“This is it,” she said, turning the cracked ceramic knob, her heart doing a peculiar hip-hop. The room would be different, of course, after eighteen years. Countless residents had stayed here, she’d bet. But when she stepped inside, she saw it was exactly the same as when she’d left it.
“Oh, my God. Nothing’s changed.”
“It’s very…pink,” Marcus said, pulling the cart inside.
“Bogie painted it for me. It was my princess room, like what I figured Susan Parsons would have. She was the most popular girl at school.”
“Susan from Parsons Foods? She’s married to the mayor, I believe.”
“She was queen back then, so of
course
she’d marry the mayor.” She ruled the girls who mocked Christine and the other commune kids.
Christine ran her hand over the pink polyester bedspread with the ruffles she’d sewn herself. “I made this, you know.” She touched the sagging canopy netting attached to four broom handles. It looked ridiculous, as did the papier-mâché French Provençal frame around the bureau mirror and the pink fur-padded stool she’d made. “This was my haven. Aurora called me Rapunzel and made fun of me for expecting a prince to save me.”
“Is that what you wanted?”
“Not really, but that didn’t matter to Aurora. Fairy tales were sexist—the girls passive chattel to be bought or rescued.”
“Pretty heavy rhetoric for a seven-year-old to absorb.”
“All I wanted was our cute apartment, my little Catholic school with the neat plaid uniforms and the strict nuns.” Everything squared-off, peaceful, predictable.
“What brought you here?”
“Bogie talked Aurora into it. They’d been friends years before and ran into each other and he got her all fired up.”
“But you not so much?”
“God, no. There were power-outs constantly. No TV. No privacy. People moving in and out.”
“Not to mention no water pressure.”
“You’re getting it, yeah.” She’d been babbling, but it helped ease how strange she felt being here again. She liked how Marcus honed in on her while she talked, really listened, as if the details were vital to him.
“Everything okay?” Bogie stood in the doorway.
“My room’s the same,” she said, still amazed.
“That’s Aurora. She sits in here and thinks about you.”
“You’re kidding. She always laughed at my princess stuff.”
“We’re sure glad to have you home again, Crystal,” Bogie said. The affection in his gray eyes tugged at her. He sounded as though she was here to stay. That made her stomach jump.
Just for the summer,
she wanted to remind him, but couldn’t, not with that happy look on his face.
“Well, I’ll let you get settled.” He ducked his gaze, then retreated. That was Bogie’s way, to slip off, disappear, as if he wasn’t worthy of people’s time or attention. How sad. She would spend as much time with him as she could, she decided.
Marcus helped her off-load the bags and equipment.
“The office stuff looks ridiculous in here, huh?” she said, looking around at the desk, computer and printer. “Actually, the only phone is in the kitchen. I’ll have to set up in that alcove if I want to be online at all.”
“The drugstore in New Mirage has computer terminals at the back where the post office is. It’s DSL. That’s what I use.”
“I wonder how hard it would be to get DSL out here. Of course, Aurora thinks computers are a plot to destroy our minds.”
“Should we move the equipment to the alcove?” he asked.
“I’ve kept you too long already. Thanks for the help, Marcus. And for listening to me jabber.”
“It was my pleasure.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” she said, studying him. “I make you jumpy, don’t I? You keep backing away.”
“No.” He looked surprised at her words, then seemed to ponder them. “I haven’t had much social interaction lately….”
“And you prefer it that way?”
He didn’t answer, but she was curious. “Why? Because of the book you’re writing?”
“Aurora mentioned that, too?”
“What’s it about? Psychiatry?”
He nodded.
“So how’s it going?”
“It’s…going.” But distress flared in his eyes and he eased toward the door. “I’ll see you at supper then,” he said and was gone. So he didn’t want to talk about
that,
either.
What was the deal with him and kids?
None of my own, no.
Stepkids then maybe? Why not say so?
The man had a lot on his mind, evidently. She wondered why he’d quit seeing clients. Maybe one too many female patients hitting on him. Didn’t every woman crave a man who knew her inside-out, but stayed all the same? Marcus Barnard was a mystery, that was certain. At another place, another time, she might want to solve it.
“I can’t get a cell signal!” He tossed his phone to the floor, instantly sorry he had. If he broke it, Christine wouldn’t replace another one. Why did he get so mad?
“Just use the house phone,” his grandmother said, pointing at a squat black one so old it had finger holes.
“Get permission first,” his mother just
had
to add, looking up from her laptop. “Toll calls add up fast.”
And we’re not made of money.
That was always the next line.
“Did you know there was no cell service here?” he asked.
“We can live a few weeks without mobile phones and broadband connections,” she said, holding out a glass of water.
“Wait. You mean there’s no Internet?” That would kill him.
“Dial-up only and we don’t want to tie up the phone a lot.”
“Dial-up’s too slow.”
“Drink the water. You look dehydrated.”
“You’re not one of those computer addicts, are you, David?” his grandmother said, sewing a hole in some overalls. “That’s no way to relate to the world.”
“May I please use your phone, Grandma,” he said, ignoring her jab, being so polite it hurt his throat.
“Anytime you want,” she said. “And call me Aurora, for God’s sake.”
“You can call Brigitte once a day, but keep it brief,” his mother said.
One call a day with the love of his life? No texts, no phone photos, barely e-mail? He was so mad he might explode.
Shaking, he dialed Brigitte’s number one digit at a time, rattle, rattle, rattle. It took forever. This was what they meant by
dialing a phone.
