“Listen to them goin’ on and on like they know.” Keisha juts her chin in the direction of the smoker’s deck, Kristen and Ben.
Isabel knows Keisha wants to be asked about herself but cannot summon the energy it would take to enter into any conversation, much less this one. She turns and looks out the window and hopes nothing will be required of her in what is threatening to be a social interaction.
“That ain’t it!” Keisha says to the window, after hearing another fragment of Ben’s prattle. “Okay, you want to know what happened?” She is addressing Isabel.
Did I say I wanted to know what happened?
But Isabel is finding herself begrudgingly drawn to the edgy teenager.
“I wasn’t walkin’ in the street, first of all,” Keisha begins without encouragement. “The police came and got me from my sister’s place when neighbors called 911. Hours, my ass. It wasn’t no hours passed. A few minutes, sure. Maybe, and this I’m not sure about, but maybe half an hour. But no hours, Lord. They talkin’ shit out there,” she says, again motioning with her chin to the gossiping patients outdoors.
“Wow,” Kristen says, exhaling smoke and looking down. “Hey, Ben? How do you know all this?”
“You think I’m a freak, Kristen.” Ben pouts. “You think you’re the only one who’s got a clue. You’re not, you know. I know stuff, too.”
Isabel looks over her shoulder and past Keisha toward the nurses’ station to see if anyone cares that they are eavesdropping.
“Ben,” Kristen says, trying to soothe him. “We’re buddies, right? It’s just…well…I’m a little surprised that you know all about this girl. I just want to know what you know, sweetie.”
Isabel marvels at the fact that both Ben and Kristen are missing the point. She looks longingly at the driveway.
“You teasin’ me now, Kristen? Huh? You a fuckin’ tease now?” Ben is getting red in the face. He stomps toward the door to the unit and Isabel busies herself with the old National Geographics stacked on a corner table next to the window in case he is headed her way.
Kristen throws what little is left of her cigarette to the ground and steps on it just as a nurse with a clipboard brushes past Isabel and opens the door to the outside.
“Hi, Kristen,” she says, making a mark on her notepaper. “Just doing the check.”
Kristen smiles and shakes out another cigarette. “Hi.”
The nurse lets the door close and sees Isabel and Keisha. More marks on the clipboard.
“Hi, ladies. I’m just making the rounds.”
Isabel and Keisha turn their attention back out to Kristen, who is now talking towards Melanie.
“He said her name’s Keisha,” she is telling Melanie, “and she was raped for hours and hours and hours. They found her naked in the street. The police. That’s how she ended up here. I guess she was on some kind of suicide watch….”
“See you later,” Isabel says as she slips past Keisha, who is emphatically shaking her head. As Isabel crosses the room Keisha mutters, “Bitch don’t know what she talkin’ about.”
A few minutes later Isabel is willing sleep to visit her in the little airtight room at the end of the hall.
Six
“Erin Hayes has exhausted all her appeals and now waits for a last-minute reprieve from the Texas governor. Her legal team is not optimistic, given the state’s well-known record on stays of execution. Crowds have already begun to gather here outside the state penitentiary in Huntsville. Some will hold candlelight vigils, others say they’ll cheer if and when Hayes goes to the electric chair.”
Isabel Murphy, ANN News, Huntsville, Texas.
An overripe banana was the only health food in the Huntsville 7-Eleven. Isabel picked it up, felt the oblong bruise running along its backside and wondered if she could make herself eat around it.
“Is that it?” the cashier asked.
“Yes,” Isabel replied while putting the brown banana back into the basket by the register. “That’s it.”
“Three seventy-eight.”
Isabel picked through her change purse for quarters but remembered she’d used all of them for laundry. “Cigarettes sure are cheap here.”
“Where you from?” the cashier asked politely, though Isabel thought she saw a bit of a sneer.
“New York.”
The cashier smiled as if she’d won a bet and made change from the five-dollar bill. “Have a nice day.”
“Thanks,” said Isabel, shaking her Snapple. “By the way, could you tell me how far to the Motel 6?”
