The Shadow of the Bear: A Fairy Tale Retold

  Chapter 7

  MONDAY NIGHT, Bear didn’t come by, and Tuesday Rose was depressed at school. Even Rob’s teasing couldn’t get her out of her blue funk. He dogged her footsteps in the hallway when she passed his locker before lunch, singing her name to the tune of a popular song. She gave him a half-smile and ignored him.

  He grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around, startling her. She gazed in surprise at his blue eyes, which were very close to hers, and wondered in shock if he was going to kiss her right in the hallway, with everyone watching.

  But instead he said, “Remember that survey I was taking about the prom?”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Yes?”

  “Answers are in. Survey says, Rose should go to the prom with me.”

  She didn’t understand at first. “With you?”

  “Yeah. Want to go?”

  So it was real. It was happening. It had happened. “Yyyess—” she stammered. “I think so—I’d have to ask my mom—”

  He looked a bit miffed. “Still tied to the apron strings, huh?”

  “No, not really,” she said defensively. “But I would have to ask her.”

  “So ask her.” He shrugged. “It’ll be a blast.”

  “Thank you,” she said, not sure how else to respond.

  “No problem,” he said lightly, moving away. “Just let me know.”

  Rose could hardly wait to see Blanche. She finally saw her sister right before her last period class. “Blanche,” she bubbled over with excitement, “Rob just asked me to go to the prom with him!”

  Blanche stopped, and stared at her. “Rob?” she asked.

  “Rob Tirsch, of course!” Rose bounced up and down. “I’ll have to ask Mom, but I’m so excited! We’ll have to go look for a dress and everything. Can you believe it? Rob Tirsch asked me!”

  “That’s great. That’s just great,” Blanche said mechanically, her face blank. She turned away.

  “Is something wrong?” Rose asked.

  “No. Not really.”

  “What, are you jealous of me, or something?”

  Blanched looked at Rose for a couple seconds and then said quietly, “Just leave me alone, okay?”

  “Has someone been picking on you?”

  Blanche burst out in sudden irritation, “Oh, just some friends of Rob, that’s all! I keep getting asked to the prom, but only as a joke!” She slammed her locker. When she spoke next it was with an emotionless voice as though she had imprisoned her resentment in the locker and none of the previous exchange had taken place. “I’m going straight to the library after school, so you don’t have to wait for me to walk home with you.”

  “I have violin lessons, so I’ll be late anyhow,” Rose said.

  “It’s my term paper on Vincent van Gogh. I’ll be there until dinner time,” Blanche said stiffly, and gave a small smile. “See you later, then. I’m happy for you.”

  She hurried off, leaving Rose feeling like the tiny soap suds left over from a burst bubble.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid! Rose chastised herself angrily as she walked home after her violin lesson. The day was foul and cloudy, and Rose’s mood was equally foul. She felt a kinship with the weather; the wind was complaining that spring had come before its store of chilliness was exhausted. There was no rain, and it wasn’t cold enough for ice. Everything was wet from the morning’s rain that refused to dry and refused to freeze, but remained in sour puddles on the pavement and grass.

  I should have thought that Blanche might be jealous of me going to the prom. Why didn’t I think before I burst out with my news like an idiot?

  “But I was just so happy,” she protested to herself, banging her violin case against her legs as self-punishment. “How could I know she’d be so upset?”

  She badgered herself for not being more sensitive to the little signs that told her that her sister was unhappy—her reluctance to talk with Rose about Rob, the stiffness that crept into her face whenever Rob’s name was mentioned. Rose had assumed it was just because Blanche didn’t like Rob—he called her the “Immaculate Complexion” like all the other kids did. But all along, perhaps, it was because Blanche was feeling left out with Rose getting all the attention and favors.

  “Oh, maybe I just won’t go with him,” Rose said aloud to nobody. That would pacify Blanche. But Rose felt like crying. Oh, she would miss the unknown thrills and exhilarations of going to a prom. Going on a real date somewhere with a nice guy. She moaned and shook her head. It was too much to give up.

