The metal strip from the dining room table: I’d forgotten it was still in my pocket. Instinctively I slide my foot across the tile, covering the piece of metal.
Rochelle’s head bobs up, but she looks in the wrong direction, over at the toilet stalls. But Amanda turns quickly toward me. She takes in my awkward position, the towel gripped to my chest, one foot half stuck inside my pants leg, the other stretched out uncomfortably far away, across the floor Then she nods slowly, approvingly.
“Rochelle,” she calls out, still looking at me. “Is there anyone down at the desk? I need something.”
I’m too startled to move. Is she going to tell on me, get me in trouble?
Rochelle’s gotten up; she’s banging the toilet stall doors open one by one, checking to make sure no one’s in there. When the last stall turns up empty, she gives Amanda an annoyed look. “What do you need this time of night?”
Amanda smiles at me, then turns to face Rochelle. “A tampon.”
I don’t understand. Then I do. Amanda’s sending Rochelle off on a fake errand so I can pick up the metal strip and hide it.
Rochelle sighs. “You two aren’t food-disorder girls, right? You’re not gonna throw up if I leave for a minute?”
We nod, almost in unison.
“OK,” she says. “I’m trusting you. No funny business.”
We nod.
Rochelle leaves. Amanda is next to me all of a sudden. I slide my foot back and the metal strip is lying there on the floor between us.
“Where’d you get it?” she says.
“The dining room table. It broke off.”
“Gutsy,” she says. “Real gutsy.”
She seems so delighted at the sight of the strip, I think maybe she’s going to take it. I picture myself grabbing it and just dropping it in the trash can right in front of her. Instead I pick it up, close my fingers around it, and head for the shower before Rochelle comes back. The hairs on my neck tingle, as if Amanda might grab me at any minute and pry the metal strip out of my hand. But she doesn’t.
I turn the water on high and listen while Amanda thanks Rochelle for the tampon. A toilet stall door opens, closes, then opens again, and I hear Amanda call out good night in a sing-song voice. Slowly I take off my towel, wrap the metal strip in it, and get in the shower. When it’s time to go back to my room, I put the piece of metal back in my pants, folding them carefully so it doesn’t fall out. I’ll figure out what to do with it later.
I feel suddenly shy when I sit down across from you in your office today. Something happened between us yesterday and I don’t quite know how to come back from it. You smile and a good warm feeling comes over me. I settle into the cushions of the couch, deciding that I’ll work hard today, try to come up with the right answers to your questions.
“How are you?” you say.
“Fine.” This is true, but it sounds inadequate. I give you a practice smile. You smile back.
“Callie,” you say, folding your hands around your knees. “What you did yesterday—speaking out in Group—that was a big step.”
“It was?” I want to hear more.
“It took a lot of courage.”
My cheeks get warm, an uncomfortable and at the same time not uncomfortable feeling.
“How did it feel to speak in front of the other girls?”
“OK.” I try to come up with a better answer. “A little scary, I guess.”
“What were you afraid of?”
“That people would get mad at me.”
“Hmmm.” You nod. “Who did you think would be angry?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Everybody?”
“Everybody?”
I shrug. The foggy feeling settles over me. I want to give you a right answer, but I don’t have one.
“Let me ask you this: do people get angry with you a lot?”
“Not really.”
You wait.
“My mom cries a lot but she doesn’t yell or anything,” I say.
“And your father …”
I chew on a hangnail. “He doesn’t get too worked up,” I say finally.
A car tire spins on the ice outside.
“I’ve noticed that you don’t talk about your father much.”
My leg muscles tighten, I feel ready to run. I cross and recross my legs, trying hard to just stay in my seat. “So?” I say.
“What can you tell me about him?”you say.
“Don’t you have stuff in your file?” I say after a while.
“I don’t really know much about him. I met with your mother on visiting day, but your dad wasn’t here.”
