And then there’s Edith Sharp.
I almost don’t recognize her, she’s so diminished since the day of her attempted escape. Shorn of her dandelion-puff hair, she sits listlessly on a sofa near the French doors, gazing longingly at the lawn. I only recognize her when I sit down next to her and she turns her haunted eyes toward me. “Is it teatime yet?” she asks in a wispy Southern drawl.
“Oh,” I say, startled by those wide green eyes. “I don’t know. I’m new here.”
“Are you a transfer?” she asks.
“A transfer?” I repeat. Does she mean from another mental institute?
“I transferred from Sweet Briar,” she tells me, “for the art history department. They have the best art history department here. You see these paintings?” She gestures at the landscapes on the walls. “They were done by a famous painter. The college’s art collection is one of the very best, only . . .” She looks around nervously and then leans toward me. Her breath smells like copper pipes. “Only some of these Northern girls aren’t the friendliest.”
I remember Dr. Hancock saying that Edith had her breakdown her sophomore year at Vassar. She’s even fit the paintings on the walls into her fantasy. That’s where she is now. Vassar circa 1971.
I realize that everyone here thinks they’re someone—or somewhere—else. If I try to tell my evaluators that I’m really Daphne Marist, they’ll chalk it up to delusion and certify that I’m incompetent. But if I pretend to be Laurel Hobbes I’ll be saddled with Laurel’s history of mental illness—and successful ECT therapy. I’m caught in a Catch-22.
On my third day in the recreation lounge I’m sitting on the sofa next to Edith. She’s flipping through a stack of homemade cards—color copies of famous paintings pasted on cardboard. Edith keeps them together with a piece of red ribbon that she ties around her wrist when she’s flipping through them.
“Would you help me study for the final?” she asks when I sit down near her.
I hold up each card and she recites the name of the artwork, the artist, the date it was made, and a few comments. She does surprisingly well. We’ve gotten to the Baroque when Ben Marcus walks past the terrace. Seeing him startles me, and my first instinct is to hide. The distance I’ve fallen since we met—from professional archivist, dressed in nice clothes, to bedraggled mental patient in pajamas—is too great. I’m embarrassed for him to see me like this.
Then I feel Edith’s hand in mine. “Is that a boy you like?” she asks in her girlish voice.
I start to object but when I look into her green eyes I’m startled by how keen they are. For all her delusions, Edith is surprisingly observant. “You should talk to him,” she says. She’s right, I realize. He may be my best way out of here.
I get up and walk quickly out the French doors. I can hear an orderly calling me, but I ignore him. He catches up with me quickly, though. “Where are you going so fast, Laurie?” he asks, his meaty hand gripping my elbow.
“It’s Laurel, not Laurie,” I say in exactly the same imperious tone Laurel would use when someone got her name wrong. For a moment my—Laurel’s?—reaction stops me cold. How am I going to convince anyone I’m Daphne Marist when even I have stopped believing it?
The orderly turns me around as Ben Marcus vanishes over the hill behind the golf course. I allow myself to be meekly led back into the lounge. Edith is waiting for me on the sofa, a sad look on her face. She pats my hand when I sit down beside her. “Don’t you fret,” she says, kindly. “I see that boy walking by the golf course all the time. He must be on the golf team. You’ll get another chance. Now, here, help me with these Madonna-and-child paintings. I never can tell my Fra Angelicos from my Fra Filippo Lippis.”
The next day I abandon Edith and find a seat on the terrace. I can see she’s hurt—I’ve become another unfriendly Northern girl—but I need to watch for Ben Marcus.
It’s colder than I expected outside, which makes me realize how long I’ve been at Crantham. It was summer when I arrived at Sky Bennett’s house but now the leaves are turning. I’d like to go inside and get a sweater, but I don’t want to risk missing Ben Marcus, so I sit shivering on a lawn chair, my arms wrapped around my chest. I’m watching so intensely that I don’t know anyone’s behind me until I feel hands on my shoulders.
I flinch, but then I see it’s just Edith draping a crocheted afghan around my shoulders. She sits down beside me and takes out a piece of paper and pencil. “Why didn’t you tell me it was time for sketching class?” she says, sweeping her pencil across the paper. “I love drawing landscapes, don’t you? And I love our new drawing teacher. Don’t you think he’s handsome?”
I agree that our drawing teacher is handsome and to keep Edith happy I accept a piece of paper and one of the cardboard-backed art photographs to lean on, and begin sketching the line of trees and the house and tower rising above them. It’s the perfect excuse for being out here, and once again I marvel at Edith’s canniness. It’s also oddly soothing to draw the rough outlines of the landscape, even though I’ve never had much artistic talent. And this time I see Ben Marcus as soon as he appears on the rise.
I stand up and call his name in as clear and loud a voice as I can muster. It comes out sounding like a hysterical plea, but at least it captures his attention. He stops and shields his eyes to look at me as if I’m too bright to look at. I imagine a crazy aura around me, like the picture I saw
