Hunger Point

by Jillian Medoff

  Abby sighs loudly. “Boy, it’s hot in here.” With a flourish, she takes off her T-shirt. I roll my eyes as she arches her back, falls out of her leotard, and twirls a lock of hair around her finger. She winks at me, but the doctor doesn’t notice her. Frustrated, she puts the T-shirt back on.

  He gets out on Shelly’s floor, and we follow him to her ward, where he goes into an office and shuts the door. As I look for Shelly, I wave at a few of the girls that I recognize. Cynthia Balducci is coloring at a table.

  “Hi, Cynthia,” I say softly. “This is Abby.”

  When she looks up, her blond hair falls away from her face. “I know,” she says. “I haven’t been lobotomized.”

  I stare at her. Something is different. It takes me a few seconds to realize that the tubes are gone. Without them, she is beautiful; she has luminous hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. She’s also tall and willowy with long, sculptured legs and graceful hands that flutter around her face like pale baby birds. She nods listlessly as she moves the crayon back and forth.

  “Can I color with you?” Abby asks, sitting down next to Cynthia, who shrugs and pushes a piece of paper toward her. Abby picks up a crayon. I stare at them, amazed by Abby, suddenly grateful.

  “I guess I’ll find Shelly.” As I walk through the ward, I notice that it’s extremely quiet today. No one is walking around or playing cards. Two girls sit on the couch, mesmerized by the TV. The silence is eerie and feels like my parents’ house, ominous and depressing, weighted with the feeling of someone about to burst into tears. I wonder if something bad happened, or if all the girls’ moods synchronized, the way women’s periods do when they live together.

  The cut-out flowers are still pasted on the wall. The air conditioning blows from underneath and the flowers are lifted as if by wind. Staring at them, I accidentally bump into one of the girls. “Excuse me,” I say. “I didn’t see you.”

  “It’s okay,” a male voice says. “I kind of snuck up on you.” I look up to see that the voice belongs to the handsome doctor from the elevator.

  I run a hand over my hair. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  “No, it was my fault.” For a long second we smile at each other. I notice that his eyes are deep-set and black like melted tar. A moment passes between us, a very long moment, and I feel myself falling. Heat spreads through me, slow as honey, warm as wax, and I lose myself, not wanting to spoil the tension between us that is potent with movement held like a dare.

  Slowly, I exhale. Someone turns up the volume on the TV. A door slams, which makes me jump. The doctor looks up. “That came from out of nowhere,” he says, smiling.

  I say shyly, “I thought it was just me.”

  “No, it scared me, too.” He cranes his neck. “I wonder what they’re watching.”

  “I’m looking for my sister,” I say quickly, embarrassed that I’m flirting.

  “And I was looking for you. I’ve been through the ward twice trying to find you.”

  “Yeah, right,” I say, but I’m flattered. “You were looking for me. Right.”

  “I was. I wanted to talk to you before you saw Shelly. You’re her sister, aren’t you?”

  “Oh.” I’m quiet a second. “Yeah. I am.”

  “I could tell.” He rubs his fingers across his mouth. I watch, wondering what he looks like naked, naked and leaning over me. I flush with desire. Barely breathing, I suck my lower lip, aching for this guy. I have got to get out more. “They rarely let residents on this unit,” he is saying, “especially men, but they’re short-staffed this weekend.”

  I try not to look at him—he’s just too handsome. I always get apologetic around handsome men. I don’t mean to look like this, I want to say. And I do have another pair of breasts at home if these aren’t working for you.

  The doctor licks a lusty smile across his mouth. He leans forward. “There was an accident this morning,” he says quietly. His breath, warm on my neck, tickles. “Brought the whole ward down.”

  “Oh?” I panic. “It wasn’t Shelly, was it? I spoke to her last night. She seemed fine.”

  He shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t Shelly, but she isn’t having a good day. No one is. One of the girls tried to hurt herself. She was moved upstairs.” I must look scared because he puts a hand on my arm. “She’s all right,” he says. “But it shook up the ward, got everyone thinking. When you live here day to day, you forget what kind of hospital it is.”

