by Spencer Hyde
“You should sit next to me at lunch. First, I have to go find out which one of my imaginary friends tried to steal some meds from the pharmacy and a keycard from an orderly. Probably Lyle. He’s wily.”
“I would love to meet Lyle.”
“I’ll see if he can make it,” he said.
We walked to the door and out into the hallway, sunlight pooling from windows that overlooked the Seattle skyline. The fiery leaves of September caught in branches like small embers tipping on to the ground. Threadbare clouds scudded past, and a small smudge of orange hovered in a corner of the sky.
That’s when Martha stepped into the hallway. Martha had worked as an orderly at the hospital for years. She wore those ridiculous shape-up shoes that claimed to improve your calf muscles. She was a little on the heavier side, and had this amazing grin and this awesome black hair that always looked like she just rolled out of bed. Like, always. She also wore a fanny pack. I wasn’t sure what it held, but I was glad fanny packs were still going strong. Best of all, she was always genuine. I never had a bad thing to say about her, though sometimes I tried.
“She’s here, right? You see her too?” said Fitz, motioning to Martha.
Martha and I exchanged a look.
“Can never be too sure in my condition,” he said. “Meeting new people is always a test.”
“Sure, act like you don’t know me, Mr. Fitz,” said Martha before moving on.
“Okay, I guess it’s time to go, Addie . . . ?” he said. He hung on to my name as if asking for the rest.
“Addie Foster.”
“Okay, Addie Foster. See you at lunch. I’ll be wearing the slip-resistant booties and these killer sweats. If I’m late, don’t wait for me—it just means I’ve been detained because I have a serious, tragic condition eating away at me constantly.”
“And a morbid sense of humor,” I said.
“I also love fast food and B-grade movies and Ultimate Fighting, so I’m probably up there with the elite thinkers you seem to like. You know, the ones who write those plays you seem to enjoy, based on your comments in group. You like to talk about acting, at any rate. But didn’t Chekhov say you can’t put a truffle on stage if you’re not going to eat it in the next scene? Something about not breaking your promise to the audience?”
“A rifle,” I said.
“A trifle?”
“Rifle,” I repeated.
“Semantics,” he said, as he began walking in the opposite direction. “See you at lunch, Addie Foster. Don’t stand me up, unless you find me on the floor.”
The orderlies nudged me and nodded in the direction of Dr. Riddle’s office. I started to walk down the hall with my two new friends. When I looked out the window on my left and saw the clouds splitting and gathering weight, I smiled. I watched the white clouds set against the darkening sky and I could only see it all as nature’s handsome gap.
I wanted to know more about Fitz. I needed to know more. He was the only thing keeping me from getting lost in the whitewashed walls and medical halls of the hospital where I was supposed to be confronting my core issues. Whatever.
It’s not like I was ready to eat that truffle anyway.
Two
Hours piled atop one another, two on three on four on five. After the first day, I felt a bit closer with the rest of the patients in the ward—except for Doug because I couldn’t believe anything he said—but I wasn’t any closer to understanding the new scheduling or the purposes behind those specific sessions.
Now the rules: bathrooms were locked and only allowed use upon request. Parents visited once a week for two hours on Sundays during Parent Visit time, though sometimes Dr. Riddle approved an extra “bonus” visit. And, I know, clever name—Parent Visit. No other contact or meetings with parents unless Dr. Riddle called them in for something specific—hint: usually not a good thing. Booties on feet at all times. Bedtime at ten, breakfast at seven.
No books except those approved by the therapists. No movies except those approved by the Treatment Team. Another clever title. And yes, I needed an entire team of doctors to help figure out why my OCD would not lay off my taxed mind.
Dr. Wall had been giving me new medications every few months, and I was certain Dr. Riddle was already trying the same thing but only with more resilience and speed. I hoped he’d have more luck.
You’re probably wondering about Fitz, too, like I was.
That first night, Fitz wrote me a note and slid it under my door, probably when he was on his way to use the bathroom.
