Black Mirror (15 page)

You are not going to be a dainty Japanese woman.

I got up again. I put the black silk back over the mirror. I didn’t look in at her—at me—at her—while I did it. And the second that the mirror was decently covered again, I felt better.

T
he next few days were so ordinary that it seemed almost as if I’d dropped into a time warp and mysteriously returned to Pettengill in the days before Daniel died. But the ordinariness now felt false, mask-like.

I still had that feeling, the one that had grown on me so slowly, so inexorably. The feeling of waiting. The feeling that something just out of the periphery of my comprehension was badly wrong, and that I knew, somewhere in me, what it was.

There was a new sensation too. This one was extremely strange after all the years of being invisible. It was the feeling of being watched.

I knew I wasn’t making it up. I caught people at it. My teachers, of course; I supposed that was only natural after my little tantrum in the cafeteria. Maybe it was also natural
that the other kids would give me sidelong, half-wary, half-fascinated glances as well.
Will she, won’t she, crack up?
Saskia shot me occasional fierce, frowning looks across the room in history. And Ms. Wiles—she was worried, I knew.

I felt guilty about Ms. Wiles. On Monday, when she’d approached me with questions about how I was and what I’d thought of the Unity food pantry, I’d found myself brushing her off. I wasn’t even sure why. “I’m fine,” I’d said. “Yeah, it was okay at the food pantry. I have another shift on Thursday. But I have to go now, okay?”

She’d put a hand on my arm. “All right, Frances. Would you like to come over for tea this afternoon?”

“I can’t,” I’d said, even though I could have. I’d watched Ms. Wiles’s mouth drop open. I had never before refused one of her invitations to tea. I opened my own mouth to retract my refusal, but found myself saying, instead: “Bye. See you later.”

No, I wasn’t making up the eyes that followed me, judged me, wondered about me. But meanwhile, the one person whose eyes on me I would have welcomed—James—was nowhere to be found. I looked fruitlessly for him everywhere I went. At the same time, however, the bare possibility that I might see James added light and color and texture to the world. There was potential every time I turned my head. I felt irradiated by it.

And then Thursday night, after an innocuous two hours of stacking dusty cans of beets and mushrooms at the Unity food pantry (with George de Witt, who wouldn’t say more
than two syllables the whole time), I was called into the office to meet, alone, with Patrick Leyden.

One more little weirdness: As I climbed up off my hands and knees to follow the summons, I thought—no, I was sure—that I heard George mutter beneath his breath: “Oh, Christ, no.” But when I looked at him, he had his back to me, so I shrugged and followed Pammy to the office.

“There you are, Frances,” said Patrick Leyden from behind the desk. He consulted his watch. “Have a seat. I can give this about ten minutes. Pammy”—she was lingering behind me—“you can close the door on your way out.”

I heard the door close. I sat down on the edge of the chair opposite the desk, and was unable to repress a swift memory of Bubbe, years ago, mocking Daniel and me:
Look at you two, sitting right on the edge of your chairs. Ready to run!
Daniel, defiant, had responded by sliding his butt back firmly into the kitchen chair and glaring at her. But I had stayed exactly where I was, with my feet on the floor. Ready to run.

Now I wondered if, of the two reactions, mine hadn’t in fact been the more defiant.

I had my feet on the floor now as well. I looked at Patrick Leyden. I stuck out my nose that was so like Bubbe’s. You could say this for Bubbe: She appeared to fear nothing and no one. “What’s up?” I said boldly.

Patrick Leyden raised a sarcastic eyebrow. “This is about the fund-raising campaign, Frances. The Daniel Leventhal Memorial Fund Drive. Didn’t I tell you we’d need to talk about that?”

“Oh,” I said. “Right.” But I hadn’t realized it would be this soon. I squirmed, feeling a little less bold. I hated this memorial thing as much as ever.

“Well then,” said Patrick Leyden briskly. “I explained the parameters of the situation and what I wanted to one of the people in my marketing department, and she was kind enough to prepare a letter that will go out over your signature. This will be the central mailing piece of the capital campaign. I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a good job.”

He held out a sheet of paper toward me.

I could feel my lips compressing into a tight line, but I took the letter. It was printed on Unity letterhead.

There were several paragraphs more, but my head snapped up without reading them. I’d been growing steadily more sickened, but this was the worst. “This is a lie! Daniel wasn’t using drugs at eleven!”

“Yes,” said Patrick Leyden evenly. “He was. He told me so.”

I gritted my teeth. I looked back down at the letter as if I
was reading on, but I didn’t do so. No. I remembered when Daniel was eleven, and this I would not buy.

My father’s words came back to me. What was in this for Patrick Leyden?

Pretend work.

The dusty cans …

A voice in my head was screaming at me.
You know. You know. You know!

Wallace’s voice as he talked with Pammy.
They
are
our partners, you know…. All the customers need to be reimbursed.

“Well?” Patrick Leyden said impatiently. “There should be no surprises in the letter. I’m particularly pleased about the associated website. That was a good thought; people can just charge their contributions online. Maybe we’ll move that information from the bottom to nearer the top of the letter. Or add it to the letterhead. Or both.”

I didn’t say anything. A disembodied terror had gripped me. I folded the letter in two, carefully creasing it.

“I see,” said Patrick Leyden. “You’re still being childish about this, Frances. I thought you’d had a change of heart.”

I remembered the way I’d felt when I’d first learned that Daniel was dead. My—incredulity.

