The Black Rose

Mrs. Greenwald arrived promptly at eight am every morning, and usually left by three pm Monday through Friday. The days seemed to speed exponentially as I entered the second semester of my freshman year. In that time, we covered English, math, geography, history, biology, French, and most dreadfully, cooking.

For most of the lessons, I listened to Mrs. Greenwald raddle on about proper punctuation and various styles of writing. She taught me the capitals of each state or country and the unique features about them. She showed me pictures of the countries she had visited or the places she aimed to visit. I had to write book reports on Bhutan’s economic philosophy, the gender divide in Africa, and the value of happiness in Costa Rica.

For science, we created visual aids of respiration or photosynthesis, and for French, well besides learning the language, we had steaming, French baguettes, and tart cheese with sparkling wine. Mrs. Greenwald was not only a remarkable teacher, but she knew how to keep my wheels turning. I found myself pouring over the textbooks or writing samples well into the night, and we often covered the entire semester’s worth of material in a fraction of the time.

After three months had passed, I was ninety percent fluent in French, and Mrs. Greenwald was borderline fluent in coding. I had never met a woman or any person with whom my IQ and learning capacity were still superior, yet I respected fiercely. I often loathed three pm, or even worse, Fridays. Even Richard adored her, often making his annoying appearance every night, and even some nights he invited her to stay for dinner, which occasionally she obliged, and often directed me in cooking. I knew that Richard was just putting on a show. He hadn’t been reprogrammed with the father gene, and he wanted her to believe he actually cared for his daughter, that my studies, my quirks, my potential were all important to him.

On month four, after we had crushed many of the other subjects it took most freshman a year to master, Mrs. Greenwald came up with her most obscure idea yet (besides teaching me how to cook of course).

“Dani, would you ever want to learn how to act?”

I choked, almost spilling water over my precious laptop, which my father had recently purchased as a gift for my good behavior.

“Are you serious?” I joked.

“I am,” she gazed at me with that stern yet hypnotizing stare that would seep into my pores and make me say or do things I otherwise wouldn’t.

“I know you hate socializing, but it’s a crucial part of being successful in this world, whether you like it or not. I can’t teach you how to speak in front of a hundred of your peers, but I can show you how to loosen up, how to pretend to be someone you’re not,” her eyebrows rose.

I thought for a moment. She was right. The more I learned and watched of the world, the more I knew I needed to assimilate, or at least feign how. “Sure, I would like that.”

Her contagious grin spread. “We can start tomorrow, after your other studies of course; however, I fear at this rate, in a year we might be out of courses I am qualified to teach.”

I smiled slightly, “I think you overestimate how easy it will be to teach me to act.”

“Challenge accepted,” she beamed.

And so, it began, after my regular courses, Mrs. Greenwald taught me how “to act”. She taught me how to “let go,” of my walls, how to slip into a character, and how to think on my feet. I must admit, in the beginning, I was an angry mess. She made it look so easy. How she could adopt an accent, feign disgust, or anguish. The only emotion I excelled in portraying was anger, sarcasm, and boredom. Acting didn’t come naturally for me. Screw that, emotions didn’t come naturally to me, and due to this, my impatience burst.

“This is fucking stupid,” I seethed. “I don’t care if anyone likes me, or if I never have a boyfriend or friends. I don’t want to be a washed-out actress.” I stopped abruptly.

Her face grew stone-cold. She didn’t say a word. She just grabbed her bag and walked out the door.

I sat in the chair opposite to hers stunned. No one in my life had ever stood up to me like this before. I grit my teeth, jumping from the chair, I ran after her. “I’m sorry,” I panted. “Please stop,” I pleaded, grabbing for her arm.

“I told you that I wouldn’t tolerate being disrespected,” she halted, still refusing to acknowledge me.

“I know, I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I, I just get so angry when I can’t do something well.”

She placed her hand on my shoulder. “I understand that learning something new can be frustrating, but do you notice most others acting out as you do?”