Will you go to lunch with me tomorrow? Y/N.
Lame, I know. But it was also old-school and kind of fun. Childish, but charming. I mean, we had to make up for the lack of a freaking cell phone somehow, right?
I circled the “Y” and held on to the note so I could return it the next time we saw one another.
I didn’t see Fitz for a few days, though, because of all the annoying introductory stuff I had to wade through—a “welcome to the psych ward” talk from Tabor, and then I had to watch a series of training videos so that I’d be “qualified” to make lunch in the ward’s cafeteria. After a meeting with Dr. Riddle, of course. Yes, bussing tables had been my first job. No, those videos could never make cleaning up vomit and smashed kung pao chicken look like some dream job filled with endless happiness.
Dr. Riddle was a kind man. He had small, blue eyes and giant glasses and features too small for his large face. He had a massive white beard and wore that stupid doctor coat with pens in the breast pocket and his name stenciled in blue. My third day in the ward was our first real talk. He wanted me to “Get a feel for things,” as he put it, before having our first official meeting. Whatever. I was geared up for just about anything after meeting the cast of characters staying in the ward with me.
“How did you sleep, Addie?” said Dr. Riddle.
“Like a mental patient without a key to the bathroom,” I said, giving him a sarcastic, thin grin. I picked up the stress ball on his desk and sat back in my chair. I looked into the happy face of the stress ball and poked at the eyes with my thumbs.
“Any obsessive thoughts lately?”
“Tons. You know that.”
“And is being here making it better or worse?” he said, writing something down in that ridiculous manila folder that doctors—plural—seemed to carry everywhere. I’m sure he had more than one folder, but it was all the same to me.
“I can’t tell. Probably worse,” I said. “Actually, definitely worse. I don’t have as many distractions available to me. At home I could watch a show or read a book whenever I wanted. Or I could go on a walk with our dog or something. Here, I have too many meetings. I hate schedules.”
“I understand, Addie,” he said. “But lines have to be drawn if you want to get healthy.”
“I’m no artist, Doc. Besides, I feel like I’m way more put together than most the people in here, right?”
“You’re smart, Addie. In fact, you are incredibly high-functioning for such constant obsessive thoughts. But you still can’t get out the door in the morning in under an hour, can you? And what about bedtime rituals? I’m very selective about who I choose for inpatient treatment. I hope you know that I’m looking at your case from a far different medical and psychological perspective. I hope you’ll learn to trust me,” he said, nodding.
Dr. Riddle cleaned his glasses on his white coat, and I thought of how cliché that move was—but then, clichés have to come from somewhere, right? Whatever. I stared at his bookshelf and saw so many boring titles about gardening and architecture that I wanted to tell him to get a grip on what’s worth reading, but he filled the silence before I could.
“Your mother tells me you are interested in hearts,” said Doc.
“Yeah.”
“Why is that?”
“Not sure,” I said. “I mean, Dad died because he
had a big heart. I guess I’ve always been interested in hearts because of him. I don’t know. It’s not like he was around when I was growing up, so I guess I feel angry about it. But it’s not his fault, right?”
Cardiomyopathy. That’s the technical term. And yes, I was way into hearts, but I didn’t feel like talking about it with Dr. Riddle. Not yet, anyway. My dad’s heart had literally been too large and couldn’t maintain a normal rhythm. I wasn’t going to dive into that well with Doc.
“No, it’s not his fault. But it’s not yours, either,” he said.
Doc didn’t need to know that I counted my heartbeats all the time. He probably had that somewhere in his notes from my old doctor anyway. Some nights, at home, I would stay awake and read about hearts to try to distract myself from counting the beats. Other nights, the act of counting just made things worse. Those nights, I would make lists of things I wanted to know more about or research random facts about stuff I found interesting—astronomy, hearts, horse racing, you name it. And yes, that kept me up well beyond midnight most nights, which made my morning rituals even harder to push through.