  These were the times she wished she could talk to her father again. He was just like her—quick-tempered, red-haired, easy-going, eternally optimistic. Her soul mate. Perhaps because she felt so much like him, she rarely missed him. It was only when she felt uncertain of herself—when she disliked herself—that she began to wish he were still around to let her know that things in the universe were really okay in the end. Dad always knew just how she felt.

  Rose hadn’t been there when he died, but Mom had told her all about it, how Mom had been sleeping in his hospital room when he went into sudden cardiac arrest. Even though he had been in acute pain, he died with a smile on his face. Rose could imagine that last smile with almost mystical clarity. Things were all right with him. She knew that, almost the way she knew how to breathe and how to walk. Without thinking. Just knowing.

  There was a large park near their neighborhood, and Rose went to find some solitude there before it got dark or began to rain. For a while, she wandered along the cold, black cement paths beneath barely-budding trees until she came to the pond. There, despondency came over her again, and she scowled at the water, her hair blowing out of her thick brown coat hood. Why couldn’t God make things equal, equally nasty or equally easy for everyone? It really was unjust that she should be so lucky while her sister was neglected and persecuted. “By all rights, Rob never should have asked me to the prom,” she grumbled. Oh, why were things perpetually simple for her?

  Feeling melodramatic and just plain rebellious, she put down her knapsack and took out her violin. Pushing back her hood, she tucked the hard plastic cup of the instrument beneath her chin and began to play. The low strings quivered through her jaw as she ran the horsehair bow up and down, stretching and groaning the strings with the wind. She was making up the tune, but it reminded her of something from Wagner. The violin’s voice was dark, ominous, not as thundering as the bass or cello, but still black in its own way. Up and down the scales, warning the universe with palpitating anger, up and down. Eyes dilating, staring out at the rippling waters, squeezing down painfully hard on the strings, pressing down the bow as if to crack it, forcing note after deep note out—Rose worked out the pulsing fury within her, gradually releasing the tension and rising a few notes up on the scale. She climbed her way up, the song growing louder, more insistent, still jarringly minor— now it sounded like Debussy. Birds hurtling themselves across the sky, screaming—Why? Why? Why? Dizzying note upon note, faster, faster, faster, in an accelerating canon chasing its tail in hypnotic repetition, faster, faster, why, why, why—

  Rose sustained the last quivering note, and sent the final one singing higher up the scale than she had yet chosen to go, a distant, bold note flying high as a bird to the clouds, for no reason at all. It hung there, doubting, descending, surging up again and down, finally swooping down to the low notes she had begun with, down dark, then rising a half step, hopeful, subdued, final.

  She lifted her bow from the strings in the silence of the rushing wind, her ears racing from the sound. There was a slight cough beside her and a voice, “Bravo.”

  She turned, and saw a thin, young man with long scraggly hair propped up against one of the trees. He wore a thin jean jacket, a scarf, filthy jeans, a dirty shirt, and a flat grey cap. His light brown hair hung around a face that was anonymous behind its black glasses. A few crack vials were smashed into the ground around him. Rose instinctively drew back.

  He spoke. “Do I look like a dangerous character?”
His voice was amused.

  “Yes.” Rose didn’t take her eyes off him.

  “Oh, come on,” he teased, “I don’t look that sinister, do I?”

  How was she supposed to answer that? While she was rapidly considering, he sighed and stretched.

  “I forgot that I shouldn’t speak to you. In the City, nice harmless people don’t speak to each other. Well, you need have no fear of me. I’m too tired to mug anyone, even if I did that sort of thing.”

  Rose was edging away from him, and he snorted.

  “Come on, don’t jump into that pond, which I can see you’re quite prepared to do. It’s not a nice pond. And you’d ruin your violin. Which is why I bothered to speak to you in the first place.” He shifted himself and put his hands behind his head. “You play very well. Are you a professional or something?”

  “No,” Rose said, still guarded.

  “Just sort of playing for therapy? Letting off steam? You’re mad at someone?”

  “Sort of,” Rose admitted.

