Viola in Reel Life (11 page)

OMG. She’s the Red Lady from my video diaries. It’s
her
. A feeling of complete anxiety grips me and I look around for someplace to sit down. A small bench in front of the display is empty. I go to the seat and look up at the Red Lady, to study her. To make
sure
.

I read the biography cards under the life-size photograph.

May McGlynn born in Winnetka, Illinois, October 11, 1900, was a favorite go-to comedic actress for writers Frances Marion and Anita Loos. The starlet was destined for great roles in the American cinema when her life was tragically cut short in an airplane crash in South Bend, Indiana, on September 3, 1925, days shy of her twenty-fifth birthday
.

She died in South Bend, Indiana! Where?

I continue reading.

Her plane dropped from the sky and into a cornfield, part of the Prefect Academy, a boarding school for girls
.

I don’t know whether to be relieved or terrified—or both. So I continue to read to understand this May McGlynn.

A true flapper, a good-time gal, and a lush, according to reports, Ms. McGlynn personified the era of good feelings and scanty morals that was the 1920s. Ms. McGlynn was featured in chorus roles until her breakthrough film
, Wilderness Cry,
where she proved her mettle as a dramatic actress
.

I pull the headset off my ears and stand. I look up at May McGlynn,
my
May McGlynn,
the Red Lady
, who is as real to me now as my own camera, in my own hands. She was real—she lived!

I didn’t make up the ghost. What I saw
was
May McGlynn. She lives on reels in canisters in the basement of the Art Institute of Chicago, and when she’s not on film, she’s at the Prefect Academy trying to tell me something. But what exactly?

Now I wish that I had Marisol with me. Or Romy. Or Suzanne. Or even Mrs. Santry who I just met, but who seemed empathetic. This is a very bad time to be alone. My hands begin to shake.

I look up at May. The expression in her eyes comforts me. I search the crowd as it moves slowly through the
exhibit, but I don’t see her here. No one in red. No one in a hat. No one with those cool shoes. And for sure no cigarettes. A couple stops and reads May’s bio on the display.

Looking at May is like looking at the photographs my roommates and I keep on our desks of people we know and love and miss. Just seeing the images brings connection.

Maybe this is what Mrs. Zidar meant; maybe May is real to me because I need her to be. After all, she was
in
movies, and I
make
them. That’s what Dr. Fandu in horticulture calls a “symbiotic” relationship. And everybody knows that when there’s a symbiotic relationship, something is born of that. I just have to figure out what that might be.

ROMY, SUZANNE, AND MARISOL ARE EATING CUPCAKES
at the museum café as though nothing has happened. I run to their table and Romy looks up at me.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“You guys. You have to come with me. Right now.”

“Why?” Marisol looks concerned but continues to eat her cupcake.

“I wanted to tell you guys but I was afraid you’d think I was nuts.”

“Tell us what?” Suzanne adds Splenda to her iced tea as though this were the most normal moment in the world.

“I was filming my video diaries the first day of school and I saw something strange on the footage later—a lady
dressed in red in the field—and I had no explanation for it until now. And then, when I was doing the scenery for the Founder’s Day show I smelled this heavy perfume in the theater and I looked up and saw a flash of red. And now I think it was
her
.”

“Who?”

“May McGlynn! Oh, just come with me. See for yourselves.”

The girls finish their cupcakes quickly but I can tell that they’re only coming along to the exhibition to humor me.

At the exhibit with May’s photograph and information they read and take it in as I back up the CD so they can hear the commentary on the headset.

“This is really interesting,” Marisol says.

“It’s supernatural,” I correct her.

“You mean, you think you’ve seen a ghost and you didn’t tell us?” Romy asks.

“It wasn’t like I was withholding information from you. I just didn’t want to believe that I was seeing something that wasn’t there. I even told Mrs. Zidar in therapy….”

“You saw Mrs. Zidar in therapy?” Romy is hurt.

“I made her go because of the insomnia,” Suzanne explains.

“You have insomnia?” Romy is even more hurt. Why does she turn everything into something she didn’t know in the first place?

“Well, you wouldn’t know because you’re sleeping through it.”

“I’m so out of the loop.” Romy sighs.

Marisol stands back, looking up at May McGlynn. “Okay, this is a sign.”

“Of what?”

“Well, there’s a reason that you came to the museum and found her here. She’s trying to tell you something.” Marisol puts her hands on her hips and squints up at May. “She’s so beautiful.”

“She’s a movie star,” I reason.

“And you make movies,” Suzanne says.

“That’s what Mrs. Zidar said—she said that the Red Lady was somehow related to my subconscious where art is born.”

“Maybe there’s a movie of hers that you’re supposed to watch or something, to make some kind of connection,” Suzanne says.

“There are no accidents,” Marisol says definitively. “There is something here.”

But what? Who is May McGlynn to me? And why did she show up in my video diaries? What does she want from me?

“Now we
have
to buy the exhibition book,” Romy says. “Come on. You need her picture.”

