A Small Disturbance

Emerging Writer Series

Every two weeks or so I am publishing an essay from an emerging writer. This week, “A Small Disturbance,” by Jessica L. Pavia. Jessica is an M.F.A. candidate at Sarah Lawrence College in their writing program. Her work has appeared in The Columbia Journal, Breadcrumbs Mag, The Sheepshead Review, and Barzakh Magazine. You can find her on Instagram at @jess_pavia.

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During a weekend thick with heat, I visit Jonny in Pennsylvania. We’ve headed about an hour away from his apartment to pick up my brother’s router in Bethlehem. My mother baits us with a night at a nice enough hotel, tells us to take the day trip on her.

Driving into the city, the first thing we notice are the rusted-over steel stacks that break up the sky, a putrid and apocalyptic scene among small, row-like homes. It reminds me of our hometown, in a way — stuck so explicitly to a bygone era, still thrown ashore by their once- thriving business’s destructive ruin. My mother said they turned it into a sort of art and community center. She urges Jonny and I to check it out, even if just to walk through.

When we get there, we’re directed by signs and people in crossing guard uniforms to drive through one of the abandoned factory floors. It’s an odd feeling, breaking a rule so indoctrinated into our system we don’t even remember being told it.

On the other side, there’s a Juneteenth celebration in full swing, a holiday bursting with joy over an emancipation of enslaved people. We find a rare parking spot and head to the center of the fair, our bags checked and tallied on the way in. There are food stands everywhere and a stage by the main steel stack where a fully modern and glass building wafts up to the sky. A woman groans through the microphone as the band behind her plays, brassy and loud. The sweat drips down my arms, my back. I mutter “how in the world is she doing this right now.” When she stops to take a sip of water, I feel myself relax.

Surrounding the drinks and the food, the dancing and the music, there are community organizations and a step group performing at a smaller stage, their bass voices shaking the very ground. Nestled in any open space are stands of art and lifestyle goods, tents barely shielding the attendants from the searing sun. When we were still in line waiting to get our bags checked, I shared my sunscreen with two older women behind me. 

“Even with our dark skin, you have to slather,” she told me.

Jonny and I make our way around. There’s shea butter lotions and beaded earrings, T-shirts with iconic slogans by indelible Black activists screen-printed on them. When we reach the makeup stand, a woman wearing a fanny pack and holding a small, battery-powered fan asks if I’d like a free make-over. 

“I’ve worked with Beyoncé, you know.”

I smile big. “Well, how can I say no to that?”

She sits me in a tall black chair, and Jonny stands hovering by. I ask if this is her product, and she says it is: “I’ve done so much work for T.V. shows and movies, it was time to do something for me.” I ask what types of shows, and she names at least one I know. She comes in close to me, examining my face, looking over at the eyeshadow palette and lipsticks she brought for the event.

“Well, first thing we’re going to do is cover up that pigmentation you have.”

I perk up to respond, to resist.

“Don’t worry honey, I know. I have it, too. I’ve got this great product for you though.” She begins rustling around in her fanny pack, then her bag. I think I should say something now, when she’s distracted, when the painting hasn’t begun yet. I should mention I don’t like covering up my pigment anymore, and I’d actually really prefer if you didn’t. That no, I used to want to conceal it, you know you’re right on that, but if I’m going to do it, I want it to be my decision.

But I don’t. My mouth is sealed shut and I’m repeating actually I don’t like to cover it in my head but nothing is coming out.  

Actually I’d prefer you leave it be. 

Actually I like the pigment. 

Actually — 

“Ah! Found it. Alright, tilt your head back.”

#

I’ve become obsessed with mushrooms. There—poking out from the heavy root of an oak tree or feasting on a dying stump, pushing its soft, pregnant body out from the leaves, over the cliff, under our heavy feet—are mushrooms. Organisms neither plant nor human, something in between. A living, breathing thing far older than us, far more important too. A microscopic glimpse into our future as a society of waste and decay; a magical being that comes in all shapes and sizes, in edibility and power. But one thing remains constant: its singular necessity to take what is dead, what is discarded, and turn it into life.

