The People in the Mirror (9 page)

  “Yeah.”

  “Won’t you be bored?” Mom asked.

  “Nope.”

  “If we wanted to take you....”

  “Yep, I’d be bored. Well, I’m tired, I’m going to bed. Plus I gotta think about what I’m going to wear Saturday night.” I went to bed, but I didn’t think about what I’d wear Saturday night. I only thought about the fact that, somewhere on the opposite side of my wall, probably not fifty feet away, lay the boy of my dreams. I hoped I was in his dreams too.

*   *

  Well,
finally
, the next night after school I found a moment to stop in and see Mr. Zingas. He wasn’t too busy, there was only one customer in the store in the back corner going over the reduced dented cans with a fine-toothed budget.

  “Hi, Mr. Zingas.”

  “Hello there, Nikki. What’s new? What’s with the big smile? You just get your teeth cleaned?”

  “Nope. Just happy I guess.”

  “Well you wear it well. What makes you so happy?”

  “The same thing, er, person, that I came to talk with you about. Mitch, my neighbor. I’ve been trying to get in here to talk with you since the other day. I saw you give him the worst look that day, and I’ve been wondering why.”

  “Mr. Zingas’ expression went from jovial to stormy. “Don’t ask questions when you may not care for the answer.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I don’t trust him, and I don’t like his family. They’ve lived here for generations, and my people have lived here for generations. And the fact of the matter is, my people and his people were at odds with one another before we ever came to this country.”

  “So you’re Romanian too?”

  “I’m Romanian. I don’t know about ‘too’.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying Mitch’s family has very suspect morals. I wouldn’t turn my back on him for one second. Don’t forget your place was just robbed.”

  Shocked, I said, “you’re actually accusing Mitch’s family of robbing us?!”

  Mr. Zingas shook his head. “I wouldn’t come right out and say that, no. What I would say is, never turn your back on the ocean.”

  “Okay. You sound like my mother. But why so cryptic?”

  “It’s best left at that. Speaking of your mother, she mentioned that the police recovered a couple pieces of furniture and some art.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. It’s great. The place doesn’t look quite so empty.” I couldn’t get Mr. Zingas’ disturbing suggestion out of my mind. “But, getting back to Mitch... I can’t imagine him having anything to do with stealing from us. I mean, last night he helped my mother bring in the groceries, and he even
set the table
. He stayed for dinner. And then he asked me to go to a kid’s movie Saturday night.” I paused. “What you’re suggesting is really is too much.”

  “I’m sorry. I see I’ve upset you.” Mr. Zingas said, studying me in a disconcerting manner. He saw something that made him shrug, and he shifted his mood – at least outwardly. “I hope it all works out for you, dear girl, I really do. I only wish you the best.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Zingas. I appreciate your concern.” I gave him a little wave as I stepped back out into the night. Talk to you later.”

  “Okay, Nikki.”

  I walked around the block the long way. I wanted to think about this disturbing conversation. I wasn’t ready to say hi to Homer, or talk with Mom, or, least of all, run into Mitch. It was apparent that Mr. Zingas knew something he wasn’t saying about Mitch and his family. What could it possibly be?

Chapter X

  Finally it was Saturday, and despite the feelings of hesitation Mr. Zingas had planted, I still looked forward to five o’clock with rising nervousness and excitement. By four I felt sick enough to wonder if I’d even be able to go out at all.

  I took a hot bath and practiced breathing deeply, as well as doing my best not to think about Mitch at all. Hopeless. It was the combination of powerful emotions, I told myself that caused me the trouble with my system. If Mr. Zingas just hadn’t said those bad things about Mitch’s family, I’d only have positive emotions and wouldn’t feel so awful.

  Next I had to wonder what I should wear. As we were going to an animation, it’d look pretty dumb if I wore something dressy. But I wanted to dress up a little bit. He’d never seen me at my best. And he had certainly seen me at my worst. On the other hand, there’d always be some occasion to dress up, wouldn’t there? Yeah, if tonight I just wouldn’t do something truly horrible like throw up in his car, which I felt I might do if my nerves didn’t settle down.

  I did some more deep breathing, and gradually began to feel better. I decided to wear my baby blue cashmere sweater dress – medium dressy, and everyone always said I looked great in it. I hoped Mitch had the same taste as “everyone.”

