, on those canvases. Ms. Wiles said it best.

Nightmares.

The blank squares—dark green, dark blue, black mixed with yellow—that you see when you first look at the paintings are not what you see when you keep looking. They’re only what I painted on top, at the end. It’s a very thin coat, as thin as I could manage, as thin as would cover and conceal, while not concealing.

Beneath that coat of paint are all my secret emotions, expressed fully and frankly. You can’t see them at all in the finished paintings—except you can. You can
feel
them. You look at my paintings, and you know they’re there. Beneath the dark squares.

They are mine, those paintings.

“Oh!” Saskia exclaimed. I saw with satisfaction that she took an involuntary step back, away from the biggest acrylic. She was quite silent after that, standing in the middle of my room, looking. Then she moved from one to another, slowly, and—it was a hideous, unwelcome surprise to me—her face illuminated with genuine pleasure. I looked at her, and I saw how wonderfully her dark tresses framed her face, and how her beauty contrasted with the darkness of what I’d painted … and I felt like some creature out of the swamps.

How could she possibly like my work? It wasn’t meant to be liked! Only I could like it.

“I had no idea,” said Saskia finally, swinging around. “Just no idea at all. I mean, Daniel said you were an artist and everything, but I never saw—my God. I’m so impressed. These are so good. They give me the
creeps.
” She moved closer to the smallest painting, the murky greenish one. “Wow.” She put out her hand.

“Hey!” I said sharply. “Don’t touch!”

She snatched her hand back. “Sorry.” She said it as if she meant it.

“Sorry,” I said also, after a second. “I get a little possessive. And they’re, well, fragile.”

Saskia said, “I understand.” She moved slightly more toward me, but she didn’t come as confidently close as she had in the past. And she was still looking around carefully, as if she too had stepped through the looking glass into a world full of strange and surprising objects. As if she wasn’t sure what to do or say next. She frowned.

I couldn’t think of anything to say either. I stared at her stupidly. I watched her continue to scan the room and its contents: the pillows heaped on my bed, the rumpled quilt where I’d just been lying down, the carefully ironed white cotton curtain on the small single window, the dark corner next to it …

Where the mirror was. Screaming—once you noticed it—in its own way.

Saskia’s eyes widened and she took a step toward it, her brow furrowing. “Frances, what’s that?”

“It’s a Jewish custom,” I said tensely. “You drape the mirrors in black when you’re in mourning. You’re not supposed to look at yourself or think about yourself.”

There was a moment of silence in which Saskia regarded me carefully. Then: “But only for a
week
,” she said. “Only while you sit shivah. Right?” And yes, that was the familiar Saskia voice, the one I loved to hate, with its derisive undertone.

My own familiar response snapped into place too. “I’m still in mourning,” I shot back.

Saskia lifted her chin. “So am I,” she said. “I’m just a little less theatrical about it.”

And, just like that, dislike shimmered naked in the air between us, on both sides.
The wise find peace on hearing the truth.
Now
there
was an aphorism that was absolutely correct. “What did you come here for, Saskia?” I asked bluntly.

Saskia smiled, and for once it wasn’t a pretty sight. “To tell you that I haven’t changed my mind. I don’t want you involved with Unity. I want you to tell Patrick no, and then go back into your cave. Just go back to doing whatever it is that you do. Stomping around alone on campus. Draping mirrors in black. Painting.” She waved toward the walls. “Whatever. Just stay out of Unity.”

“Really,” I said.

“Really,” she mimicked. Her face was very hard. Her cheeks were suddenly flushed. “Come on, Frances. It’s not
like you have any great personal attraction to charity work. I’m not fooled. Neither are you. And—Daniel wouldn’t be either.”

That hurt, but I wouldn’t show it. “Then why do you think I’m—”

Saskia cut right in. “Guilt, I suppose. Or you’re tired of being such an outcast. Frankly, I don’t care what your reasons are.” She took a step closer to me, and then another.

I remembered her shoving me, and I backed up a bit.

“It’s not my business to wonder why, after two and a half years, you suddenly think it’s a good idea to work with Unity. It is my business”—Saskia’s eyes narrowed—”to tell you that I just won’t have it. I said it before, and it stands:
You are not welcome.
”

My own cheeks were flushed now too; I could feel their heat. I was afraid, I suddenly realized. I could feel it in my pounding pulse.

Another truth: I had always been afraid of Saskia.

I didn’t want to show my fear. I managed to say, “Patrick Leyden wants me. So what do you think you can do about it?”

