“Posy named herself Posy, I think,” Mindy said. “Isn't that what you said, Gia?”
“Yes. I can't remember Dr. Foreman calling her anything but 'young lady.' ”
“You never met this Posy, Mindy?” I asked.
“No. She was already gone by the time I arrived. Gia told me all about her.”
“Well, what happened to her? Where is she? Did she graduate or something?” Teal asked Gia.
Gia's laugh was thin and maddening. “Graduate? Yes, I guess it is a sort of graduation when someone gets out of here, if she gets out of here.” She was silent a moment; then, after glancing at Mindy, she turned back to Teal and said, “I don't know.”
“Why not?” Robin asked.
“We can't be sure, right, Gia?” Mindy said.
“What does that mean? Did Posy tell you something?” I asked Gia.
“It wouldn't have mattered if she had. When she was first brought here, she told Gia so many different things, it was obvious she was a habitual liar.”
“Really?”
Gia nodded. “For the longest time, I didn't know she had any relationship to Dr. Foreman at all, much less being her daughter. She never called her or referred to her as anything but 'Dr. Foreman,' and I never saw anything warm between them, anything even to suggest they had once lived in the same house.”
“Tell them what she did say, Gia,” Mindy urged.
Gia looked at her and then turned to us. “Posy would talk about her parents as if they were the most wonderful people. They had everything imaginable and they loved her and were just heartbroken over the fact that she was here. In the beginning I didn't know she was lying. She made it all sound believable. I mean, she had it down to the smallest details, the colors of her bedspread, the dolls her father had bought her, her secret magical place in their beautiful big home that she shared with an adorable little sister, I think she called Tamatha.”
“Amazing,” Teal muttered.
“All of it was her fantasy,” Gia said. “Nothing more than her long wish list.”
“Gia says she was a habitual liar or something. We're not even sure about the bad things she had done, exactly why she was here, right, Gia?”
Gia nodded. “Sometimes it seemed to me she was here only because she couldn't tell the truth.”
“Well, then how do you know she was telling the truth when she told you she was Dr. Foreman's adopted daughter?” Teal questioned.
“She never actually told me she was,” Gia said. “I told her and she finally admitted it.”
“Tell them what she said then, Gia,” Mindy urged. It was weird to me how she enjoyed hearing about it all so much, as if she really enjoyed reliving Gia's experience.
Gia laughed. “She said she didn't tell me because she didn't want me to think she was getting any special treatment. That was a good laugh. If anything, I was getting special treatment, not her, but she always had to have a rosy excuse for everything,” Gia said bitterly. “Rosy lies, I should say.”
“I don't get it,” Robin said. “If she didn't tell you herself first and neither of them showed how they were related, how would you know?” She looked poised to hear Gia insult her again, but instead, Gia looked at Mindy, who shook her head.
“What difference will it make now if they know,” Gia asked her.
“One of them is sure to betray you. You know that.”
“I always thought she knew anyway, Mindy. Was I wrong?” Gia asked, her eyes small and fixed on Mindy.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.”
“No, I don't,” Mindy said, looking around as if searching for a way out.
“Sure you don't,” Gia said, twisting her lips.
“What's going on?” Teal asked me. “What are they talking about now?”
I shook my head. “What is going on, Gia?”
She thought for a long moment, then shrugged. “Oh, what difference does it make anymore?” she muttered. “It was my idea to do it. I'll admit to that. I was bored,” she offered as a defense. “I wasn't here all that long, but it was obvious to me it was going to be a drag. The early nights, lights out, no television or radios or anything, just work and studies and those damn therapy sessions, those questions, prodding, making me think of things I didn't want to ever remember. On and on until. . .”
“Until what?”
“I was curious and, like I said, bored.”
“So?” Teal asked, impatient. “You were bored. Big deal. A news flash. She was bored. What did you do about it?”
“I decided to spy on Posy and Dr. Foreman when Posy was in there alone.”
“How could you do that?” I asked.
“I found a way. There's a basement to the house. The door is on the other side and it was opened late one afternoon when I had some free time. 1 just wandered down the steps and in, almost as a way to escape the sun and heat as anything else. I heard voices and followed the sounds down to my right. There's a floor grate in Dr. Foreman's office. As soon as I knew what it was and where I was, I ran out. I was terrified of being discovered listening in. I didn't even know who was in there with her.”
“It couldn't have been me,” Mindy said quickly.
“No, it wasn't Mindy because she wasn't here yet. 1 didn't tell her anything about Posy for a while after she had arrived.”
“Almost a month after,” Mindy moaned.
“I'm not exactly used to trusting people,” Gia said.
“Wow,” Robin said. “Imagine, putting your own daughter through all this.”
“Your mother is putting you through it, isn't she?” Gia fired at her. She could be so mean and angry some-
times. It made me feel that if I brushed against her, she might explode and blow me up with her.
Robin was about to snap back at her, but hesitated, thought a moment, then relaxed her shoulders. “Yes, she is. Mother darling is doing exactly that.”
“Well, then it shouldn't surprise you. It shouldn't surprise any of us. Dr. Foreman believes in everything she does to us. She has this grand plan, this collection of theories. Every one of us is another case study for her. I once glimpsed at some papers on her desk and saw it.”