  “I can’t imagine that.” I laugh nervously. “Seems to me you’d think about it all the time.” We stand for a second in an awkward silence. “I guess I’ll go find Shelly. I’ll cheer her up. She asked me to come. I mean, I always want to come, but she asked me to. We’re close. You know, sisters.”

  He smiles. “Look, I have to tell you—” His beeper goes off, which startles us both, him less than me. He holds up the beeper and squints at it.

  “What?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer immediately. Now he probably wants to tell me how to act around Shelly, that I shouldn’t antagonize her. Like I don’t know that. Well I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him patronize me just because he’s a handsome doctor.

  He leans forward. I have to strain to hear him. He smells like mint. “You have an intriguing mouth. I rarely see women with such a full lower lip.” And he turns away and leaves me standing with my mouth gaping open, mute.

  The lights are on in Shelly’s room. She’s sleeping, bundled under the covers as if lost in a snowbank. I breathe deeply and replay the doctor slowly rubbing his lips. I imagine him licking my neck, making butterfly kisses, trailing his fingers…I catch a distorted image of myself in the fake mirror. My cheeks are red and damp with perspiration.

  I brush a lock of Shelly’s hair from her cheek. It feels like cotton on my finger. Shelly stirs. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, “I shouldn’t be sleeping.” She rubs her eyes, which are glazed, either from too much sleep or from too much medication. “I’m really sorry. Have you been waiting long?” I tell her that it’s no big deal. “Did you pick up the file from Lonny’s office?” she asks.

  “Oh, Shelly, I didn’t have time. Shit, I forgot the magazines, too. I’m sorry.”

  She nods, but her eyes fill with tears. “It’s okay,” she says, turning over.

  “It’s not okay. I feel awful. I’ll pick up the file on my way home, I swear.” Shelly nods again. A tear slips out of her eye. “Shelly, I heard about the accident. You must be upset. Did you know her?”

  She shakes her head. “Not really.” We keep referring to it as an accident. Was it an accident that someone tried to hurt herself, or that she wasn’t successful at the attempt? I look around and ask about Bernadette.

  “She left,” Shelly says. She continues to cry and I ask her what’s wrong, but won’t tell me.

  “Please talk to me, Shelly. Please. I want to know.”

  She rolls over. “I can’t,” she whispers.

  “But you can. Just try.”

  “I just feel so sad. This place just makes me so sad. Everyone’s being so nice to me, and I’m still so fucked up. I feel so guilty I’m not happier or better or whatever I’m supposed to be.” She wraps her long legs around a pillow. They are still so thin, it pains me to look at them. “Frannie, I wish I were dead so I didn’t have to feel so ashamed of myself.”

  “Shelly, don’t say things like that. When you’re dead, you’re dead. You don’t get another chance. You have everything ahead of you. Mommy and Daddy are proud of you. You’re so smart—you’re going to Harvard Law School! How many people can say that?”

  She tenses up. “Law school doesn’t mean a fucking thing. If I was so smart, I wouldn’t be in here, would I? You guys don’t even know me.”

  “Of course we know you.” I hate when she says this. It makes me feel like there’s something I should be doing that I’m not; like if I made more of an effort, all this would go away. How else are we supposed to know her? I suddenly can’t stop thinking about t
he doctor’s black eyes. His sexy smile taunts me. You have the most intriguing mouth. What does intriguing mean? Maybe he said incredible. The most incredible mouth.

  She keeps talking, her voice far away, as if she’s forgotten about me. “It wouldn’t be so bad to be dead. It’s so exhausting to be here, thinking all the time, all the time. People don’t see me. No one sees me. It’s like being fat. No one takes you seriously. You just don’t exist—you’re so big, you’re not even there.”

  “But Shelly, you’re not fat anymore. Shelly”—I try to catch her eye—“look at me. You’re beautiful. You’ve always been beautiful.” You have the most incredible mouth. Such a full lower lip. I wish I could kiss you.

  Exasperated, Shelly sighs loudly, “Why don’t you listen? It’s not about being fat. It’s about being me. I don’t even know who I am. What I am. Oh, forget it. I just want you to know that if you were in here, I’d bring you magazines every day.”

