The Second Life of Mirielle West

by Amanda Skenandore

  Mirielle hung back, leaning against the doorjamb. She took another sip of her drink, then set it aside. Was it the alcohol burning inside her or grief? It didn’t diminish the cheer she felt at Irene’s happiness. Somehow they existed side by side.

  Frank caught her eye from across the room. His steady smile buoyed her, and she stepped inside to join the celebration.

  CHAPTER 48

  Mirielle tried not to look at the fever cabinet, now unplugged and pushed into the corner, during her shifts in the infirmary. She thought about stealing a bat from the equipment shed and bashing the machine to pieces. That might lift her spirits. At the very least, it would provide much-needed entertainment for the women in their sickbeds. But then she’d be stuck copying textbooks for the rest of her days if Sister Verena didn’t outright sack her.

  Today, she’d snuck in her manicure set, and shaped and polished the women’s nails between her other tasks. She could finish an entire hand while the thermometer was under their tongue. Sister Verena would likely scold her later for corrupting the women and endangering their souls. But surely a smile was worth something. These women—their throats narrowing with lesions or the cartilage in their noses collapsing or their vision fading—deserved a little frivolous distraction. God and Sister Verena could blame her all they liked. Besides, no matter what she’d told Frank, Mirielle needed the distraction too.

  “There, just like the sheen on an automobile,” she said when she finished the last woman’s nails. She slipped the clear polish back into her pocket along with her emery board, the bottle of cuticle remover, and the tube of nail white she’d used underneath the nails to bleach the tips.

  The woman held up her hands, wrinkled with age and scarred from the disease. “Men really go for this kind of thing these days?”

  “Sure they do.” Mirielle held out her own hands for inspection. Jean had wanted to play beautician last night, and Mirielle’s jagged and unevenly polished nails were a casualty of the game. The pale patch of skin at the base of her thumb had been joined by another, this one reddened and raised around the edges. She chalked it up to the stress of Irene leaving. Of the fever therapy failing. Of Charlie’s dwindling letters. “Never mind what a fella thinks. We do it for ourselves. Lovely nails are the first step in feeling put together.”

  The woman grunted and shrugged.

  “Does that mean you don’t like it?”

  “Of course I do. Now, how about a little lipstick?”

  Mirielle laughed. “I’m pretty sure that would get me fired.”

  A call bell rang from across the room, and Mirielle rose to answer it. When she looked back, the woman was still examining her hands, sniffing and even licking one of her nails. Mirielle smiled and got back to work.

  But as she was hanging up her apron at the end of the day, the hypertherm again caught her eye. How long would she have to wait until they found a cure? How many birthdays would she miss? How many first days of school? Helen wouldn’t even know her when she returned. Evie would remember her only as a depressive and a drunk. Mirielle slouched against the wall. The manicure supplies in her pocket crushed into her thigh, but she didn’t care. Not even when she felt the tube of nail white burst. She had so much to make amends for. So much wasted time to recoup. But what if they never found a cure and she didn’t get the chance?

  Her greatest hope now was reaching twelve negative skin tests. Only three more to go, and she’d be free like Irene. Never mind the risk of relapse or the people she’d be leaving behind. She walked up to the fever cabinet and gave it a swift kick. The machine didn’t even tremble, but her shoe came away scuffed and her toe aching.

  * * *

  That evening Mirielle begrudgingly joined her housemates in the rec hall for a picture show. Another distraction for their pitiful lives. Why Irene hadn’t hightailed it home yet, Mirielle couldn’t imagine. Something about giving her son and his wife time to fix up the farmhouse. Jean’s pleading that she stay for Mardi Gras might have something to do with it too. Mirielle was glad for every extra day with Irene, but it also drew out the sadness of her inevitable departure.

  During the first reel change, she bought a Hershey’s bar for her and Jean.

  “Hang around after the show,” Frank said to her as she handed him a dime. “I’ve got something I wanna show ya.”

  “What is it?”

  The lights dimmed and the projector whirred back to life. Black-and-white images flickered on the screen. The accompanist struck a dissonant chord, then found his place in the music.

