Black Mirror (8 page)

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.”

“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.

M
s. 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.

“Uh-huh.”

“I
did
! Why would you think I’d be influenced by James? I hardly know him!”

“Well. He’s a handsome young man.” She was suddenly studying my face.

“So what?”

“I just—never mind.”

“What?”

“More tea?”

“
What?
”

Ms. Wiles sat back fully on the sofa. Her expression was grave. “I just happened to notice how you were looking at him yesterday. It’s no wonder, Frances. And it’s nothing to be ashamed of either. We’re all human, and he is very—”

“I was
not
looking at James any particular way! He—he’s a goddamned drug dealer!”

My voice had gone shrill. My words sat in the air between me and Ms. Wiles. They could not be taken back.

“Well,” said Ms. Wiles finally. “That’s the rumor I’d heard. Frances, do you have proof? Of the kind I could take to the administration?”

Alarm seized me. I busied myself taking another slice of cake. “No,” I said. Which was true. James had never sold anything to me. “I’ve just heard rumors.”

“Oh.”

“And I’m not influenced by him.”

“I’m glad.”

“And I don’t understand why you would even think that. I’m not the kind of person who can’t decide things for herself.” Then I added, “Am I? I mean, do you think that about me?”

Silence. And then: “Would you look at me for a moment, Frances?”

I didn’t. I couldn’t. I picked up a crumb of cake with the tip of my index finger and put it in my mouth, and then felt my cheeks get hot. It wasn’t the kind of thing you did in public—at tea. Unless, of course, you came from a “disadvantaged background.”

I hadn’t needed James to tell me that my brother and I were being dissed. It had just been reassuring to know I wasn’t the only one who saw it.

“Please look at me, Frances.”

I did, finally. Ms. Wiles had beautiful eyes; long-lashed, gray. Usually their expression was playful or ironic; right now, they were filled with so much kindness that it was all I could do not to cry.

She said gently, “You’re very vulnerable right now. You lost your brother in terrible circumstances. And we haven’t talked about it, but I know your mom left, and you aren’t close to your dad.”

I didn’t say anything.

“It seemed natural that you might be looking for a boyfriend right now. That’s all. It’s not such a bad idea, in general. With the right person. So I just wondered if that was what was going on with James, uh, Druggian. That’s all.”

I knew Ms. Wiles hadn’t forgotten James’s name this time. She was trying to make me smile.

I tried. I tried, even though my head was suddenly swimming.
Looking for a boyfriend … vulnerable right now … how you were looking at him yesterday … don’t create opportunities for violence … cultivate mindfulness …

“Sweetheart,” Ms. Wiles said earnestly. “Frances. This is what I really wanted to say to you. Think again about participating in this project for Daniel. About being a little bit involved with Unity. I know Patrick Leyden, and I promise,
he wouldn’t have suggested this fund-raising project if he didn’t believe it could do a lot of good.

“And I know you, Frances. Better than you might guess. So trust me to know what’s best for you now. I can talk to some of the kids—smooth things a little for you. Being involved with Unity, doing good things, could do
you
a lot of good.”