The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove (8 page)

screeching, “Beggars can’t be choosers!” when I’d complained about something

she’d gotten at a garage sale.

The seamstress told us the alterations would be finished by the end of the

next day.

When Mrs. Monroe and I walked to the bank, I noticed the street sign,

Monroe Drive.

“Is that…” I began.

“Our family has been here for some time,” the headmistress said. “One of

-47-
The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

the advantages of living in a small town is that you get to name things after

yourself. Have you had a bank account before, Jane?”

“I never had anything to put in one.”

“We encourage all Birch Grove girls to learn how to handle finances.

You’ll receive your stipend on a monthly basis. It’s not much, but it should be

enough for you to buy groceries, necessities, and the occasional meal or movie

out. Not that you seem like a spendthrift, Jane, but it’s always a wise practice to

live within your means and have money for a rainy day. That means an

emergency.”

“I’m going to be careful, ma’am.” Money was safety and security. It was

a bus ticket, a sweater, a meal, a room for the night.

“Good! Since I have your bank account number, I can deposit your

tutoring pay directly.” Mrs. Monroe told me the tutoring rate, which was more

than twice what I’d hoped for.

Lucky and money. I see now how the tutoring job made me associate

Lucky with all the safety of money.

Evergreen Bank was a midsize brick building, and when we entered, it

was if we had stepped back into time. Clerks greeted Mrs. Monroe by name and

the manager came to meet us and took us to his office. I tried to fill out the bank

forms as neatly as I could with a ball point pen that kept skipping.

When I got to the section for my address, Mrs. Monroe said, “Birch Grove

Academy for Girls, 10 Birch Grove Way.” The whole process took only fifteen

minutes and I was given a bank book, a debit card, and checks.

Our next stop was a shoe store. A salesman measured my feet using an odd

metal slide. Then he brought out plain black leather loafers that looked stiff, but

when I put them on, they felt smooth and comfortable. The leather soles slipped

on the carpet and the salesman said, “Scuff the soles on the pavement before you

wear them so you’ll have traction.”

Mrs. Monroe said, “We also need white tennis shoes, black or navy tennis

shoes, and slippers.

Most kids get new shoes so often that they take them for granted. But in

-48-
The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

foster care, new shoes – shoes that fit and haven’t been worn out by someone else

– are rare and important. I lifted the shoe box covers just to see them in their

white tissue and smell that new shoe smell.

We had lunch in an old-fashioned drugstore, sitting at a counter. Mrs.

Monroe suggested a roast beef sandwich and pink lemonade. The meat was so

rare that the juices soaked through the wheat bread. I was hungry and she was

paying, so I bit into the sandwich, which was tastier than I expected.

While we ate, I watched customers in the long mirror on the wall. Three

teenage girls came into the store, arm in arm, giggling. They stopped when they

spotted Mrs. Monroe and exchanged whispers.

They were pretty, with shining, long hair, smooth skin, and perfect white

teeth. Two wore shorts and tank tops and the third wore a long gauzy white skirt,

lilac blouse, and a straw hat.

Mrs. Monroe spotted them in the mirror and the corners of her mouth went

up.

The girls approached in that friendly, yet wary way that you do with

people you like who have authority over you. “Hello, Mrs. Monroe,” they said in

unison.

“Hello, ladies. How has your summer been?”

Even though the girls tried to be subtle about looking at me, I was acutely

conscious of my hand-me-down clothes. They described their vacations in a

jumble of words, tumbling over each other’s sentences. One had been sailing, and

one had traveled to Italy.

The prettiest, the brown-haired girl in the skirt, had spent the summer in

Montreal with an aunt and uncle. She was as pale as the headmistress and I

caught a whiff of the same herby scent.

Mrs. Monroe said, “This is Jane Williams. She’ll be joining us this term.”

We all said hello awkwardly, knowing we wouldn’t say hello if not for

Mrs. Monroe. Their sharp eyes took in my shabby clothes and the shoe store bag

on the floor beside me.

“I won’t take up any more of your last precious minutes of freedom,” Mrs.

-49-
The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

Monroe said. “See you on Monday.”

When the trio drifted off to the cosmetics section, out of hearing, she told

me, “I know that it’s not easy to transfer for your junior year.”

“I’m sure it’s better than where I was,” I answered.

“I hope that you’ll find that we are more than merely the lesser of two

evils,” she said. “Let’s pick up a few basics for you.”

She took me to women’s clothing store with neatly folded stacks of

clothes and orderly racks of dresses and jackets. The price tags were tucked

inside the clothes. I unfolded a pair of jeans and the tag fell out, stunning me.

“Do you see anything you like, Jane?” Mrs. Monroe asked.

There was no way I was going to spend all my stipend at this overpriced,

old-lady store. “Not really.”

Mrs. Monroe quickly figured out way I hesitated. “One pays for quality,

Jane, and quality pays for itself in the end. The clothes are part of our gift to

you.”

That changed everything. I wasn’t going to turn down free clothes, even

boring clothes. Mrs. Monroe offered advice while I selected solid-color shirts, an

assortment of t’s, cami’s with straps wide enough to hide my scar, a black kneelength skirt, khaki cargos, and two pair of jeans.

Then Mrs. Monroe walked with me to the lingerie section and said, “You

should be stocked with a good supply of the necessities.” She picked out a dozen

pair of lace-trimmed cotton panties as well as navy knee-his and white crew

socks.

Then she looked at the bra display and said, “What’s your size?”

My face went hot with embarrassment. “I don’t know, ma’am.” I looked

down at the floor. “I don’t really need to wear a bra.” I’d begged Mrs. Richards

for bras, but she’d said I didn’t have anything to put in them and laughed an ugly

laugh.

