by Vendela Vida
He places the paper down on the desk and I see the grade at the top: “A+.” The highest grade Maria Fabiola’s ever gotten is a B+ and that was in P.E.
“I was wondering if I could get another book to read for extra credit,” I say.
“Came back for more Salinger, eh?”
“No,” I say. “Something foreign, maybe. I’m tired of America.”
Mr. London turns to the shelves behind him. There’s a space where a book used to be—its absence from the shelf is like a missing tooth. I try to think what book it could be. Mr. London runs his fingers over the books’ spines.
“Here,” he says. “This is a new novel by a Czech writer. I haven’t read it yet.”
He hands me the hardcover book: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. The cover is just the title and the author’s name in capital letters, no illustration. I read the inside flap to see what it’s about. I try not to let my eyes widen because I don’t think Mr. London has read the book description. It seems a little racy. “Great,” I say before he can change his mind. “I’ll read it over break.”
“Eulabee,” he says as I’m walking out the door. I turn. He’s resumed his position, staring at Maria Fabiola’s paper. “I know you and Maria Fabiola are good friends. This all must be so hard on you.” He shakes his head dramatically. “If you want to talk about anything, my door is always open. Literally. I leave it unlocked.”
“Thanks,” I say, holding the book to my chest.
“You can leave the door propped open,” he calls out.
After school I walk home alone. As I approach my house I see figures seated in the front room. People in the front room can only mean we have company. Studying the backs of the seated heads, I realize Maria Fabiola’s parents are sitting on the couch. I freeze for a moment, and then I make a decision. I continue walking, as though my home is just another house in Sea Cliff.
15
I make my way to the Olenska School to check on the shed. I enter the password. The interior feels different today. There’s sand on the floor, and in the wastebasket, a packet of Fun Dip. Definitely not 1938, I think. It’s obvious that nobody’s in the small room at the moment—there’s no place to hide—but I still call out her name: “Maria Fabiola?” I say. The name that I’ve called out a thousand times sounds foreign in my mouth.
I close the door and lock the padlock. I return the numbers carefully to the position they were in before.
On my way out through the narrow passageway, I see an old woman who looks like a witch. I step back. A short squeal escapes my throat. “Eulabee,” the witch says. My heart is loud. I stare at this woman who looks like the ghost of someone I once knew. She’s wearing a white nightgown and her white-gray hair is coarse and long. “What are you doing here?”
It’s the accent that reels me in. It’s Madame Sonya. I’ve never seen her hair in anything but a bun. I had no idea it was so long. I’ve only encountered her in black leotards and now she’s wearing a white nightgown at four in the afternoon.
“I was looking for you,” I say, impressed that I don’t stammer.
“Why didn’t you just come to the studio?” she says.
“I did,” I lie. “The door was locked.”
She’s carrying a grocery bag in her hands. Proof she’s stocking the shed with provisions for Maria Fabiola.
“It shouldn’t have been,” she says, and her Russian accent sounds like she’s reprimanding someone—either me or the door itself.
We are still standing, facing each other in the passageway, my foot inside the lasso of the hose on the ground.
“Did you hear about Maria Fabiola?” I say.
“Yes, it’s on the news!” she says. “A reporter came here. I told them she was a very talented ballerina.” I stare at her. We both know this is a lie.
“What do you think happened?” I say.
“I think she ran away with her boyfriend,” she says matter-of-factly.
“What boyfriend?” I say, thinking she will name a name and everything will fall into place.
“I don’t know. Doesn’t she have a boyfriend?”
I wait for her to reveal more.
“Let me just throw away this garbage,” Madame Sonya says.
Garbage. The bag contains garbage. I watch her take it to the taupe trash bin at the end of the passageway. Then she turns, the whip of her white hair following her head a half second later.
I think she might invite me in for tea, but instead she looks me up and down from a distance. My mother has told me not to look at people this way, but maybe you’re allowed to do this when you’re an old Russian ballet instructor.
