by Nancy Werlin
Suddenly, between one carrot and the next, I had decided. I’d die before I’d let Saskia Sweeney think she had intimidated me. I’d die before I’d disappoint Ms. Wiles. And, finally, I wouldn’t be a wimp in front of James. Even if he had no clue what was going on. I wouldn’t be—what was it he’d called me at that Unity meeting?—a kicked kitten.
“Saskia?” I called out down the table. Did I imagine it, or did most of the kids sitting there turn to look at me? “Saskia,” I repeated, “I wanted to ask you—I need to sign up for my first shift at the food pantry. Stacking cans or doing whatever. Tomorrow afternoon would work for me. Is that okay?”
Saskia stared at me. Her lips pursed.
“Hey, could you do the noon to two o’clock shift?” Pammy Rosenfeld asked. She was sitting halfway down the table. “We need someone else there. I think a shipment of Green Giant corn and peas came in yesterday.” She smiled at me. “I’m in charge of scheduling this month.”
Clearly Pammy was not in on Saskia’s little plan. Maybe Saskia had been exaggerating? Speaking only for herself?
“Okay,” I said directly to Pammy. “I’m in.”
“Thanks,” said Pammy. “Welcome.”
“Thank you,” I said calmly. I did not look at Saskia. I looked across at James, trying to think of something innocuous to say. He was frowning as if puzzled—
“Oops!” said George de Witt, beside me. Only then—I swear it was after he spoke—did he elbow his second, full plate right off his tray.
The tomato sauce-soaked contents slid right into my lap. Startled, I yelped and looked at George—and he looked back, his eyes empty. Icy.
Saskia had not been bluffing. If I went ahead with this, so would she. She would make my life miserable.
Maybe I went a little bit crazy then. Or maybe I was still under the influence of the defiance that had just impelled me to challenge Saskia. I recall having the vague thought that I was already miserable; could it really get any worse?
I found myself shouting, “Food fight!” I grabbed my plate and ejected its contents directly into George’s face.
“Hey!” George yelled as I flung the dish away to the left. I heard it smash as it hit the floor, or a table, or the wall, or wherever. It sounded like a thunderclap.
I watched as a stuffed shell slid off George’s nose, fell to his chest, and then softly plopped down onto his jeans, leaving a blood-like trail of tomato sauce in its wake. It all seemed to happen in slow motion.
Around me—I could sense it even in the midst of my little fit—the entire cafeteria had come to a complete staring halt.
George’s expression was profoundly satisfying.
At that point I began giggling, and found I couldn’t stop. I had no control over myself. I roared. I wailed. I descended into convulsions of hysteria and had to clutch my stomach. Inside, I panicked. I wondered if you could die of laughter. Maybe it wasn’t a bad way to go, but this was hurting …
“Get a teacher!” I heard vaguely. “Run, quick!”
Then I felt somebody grab me by the shoulders and slap me, hard, across the right cheek. And then the left. Vaguely, I was relieved. I hiccuped for a minute or two, eyes closed, aware of the horror and shock and titillation of everyone around me. Then I opened my eyes and saw that, of course, it was James before me, one hand on my shoulder, his right hand still upraised.
“Creating an opportunity for violence?” I said. I was surprised; the words came out calmly, even quietly. I held his eyes. I was aware that my own were filled with tears. Several had dripped down my face. “Or was that just payback?”
James’s voice was even quieter. I doubted that anyone but me could hear it. “No, Frances.” And then, as two teachers came running up, I saw his lips move. No sound came out, and I hadn’t realized I had lip-reading skills, but somehow I thought he was saying: “Oh, God. I don’t know what to do.”
CHAPTER 20
I was given a bed in the school infirmary for the night. Mention was made of a regular group therapy session in managing grief, held on Wednesday evenings at Lattimore Hospital. Ms. Wiles telephoned me, and so did my father. I told everyone I was very tired. I told everyone I was sorry. I told everyone that yes, I had been trying to suppress my despair over Daniel’s death, but that I could no longer manage alone and some help would be very welcome. If I had support, I said, then yes, I thought I could continue with school. I said again that I was very sorry. That I didn’t want to be a trouble to anyone.
