FICTION BY ZARY FEKETE

Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella (Words on the Page) out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection (To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way out of Addiction) out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many, many, many films.

Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete

 

MRS. BETTY
by Zary Fekete

 

I’m waiting in the lunch line. While I wait I’m reading the biography of my favorite Colombian poet, Bernadette Escritora. She wrote, “All my life I have waited for a rising female sound of invitation and ecstasy.”That’s the sentence I read just as I reach the front of the line where Mrs. Betty is ready to stamp my lunch ticket.

Mrs. Betty seems old. I think she’s worked at the high school since when my parents went here. She is hunched and thin. As she stamps my ticket she catches my eye.

“Julie,” she says, with her little Spanish accent, “Bonita bufanda.” She smiles. I don’t remember how she knows my name. I can’t remember ever telling her. But I guess most teachers in school know students’ names.

I sit down at a table and mostly push around my food, letting my eyes wash across the room. From where I’m sitting I can see Mrs. Betty’s back. I can see the bones under her ancient dress shifting back and forth as she stamps the cards of the other students.

I’m having kind of a bad day. I just noticed that Cynthia posted several things in my socials. This happens at least once a week. Cynthia was the one who bullied me the most. It started in first grade. I was on the swing in the playground. She pulled my pony tail and said, “My turn!”

Even though we’re both graduating this year, the bullying hasn’t stopped. It’s just changed. Her online commenting skills really just feel like another kind of pony tail pulling. Two years ago, when I had my only semi-serious boyfriend…I posted a couple of pics of us online. Cynthia wrote beneath one of the pics: “My turn!” Later that week he broke up with me. I saw them together in the lunchroom the next day.

She seems to get away with everything, even making fun of my heritage in a weird way. Like back in ninth grade. We were in Short Stories…reading a piece by another Colombian writer, Hernando Tellez. The teacher had asked me to read. I fell into the rhythm of the piece and suddenly I was pronouncing the name of one of the characters. Usually, I Americanize my pronunciation, but I was lost in the text and the name came out distinctly Colombian. I froze and stopped speaking.

And then, behind me, I heard her whisper, “Well, she would know how to say it.” There was a titter of laughter that followed from the back of the room. My face began to burn.

And now there she is across the lunch room at her usual table with her friends. I hear her girly laugh and feel a low turn of anger. I give up on trying to eat anything out of the gloppy mess I’ve made on my plate. I ditch the tray at the drop-off window.

As I’m leaving the lunch room I pass by Mrs. Betty and wave goodbye. She smiles at me. And winks. That feels weird.

*****

At night at home, I scroll through my feed. I really just need to stop posting anything. Cynthia seems to find something nasty to say about anything I touch. Even if I just “like” something she has some comment or emoji lurking down below in my feed, waiting to bite.

I fall asleep with a low-feeling anger in my stomach again. I wish I could do something to make it stop. I wish I could call out for someone to help me, but who?

In the morning, I come into the kitchen to grab some orange juice. Mom is already there, getting ready for work.

“Hey,” she says. “Lunch money on the counter.”

I grab it and toss the old lunch card in the trash.

“Don’t you need that?” Mom says.

“I need a new one. Mrs. Betty punched the last number yesterday.” I grab my bag and head for the door before I realize there’s a silence behind me. I turn around.

Mom is staring at me, her purse gangling from her hand. “What did you say?” she says.

“What do you mean?”

Mom takes a step toward me, and I suddenly realize she’s scared. “You said Mrs. Betty?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes are wide. “I didn’t know she was still there,” she says.

I don’t know what she means.

Mom comes closer. “Has she ever said anything to you?” she says.

This feels weird. “Not really,” I say. “Just hello. Yesterday she said she liked my scarf.”

Mom turns and disappears into the study. When she comes back she’s holding her old year book. She walks up to me. “I thought…I hoped…” She pauses and hands me the book. “Look for my pictures,” she says. “Every picture they took of me.” Mom puts her hand on my shoulder, her mouth is quivering slightly. “Look carefully.”

I’m unsure what to do. I look at the cover of the year book…and then back at Mom.

“We’ll talk later,” she says. Then she leaves.

*****

On the school bus, I take out Mom’s year book. Carefully I begin turn the pages. Black and white pictures smile up at me. I see old names. Scott, Nathan, Rhea, Elizabeth. I keep turning. Lots of kids in different sports. Old-fashioned poses for senior pics.

I see the first picture of Mom. She’s so…impossibly young. She’s with a bunch of other friends on a black-and-white stage. It was for the fall play. All the faces are smiling. Then…I notice something, just behind Mom. It’s like a flickering shadow in the background. I look carefully but can’t quite tell what it is.

I turn to another picture of Mom. This time she’s with some friends at cheerleading practice. They’re in a pyramid. And there…just to the left, I see another shadowy shape. This time it’s clearer. I lean close to the page.

It’s…Mrs. Betty. She’s in the background but it’s definitely her. She looks just like she does today. An old, thin lady in an old-fashioned dress. She’s the only one in the picture not smiling, but she’s not frowning either. She is looking at Mom.

I keep turning pages. Looking for Mom. There she is again. And again. Photo club. 4H. Year book committee. And, yes…in every picture I also see Mrs. Betty, just off to the side.

Always looking at Mom.

When I get home from school, Mom is sitting in the kitchen. She usually doesn’t get home until later. Something is off.

“Sit for a second,” she says.

For a moment Mom says nothing. She’s twisting a small piece of thread between her fingers.

“Mom,” I say. She looks up. “Mom, who is she?”