“You look skinny,” she says. “You’ve lost weight.”
I shake my head. “The scale says the same thing.”
“The scale,” she says, with a similar disdain that she reserves for speaking of the Nazis, whom she blames for ruining her career.
“You cannot listen to the scale. The scale never tells the truth. I haven’t stepped on it for years.”
People tell me I look skinny when they want something from me. What does she want from me?
“We’ve missed you in class,” she says. “I am sorry about your friend.” She passes by me in the narrow corridor and I back myself up against the wooden fence to make room. A splinter penetrates my calf.
She turns again at the end of the passageway. The low sun hits her nightgown and I can see her pale thin legs through the thin material. “You know there’s no class over the holidays, yes?” she says.
Does she really think that’s why I came to the studio today? To restart classes?
“Oh, right,” I say, playing along, backing away from her like a silent-film burglar. “I forgot.”
The comic-book store across the street seems extra busy today, and I peek inside. Could Maria Fabiola be there? If she’s hiding out in the shed, she must need books to read. A dozen boys are inside, pretending to browse. It takes me a minute to realize what they’re really looking at is the guy from Mork & Mindy. He’s inside the store, reading a comic book and laughing. The boys and the clerk, a young woman who’s the kind of girl that comic store nerds would have a crush on—dyed purple hair, large chest contained (and augmented) by a snug black top—are speechless. The only sound in the store is the actor’s laughter. How can he be so impervious to their stares? Maybe he’s used to the attention. Maybe he likes it. Maybe he feels most alive when others are looking at him. I try to decide if I feel this way, too.
16
Christmas vacation. School gets out early—the Volvos are waiting in the horseshoe driveway. Even though it’s cold out, the windows are rolled down so the mothers can share news about where they’re off to for vacation. The next morning they’ll leave for the East Coast for family, or Aspen or Tahoe for skiing, or Maui or Lanai for snorkeling and a tan. Svea’s going to spend the first week of vacation with her dour friend’s mom and the mom’s new boyfriend. They’re going skiing in Mammoth. I’m not going anywhere.
I spend the days leading up to Christmas at my dad’s gallery. I help Arlene file paperwork, and when I have breaks, I open a drawer in the spice cabinet and inhale, before closing it and opening the next one.
In the evenings I walk by Maria Fabiola’s house and try to peer in the windows. All the lights are on, all the curtains closed. It looks as though they’re living inside a lampshade—figures moving behind linen.
I quickly fall into the routine of waking up and walking up the street to collect the newspaper, reading it to see if there are any updates about Maria Fabiola—there’s never anything new—eating breakfast with my dad, helping out at the art gallery during the day, and taking a solitary evening walk around the neighborhood to check on Maria Fabiola’s house.
On the fifth day of my vacation, I step into the gallery and immediately notice something’s different. The spice cabinet—it’s missing. It was there for so long that I never imagined one day it might be gone.
“Where’d it go?”
I ask Arlene. My heart is beating fast.
“Somebody bought it,” she says. “It was picked up last night after you left.” She’s gruff when she says this, annoyed that I asked. It’s that time of the month.
* * *
SVEA COMES HOME FROM MAMMOTH with a pale neck and a tan from her chin up. When she’s asked about her trip, she says it was good, but she noticed her friend could be a bit of a downer, which was a downer. I’m about to express my incredulity that she’s never noticed a defining character trait of her best friend before, but I stop myself. There’s so much I didn’t know about Maria Fabiola until recently.
I join my father in the study to watch the news. Tonight, there’s only a brief segment about Maria Fabiola. The same photo appears. Then the anchorwoman talks about the last-minute rush for Christmas trees.
* * *
WE CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS the Swedish way, on Christmas Eve. All day the phone rings—my mother’s friends and relatives from Sweden. We eat ham and my mom heats up glogg and even lets Svea and me eat the wine-soaked raisins at the bottom of her small cup. At 8 p.m. we go to church. The service is full of carols and candles. A dark-haired girl dressed in white plays the harp. When it’s time to offer up the names of people in our community who are in need of our prayers and support, there are many mentions of Maria Fabiola. My parents utter Maria Fabiola’s parents’ names as well.