“He has to work.” I remember scanning the parking lot for him, watching somebody’s dad come up the sidewalk, banging on the window, and realizing it wasn’t him.
You tap your file. “He’s a computer salesman, is that right?”
Your file makes it sound like he works at RadioShack; for some reason, this makes me mad. “He sells computers to companies. He takes people out to dinner and stuff to get them to buy whole, big computer systems.”
You don’t seem to understand.
“He has to travel.”
You still don’t say anything.
“Well, he used to. Travel, I mean. Since Sam got sick, he changed jobs. Now he just sells to companies nearby.” I don’t tell you about how it seems like all the companies nearby already have computers, that for a while he took people out hoping they’d become customers and that now he mostly just goes out. “He has to work a lot.”
“Is that why he wasn’t here for visiting day?”
A muscle in my leg is twitching, my heart is hammering against my ribs. All I want to do is jump off the couch and run. I cross my legs again, winding one around the other to keep them still. “I don’t feel like talking about this anymore.”
I draw my mouth into a straight line and bite my lip. Somehow some of the good warm feeling from yesterday is gone.
“Callie?”
I chew on my lip, a little harder now.
“Callie, you’re biting your lip.”
I meet your eyes for a second, then look out the window at the bare branch of the tree.
“Do you know the expression ‘bite your lip’?”
“I guess so.”
“Tell me what you think it means.”
“Y’know,” I say my eyes locked on the branch. “To shut up. To not say something.”
“To not say something.” You recite my words.
I go back to biting my lip.
Your dead-cow chair groans as you lean forward. “Callie, I feel like there’s something you’re not saying.”
Now everything good from yesterday is gone.
We’re in the middle of Group and Tiffany is telling us about some guy she had sex with behind the dumpster at her school. She’s saying something about how it’s his fault she’s at Sick Minds, because he told his friends, who told some of her friends, who told the health teacher, who Tiffany then had to beat up.
The door opens. We all turn to see who it is. It’s Becca Becca being pushed in a wheelchair by an actual nurse, someone in a white uniform.
Tiffany stops in mid-sentence.
Claire nods. “Welcome back, Becca,” she says.
Becca wiggles her fingers hello. “Hi, everybody,” she says.
No one says anything.
“Becca’s going to continue working with our group,” Claire says carefully. “And eventually we hope she’ll be back with us full time, but for the time being she’s staying on another ward.”
We all know what this means: Humdinger
Becca giggles; everyone else squirms. The nurse wheels Becca’s chair into a space next to Amanda Amanda nudges her chair aside a little, then folds her arms across her chest and looks sideways at Becca. The nurse locks the brakes on the wheelchair and leaves.
Dead quiet.
“You look good,” someone says finally. It’s Sydney. Her voice is shaky, her eyes dart nervously around
the circle.
Becca makes a gagging gesture, sticking her tongue out and pointing a finger down her throat. “They tubefed me.” She grins sheepishly.
There’s another long silence.
“You don’t think I look fat?” Becca giggles again.
Debbie jumps out of her chair and heads for the door.
“No, Debbie,” says Claire. “You need to stay here.”
Debbie turns around. Her jaw is clenched; a vein is pulsing in her neck.
Claire is pointing to Debbie’s empty chair. Debbie harrumphs across the room and flops into her seat.
No one moves.
Becca flips her hair over her shoulder. “So, what?” she says. “Are you guys mad at me or something?”
Sydney coughs. Then nothing.
“Yes,” comes a tiny voice from across the circle. It’s Tara. She’s looking out at Becca from under her baseball cap.
Becca grins, like she can’t believe it, like it’s a big joke. “Why?” she says. “I’m OK. See?” She clamps her teeth together and smiles hard.
No one says anything.
“Besides, I don’t see what the big deal is,” Becca says. She looks at Claire, then back at the group. “It’s not like I did anything to you guys.”
Debbie snorts.