  It was only a few minutes later when I heard the door bell ring. I took a last look in the mirror, shrugged, squeezed a departing poof of perfume at myself, picked up my purse and jacket and went into the living room. Mitch was seated on one of the sofas with Mom across from him. He’d just said, “don’t you think?” when he looked up at me. 

  Mom said, “Indeed I do think so! I couldn’t agree more,” and seemed to be waiting for a response from Mitch, but he was unavailable. He was on a trip to... well,
me
.

  Yes, it was a wise choice, the baby blue cashmere sweater dress.

  “Oh, Nikki,” Mom said, “You look beautiful!”

  “Yes, you do,” Mitch agreed. “Angelic.”

  “Thank you,” I said shyly. “I guess we’d better go as the movie starts pretty soon.”

  “Yes, we’d better. Mrs. Francis, I look forward to continuing this conversation in the near future. And don’t worry about Dominique. I’ll have her home by eleven, if that’s appropriate.”

  “Her father will be pleased. Have fun!”

  Mitch and I had nothing to say on the elevator ride down and the brief walk to the parking structure. But it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, we both seemed to agree it was just fine if we didn’t talk.

  At the theatre there were a lot of little kids, and I was afraid we were going to be surrounded by them chattering and leaping about during the movie, and I’d be miserable. But, magically, Mitch found a niche where there were almost no children, and the few that
were
there were well-behaved, and I was able to engage in the story as it unfolded on the screen.

  I generally didn’t care for animation – after all, it’s not
real
, and I liked to watch beautiful, interesting, dangerous,
real
people. But somehow I got entirely caught up in the story. I had no problem pretending I was watching real people in the movie.

  It was about a young man, Andrew, searching for his destiny. His father had died, leaving him with property and responsibilities, but he had not left him with a credo. There was a fairy godfather who looked oddly like Mr. Zingas, with a pontificating manner, there was a girl, Serena, in a far away city who kept dreaming of a young man she would one day meet, who, in her dreams, looked quite a bit like Andrew, except the picture of him was alway filmy and dreamy.

  There were numerous obstacles between Andrew and his “true self” as he made a quest for the deeper meaning of his life. There was a moment when the cartoon Andrew was yelling at his father for leaving him, and I felt Mitch tense up beside me – it seemed he was about to cry. I found myself wishing I could make it all better. But, I realized, like Serena, I could only wait in a “neighboring city” or apartment, until he sorted out his journey.

  When the movie was over and we came out of the theatre, I was still so caught up in the story that I wasn’t ready to let go of it yet.

  “What did you think?” Mitch asked as we walked to the car.

  “I think I know why you wanted to see this movie.”

  He stopped under a street lamp and turned to face me. “Do you really?”

  “Sure. The story was like Joseph Campbell writes about the quest of the hero. Andrew had to search
outside
of himself in order to learn what was
inside
himself. And his father dying was like symbolic of his lower nature dying, and the godfather was like his higher self calling to him. But he was the one who had to do the searching to get from the one to the other. And Serena was symbolic of the feminine characteristics he had to learn to understand and honor, in order to fulfill his destiny, like his lessons to be patient, and to keep dreaming.”

  “Wow,” Mitch said quietly. “You got more out of the film than I did. I just saw the ads for tit, and knew there was something there that would be meaningful to me. I saw some of what you just pointed out, but about the father being the lower self and the Godfather being the higher self and Andrew going from one to the other, I didn’t see that. And your insight that Serena was symbolic of his need to have a balance with his feminine energy, that’s good.”

  I discovered that I was entirely ready for Mitch to lean down and kiss me. But he didn’t. He took my hand and led me to the car, not saying another word until we were settled. He turned on some quiet music, and we sat companionably listening to it for a few minutes.

  “There’s a place I’d love to take you, but I’m afraid you’re too dressed up for it. Of course we can go some other time, but it just ties into the film in my mind. I don’t understand why exactly, but it feels like it does.”

  “What sort of place is it?”

  “It’s where I go when I’m trying to sort out
my
quest.”

  “Oh, let’s go. Is it in the country?”

  “Not exactly. I have some sweats in the trunk, if you wanted to put them on. I mean, I love you in this dress, but I wouldn’t want you to ruin it if we’re to go exploring.”