I once ordered a book from the library about the whole horse-racing thing and found out that you really can’t get involved with that racket on the upper levels unless you are literally created from a pile of money. Seriously. Like, the money had to conceive you or you could not join that club. I knew I’d never have the fajillion dollars I needed to be in that world. Not like I cared too much.
But those hearts. After reading that book, I kept wondering about how much blood was pumped through those giant horses every second. I wondered what it would be like to press my head up against Secretariat’s chest after the Preakness stakes, to hold my hand against the heaving withers and just listen. Listen to that heart pound away, vibrating the very dirt from the tip of the crest down to the muddy hooves.
Have you ever thought about the size of your own heart? I have. I wonder if mine is big—not because cardiomyopathy is a genetic thing but because I wonder if I could ever be as loving as Mom or as caring as Doc. I wonder if my heart is big enough to house someone else or whatever. I wonder how many of the four billion heartbeats in my life will be used on other people, for other people.
I think Doc could tell I didn’t feel like engaging in a long conversation, so he handed me a sheet of paper. “Here’s the schedule for today. You need to start thinking about drawing lines and making decisions. I will be continuing the new medications and adding another today so we can try to beat this thing. And please give behavioral therapy an earnest effort. Please. Dr. Ramirez said last week you just made jokes about his mustache.”
“Have you seen that thing? Freaking caterpillar eating away at his lip, Doc. It’s like, number two on the definitive list of world’s greatest ’staches, right behind Tom Selleck. It’s so authoritative. Makes me nervous.”
“Seriously?”
“I don’t joke, Doc. You know that.”
He sighed and looked at the clock. I knew I could wear him down.
“Please give him your best effort, Addie.”
“I’d rather just act like Jackson Pollack and throw some paint on a canvas with no ostensible pattern in mind,” I said.
“And I’d rather not see you wreck your car, Jackson Pollock. So get to class and promise me we can continue this talk tomorrow morning. Sorry to keep you till lunch, but I had to run those tests to make sure we were getting started on the right medications.”
I was pretty surprised by Doc’s art knowledge. And I liked that he was willing to take me on—most people either walked away from me or ignored my comments or changed the subject. I rarely found someone willing to engage in conversation on the level I aimed for. He couldn’t maintain it, but maybe he was just in a hurry. At any rate, it helped me forget about my OCD for a brief moment, like a vista opening up on an otherwise foggy lifetime at sea.
The hallways were pretty empty. I saw one or two orderlies on their way to who-knew-where. Light was cutting through the windows in big, buttery slabs, and the white walls were tinted yellow in the warm afternoon sun. I heard the ding of elevators in the hall beyond the ward and imagined all the people moving through the building. The elevator made me think of the blue whale’s heart, the valves opening and closing like giant doors, the bodies in the hospital just blood cells on their way in or out.
I saw Fitz at the lunch table next to Doug. He hit Doug’s hat off his head and gave this real goofy smile. He was still wearing that stupid bandana.
I sat down next to him and pointed at his shirt that said Namaste in Tonight. “I like it. I’m gonna stay in tonight, too.”
“I got nowhere else to go!” he said in an excited tone. “Good to see you, Addie Foster. I was just telling Didi here that he didn’t actually invent a fifth corner of the earth. That’s not how maps work. Right, Didi?”
“I thought his name was Doug,” I said.
“It is,” said Doug. “But Fitz calls me Didi because it’s short for Did-it-all-Doug. I really have done a lot of cool stuff. My mom doesn’t believe a lot of it, but it’s true. Backstreet Boys!” He covered his mouth and got red in the face. “Sorry,” he said.
“Good job, Didi. That was one of your better ones,” said Fitz. He turned to me. “Didi shouts things he’s embarrassed about liking.”
“My doctor says it’ll train me to shout things that are acceptable instead of all the swears I used to scream. I hate it, but it is cleaner and all,” said Doug.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I get it. If the Backstreet Boys come on the radio, I don’t change the station. And those outfits they wear in front of that private jet? And those shades? C’mon. Have mercy!”