“It’s about four miles from the prison gates. Two stop lights.” She was already ringing up the next customer.
Before getting back into the rental car Isabel popped the safety seal on the Snapple and took a long swig. She balanced the glass bottle on the roof of the car while she opened her Marlboro Lights, turning her back to the highway to block the wind from passing trucks. After several failed attempts, she finally managed to light her first cigarette of the day.
Breakfast.
“This is one remote outpost,” Tom said, barreling out of the 7-Eleven, his camera equipment rattling against his back. “How does a 7-Eleven not have a Slurpee machine?”
“I think the better question is, Who wants a Slurpee at 6:00 a.m.?”
“Says the girl with the Snapple and cigarettes.”
“At least I’ve gotten my fruit in.”
“Ex-squeeze me?”
“It’s raspberry iced tea Snapple. And raspberries are a super food. High in vitamin C. Or maybe it’s A. Vitamin A. I’m pretty sure it’s A.”
“Guess you should be a personal trainer instead of a reporter. You’re one healthy chick.”
“Says the guy choking down a ninety-nine-cent heart attack. I’m guessing there’s some sort of sausage ingredient in it, judging by the hieroglyphic grease markings on that waxed paper.”
“That’s affirmative. Sausage-cheese biscuit,” Tom said with a full mouth. “Want a bite?”
Tom lowered himself into the car and Isabel stepped on her cigarette and got back behind the wheel.
“Tom?” Her tone serious.
“Isabel?” His tone joking.
“Seriously. About last night.” She shifted uncomfortably.
“Forget it.”
“No, I want to say this.” Isabel cleared her throat. “I drank way too much. I know that. I just…I mean…I just really…oh, God.”
“Hey. Colonel. It’s me.”
“I know, I know. It’s just that my life is going way too fast. And then I feel this pressure thing up here at my temples and I see spots and I go blank. It’s like I’m spiraling or something. Do you ever feel that way? Don’t you ever want to slow it all down so you can think, really think for a minute? I never mean to get out of control like that. I don’t plan it. God, listen to me. I just want you to know that I’m really grateful to you for taking such good care of me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“There’d be no one for the bartender to call to carry your ass home, that’s what you’d do without me.”
Isabel winced with the memory.
“I’ve been there, believe me,” Tom said. “I’m no one to talk. But you gotta be more careful, Iz. A woman passing out in a bar isn’t exactly cool, you know?”
“I know, I know.” Isabel knew she was sounding defensive. “I’m just going through a phase.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You say that every time.”
I do?
“This phase of yours is gettin’ old and dangerous, know what I’m saying?”
Isabel looked as if she’d been slapped.
“Hey, listen.” Tom softened. “What goes on in the field stays in the field. Copy that? You read me? I’ll always cover you.”
Several minutes later Isabel looked at Tom.
“Hey, Tommy, the nineties called. They want all Wayne’s World references back.”
“Huh?”
“I haven’t heard ‘ex-squeeze me’ in years
.”
“Very funny. Let’s go, huh? I want some fries to go with my biscuit. Get it? Fries? Execution? Get it?”
Five minutes later reporter and photographer were inching their car back into the prison parking lot jammed with news vans and satellite dishes smiling up at the sun. Overworked generators crowded parking spaces alongside the trucks. Worried producers scurried into and out of their makeshift offices while reporters scribbled on notepads and talked to whomever was speaking in their ears.
“How long till the magic hour?” Tom asked.
“Six hours. Long enough. Why? You in a hurry to get to the hotel?”
“Motel 6? That’s a negative.”
Seven hours later she collapsed on the top of the natty motel bedspread, too exhausted to undress.
Beep, beep.
“Mom, wait up!” Isabel called out from across the congested street. “Dad? Wait for me!”
Beep, beep. The cars demanded attention. Beep, beep.
Isabel’s parents glanced over their shoulders at their daughter, who was waving frantically from nearly a block away. Unfazed, they kept walking.
Why aren’t they listening to me?
