"I don't know why you can't just be yourself," I say, interrupting their banter.
"Why don't you?" she zings me back.
"I am myself. I like the way I dress. I don't care what people think of me."
"Not at all?" Chet asks, his face falling slightly.
"Maybe what you like is negative attention," Greta continues before I can answer. "I mean, if I knew people were having all these preconceived ideas about me just based on how I look, I'd try my best to change it."
"Maybe what people should do is not judge others based on appearances in the first place." Tony takes a pretzel and pops it into his mouth.
I nod, noting his squeaky voice, zeroing in on his huge mass of curly brown hair, and knowing for sure that people must give him crap all the time.
"Some people have nothing better to do than judge
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others," Derik says, getting this all on film.
"And some people deserve the judgments they get." I eyeball him.
"What's that supposed to mean?" He looks up from the camera.
"Derik LaPlaya LaPointe?" I say, feeling my eyebrows arch.
Derik looks at Liza, watching for a reaction. But instead of giving one, she looks away, avoiding eye contact. And so I can't help but wonder if she already knows.
"I'm not like that anymore," Derik says, still looking at Liza, the camera angled toward the top of her head.
"Since when?" Greta asks.
"Since he set his eye on a brainiac?" I say, unable to resist.
"Let's just say I've done some things I'm not proud of," Derik says.
"You're a legend!" Chet cheers. But then the cheer melts into a frown when he notices that nobody else is cheering along with him.
"Maybe we should talk about something else," I say.
"No." Liza closes the journal. "I want to hear it."
"In my own defense," Derik says, trying to make light of it, "except for this one time, I never misled anybody. I never did anything with a girl who didn't understand up front that I wasn't looking for anything serious."
"Except for this one time?" Liza asks.
Derik nods. "This one girl wanted more than I was
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interested in giving. I knew that. But I hooked up with her anyway."
"Kelly Pickerel," I say. After the incident, it was pretty much broadcast news around the school, mainly because Kelly was pretty popular herself. But after it happened, she got branded a slut. I can't remember a time when I'd go into a bathroom stall at school and not see her name scribbled across the wall, labeling her a whore, a bitch, a skank.
"Wow, she's hot," Chet blurts, ever clueless.
Derik shrugs. "I actually wanted her to be part of this thing ... so we could patch things up, move on."
"Hold up," Chet says. "You can't tell me that a reputation like yours doesn't have its benefits. I mean, girls like the notorious bad boy; everybody knows that."
"Some girls do," I say.
"Yeah, and some girls look at guys like me as only good for one thing--the dreaded 'friend,' someone they can tell all their problems to, the buffer before they go running to guys like Derik. I'm telling you, man," Chet says to Derik. "You've got it made."
"Then how come I feel like I'm losing out?" Derik says. "No matter what you think, it's a lot to have to live up to."
"And that girl you were talking about," Liza begins, "you led her on?"
"It's not something I'm proud of," Derik repeats. "And it's really awkward now, because I see her all the time in
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school. I know how hurt she was about it afterward. And I know how pissed she still is."
"So here's a thought," I say. "Why not apologize?"
Derik shakes his head and then buries it in his hands, enabling Tony to nab the camera and point it at him.
"I don't know," Derik says finally.
"Pride," Tony chirps, still filming. "A guy has pride. He doesn't like to admit his mistakes."
"Yeah, but a real man does," Greta says.
"I'm sorry for laughing at your Greta Garbo ways," Tony purrs.
"I'm sorry for not telling you about my callback," she purrs back.
"Just promise that when I make it big as a director, you'll be my leading lady--like Grace Kelly was for Alfred Hitchcock ... like Uma Thurman is for Quentin Tarantino."
"Forever, sexy."
Tony returns the camera to Derik, and he and Greta end up in yet another obnoxious make-up fest.
"I probably should tell Kelly I'm sorry," Derik says, continuing to film.
"I'm all about fresh starts," I say.
"Speaking of fresh starts," Chet pipes up. "Does this mean you're no longer pissed at me for my little joke?"
Derik smiles, glad for the tension relief. "No," he says. "I'm no longer pissed. So long as you let me frisk you on the way out."
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"Switching teams, are we?" Chet asks. "Hate to break this to you, but I'm as straight as a pool stick. And as long as one, too."
"Oh, really?" I perk.
"I'm serious," Derik continues. "I meant it when I said that I don't want you taking anything from this place. That goes for everybody." He glances at Christine Belle's journal.
"How is it any different from what you're doing?" Chet asks, sucking the peanut butter filling from one of the pretzels. "Breaking in here and taking footage for your own purposes ... Don't you plan to make money off this movie? Didn't you say something about RTV and becoming the next hot Hollywood thang?"
"Maybe it started out that way," Derik says. "But now I have my own reasons for making this movie."
"And what are they?" Liza asks.
"It's not about me anymore," Derik says. "It's about them."
"Who?" I ask.
"The people who lived here. I need to tell their story."
"My grandmother lived here," I venture.
"Seriously?" Derik and Liza say in unison.
I nod, telling them how she was an alcoholic, how she was left here by my family, and then forgotten. And how she died here.
