by Rachel Klein
October 14
Today Lucy and I spent the entire quiet hour looking for the gold cross that she wears around her neck. She has no idea what happened to it. She only takes it off when she swims, and she hasn’t been swimming all fall. She’s afraid her father will go nuts because he gave it to her as a present when she was confirmed. We turned everything inside out looking for it.
Even though crosses make me feel uncomfortable, Lucy looks naked without her cross. I’m so used to seeing it around her neck, lying in the pink hollow of her collarbone. I noticed right away that it was missing. A part of her is gone.
We decided that if she can’t find it, she’ll buy another one. I’ll lend her the money if she needs it. I have no idea how much a gold cross costs.
I wasted a whole hour helping Lucy, and I have a huge math test tomorrow, but I don’t care. I haven’t done anything with her for so long. It was fun.
October 15
I have my suite with Lucy and I have Mr. Davies for English and I have Greek with Miss Norris and I have my piano lessons with Miss Simpson and I have Sofia and plenty of friends. …
October 16
I used to love the fall. But the fall doesn’t know if it wants to live or to die, to be reborn or shrivel up.
I used to want so much to be happy and normal and carefree like Lucy. That was all I wanted. I thought that by living near her, I could be like her. It’s a way of letting things happen to you without thinking about them, of being exactly what you are and nothing more. Things flow over you the way a wave breaks over your head, and you are lost underwater, weightless, unsure if you will ever surface and not caring if you do. You just have to be born that way.
Some days I wonder how I’ll get through a whole lifetime of thinking. A life that’s just words, words, words, shuffling around in my head. Was I born that way?
October 17
I feel much better today (Saturday). Lucy decided to stay at school again, and we took the train into town for the day. I think she wanted Ernessa to come along with us, but I didn’t give her a chance to ask. I said, “Let’s go alone. Then we can do whatever we want.”
We wandered around for hours. When we got tired, we sat in a park and looked at the people walking by and made up outrageous stories about them. They all had terrible secrets to hide: murder, incest, adultery, alcoholism. Actually, I made up the stories, and Lucy laughed at them. We had a nice lunch and ate huge fudge sundaes. It was perfect. On the way back to the train station, Lucy dragged me into a record store. She’s been dying to buy Cat Stevens’s Tea for the Tillerman ever since Carol played it for her.
As we walked down the wide sidewalk, Lucy sang to herself and swung the paper bag with the record back and forth. I wasn’t really listening to the words. Longer boats were mixed up with keys and doors and distant shores.
“I don’t really get the words,” she said. “Do you?”
“I’ve never heard the song,” I said.
She must have listened to Carol’s record a lot because she kept on singing and she knew all the words to the song.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me,” I said, annoyed. “How can boats win you?”
Lucy looked over at me and smiled. “Sorry. I just can’t stop singing it.”
Lucy knows I don’t like that music. I try to listen to it, but it bores me. She thinks I’m much too snobby. Sometimes I can’t understand why we’re such good friends.
On the train ride home, we were both tired, that nice kind of drowsy feeling when it’s growing dark outside and you’re speeding along effortlessly. Everyone out there is exposed, but you are protected, safe inside. The world looks greenish and far away through the tinted train windows, like an old painting with yellowing varnish. I read a book, and Lucy put her head on my shoulder and slept. I can still be happy.
October 18
Sunday and quiet. Lucy went to church this morning, and I’m alone. I’m trying not to think about being alone. Lucy will be back in two hours. Nothing has happened since yesterday so I’m going to write about Miss Norris.
This is my second year taking Greek with Miss Norris. She has an apartment on the fourth floor that she used to share with her mother, but now she lives by herself. She’s old, probably in her seventies. I think she’s spent most of her life at the school. She must have gone off to college (Brangwyn College across the street?) and then come back here to live with her mother (what happened to her father?), who also taught Greek and Latin. With anyone else, that would seem twisted, but with her it’s perfectly natural. She’s at school but not exactly part of it. I never see her with the other teachers. She doesn’t seem to need anything more than her books and her birds and her plants. I wish I could be like that. I always feel better at the end of my lesson, even if I have to struggle with the translation. Maybe it’s the sunlight that streams into the rooms at that end of the Residence. My first year I used to dream about being an older girl and going into her apartment. That’s why I took Greek. I imagined if I entered her realm, I would become part of it: the light and the singing birds and the mysterious symbols of that language, like marks left by birds in the sand. Her hair is white. Her skin is white. All the color is fading from her. She places her hand on the table, and I can follow the course of her blood through the bluish veins under the paper-thin skin. I can see the blood moving. Everything about her is fragile and old. But when she smiles and raises her white eyebrows, she looks like a little girl. She can do whatever she wants. She lets her birds fly around the apartment, flitting in and out of the plants in front of the windows, and she speaks to them as if they were children. They stop to listen to her voice.
“The Great God Pan”: “‘You see me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all these things – yes from that star that has just shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath our feet – I say that all these are but dreams and shadows: the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes. … it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients know what lifting the veil means. They call it seeing the god Pan.’”