There, there, people said. Everyone assured me that I’d get all the help and support I needed. Individual counseling too, if that was deemed appropriate, said the school nurse.
It felt as if there were someone else in my body, propped up in the infirmary bed, listening, nodding, saying what people wanted to hear. It was nice. I felt calm.
In the background, I was thinking. I was thinking oddly well.
When I was finally alone, I picked up the telephone with a steady hand. I dialed Saskia’s room. She answered on the first ring. And although I had not consciously planned a speech, I found that I knew exactly what to say, and that I was not in the least afraid.
“It’s Frances. Listen, if you or your friends do anything to me ever again, I promise: I’ll keep on reacting like a crazy person. It will freak everyone out. Like George today. I saw his eyes. He thought he’d pushed me over the edge and it terrified him. He’s a nice guy, strangely enough. He won’t lift a finger against me ever again. We both know that, Saskia.
“And maybe I really am just an inch away from insanity. I might be. I don’t know. Do you want to be the one who shoves me there? Do you want that on your tiny conscience? Even if you don’t mind, your so-called friends will. Like George. You might find you don’t have as many allies as you thought.”
I hung up without waiting for her reply.
I knew I could join Unity now if I wanted. I could do as I pleased there, and Saskia would do nothing about it. At the very least I had a period of reprieve. Breathing space.
But I didn’t have any sense of victory.
A little later they served me dinner on a tray, and then gave me a pill. I fell into a deep, artificial sleep.
It was as if I were in a kind of trance, rather than a dream. I was aware of myself, of my body, prone on my back beneath a cotton blanket in the infirmary bed. I was aware of the lids of my eyes; heavy, leaden.
Then I was elsewhere. It was cold; above my head were stars. And I was climbing, climbing the steep snowy side of a mountain. I was wearing some kind of robe, my feet and hands were bare, and even in the dark, and beset by the fierce winter wind, I seemed to know exactly how to move up the rock face. Doggedly I kept finding toe- and fingerholds. And there was nothing but the present moment; nothing but the grim climb and something inside me, impelling me upward.
Then I was at the top of the mountain, scrambling to my feet, panting.
Before me was the entrance to a cave. And no sooner did I see it than, without moving, I was within it. Within it, and on my knees.
There, legs crossed in the lotus position, sat Daniel. His face was mocking as ever, but his voice was serene. You know the rules, Frances. You may ask one question. If I answer, you will die.
I said: I understand.
Daniel smiled. The smile was not kind.
Terror gripped me, but my mouth opened, and I blurted: Daniel, I have to know. Did you really kill yourself?
The words and the thought were liberated. Speaking had made the question real. It hung suspended like an icicle.
As I watched, Daniel shook his head slowly from side to side.
Daniel! I said. Daniel, brother—
But suddenly I was falling through space at a furious speed. My last thought was that screaming would be useless—and that I had made a terrible, terrible mistake.
CHAPTER 21
On Sunday morning after breakfast I was permitted to leave the infirmary, and I went to the Unity food pantry for my first shift, exactly as I’d
told Pammy Rosenfeld I would. I trudged over from Pettengill, and was surprised to feel my mood improve a little bit with the exercise and the clear sky.
Then I passed the old Leventhal shoe factory, and felt myself tighten.
I didn’t want to think about my dream, or nightmare, but I did. I had woken remembering it very clearly, and feeling disturbed. But surely it meant nothing; dreams were the garbage dumps of the mind. And it wasn’t so hard to discard a nightmare. Not when you were walking outside on a sunny, mild winter’s day. Not if you concentrated.
I wondered why it was that I hadn’t had a sexy dream about James instead. Just my luck.
