by Proehl, Bob
“You’re helping,” she says, but there’s a weariness in her voice. He can’t tell if it’s exhaustion or if she’s gotten tired of telling him how important he is, how special.
* * *
—
The elevator delivers a load of students into the lobby. Upperclassmen leave during lunch and free periods. The stores and fast-food spots along Lexington fill up with Resonant kids trying to look cool. They pack the Magnolia Bakery in Bloomingdale’s on Third, floating cupcakes across the room over the heads of the patrons. They binge on Skittles and gummies at Dylan’s Candy Bar, making their insides transparent so their friends can see the rainbow-colored boluses as they slide down their throats. Avi’s interviewed some of the local business owners. They’re split on the issue. Some think the kids are good for business. They bring in gawkers, tourists who spend money. Others have been thinking of ways to ban the kids but can’t come up with language that doesn’t sound racist. “I don’t let people bring guns into my shop,” the manager of a nearby Chipotle told Avi. “But I have to let in these kids who could blow my place up by thinking about it?”
After the teenage flood comes Emmeline. She spots Avi and continues toward him without increasing her pace. When she was little and he’d pick her up from school, Avi would watch the other kids sprint into their parents’ arms while Emmeline moseyed, confident that Avi would be there when she got to him. When she does, she throws her arms around his waist.
“Hi, Dad,” she says. “Nice suit.”
“Hey, Leener,” says Avi. “You hungry?” Avi feels her nod against his rib cage. He releases her and puts out a hand for her to hold, noticing her quick glance around the lobby before she takes it. “I was thinking that Indian place over on 53rd.”
“That sounds great,” she says. “I have to sign out.” She walks over to the desk and talks to Shen, who looks over at Avi, nods, and hands Emmeline a clipboard. When she returns, she takes Avi’s hand, more confident this time. They’ve barely started down Lexington when a man rushes at them, brandishing a microphone. He’s breathless from chasing down every other student who’s come out the doors.
“Excuse me, miss, excuse me, miss,” he says. “I’m with the Kindred Network. I have a couple of questions.”
“Leave us alone,” Avi says, walking past him. The man follows along.
“You’re the guy from television,” he says, pointing and snapping his fingers as if he’s had a brilliant idea. “The Rezzie lover. Miss, miss, are you his daughter? Have you psychically controlled this man to get him to support your radical cause?”
Avi tries to speed up, but he’s slow on his cane and there’s only so fast Emmeline can walk. The man dogs them, poking Avi in the back with the microphone. There’s a flicker, a glitch in Avi’s vision, and they’re ten feet ahead of where they’d been. Avi looks at Emmeline, who looks as surprised as he is. Maybe this is her ability, some kind of superspeed, and she’s discovering it only now. How amazing it would be if we could find out together, Avi thinks. When she was a baby and he had nothing to fill his time but staring at her, he imagined a lifetime of shared victories. Standing ovations for bravura theater performances and whooping cheers at game-winning goals. The taut thrill of opening college admissions responses and finding acceptance letters within. This one hadn’t been imaginable to him then, but it seems right that when her ability made itself known, they should share it. He is about to ask her if this is it when despite the jump forward, the man catches up with them and puts a hand on Emmeline’s shoulder.
“Miss, what do you say to people who no longer feel safe in Manhattan due to the presence of your kind?”
Avi stops, takes his cane in both hands, and gives the man a small but solid shove. “You need to leave us alone,” he says.
“Just walking down the street,” says the man. He holds out his hands defensively. “We could grab lunch and talk.” He points the microphone at Emmeline. “It talks, right?”
Avi pushes past him, dragging Emmeline by the hand and heading back for Bishop. Shen waits for them outside the door.
“You,” he says to the reporter. “I told you a hundred feet back.”
“That’s around the block,” says the man. “By then I can’t tell which are the normal kids and which are the freaks.”
“Step back to a hundred feet or I’ll throw you back,” Shen says.
“Why don’t you let me inside?” says the man. “Let me grill a couple of—”
Shen leans back on his heels and grows. Watching it happen is like seeing a camera zoom in on an object; Shen expands in all directions at the same time until he looms over the reporter, blocking the width of the sidewalk and shielding Avi and Emmeline.
“Next time I see you is the last time you get seen,” he says. His voice is wheezy now, like that of an emphysema patient. It would be funny if he weren’t huge and terrifying. The reporter puts his microphone in his bag and walks away, slowly at first but speeding up as soon as dignity allows.
Shen returns to normal size. “Come on back in,” he says. “He’ll be waiting around the corner to pounce at you.”
“We can eat in the cafeteria,” Emmeline says.
“Sounds great, Leener,” says Avi. He wants to grab Emmeline and make a run for it, away from the academy, away from the reporters and this city and everyone else with their ridiculous abilities. Instead he follows her into the elevator, their hands at their sides, almost touching.