  “Well, maybe I could just slip the sweats on over it.”

  “There’s an idea.”

  Mitch drove us up and down and around, out to the edge of the city. Finally he stopped the car in a forlorn, abandoned place. “Here we are.”

  “Where?”

  “You’ll see.” He got out and dug around in the trunk, bringing me a pair of black sweat pants and black sweat shirt. “Jeez, I forgot about your shoes. You can’t crawl around in those things.”

  “That’s true. I hadn’t planned on crawling around.”

  “Pull the sweats on, I’ll be right back.”

  I got out of the car and pulled on the sweats thinking, could we have gotten any farther from what I had fantasized? It didn’t seem likely.

  Mitch came bouncing back. “I know these are probably huge for you,” he handed me a pair of high top sneakers, “But as they’re high top, they’ll probably stay on. And I’ve got two pair of sox there.”

  “So I see.” I sat on the edge of the car seat and pulled on the two pair of sox he handed me, and the high top sneakers.

  “Let me tie them,” Mitch said, kneeling on the ground and tightening the laces, then tying them snugly. “How’s that?”

  “Not bad, really. Well, I must look particularly gorgeous now, I hope you’re serious about showing me something, and that you’re not just trying to make some kind of idiot out of me.”

  “No, no. No kind of idiot. Now come with me, watch your footing.” Mitch turned on a high intensity flashlight and pointed at the ground. Taking my hand, he led me forward, then suddenly completely disappeared into the ground. I extricated my hand and backed away.

  “Come on, follow me,” he urged.

Chapter XI

  “Where are you, I mean, what’s there?” 

  “There’s steps.” He shined the light up the steps from where he’d seemed to disappear. “Do you see them?”

  “Just barely. But how weird. Why are there steps into the earth?” I made a great leap of trust as I took the first step down, very, very cautiously. It seemed fairly solid. A step made out of earth.

  “Come on, keep coming, that’s right now, take another step.”

  I took the next three steps, then turned around and looked up. A few stars peeked through the buttermilk clouds nearly covering the night sky. I took another step down, and the sky disappeared behind the ceiling of earth.

  “Where
is
this?” I looked around, and what I could make out in the faint glow of Mitch’s flashlight were walls, a sidewalk, and what looked like an ancient billboard.

  “This is a part of Seattle’s underground city. Have you heard of it?”

  “Yes. My dad was talking about it, he wanted to go on some tour. But Mom and I thought it sounded funky. I mean, we couldn’t believe that there’d be much to see. But this is amazing.”

  “This is a part of the underground city that’s cut off from the section that’s on the tour.”

  “How did you find out about it?”

  “I like to discover things no one knows, so whenever I can get away from my uncle, I go exploring. I had gone on the underground city tour with my dad years ago when I was eleven, and I never could stop thinking about it. It seemed obvious to me that there’d be more underground city somewhere adjacent to the part that one sees on the tour. So I studied city maps.

  “Then a librarian helped me dig out an old, old map at the library, and I figured out where it would be likely that there’d be more of the underground city. Then I just kept poking around until I found  a sort of gigantic rabbit hole and, well, I just took it from there.”

  “You mean, you dug it out?” I asked, completely incredulous.

  “Yes. I dug it out. I keep hoping no one else will stumble on my discovery. If kids stumble on it, they’ll certainly vandalize it, and if adults come upon it, they’ll figure out a way to make money with it – make another tour of it or add it to the present tour – or something.”

  I sat on one of the steps, listening to Mitch and trying to take in everything that surrounded me. “But... first of all, I don’t understand why there’s an underground city.”

  “In 1889, there was a terrible fire and something like thirty-two blocks of downtown Seattle burned down. Think about it. It must have been pretty awful. But the people didn’t let it stop them. That’s the part I like.” He came over and sat on a step below me.

  “The city of Seattle already had this problem with the fact that a lot of downtown had been build below sea level, so that when the tide came in, the water backed up into the toilets and water flushed
into
the bathroom instead of
out
of it. So the people said at that time, ‘this fire has been a good thing, we’ll build a new city on top of the old one, and we’ll get rid of that pesky plumbing problem.’ ” He stopped talking and studied me for a moment. “Well,” he stood up, “are you going to come the rest of the way down, or stay perched up there?”