“Saw what?” I asked.
“She's writing about each of us all the time. We'll be collected in some book and she'll probably win some prize. And all at our expense!”
“Tell us more about Posy,” I said, folding my legs and squatting on the floor like a little girl who had asked to be told a story.
“I didn't get to know her all that well. Like Mindy says, she was always lying to me anyway. She was here a little over a month or so. One day she arrived with Dr. Foreman when she returned from one of her periodic trips away from the ranch. I came in from work and found her sitting right there.” Gia nodded at my bunk.
“She smiled at me and said, 'Hi, my name's Posy. Don't call me anything else, please.' You would never know she was sent here as any sort of punishment. Nothing bothered her. Everything was interesting to her. I got so I hated hearing the word. Interesting. 'Isn't this interesting?' 'Isn't that interesting?' ”
“What did she look like?” Teal asked, sitting beside me.
“She wasn't much bigger than I am,” Gia said. “I thought she was about twelve, but she swore she was sixteen, dark haired, pretty with soft brown eyes and a dimple in her right cheek. She liked to walk on her toes and said she was once taking ballet lessons.”
“Another lie, no doubt,” Mindy muttered.
“She swore it was true of course, like her swearing to anything meant anything,” Gia said, “but I had no other way to determine anything about her, not even her age.”
“Didn't you ask her why she was here? What she had done?” Robin asked.
“No.”
“No?”
“I didn't have to ask. She told me right away. She said she was here because she had trouble following rules. She claimed she just forgot all the time. She made it sound so
innocent.”
“What rules?” I asked.
"Any rules. She said she just forgot and didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings. She proved that by ignoring the rules here. She talked without permission when she first arrived and it did them no good to scream at her or punish her.
"She just looked at them with that same sweet smile on her face, making the buddies feel like they were the ones who were to be pitied.
“She never blamed anyone for anything no matter how cruel they were to her, including her monster of a mother.”
“Did you try to get her to stop thinking like that?” Teal asked.
“Of course. I tried to get her to see how stupid she was being by forgiving them or understanding them or calling them interesting. She would just say, 'They can't help it. They just like me so much they can't help trying to help me.' For three days they wouldn't let her eat anything, and all she could say about that was she was a little too heavy anyway.”
“It doesn't sound like she belonged here,” I said. “Sounds like she belonged in some mental institution.”
“Don't we all,” Mindy muttered.
Everyone was silent, contemplating what she had said.
“Dr. Foreman believes she can change anyone. That's the point,” Gia finally piped up. “Don't you get it yet? No behavior, not even mental illness, can't be changed or cured. She thinks we're all Skinner pigeons.”
“Skinner pigeons? What's that?” Robin asked.
I looked at Teal to see if she knew. She shook her head and shrugged. “I wasn't exactly a good student,” she said. “What is it, Gia?”
“Didn't anyone tell you guys anything about this place and Dr. Foreman before you were sent here?” she asked.
“Not much more than this is your last chance,” Teal said, smirking.
“Same for me,” I said.
“Me, too,” Robin chimed.
“Dr. Foreman is a behavioral modification scientist. They believe they can change the way people act and think by using certain techniques like carrot and stick, positive and negative reinforcers. Do this and there's a reward; do that and there's a punishment. If it's repeated and repeated, it gets so carved into you, you behave accordingly.”
“But why did you call us all Skinner pigeons?” I asked.
“This scientist, Skinner, is famous for getting people to believe in these things. He did it with pigeons in a box. If they pressed a lever, they got fed. They soon understood that if they did this, they were rewarded. If they didn't, they weren't. That's what Dr. Foreman means by her stupid reality checks. We get rewarded for doing what she wants us to do, and when we do something she doesn't... we suffer. That's reality. That's the way it is out there,” Gia said, waving toward the door.
“Dr. Foreman,” she concluded, “believes those theories apply to everything. She can change anyone. We're not here just to be good little girls. Just like she said the first day, we're here to be changed, completely and utterly remade.”
“Posy had to be very frustrating for her,” Robin said. “Here she was a so-called expert on all this and her own daughter was a problem.”
“Exactly,” Gia said. “She has success with strangers, like our buddies and like us. Her methods do work most of the time. You're not going to get into any fights so quickly now, are you, Robin? You don't want to go back to the Ice Room.”
Robin looked at me and then looked down.
“And you, Teal. You going to run away again?” Gia taunted.
“Maybe.”
“You won't. Anyway, the difference with Posy was no matter what they did to her, what negative reinforcement they applied, she smiled at them. And then she would go and make up a story about it like she had to clean the pigpen all by herself because we were too busy or she was good at it. They would just get angrier and angrier at her. She never let them make her face reality. You know she never had a mattress, pillow, and blanket the whole time she was here.”
“How could she stand that so long?” Teal asked.
Gia shrugged. I began to wonder if she didn't admire Posy as much as she pitied her.
"She told me she was used to sleeping on hard surfaces. She liked to go camping, and mattresses and sheets and pillows made her itch and sneeze. I actually believed her for a while. She was really good at it, at telling tales. I can just imagine the stories she had people believing. It must have driven our Dr. Foreman bonkers.