  “Classical music does wondrous things for the human passions. Oh, I’m Fish, by the way.”

  “I’m Rose,” she said before she thought, and then wondered if that had been a wise move. Probably not.

  Fish, as he called himself, scratched underneath his flat cap. “So you’re ticked off? Or is that too personal a question to ask a young girl like you?”

  He couldn’t be much older than Blanche, but he talked as though he were much older. It was curious. A bit miffed, Rose said at last, “It’s just a little thing. It’s really my sister who is mad at me.”

  “Ah, sibling rivalry?”

  “Not really. It’s because I was invited to the senior prom and she wasn’t.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, that old thing. I should have guessed. So, your sister is feeling left out. Naturally, you want to be sensitive. But there’s only so much you can do. You can’t help how she feels.”

  “But she’s my sister!” Rose argued. “I don’t want to do things that make her feel bad!”

  “Well, you can’t help that, can you?”

  “I don’t think you understand.” Rose tossed her head angrily. “My sister’s feelings are more important to me than going to the prom. If I had to choose between her and this guy, I’d choose her.”

  “Ah,” said the young man thoughtfully.

  “It’s just—just hard, that’s all.”

  “Well, maybe you won’t have to choose,” he said after a pause. “Maybe she’ll get adjusted to the situation. Give her a little space, and time, and she’ll probably come around.”

  “That’s true,” Rose heaved a sigh and remained silent for a minute. “But what if she doesn’t?”

  “Then you’ll have to choose according to your convictions, won’t you?” the youth said mildly. He gave her a crooked smile. “God isn’t fair, is he?” he imitated her sigh melodramatically.

  “Of course He is!” said Rose indignantly. “He’s a just God.”

  “In theory, yes,” Fish nodded. “But in what seems like reality …” he cocked his head, “as you get older, you’ll find He deals out some odd judgments.”

  Rose had had enough. She opened her violin case and put her instrument away, snapping the locks shut. “Why are you so free with giving me advice?” she demanded, tossing her head.

  “Oh, it’s just an excuse to talk to someone,” That strange contorted smile flitted over his face again. “You’d better get home now. This park isn’t safe after dark.”

  “I’m not afraid,” she said defensively.

  Now he seemed humored. “Of course. You’re not afraid of anything. At least, you think you’re not. That’s why I’m sending you home.”

  “Thank you for your advice.” Rose thrust her chin in the air and marched away, not looking back. She was almost sure she heard him laughing softly behind her.

  When she got home, the house was dark, except for a light shining in the upstairs hall. It came from under the door of their bedroom. She went upstairs slowly and opened the door. Mother was sitting on the bed, stroking Blanche’s head, which was buried in her lap.

  Rose felt a pang inside her and quickly knelt down by the bed. “Blanche, I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot,” she whispered.

  “It’s not your fault,” Blanche’s voice came muffled. “I’m the one who’s—being so silly.”

  Rose wanted to cry, but Mother put a gentle hand on her head and smoothed back her hair.

  “It’s hard sometimes to be happy for other people’s happiness,” Mother said softly. “It just takes time.”

  Blanche lifted her head and rubbed her red face with her hands. “It’s just that I’ve always wanted to go to a dance, and now I’m a senior and I’ll never get a chance to go to a prom,” she muttered. “It’s stupid.”

  “No, it’s not!” Rose cried. “It’s your prom! You deserve to go—not me!”

  “So, what are you going to do—ask Rob to take me instead?” Blanche blew her nose on a tissue Mother proffered.

  “I could ask him,” Rose said staunchly.

  Blanche chuckled. “He’d only laugh in your face. Spare yourself.”

  She got up on the bed and hugged Rose. “Rose, it’s okay. I’ll be fine. I’ll even go look for dresses with you if you still want me to.”

  “But now I feel miserable!” Rose collapsed on the bed. “I don’t want to go any more.”

  “Stop it!” Blanche said. “You’ve got to go. You can’t be always bothering about me!”

  But she looked so woeful that Rose burst out crying.

  Mother laughed at her distraught daughter. “It’s all right, Rose.”