  “It’s a surprise,” Frank whispered, winking at her.

  Mirielle returned to her seat and spent the rest of the picture wondering what sort of shenanigans Frank was up to. Hopefully nothing that involved rickety skiffs and bullfrogs.

  Midway through the picture, after the third reel change, Clara Bow strode across the screen wearing a beaded dress and a lot of skin. This was a newer film. Mirielle remembered reading a review of it in the Times only a few years back. “There are only about five actresses who give me a real thrill on the screen,” the reviewer had written, “and Clara is nearly five of them.”

  Mirielle had to agree. Not even the cockroaches stirred when Robert Agnew swept Miss Bow into his arms and kissed her.

  Mirielle had been on set with Charlie and knew all the lighting tricks and camera angles that went into such a shot. And still she longed to be kissed like that. Even without the backlighting and accompaniment, it would be magical. Her thoughts strayed back to Frank. She imagined them together in the empty rec hall, the illuminated screen casting a soft glow. This time, when he tried to kiss her, she didn’t run away but met his lips with an insatiable hunger. His arms locked around her, pulling her so close she could hardly breathe. But she didn’t care to breathe, only to be kissed. Her hand roamed upward from the small of his back over the swell of his shoulder blades and along his neck, clenching his tousled hair when his lips descended to her throat.

  The bright overhead lights flicked on, and just like that, the vision was gone, as if someone offstage had yelled, “Cut!”

  “You all right, baby?” Irene asked her. “You’re all flushed.”

  “Fine. It’s just warm in here.”

  “I’ll say. This place has got two temperatures. Damned hot and damned cold. The walk back ought to cool you off.”

  Irene stood, but Mirielle remained seated.

  “You coming?”

  “No, I . . .” She hesitated. “Frank asked me to hang around after.”

  Irene gave a lopsided smirk. “Should I leave you my mint lozenges?”

  “It’s nothing like that,” Mirielle said, glad of how steady and convincing her voice sounded. “He probably just wants help stacking the chairs.”

  Together they roused Jean, who’d fallen asleep halfway through the picture, and she and Irene shuffled out behind the other residents. Mirielle busied herself picking up stray candy wrappers and soda bottles so no one else would take note of her lingering. The last thing she needed was for the Rocking Chair Brigade to get ideas.

  “You’re not trying to lasso me into helping with the Mardi Gras party, are you?” she asked Frank once everyone else was gone.

  “No.” A smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he finished packing up his candy cart. Mirielle’s stomach tightened. Would that it had been that easy. That innocent.

  “So . . . can I help you with the chairs?”

  “Not yet.” He wheeled the cart into the canteen and returned with a flat square box. She watched as he removed the final reel of the Clara Bow picture from the projector.

  “How’d you manage to get such a recent film?”

  “I still got a little juice on the outside. What’d ya think?”

  Mirielle shrugged, though heat swept into her cheeks again. “It wasn’t bad.”

  “Reckon you’ll like this one even better.” He opened the box and pulled out another reel of film. “It’s a comedy. Thought it might cheer ya up with
Irene leaving and all.”

  “You ordered it just for me?”

  His fledgling smile widened. “Call it an early Mardi Gras present.”

  “You don’t give presents at Mardi Gras.”

  “Guess that’s a perk of being locked up in here. Ain’t no one around to tell us different.”

  Mirielle swallowed and watched as he fed the start of the film strip into the projector, once again surprised at how nimble his hands were despite their deformity.

  He turned out the lights and sat beside her. She tried not to revisit the kiss that had played out earlier in her mind. His scent drifted over, cutting through the lingering cigarette smoke. Why, when he used the same soap and aftershave as nearly everyone else at Carville, did it smell so good on his skin? Light flicked onto the screen, and she welcomed the distraction. Thank goodness he’d chosen a comedy.