Mrs. Monroe made a
tching
sound. “Young ladies should have proper

undergarments, and you are a young lady, Jane.” She called over a clerk and soon

I was in the dressing room and holding my arms out while the clerk used a

-50-
The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

measuring tape to find my size. “A very ladylike bosom,” she said, approvingly.

“There’s nothing there,” I complained.

The clerk grinned. “I have been fitting bras for twenty-five years and no

one ever thinks her breasts are good enough,” she said. “You’ll save yourself a

lot of unhappiness if you accept and enjoy what you have. Neat little breasts are

very chic.”

I thought she was completely wrong, but soon I was trying on a sweet little

white bra that made me look as if I actually had a feminine shape.

Mrs. Monroe popped her head through the curtain. She said to the clerk,

“That’s quite nice. We’ll take three white, two beige, and one black.” When the

clerk left the dressing room, Mrs. Monroe continued to look, and I felt selfconscious.

I knew what she was looking at, the pale scar above my left breast, and then

her eyes shifted downward and she said, “Jane, no more tattoos, please. They are

unseemly and unhealthy. You can get a blood-born infection, and we wouldn’t

want that.”

It wasn’t her business to tell me what to do with my body. “I was careful

and I’m fine.”

“Still, we don’t want you catching anything. We want you as healthy as

can be.”

When she’d left the dressing room, I ran my finger across the black H and

wondered what Hosea would think if he could see me in this expensive little

town, about to start an exclusive school. Hosea wouldn’t be impressed by the

money. He wanted me to be a kinder person, not a richer person.

Our last stop was the grocery store. “You can make an easy spaghetti

sauce with crushed tomatoes and herbs,” Mrs. Monroe said. “Oatmeal is

economical and much healthier for you than any packaged cereal. I like mine

with dried cranberries and brown sugar.”

Since groceries came out of my stipend, I followed her suggestions,

choosing the cheaper store brands of items that would fill me up and last the

longest.

-51-
The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

Mrs. Monroe waited at the entrance while I took out my bank card to pay

from my groceries. The clerk was a Latina, about 20, pretty and wearing a bright

pink shirt under her Greenwood Grocery apron. She said, “You’re not from

around here, are you?”

“It’s that obvious? I’ll be starting Birch Grove.”

She handed me a receipt. “Really? That school is way expensive.”

“I got a scholarship.”

“Good on you. See you around.”

“Okay, see you. Thanks.” I took the receipt and folded it into my new

checkbook.

As Mrs. Monroe drove back to the school, I recognized houses on the hill

and turns on the road, and I thought,
I can do this
.

-52-
The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

“
Birch Grove alumna become productive, moral, and ethical citizens and

understand their responsibilities as leaders in our community.”

Birch Grove Student Handbook

After saying good-bye to Mrs. Monroe, I walked along the path to my

cottage. The birch leaves fluttered in a faint breeze, revealing the light green on

the reverse side.

Once inside, I took my new clothes out of their shopping bags and spread

them on the sofa and chairs I put them in different combinations, so I would know

what went with what. Then I eliminated the four most unnecessary items, two tshirts and one pair of jeans, and put them back in a shopping bag so I could return

them for a refund.

I put the other clothes in the closet, but kept their tags on. Mrs. Monroe had

her idea of rainy day money, and I had mine.

After turning on the television for noise, I moved things around the cottage,

just because I could. I discovered a flashlight in a cupboard in the laundry room

and put them on the table by my bed in case of emergencies.

I studied a chapter of my SAT vocabulary book. I wrote out the words in

sentences and then said them aloud until they came naturally. Now that I had

privacy, I practiced the words while standing in front of the mirror, making up

sentences like, “He has an avuncular mien,” and “We were habituated to the

pedagogue’s acerbity.” Well, some things never sounded natural.

It felt like a long day, but when I looked at the clock, it was only six.

I wished I had a computer so I could write to some of my friends. I’d

always used City Central’s computer lab for my homework, but I didn’t recall

seeing any computers on my tour of the school. I should have asked Mrs.

Monroe, but now was dinner time, not a good time to phone.

The knock on my door startled me.

-53-
The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

I went to the front window and pulled aside the curtain. Jack stood on the

porch, holding a pizza box. His bike was leaning against the banister.

When I opened the door, he said, “Hey, Jane, thought you might want some

chow. I couldn’t find any of your natural diet, shamrocks and moonbeams, so I

brought pizza.”

He was wearing those old shorts and brown scabs had formed on his

muscular legs. I had a sense of him being a man, not a boy. It was more to do

with his effortless way than his actual age.

Mouth-watering aromas emanated from the box and beneath that I detected

Jack’s faint pine and earth scent. “Your mother took me to the grocery store

today,” I said reluctantly.

He walked right by me into the cottage. “I know what my mom’s groceries

are like. Full of antioxidants, and roughage, and moral character.” He gazed

around the living room and then went into the kitchen and put the box on the

table.

“Get plates for us, halfling,” he said. He shrugged off his backpack,

unzipped it and took out two cans of root beer.

“You’re making up that word.” I thought he was weird, but the pizza

smelled delicious, so I got two plates from the cupboard and napkins from a

drawer.

“It’s as real as you are. It’s someone who’s half human and half magical

creature. I’m guessing that you’re part pixie, hopefully not one of the evil ones,”

he said. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you half evil pixie?”

“I don’t even know what a pixie is.”

“They’re creatures that are almost human size. Sometimes they’re helpful

to people, and they like music and dancing and pretty ribbons.”

“I think you’ve spent too much time playing RPGs and reading Tolkien.”