Black as Night: A Fairy Tale Retold (11 page)

Chapter Five

Tuesday morning. She pulled apart the plastic knot on a garbage bag with relief and dumped its contents on the floor. In the stuffy little room, the clothes smelled musty, and it was hot, but she didn’t mind. Working in the banquet hall this summer, she had been hot many times in the winding back corridors, and had gotten used to it, sweating and working. And folding clothes was like sorting out silverware, folding napkins—repetitious work.

And despite her problem, it was good to be alone and working, instead of talking to others, and trying to pretend that everything was normal inside her. Solitude had usually been a comfort to her—

If I could only figure this out—what this all means—

Breathing deeply, she emptied out a garbage bag of assorted clothes onto the floor and began to sort through them. Creating order out of chaos. It felt therapeutic, giving her hope that the chaos of this summer would start to sort itself out.

* * *

It began oddly, with a nagging sense of vulnerability. The girl had heard of people having dreams in which they forgot to get dressed, and walked down the street in pajamas. She had never had that dream, but she began to feel as though something like it had meshed with her reality, and that wherever she went, she was unconsciously calling attention to herself. Telling the world that she was unprepared. And exposed.

After Bear had left, things that should have worked for her suddenly didn’t. An instructor at her community college had practically promised her an internship at a nursing home, but at the last minute it had fallen through. She had searched for other work, but she couldn’t find any. Her younger sister, in her usual good luck, landed a fun job working at a community theatre, and ended up starring in one of their plays. Rose loyally had tried to find her older sister a job there, selling tickets or painting scenery, but it hadn’t worked out.

“Why don’t you look for a waitress job—or catering?” her mother suggested. “What about Reflections?”

She balked at the proposition. “Not there.”

“You’ve always said it was your favorite restaurant,” Mother had said.

“But not to work at,” the girl had said resentfully.

She felt it was unfair. Reflections, a lavish restaurant and banquet hall on Long Island, was a place you went when you were wearing your good clothes and wanted a celebration that felt bigger than yourself. She remembered eating there as a little girl, with her father and mother, at Christmastime and after special occasions, like going to a concert. Bear had taken her there on their last date. It was the place of festive elevation, where she and her family could pretend—at least for an evening—that they were royalty. Working there would dispel that illusion.

But dogged by unemployment and the prospect of not being able to go back to community college that fall, she gave in and applied, and was hired as catering-help in the banquet hall section.

In the barren desert of that hot, hot summer, she worked hard, carrying trays for numerous meaningless banquets, going from the heat of the kitchen to the chill of air conditioning, trying to look as though she were not sweating.

For a while, she kept the foreboding at bay. She had started visiting nursing homes, talking to the elderly, trying to discover what it would be like to be a nurse. Midway through the summer, she was made the receptionist for the banquet hall, which meant she had to be able to calculate, make some decisions such as which party sat where, handle money, and (most importantly) could wear a dress instead of the white shirt, black pants, and red bow tie of the caterer. It was odd, being promoted. Always having been the shy one in the family, in the shadow of a more flamboyant sister, she was surprised that someone had paid attention to her.

Then someone else had noticed her.

To be fair, she had noticed him first. It was at another banquet—more sumptuous than usual, for an upscale New York company. It had been a long evening, and she spent most of it on her feet, smiling and handing out programs to guests dressed in evening clothes. Most of them didn’t even meet her eyes, but merely took the program and went on with their conversations, barely registering that she was there.

After the rush was over and the event inside the ballroom began, the girl set down her stack of programs and leaned against the wall. Someone (probably the event coordinator from the corporation) had removed the desk and chair that was usually there in order to better accommodate the flow of people, and now there was no place for her to sit down. The girl didn’t want to break with the formality of the occasion and sit on the steps. She glanced around the foyer, wishing she could get off her feet and massage them. Through a clear pane in the stained-glass and brass doors, she could see the glittering crowd seated around tables. A flawless blonde lady stood at a podium, making a speech and basking in the applause, smiling. She wore a red satin evening gown designed to make her look as though she were emerging from the shining crinkled petals of a rose.

Scanning the program, the girl guessed that the woman must be the “Chief Executive Officer.” The girl wondered what it must be like to be divinely beautiful, and apparently wealthy and powerful as well.
That’s who I should want to be like
, she thought
, if I were a really modern girl. Up there in front of the crowd, fit and fashionably dressed, at the pinnacle of some career, not showing a sign of age or weakness.

The girl smiled ironically.
With my small plans for the future, I never would be anyone’s poster girl. I might even be a traitor, betraying the cause of women’s empowerment…
 

Then she had seen a man exiting the hall with a jerking gait, and she had hurried to open the heavy door for him.

He was leaning on a cane, gray-haired, his face gaunt, and his tuxedo looked a bit askew, as though he hadn’t been quite competent enough to button it correctly.

“Can I help you with anything?” she asked in concern. His lips were blue.

“No, no, no,” he eased his way down the steps. “Just going to get a breath of air. It’s stuffy in there, even with the air conditioning.”

She opened the street door and helped him out, despite his protests. As she did, she noticed that he wasn’t favoring a hurt leg or swollen joints—the cane was, apparently, to help him keep his balance.

Fortunately, the night had cooled the City summer air, and the man took several deep breaths and looked more composed.