* * *
—
After sharing burgers with Emmeline in the noisy scrum of the cafeteria, Avi calls Kimani to pick him up. He texts to let Kay know they’re coming, but she looks shocked when Avi opens the door through the wall of the conference room in the Lewis and Clark County courthouse. In the hallway, people press against the windows to see what’s happened, watching Avi as if he’s a strange visitor arriving from another planet. If he’s being honest with himself, part of the reason he travels with Kimani is to make an entrance. It’s a watered-down version of the thrill they must get now, being seen, the methadone equivalent of the full rush. They owe him this, at least.
“This shit doesn’t help,” Kay says, packing papers into her bag. “I’m trying to play down the weird factor, and you’ve got to teleport in.” She nods at Kimani through the doorway. She’s practicing as Kay Washington, having reverted to her maiden name in professional situations. Avi wonders if that’s how she thinks of herself, the name she refers to herself by when she’s alone with her thoughts.
“I came from the school,” he says. “I had lunch with Emmeline.”
Kay winces. “I’m going to miss our lunch this week,” she says.
“Kimani could take you,” Avi says, but when he turns around, the door is already gone.
“I’ll make it up to her,” Kay says. She clicks the clasp of her bag shut. “You look goofy in that suit.”
“Emmeline said I looked nice,” he says, although he can’t remember her actually saying it.
“Emmeline is nine. So is this for the book or just another article?”
“Both,” Avi says. Kay nods. He told her about the book deal right away, on a reflex. He can’t imagine a time she’s not the first person he shares good news with. She said it was fine as long as she and Emmeline weren’t in it. “You look nice.”
Kay ignores him. “You can’t walk in with me; it’s bad optics. She’s in custody, which already starts us out looking bad. I’m going to try to intercept the bailiffs and get them to let me walk her in.”
“You going to win this?” he asks.
“I have no idea anymore,” she says. Her hand goes to her forehead, and Avi thinks he’s supposed to cross the room and hold her but doesn’t. “Last month I had a deportation case. It felt like coming home. A woman who was teleporting over the Mexican border to work. Still lived in Juarez. Her argument was that she never actually crossed the border. Just showed
up on the other side. Next week, I’m contesting an eviction notice on a single mom whose kid can all of a sudden talk to cats. This is the first case I’ve had with a white client.”
“Change of pace,” says Avi. Kay gives him a look he’s well familiar with. It’s the one that tells him he’s said something powerfully stupid.
“Everyone else I’ve represented was someone who was already hated,” Kay says. “If they weren’t coming after them for this, it’d be for something else. If they have time and energy to come after nice white ladies? It means they’ve learned to hate these people just for what they are, without some value-added hatred. It’s become worth hating all on its own.”
* * *
—
There is something angelic about Janet Goulding, whose real name is Janine Coupland. The papers back home call her the Angel of Montgomery. Avi wonders if Janet’s ability seeps out of her like radiation. If by being around her, people are healed. He hopes this comes across to the jury. That like him, they can’t help but feel better around Janet. He hopes this makes a difference.
“I’m saying this for the last time,” Kay tells her. “I think this is a bad idea.” With Kay’s permission, Avi is seated right behind them, privy to their conversation.
“I know, sweetheart,” Janet says. When she says it, it comes across as two distinct words. Sweet. Heart.
“I think it’s better if you don’t mention the dice,” Kay says. “If you can avoid mentioning them.”
“I’m going to answer his questions,” Janet says. “I’m going to tell the truth.”
“Of course tell the truth,” says Kay. “But you can decide what parts of it. They will hang you on the dice.”
The prosecutor calls Janet to the stand. He calls her Janine because that’s her given name, the one she’s being tried under, if not the one she prefers. It’s who she was when she lived here, in Helena, Montana. Kay tried to get the case moved to Montgomery, where Janet is literally worshipped. There are altars to her in the hospital parking lot. Before she was arrested and extradited to Montana, people made pilgrimages to Montgomery to see her. They brought their children before her, their elderly mothers and their dying fathers, all of them like offerings. She sent them away well and alive, and they thanked her. They called her saint, and they called her angel.
Here in Montana, Janet is on trial for manslaughter.
“Can you please state your name and profession,” says the prosecutor. He’s burly, the way Avi imagines they breed them in Montana. He looks as if he’d be more comfortable in flannel and Carhartt than the off-the-rack suit he’s in. He’s a good guy from what Avi can tell. On the phone, he told Avi he’d rather not be doing this. It could have been an I’d rather be fishing type of line. Avi took it as sincere regret that it was his job to try to put Janet in jail.
“Dr. Janine Coupland,” says Janet. “I’m a surgeon at Montgomery General in Alabama. Before that, I was employed as a surgeon at St. Peter’s here in Helena.”
“When did you leave St. Peter’s?”
“Three years ago,” she says.
“And you changed your name at that time.”
“Yes, I changed my name to Janet Goulding,” Janet says.
“Why did you leave Helena and change your name?”
“People had discovered my ability.”
“You are a Resonant. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been…that way?”
“I believe I was born that way. But my ability manifested when I was fourteen.”
“And what is your ability?”
Kay stands up. “Objection,” she says. “Janet, you don’t have to answer that.”
Before the judge can speak, Janet turns to him and says, “No, I’m comfortable answering the question.” She looks back at the prosecutor warmly, as if he’s paid her a compliment. “I’m a healer.”