Mushrooms frighten people. The way they pop up overnight, small disturbances above soil, hinting at ancestral roots stretching out under what we cannot see. How they feast on organic flesh, how when the sun finally sets on us, we will be nothing more than their food. Vehicles of decay.

And yet I’m fascinated with them. In some distant way, yes, but still very real. I’m known to stop at each find, from coral-like bunches breaking through deciduous mulch of leaves to the thin, striated ears climbing a ladder up the trees. Even heaving from a steep hike, I will excitedly exclaim “Look! A mushroom!” to my partner who, admittedly, couldn’t care less. 

My joy comes from discovering their small, mysterious bodies — how different they all look yet are intrinsically the same. The gorgeous striations of a Turkey Tail versus the bright curls of Orange Peel Fungus, or a Puffball that deflates like a balloon with a tap. And, of course, the most iconic red and white spotted toadstool: Fly Agaric. It feels like being part of a secret club, knowing that mushrooms hold keys to our livelihood that we are only just uncovering. It comes from knowing the largest living thing is a humongous fungus older than our trees that is still living, producing, and stretching out beneath Oregon. Yet I never pluck them from the earth. Despite following foragers on social media and reading my fair share, looking up pictures online and comparing with others, I can never make the leap into gathering these fungi for myself. Instead, I like to see them, call them out beneath the shrouds of forestry, give them notice.

#

Her hands flit about my face, applying soft pressure all over my skin. The very touch of her fingers sends shivers down my spine, making me feel slightly nauseous. I close my eyes because I don’t know what else to do. She’s talking to her assistant about the festival. I try peering through my eyelashes a bit to respond to something she’s saying, but I flinch, scared she’ll poke me.

It feels like she’s been working for hours, but I have no idea what I look like. She trades in and out between brushes, fingers, Q-tips. I try to force myself to watch, to track as she collects a handful of items in her left hand, asks the assistant to open a blush for her.

“Honey, your skin’s giving me a hard time.”

“Oh?”

“But don’t worry, we’re going to figure it out. I have some pigmentation under my eyes too and I swear by this stuff.”

She opens up a compact of red pigment. 

“See this?” I nod. “It’s a color corrector. Have you ever used one before?”

I wonder if it’s worth telling her the whole story. That I was born with extra pigment in my right eye. That dark circles of purple swim around and in the pupil’s surface, that long before my parents or I knew, it bloomed below my skin as well. 

That I know what I feel like slathered in makeup; I did it for most of my adolescent years. That I hoped to find relief in full coverage foundations and brightening concealers, how I was convinced that my solace lay one brand away. How my skin became a mistake to correct. When mother-daughter trips were spent floating around expensive makeup counters and asking the women to try their best with me. 

But I don’t. Instead I say I haven’t, but I’ve heard about them. And in a way, that’s true. Color correctors started becoming popular after I stopped painting over my eye. I had thought about buying some just to see what I would feel like without the pigment, to see if the drugstore versions could even cover it all, but I didn’t.

I had grown up in makeup because of dance. I was fighting my mother’s hand holding the mascara wand when I was only eight years old, standing on a stool in the bathroom downstairs, wearing some gaudy red sequined leotard. The transition from performance-required glitter to waking up an extra fifteen minutes every morning to do the same thing this woman is doing now — layer concealer and foundation again and again until it cracks but still isn’t hiding the darkness below — was a swift move.

“I think I’m finally getting it!”

“Oh! Right,” I say.

“Just have to keep layering. Here, open your eyes.”

I do as she commands, let her walk me through the procedure: “You’ll want to warm up this color corrector with your finger before using it. I used a brush — here, this one. That will give you the most coverage, alright?”

“Okay.”

I know she means well. We all have dark under eye bags for one reason or another; maybe she thinks that’s all the pigment is. Everyone wants to conceal those. We spend exorbitant amounts of money trying to do so. She’s giving me a tip, helping me out. Letting me in on her little secret to bright eyes. I know.

In front of us, a group of Black women begin reciting slam poetry into a mic. I crane my neck to look over my artist’s head. Each poem is about our society and culture, their community and experiences as Black women. I can’t make out every word with the noise around us building but I’m mesmerized by their clarity, their passion. 