  Abby walks in. “Thanks a lot, Frannie. You abandoned me with psycho Cindy. Hey, you.” She kisses Shelly, who sits up. “I come bearing gifts.” Abby pulls out Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and the new Vogue. I glare at Abby, who looks at me, bewildered.

  “Thanks, Abby.” Shelly smooths her hair.

  “So what’s up? How do you feel? My father keeps asking for you.”

  “He sent me those,” Shelly says proudly, pointing to a bouquet of flowers. “We’ve spoken a few times. I’m helping him out on the Pennington case. Did he tell you?”

  “We don’t discuss work that much.” Abby looks at me and I know she wants to change the subject. We’ve talked about this.

  “If you speak to him, will you tell him I’ve reviewed the limited partnership documents? And if he asks, tell him that it might not make sense for Pennington to retain the corporate structure he wants. Will you tell him for me? I’ve been trying to work on it”—she looks at her hands—“but they keep me busy. And Frannie didn’t pick up a file I needed.”

  “Shelly!” I interrupt. “You shouldn’t be working in here. You know that.”

  “Shelly,” Abby says, watching her, “Frannie’s right. It will be there when you get out.”

  Shelly’s mouth tightens. “I can work in here. They don’t care.” I can tell, by the way her eyes flicker, that she’s lying.

  I tell her I think it’s a bad idea, but Abby plops herself on Shelly’s bed and they start talking about lawyer bullshit, impressing each other with technical words. Occasionally, Shelly glances at me, but after a few minutes, I wander out.

  I see the doctor sitting at the front desk. I walk slowly toward him with my head bent. I’ll just make believe he didn’t say anything. He probably flirts all the time. He flips through a chart. I take a deep breath. “I saw Shelly,” I croak and quickly clear my throat, slow myself, start over. “She’s not doing so great.” He looks up at me and takes off his glasses. I move closer to him, but I’m careful not to look into his eyes. “I don’t know what to say to her,” I continue. “It’s difficult, you know, to find the right words.” He nods, but doesn’t speak, so I keep rambling. “I mean, I want to talk to her, but it seems like I always say the wrong thing”—Shit, would you SAY SOMETHING? Cut me off before I tell you how handsome you are and how lonely I am and—“I mean…” I look down. “I feel like she’s mad at me.”

  “She’s not mad at you. Most of the girls in here are mad at themselves. It’s a part of their pathology.”

  I look at him. “You know they are people,” I say sharply. “And she is my sister.” I turn to walk away.

  “Hey wait,” he calls softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. What I meant was that sometimes patients are angry and they lash out without meaning to—especially at the people they love the most.” He smiles. “I really am sorry. It’s been a bad day.”

  His eyes beckon like an abyss. I’m blinded, for a second, by their blackness. “It’s okay,” I say, softening. “You’re forgiven.” I smile. “I’m Frannie.”

  “I’m Bryan. Bryan Thompson.” He clears his throat. “The asshole resident.”

  “You’re not an asshole.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to say that.” He leans forward. “But if you want, you could get to know me. Shelly didn’t tell me how pretty you are.”

  My face burns. “Do you always flirt like this? It’s not very professional, you know.”

  He shakes his head.

  “I don’t believe you,” I tell him.

  “I don’t blame you,” he says, and grins at me.

  Abby comes walking toward us. “Frannie, something’s wrong with Shelly. She started crying and wouldn’t stop. I mean, she was hyperventilating. She yelled at me to get out. I’ve never seen her like this. I feel like I did something to upset her.”

  “What did you say to her?” I snap, turning to go.

  “I just told you I didn’t say anything. We were just talking.”

  Bryan grabs my arm. “Don’t go yet. Give her a moment to compose herself. I think everything that’s been going on is overwhelming for her. She was very close to the girl who hurt herself. It was Bernadette, her roommate.”

  “Bernadette? Why didn’t she tell me?” I look at Abby. “Did she tell you?”

  Abby nods. “Bernadette took thirty-four laxatives. Apparently, her heart stopped.”

  “It was actually dehydration,” Bryan interrupts.

  Abby looks at Bryan and smiles. “Who are you?”

  “Bryan is a resident,” I tell her. “He normally doesn’t work this floor, but he was on call.”

