Читать книгу A Tragic Kind of Wonderful - Eric Lindstrom, Eric Lindstrom - Страница 9

HAMSTER IS ACTIVE

HUMMINGBIRD IS FLYING

HAMMERHEAD IS CRUISING

HANNIGANIMAL IS UP!

I’m still in a good mood despite that weird conversation with Connor yesterday. Two days in a row is some kind of record, at least recently. Maybe because it’s Friday, and I have almost no homework, and the sun finally came out … but no, I know better. My ups and downs have minds of their own.

I ride after school along the beach trail, pumping the pedals, outpacing the lumbering zombies I imagine chasing me on my way to work. They’ll never catch me. Not as long as I have Nolan’s bike.

Parked in front of the Silver Sands Suites is a small rental van. Maybe someone’s moving in. I head inside. Five minutes later I’ve locked my stuff in a cabinet by the sink, put on clean scrubs, pinned on my name tag, and washed my face and hands thoroughly.

I check the mirror. Despite vigorous scrubbing, I’m still dotted with freckles. My aunt Joan and I have a long-standing bet that I’ll outgrow them. She thinks they’re temporary because I have slightly lower density plus brown hair and blue eyes, but I’m less than a month from my seventeenth birthday. As much as I wish she were right, I think I’m going to win this bet … damn it.

In the kitchen I fill a glass of orange juice halfway. I hold it behind my back as I enter the Sun Room. Ms. Arguello is alone here and calls to me, “Excuse me, miss?”

She’s in the paisley wingback chair by the south window, knitting a heavy scarf, like every day of the two years I’ve worked here.

“How’s your first day going?” she asks.

“Very well, Ms. Arguello, thank you.”

“Oh! You know my name already. How nice, Miss …”

I stoop to bring my name tag closer to her.

“Mel Hannigan?” She laughs. “Was that on your shirt when they gave it to you? Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get your own soon!”

I smile. “No, that’s my name.”

She looks at me askance, playfully suspicious. “Is it short for Melissa?” I shake my head. “Melinda?”

“Nope, just Mel. What can I do for you?”

I know what she wants—it’s the same every day—but she’s much happier when I play out this scene naturally.

“Let me know when the mail comes? I’m expecting a letter from my grandson. I’m knitting this muffler for him.”

“I’ll keep an eye out. Is there anything else I can get for you?”

“No, thank you. Or, maybe a small glass of orange juice?”

She smiles when I hand it to her. She doesn’t ask why I had it ready. The fact that her letter will never come pops into my head. I push it right back out and leave her to her knitting.

Some days I avoid the Beachfront Lounge for as long as I can, but not today. The Hanniganimal is Up! As soon as I walk in, Mr. Terrance Knight sees me and grins. He sets down his book—today it’s his Bible—and struggles out of his usual chair by the heater vent. It’s a battle he wants to win without help, and it usually takes a full thirty seconds.

I don’t remember how old Mr. Terrance Knight is exactly, but he’s at least eighty and still a few inches taller than me, maybe a full six feet. I wait till he’s standing and balanced, and then I look up into his eyes, his curly hair shockingly white next to his rich black skin.

“You just get here, Mel? You need to settle first?”

His voice is like thick melted butter; I want to swim in that voice. I squint at him and smile with the right side of my mouth. “Mr. Terrance Knight, I’m never gonna settle!”

“That’s what I want to hear!” he says.

We head for the piano.

My boss’s door opens. A wispy ball of white hair like a dandelion pops out—it’s Judith.

“Sorry,” she says to Mr. Terrance Knight. “I need her.”

When I get close, Judith whispers, “Ms. Li. First day. I think she needs some of your magic.”

Ms. Li is tiny, sitting in a chair, wearing a simple red silk blouse, black skirt and hose, and pumps that aren’t nearly comfortable enough for a woman her age, or any age if you ask me. Her hands are folded in her lap. Tears stream down her wrinkled face.

Standing beside her is a tired middle-aged man, probably a relative, wearing a brown suit that’s rumpled and looks slept in.

“This is Mel,” Judith says to Ms. Li in a loud voice. “She’ll stay with you while we finish up some details. We’ll be right outside.”

Ms. Li doesn’t seem to hear. Judith leads the man out and closes the door.

I sit in the chair next to her. It’s good to let them lead.

After another minute of tears and trembling, she looks at me.

I smile. Not my bright smile—I can’t imagine she’d want to see that now. I smile in a way that says, I understand how much the world sucks sometimes … but it doesn’t always.

Her eyes crinkle at the corners. I think she heard me.

“Do you want something to drink?” I ask as loud as Judith.

“I’m not deaf,” she says. “I just didn’t want to answer her endless questions.”

“Oh, sorry!” I laugh. “She only wants you to be happy here.”

I open the apartment fridge by Judith’s desk, retrieve a water bottle, and show it to Ms. Li. She nods. There are plastic cups on the desk; I fill one halfway.

While she sips, I say, “You maybe don’t want to hear about how nice this place is, but it’s really great. I know it’s probably not as good as being at home—”

“Ha! The witch’s castle? That’s the only good to come of this!”

“What?”

“My daughter-in-law. Wretched woman. I only stayed in her castle because of Miles.”

“Who’s Miles?”

“My other son.”

“Is he—”

Her eyes shut and force two more tears down her cheeks.

I take her hand. “I’m sorry. I won’t ask any more questions.”

She squeezes my fingers and holds on.

“Dad!” a muffled voice says in the hall. “Where is she?”