He carried the handset around the corner into the little den for privacy. Brigitte should be between classes right now. He had to talk to her. Had to.
He listened for a ring, his heart racing, but the call went straight to her voice mail. Her phone was off. David’s insides seemed to empty out. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to calm down. Hanging up, he headed straight for his room. At least he had a room to escape to.
He hated that he was here. His mother had used Grandma Waters’s surgery as an excuse to drag him away from Brigitte.
Brigitte.
Her name was a wail in his head.
Up the stairs, he saw Lady was sitting outside his door. Was she waiting for him? He slowed as he approached to keep from scaring her, then crouched and held out his hand. She took a gingerly sniff. “You lonely, girl?”
Me, too.
The dog watched him, rigid and wary, but her tail made one flop onto the wood. A
yes
that warmed his heart.
“I should warn you that she howls at night.”
He turned to look at Marcus Barnard, who’d come up behind him. “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted a different room.”
“It’s all right.” David knew how the dog felt. He’d howl, too, if they wouldn’t put him in a mental hospital for it. Already, he had to see a shrink. “Why is she so sad?”
“She misses her owner.”
“Where is he?”
“He died. About a year ago.”
“Wow.” Looking again into Lady’s sad eyes, he felt his own sorrow well up and his eyes start to water. “Sorry, girl.”
Marcus cleared his throat. “She could use a friend and she seems to like you.”
“Yeah?” Would she come into his room? He opened his door and stepped inside. “Want in, girl?”
Lady shivered, whined and stepped toward him, then back. She sat again. David’s heart sank.
“Give her time.” Marcus acted so calm, like nothing could shock him. He was a psychiatrist, so maybe nothing did.
“Yeah. Sure. Thanks.” He closed the door, leaving Lady outside. Maybe she thought he needed guarding.
Inside his room, David felt worse. He’d thought it would be cool to have his own place, like in a hotel, but it smelled dusty and neglected and the bed was creaky-ancient and he didn’t have any of his posters. This wasn’t his place. It was a beat-up cell in a nowhere prison. He didn’t even have Internet.
To calm down, he fished a joint from his small stash, then the bag of Cheetos he’d brought from home. He meant to eat only organic from the commune like he and Brigitte had discussed, but that goat cheese had tasted like ass.
He took a giant hit, then flopped onto the bed. From the ice chest he’d put beside his bed he popped a can of Dr Pepper. He would quit junk food once he felt better.
He wanted back to Phoenix
now.
Brigitte was going to a bunch of parties this weekend. He’d miss the whole summer with her. In August, she was doing a backpack-hitchhike deal, heading to Seattle, then across the country. By Thanksgiving, she’d be in Europe. If he didn’t lose his nerve, he’d go with her, screw school. It was all a fascist factory of mind control anyway.
He took another toke, holding it in a long time, but the pot didn’t erase how raw he felt inside. He should run. Hitch a ride to the pathetic town and take the bus home. If a bus even came to New Mirage.
If he knew how to drive, he’d borrow the Volvo, or one of the commune’s pickups or, hell, maybe that school bus of Bogie’s painted with hippie crap. Brigitte would love how retro it was. But he didn’t know how to drive because Christine said no permit until his grades went up.
She killed every hope every time.
David studied the smoke curling up from the spliff. His mom would go nuts if she knew he’d brought weed.
Every
thing freaked her out. She always had her eye on him, making him nuts with questions:
Where are you going? Who will be there? How’s school? Do you like your English teacher? Are you using drugs? Promise me this, swear that, agree to x, never do y.
His thoughts smeared and echoed. The bud was doing its trick. Good. He needed the world to blur. He took a long swallow of soda and a handful of the cheesy curls, which now tasted creamy and tangy and melted amazingly on his tongue.
Christine didn’t know anything that went on inside him. Whenever he tried to say something real to her, she went pale and scared or red and mad.
At times like this, loaded, he thought about his father. If he only knew where he was. Christine refused to find him. She claimed he would disappoint David, hurt him, that he had a terrible temper, that he was a flake and a jerk.
David didn’t believe that. His dad would relate to him. He would know that smoking a little dope was no big deal. David wasn’t a druggie, he wasn’t “using” like his mother claimed. Like he was on meth or heroin.
He’d done mushrooms a couple times, Ecstasy once and a kid at a party had some Vicodin, but that was just recreation. And he didn’t do booze. Too harsh. He didn’t
need
drugs.
All he needed was Brigitte. His mother hated her because she was older, because she had ideas of her own. So unfair. Thinking that sent the red flood into his head and he wanted to break something—a wall, a door, a window.
It scared him when he got this angry. His mother said that was how his father was. Even if it was true, he probably had good ways to handle it he could teach David.
Brigitte could always talk him down. Brigitte was his steady center. Brigitte was his life. He had to get to her.
So much burned inside him. He wrote stuff—poetry, mostly, like Brigitte, but also song lyrics. He should practice guitar. Once he got better he could compose. Except it took so long to get better. So, so long… And he’d be here so, so long….
He remembered Christine asking Marcus if he would jam with David, like David was a needy geek. He loved his mom, but she wanted to stroke his hair and read him bedtime stories like he was still five and scared of the dark.
He couldn’t take her anymore. And he hated being mean to her. She’d be sad when he left with Brigitte, but she should get it. She’d left home when she was a teenager, too.
Knock, knock.
“Can we talk?” Christine again. He put on his headphones for her own good. If he opened the door he’d just hurt her again.