by Shana Festa
I got up to leave when the clock chimed, signaling my appointment with a career counselor, and said goodbye to Tom.
"Hey, Tom?" I added before walking back to the house.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think you could help me with Daphne a bit? She's a good dog, but she's stubborn, and her lack of obedience has gotten us into some hot water."
"Sure," he said. "No problem. We'll come up with a plan over breakfast tomorrow."
"Thanks!"
* * *
Meg and I entered the reception hall as the seventh chime of the clock rang out. Jake was seated on a sofa and looked up at hearing my boots echo on the parquet flooring.
"Where have you been?" I asked.
"Out."
His snippy, one-word reply instantly raised my hackles again, and my anger and frustration returned. I swallowed my bitchy retort when someone else joined us in the room. The woman from dinner, the one who sat by Mack's side and wore the frilly blouse and skirt suit, pulled up a chair and motioned for us to sit.
"Hey, y'all," she greeted us in a thick, and most likely forced, southern accent. "My name's Jocinda, assistant to the secretary." She drew out the latter half of her name and put an annoying twang into it.
The tart, yes she was most definitely a tart, tucked an imaginary piece of hair behind her ear and looked at us expectantly. I returned her look, waiting for her to continue. She was also waiting for something, though I had no idea what it was. Her brightly-polished nails tapped away at a clipboard resting on her lap.
Jocinda looked to be in her late-twenties, maybe early-thirties, but I doubted it. Her bleached blond hair was done up in a bun so tight that it pulled the corner of her eyes up, giving her a feline appearance. She sat at the very edge of her seat with her back straight, like a proper lady. However, she wore too much makeup, which dispelled any misconceptions that she was a proper anything. Her cream silk blouse was pulled taught against her ample chest, and I'd put money on those perky boobies being bought and paid for by our illustrious president.
"And you are?" she finally prompted us. Ah, that was it, she wanted us to be civilized people and be socially acceptable. Boy did she have another thing coming.
Jake introduced himself first, and then he gestured to Meg and me, giving Jocinda our names. I wanted to puke in my mouth at the way she fawned all over my husband. He was eating every bit of it up, too, which pissed me off even more than I already was.
Jocinda looked down at her clipboard, and I saw that it was the form Michele had filled out during our initial examination. "This is excellent!" She exclaimed. "Jake, we've got just the job for you. How would you like to join our security team?"
"Sure," he said, as if we didn't know that was coming already. Military and medical professions were the highest demanded professions. I was curious, though, to see how Meg's degree in psych could be put to use.
The tart answered that question next. "Now, Meg, I'm sorry, but we don't have anything that matches your skill set. The only thing I've got for you is kitchen or cleanup. Both of those are highly important positions, considering the number of people we cater to here at Asylum. Do you have a preference?"
Meg didn't look pleased at being relegated to servitude, but she didn't suffer from the same antagonistic personality issues that I did. She thought about it, and finally decided, "I think I'd prefer cleanup."
"Good for you," Jocinda praised in a patronizing tone.
"Okay, Emily, let's see what we've got for you."
"It's Emma," I snapped.
"Oh, goodness, how rude of me. You're absolutely right; it says Emma right here." She tapped her hot-pink talon down on the clipboard again, and I rolled my eyes, waiting for her to point me in the direction of the medical staff.
"It looks like I can offer you the same options as Meg," she said.
"Huh?" My mouth hung open in confusion. "There must be a mistake. I'm a registered nurse." Okay, so it was a little fib. I didn't technically have a nursing license, so I wasn't registered, but close enough.
"Yup, I see that. So which would you prefer?"
"Uh, nursing, please," I replied. What was this chick's malfunction? Had all the blond hair dye seeped into her brain?
"Yeah," she said, "I'm sorry, sweetie. We just don't have anything available in the medical team. But I'll definitely keep you in mind should anything open up. Should I put you down for cleanup then?" Her pen was poised over the clipboard awaiting my answer.
"Fine, whatever." Asylum officially sucked ass. "Are we done?"