What happens to someone who lifts that veil? Is there another veil right behind it?
October 19
Mr. Davies has had it with Claire. I can tell. He almost never calls on her, and he gets a pained look every time she plants herself in front of his desk after class. She thinks up all kinds of excuses to stay after class and talk to him. I used to think it was funny, but now I feel sorry for him. He doesn’t know what to do with her. He’s not the kind of person who can be blunt. Today he told her that they needed to have a talk. He set up a meeting for tomorrow. She ran up the Passageway to tell me. I guess she forgot that she was annoyed with me.
“I think he likes me,” she said breathlessly. “I can tell from the way he looks at me. When he left the room, he came so close to me that he brushed against my shoulder and I could smell his body. It really turned me on.”
She was probably blocking the doorway.
I don’t know why I ever liked her. When she finds out what he has to say, she’ll be angry at me again.
October 20
It was just as I predicted. Right before quiet hour, Claire burst into my room, already in tears, and screamed at me: “What did you tell Mr. Davies about me?”
Her face was bright red, and damp hair hung over her wet eyes. I told her that her name has never once come up in any conversation I’ve had with him, but of course she didn’t believe me.
“Then why does he think I’m too interested in his personal life, as he put it?”
“Come on,” I said. “It’s not like it isn’t obvious.”
“But you spend all your free time sitting by his desk mooning at him, and he doesn’t accuse you of anything,” she yelled. “You look like you want to climb all over him, sitting on the edge of your chair and leaning –”
“That’s nothing. And he knows it. We talk about books.”
“I can talk to him about books too,” she said.
“Really?”
“I don’t believe a word you say,” she screamed. “You’re turning Mr. Davies against me. You don’t want anyone else to talk to him. Admit that you want him all to yourself.”
“I won’t admit a thing,” I said.
“You’re so possessive. It’s the same way you are with Lucy. You can’t stand it if she has other friends. Everyone knows. You’re always peering around corners looking for her.”
I really lost it then. I told her to get out of my room or I’d call Mrs. Halton. I was afraid I would hit her. She slammed the door so hard that Mrs. Halton came anyway. I could hear her voice all the way down the corridor. “Girls, girls, stop this at once.” I’m never going to speak to Claire again. I have no idea what she meant about Lucy. I wish Lucy would come so I can tell her what happened. Then I’ll be able to laugh at Claire. I think Lucy has a hockey game this afternoon. I’ll have to wait till after dinner.
After dinner
Lucy’s response surprised me. Actually, she didn’t really want to hear about Claire at all. We were in the Playroom, and I pulled her aside to tell her what happened this afternoon. I could tell that she was only listening to me because she was being polite.
“I can see why Claire was so upset,” said Lucy when I finished.
“But she didn’t have to blame it on me,” I said. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Mr. Davies hurt her feelings.”
“She deserved to have her feelings hurt. She acts like an idiot. I feel sorry for Mr. Davies.”
I just walked away I was so annoyed. There was no point in continuing that conversation and getting into a fight with Lucy, too. She went right over to Ernessa, who was sitting off by herself, apparently waiting for Lucy. I watched Ernessa pull a cigarette out of a pack, hand it to Lucy, and light it for her, the way a man would. Lucy sat forward, on the edge of her chair, smoking her cigarette and listening to Ernessa. That was why she was so impatient with me. She’s never been like this before. I could always count on her to be on my side.
October 21
The sight of my blood is the beginning of the end.
Today I was waiting for Mrs. Halton in the sitting room of her suite just before quiet hour so that I could get her to sign a permission slip for this weekend. I had just come in from hockey, and my legs were sweaty under my gym tunic. Her sofa is a dark crimson velvet, and it looks as if no one has ever sat on it. I didn’t dare touch it. I wandered around the room, looking at all the knickknacks she has set out on a round, glass-topped table: a porcelain shepherdess, a black lacquer Chinese box, a music box covered with red brocade, a photograph of her dead husband in a silver frame. A whole life, gathered up in a few objects and a lifeless photograph. Was he ever alive and real or just a piece of paper? I could barely stand these sad things in this sad room that she is so proud of. It reminds you that a life no longer exists. How do we know that our life really happened and that we are not simply accumulating details, making it all up as we go along?
Before I knew what I was doing, my hand reached out and lifted the porcelain shepherdess. I wanted to touch its smooth, cold surface. As I lifted it, I felt something drip from my nose. A drop of red blood, so dark it was almost black, fell onto the glass in a perfect circle. I put my hand to my nose to stop the bleeding and looked around the room for a tissue to wipe up the blood. Ernessa was standing right behind me, peering over my shoulder at the table. She must have slipped into the room while I was lost in my stupid thoughts. I tried to wipe the blood off the table but only left a sticky smear where my finger touched the glass.
“When I was a little girl, the farmers said that a nosebleed was a sign of good luck,” she said.
I refused to acknowledge her. I stared at the glass-topped table, the smear of blood, the objects.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Mrs. Halton that you played with her precious shepherdess.”