“Can you explain what that means?”
“The body wants to be well,” Janet says. “It wants to be whole and functioning. Sometimes things get in the way of that. Cancer. Viruses. Bullets. My ability lets me help a person’s body get back to the state it wants. I can guide it. Speed it along.”
“Can you give an example?”
“Do you have a knife?” The prosecutor pauses, flummoxed. “I lived in Helena for years,” Janet says. “Every man I knew carried a pocket knife.”
“Your honor,” Kay says, “I’d like a moment to speak with my client.”
“It’s fine, sweetheart,” Janet says. Sweet. Heart. She looks at the prosecutor. “You can trust me.”
He pulls out his key chain, which has a Swiss Army knife the size of a nail clipper attached. He passes it to Janet.
“Give me your hand,” she says, flicking the blade open. The prosecutor holds out his hand, and she takes it as if reading his palm. With a deliberate motion, she traces a line across it with the tip of the knife. The jury gasps. The prosecutor doesn’t flinch. Janet sets the knife down on the rail. A thin line of blood wells up along the cut. She places her hand over his and closes her eyes. Then she lifts her hand and wipes away the blood with her thumb. There is no cut, only an expanse of calloused skin. The prosecutor holds his healed hand up for the jury to see.
The case should be dismissed right now, Avi thinks. Miracles are admissible.
“Thank you,” the prosecutor says, stammering. He turns away from her, rubbing his palm with his thumb. “Now, Doctor, is it true that in your last year of practice you haven’t lost a single patient?”
“That’s true,” says Janet. She wipes the blood on the hem of her shirt.
“But you’ve lost patients before?”
“Yes.”
“Have you gotten better at using this ability?”
“I have,” she says. “But that’s not what’s made the difference.”
This is what Kay wanted to avoid. There was a simple line of defense, which was for Janet to say that back then she couldn’t work her ability as well, and as a result some people died. Same as they would have if she’d been an ordinary doctor. Ordinary doctors lose patients all the time and don’t get arrested for it. The important thing is to make Janet seem less special. The knife trick didn’t help.
“What has made the difference?” the prosecutor asks.
“Early on, I worried about getting caught,” Janet says. “A doctor with a perfect record attracts attention. My colleagues already talked about me like I was supernatural. If everyone who came to me lived, every single patient, they’d know something was different about me.”
“Something is different about you.”
“Yes,” says Janet. “As I said, I’m a Resonant. I can say that now. I couldn’t then.”
“You were hiding your ability,” says the prosecutor.
“Not hiding,” Janet says. “If I was hiding it, I wouldn’t have healed anyone. Or I would have, but only with my training as a doctor. That’s a kind of ability as well, I think.”
“Not the same kind of ability,” says the prosecutor.
Tell him it is, Avi thinks. Tell him it’s exactly the same as being a good doctor. Some people can figure a tip in their head, some people can fucking juggle. You can knit bones back together with your brain. It’s all the same thing. Tell him.
“No,” Janet says. “I suppose it isn’t.”
“So there were patients you healed with your ability and patients you didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“How did you decide?”
“Who I healed and who I didn’t?”
“Yes.”
“I rolled dice.”
“Dice,” he says. He revels in the word, feels it roll around in his mouth. It tastes like chance, like gambling. He knows it’ll sound that way to the jury. He’s not the schlub Avi assumed he was. Kay kee
ps her face still, but she must see the way the jury looks at Janet. A minute ago she was a miracle worker, Montgomery’s Angel. Now she’s a capricious god, rolling dice to decide the fate of mortals like them.
“A sixty-six percent success rate beyond whatever I could do normally as a surgeon seemed safe,” Janet says. “Low enough not to attract attention. I carried a die in my pocket. Before I went into surgery, I’d excuse myself and roll. As long as it didn’t come up three or four, I’d use my ability to heal the patient. Even if it meant bringing them back from the brink of death.”
“And if the dice came up three or four?”
“I’d do everything within my power as a doctor,” Janet says.
“Except you wouldn’t,” the prosecutor says. “Because your power as a doctor was different from other doctors. You had this extra ability. Choosing not to use it, wouldn’t that be like operating with your eyes closed or with your nondominant hand? Just to see if you could?”
“I didn’t do it for a challenge,” Janet says, angry, offended for the first time. A little late now, Avi thinks.
“No, you did it to keep your secret,” says the prosecutor. “Doctor, do you remember Donald Morena?”
Janet looks down at her hands. “Yes.”
“What do you remember about him?”
“On the evening of May 13, Donald Morena came into the St. Peter’s emergency room with a gunshot wound to the head.” She points to a spot above her left eye. “The bullet had not exited the skull and had become lodged within the occipital lobe.” She pats the back of her head. “I operated to remove the bullet, but Mr. Morena died during the surgery.”
“Did you roll the dice for Donald Morena?” the prosecutor asks.
“I did.”
“What number did Donald Morena get?”
“A four.”
“And that’s why Donald Morena died.”
“He died because someone shot him in the head,” Janet says.
“But you could have saved him,” says the prosecutor.
“Yes.”