It’s in the middle of the afternoon, and there’s a hot relentless searing sun above us, yet they are still able to speak their truth, to push out a rumble of words for us to hear.

And I cannot tell her that I’m sinking into myself. I can’t say that despite being a grown woman, I’ve been reduced to a child again. Just wanting people to find me beautiful, just wanting the pigment to disappear from our conversation. It feels as if I’m watching myself from above, screaming and begging to speak up. But I won’t let me.

Instead, I’m in the fourth grade, wearing a new top from Justice in the mall. I’ve been asked to bring the attendance sheet to our main office that day with my childhood crush, Ian. Right now we’re returning from the errand, passing the nurse’s office and front door. There’s a wooden bookcase behind him that has a beautiful arc to it; I can see just the rounding edges over his hair. 

Ian has beautiful bright eyes and blonde hair that’s nearly invisible. I’ve liked him for so long, but I never know how to speak to him. When he laughs, it comes out like rippled giggles, as if he’s riding the waves of joy itself. During recess, I try and follow his move, edge myself into his view until I am associated with him. 

But right now, I turn to him and ask: “Do you think someone could ever like me with my pigment?”

#

Mushrooms were once seen only as signs of decay and death. All people saw was the destruction and poison and radioactive colors — not their beauty and true purpose. That was until the nineteenth century, when mushrooms suddenly took over the British imagination. The Somerset House in London previously hosted an art exhibition focused solely on mushrooms: their art, their design, and their future. Upon entering, guests were greeted with a note that said: “for centuries in Europe, [mushrooms] were objects of horror and disgust, connected to witchcraft, poison and decay.”

Beatrix Potter began changing their minds. Her illustrations in The Tale of Peter Rabbit introduced mushrooms as exotic and beautiful, at once magical and natural. There’s of course also Alice and Wonderland, again forcing people to look at mushrooms as something new to be examined or experimented with.

Even now we’re constantly learning new things about them. Jonny and I recently watched a documentary on mushrooms called Fantastic Fungi. It was admittedly a disjointed mess, at once about a pioneer in mushroom research, at other times about psychedelics. But we both walked away feeling something. It’s hard not to after learning about their interconnected and branching mycelium roots. Jonny latched onto their medicinal uses — they’re sort of nature’s advent calender, mysterious benefits hidden behind each colorful body. 

Mushrooms are technically something between animal and plant; we share DNA and a single-cell ancestor with them. This evolution is at once terrifying and deeply moving. 

I think about this sometimes when I walk my dog or take hikes with Jonny, when I graze the fallen leaves for a hidden morel blending into their surroundings. And now Jonny points them out for me too. Since the film, he’s more willing to stoop low to their level, meet their faces. Together, we say hello to mushrooms, and it feels like waving to an old friend. Their sudden appearance on a tree stump or pathway feels like they’re coming to greet me, us, too. 

I can’t fully explain the wonder I’ve developed towards them, especially since I’ve never taken a foraging class or purposely gone looking for mushrooms with foraging in mind. I’m not searching them out for any sort of personal gain or trade. In fact, I don’t know any of their scientific names, and the idea of plucking one from the ground to eat terrifies me. Even when I find wild onions nestled into the soft earth, I can’t bring myself to cook them into dishes. I will remove them from the ground, wash those white bulbs urgently, but then they’ll sit in a glass container in my fridge for weeks until they wither away.

But perhaps it would be different with a class, with someone who is a master at foraging for mushrooms. YouTube recommends videos to me now from this channel called Mushroom Wonderland. I agree: learning about mushrooms opens you up into an entirely new world. And still, I feel on its precipice. All I can say is I simply find them to be incredible creatures, working tirelessly yet silently to transform decay into gold. And I believe fervently that they hold many of the secrets to our earthly world.

#

“Okay, I’m going to put some concealer over this and then I want to show you. I think you’re going to be amazed with the results!”

She’s been working on my face so long that Jonny has left to walk around. My under eye is raw from the constant pressure, and I fear there won’t be any pigment left after this—those beautiful swirling colors wiped away with each brush stroke. 

In eighth grade, I read “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne for the first time. I can’t help but think about it now. I’m taken back to Alymer turning to his wife and asking, “Georgiana, have you ever considered that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?”