I carefully put the figure back on the table.
“You shouldn’t be sad about these cheap, sentimental things,” she said. “I feel like sweeping them all into a pile on the floor.”
I don’t care much for Mrs. Halton, but what harm are her illusions? Let her keep them. Ernessa’s words were so cruel.
“She needs these things,” I said. “To go on living.”
Ernessa’s face was so close to mine. “I don’t need things to remember my father,” she whispered in my ear, “things that I can hold in my hands. Pieces of paper that capture images of the wrong moments. Time slips around them without a ripple.”
I turned to look at her. The fierce expression in her dark eyes surprised and frightened me. It had nothing to do with the sound of her words, which rose and fell softly.
“I don’t need them either,” I whispered.
I ran down the corridor to my room, clutching my nose with my hand. I didn’t know if I left a trail of blood behind me. When I reached my room, I slammed the door and went and locked myself in the bathroom. The blood was running down my hand, in rivulets between my fingers and over my wrist. I saw my reflection in the mirror, and it looked as if I’d been hit in the nose. I’ve never had such a bad nosebleed. When I tilted my head back, I could feel the thick blood in the back of my throat. The metallic taste made me gag. I rinsed off my hands and face, watching the running water in the sink turn the deep red to pink. I sat on the toilet for a long time, with my head between my knees, pinching my nose to stop the bleeding. I’m still shaking.
After dinner
I had to learn how to be with other people and how to have fun. Ernessa’s not like the rest of us. She’ll never be like us.
I found Ernessa all the way across the dining room and stared at her until she turned her head. I wanted to see whether she would acknowledge our meeting. She looked in my direction for a long time, but she seemed not to be looking at me. When I turned around, I saw Lucy at the table behind me, her eyes returning Ernessa’s gaze. Ernessa no longer had that fierce look; she was almost dreamy. Her eyes were large and soft, her lips were parted. Her pale skin was without a blemish. For a moment I almost understood why Lucy liked her. Lucy didn’t even see me turn to look at her. I didn’t think those pale blue eyes could be so intense.
I went to my room right after dinner and pulled out a pile of photographs from the back of my desk. I unfolded a strip of photographs of Lucy and me. We took them in a little booth in the train station downtown. They are already turning brown and fading, and it’s only been a year. We were trying hard not to laugh, to look serious. By the last frame, we had broken down. I’m certain I was happy then, so happy that I wasn’t even aware of being happy. I looked at an old black and white photograph of my father. It’s creased, with a corner torn off. He’s probably not handsome to anyone but my mother and me, with his round face and thinning hair and brown eyes set deep in his face. I think he’s happy. He’s not smiling, so I can’t be certain that he’s happy, but he’s sitting at the kitchen table at the beach house, and my mother is behind him, by the sink, slightly out of focus, but nearby. I can’t make out the expression on her face. He used to like to know that she was near him. He’d reach his arm out for her without being aware of what he was doing. It was like a nervous tic. And sometimes she wouldn’t be there, and he’d look around, puzzled. That night she was there. A bottle of wine and two half-filled glasses were on the table. I don’t remember the evening, and I have no idea who took the picture. Someone else must have been there. I was probably already in bed, falling asleep to the murmur of voices coming from the kitchen. In fairy tales, there’s always a time when everyone experiences happiness, even if it has to be lost forever the next moment. Ernessa is totally wrong: they’re not images of the wrong moments.
October 22
This morning at breakfast I said, “Has anyone actually seen Ernessa eat food?”
Only Kiki was interested, probably because she eats whatever she wants and is still like a rail. The others all think it’s cool not to eat. They admire
Ernessa for being able to resist food.
“Maybe she’s one of those secret eaters,” Kiki said. “She pretends to diet and then binges on junk food after lights out. She probably has a stash of goodies in her closet. You should know, Lucy. You’ve been spending a lot of time in her room. Do you two pig out together?”
“I don’t feel like talking about Ernessa,” said Lucy. She was talking to Kiki, but she looked at me while she spoke.
Even Kiki’s remarking on how much time Lucy spends with Ernessa.
“There’s a disease that people get,” said Betsy, “where they starve themselves to death. They stop eating and their body begins to feed on itself.”
“Remember Annie Patterson last year?” asked Carol. “All of a sudden she looked like a concentration camp survivor. You could see all the bones in her face. It looked like a skull. And she still wouldn’t eat. That’s why she had to leave school.”
“I don’t think that will ever be my problem,” said Sofia with a sigh.
“When you lose too much weight,” said Betsy, “your body can’t stay warm and you begin to grow fuzz on your arms. It’s not hair, it’s more like down. Kind of like an animal.”
Everyone was grossed out and told her to be quiet.
“Look, I read this in a book,” said Betsy. “I’m not making it up.”
“I don’t think Ernessa is starving herself,” said Kiki. “Take a look at her. She has the perfect bod. But if you think she has this disease, feel her arms for fuzz.”
“This is really fucking stupid,” said Lucy, and she pushed back her chair and left without finishing her breakfast.