"Almost," she replied. "Dr. Chen just needs to administer a tetanus shot to Meg, and then we'll be all set."
At the mention of his name, Dr. Chen strode into the room with a syringe in hand. He drew the liquid from the vial and, without a word, swabbed Meg's upper arm and jabbed her with the needle.
"Now, we're done." And with that, she left the room with Dr. Chen in tow.
* * *
More than anything else, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. I held back my outburst because, once again, we were in a place with zero privacy, and I didn't want to look like a crazy woman. I stalked into the kitchen with Daphne under one arm and grabbed a cereal bowl from the recently washed stack of dishes, then clomped loudly up the stairs. I ran out of steam at the first landing and had to drag my tired body up the remaining floors before getting to our bedroom; a closet.
Before getting comfortable, I filled the bowl with tap water and set it beside my bed for Daphne. Resting my head in my hands, I heard her lapping at the water greedily until she let out a belch. I was so mad that I couldn't even muster a chuckle, and instead robotically refilled the bowl and set it back down after closing the door to the closet.
I heard the mumble of voices as Meg and Jake walked into the bedroom. Just the sound of his voice was enough to raise my blood pressure. Not only was I still infuriated with him over our earlier fight, but I was unreasonably jealous and pissed that he was awarded a job appropriate for his skills while I was relegated to mopping and dusting.
When the door to the closet opened I was armed and ready, and Jake got a face full of pillow. I was not in the mood to share a confined space with him.
"What the—" he responded as the pillow hit him right in the kisser.
"Fuck off!" I snapped, and pulled the door shut again. "Find another room!" I shouted through the wood.
"Fine!"
I did a belly flop onto the bed and kicked at the mattress with my feet. Finding the other pillow, I shoved my face into it and screamed until my voice was hoarse. When the tantrum passed, I rolled over and grunted. Daphne jumped up onto the bed and crawled her way to my face and just stared at me.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm a head case,"
She cocked her head to one side and just looked at me with her little grape eyes.
"How would you feel?" I asked the dog, who responded by swiping at her face with one paw and covering her eyes.
"I know. Right?" In my head, she was completely agreeing with me. Jake was an asshole, Asylum sucked, and Jake was still an asshole. My dog totally had my back.
"Come here." I put my hands out and she climbed up onto my chest and rested her head below my chin. I breathed in her scent, relaxing, and my eyes grew heavy as I stared at the rainbows reflected in the crystal chandelier over my head.
Chapter 20: It's in the Rules
"Emma!" I heard Jasper bellow out enthusiastically.
I had been hanging damp sheets over the clothesline in a grassy area on the quiet side of the mansion all morning. Tom graciously took Daphne off my hands and was hopefully working his magic on her. Every once in a while I snuck around to the back courtyard to make sure she was okay. My worries were without merit, of course, and Tom, Boss, and Daphne were perfectly safe.
Jasper was like a talisman; whenever I was around him, the stress of life melted away and was replaced with a feeling of contentment. I waved to him as he jogged across the lawn. His size made him slow, an
d it reminded me of a Chris Farley Baywatch parody; the beginning scene where the girl runs on the beach in slow motion. Except instead of bouncing boobs, Jasper's big belly jiggled. I couldn't help but smile.
"What's up, buttercup?" I greeted him.
He giggled at the colloquialism and bent to catch his breath.
"Easy there, big guy, you don't want to run out of juice this early in the day," I tousled his hair and immediately remembered Striker doing the same the last time I saw him.
Jasper's face went stricken and he paled. "We ran out of juice? Oh, geez, I hope it's not the red stuff. I love the red stuff."
Laughing, I tried to explain the term to him. "Not that kind of juice, cutie. I meant you needed to save your energy."
"Oh, okay. You scared me. I don't know what I would do if there was no more juice. You're funny, Emma. I like you." He looked relieved that the juice situation was under control. For a brief moment I marveled at the slow man. What would life be like if my biggest worry was the juice running out?
