The Black Butterfly

by Shirley Reva Vernick

  “No.”

  She shifted in her seat. “I see.”

  “That’s just not her style, Bubbles, that’s all.”

  “I guess.”

  “I bet she didn’t tell you much about me either, right?”

  She smiled a small smile. “Then it’s up to us to fill each other in. Good thing we’ve got a couple of weeks.”

  “I won’t need nearly that long to tell you about me. I’m not that interesting.”

  “Nonsense,” she said emphatically. “I have all sorts of questions for you.”

  Before she got any questions out though, Vincent appeared with the main course, which he needed both arms to deliver. I’d never seen anything like it. Picture a tray with concentric circles of increasingly intense color and texture, starting with mussels and including caramelized shallots, fat shrimp, tangy mushrooms, scallops, cherries, fennel sausages, pomegranate pulp and tons of grilled root vegetables. It was bliss on a plate. Bubbles and I hardly talked while we demolished it, which I was thankful for since I really didn’t want to be interrogated.

  During our after-dinner tea—well, I had tea, Bubbles had cognac—her sleeve fell back just enough to reveal a bracelet. It was thick and wide and colorful and intricate. “What a great bracelet,” I said, glad to find some part of her outfit that I could compliment honestly. “Did you get it around here?”

  “This? I made it.” She held her wrist up to give me a closer look, then beamed, “I’m so tickled you noticed it.”

  “It’s a knockout. Hey, what’s this?” I asked, reaching over the table to touch a sparkly red charm.

  “Glass, from an old earring I had. I have a little business making jewelry out of recycled glass and old machine parts. See this?” She pointed to a bumpy metal square. “That’s a chip from George’s first computer.”

  “Charm-ing,” I said, feeling a little dumb at the bad pun, but happy to make her laugh after the awkward business about Mom. I considered asking if she’d made the crescent moon necklace George was wearing this morning, but something told me not to. That necklace had girlfriend written all over it. Instead I asked, “Do you sell your things in stores?”

  “Well, I have a few things at the counter at the Grindle Point Shop down the road. I’m trying to get my favorite jewelry store in Bangor to take some things on consignment. But mostly I go to church bazaars or give them as gifts. You really like it?” she said, holding the bracelet up so the candlelight caught the glass.

  “Really. So, what do you call yourself? I mean, your business?”

  Bubbles leaned forward and lowered her voice, as if she were about to divulge some highly confidential corporate secret. “I’m toying with calling myself One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure.”

  I nodded and tried to look impressed, although I thought this name was completely off target. What was she thinking, calling her artwork trash and referring to it as a man’s treasure? And how did she ever expect to fit all those words onto a jewelry-sized gift box or a business card? Still, she seemed attached to it, and I didn’t want to burst Bubbles’ bubble.

  She scooted her chair closer to mine. “I’m so happy you’re here, Penny. Thank heavens your mother thought to call on me. Finally, to talk again after all that old…business.”

  “Y-yes.”

  “So, that much you do know about me—the unpleasant parts.”

  This was going nowhere good fast. “It’s not like that, Bubbles. It’s just—”

  “No, no need to explain, dear.” She took another gulp of her cognac. “I’m just so glad to be back in touch. You know, I tried to salvage the friendship—after things calmed down a bit, of course—I really did. But your mother was off in other directions, and I finally gave up. What else could I do? And then, lo and behold, I pick up the phone last week and it’s her. It’s Vivian, sounding just like she did all those years ago.”

  “That’s Mom for you.”

  She smiled, and then the smile morphed into a large yawn. “And now I really must trundle myself off to bed. Thank you, dear, for a delightful evening.” She pushed back her chair and took the last swig of her drink. Standing up, she had to brace herself against the table for balance. “My, I didn’t realize quite how…sleepy…I am. Pleasant dreams, now.” Before I could say another word, she was staggering toward the door.

  “I could walk you to your room,” I called, but Vincent arrived all at once, taking her arm and ushering her out of the room. Actually, I was glad to avoid escort duty. I had an important rendezvous with Rita to get to. I was going to get her to tell me all about Mom and Bubbles.

