out into the hall.
I change into the nightgown, gather up my clothes, and start walking to the door to give them to Ruby. Something holds me in place halfway between the bed and the door, some vague sense that that I’m forgetting something. Then I walk back to the bed, pick up the two jagged pieces of the pie plate, turn, and bring them to Ruby.
The green neon numbers on Sydney’s alarm clock say 6:04 a.m. Last time I checked, it was 5:21. I brace myself on my arm and a dull pounding starts in my wrist. There, at the foot of the bed, is a neat bundle of clean, folded clothes. Ruby must have put them there before her shift ended.
I push back the covers, get up quietly, put on my clothes, and slip into the still-dark hallway. I tiptoe toward the bathroom, sneak past Marie’s empty chair, past the phone booth, past the new girl’s room, past the dayroom, the Group room, down the hall, past the Emergency Use Only door, until finally I’m sitting outside your office waiting for you to come to work.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, but finally you’re standing in front of me in your blue coat and scarf. You don’t look surprised. You don’t even say hello right away. You pull your keys out of your purse, bend down and turn on the UFO outside your door, and say, “Would you like to come in?”
I take my usual place on the couch while you hang up your coat and scarf, put your purse in a drawer, open the blinds. Finally you sit down.
“Callie?” you say. “Is there a reason why you’re here?”
I shrug.
“Can you tell me what’s on your mind?”
I start counting the stripes in the wallpaper. A dog barks in the distance. The sound rings in the air for a long time, then it’s quiet.
“I can’t.” My voice surprises me. It’s so puny.
“What? What is it you can’t do?”
I clear my throat, but it doesn’t do any good. Now there’s no voice in there at all. I shrug.
“Callie.” Your voice is firm. “Try to look at me.”
I sneak a peek at you. Your eyes are amber. Like Linus’s. I look away.
“What is it you can’t do?”
The radiator clicks on, drones for a while, clicks off.
“Talk.” The word, finally, comes out of my mouth.
Your chair groans and I notice then that you’ve been sitting on the edge of your seat. You lean back and tap your lip with your finger, the way you did the other night in the game room.
“Is it because you’re scared?”
I trace a square on the couch, nod yes, once, and watch, stunned, as a tear makes a small dark circle on my jeans.
You slide the tissue box across the carpet to me.
“Do you know why you’re scared?”
I shake my head.
“Callie.” Your voice comes at me from far away. “I think if we work really hard together, we may come up with some answers.”
I rip the tissue in my hand. It’s become a soggy useless mess. I grab another one.
“Would you like to try?”
I nod.
“Good.” You sound pleased, really pleased.
I blow my nose. “What will you do to me?” The words seem to come out on their own.
You smile; tiny wrinkles fan out around your eyes and I wonder if maybe you’re older than I thought. “To you?I won’t do anything to you. We’ll just talk.”
“That’s it?” My voice cracks. It’s a weak, unreliable thing.
“That’s it.”
I grab another tissue from the box. “I feel…” I clear my throat and will the words to come out. “I feel like I’ll be losing.”
“Like a game or a contest?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What do you think you’ll lose?”
“I don’t know.” I check your amber cat eyes for signs of impatience, but you don’t seem mad. Just curious.
“I’ll never make you tell me anything you don’t want to tell me,” you say. “But you are right, Callie. Sometimes it will feel like you’re losing something.”
I reach for another tissue. Wet, wadded-up tissues keep piling up in my lap.
“But Callie,” you say. “If we work hard, you’ll find something much better to take the place of whatever you give up. I promise.”
I nod. I’m tired now, awfully tired. I’ve got that headachy feeling I get in the summer when I step out of the dark, air-conditioned house into the too-bright sunlight.
I watch you as you stand up and say we’ll get started later on, at our usual time. Then you call for someone to escort me to the infirmary, where they give me a tetanus shot and make me sign a form. Then I go back to my room. And even though it’s still morning, I go back to bed. And sleep. And sleep.
II
I must’ve slept all morning, because the next thing I know, Marie is shaking my shoulder and saying something about lunch. “C’mon,” she says. “The doctor gave you special permission to be in your room unattended today, but now you’ve got to get up. Or else you’re going to miss lunch.”
I don’t understand. Then it comes back to me, dimly at first, that something’s different, although I can’t remember exactly what it might be. I brush my hair out of my eyes and see a flash of white gauze around my wrist. In an instant, everything—my fingers gripping my wrist, Ruby folding her hands over mine, wet tissues heaped in my lap—comes back to me.
“We don’t want you missing your meals,” Marie says. She lowers her voice. “We got enough skinny girls in this place already.”
I sit up and realize I’m hungry, really hungry.
Even the noise and the steamed-vegetable smell of the cafeteria doesn’t spoil my appetite. I pick up a tray and let a cafeteria worker with fogged-up glasses shovel a grilled cheese sandwich onto my plate. I remember Sydney calling them chilled grease sandwiches once and I head out of the food line hoping she’ll be there.
But the dining room is practically empty; the only ones left at our table are Debbie and Becca I grip the edge of my tray and imagine myself walking past my usual seat at the end of the table, sitting down next to Debbie. I’ll give her a practice smile, the way Ruth did, and start talking, like everybody else does. Debbie will say, “That’s great, that’s really great,” the way she does when Becca eats all of her fruit and cottage cheese, and Becca will be impressed, she’ll agree with Debbie that it’s great, and when we go to Group later on, she’ll run ahead and tell everyone the news. But before I even get to the table, they’ve left.
A few minutes later, Tara comes in and sets her tray down at the other end of the table. Her nose is red and her face is blotchy and as soon as she sees me watching her she pulls the brim of her baseball cap down. She picks up a piece of lettuce and wipes the dressing off with her napkin.
Finally I stand and pick up my tray, keeping my sleeve pulled down over my wrist, the hem wrapped around my thumb, and sit down across from her.
“Hi,” she says.
I try to give her a practice smile, but I’m not sure anything happens on my face.
Then we both sit there pretending to eat. I try to remember how people start conversations, but all that
