Drowning Instinct
Page 4

If there‘s one thing you have plenty of time for on a psych ward, it‘s watching DVDs. But I couldn‘t say that, so I just shrugged. I like movies. So, what‘s the music?
It‘s from an opera, Tristan and Isolde. Wagner was kind of a Nazi, but I love his music. Like the helicopter scene in Apocalypse Now? That‘s Wagner, too.
Really?
Mmm-hmmm. Ride of the Valkyries.‘ Robert Duvall is . . . And Mr. Anderson kept that up all the way down the stairs, this steady patter about opera and films with classical music scores. 2001 even I knew, but Alien?
Harley was nowhere to be seen. As we neared the library, Mr. Anderson said, So where do you live that you have to come in so early?
Lakeside.
His eyebrows lifted. Yeah? We‘re practically neighbors. I live maybe twenty miles west, a little past Plymouth in the Kettle Moraine. Why are you going to school here? He listened as I gave him the SparkNotes version of my rehearsed speech: We live up north, only my mom’s bookstore is down here and Turing is such a great school, so blah, blah, blah.
Which bookstore? he asked.
MacAllister‘s.
Really? Cool. My wife‘s a big reader.
Oh. That he had a wife was like a pinprick. I felt myself deflate, which was completely stupid. Of course, he was married; he was gorgeous. Was he wearing a ring?
No, I didn‘t think so, but no way in hell I was going to look, not then. Not ever. Jesus, how many different ways can you spell loser? What does she like to read?
Romance, mainly, and literary fiction. She likes someone locall. . . uhm . . .
Simmons, I think.
Meryl? She‘s a really good friend of ours. My mom‘s known her since they were kids. Mom usually has a big writers‘ party the last weekend in September and Meryl comes down from her farm up north to, you know, sign books and stuff.
Seriously? My wife will be impressed.
Maybe I can get her an autographed book. Or Mom can invite you to the party. I was babbling. What did I care if his wife had a signed copy of Meryl‘s latest? As we got to the library doors—open, mercifully, and the lights were on—I finished, lamely, For the reading, I mean.
Sure, that would be nice, he said, but his eyes were already dropping to his watch and I could tell his mind was leapfrogging ahead to the rest of his day. Well, you‘ll be okay now. See you eighth period, Ms. Lord.
The librarian was half asleep and sucking from a gallon coffee mug. She just gave me a vague wave and grunted that I could sit anywhere I liked. I prowled until I spotted a solitary desk snugged beneath a window at the end of a stack. I knew as soon as I saw it that this was the perfect spot: books to my right and a window on the world to my left.
Only much later did I realize that the view faced northeast, same as Mr. Anderson‘s windows. We might even be looking at the same thing at precisely the same moment, although I had a feeling that whatever he saw would be different. After all, I was on the ground level and he was directly above, with a clearer, sharper, brighter view.
And that . . . well, I don‘t know, Bob. But when I realized that?
It just seemed like this really good omen.
5: a
The first bell rang, but Ms. Sherman didn‘t flinch. Her fingers toyed with her letter opener: long and pointed with a blocky handle fashioned out of green stone. Of course, all our students are exceptional. It‘s not that I want to give you the wrong idea, that you‘re somehow all alone, dear, she said. Dropping the opener, she twined her fingers together.
For a second, I worried she was going to start praying. But it‘s not uncommon for very bright students to be more . . . sensitive or socially awkward. I just don‘t want you to feel as if no one understands.
Okay, I said, thanks. Not five minutes after I settled down in the library, Ms.
Sherman had ambushed me for a little face time to see how I was getting on. Considering school hadn‘t started yet, she probably wanted to reassure herself that the crazy new girl wasn‘t going to go postal her first day. I was only glad she hadn‘t seen me almost break my arm running away from Mr. Anderson.
Ms. Sherman and I had met during orientation two weeks earlier. She was like all guidance counselors: earnest and eager to convince me that it was safe to open up about all my troubles, what we said was confidential, blah, blah, blah. Her eyes were moist and dark brown, like a cocker spaniel‘s.
There are other students here who are under a psychiatrist‘s care or been in a hospital or institution, she said, clearly deciding to abandon the nuanced approach. So there‘s no need for you to feel alone. How often are you seeing your therapist?
Shit. If I said twice a week, that sounded like I was barely holding it together. Every week was only a little better. Of course, since I wasn‘t seeing anyone . . . Every month, I lied. I used to go more often, but . . . I let that dangle.
Curious. She thumbed open a manila folder, flipped through papers, ran the manicured ice pick of a fingernail down one page. Your parents neglected to give us your therapist‘s name and number.