Saskia’s voice was steady. “Quite a bit, actually. Wallace and George and—well,
everybody
is with me on this. So if you push yourself in, we’ll make your life at school a living hell. I promise you, Frances. If you join Unity, then soon you’ll really, really wish you hadn’t.”

I couldn’t believe this was happening. I said stupidly, “I’ll tell Patrick Leyden that you said all this and—”

Saskia shook her head. “And who do you think he’ll
believe? You or me? Who’s established trust with him for years? He’s seen your reluctance. He’ll think you’re making it all up to get out of working on the memorial project. He’ll think you’re a flake.”

She stopped and just looked at me out of that icy face.

We’ll make your life at school a living hell.

I was aware that, in a moment, I might start trembling. I hadn’t quite acknowledged it, but I’d feared what Saskia was describing since I’d started at Pettengill. It was any outcast’s nightmare.

If I looked carefully, I suspected I might find it beneath the black paint of the small acrylic by the window.

“Did you hear me, Frances?” said Saskia. “Did you understand me?” And when I still didn’t reply, she added, “I’ll spell it out, then. One more time.

“Keeping you out of Unity—that’s
my
little memorial to Daniel. Upholding what he would have wanted. I’m going to do it, Frances. I promise you.”

I looked into her beautiful frozen eyes and I believed every word she said. And I found myself nodding as if impelled—just as I’d nodded when James lectured me about violence.

“Quit,” Saskia instructed. “Quit before you get started. Do it however you want. Letter to Patrick. E-mail. Phone call. I don’t care. Just do it. Do you understand me?”

I nodded again.

“Say it,” Saskia commanded.

“Yes,” I said as if I were hypnotized.

“Good,” said Saskia, like she was praising a dog. She showed me all her teeth. They weren’t perfect; two were crooked. And then, between one breath and the next, she was gone.

Alone, I sat down on the edge of my bed. I held my elbows tightly and I felt my whole body shake.

I hated her. I hated her for reflecting my own weakness, my own fears, back at me. I hated her for seeming to see into my paintings so clearly; and then for pulling out a nightmare and hurling it straight at me. And it was clear now that
she
really hated
me
too. It was irrational that that would hurt so much.

Artists aren’t rational, I guess.

I didn’t know what to do. Go on as I always had, as Saskia wanted? Or take Ms. Wiles’s advice, try to become a better, more giving, more participatory person—and face Saskia’s wrath? Both roads seemed impossible. Impassable. How had this happened? I had never wanted anything to do with Unity!

After a minute I reached out and groped, blindly, in the nightstand drawer for Mr. Monkey and my pathetic inheritance from Daniel. I needed whatever comfort I could find.

T
he next day was Saturday. I had a couple of morning classes, but with a twinge of guilt I stayed in bed through most of the first one. I figured I could probably still take advantage of the depressed, in-mourning-for-brother loop-hole. Why not? It was true. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

Getting high last night had not actually helped.

I did go to my second period class, an art open studio. This was free work time, and Ms. Wiles was not supposed to be there. I was relieved; I didn’t think I could face her today.

For nearly two hours I worked in silence on my elephant femur and it did soothe me a little, to work the clay with my hands. Some of the time I eavesdropped on two of the other girls in the studio, Theresa Quinn and Tonia Mack. I wondered distantly what was wrong with me, that I’d never
made an effort to befriend even nice people like them. I knew that if I had friends, I would be less vulnerable to Saskia. But it was too late now. You couldn’t approach people when you were desperate. They’d smell your neediness and fear. They’d reject you automatically.

Still, I listened wistfully as they chattered. SATs, a dream Tonia had had and what it might mean, Theresa’s boyfriend’s telephone call last night, an approaching history quiz, a favorite shirt of Tonia’s that had suspiciously disappeared from the dryer. It was like they were in some other country, speaking another language. There was no way to bridge the gap.

It was weird to realize that always before I’d seen the gap as being about the fact that I was on scholarship, or that I was shy, small, freakish-looking. Ten million reasons that suddenly seemed like half-truths. Was there something deeper in me that kept others at a distance?

The period ended. Tonia and Theresa and the others left. I slowly wrapped my sculpture in wet rags to preserve it until next time, and as I did so, dread descended fully upon me. I couldn’t hide in bed or the art studio forever. Right now, for instance, I had to go to lunch. Having skipped dinner last night and breakfast this morning, I was, despite myself, hungry.