Beep, beep.
“Mom!” Isabel was now shouting to them. “Dad!”
Beep, beep.
The honking was so close her head snapped from the parental dots in the distance to the car speeding directly toward her. Isabel’s eyes widened in fear but her body was immobilized. Swerving, the car was feet away and showing no signs of stopping.
Ten feet. Beep, beep. Eight feet. Beep, beep. Two feet.
She shrieked and bolted upright in bed. It took Isabel a few moments to realize it had all been a nightmare. She put her hand over her heart as if she could stroke the beat back down.
Beep, beep.
Startled again she looked over at the hotel night table and saw that the insistent car horn of her dream was the deceivingly harmless-looking tiny black pager.
She reached for it and instantly recognized the number screaming at her through the neon green glow of the LCD display. She picked up the phone and dialed.
“Hi, it’s Isabel returning my page.” She tried not to sound as panicked as she felt.
“We’ve been calling you but your ringer must be off,” Rob, the assignment editor, said.
“Oh, God.” Isabel remembered turning it off when she came in hours earlier. “I haven’t slept in three days and I wanted to get a—”
“We do need to be able to get a hold of you as quickly as possible,” Rob scolded. “We need you to get to Atlanta as quickly as possible. Can you call the airlines and call me back to let me know what flight you’re on? You don’t have a fax, right, so I’ll fax wire copy to the Avis counter at the airport in Atlanta. That’s the only way I can think to get you this stuff without holding you up.”
Rob paused as though he were trying to come up with a better solution.
“What’s the story?” Though she was fairly new at the network, Isabel was almost certain it wasn’t asking too much to inquire after the subject of the trip.
“Oh, geez,” Rob sighed. “I’ve been burning it on both ends tonight. Sorry. Um, we’ve gotten a heads-up that we could get a verdict in that police brutality case first thing in the morning. We want you in place so we’re covered if it comes down.”
“Okay. I’ll call the airlines and let you know.”
It would be only a matter of months until the excitement and intrigue Isabel felt upon hanging up the phone this night shifted into a howling bitterness, an exhausted dread that slowly ate away at her until she was nothing but a hollow shell mechanically moving through her formerly full life.
“Isabel! Time to meet!” The rapping on the door, coupled with the shrill announcement, cause her stomach to twist with dread.
Seven
“I love chicken wings,” says Ben, looking quite earnest. “Any kind, but in particular I love the barbecued ones at Bobby D’s near where I live.” Ben does not seem to care that there is a huge smudge of a chocolate-like substance in the middle of the right side of his thick glasses. He is wearing baggy camouflage pants and another tank top that barely covers his wiry chest hair. “If I could take you to Bobby D’s you’d see what I mean.” Ben is staring so intently at Isabel she cannot make eye contact with him without feeling uncomfortable. Her eyes dart alternately from his wide face to her lap.
This is hell. I’m in hell.
“Thirty seconds are up,” the nameless nurse excitedly announces. “Everyone on the B team get up and move to the right and sit with a new A partner. Remember, the A group stays put and lets the B group shift partners around the room so by the end of the exercise we’ll all have had the chance to visit with one another.”
Isabel seethes.
They explained the concept of this asinine group exercise four minutes ago. Is everybody so zoned out on tranquilizers they’ll forget what we’re doing here in four fucking minutes?
“The new topic is pets. Remember, no interruptions from your partner. Go!” The group leader seems orgasmic.
Ben lumbers away and a sad-looking woman named Lark lowers herself into his place. Lark is a forty-something woman who, because she always looks as if she’s one sentence away from bursting into tears, seems much older. She is too young for osteoporosis but she seems to know its calling cards: she hunches over and looks brittle, like if you hugged her too hard she’d break.
Pets. Hmm. Buck. And my little kittens.
Isabel’s mind is a slide show of the pets she shared with Alex.
You disgust me.
Stop it. Just stop.
Isabel is concentrating so hard on quieting the voices she is not able to explain that she has lost custody of her two cats and dog to her soon-to-be ex-husband. The group leader tells them to shift partners again.