"Is that why you wanted to come tonight?" Derik asks. I nod. "I wanted to find some piece of her here."
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"Like an ear or a thumb?" Chet asks. "Maybe we should head over to the morgue?"
"Yuck." I push him. "I mean a piece of her memory-- some shred of evidence that her last years didn't suck."
"And have you?" Derik asks.
I shake my head and look away. "I mean, I knew the chances were slim, but I still wanted to try."
"How old were you when she got checked in?" Liza asks.
"I wasn't even born yet--wasn't even a thought in my parents' minds. But it happened just after my sister Micki's fourth birthday. Apparently, Micki had this Cookie Monster-themed party, and all her friends were there. After she had unwrapped all the presents, my grandmother dismissed herself to go to the bathroom and then came out without any pants or underwear on."
"Just a granny patch?" Chet asks, grimacing.
I nod. "She was so drunk that she forgot to put her clothes back on after she was done. My mother checked her in after that."
I glance back at Chet, half expecting him to make another joke, but instead his face gets all serious--his lips rolled in and his eyes focused downward.
"What's with you?" I ask.
He shakes his head, staring down at his hands.
"Then how come you look about as happy as a granny patch," I joke.
He shrugs.
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"Come on, man," Derik pushes.
More shrugging from Chet, and so I'm half thinking this is all an act--just another one of his stupid jokes. But then when he finally does look up, his eyes are serious--sort of a faraway stare that tells me this is no joke, that he does mean business.
"Chet?" I scooch in closer to him and rest a hand on his back.
"My dad's an alcoholic," he says. "Seriously?" Derik asks.
He nods. "It's how
I got my black eye. It's why I'm even here tonight."
"You're here because your father's an alcoholic?" Liza asks.
"It beats hanging out at home with a pissed-off drunk, believe me."
I continue to pat his back, noticing how sad he looks-- for the first time tonight--and knowing somehow that it's why he's always making jokes. "Does he want to get help?" I ask.
"Sure. He'll take a ride to the liquor store any time you want to give him one. You can even treat him to some Crown Royal."
"Have you ever thought about having an intervention?" I ask. "I mean, what does your mom think?"
"She got sick of the bullshit and left."
"That's really rough," Derik says.
"I'm sorry," I say, holding back from offering any more
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advice--for now, anyway--even though I feel like I have so much to say. After I learned about what happened to my grandmother, I did all this research on how to plan and execute a successful intervention, imagining how things could have been done differently. "I'm sorry, too," Liza says.
I move my hand down to squeeze Chet's palm, suddenly feeling the urge to tell a joke. Suddenly realizing how much he and I really do have in common.
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DERIK
I WANT TO CHECK out some more of my footage. We've been here for several hours, and so I'm thinking I've got some pretty decent shit, but I can't really concentrate.
Liza's just sitting there reading that journal Mimi found, avoiding eye contact. Or maybe I'm being paranoid.
"Anything good?" I ask, bumping her shoulder lightly against mine.
"Yeah," Mimi says. "You've been hoarding that thing for the past hour. Hand it over."
Liza does and Mimi takes the thing, opens it up to the middle, and is just about to read aloud one of the entries when Greta interrupts her: "Do I smell a monologue?"
"What are you talking about?" Mimi asks.
"Let me read it," Greta says.
"Why?" Mimi's face twists up.
"Let her," I say, inserting a new tape into the camera. "I think she'll do a good job."
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"She'll do an amazing job," Tony corrects.
Greta takes the journal and positions herself cross-legged on the floor right in front of me. I hit the record button, and she breaks into the role right away. She reads in a high-pitched voice that sends chills down the back of my neck:
February 20, 1982
I can't stop shaking inside-it's like my blood has morphed from liquid to mush, like it's crawling around inside my veins, looking for a way out.
Becky is gone. Her father came and got her.
And now I have no one.
And so I just want to do it. I've been trying to think up ways. I think the doctor knows, because he upped my meds again. I think he wants to make me crazy, to keep me here forever. He wants to make me his experiment. Everybody tell me it's true, including my grandfather. He keeps talking to me inside my head, telling me how I'll be here forever, how all the doctors and nurses think so, and how Vicky is out to get me.
Now that Becky's gone, I can't trust anyone here.
The nurses are working with the doctor-they're all conspiring to make me crazy. I think they're the ones who put my grandfather in my head. I just want to get him out. I don't want to hear his voice anymore.
At least Becky let me keep Christy, her doll, before
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Her father took her away. Christy talks to me, too. She has a voice like Julie's, my first foster mom, the one who died-the only one who loved me.
I want to join her in Heaven.
Soon, I think. I will.
C.B.
P.S. I've written a little lullaby for Christy. I like to sing it to her before bed. Rock-a-bye Christy on Witches' Hill. When the wind blows the patients will Kill. When the nurse comes. I'll pretend I'm asleep, then shoot her with needles so she won't make a peep.
Greta drops the journal to her lap, and we're all just staring, sort of taken aback by what she read, by how she made it sound.
"That was brilliant, baby," Tony tells her.