We go home and sit in the front room next to all the straw goats that Swedes put out at Christmastime. I don’t really understand this tradition, or the fact that in my opinion the traditional straw figures more closely resemble horses than goats. But now is not the time to ask questions—I’m eager to open the presents under the tree. This takes four minutes because not only do we celebrate Christmas the Swedish way, we celebrate it the stingy way. The gifts are soft so I know before opening them that I’ve gotten socks and underwear. From the fireplace hangs my Christmas stocking, with my name misspelled as “Ulabee.” A family friend gave me the stocking years ago and despite the misspelling, which makes me disappointed in the American educational system, we still use it. The stockings are mostly decorative anyway; tomorrow my stocking will be filled with pencils.
“I have a surprise,” my father says. “It was too big to wrap.” From behind the piano, he slides out a rectangular-shaped object, the size of a painting. He carefully removes the protective cloth and reveals it is a painting. It depicts kids playing at the beach.
“That’s beautiful, Joe,” my mother says.
“It’s for the family,” my dad says.
“Who’s the artist?” I say.
“Vanessa Bell,” my dad says. “I need to do some research on her.”
“Vanessa Bell,” I say. “That rings a bell.” I don’t normally tell jokes like this but my dad’s a sucker for puns. I consider this bad pun my Christmas present to him.
“What do you mean?” he says.
“I wrote about her in a paper for Mr. London,” I say.
“Did we ever figure out if he’s related to Jack London?” my mother asks.
“He’s not,” I say.
“How do you know?” my mother says. “When I was talking to him he made it sound like he was.”
“Exactly,” I say. “So he’s not.”
“Excuse me, Greta,” my father says. He turns back to me. “What do you mean you wrote about her?”
“Well, I wrote about the Bloomsbury group and Vanessa Bell was part of it.”
I’m greeted by blank looks all around.
“I’ll go get my paper.”
I run up to my room. When I return downstairs my family is gathered around the painting, staring at it with rapt attention. They resemble the figures in the painting itself—the painting is of three figures surrounding a sandcastle.
I hand my father the essay and he reads it. My mom, sister, and I fold the wrapping paper and decide that most of it will have to be thrown away. It’s not crisp enough to save for another present.
“What do you think of the essay?” I say to my dad.
“I think this is exciting,” he says. “We might have something here.”
My mom and sister put out food for Santa (oatmeal) and his reindeer (carrot sticks) and my dad and I stare into the fire. I don’t know if Svea still believes in Santa, but this is not the time to ask.
“I have that feeling,” my dad says. “That this might be worth a lot.”
“I do, too,” I say.
My mother smiles a polite but exasperated smile—she’s been through this before. “Okay, dreamers,” she says. “Time for bed.”
* * *
ON CHRISTMAS MORNING my mother, Svea, and I put on wool hats and go for a walk along Land’s End.
“Just think. Everyone else is still sitting around opening presents,” my mother says, gloating as though the goal of Christmas Day is to go on a walk before anyone else.
When we make it back to the house, my father is standing by the front steps, waiting for us. Someone died, I think. I worry it’s one of my Swedish aunts. I’m crazy about them.
“Maria Fabiola’s on the news,” he calls out. “She’s been found.”
My mother thanks Jesus and God in Swedish.
We run into the TV room without kicking off our sneakers and there on TV I see the headline “Christmas Miracle: Missing Heiress Found Alive.” The same photo of Maria Fabiola fills the screen. She was discovered in a blanket on the steps of her family’s Sea Cliff home early this morning. The police aren’t releasing details about the kidnappers yet, the anchorwoman says. The anchor has a serious expression on her face—the situation requires it, of course—but I can perceive a bit of excitement behind her eyes. Her co-anchor is on Christmas vacation, and she’s going to have this story to herself.