  “Well, Doc,” Abby says, adjusting her T-shirt to expose the crack of her cleavage. “What should we do?” I immediately hunch over, feeling frustrated, first at Abby for flirting, then at myself for getting annoyed.

  “Go in and say goodbye, but don’t mention her hysteria unless she wants to talk about it. And keep coming back. Even though she says she doesn’t want you here, she does. She just doesn’t want to ask.” He looks at me. “Come as often as you can, Frannie. Family is important. Especially now.” He eyes Abby’s chest. “You should put something warmer on,” he says to her. “There’s always a draft in here. I’d hate for you to catch something.”

  Abby turns away and Bryan leans over. “Maybe I’ll call you,” he murmurs, “to remind you that she wants you here.” He lifts his hand in a half-wave and walks into an office.

  Abby sneers. “What a fucking Rat Boy. And he kept staring at my tits, did you notice?”

  “Oh Abby, stop it. Let’s say goodbye to Shelly.”

  Shelly’s room is dark and we tiptoe in. I hear the hum of the air conditioner and her quiet breathing. “Shelly?” I whisper. “Shelly, are you up?” She doesn’t answer.

  “I’m sorry if I upset you,” Abby whispers, but Shelly still doesn’t respond.

  “I’ll call you later, Shelly,” I tell her. I want to say something comforting, something so she’ll know how much I care. I fumble for a second until I have the right words, and I bend over to speak, but I can’t quite reach them to say them aloud. Then, in a split second, they’re gone, like a dream that is lost in the twilight of sleep. And the only thing that fills the void is Bryan’s slow smile that he licks across his lips as if he can taste me.

  On the way home, Abby and I stop at a diner. “Shelly looks terrible,” she says.

  “Yeah, she does, but that doctor seemed to think she’ll get better. I hope he knows what he’s talking about.” I scan the menu. “What are you having?”

  “The fucking left side. Being in that hospital makes me want to eat everything in sight.” She shoves a roll into her mouth. As she talks, I can see the roll become pulp. “I’m getting tuna on a bagel.”

  “That’s not a snack, that’s a meal. Swallow,” I hiss at her as flecks of roll fly from her mouth like pieces of ash. Tuna sounds good. Maybe I should just have tuna. Or a turkey pot pie. I think about Bryan. Maybe just a small house salad.

  Our waiter clears his throat. “Frannie,
” Abby says, “the guy’s waiting.”

  “Give me a second.” The waiter tells me he can come back. “No, I’ll decide.” But what should I have? I think of Shelly’s toothpick legs wrapped around the pillow. The chili? Maybe a nice bowl of chili. A turkey sandwich? I look up at the waiter. “What should I have?”

  “How the hell should he know?” Abby screeches. “Order some fucking food, Frannie. We go through this every time.”

  “Hold on.” What about an omelette? Apple pie? I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know. “I’ll have a bagel…No, forget it, I’ll have the chopped steak dinner.”

  “The chopped steak dinner?! Are you from the fifties? What is wrong with you? Just order something normal!”

  “Forget it,” I tell the waiter, waving. “I’ll just have toast.” He stands a second. “Yeah, that’s it. Just toast.” I look at Abby as he walks away. “I couldn’t decide.”

  “Obviously,” she says. “Can you believe that shit about Bernadette?”

  “I know. Why is everyone so fucked up?”

  “Too many self-help books telling us how unfulfilled we are. Therapy has ruined our generation.” She picks at another roll. “My mom’s on my back to see someone. She says dating a married man is a sign that I have larger problems. Personally, I think she watches too many talk shows. Anyway, I told you I was breaking up with him and I am.” She looks up. “You want the bracelet?”

  I shake my head. “Don’t break up with him just because I said something.”

  “Believe it or not, I’m breaking up with him because I don’t love him.” She smiles. “See, I’m maturing. I’m evolving. I don’t need therapy.”

  As the waiter appears with our food, I ask Abby if she thinks I need therapy. In college, I went to the psych center. The counselor asked me questions from a pamphlet entitled Are You Depressed? that had a girl’s face shaded in blue on the cover. When he got to “Do you lack interest in sexual relations?” I walked out, confident his questions weren’t applicable to me.