"More like disturbed," I say.
"What?" Chet asks. "Didn't your mommy used to sing that little ditty to you?"
"Well, it would certainly explain a lot if your mommy sang it to you" Greta says, turning to Chet.
"You did a really good job," Mimi tells Greta, getting to the point. "The voice was really fitting--not overdone, you know? Sort of delicate, like how I'd imagine Christine might sound."
"You think?" Greta smiles.
"Totally authentic, babycakes," Tony says. "No faking necessary."
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"No faking anything with you." She growls.
"Wait," Liza says, turning to me. "Didn't you say before that you saw a doll hanging from a noose?"
I nod. "The one with the recorder."
"Do you think it's the same one?"
"Negative," Mimi says, before I can answer. "Christine's doll is cloth and her eyes were inked on with fine-point markers when the originals fell out. Derik, didn't you say the one you saw was rubber with those freaky doll eyes that open and shut?"
I nod.
"It sounds like she's really going to do it," Chet cuts in. "To kill herself."
"That's why I haven't been able to read the end," Mimi says. "I almost don't want to know what happens to her."
"Well, I do." Chet breaks open another Yoo-hoo. "Let's hear it."
"No," Mimi says. "I'm not ready yet."
"Well, either get ready or block your ears," Greta says. "Because I have to know." She flips to the last entry in the journal and reads, her voice even more like a little girl's than before--a mix of softness and giggles that seriously creeps me out.
March 4 th , 1982
I love my doll Christy. She sleeps with me in bed.
Grumpy sleeps with me, took. He tells me I'm ready. So
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does the moth that flies by my bed. I jump on my bed. I fly through the sky. I eat fresh grass. I play on the swings.
I know a way out.
Tonight. After everyone's asleep.
Please, God, don't make it hurt. Take care of Christy. God tells me to hide Christy someplace safe, so they don't take her after I'm gone. Everyone want to take her. I know they'll take her. I know they'll give her the needles and put her to sleep and take her clothes and feed her much. I'm sorry, Christy. I'll always love you, but I can't take you with me. I have to hide you someplace safe now. In the auditorium. Under my chair tonight. Number seventeen. At the performance. I'll make sure I get that one. I'll fight for it. And bite for it. And go to packs or seclusion room for it. I don't care.
I'm going to hide this journal, too. I'll wrap it up in wax paper. If somebody nice finds it, please find Christy. Please take care of her and give her a home.
And help me rest in peace.
Love Christine
Greta finishes off with an evil little giggle that literally makes the hairs on my arms stand up. "Screw Greta Garbo," Mimi says. "You should be thinking Linda Blair."
"Who?" Liza asks.
"The Exorcist," Tony explains. "The original 1973
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version, not the remake. Linda also starred in Exorcist II, the Heretic, and she's now the host of The Scariest Places on Earth."
"Don't forget that she starred in Stranger in Our House, Hell Night, and that film where she plays the teenage alcoholic," Greta adds.
"Sarah T," Tony confirms. "Not that I'm some big Linda Blair cultie or anything. I just make it my business to know this stuff."
"Of course," Liza says, with an eye roll that makes me laugh.
"Wait," Chet interrupts, following with a Yoo-hoo belch. "What the hell is up with that journal entry? She can't just end her journal like that?"
"Is it just me," I ask, "or are you guys missing the weirdest piece of that whole entry?"
"What are you talking about?" Mimi asks.
"The number
seventeen," I answer, aiming my camera at her. "It's everywhere in this place. The graffiti angels going up the wall by the stairs, the patient artwork in the art therapy room--"
"The tombstone someone drew in the A wing," Chet adds.
"And now the chair," Mimi whispers. "Isn't Christine seventeen, too?" Liza asks. Mimi nods. "We need to look for the doll."
"And what'll that prove?" Chet asks. "We still won't know what happened to her."
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"Yes we will," Liza says. "If the doll's there, then she did it--she killed herself."
"Right," Mimi says. "And if it's gone, she didn't."
"How do you figure that?" I ask, still filming.
"Because let's just say, for the sake of argument, that she tried to off herself but then failed or had second thoughts," Mimi explains. "She would have gone back to retrieve the doll. I mean, just listen to her: the doll is her only friend. She can't live without it."
"Right," Chet says. "But maybe somebody else found the doll. I mean, how many people have broken in here over the years? What are the chances that it's still actually under chair seventeen?"
"Let's go check it out," I say, grabbing the map. "The auditorium is right upstairs."
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LIZA
INSTEAD OF TAKING THE stairwell by the cafeteria, Derik says he wants to explore a bit of the male wings. And so we move in that direction, despite all the debris in our path. It appears that pieces of the ceiling have collapsed to the floor, making me more than a little nervous about what awaits us upstairs. Derik's in the lead as we move farther down the G-wing, but he slows his pace every few steps so I can keep up. I think he wants to keep me close to him.
The thing is, I'm not really sure how I feel about that.
Prior to coming here tonight, I had heard little snippets about the infamous Derik LaPlaya LaPointe. How could I not have? I mean, I may not be Ms. Sally Social at school, but I do have ears.