"I like you, too, sweetie. You and me, we're gonna be great friends."
"But not best friends. Striker is my bestest friend. You can be my second bestest!" he clarified in a serious tone.
There it was, the perfect opening I'd been looking for. I sat on the grass, crossing my legs Indian style, and patted the spot next to me for him to sit.
"I guess I can live with that. I don't want to come between you and your best friend," I said. "How did you meet Striker?"
Jasper clapped his hands together, and his face lit up at the prospect of telling me a story. He leaned closer to me, like he was going to tell me a secret, and told me how he came to meet the gruff man.
"I was cleaning up around the banyan trees. Did you know they use banyan trees for those little bonsai trees sometimes? Like in that movie, The Karate Kid." He stopped talking and waited for me to answer his question.
"I didn't know that," I replied.
"Yeah, so, um, I forgot what I was saying," he gave me an embarrassed look.
"You were cleaning the banyan trees," I prompted.
Jasper giggled. "No, silly, I wasn't cleaning the trees! I was clearing the ground around the trees." He rolled his eyes at me like I'd said something insane. "The banyan trees are one of the biggest tourist attractions here. People love to look at them because they're so beautiful. Sometimes I have picnics under them during lunch. Maybe you and me can have a picnic there someday. You can bring Jake, and Meg, and even Daphne!"
"That's sounds fun. We will definitely make that happen." I did my best to hide my frustration. Jasper was all over the place. This conversation was going to be an exercise in patience for me. "So, you were saying that you were cleaning up around the banyan trees. What happened next?" Inside I was screaming, move on!
"Oh, yeah. So, I was cleaning around the trees," he said.
"Mmm-hmm?" I urged. Third time's a charm; come on lucky three! Please, Jesus, let us get past this sentence.
"And I heard loud trucks and then people shouting. So I ran over to see what happened, and I saw the mostest cars I ever seen in front of the mansion before, like ten! They don't let people drive real cars in the compound. Well, except for Jimmy. He's my boss, and he gets to drive his pickup truck around because he's the boss, and he makes the rules. But I think he went on vacation, because he hasn't come to work in a while. He always talked about going to the Bahamas. I bet he's there right now!"
Jasper was unable to make the mental leap to Jimmy's likely demise, but I wasn't going to be the one to shatter his reality. As far as I was concerned, Jimmy was sunning himself on a tropical island somewhere sipping margaritas.
"Have you ever been to the circus?" he asked me.
Confused by his question, I was certain he'd run the conversation right off the tracks again, and sighed. "A long time ago," I admitted, and waited to see where his random thought took us next.
"It was like when all those clowns keep coming out of the little car. I don't know how they fit all those clowns in there. They just kept coming out and they had lots of guns."
"The clowns?" Jeez, what kind of circus was he remembering?
"No! Why would clowns have guns?" Jasper shook his head at me, like I was the slow one. "The people getting out of all the cars. They had guns. They were scary guys, and they ran around pointing their guns and yelling at everyone." He leaned in close to me and whispered in my face. His breath was so bad that I had to fight not to gag and lean away. "I did a number one in my pants when they yelled at me."
I stifled my laugh and had to bite my lips so I wouldn't smile. It wasn't that I thought it was funny that he pissed himself, but the way he divulged the information made me want to laugh. I knew, though, that he wouldn't understand that, and I would offend him if I did. "I'm sorry they scared you, Jasper."
"And then, it got really loud, and really windy. I thought I was gonna blow away! The helichopper landed right over there!" He was really excited, nearly bouncing, as he told me about the helicopter. This time, I did smile when he flubbed the word. Helichopper: I liked it.
"Who was in it?" I asked, finding myself engrossed in the story. The bird hadn't moved from its spot on the grass a few hundred yards away since we had arrived, and every time I looked at it, I was taken back to Target. A lifetime ago in my memory, when Adam, Seth, and the others I'd cared about were still alive. Things had changed so much since then, and not in a good way. The memory always reminded me that safety didn't exist, and if I got complacent, I'd pay dearly.