I shook my head in defeat.

She grabbed my chin and raised it, “There is nothing wrong with demanding more of yourself, Dani, but you have to stop acting like a child and learn to control your emotions. That is what acting is about. Learning when to dial up one emotion or reign in another. I know you can do it.”

I swallowed. Once again, her confidence seeped through my skin. I nodded. “I can do it.”

And so, I did it, eventually. Month after month passed, and I soon learned to imitate my love for my mother, visiting her but once over Christmas since we moved. I learned how to appear sad, joyous, flirty, confident, and how to dress. The first time Mrs. Greenwald allowed me over to her place, I not only got to meet her husband, who was more into video games than I was, but she introduced me to her closet and to her photographs. The walls were littered with black and white portraits or beautiful landscapes of the places she’d been.

“Why are they all black and white?” I would ask marveling at each in her bedroom.

“Because with the absence of color, the lines, the faint shadows of the face, the depth of the trees, mountains, the weary lines of worn buildings, I can truly behold the beauty.”

My eyes widened. I could see what she meant. While I never understood how a jumbled mess of paint splatters and swirling colors could be considered art, the way Mrs. Greenwald discussed it, the deep meaning behind each stroke, each photograph, I loved to just listen to her ramble. Her camera, her cooking, her incessant desire to learn and absorb cultures and languages were her escapes, much like computers and games were mine.

“Now come on, let’s play dress up,” she twirled daintily, dragging me to the closet.

After trying on dress after dress, with a trench coat or scarf or heels or way over the top hat. I felt like a proper lady.

“This is the one,” Mrs. Greenwald admired, forcing me to spin as the long flowy silk camel dress and black faux fur trench coat adhered to my figure. The high black boots to my knees gave me at least four inches on my height.

“You look beautiful, Dani,” she swooned. My face flushed as I gazed in the mirror of the bathroom. As the months had progressed, my baby fat trimmed, my acne diminished. While I still wouldn’t call myself beautiful, it was progress.

“Now it’s time for the final touches,” she squealed, plugging in her straightener, and sitting me down on the toilet. Brushing my long mane, our eyes met in the mirror.

“I don’t often say this,” she muttered, “But Dani, you have real potential. Your mind is special, you’re special. If you can learn to get along with others, learn that you need others, to use this a little more,” she pointed to my heart, “You can be someone.”

My eyes never left hers. Her green, my blue eyes locked. I could detect a faint fluttering in my heart, an unfamiliar feeling. I couldn’t speak.

“Now, let’s show the world what I’ve always known,” she grinned.

Her delicate hands twirled my hair, taming it. Her feather-light fingers moved over my cheeks, eyes, and forehead. My eyes closed for the powdering.

“You ready to see the new Dani,” she beamed.

I opened my eyes slowly, my mouth quickly followed. At first, I didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me, surely it wasn’t me. “Wow,” I breathed.

“Such a beautiful young lady. Jack, come see the new Dani!” she yelled at her husband in the living room.

Jack soon came stumbling in, his headset still over his head, muttering incoherent sentences to some video game nerds halfway across the world.

“Wow,” he muttered. “You look awesome, Dani!” she smiled. I studied his eyes. They flit cautiously and quickly over my body, my eyes, my faint breast lines. I could sense his fleeting desire. With my astute attention to detail, coupled with the acting lessons from Mrs. Greenwald, I had become judicious in my perception of other’s motives and intentions. I could not only control my own emotions, but I felt as if I could control others like a puppet with a string.

“You look so beautiful,” Mrs. Greenwald murmured. “I’m so proud of you.”

My mouth curled into a wide grin of its own accord for what I believe was the first time in my life as I gazed at myself in the mirror. My wide gray-blue eyes, full lips, pale skin, and dark, long straight hair. I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to. I gulped. For the first time I loved who I was, the way I looked, who I could be, what I could control.