Why do you need it?
Just in case.
In case what?
She paused, studying me with her big wet eyes. A thought-bubble ballooned over her head: Oh hell, I hope she’s taken her medication this morning; is she on meds; where is that panic button? In case you run into difficulties, she finally said, only gently, like she‘d just walked into a sickroom with a terminal patient. We like to know who to call.
Ghostbusters? God, Bob, I swear that was on the tip of my tongue. The moment was so perfect. But, no, she might not have a sense of humor and then I‘d only sound weirder than I already was. Wouldn‘t you just call my parents?
Jenna. Her lips compressed. She was all through being sweet and understanding.
Is there a reason we shouldn‘t know who you‘re seeing?
Because it‘s private? It‘s none of your business?
Really, Jenna, there‘s no need for hostility. We only want— She broke off as her phone buzzed. She picked it up, said hello, listened for a few seconds, then said, I‘ll be right there. Hanging up, she scraped back her chair. Look, I don‘t want to be blunt or cruel about this, dear, but we simply don‘t want to risk a repeat of your, ah . . . difficulties.
I thought you said you guys were used to kids with problems.
Her face set. Wait here. She left, pulling her door shut with a sharp, incisive snick.
I waited. A skinny rectangle of reinforced glass—the kind with chicken wire—was set in the office door. From my chair, I could see into the hall for only a few feet in either direction. I heard muffled voices, the buzz of a phone. A woman walked by, her arms full of papers. She flicked a bland look through the caged window the way you might eye a drab zoo animal of no particular interest and kept going. There was a clock above the door that ticked off the seconds in loud, percussive pistol shots.
I stared at Ms. Sherman‘s letter opener. The blade was brassy and pointed and looked pretty sharp. My fingers moved in a spastic little twitch, like the legs of a hermit crab. I fired a glance back at the door. No one in the window.
The letter opener was much heavier than I expected. I balanced the tip on the pad of my left index finger and pressed, grinned as the skin dimpled. You could put your eye out with that thing.
For the first time in months, the scars on my stomach squirmed. The skin grafts between my shoulder blades bunched. My ears roared and I had to close my eyes. I wondered how hard I would have to push to draw blood. Not hard, I decided.
A few seconds, that’s all I’d need.
Then I heard the second bell and thought, Screw it. My morning had been pretty crummy so far, but doing that, no matter how much I wanted to, would be admitting I was a complete head case. Besides, another half minute or so and then I‘d be late for my very first class on my very first day and there was just no way.
So I didn‘t wait for Ms. Sherman. And I put her stupid letter opener back before I slid out the door.
6: a
The halls were too bright and jammed with other kids all chattering and laughing.
Until that moment, I hadn‘t been around that many kids for almost a year, and I just stood there, in shock, a rock in a fast-flowing river that parted and eddied and swirled on.
Snatches of conversation spun past like leaves swept along a swift current:
. . . his mom went ballist . . .
He said what?
No way, I told him, I‘m not that kind . . .
. . . and then Dad saw the car and he totally flipped out. . . .
Oh, here comes Robbie, I don‘t . . .
My mom was so pissed. . . .
He said what?
I spawned upstream and made it to trig before the late bell. The teacher wore smudgy Lennon specs that made him as bug-eyed as that fish-headed commander in the first Star Wars movie. (Come on, Bob, you know: the one where the Muppetalien shouts,
It’s a trap! ) Fish Eyes squinted through smears and studied the attendance card Ms.
Sherman had insisted on, probably because she wanted to, well, alert everyone about just who the crazy new kid was. Then Fish Eyes aimed a stubby finger to an open seat in the middle of the class: We sit in alphabetical order.
Great. You know that very last scene in The Birds, Bob, the one where Rod Taylor and the old lady who played his mom are trying to get Tippi Hedren into the car, only they have to run this gauntlet of seagulls and crows that might just peck their eyes out? Well, this was like that. I swear, it felt like a gazillion eyes drilled my back, all these other kids watching and waiting for me to trip or burp or fart, or maybe all three. I made it to my desk without any drama and that seemed to be the general cue for everyone to go back to gossiping, which was fine by me.
Then, maybe ten seconds after I slid into my seat, I felt a tap on my right shoulder. I couldn‘t help it; I flashed to Harley and that dumb coffee cup: This yours? I turned.
David Melman. He had dark eyes and a mop of muddy brown hair. When he smiled, a dimple showed at the left corner of his mouth. He stuck out a hand. Welcome to Turing.