"Mack, and Miss Jocinda, and more men with guns, and the driver." His face contorted at the mention of Jocinda's name like he smelled something stinky. It was good to know I wasn't the only one who thought she was a vapid cow.
"A lot of the men ran to Mack when he got out and protected him when he ran inside the mansion. They made us all go inside, too. I peeked through the windows and they were guarding the gates. Mack said he was the new boss, and we had to do what he said if we wanted to stay. I don't want to leave, so I follow the rules."
"You do a great job, Jasper. They're lucky to have you." My heart ached for this simple man.
"That's what Striker said, too!"
Hooray for the segue, I thought. Was Striker one of those guys with the guns?" I asked him, capitalizing on the opportunity to move the story along.
"No, no, no. Striker and Miss Lola came later." He paused, deep in concentration. "I'm no good with dates, and I have trouble with time. I don't know when they got here, but I know it wasn't the same day as Mack."
"That's okay, sweetie. It's not important. Who is Miss Lola?"
Jasper leaned over and slid a crinkled Polaroid from his back pocket. He thrust the photo at me and scooted closer to point out the people. The first two, I recognized easily. Jasper stood between a man and a woman wearing the same big smile he'd given me earlier. His mouth was pulled back, no doubt making the E sound of cheese at the photographer's behest. To his left stood a version of Striker I'd never met. The stranger smiled back at the camera and looked as if he'd been caught laughing at a joke. His muscular arm was draped over Jasper's shoulders and his fingers were raised to look like bunny ears.
My mouth hung open. This was not the same man I had just spent time with. He didn't look hard or gruff, or at all like the asshole I knew him to be. On further inspection I noticed he wore the same black V-neck tee shirt and khaki cargo pants as the jocks who patrolled Asylum.
"Jasper," I asked, "was Striker one of the guards?"
"Yup, he was the best guard! He said I could stay when they told me I had to leave because I was stupid. He said he'd watch out for me and make sure I didn't get into trouble. I'm not stupid. I'm not!" He said the words with conviction, and I believed him. I didn't think he was stupid in the least. "Sometimes I just have trouble making sense of things. My mom said it was because when she went to the hospital, and I was being born, I got stuck on the rope that kept me inside her belly and couldn't breathe! I'm not stupid. My
momma says I'm her miracle."
A lump had formed in my throat and fought against my words. "I agree. You aren't stupid at all, and I'm glad Striker was your friend. You're a good friend to have."
Jasper beamed with pride at the compliment and settled back into story mode. "That," he pointed to the woman with dark blond hair that stood on the other side of himself, "is Miss Lola, Striker's wife."
I felt like I'd taken a kick to the gut. Striker had a wife, and knowing that made things so much clearer. I almost couldn't bring myself to ask my next question, because I already knew the answer.
"Where is Miss Lola now, honey?"
Jasper's jowls drooped like a basset hound when he frowned, and he peered over the photo when he spoke. "Miss Lola got real sick and they took her away."
"Who did?" I asked him, my interest piqued.
"The doctors. And Striker got real mad when they wouldn't let him see her. He banged super hard on the basement door until his hand started to bleed and yelled at them to let him in. He used real bad words, too."
"What's in the basement, Jasper?"
"I dunno. I'm not allowed in the basement. It's in the rules, and I have to follow the rules if I want to live here."
This basement was sounding a lot more intriguing the more I heard about it.
"Then we had the bonfire. I like the bonfires. They make the air hot and are pretty colors. But I don't like how stinky the bad people make them."
"I don't think I'd like that either."
"And then," he said, cupping his hands over my ears and whispering, "Striker cried. Cuz they told him Miss Lola was one of the bad people in the fire. But Miss Lola wasn't bad; she was nice to me, and she gave me lots of hugs."
When he pulled away, I tried to nonchalantly wipe his spittle off my ear. Inside my gross-out meter was topping the charts. I hated anything that came from the mouth; vomit, spit, chewed up food. Just thinking about it made me want to run screaming into the shower.