The door swings open—our hands let go—and someone rushes in and kneels before Ms. Li.

He looks about my age, my height, but nothing else is the same. Everything about him is sharp: his cheekbones, his nose, his chin, his shoulders; even his black hair looks like it’s usually neat but now is disheveled and spiky. It reminds me of an angry black cat. I see my hand reaching out to touch—I snatch it back.

The movement catches his eye. He does a double take when he sees my face, caught off guard somehow. He scowls.

“Are you a volunteer?” he asks in a tone that sounds like he’s really asking, Who the hell are you?

“I work here. I’m—”

“You’re not a doctor,” he says. “Or a nurse. You’re just a … just a …”

He turns back to Ms. Li and grabs her hands.

“Just leave us alone.”

I stand and set the water bottle on the desk where they can reach it. Out in the hallway, I look back inside. He’s staring at their clasped hands, whispering.

Ms. Li looks up at me with an expression I’ve seen here many times.

I nod you’re welcome and close the door.

* * *

After I leave Ms. Li, I get a text. From Annie. I tap the screen.

I need to swing by your house today.

Bizarre. Must be a mistake. I saw her phone’s address book once and there was no one between Hannigan, Mel and Lewis, Connor. I consider texting Connor about it, but no. They’ll figure it out.

An hour later I find Dr. Jordan sitting by a window with a mug of coffee. The direct sun on his face makes it glow almost as white as his hair.

I sit across from him. “Hey.”

He’s a resident and wants me to call him Piers. It feels too weird, though, so I rarely call him anything directly. He’s a retired psychiatrist but won’t let me call him Dr. Jordan because he’s not my real doctor. Except he kind of is.

“How are you today?” he says.

“Are you asking, or are you asking? If you’re asking, I’m not a danger to myself or others.”

Dr. Jordan watches me over his coffee, amused.

“What?” I say.

“I do so enjoy our time together. You’re like the daughter I never had.”

“Granddaughter.”

He salutes me with his mug.

None of the other ears nearby work very well. I’m free to talk.

“I think my meds need a little adjusting.”

“Feeling mixed? For how long?”

“Today. Right now, at least. I don’t know. I’m revving up but also losing energy.”

“An off day isn’t a cocktail issue. Anything stressing you out at school, or with friends?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t want it to be about any of those things. That should count for something.”

He sips his coffee.

“I know,” I say. “I can’t choose how I feel, but I can choose how I think about how I feel.”

“That’s not quite what I said, although I suppose it’s an adequate enough street version.”

I sneer.

“Seriously,” he says. “You need to talk to your doctor. About everything. Not just the meds. I’m not—”

“Not my doctor, I know.”

“I was going to say I’m not going to be around forever.”

He watches me. Usually it’s other people who get uncomfortable with how much I hold eye contact. Now I get a glimpse of how they feel.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” I say and stand up. “That would’ve been a shitty thing to say.”

In the two years I’ve worked here, first as a volunteer and now as an employee, I’ve seen half a dozen residents leave the permanent way—through the roof, as Judith says—including Grandma Cece. I miss her, of course, and all the others who’ve left through the roof, but I really don’t know what I’d do without Dr. Jordan.

I sit back down.

“Sorry.”

“You’ve come a long way, Mel. And in a very short time.”

“Thanks to you.”

“In spite of me. I promised Cece I’d help with life coaching, but we talk so much, it relieves the emotional pressure to engage with your therapist. More proof I was right to give up my practice. If I were doing this properly, I wouldn’t let sentiment and a promise to Cece stop me from cutting you off, to push you into a more productive relationship with your doctor. I shouldn’t be—”

“Your ‘life coaching’ saved me, Dr. Jordan. I’m sorry if you regret that—”

His look stops me. It’s a subtle expression but I know it.

“I mean … my real doctor thought your life coaching was wrong! I wrote down his exact words …” I get my phone and thumb open the notebook app. “He said I was fetishizing the personification of my symptoms. He also said my bipolar disorder couldn’t be cycling as fast as I claimed, not at my age.”

Dr. Jordan’s eyes narrow. “He thought it was wrong? Don’t you mean he thinks it’s wrong?”

Oops.

“I mean back when we talked about it,” I say.

“You never told me.”

“You just said I talk to you too much! And there’s plenty I don’t tell you! He said I should stop talking to you so I stopped talking to him!”

Dr. Jordan sips his coffee. He once made the mistake of telling me Winston Churchill would relight his cigar to give him time to think or compose pithy, articulate statements. Now I know what Dr. Jordan’s coffee is really for.

“I thought you said something last week about your doctor being a woman.”

Shit. “Yeah. That other guy moved away. My new doctor, she just wants me to fill out questionnaires and talk about the meds. As long as I say I’m fine, I’m out the door.”

“So you haven’t given her a chance.”

“I answer all her questions.”

“Mel, some doctors push you and divine meaning from what you say when pushed. Others wait to hear what you say on your own and divine meaning from what you offer up. Offer something up. Give her a chance.”

I don’t say anything.

Dr. Jordan sets his mug down. “Tell her what’s going on in your life. And if you feel strongly about something, say so. Stand your ground; defend your feelings. Be honest and hold nothing back. A good therapist will help you understand and process, not argue. Try her out this afternoon and see. It can only help.”

Hold nothing back? How could I possibly tell that quiet woman in her sterile little office things I’m not willing to tell Dr. Jordan? Things I don’t even let cross my own mind? It’s inconceivable.