 “Can I help you back inside?” she asked when he seemed to have recovered.

He glanced back wryly over his shoulder. He was not a particularly handsome man, but of course his features were more sharpened by his illness. His eyes were sunken and his skin wasn’t a good color. “In there?” he asked, and shook his head. “No thanks. I’m an outsider now anyway.”

“Are you?” she asked, still holding onto his elbow to steady him.

“Used to be vice president of the company, actually,” he chuckled. “Maybe they still have my name on the rolls, but my word doesn’t mean a thing there any more. Not much point in their paying attention to a dying man, is there?”

“Are you dying?” she asked. An odd question, but she was surprised at how normal her voice sounded.

“Not ‘going gently into that good night,’” he grunted, sitting down on the flat stone balustrade beside the steps. “‘Rage, rage against the dying—’ oh, thank you. You’re very kind,” he said as she helped him sit down.

She had no doubt that he was speaking the truth. He was far more lightweight than a man his age and build should be. “Can I get you anything?”

“A cure for a brain tumor? You got anything like that on you?” he asked, his dark eyes lighting up, and he shook his head. “No, of course you don’t. No one does. That’s the problem. They haven’t yet discovered a cure for death, have they?”

She paused, thinking momentarily of Christ and the empty tomb, but she didn’t know how to bring it up without sounding pious. So instead she said, “A brain tumor?”

“Yes. Inoperable. Fortunately, it’s not in the advanced stages yet. I have a bit of time. The doctors tell me I’ll eventually lose control of my faculties and slip into a coma before I die.” His eyes were dark, and his jaw thrust itself forward. “But I don’t plan on letting myself get to that point, if I can help it. Like I said, ‘not going gently—oh, pardon me. I already quoted that. You’re going to think I’m a man of one poem.” He laughed at his own joke, and coughed.

She had to laugh. There was something eclectic and independent about him, even in his frailty. But she was puzzled. He didn’t seem properly groomed, particularly if he was really vice president of the company—

“Pardon me—” she ventured. “If you have a brain tumor, why are you having trouble breathing?”

He looked surprised. “I have a bit of a cold I can’t shake off. Well, that’s only to be expected, I guess.” He fumbled in his shirt for something—medication, she supposed—but his eyes looked at her keenly. “You actually seem to know something about this sort of thing,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“Well, my mother’s a nurse,” she admitted. “I’m sort of interested in nursing.”

“Is that right? You’re a smart girl. What’s your name? Can I ask you your name, or will it sound as though I’m trying to pick you up?”

“My name’s Blanche Brier,” she said, extending her hand.

“Jack Fairston,” he said, squeezing it in a handshake that didn’t have much power left to it. “So why is a pretty girl like you listening to an old codger like me?”

“Actually, I don’t mind talking to older people at all. I’m thinking of majoring in geriatrics,” she said.

“Geriatrics?” he grimaced. “Ouch. I can’t get over the idea of being taken for one of those. Guess that doesn’t make much sense. I should be happy to see the age of, say, seventy-five, which I’m obviously never going to see. Anyhow. Why do you want to work in geriatrics?”

“I—like old people, I guess,” she said. “I like listening to them.” Pondering it, she added, “And, I suppose it’s partly because I don’t have any old people in my own family.”

“Is that so?”

She nodded, and glancing back at the banquet inside a bit guiltily—but there was nothing she should be doing—she resumed her explanation. “I never knew my dad’s parents—my grandma died when I was just a baby. My mom’s dad is dead, and my other grandmother lives in California. I just don’t have a lot of family, at least not here in the City.”

 “Maybe most of us are looking for a sort of substitute family.” He looked out at the darkness, which was mirrored in his own eyes. “I don’t know. I suppose in a certain sense, I am. All I have left in the world now is my wife. She looks after me. I don’t speak to my relatives, and now that my children are grown up, they don’t speak to me either. My friends are uncomfortable around me, now that they know my condition. I don’t even have any colleagues or employees left, now that I’ve been forcibly retired.”

“That sounds rather awful,” the girl said honestly.

“It is, rather. And ironic. For years, I’ve thought of myself as a very successful man. But for some reason I haven’t succeeded in keeping many friends or family close to me.” He stared at the ground, and for a moment, he looked truly sad. He coughed and looked up. An idea seemed to have occurred to him. “Tell you what, Blanche. I’m not going to be around much longer—I mean, getting around. I’m going to be bedridden soon. Since you say you like old people—and even though I’m not really old, I
am
really sick and could pass for being old—would you be willing to come and visit me?”

“I would,” the girl said.

“Would you? That—that would be wonderful,” the man said, his face quite changed. The girl had a momentary glimpse of how Mr. Fairston might have looked as a healthy man. He felt in his breast pocket and managed to extricate a card. “Here’s where I am, or will be.”

She took it. It read, “Alistair M. Fairston,” and gave his home and his office address.

“I thought you said your name was Jack,” she said, curious.

“It isn’t,” he said gloomily. “My real name is Alistair. I was named after one of my father’s friends, unhappy man. You can see why I changed it. I kept saying one of these days I would have it legally changed, but I never got around to it and I suppose it’s too late now. Everyone who knows me calls me Jack. Oh, and the office address isn’t valid any more, like I told you,” the man said. “Just in case you call it, and they don’t recognize my name, so you don’t think I’m scamming you.”