Just like Alymer is shocked by his wife’s small birthmark placed so lovingly on her cheek, so was this woman with me. But caught between them both are young women afraid to speak up. Unlike Georgiana, I have already done the heavy lifting but now, under the artist’s watchful eye, I’m unsure if I’m right. 

Georgiana’s birthmark, a “small defect,” is a deep red color. Hawthorne writes that “When Georgiana blushed, the mark became less visible. But when she turned pale, there was the mark, like a red stain upon snow. The birthmark would come and go with the emotions in her heart.” My pigment transforms in this way also. It blends into the rich colors of my summer-kissed skin so much that people barely mention or notice it. But in the winter, as my skin pales and becomes bluish in tint, the pigment shines brightly, the cool colors emboldened by the lack of sun. 

While some people loved Georgiana’s hand-shaped mark — cooing that a “magical fairy had touched her face when she was born” — Alymer did not. He saw it as ruinous to her otherwise perfect self, a disturbance rampaging over her skin, a sign of her eventual sadness, illness, death. 

But when he dreams of removing it, he finds the deeper the knife goes, the deeper the “small hand sank until it had caught hold of Georgiana’s heart.” As the woman presses harder onto my skin, packing layers of coverage over my eye, I can feel my heart beating hard against my chest, aching to be let out.

When Georgiana drinks Alymer’s poison, the birthmark leaves her skin for a moment. As I sit here undertaking the torment of each corrector then concealer then corrector and so on, my pigment will fade away under the false skin. The woman applies another layer. I feel the brush press the makeup into place. Georgiana  is dying. I am still here, waiting. Soon the birthmark is completely gone. 

The story has one simple line that haunts me with each read, from high school to college and now: “The hand on her face had been her link to life.” 

Alymer rejects “the best the Earth could offer.” He has killed her. 

When this is over, I will go back to the hotel, take a shower. I will rinse myself clean from all this makeup and see my pigment again, where it should be. I won’t die like Georgiana, but with each brushstroke and disgruntled moan the woman makes as she works on my face, I wonder if part of me already has.

#

“Ah! He’s back, just in time. What do you think? Beautiful, right?”

Jonny’s by my side again. He simply nods his head, which I expect. He’s nervous under this sort of pressure. All he knows how to do is rub my back and look into my eyes, and he does that now. I smile up at him, still not knowing how I look. 

“Thanks babe.”

“Here,” she says, and she hands me a mirror.

There’s gold glittering eyeshadow swooshed over my eyelids. My cheeks are a deep rose, my lips a soft pink. She told me I have beautiful lips. With my eyes closed, I said thank you and meant it.

 “Some man told my mom when I was a baby that I had lips people are jealous of,” I said. 

”That’s absolutely true,” she said.

When I linger by my right eyelid, I see a mask. The makeup looks fragile, as if it could slide off at any moment, a combination of all the corrector she used and her hesitancy to completely blend in the concealer and lose it. I used to do the same thing every morning. There’s no longer any pores for the makeup to grip onto, and I can see it isn’t real skin, rather something plastic, something pretending to be.

“It looks great! Wow, really. Thank you!” It really does. She’s done makeup for Beyonce, and the way she blended the shadow is hazy and natural. But I don’t recognize myself.

“Would you like to buy anything?”

“I’d like the lipstick, actually.” 

“Perfect!” She checks the name and instructs the assistant to find it among the others in a plastic container. She comes up empty.

“Okay, it seems we don’t have that color. But I can give you my card and you can order it. Are you sure you don’t want the color corrector? I definitely think you should get that. Just keep layering and it works great.”

“Oh. Sure.”

I ask Jonny to reach into my bag and grab my wallet. I spend my last twenty dollar bill on the product. She starts wrapping it up like a present, but I stop her, tell her I have a tote, so no need. When I finally have my fingers around the product, I realize its packing is cheap and plastic. Brittle. The logo already scratching off. I drop the corrector into my bag, where it’ll sit for months, untouched, before I begin using it to cover the sleep deprivation under my other eye. That’s as close as I’ll let it near my pigment.

“Well, thank you so much! It was so nice to meet you.”