“We have to go to her house,” my mom says. “We have to welcome her back.”
I’m in such shock that I follow after my mom. She’s walking fast, fists pumping. My dad and Svea come, too. As we approach Maria Fabiola’s house we see a crowd of people, fifty or sixty, standing outside her home. They’re gathered as though they’re the audience for a performance and the house is the stage.
Neighbors and strangers hug each other in the street. Some wear Santa hats and others wear Christmas sweaters that I doubt are ironic. More people arrive—some by car, some by bike. We wait for something, but we don’t know what. Finally, the living room curtains part. Maria Fabiola and her parents come to the window. I hear gasps, followed by a loud silence. Maria Fabiola stares out at everyone in the street. There are cheers and shouts about Christmas miracles.
Her father opens the window. The crowd applauds ecstatically. Maria Fabiola waves a Miss America wave—her arm moves only from the elbow up. She scans the faces in the crowd, taking careful note, I’m sure, of who has shown up to welcome her home. Soon her eyes meet mine. They pause, harden. Then they move on to the other, more adoring faces.
17
When Maria Fabiola was missing, all anyone did was wait for news about what had happened, where she was. Now that she’s reappeared, all anyone does is wait for her to reveal what happened and where she was.
A minute before the six o’clock news, my family sits down in front of the television. There are few updates about Maria Fabiola’s disappearance except that her kidnappers are said to be Russian. Poor Madame Sonya, I think. She offered Maria Fabiola her shed, and now her countrymen are being thrown under the bus. The anchorman is back—he must have cut his vacation short to cover the kidnapping. Even the anchorman and anchorwoman seem apologetic about how little information they have to report. The man reads a paragraph that goes like this: “The heiress to a sugar fortune has been returned home after what we now know was a kidnapping by Russians. She is recuperating with her family in their Sea Cliff home. We will be sharing more updates as they become available, but right now the family is asking that their privacy be respected.”
For the next few nights I sense something strained on the anchorman’s face. I i
magine he’s thinking, I came back early from vacation for this? I came back so I could repeat variations on the same paragraph every night?
On the seventh night of the same paragraph being read aloud, “Sea Cliff home” is changed to “Sea Cliff mansion.” “She is recuperating with her family in their Sea Cliff mansion,” the anchorman says, his eyes more resentful than ever.
“Mansion?” I say to my dad. “That’s got to be good for resale value, right?”
My father doesn’t take the bait for a real estate discussion. “Don’t you want to call her?” he asks instead.
“No,” I say. But later that night I dial the number I first memorized when I was eight. It rings and her father answers.
“Hi, it’s Eulabee.”
“Hello Eulabee,” her father says.
“I want to say how relieved and how . . . happy I am that Maria Fabiola is back home.”
“We are, too.”
“I’m sure,” I say. “I mean . . .”
“She’s not taking any calls right now, Eulabee,” he says. His voice has always been smooth and calm, like that of a hypnotist. “But I’ll let her know you’re thinking of her. It will mean a lot to Grace that you called, too.” It takes me a second to realize that Grace is Maria Fabiola’s mother. Why will she care that I called? Has Maria Fabiola said something to her about me?
“Okay,” I say. “Well, say hey to Grace, too. Happy New Year!” I hang up the phone, feeling stupid.
* * *
SCHOOL STARTS UP AGAIN the first week of January. On my first day back, I walk to school by myself, the usual way. I see Faith and Julia walking ahead of me. Maria Fabiola’s not with them. Maybe she’ll arrive late, I think. Like a celebrity.
But when I enter the auditorium for morning assembly I see Maria Fabiola seated in the front row, between her mother and Mr. Makepeace. When assembly starts, Ms. Catanese, the head of upper school, announces that “in light of recent events,” the school therapist, Ms. Ross, will now be almost full-time. Ms. Ross bounds onto the stage, wearing glasses and a dress patterned with lemons. “I just want to let you know that all your secrets are safe with me,” she says. She pauses, as though about to say something else, but then walks off the stage.