Determinedly I filled my lungs with fresh air. I would simply follow Ms. Wiles’s advice, I decided, and participate in life. I wouldn’t think too much. I would put the stuff I didn’t care to deal with behind me. I would work on my art, and maybe I would see if I could befriend Tonia Mack and Theresa Quinn. All I had to do to start was smile and say hi. And the grief therapy group—I did like the sound of that. Other people would talk, and I could listen. Or I could tell them my dream and they’d all say they’d had similar experiences, similar delusions, and I’d be comforted.
But I got to the food pantry and realized that I didn’t believe a word of it.
Andy Jankowski opened the door for me, however, and that did make me feel better. I was surprised at the gladness I felt. “Andy! Good morning!”
He blinked a little at my smile, but then, pleased, he gave me a big one in return. “Hello, Frances Leventhal.”
I dropped my voice. “How’s the pretend work going? Are you still bored out of your mind?”
“I’m used to it.” Andy looked at me with interest. “Are you here to do pretend work too, Frances Leventhal?”
“I think they’re going to have me unpack cans of vegetables,” I said, wondering again why the Unity people didn’t find Andy perfectly competent to do that also. “Or something like that.”
Andy nodded. “Pretend work, yes. All fake work.”
I blinked. “No, there’s cans and things to stack. Packing. I don’t know why they don’t let you—”
Andy scowled. Abruptly he opened the inner door and began walking toward the office area, where I could see Pammy, sitting alone at a desk. I scurried after him. “In there,” Andy said.
I had hurt his feelings. I watched his back as he retreated to his post. Then I looked over at Pammy, who was staring at me with her mouth open. “Hey,” I said shyly.
“Hey,” said Pammy. “Um. Frances. I wasn’t—that is, I didn’t think you’d come today.”
“But I said I would.” After a second I swallowed and added, “I’m fine, Pammy. Really. Truly.” I looked her in the eyes. “I want nothing more than to help out here.”
“Oh. Good.” Pammy bit her lip. “That’s good.” She looked down nervously at some papers in front of her. “The thing is, I didn’t bother to—I don’t have anyone scheduled to work with you after all.” A pause. “I suppose I could call someone. Or people will be coming in, and maybe someone could … your shift doesn’t start until noon.” She trailed off, frowning deeply.
“Well, whatever,” I said. “But it’s just sorting and stacking cans, right? I’m sure I could handle it if you just showed me what you needed.” Even if I did flip out yesterday, I thought bitterly. Then I admonished myself. I was going to be friendly and cooperative.
“Well, we always have new people work in pairs. Let me look at the schedule again … you’re early.” I waited. “Okay,” Pammy said, after studying a paper for a minute. “Okay, it’s fine. Wallace is supposed to come—he’ll show you what to do. In the meantime, I can just explain the basics.”
“Fine,” I said. Wallace was a friend of Saskia’s too. But—I straightened my shoulders—it would be good to test things right away. Find out if I really had thwarted Saskia. “Explain everything,” I said to Pammy.
We walked over to the canned vegetable area, and I focused carefully on Pammy as she talked, finding it hard not to roll my eyes. It wasn’t exactly rocket science. There were a bunch of battered cartons that contained canned vegetables of various kinds. The cans were to be sorted by vegetable and transferred to the metal utility shelves. No more than four cans were to be stacked on top of each other. I was to create no fancy pyramids or other structures, but simply perform basic stacking. “Corn here,” Pammy said, pointing. “Peas there, carrots there, beets there.”
“I get it,” I said.
Pammy had one eye on the door. “I don’t understand why nobody’s here yet,” she fretted. “Usually one or two people come early.”
“I think I can start with the cans anyway.”
She kept frowning. “You’ll need the large stepladder. I’m not sure where it is. I want the corn up high, on that top shelf. I know the shelf below’s empty, but the corn really belongs on the top.”
“Okay,” I said. “Isn’t that a stepladder right over there?”
She swiveled. “Yes. Okay … Wallace should be along shortly.”