Didi smiled and ate some of the super bland chicken and rice on his tray. The food was always blah. Didi had this long blond hair that fell over his forehead, and these really bright blue eyes that reminded me of Duck, my Alaskan husky waiting for me at home. Yes, I named him Duck. I like the name. Don’t worry about it.
I felt like I was in elementary school, what with the colored trays and cardboard milk cartons and all. I half-expected to see the “Have You Seen Me?” on the back with a picture of a missing person—that person being me. I was gone. Lost in the world of the mind. I finished eating pretty quickly because I was eager to do something—anything. There was far too much sitting around. I stood to dump my tray in the trash and bumped into Junior.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t apologize. Makes people think you’re weak.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I got it,” said Junior, bending to pick up the cartons I’d spilled.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“You too,” he said. “Nice to have a new face here.” Then he nodded and walked off to clean his tray. He seemed nice enough, if a little unsure of his responses at times.
“So, Addie,” said Fitz, drawing my attention. “Want to visit the game room so I can school you in Boggle? We have a free hour before behavioral work. I’m done in the lunchroom and done being a juice-box hero.”
“It’s juke.”
“I’ve heard it both ways,” he said. “Just thought I’d give you the chance to lose to me.”
He smiled in a way that told me he was hopeful, then sighed in a way that told me he was also weary of the psych ward. I was aware he’d been there a few weeks longer than I had. At least that’s what I took from it.
Of course I agreed. I wasn’t a coward, and I had never lost in Boggle. Never.
The “game room” was more of a small reading nook with some giant beanbag chairs and a few small tables. There were cupboards filled with games and a pathetic row of books to read, if you were desperate. I worried I might become desperate, so made a mental note to let Mom know I needed her to get some books approved for me. Like, pronto.
Fitz and I sat across from each other at o
ne of the smaller tables and got out the game. He shook the cube, and the letters fell into place, clinking into their individual boxes. I looked in the box, then around the table, then under the table.
“What in the dickens,” I said. “No timer?”
“Dickens?” said Fitz.
“Something my mom says every now and then. Get over it.”
“Some kid broke the timer and ate the insides,” he said, matter-of-fact-like.
“What?”
“I’d say it’s depressing that he was trying to harm himself, but it kind of makes me laugh. The stuff in a timer? Really? That’s why we don’t have anything around with batteries in it.”
“I have to ask,” I said.
“No, you don’t,” said Fitz. “But I’d like you to. Go ahead.”
“You’re an obnoxious mansplainer! I can figure things out on my own, thank you.”
He laughed and put his piece of paper over the letters. He raised his eyebrows and gave me a look to let me know he was doing it so I wouldn’t cheat.
I realized I hadn’t been blinking as much since I bumped into him, and then I immediately felt self-conscious. The second I realized that my obsessive thoughts had quieted, I started in on them again. I started tapping my leg in sets of three and thinking about finding a bathroom to wash my hands and count my heartbeats. It made me angry.
“Why are you still here?” I said. “I mean, you seem incredibly alert and normal and functioning well. Except for your name. But otherwise. How long have you been here?”
“If this is your attempt at flirting, Addie, please go on. Tell me how well I’m functioning. Nothing gets me going like that.”
I punched him in the arm, and he laughed. I was wearing the same sweater as the day before but now with sweats and, of course, those stupid slip-resistant booties with the little grippy circles on the bottom. My hair was in a bun held together with a pen, as usual.
“I guess I’m just good at acting. Like you said yesterday.” He let out a heavier sigh than I was expecting. “And my name was given to me. I can’t change that I’m the fourth in line of a very abnormal and convict-laden Fitzgerald Whitman lineage.” He paused and leaned back in his seat. “I’ve been here for two years. My auditory hallucinations—a fancy way of saying the voices in my head, mind you—have been less frequent. Dr. Riddle has me on this cocktail of meds, and it’s the first time anything has remotely worked in . . . forever.”