We turn to go to the gift shop. I look back at May. I swear she smiles at me, almost relieved. Or maybe I’m just imagining it.

Preparing Thanksgiving dinner at the Santrys’ is about the most fun I’ve ever had on a holiday. There’s a lot of laughter in this house, even with Mr. Santry’s illness. If my dad were sick, I’d be crying all day and night, but not the Santry family. They are made of something more durable than the Chestertons for sure.

Mrs. Santry has Marisol and me peeling potatoes—sweet (for candied yams) and white (for mashed with butter). We’re sitting on the screened-in porch outside the kitchen. Mrs. Santry has spread newspapers on the floor to collect the peels. I’m pretty good at peeling potatoes, but Marisol is a machine. She peels off the skin without taking any hunks out of the good stuff. Plus, she’s fast.

“You okay out here?” Joe, the older Santry brother, pokes his head out of the screen door. He’s also home for the holiday break. While Kevin is college cute, Joe is man cute. He has dark brown hair and blue eyes and looks a lot like Mr. Santry. He doesn’t get impatient with us (not that Kevin does either), and he seems genuinely interested in where we come from and what we know.

“We’re fine!” Marisol and I say in unison. Joe goes back into the kitchen.

“He is, like, ten times better-looking than Kevin,” Marisol whispers.

“You know, I find it so hard not to fall in love with every older guy I see. Do you?”

“Not really. I guess I’m picky.” Marisol takes the end of her potato peeler and removes a brown spot. “And I’m probably scared of them too.”

“I didn’t say I
wasn’t
scared. I just find them so handsome. And they’re so easy to talk to.” I think of Tag—who, like Joe and Kevin, is just so easy—period. “Boys our age have too many pauses in their conversations. I almost think something is wrong with them.”

“This coming from a girl who has a boyfriend,” Marisol teases.

“Jared is not a real boyfriend yet. I don’t even know him that well.” I
am
getting to know him, but I don’t like to lord him over Marisol, who had a lousy time at the dance except for the conga line. I always remind myself that not everyone met a cute boy and kissed him three times at the GSA dance. I had a fluke experience, like a rainbow that comes out after a tornado in Indiana. I never brag, and I wouldn’t anyway—anytime a boy likes a girl, and she likes him back, it’s a delicate situation.

I look through the screen where Romy is helping Kevin make apple dumplings. She is in total bliss. Kevin seems to enjoy talking to her too but it’s like talking to a little sister. I don’t think Romy cares. She’ll take Kevin any way she can get him.

“How’s Romy doing?”

“Okay. If Kevin is Mario Batali, Romy is Rachael Ray. She’s all chipper and attentive and it’s like she’s doing a cooking show with him,” I say.

“Do you think he likes her?” Marisol asks.

“I can tell he thinks she’s sweet, but he’s in
college
,” I remind Marisol. “This is a love that will never be.”

“Not yet anyhow. She won’t always be fourteen. And, they do have sports in common,” Marisol says practically.

Suzanne pushes her dad into the kitchen, which has been transformed into a bakery, and up to the table. Mr. Santry places two sticks of softened butter in the bottom of a bowl, takes a couple handfuls of walnuts out of a Ziploc bag, and throws them in with the butter. Suzanne measures brown sugar into the bowl and Mr. Santry adds some cinnamon.

“Suz, warm up some cream on the stove. About three cups,” Mr. Santry instructs.

After a minute, Suzanne brings the warmed cream
to the table and pours it into the bowl while Mr. Santry stirs it with his good hand. He becomes tired after a while, so Kevin takes the spoon and stirs.

Once the dough is ready, Mr. Santry helps Romy wrap an apple in a circle of dough. He shows her how to pull the dough up over the cored apple, leaving a space at the top to put the sauce.

“These are my grandmother’s apple dumplings,” Mr. Santry says. “I want you to learn how to make them exactly like she did.”

“We’re on it, Dad,” Kevin assures him.

Then Romy lifts a glass dish filled with apple dumplings nestled in their pockets of dough. Mr. Santry instructs Kevin to drizzle the sauce over the top of the dumplings while Suzanne follows behind him placing small pats of butter on top of each one.

“Perfect,” Mr. Santry says and smiles.

Mrs. Santry set two folding tables longways in the living room covered with a gold tablecloth with a giant paper turkey in the center, the kind with the wings that fan out. Mr. Santry is at one end of the table, and Mrs. Santry at the other. Marisol, Suzanne, and I are on one side of the table, while Romy, beaming with joy, has scored the single seat between Joe and Kevin.

“Let us bow our heads,” Mr. Santry says. “We thank God for our family, our friends and our food, our good health and our good fortune. Amen.”

Joe jumps up to help his dad carve the turkey, which he has a little trouble doing. Nobody says anything, but I can see that it bothers Suzanne. I pass the mashed potatoes; after all, Marisol and I killed ourselves peeling and I want everybody to try some. Kevin jokes around and Romy laughs. She’s actually listened to our beauty advice and laid off the lip gloss (thank God) and is almost charming instead of annoying. In twenty-four hours, she’s learned how to sit back a little and not try so hard with boys. I’m happy for her.