“I can handle it,” I said in my best good-girl voice. “You go back to the office; do whatever you need to do. I’ll come find you if I have questions—” I saw her frown, so I swiftly switched gears. “Or you could check up on me every so often. Just until Wallace comes, of course.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Pammy said. “I’ll check and see how you’re doing every few minutes. Until Wallace or someone else gets here.” Her brow finally cleared. Mostly. She turned, and then swung back hesitantly. “Frances? I know I must seem overly anxious, but … well, you have to understand, everything is done here according to a system. If the cans aren’t stacked right, with everything in its expected place, then it’s much harder for a whole crew to work here and, well, you know, quickly pack up a variety box for a family.”
“I can see that,” I said, though a little voice in the back of my head was thinking sourly, Andy’s right; it’s all fake work. I smiled at her and went to get the stepladder, and finally she left as I put it into position.
The cardboard cartons were haphazardly thrown on the floor, their flaps already open. They looked like they’d been through a United Nations food drop. The cans inside each carton weren’t even uniform in size. I shrugged, and began climbing the ladder and stacking cans. Climbing the ladder and stacking cans.
You’re the only scholarship recipient in Unity’s history who hasn’t joined the organization. Who hasn’t helped out; who hasn’t given back.
I wiped my dusty hands on my jeans. So this was giving back. Helping out. Participating.
After a while I felt less exasperated with Pammy, because it became clear that it would actually be much more efficient to do this work with a partner. One person below, handing up the cans, the second on the ladder, stacking. I was getting tired.
Andy was just sitting by the door, wanting something to do. And okay, maybe this work was pretty silly too, but … I headed back to the office.
As I approached, I could hear Pammy’s voice, high and anxious, asking a question. And someone else’s. Wallace.
The office door was ajar an inch or two. For some reason that I couldn’t articulate—maybe because Pammy sounded so anxious?—I didn’t knock or make my presence known. Instead I paused just outside and, astonished at myself but also somehow excited, shamelessly eavesdropped.
“I’m not sure that’s what Patrick wants,” Wallace was saying. His voice wasn’t loud, but it was perfectly audible if I strained. Which, suddenly fearless, I did.
Wallace had gone on. “Saskia says he’s really pissed off about the shipment mix-up and he feels that all the customers need to be reimbursed. Or given a replacement order for free. Their choice.”
Customers? That was a weird word to use for the recipients of charity. Free replacement order? Wasn’t everything free anyway?
“So he wants us to call all of them personally and ask which they want?” Pammy sounded incredulous.
“Well, all the alums,
yeah. He says that’s the professional thing to do. They are our partners, you know.”
Alums? Partners? Customers? Were those words being used interchangeably?
Pammy wailed, “But that’s several dozen calls! What about e-mail? Can’t we just—”
“No. And Saskia said to do what Patrick wants.”
A silence. Then: “She always says that.”
“Pammy.”
“I know, I know.” Pammy exhaled audibly. “But I have so much going on—”
Wallace’s voice rose. “Do you think I don’t? Be smart. This is our job. Our future depends on doing it well.”
Behind the door, I realized that my heart was now pounding wildly. What were they talking about?
There is something wrong here, I thought. I knew it with the same certainty that occasionally came to me when I painted, when I knew I had a tight hold on something true—even if I wasn’t sure exactly what it was.
I felt my feet backing up. I returned to the stepladder. I stacked and stacked, and eventually Wallace came and helped me, mostly in silence. His expression was closed, internal. He did nothing to make me personally anxious.
Fake work, whispered Andy’s voice in my head. Pretend work.
CHAPTER 22
I had dinner that night with my father at Bubbe’s house. It was a tension-filled meal during which my father said little beyond: “You really are feeling better? Good, good.” But he kept looking at me; his expression anxious, hopeless. He had opened a couple of cans of lentil soup and heated the contents on the stove, and then served it carefully, with fresh bread from a local bakery. He was trying. Hard, even. But I’d taken one look at the empty cans on the kitchen counter and known I couldn’t possibly swallow any of their contents.
It was just the two of us. After a sharp “I hope you’ve pulled yourself together, Frances,” Bubbe had retired to her room to watch television. I wondered how long I would have to stay. An hour? An hour and a half?