“She’s a girl, just like you,” Joan’s mother said after she told her the news. But Joan already knew.
The night before, when her parents thought she was asleep, Joan hid under the dining room table, holding her breath, cupping her hand around her ear to hear better. She heard their whispered conversation, amid the incessant buzzing on the light above the stove.
Joan’s mother let out a long, disappointing sigh. “This poor girl. I just can’t understand how they let her do it.”
*Do what?* Joan wondered as she watched the reflection of the pond outside her bedroom window dance on the ceiling. She knew little about Shirley Bacall, only that she was a child actress. Distance had kept the Bacalls and the Ribbin families apart, though at one time they were very good friends. Since Shirley’s latest film, they were receiving threats and were being harassed. Desperate to keep their daughter safe, Mrs. Bacall phoned and asked if the Ribbin family would keep Shirley at their secluded Vermont farmhouse for the summer. Joan fell asleep to the familiar sounds of the bladderwort slapping softly on the surface of the pond.
A week later, Joan and her mother waited outside the farmhouse on the afternoon of Shirley’s arrival. Joan could hardly contain herself. She stood barelegged with dirt-crusted scabs in jean shorts and flip-flops. She dug her big toe into the dusty rock garden where they stood. Her toe pierced the sharp edge of a rock, and she began to bleed.
A black car, big as a boat, drove toward the farmhouse, leaving a dusty cloud in its wake. The car’s brakes whined subtly as it stopped where Joan and her mother were standing. When the girl stepped out of the car, she was wearing a blue dress and a white hat with satin coordinating ribbon, white stockings to her knees, and black patent-leather shoes. Her cheeks were plump and pink, as if she was storing apples, and her dark hair fell feathery and long over her shoulders. Joan immediately felt small and unkempt, even after she smoothed out her bob and dug her bloody toe into the earth behind her.
My mother was wrong. She was a girl, not like me. Joan thought.
Joan smoothed out her blonde bob and bent her bloody toe into the sidewalk behind. Shirley was twelve like Joan, but they were big city and small country. Joan was a movie star. She had probably sipped champagne and kissed a boy, she probably got blood in between her legs.
Shirley walked over to Mrs. Ribbin and Joan, she smiled and thanked them for having her.
“It’s our pleasure,” replied Mrs. Ribbin.
“Joan, why don’t you let Shirley get settled and show her around?” Joan led her upstairs to the guest room and stood up against the wall in the hallway, listening while Shirley unpacked.
Shirley came around the corner and Joan jumped.
“Ready for that tour?” asked Shirley. She changed into a pair of jeans and a yellow top.
Joan and Shirley walked around the pond. Shirley ran her fingers along the cigar-tips of the cattails that lined the edge. Shirley quietly observed the land around her, and they walked to the barn. The barn was lined with dry hay, but a welcomed coolness from the warm sun.
“Do you eat these animals?” Shirley asked.
“Some of them,” replied Joan quietly. She reached down over the wood fence and caressed the rubbery tip of one of the pig’s ears, as if to shield him from the conversation.
“Do you kill them?” Shirley asked.
“No,” said Joan, laughing as she put both feet on the fence and held on as she balanced backward. Her laugh bounced off the stark seriousness of Shirley’s face.
“But would you kill them?”
Joan stared at Shirley as her heart sank inside her chest. This wasn’t the girl she had wished for.
Over the next few weeks, Joan learned to watch Shirley before she selected her words, told a story, or laughed. Days were spent together, but at a distance. Never once did Shirley talk about her movies, her fame, and Joan, though dying to find out every detail, never asked.
Then one morning, Shirley woke up with a fever. Mrs. Ribbin told her to change into her nightgown and tucked her back into bed. Not wanting her illness to spread to Joan, she arranged an afternoon with a family from church, the Johnstons, who lived close to town. The Ribbins had been skipping church since Shirley’s arrival to avoid public appearances, so Joan was excited to see their two daughters, Louise and Beverly.
As soon as Joan arrived at the Johnstons, the girls made plans to ride to the penny candy store in town. Beverly removed the rubber plug from her porcelain piggy bank and dumped the contents onto her bedspread. She collected the coins and jammed them into her front pocket.
As the girls rode their bikes into town, the summer sun coated their shoulders like an invisible coat. The heat pillowed around their knees, their feet, making each pedal purposeful, each spring up to gain momentum more difficult. Louise, the youngest and smallest of the group, wiped her head with her forearm and begged several times to turn around. When they finally made it to town, the awaited visit to the candy store was uneventful and brisk, with a long afternoon still ahead of them.