  I can have oodles of charm when I want to.

  —Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

  I got to the study before Rita, so I took Breakfast in Brazil off the bookshelf and parked on the sofa to wait. And wait. And wait some more. I went through Snacking in Tuscany and Vegan Riviera too, but still no sign of Rita. I leafed through an atlas that was so old it showed Alaska belonging to Russia. I tried out every chair. Where could she be? Did she forget? It was ten o’clock already. Had I gotten here too late or too early? Was I in the wrong room? Then, just as I got up to put the books away, I heard footsteps, and George walked in.

  I dropped one of the books. On my foot. George looked as dazed to see me as I was to see him.

  “Hello,” I mumbled, picking up the book and thinking I’d just slip past him and be on my way.

  “Hello,” he said stiffly, not making eye contact. He’d shaved since I saw him last, and now I saw the dimples. “Feeling better?” I asked.

  “Lousy headache. I get them. Then all I can do is hole up in a dark room and pray for sleep.”

  “Too bad you had to miss dinner. Again.”

  “I’m not very good company when I’m in pain. You probably noticed that.”

  “Yeah, well…” Maybe it was his headache, maybe it was whatever Bubbles told him about Mom. Either way, he had plenty of reason to keep to himself.

  He didn’t say anything else, and there was nothing left for me to say, so I walked out of the room. I figured my best hope with George was for peaceful coexistence, and that translated into keeping my distance. But before I’d taken more than a few steps in the direction of the parlor, he poked his head out. “Hey,” he said. “I’m gonna scrounge around for some leftovers. You…uh…wanna come?”

  Wait a minute, did I hear right? It sounded like George just invited me along. Bubbles must have pressured him into making nice, or maybe she struck a bargain with him. He probably didn’t want my company any more than I wanted to take part in a forced conversation. Yet he was standing there looking, I don’t know, sincere. And it wasn’t like I had anything else to do. So I said sure, and we headed down the hall together.

  The kitchen felt different at night without Rita and with only a few ceiling bulbs instead of a flood of natural light. It was cavernous and aloof, if a room can feel that way. I took a stool by the butcher block, hoping I hadn’t made a mistake in coming.

  “Let’s see, what’s good in here?” George said with his head in the fridge. “Cheese, oranges, more cheese, pickles. What’s this?” He turned around to show me the chilling dough ball in his hands.

  “It’s pain d’amandes. Rita and I made it.”

  “Let’s cook it up,” he said.

  “B-but—” This was my project. My first project with Rita. Not his midnight snack. “It’s Rita’s dough. She said we were going to bake it in the morning.”

  “Believe me, she’ll be thrilled to know I used it, especially when she finds out you taught me how.”

  “But I don’t know how.”

  “So we’ll fudge.”

  I was about to protest but thought better of it. “Fine,” I said. “But if we burn the kitchen down, it’s on your head.”

  “I’m not worried.” He breezily set the dough on the island and began banging cupboards open and shut in search of a baking sheet. When he found a tin he liked, he smeared it with butter, the
n dug into the precious dough with his fingers. He plopped a hunk onto the sheet, and then another and another, not pausing until the tin was plastered with lopsided blobs of my former pain d’amandes dough. Rita’s dough. Our dough.

  “So what do you think?” he said when the demolition was finished. “350, 375?”

  “350 what?” I asked weakly.

  “Degrees,” he laughed. “Never mind, I’ll try 450. They’ll cook faster.” He shoved the pan into the oven and took the stool next to mine. “So,” he said, running his fingers along the butcher block, “did Rita tell you the legend of the almonds?”

  “No. I mean, not yet. She didn’t tell me yet.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to tell you,” he said, scooting his stool a little closer, close enough that I could see the scar in his eyebrow from the long ago crawlspace fall. “It’s like this. Once upon a time, a knight had to leave his damsel. He didn’t want to—they were in love—but there was a dragon to fight. He promised to return as soon as he could, and she believed him.”