Mom looks younger. Like the girl in her pictures. She takes a deep breath. “She’s a bruja, Julie.”

I feel a sudden chill come across my spine. I don’t know what that means, but something about the word…I hear a slow drip from the faucet. Mom’s face changes. It’s like I can see other ladies, other women, in her face, from some other time.

Mom looks at me and gives a small smile. “Something happened with our family…back in Colombia. A while ago. Generations ago. There was a something in our village between families. A disagreement. And Mrs. Betty was placed with our family, as a kind of pledge of protection. But by the time I was born, she was no longer with us.”

She pauses again. Then she says, “I know you’ve always had problems with Cynthia, ever since you were little. When I was in school there was a girl like Cynthia. Her name was Imogen. She bothered me…pulled my hair when I was little and…”

Mom lips are twisting. She starts to tremble. “That was the first time I remember seeing Mrs. Betty. I was playing in the playground. I had fallen and skinned my knee. I was crying. I looked up, and Mrs. Betty was there. She said she was there to help me. She said she remembered helping my abuelita when she was little.”

Mom breaks off, the thread is twisted tightly around her finger. “I tried to tell mama about her, but every time I tried, I felt so angry. The anger…it felt like it was something outside of me. It was something I couldn’t control. I was so angry back then. At everybody. Especially at Imogen.”

Mom is talking quickly now. The thread is dancing in her fingers. “One day after school on the school bus Imogen kept kicking the back of the seat. I was trying to concentrate on something else. I felt the anger rising up inside of me. I…”

Mom breaks off, and I realize she’s breathing heavily. The thread is limp in her hand.

“What happened?” I say.

She looks up at me. “In the playground Mrs. Betty told me to call her if I needed her. An inside call, she said. I would feel it…and then she would come,” she pauses. “On the school bus that day I felt something go out of me, like a silent scream. For a moment my body felt like I was in two places at once, and then the feeling was gone. The school bus dropped me off, and I didn’t think any more about what happened. Until the next day in class. Imogen wasn’t in school. She wasn’t there for the rest of the week. And the next weekend we all heard...”

Suddenly Mom stops talking. I notice that she’s shivering slightly. She drops the thread. Her shaking calms down, but she’s completely white.

She takes a deep breath and straightens herself, like she’s trying to shrug something away. Then she turns to me and says, “Whatever you do…don’t let Mrs. Betty give you anything.”

I sit for a moment, looking at the twisted thread on the table. Thoughts are racing through my brain. Mom comes over and kisses my head. I go upstairs and lay down on my bed. I picture Cynthia. And…I think about Mrs. Betty.

*****

The next day I’m in the lunch line as usual, but I forgot my book in my locker. I’m distracted. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what Mom said. Mrs. Betty is not here. It’s some substitute. I take my usual pass through the line and sit down. Cynthia is off in the corner with her group. In history class I heard her talking behind me. She kept pronouncing my name with a fake Spanish accent. I felt so angry.

I’m not hungry. Maybe I’ll head to gym class early…

Suddenly, the lights…all the lights in the cafeteria seem to flicker and dim, just a bit. I look around. No one else seems to have noticed. But they’re definitely flickering. And there’s a smell…something off.

I turn forward and freeze. Mrs. Betty is sitting across from me.

She has a cup of tea, but no lunch. She’s wearing her old-lady dress. I suddenly realize she’s the smell. She smells like tea, but there’s something under the tea. Something earthy and rotten.

She sips her tea and then puts it on the table before her. “Julie,” she says…her voice is low and soothing, “Ninita, I remember when you were born. I saw your floating body in the womb. I smoothed the crying wrinkles from your tiny head.”

It’s as though the entire lunch room has gone quiet. I glance around. Everyone is still here, but I feel like its just me and Mrs. Betty. The world has been turned down all around us.

She says, “There were things I couldn’t tell you until you were older.”

As she talks, she shimmers slightly. Her words come out with a faint hint of ticking, like beads. She begins to move her hand in a circle and the shimmer concentrates. A shape begins to form. First, it’s like different faces, mouths, eyes. They’re moaning softly.

Then it changes into a swirling pattern of beads. Finally, it forms into the shape… a knife. It’s just there. Floating. Then it settles against the palm of her upturned hand.

“This…” she says. And as she says it, I feel a certainty settle inside of me. Like I want it. She keeps talking, and as she does the knife slowly revolves on her palm. I feel a strong desire.

“This is marked,” she says.“It’s been held by many women. Your mother. Abuela. Her mother. The family in Colombia. They all needed it at some point. Sometimes once. Sometimes often.”

The blade stops revolving and sits in her hand.

“I’ve kept it,” she says. “But now it’s for you.”

I look at the still knife. Then I look into Mrs. Betty’s eyes. A silent thought passes between us. I look at the distant table and see that Cynthia is gone.

I look at Mrs. Betty…at the knife. She leans forward slightly. “Right now…that girl…she is walking down the hall…tapping on her phone. And…just now she is turning the corner. And now she is entering the locker room. Just her.”

As she talks the knife slowly begins to move across the table. Mrs. Betty’s words are soft. Almost like a chant.

“If you want,” she says, “you could walk down the hall. You could go to the locker room. She wouldn’t see you enter. She wouldn’t know you were there until you were ready. You could take your time. There will be a cerrar spell on the door. No one will enter.”

She stops talking, and the knife stops next to my right hand.

“If you want,” she says. “You can pull her hair while you do it.”

The lunchroom is deathly silent.

“Why are you here?” I say.

She smiles. “I heard your call.”