“But . . . Natani liked her,” Gia said wistfully. “He favored her, talked to her all the time, taught her stuff, like how to meditate and step out of pain. That's the way she put it. I know the good doctor wasn't happy about that and eventually told him to stay away from her.”
“Why does he obey her, work for her?” Teal asked.
“His granddaughter was a drug addict. She managed to get her on the straight and narrow. At least, that's what I think,” Gia said.
“It's true. He told me something similar,” I said, “just not in as much detail.”
“Whatever. He must owe her big time to put up with all this,” Robin said.
“He doesn't see it that way,” I told her.
“Then he really is a crazy Indian,” Teal quipped.
“Well, how did Posy end up? I mean, why don't you know what happened to her?” I asked Gia.
“No one would talk about her. I quickly saw it was forbidden to mention her name. One morning she was just gone, and when she didn't return for days, I knew she was gone for good. At first I assumed she was sent home or somewhere else.”
“So, then that's what happened,” I said, shrugging. “What's the big mystery?” From the way Mindy and Gia glanced at each other, I saw they had other ideas. “What?”
“I'm sure I saw her from time to time, but only at night,” Gia said.
“And then you stopped seeing her altogether, right, Gia?” Mindy said.
“You never saw her at night or otherwise?” Robin asked Mindy.
“Never.”
“So, then she is gone,” I concluded. They didn't look convinced. “Is there something else?”
“The one thing I think Posy needed more than anything was company, friends. She tried so hard to get us to be her friends. I could tell she was making up story after story about all the best friends she had. She often contradicted herself or forgot a name or a story,” Gia explained.
“So?”
“So Gia thinks Dr. Foreman decided her best way to change her was to isolate her from people. She hated being alone most of all,” Mindy said.
“So much so that she invented people to talk to, just like a little girl or little boy might.”
“I often heard her talking to someone, and then if I asked her who she was talking to, she would say no one, but she would smile at the air as if someone invisible to me was standing there. It was weird, eerie. Sometimes, I got so I thought I saw someone standing there myself,” Gia explained.
“Maybe you're just as crazy as she is,” Robin told her.
Gia shrugged. “Maybe I am.”
“So if Dr. Foreman wanted to keep her away from people, what did she do?” I asked.
“It's just a guess. We have no real proof of anything and we would never say it loud enough for anyone to hear it,” Gia offered.
No one spoke for fear she would stop.
“That door I told you about? The one going down to the basement?”
“Yes?” I said.
“It has a lock on it now.”
“Maybe she just didn't want you sneaking down there anymore,” I said quickly.
“I thought that was it, too.” Gia eyed Mindy. “Especially after she seemed to know I had been there.”
“I never said anything!” Mindy exclaimed. Gia shot her a skeptical look. “I didn't. I swear!”
“Well, what changed your mind?” Teal asked her, ignoring Mindy.
“Occasionally, I've heard crying, coming from the basement,” Gia said. “Mindy thinks she has as well, right, Mindy?”
“Well, 1 w
asn't exactly sure about that,” Mindy said cautiously.
“What are y'all saying?” Robin asked, looking like her heart had stopped. “Dr. Foreman is keeping her daughter in the basement, like a prisoner in solitary confinement?”
“Maybe,” Gia said.
“To this day?” I asked.
“What are we if not prisoners? But don't ever say it or suggest it in front of one of the buddies. Actually, never mention this again ever.”
“How long has it been since you stopped seeing her, even at night?” I questioned.
“About a week or so before Mindy arrived,” Gia said. “That's about four months, right?”
Mindy nodded.
I turned to Robin. “Locked in a basement to be kept away from people for more than four months? That would be worse than the Ice Room, wouldn't it?”
“No,” Robin said.
“Why not?”
She stared at me.
“Because you're not put into the Ice Room,” Gia answered for her. 'The Ice Room is put into you."
“Put into you?” I looked at Robin. She was nodding. “I don't understand.”
“Leave it that way, Phoebe. Sometimes, it's good here to not understand. You're better off,” Robin said.
But I was a moth drawn to fire. I couldn't stop thinking about it.
Like some fatalist who knew she was headed for disaster no matter what road she took, I had no doubt in my mind that I would understand what they meant someday.
“Since Natani favored her, maybe he knows something. Have you ever asked him?” I inquired.
Gia raised her eyebrows. “Have you ever asked Natani a question about anything yet?”
“Yes.”
“So you know how he answers. He doesn't give straight answers. Instead, he tells you some Indian folk tale about animals and you're supposed to get the point.”
“Maybe that's his way to avoid reality,” Mindy suggested.
“Or maybe it's his way not to,” I said.
No one spoke again for a long moment.
“Let's do our homework. At least it's something to do and it keeps her from blaming us for something else,” Gia said in a tired voice.
Everyone returned to the books and we were soon working together, each of us every once in a while pausing to think about that locked basement door. I know that's what was on their minds. It was on mine and I could see the fear, like some sheet of thin ice sliding over their eyes.
Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight Page 14