  George paused to clear his throat, and when he continued, his voice was different, letting slip a trace of—could it be?—warmth, maybe even a hint of shyness. “The knight didn’t come home that night. Or the next night or the next. Every day the maiden stood on the fortress wall scanning the horizon for him, and every night she went to bed alone. She waited for years until she finally died of a broken heart.”

  George had one hand on the island and the other on his crossed leg. He seemed to have a hard time looking straight at me. I smelled Old Spice on him—Old Spice and cookie dough and a trace of mint toothpaste.

  “The gods felt sorry for her though, and turned her into an almond tree,” he said. “When the knight finally returned with the head of the dragon on his javelin, he was inconsolable when he learned he’d lost his true love. He hugged the almond tree to hide his tears, and when he did, an amazing thing happened. The tree burst into bloom, to show that death hadn’t conquered her love for him.” George swallowed. “And that is the legend of the almond.”

  “That’s, that’s a good story,” I stumbled.

  “If you believe in that stuff.”

  “What stuff? Love? Hope? Almonds?”

  “You know, all that stuff about—oh, I don’t know.” Then to make sure I wouldn’t press him, he declared that the cookies must be ready. Before I could get another word out, he was off his stool and squinting through the oven window. “Here we go,” he said, pulling a bright red mitt onto each hand. “Let’s see what we got.”

  I braced for disappointment, for burnt odors and bitterness and maybe some smoke. But when he opened the oven door, a tidal wave of exquisite smells rushed out. Apparently, Rita’s magic was hearty, able to survive even George’s mishandling. He carried the pan to the island and gingerly set the biggest, nuttiest cookie in front of me.

  I reached for it hungrily, but George tapped my hand. “It’s hot,” he warned, and I couldn’t help but notice how strange his touch felt to my skin—both warm and cold, kind and taunting, placid and disturbing.

  When the steam let up and I sank my teeth into the crunchy spicy cookie, I was transported back to Somerville and Mrs. Toussaint’s kitchen. Mrs. Toussaint was the old Haitian lady who lived upstairs from us in one of our walk-ups. I was only four, too young for school, and she was lonesome, so she took care of me while Mom worked. Mrs. Toussaint had a Creole accent that I loved, and she called me her makàk, her monkey. Every day she baked something different out of the same bunch of ingredients—flour, sugar, butter, eggs—and then we ate it for lunch and supper. Those felt like the good old days, me and Mrs. T., staving off sadness in the kitchen. I hope she enjoyed those times as much as I did, because I can’t imagine that my mother paid her much, if anything.

  “Mmm,” George munched, his eyes at half-mast, his mouth dotted with crumbs. He licked the specks off his lips and then gave his glistening fingers the same treatment. “Good, huh?”

  “I’ve gotta admit it. You fudged good.”

  He smiled a sticky smile.

  Then I asked him something I’d been puzzling over all day. “Hey George, what’s with the spy wear?”

  He looked at me like I had food all over my face.

  “Your sweatshirt.” I pointed to the CIA lettering. “You an agent or something?”

  He peered at his chest and broke out in a belly laugh. “This CIA isn’t for Central Intelligence Agency. It’s for the Culinary Institute of America. I’m a second year chef student.”

  “You’re a chef?” I accused, flabbergasted. “You had me thinking you didn’t know your way around a kitchen, and you’re really a chef?”

  He stood up casually and got a bottle of milk from the fridge. “I didn’t ‘have you’ thinking anything. All I said was I didn’t know what temperature to bake the cookies at.” He sat back down and took a long drink from the bottle. “You didn’t tell me your life story either. High school?”

  Suddenly I felt too young, or maybe too unaccomplished. I didn’t want to be just a high school junior. There was more to me than that…wasn’t there? “Uh, yeah,” I confessed.

  “You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”

  “Well, you know how high school can be.”

  “Isn’t there anything you like about it? One class, one person, one club?”

  “I guess I like my English class this term—creative writing. We’re doing short stories right now. I’ve got one due right after the break.”

  “Cool.” He pushed his stool back and stretched out his legs, like he was just settling in. “Tell me about your story.” In the dim light of the night kitchen, both of George’s eyes shone green.