  “I’ll get over it,” Blanche insisted.

  “Oh, sure you will!” Rose sobbed.

  “By the time I’m sixty, at least.”

  “There will be other dances—in college, definitely,” Mother said soothingly.

  “Yeah, dances I probably won’t get asked to,” Blanche cracked a smile.

  “You never know,” Mother said, putting her arms around her and squeezing her. “You never know.”

  Chapter 8

  SO WHERE ARE WE going to find a prom dress?” Blanche asked her sister a couple Saturdays later as they left the house. It was a bright day, and spring had decided to make an appearance at last.

  Rose paused on the steps to lovingly stroke the rosebushes in the window boxes, whose thorny stems were green with tiny leaves.

  “I looked up the address of a thrift store in the phone book,” Rose said, hopping down the steps. “We’ll take the subway downtown and check it out.”

  “You may only find old wedding dresses,” warned Blanche. “That’s all they had at the thrift stores back home.”

  “So I’ll dye a wedding dress blue and wear it. Nobody has to know,” Rose countered. “I’m sure I can find something. It’s a wonderful advantage to know how to sew.”

  Blanche fingered the ten dollars in her pocket as they came up from the subway. The morning sun brightened even the dingy city streets. All the stores were open. There were black men from the Caribbean with their wares laid out on colored carpets on the sidewalks: leather purses, woven handbags, sunglasses, and belts. So many were on one street that Blanche felt as though she were in a Mid-Eastern bazaar.

  But Rose steered her past all of them. “Thrift stores,” she directed. “We dare not be distracted.”

  Blanche obediently followed her sister’s lead.

  They finally came to one in a side street. Inside the store, a mannequin with a jazzy dress and bracelets on stump styrofoam arms hovered on a table overseeing a tumbled pile of shoes. That was the sole attempt at interior decorating. The rest of the store was crammed with clothes—African prints, polyester dresses, designer rejects, name brands, Woolworth’s specials, formal dresses, satin bathrobes, denim skirts, sixties fashions, the widest hodgepodge of garments cramped into the smallest space imaginable.

  For some time the two sisters searched through the various cl
othes and accessories. Rose chose a rack and began to paw through it, grabbing whatever she thought looked interesting and throwing it across her arm. Blanche was more cautious. She walked throughout the store, inching her way around other customers through the barely-visible aisles.

  “Blanche, look!” Rose hurried over, sporting a black knitted swing coat. “Look!” It had long knitted strips attached to the sides of the collar, and Rose threw them around her neck like a model. It was a built-in scarf.

  “Nice,” was Blanche’s comment.

  Rose gazed at herself in the mirror, and wrapped her head in the black strips, like a movie star. “All I need is shades. Gosh, I feel so much like Audrey Hepburn that I could die. Isn’t this an awesome coat?”

  “How much is it?”

  “Uh—” Rose fumbled for the tag. “Twenty dollars.”

  “You came for a prom dress.”

  “All right, all right, don’t hassle me, I remember.” Rose slowly unwrapped the luxurious coat and slid out of it. “Boy, I want this so badly. It only has one moth hole.”

  Blanche returned to the rack of blouses she had been going through. She needed a shirt to wear with the new plum skirt she had made. A simple white or ivory one would do. Here was a nice-looking oxford shirt—size 3. No. A nylon blouse in her size had a stupid bow on the neck. Never. A striped polyester number, a nurse’s uniform shirt, a cotton peasant blouse with embroidered flowers round the neck—the last one halted her, but the flowers were orange and bright blue, two colors she detested. No.

  “Blanche, look!”

  She sighed and turned. Rose was grinning out of a long blue fur coat with unbelievable light blue fur fringe. “Isn’t this cool?”

  “Rose, you look like Cookie Monster.”

  “I’ve never seen a coat like it before!”

  “That’s because they keep it in a store like this, out of sight of the public.”

  “It’s wild! Can you see me wearing this to school?”

  “Rose, take it off. It’s an abomination.”

  “It matches our uniforms. I wonder how much it is?”