“It’s so hot,” cried Louise, who then used her front teeth to bite a candy button off the strip of paper, decorated with hollow, colorful rings from buttons she had already removed. “Can’t we go home?”
“Will you shut up, Louise?” asked Beverly, with a half of a yellow gummy dot gluing the back of her mouth together. “We haven’t seen Joan all summer. Stop being such a baby.”
Louise dug her teeth into another candy button, this time the paper strip followed the bite. She nibbled and swallowed it.
“How about a movie?” Joan asked, pointing to the theater across the street. “At least we’ll get out of the sun.”
Beverly and Louise quietly agreed, and the three girls walked to cross the street. The girls purchased tickets to a popular comedy starring Gene Wilder from the attendant at the window and once inside, Beverly removed the remainder of the piggy bank fund from her front pocket. They had enough to buy a small popcorn and a fountain drink with three straws. The inside of the theater was warm, but there was immediate relief from the unrelenting summer rays.
While waiting for their show to start, the girls sat on a bench across from the theater where another movie was showing.
“Let’s check it out,” said Beverly.
“That’s not our movie,” said Louise.
“Thanks for the tip, smarty-pants,” said Beverly. “C’mon, Joan,” she said, leading the group through the double doors of the theater. They snuck into the back and took three seats in the back of the theater.
When she arranged herself stealthy into her seat, she looked up at the screen. That’s when she saw her. Shirley’s apple-filled cheeks on the screen, large as life. Joan, unable to remove her eyes from the screen, tapped Beverly’s shoulder.
In an excited whisper, Joan leaned over “Bev! That’s…” and then she remembered.
“What?” Beverly mouthed.
Joan couldn’t tell Beverly about Shirley. Nobody was supposed to know she was staying with them. And as the movie went on, Joan knew why. She watched as Shirley transformed from a girl to a terrifying, foul-mouthed monster. Joan couldn’t close her eyes tight enough. Her dirt-filled fingernails pierced the inside of her ears. Things she had never seen, never heard. She looked over and saw Louise was crying. Beverly was wide-eyed with disbelief, until she finally looked at Joan, until Joan’s face met hers. She mouthed “We aren’t supposed to be here,” said Beverly, with phased eyes. “We have to leave.”
Beverly reached to take Louise’s hand, which was planted across her face, fingers spread just to see what she wanted to see. She led Louise and Joan to the double doors and Joan followed. When they walked out of the theater, the sun seemed brighter than when they went in, bouncing off the crimson cinema carpet like snow on a mountain. They didn’t stay for the comedy, which had already started. They walked outside and crossed the street to find their bikes.
The ride back was quiet, with the exception of Louise’s muffling. Joan thought of Shirley, and the violence, the horrible words she said, the unthinkable things she did. Her monstrous face and her long feathery hair tangled and dirty. The scenes continued to play in her head, even as she drew in images to draw them away; a brick wall, the day she won the spelling bee at school. Shirley’s monstrous face kept appearing. As they rode home, Beverly begged Louise to stop crying, to never tell their mother about what they saw.
When they returned to the Johnston house, the sun was beginning to settle behind a row of tall trees. An orange sunset fizzled behind it, darkness would soon consume the light and the night air. Mrs. Johnston told Joan her mother would be there soon. She froze at the thought of home. The fear Joan felt wasn’t only in her head and her imagination, it was in her home.
When her mother picked her up from the Johnstons, she was concerned.
“Oh no, don’t tell me you’re sick too,” said her mother.
“What?” asked Joan.
“You’re as pale as a ghost.”
Joan stretched her neck to see her reflection in the passenger mirror.
“I feel fine,” she said with surety, and changed the subject. “Mom, how much longer until Shirley goes home?”
“I thought you two were hitting it off,” said Mrs. Ribbin.
“No,” said Joan. She began to cry. “Please mom. I don’t want her here anymore.”
“Joan, stop being so dramatic. She’s here for at least a few more weeks. I told you this before she came to stay with us. Give her a chance.”
When they arrived at the house, Joan walked in and stood befuddled in the entryway. Her gaze followed each stair that led to the second floor, the darkness settling heavier on each step. Joan stayed close to her parents until it was time for her to go upstairs to bed.
She tiptoed up the stairs and past the guest room. Once she was in her bedroom, she turned the knob and closed the door quietly until it met the frame, and she slowly turned the knob once again. With the lights on, she settled in her bed, drowning herself in covers despite the thick, warm air that traveled in from her window.
She waited for the knob on her bedroom door to turn. Soon she would see Shirley and her wicked smile appear in the doorway.