“Yes,” says Tara “Yes, you did.” She looks down at her lap, cracks her knuckles. “What you did affected all of us. Me. Debbie. Callie. All of us.”
Us. This is the first time I’ve been included in us. My cheeks flush.
Becca’s gaze travels around the circle; she looks hopeful and doubtful at the same time.
“We …” Tara can’t finish.
“We were scared,” says Sydney, all in a rush. “We …you know, we want you to get better. That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? To get better?”
I check to see how people are responding to this question. Tara nods. Debbie nods. Tiffany shrugs. Amanda checks her watch.
Becca looks stunned.
Claire finally says something. “Becca? How are you doing?”
Becca doesn’t answer.
“You look upset.”
Becca nods, then says to Claire, “Is it OK if I go back to the infirmary for a while?”
Claire says that’s fine, that maybe this is a lot to take in on her first day back; then she goes to the door and signals an attendant. Marie comes, releases the brake on Becca’s chair, and wheels her away.
When Becca’s gone, we all sit there looking at Debbie. Mascara is running down her cheeks and a muscle is working in her jaw, but she’s staring off into space.
“You OK?” says Sydney at last.
Debbie nods vacantly.
People look around, not sure what to do.
“Are you sure?” says Tara
“Yeah,” Debbie says, finally breaking off her stare. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m fine.”
Then she turns to me.
“What about you?” she says, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Are you OK?”
I can feel heads turning around the circle to look at me. “Sure,” I say. “Yeah.”
Debbie smiles, then claps a hand over her mouth. “I did it again!” she says. “Taking care of everybody else. What do you call it, Amanda?”
Amanda’s face is a mixture of surprise and mischief. “Co-dependent,” she says. “You’re being co-dependent again.”
Debbie laughs. It’s a nervous laugh, but everyone laughs too, out of relief. All of us.
Now that I’ve been upgraded to a Level Two, I can escort myself places. Tonight I’m on my way to the game room, even though I don’t really feel like playing Connect Four, and even though everyone else is in the dayroom. I really feel like watching TV because I haven’t seen a single show since I got here, but I’m not sure I can just walk in and sit down with everybody after all this time. I walk past the door and notice Tara’s baseball cap turning as I go by.
“Callie?” I turn around and see her running down the hall behind me. She scuffs along in her slippers, then slides to a stop when she gets to me, like one of Sam’s hockey players.
“Hey!” She’s panting. The thought crosses my mind that Tara could have a heart attack if she doesn’t get better. I stop and wait for her to catch her breath.
“Whew!” She smiles. “We were wondering if you wanted to watch TV.” She tips her head toward the dayroom. “You know, with the group. Unless you don’t want to. It’s OK if you want to be alone.”
She’s still breathing hard.
“Sure,” I say, looking at her hopeful, embarrassed face. “Sure.”
Sydney and Debbie are on the couch. Tiffany’s on the floor, flipping through a magazine and watching TV at the same time. Sydney looks up when I come in, slides down the couch, and pats the seat next to her. “S.T.,” she says. “Sit here.”
The couch is a big bumpy overstuffed thing and when I sit back my feet don’t touch the floor. Tara sits down next to me and I notice that her feet don’t touch, either. They’re watching Jeopardy; it’s time for the daily double. A contestant named Tim has chosen Silent Film Stars for $500. The host asks the big question: “This actress, dubbed America’s Sweetheart, starred in the original film version of Heidi.”
“C’mon, Tim,” Sydney chants.
“Shirley Temple?” suggests Debbie.
“No,” says Tiffany. “It’s a silent film star.”
I know this one. I know the answer. I know it from watching TV with Sam on Saturday afternoons when our mom is resting. “Mary Pickford,” I whisper. Then louder, “Mary Pickford.”
Tim hits his buzzer. “Who was Mary Pickford?”
The daily double alarm goes off. Tim jumps up and down. Sydney thumps me on the back. “Way to go, S.T.! You win the daily double!”