Daniel wouldn’t have done it. Daniel wouldn’t have killed himself. But Saskia had known Daniel better than I did, and she’d had no doubt that he’d killed himself … had she? It was to Saskia that Daniel had addressed his final letter….

Daniel, in my dream, shaking his head. No, no, no.

Dread filled me. I could taste it, acid, at the back of my throat. I didn’t want to know.

As my silence—and my staring—continued, Patrick Leyden grew red in the face. “You do understand that I don’t need you for this? The letter could easily be rewritten in the third person. We’re going to do this capital campaign with or without you.”

And then suddenly I could talk. I was myself. I was present. I looked at Patrick Leyden and said, “Yes. I understand that.”

“Then make up your mind. If you want to be part of this organization, you will help this organization in whichever way I see fit. Otherwise—you’re out.”

“I’m just going to think about it for another day,” I said calmly, and got up. “I’ll get back to you, Mr. Leyden.”

Patrick Leyden began speaking—perhaps it was sputtering—but I ignored him. I walked out. I left. Andy Jankowski had taught me how.

Andy.

Outside the office, things had slowed down. End of shift. End of night. I looked around. George and Pammy were talking over by the clothing area. Most of the lights had been switched off.

Are you here to do pretend work too, Frances Leventhal?

I think they’re going to have me pack cans of vegetables.

Pretend, yes. All fake work.

I discovered that even though I didn’t understand anything, I absolutely knew what I should do right now.

I went and found Andy. He was sitting by the entrance, a faraway expression on his face. I waved as I approached, and he waved back.

“Hello, Frances Leventhal,” Andy said. I thought he looked pleased to see me.

“Hey,” I answered. As ever, I felt something in me soften and relax in his presence. I said awkwardly, “Andy, I was wondering if you would walk back to Pettengill with me. After you finish up here? I need an escort, and I’d like to talk to you about something. If that’s okay with you.”

Andy sat up. He looked solemn. “Frances Leventhal, that is no problem. I am a very good escort.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“And,” said Andy, shyly, but with something a little defiant in his voice as well, “I have something to tell you.”

I
t was cold outside again, but the temperature was not too much below freezing. Pammy and George had seemed incredulous when we declined a lift in the van, but it wasn’t bad if you kept moving. I had Daniel’s scarf wrapped around my head and ears, and my mittens on, with my hands stuffed in my pockets for good measure. Andy was bareheaded but seemed indifferent to the temperature, except for offering me his coat with some persistence.

“Really, I’m fine,” I said. “This is a warm coat. And I promise I’ll tell you if I get cold.”

“You’ll tell me?”

“I’ll tell you.”

“Okay,” he said finally.

We walked briskly in silence for a few steps, while I tried
to think of a clear way to ask Andy why he’d implied that stacking cans was as much pretend work as watching the door. But before I could formulate the question, Andy forestalled me. Again with that hint of defiance in his voice—and, I thought, some excitement—he said, “I checked, Frances Leventhal. And it
is
all pretend work. All of it!”

My head swung sharply to the side. In the street lamps, I could only see the shadow of Andy’s profile, but he was nearly bouncing with emotion: indignation? Affronted pride? “What?” I said. “You checked? What do you mean?”

“I checked the boxes again,” Andy said. “They were stacked by the door. And they’re still the same. Always the same old boxes, packed with the same stuff. Carry in, carry out. It’s fake work. I already knew. But I checked today while you were there, and yesterday, and the day before that. There’s no real work. It’s the same old boxes, Frances Leventhal! Always the same old boxes!”

Andy paused. I felt my heart rate increase. What Andy was saying—it still didn’t make sense to me, but the feeling that I knew, I
knew
, intensified.

“Something is very wrong at that food pantry.” It popped out of my mouth. I couldn’t believe I’d let myself say that in front of Andy, but—

He smiled at me. I could see the gleam of his teeth in the darkness. “You didn’t understand me the other day,” he said with satisfaction. “You thought packing the cans was real work. I could tell. So I checked.”

“Huh,” I said. I found myself remembering how dirty the
“newly-arrived” cans had been. My hands had gotten filthy, unpacking and stacking them. Would new donations be that dusty, right out of the box? Well, maybe some, but
all
of the cans? I felt that flickering lightbulb struggling, again, to come on above my head.

“Do you understand what I’m saying now?” Andy demanded. We had hastened our pace a little, and were hunched against the wind.

“I’m getting there,” I said grimly. “Explain again about the same old boxes.”

It took nearly the whole walk—Andy got tangled up as he talked—but I listened intently, and eventually I figured out what he’d been struggling to say. Why he thought the work at the pantry was “fake.”

Why he was right.

Andy had come to recognize the two dozen or so cardboard boxes that came and went, every couple of days, from the food pantry. The one with the battered corner; the one that said “Green Giant #1890065279” (Andy recited the numbers precisely); the one with part of its top flap ripped away. A box would get replaced from time to time, as it broke, but for the most part the same boxes were used over and over. Each box would leave the pantry full of stuff, securely sealed with packing tape—and then return a day or two later, still sealed with the same packing tape.

“Same boxes. Same contents. Into the van one day. Out of the van the next,” Andy said. “Fake work. Waste of time.”

“Maybe the boxes are just being recycled?” I ventured.
“And the contents have changed?” But as soon as I’d said it, I shook my head. It didn’t make sense to work that way. Why would you pack up and seal new donations into boxes, when they were just headed for the warehouse to be sorted and stacked and so on? And why wouldn’t you leave the boxes with the families who were supposed to get them?