  The title of the film flashed in big black letters. Mirielle’s heart froze. THE PERILOUS PURSUITS OF PAULINE. The first scene opened with haunting familiarity—the feckless Pauline playing tennis at her grandfather’s estate. Mirielle tried to stand, but the muscles in her legs were frozen too. Charlie came onto the screen a moment later, his handsome face boyishly round, just like when they’d met. The remnants of the chocolate bar she’d shared with Jean inched up her throat, bile-tinged and burning.

  “I have to go,” she managed, first as a whisper, then loud enough to be a shout. “I have to go!” Her legs came back to life with a jerk, and she stood.

  Frank reached out, his curled fingers brushing her hand. “Ain’t this why ya picked your name? I didn’t mean . . . I thought ya’d like it.”

  Mirielle couldn’t answer, except for a sob, and ran out of the room.

  CHAPTER 49

  Mirielle lay awake all night. She couldn’t explain why seeing Charlie on the screen had rattled her so. It was as if she’d been at a party—a small, intimate affair—and an unwelcome guest had arrived, spoiling everything. But whether that guest was Frank or Charlie, she wasn’t sure.

  As she tried to sort it out, Mirielle realized how divided she’d become, a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of sorts, living two separate lives. How would she knit these lives together when the ordeal of her disease was over? They were utterly dissimilar—her life before, her life after. She certainly couldn’t go back to the way things had been before her diagnosis. Charlie hated that woman, and—if she were being honest with herself—Mirielle did too. But she couldn’t go back to the happy-go-lucky person she’d been before Felix’s death either. Time and fate had killed that woman. Mirielle only had who she was now. Perhaps that was why Charlie’s black-and-white image on the screen had upset her. It was as if they were strangers again.

  * * *

  “What’s eatin’ ya?” Irene asked a few days after the picture show night. They were seated on the living room floor, bending old clothes hangers into the shape of wings. Jean and a few of the other children had built a beehive-shaped float out of scraps of lumber and old wheelchair parts for the Mardi Gras parade. Mirielle and Irene had agreed to help with their bee costumes.

  “Are you . . . worried at all about going home?” Mirielle asked.

  “What’s there to worry about?”

  “I don’t know, that you’ll have trouble slipping back into your old skin.”

  “Baby, I’m the same woman I was when I left. Hair’s a little grayer. Tits a little lower. But otherwise I ain’t changed.”

  Mirielle wrestled with the hanger, trying to bend it into something that resembled a wing. How did Irene face everything with such certainty? Maybe she would feel differently if her son hadn’t already been a young man when she’d been taken. Or if the marriage to her second husband had lasted. Or maybe she was just a stronger woman.

  Mirielle held out the wire-framed wing. Not bad considering she’d never made anything more complicated than a gin rickey before. Perhaps she ought to be more forthcoming with Charlie in her letters. She’d written to him just that morning, wanting to share the good news of Irene’s parole. But her pen had stalled after the usual bevy of questions about work and the girls.

  Though she’d mentioned Irene in a few previous letters, she doubted Charlie would remember. Did she take the time now to explain Irene was a friend? Her best friend at the colony, if Mirielle were honest. The best friend she’d ever had. Her pen hung above the page dripping ink until Mirielle had to crumple up the letter and start over. Like it or not, life had moved on since her arrival at Carville, carrying her with it. Somewhere along the way, Charlie had been left behind. The seemingly inconsequential details and events she left out of her letters built one upon the other to shape her life here. And she’d never taken the time to go back and explain. Irene was just the name of her house orderly. Jean was just a rowdy girl. Frank was just a nettlesome man with hideous claw-hands. Hector, Madge, Mr. Li, the twins—they didn’t even exist in Charlie’s conception of her world.

  Mirielle set down the wire wing and started on another. Jean came skipping in, tossing her school books onto the sofa and kicking off her shoes.

  “How’d you do on your spelling test?” Mirielle asked, though she could guess by Jean’s orange-stained lips. Frank kept a box of candy sticks behind the counter for the children when they earned high marks on a test.

  Jean grinned, flashing yet another hole where a baby molar had been. “I got ’em all right. Except for one.”

  “Which one?”

  “Mongoose.”

  “We practiced that one a dozen times last night.”