The next morning at breakfast, Tiffany announces flatly that she’s going home. “The insurance ran out,” she says, pushing her scrambled eggs around on her plate. “They thought I could stay for a couple of months, but now they say they’ll pay for only a month—which is over today.”
“You lucky dog,” says Amanda.
Tiffany grunts.
“Aren’t you happy?” says Tara.
Tiffany puts salt on her eggs, pushes them around some more, then sets her fork down. “No.”
“Why not? I thought you hated it here.”
Tiffany shakes her head. “You think this place is crazy you should try living with my family.”
A couple of people nod. No one seems able to eat.
“What will you do?” says Sydney after a while. “You know, to get better?”
“They’re sending me to some outpatient thing. Some group that meets after school every day.” Tiffany waves her hand like she’s brushing away a fly.
“Why can’t you go to school and come to Group here in the afternoon?” says Sydney.
“It’s too far, I guess,” Tiffany says glumly. Then, quietly, “It won’t be the same.”
The chimes ring; no one moves. Then Claire comes over and tells us our group doesn’t have to go straight to our usual appointments; we’re allowed to walk Tiffany to the front door.
We all stand around in a circle in the reception room, waiting for Tiffany’s cab and not talking about her leaving —all of us except Amanda, who didn’t come out of her room when it was time to walk to the front door. Tiffany’s belongings hardly fill a plastic bag and she looks small somehow, fingering the latch of her purse and pretending like she could care less about leaving.
Finally a cab pulls up and blows the horn. Sydney gives Tiffany a hug. Tara says she’ll write. Debbie tells Tiffany she’ll actually miss her. “You never let me get away with …you know, crap.” It’s a big deal for Debbie to say crap and I think maybe she’s going to laugh, but her eyes are brimming with wetness.
Tiffany punches me in the arm lightly and tells me I have to keep talking in Group. I nod. Then I realize that nodding isn’t talking. “OK,” I say. I want to say “I promise,” but my throa
t closes up on me.
Just when everyone, including Tiffany, looks like they’re going to start crying, Sydney says, “Hey, now that you’re leaving …why don’t you tell us why you always carry that darn purse?”
Tiffany fiddles with the latch. “You promise you won’t tell?”
We promise.
She opens the purse and pulls out a ratty piece of pink fabric. “My old baby blanket.” She grins and shrugs and then turns to go.
When the automatic doors slide apart, a warm, moist riffle of air floats in, lifting the hair around my face. The snow has melted; tiny green buds are forming on the tips on the trees. It dawns on me that soon it will be spring. Then summer. Kids will be riding their bikes on the sidewalk, dads will be rolling out barbecue grills, moms will be making pitchers of lemonade.
The doors slide shut and it’s winter again inside Sick Minds.
An ache fills my chest. I want something, but I can’t put a name to it.
Debbie, Sydney, Tara, and I shuffle back to the dorm, not saying anything. When we get to the attendants’ desk, we drift apart; no one’s in a hurry to go their appointments, especially me, since I have Study Hall. I see Ruby putting on her coat, going off duty.
“What day is it in the real world, Ruby?” I ask, when the other girls are gone.
“The real world? What do you mean, child?”
“Out there.” I point to the window. “What day is it?”
“Wednesday.”
“No, I mean the date. What’s the date?”
She looks over at the chalkboard. Tiffany’s name has already been erased. Sydney and Tara have been upgraded to Level Threes, along with Debbie. Next to Becca’s name it simply says “H Wing.” Our group is down to five: Sydney, Tara, and Debbie, who are going to graduate soon, and Amanda and me.
“March 27,” Ruby says.
She says it’s time for her to go home and get some sleep. She says they’re doing construction in her neighborhood, and she sure hopes they’re finished with the jackhammer. She appraises me, then smiles. She says not to worry and slips me a butterscotch candy. But the wanting feeling still doesn’t go away.