Great. I now know that Ben loves Southern barbecue and that I never miss the chance to cry in public.
Lark looks straight at Isabel before she gets up to continue on. As Isabel blows her nose she realizes Lark is looking straight through her and as she stares, a single tear falls down her bloated face. After a moment and with considerable effort, Lark silently hoists herself out of the chair, making room for Isabel’s next partner.
“We haven’t met yet.” The woman who on Isabel’s first day had been in the jacket is smiling at her—extending her hand to be shaken. “I’m Regina.”
Isabel looks from Regina’s face to her hand and back to her face. Unfazed, Regina withdraws her hand and sits down across from Isabel.
“Fish.”
“Huh?”
“Fish.” Regina repeats the word and waits for it to make sense to Isabel.
“I don’t follow.”
“I have pet fish,” she says in a tone of exasperation. “They like to ride with me on my bike. Well, in the basket on my bike, actually. I keep a leash around their bowl just in case…”
Two weeks ago I was covering the Middle East peace summit at the White House. Two weeks ago.
“…people don’t stop at stop signs anymore so I say—you can’t be too careful. That leash gives me peace of mind, let me tell you.”
“Excuse me. Regina, is it?” Isabel asks. Regina nods her head, eager to hear her partner’s comments.
“Regina, I want to tell you something.”
Regina shimmies up to the edge of her seat.
“I don’t care about your fish,” Isabel says.
Not only do I not give a shit about your goldfish but I think you’re a freak. Everyone here is a freak—come to think of it. I don’t want to hear about everyone else’s pets or whether the barbecue sauce here can compare to some shit-hole in some godforsaken town in Minnesota or whether someone’s mother neglected them in early childhood—which, I’m sure, is a topic we’ll be covering in great depth in group therapy.
“I really don’t care about your fish,” she says again.
Regina stiffens in her seat.
Isabel continues. ?
??I just want to get out of here, okay? I’m only here because I screwed up and didn’t take enough Tylenol PM—not because I want to talk about my childhood or my pets.”
Exhausted, Isabel sinks back into her chair and looks out the window.
Unfazed, Regina shuffles over to a free chair across the room.
“Sukanya, I notice you haven’t taken part in this exercise.” The nameless nurse is looking at a young woman with long, dirty hair who has remained silent in the corner of the room. “Can you tell us why you have decided not to participate?”
Isabel looks at Sukanya, who has been catatonic since she arrived at Three Breezes.
The only thing she has uttered, to Isabel’s morbid fascination, is “I’d prefer not to say.” And, right on cue, Sukanya fixes her stare on the overenthusiastic nurse and quietly repeats her mantra: “I’d prefer not to say.”
The nurse pauses for a second, clearly trying to decide whether to pursue Sukanya’s cryptic reply or cut her losses and proceed on with the group.
“Well, it looks like time is up for this session.” She directs her attention to the rest of the room. “You’ll gather here again in two hours for another group. That’s two hours, people.”
She definitely dots her i’s with smiley faces. And does that annoying sideways smiley face on her e-mails.
Everyone files out of the makeshift living room on the unit. Everyone except Sukanya. She stays in the same chair all day long. Group therapy sessions may come and go around her but she just sits there.
I wonder if there are such things as bed sores for people who sit. Chair sores.
Isabel, who has just learned that she can indeed go outside the unit for fifteen minutes at a time during breaks pushes the door open and lines up at the box lighter to smoke.
Kristen is already out there, sucking the air out of her cigarette as if her life depended on it.
Lark is there, too, even though she has been warned by her doctors not to smoke because she has extreme asthma.
“So what’s the deal with Sukanya,” Isabel asks Kristen as she inhales. Isabel and Kristen seem to recognize in each other an unspoken similarity, perhaps in background or in mentality. They look alike—both are thirty-something, career-types, and their social skills mirror each other’s. To Isabel, Kristen seems like someone she might have been friends with outside of Three Breezes, had the circumstances been different.