I lie back in the trundle in Suzanne’s room, unable to sleep. I ate an entire apple dumpling by myself, and my stomach feels like a backpack loaded with rocks. I couldn’t help it; the scent of butter, cinnamon, and sugar nestled on soft dough just called my name—and I responded to that call.

Suzanne sleeps on the air mattress under the windows, while Romy, who now after almost a semester at PA likes heights, sleeps in the top bunk.

Marisol, in the bottom bunk, whispers, “You awake?”

“Yeah,” I tell her.

“I had too much pumpkin pie,” she says. “But the filling was creamy—just enough cinnamon.”

“You know, I think you ought to be a chef. You really like food.”

“I know.” Marisol laughs. “I like cooking more than boys. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

I check my text messages. I have not heard from Jared—I sent him a turkey graphic in an email with a Happy Thanksgiving message. He did not email back and there are no text messages. Maybe he’s forgotten about me. Or, maybe he has something against turkeys or national holidays in general.

“Did Jared text you?” Marisol asks.

“Not yet. Do you think he’s dumped me already?”

“Hardly,” Marisol says.

“You never know.”

“It’s the holidays. He’s probably as busy as we are,” Marisol whispers. “No reason to panic.”

“Thanks.” I’m truly grateful for sensible friends like Marisol.

“Viola, I’ve been thinking about the Red Lady, your May McGlynn,” she says.

“Do you think I’m crazy?”

“Not at all. You never make things up. You’re not hyperbolic—in fact, you’re the opposite,” she reasons.

“Right! I’m droll. A flatliner! And I’m not mystical at all. I don’t even believe in ghosts. My friend Caitlin back in Brooklyn says I’m the least likely human being ever born to be haunted. I don’t even watch scary movies. I’m not interested in other realms at all.”

“I am,” Marisol admits.

“You are?”

Marisol takes a deep breath. “In Mexico, there’s this patron saint we revere, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and there’s a shrine to her where she cries real tears. And my mother has seen it with her own eyes. She went with a group.”

I sit up on my trundle bed so quickly that I have to hang on in order not to fall off of it. Marisol and Caitlin are so much alike—I just know if they ever met, they’d be BFFs. They are truly deep.

Marisol continues, “So, I
do
think it’s possible that people from other realms can visit. But here’s the thing. What do you do? It’s not like people will understand.”

“May McGlynn wants something from me, but what? Why didn’t she go to the guy who directed
Slumdog Millionaire
? Why show up on my footage? I’m nobody.”

“You’re all she’s got. She died in South Bend. She must need somebody with a camera in South Bend.”

“I wish I’d never heard of May McGlynn. I’m going to
sell my camera. Then I won’t have to do
anything
about this
ever
.”

“Don’t say that, Viola. You must never sell your camera. You’re talented. Every girl in ninth grade at PA wishes she was you. You have a camera everywhere you go—it’s like a purpose in life. You should be grateful for it.”

Marisol makes sense. She always does. But she can afford to be supportive, because this weird stuff is not happening to
her
. And, let’s face it, she’s Mexican and they pray to statues and believe their icons actually weep.

And for anybody out there who thought kissing a boy three times would make everything crystal clear, as if the thing you hope for will somehow bring enlightenment and a sense of calm, forget it. It just added to my stress level. It’s not
bad
stress—but it’s more change, the very thing I’d like less of.

My BlackBerry flashes. I scroll down to read the message.

“Who’s it from?” Marisol asks. “Your boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

I text back.

I sign off. Double XO’s from Jared Spencer have officially made this a perfect day.

The train back to South Bend is packed with college students from Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s and Saint Joseph’s Academy. They are loud and laugh a lot, and most of them have totes filled with Thanksgiving leftovers. We do too. Suzanne’s mom gave us each a turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a wedge of pumpkin pie for the ride home. Never one to save good food, I begin to unwrap my sandwich as soon as we’re on the train.

“Thanks for a great weekend,” Marisol says to Suzanne.

“I’m glad you guys could come back with me.”

“Your family really made us feel at home,” Romy says.

“You mean Kevin,” I say as I chew my sandwich.

“He was nice to me,” Romy says without apology.
“Does he have a girlfriend at Marquette?”

“Yeah.” Suzanne shrugs as she checks her BlackBerry. Romy is crestfallen.

Suzanne continues, “We all hate her though. She’s really pretty but she’s got an annoying giggle.”

Romy’s face is galvanized with hope.

Here is the perfect example of a sensible girl losing it the second she likes a guy. Romy knows the score. Surely she didn’t think college boys just sit around without girlfriends—and study. Surely she doesn’t believe that Kevin is thinking, “Romy is fourteen, but I’ll wait four years until she’s eighteen and then I’ll ask her out.” This is madness.

“Is it serious?” Romy asks Suzanne.

“Is what serious?” Suzanne puts her BlackBerry in her purse.

“Kevin and his girlfriend.”