  “Not yet,” I said, hoping he’d find my answer mysterious, not dismissive. The thing is, for all I knew, my story was a load of gunk, and I didn’t want him to be the one to confirm it.

  “At least tell me the title,” he coaxed.

  I took the bottle from him and twirled it around. “I guess I can give you that much.” I took a sip of the milk—whole milk, heavy and sweet and creamy. “It’s ‘The Purple Agony.’ It’s a murder mystery.”

  “‘The Purple Agony,’” he said slowly, like he was tasting the words. “Intriguing. So, are you writing this story on your jeans?”

  I looked down at my pants, embarrassed. I’m so used to seeing my hen-scratched quotes on the denim, I don’t really see them anymore. “No, no. It’s just, when I hear or read a phrase I like, I write it down on the nearest surface. Guess I should start carrying a notebook in my pocket.”

  He laughed again and then neither of us spoke for a moment. To break the silence, I asked him if the CIA was here on the island. Sounding a little offended, he said Islemorow would sink if something the size of the CIA landed on it. “The Institute is in New York. Hyde Park. It’s a real college. Dorms and everything. I mean—sorry. It’s just that some people think I’m learning how to assemble Big Macs down there.”

  “You know what?” I said. “There’s an actual Dunkin Donuts University near Boston. My mom used to assistant manage a D.D. in Waltham, and she got sent to the university once to learn, I don’t know, how to get the cream inside the éclairs or something.” I was expecting him to be amused, but the mere mention of my mother seemed to derail him. He looked baffled, as if he’d lost complete track of the conversation. In desperation, I heard myself ask, “Um, so how’d you get into cooking, anyway? Rita, I bet.”

  The change of subject—or maybe the reference to Rita—roused George from his stupor. “She was a great teacher. Still is.”

  “You two are close then.”

  He took the bottle back from me and stared deep into the milk. “Yeah. She was around more than my mom growing up, you know? Ma was always off trying to start some new business. I used to hang out here in the kitchen just for something to do. The cooking, it kind of rubbed off on me by accident. But it’s a good fit, just the same.”

  To my chagrin, another silence filled the short dist
ance between us. I wondered what George was thinking. I wondered if he was wondering what I was thinking. And then I started babbling. “Well, I guess I should get some sleep now.” I stood up, talking fast. “So I can, you know, get some work done tomorrow. Besides, you’re probably exhausted after your headache. I hope Rita doesn’t mind that we did this. Wait, we’d better do some cleaning up, and—”

  “Penny.” He didn’t seem nearly as tense as I suddenly was. “It’s okay. I just had a nap. I’ll clean up. You go to bed.”

  “No, I helped make the mess.”

  He got up and pointed sternly toward the door. “Go to bed. You need to be rested for our outing tomorrow morning.”

  “What outing?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something.”

  This evoked several responses in me. I was (a) delighted at the thought of getting out of the inn for a while, (b) curious about this so-called outing, (c) wary about what state of mind the mood-swinging George would be in come morning, and (d) confused. Hopefully, a decent night’s sleep would give me some clarity—and help me keep my wits about me tomorrow.

  “Go on,” he said. “You’re tired.”

  Now that he mentioned it, I was. “If you’re sure.”

  “I’m positive.”

  “Good night then. See you in the morning.”

  “Night.”

  I left the kitchen without looking back at him, wondering if he was watching me go. No matter. It didn’t matter. I headed straight upstairs. Why had George shared the fairy tale about love and longing though and sat so close to me when he told it? What did he mean by outing? I pondered these delicious questions while I walked down the hall, under the chandelier and past the watercolors. It wasn’t until I was almost at my room that I noticed Blue standing outside my door with an armful of logs.

  I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.

  –Oscar Wilde

  “Hey,” I said.

  “I thought you might like a fire,” Blue said. “It’s a cold one tonight.”

  “Wow, thanks.” Talk about service.

  I let us in, and Blue unloaded the wood into the hearth. He crumpled up some newspaper pages he’d brought along and tossed them on top of the logs. Then he lit a match and touched it to the paper, which blackened and curled with the heat.