“You too! Enjoy the day.”

As Jonny and I walk away, the music is still going strong. Even more people are entering as we leave, and for a moment I wonder where they all got T-shirts with the event’s name. For the most part, I duck my head. 

I don’t want people seeing me like this, and when they do, I wonder what they think. It’s so much makeup, more than I ever wear, and Jonny tells me this when I ask if he actually likes it. 

“You just don’t look like yourself, but you look nice.” 

I thank him.

When we get to the car, I flip the mirror down. Even now, I’m not convinced the person in the reflection is me. Jonny’s blasting the air, trying to cool us down from the heat. Already my makeup is melting off my face. 

I touch my skin, just swiping at where the foundation meets the blush, playing with the lines. But as I remove my finger, I notice the makeup has come with it. I wipe them against my leg and go back, dragging my finger below my eye, wiping the remnants off. Again and again but somehow there’s still more. 

I stop when I get to something that resembles my pigment. The borders are still hazy, but I acquiesce. Maybe just my tan making the pigment blend into the rest of my face. It’s always brighter in the winter, I remind myself.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I say. I need to get out of here, to be away from people. I need to sweat off the mask. 

“It’s so hot out, though,” Jonny responds.

“Just a short one. Please.”

We find some trail on my phone and drive over. The sun bakes our backs, so we head for respite beneath the woods. I’m not wearing the best shoes for this, but I don’t care. We take it slow. Jonny is a few steps ahead of me, as always. I’m in the back, eyes trained on the leaves, hoping a morel will magically pop out at me. With every new mushroom find, I call up to him. He looks back to smile at me and give a thumb’s up. 

Above us on the trail, there’s a dead tree laid across the otherwise paved lane. There’s always mushrooms on these, thin wafers that build out in colonies. I speed up. If they’re Turkey Tails, I’ll know by their underside. It will be white and porous, bespeckled in tiny holes — much like my skin.

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I stopped wearing makeup to cover my pigment. I think it’s because I still wear makeup now, but I never place concealer or foundation around my right eye. In fact, lately I’ve been wishing the pigment was more noticeable to people. 

What I do know is that makeup as a mask became unnecessary. I had been trying to hide the pigment from myself even though everyone else could still see it, could still see me. One day, I learned that and decided to stop.

The tree’s stump is decomposing into mulch, becoming unrecognizably new. The mushrooms will have a field day with it. It’s an excellent tree, perfect for devouring and turning into vital nutrients. 

As I get closer to the log, I rove my eyes over its bark and notice the curves and knobs. There’s an arc coming out from the middle, rounded growths on either side. Above them, the surface dips into two perfect wells, like the rock in my childhood backyard that pooled with water every rainfall and where I used to sit and wait among the lavender for fairies to come take a dip. Out of one, a mushroom disrupts the surface. 

It’s deep brown, speckled in a beautiful striated pattern. There are no others around the tree, and I’m not sure how it got here, whether it grew with the stump or an animal dropped a found spore right in the perfect divet.

Somewhere within me I feel an urge to take the fungus. I try to talk myself out of this desire: What are you going to do with it? It’s the only mushroom here, it needs to stay. There is still so much work to be done. And yet I’m convinced the mushroom wants me to take it. 

I walk over and slide my hand under its cap, feel the gills tickle my finger. With a soft pinch and pull, I break the fungus free. For a moment I stand still, running my finger along its surface in the hope of spreading spores. I let its body rest in the palm of my hand, carry it over to Jonny like a proud child. The mushroom is weightless, barely even there, hovering over my touch. 

“Is that edible?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“What are you doing with it?”

“I don’t know. I just needed to take it.”

He nods like he doesn’t believe me, like it’s not worth starting something over. I open my bag and try to move things around. I push my wallet up against the side, hollow out a safe space in the middle. The color corrector knocks about, too small to stay put. It falls into the center hole I’m making, and I let it stay there, almost scared to touch it. 

The mushroom moves from my palm to my fingers. I’ll bury it near his apartment, I tell myself, be to this mushroom what birds are to seeds. Slowly—so slowly to not bruise the soft surface —I drop the fungus down into the hollow. I whisper, be safe in there.