  “I know.” She looked down and kicked at the edge of the rug.

  Mirielle raised herself onto her knees and gave one of Jean’s braids a playful tug. “It’s better than I ever did as a kid.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” Mirielle said. “I’m proud of you.”

  “Can I have a candy bar to celebrate?”

  “I’m pretty sure you’ve had enough sweets for today.”

  Jean turned to Irene. “Pleeeese.”

  “All right, go grab a nickel outta my purse.”

  Jean hurried off.

  “Just one! I’ll know if you take another, you little rascal.” Irene turned to Mirielle and flashed an apologetic smile. “I ain’t got much more time to spoil her.”

  “When she’s bouncing off the walls tonight, she’s your responsibility.”

  “Thanks!” Jean called skipping out of the house. A moment later she returned and tossed a letter at them. “Forgot to give you this.”

  The envelope landed between them, facedown. Mirielle’s insides tightened. She’d been hoping for a letter from Charlie for weeks, but now she hesitated to pick it up as if he’d somehow seen into her thoughts—her thoughts about kissing Frank—and had written to chasten her. But that was ridiculous. He was hundreds of miles away. Besides, a stray thought or two about another man’s lips didn’t make her a cheat and a floozie.

  She picked up the envelope and started to open it before realizing it was addressed to Irene. “It’s for you.”

  “Hot dog!” Irene said, grabbing the envelope and putting on her cheaters. “It’s from my son. Bet the farmhouse is finally ready.” She pressed the envelope to her breast and stood. “You mind finishing up on the wings?”

  Mirielle’s heart squeezed with envy. “The kids might mind when they turn out all lopsided.” She managed a smile. “Go read your letter.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Mardi Gras dawned wet and cold. But the foul weather didn’t dampen the colony’s excitement. Even Mirielle found herself swept up in the gaiety. Before the parade, she helped Jean and the other children into their costumes. Once everyone’s wings were straight, stingers pinned, and antennae secure, the children scurried off with their float to join the other paraders while Mirielle and her housemates crowded onto the porch to await the procession.

  She heard the clamor of the parade before it came into view—trumpets and drums and noisemakers. Bike horns and footfalls. A slurri
ng of notes that sounded distinctly like Jean and her harmonica. Then the first of the paraders rounded the corner far down the walkway. Several residents with ribbon-festooned bikes and wheelchairs led the procession, passing in a flurry of green, gold, and purple. The musicians followed, heralding the hodgepodge of makeshift floats.

  Mirielle and her housemates cheered as they passed. The Mexican Club had created a piñata-styled float out of colorfully painted papier-mâché and a rusty wheelbarrow. Next came a wagon-turned-pirate ship built by house sixteen, complete with white sails and a Jolly Roger flag. Altogether there were eight floats and at least two dozen residents who’d marched with their instruments and bikes. Perhaps Mirielle was partial, but her favorite was the hive and bee children, lopsided wings and all.

  After the last float passed, Mirielle and her housemates hurried inside to change for the party. She’d brought four evening gowns with her from California. Four too many, really. She looked over each of them now and tried to remember what she’d been thinking when she’d asked Charlie to pack these. She certainly hadn’t envisioned this—the parade and music and party. Ramshackle and rinky-dink, she would have thought then.

  She chose a mint-green gown of silk georgette embroidered with beads. It had a wrap-around bodice and V-shaped neckline infilled with flesh-colored silk. A scalloped belt hung hip-level over the straight skirt.

  As she shimmied into the gown, she caught the scent of mothballs. But also something else. She brought the collar up to her nose. Perfume. Cigar smoke. Home.

  Perhaps she wasn’t up for attending the dance after all. She started to undress, but then Irene appeared in her doorway.

  “Whooee,” she said. “What a pretty little number.”

  Mirielle smoothed her hands over the shimmering silk. “It’s too much for tonight, I was just going to—”

  “No, wear it. You look beautiful.” Irene stepped into the room and straightened the dress’s seam. “There.”

  “You look beautiful too,” Mirielle said, admiring Irene’s dress of blue chiffon. “Where’d you get this?”