by Amy Efaw
“All done,” the doctor says. “I’ll let you finish closing that up.”
“Okay,” she says, the word a squeak.
The doctor walks back to the desk, jots something down in the manila folder. Devon’s hands are shaking as she buttons the rest of her fly. Her fingers can barely manage it.
“You can sit up now, Devon. And put your shirt back on.”
She sits up. Her body is damp with sweat. She reaches for her sweatshirt, pulls it over her head. She wipes her forehead on her sleeve.
The doctor is sitting in the chair again with his hands folded in his lap and his legs crossed, watching her. “So, Devon, do you have any concerns about your health? Anything you’d like to discuss or ask?”
She swallows. He’s watching her, those dark eyes staring right at her, waiting for her answer.
Why is he looking at her like that? Does he know—suspect—something?
She glances at her mom, shifts around on the table. She feels like she should say something, he expects her to. “Well, uh”—she clears her throat—“I’ve been kind of tired lately. But it’s probably just because training is starting to ramp up—”
“Devon does extra practices in the fall with the boys her age at her soccer club,” her mom says. “In addition to her high school practices. She’s that good.”
The doctor nods. “That’s impressive, Devon. But are you more tired than you’d usually be during training, do you think?”
Devon shrugs.
He frowns slightly. “Anything else out of the ordinary you’ve noticed?”
Devon looks down at her hands.
“You did have a low-grade fever.” He checks the manila folder. “One hundred point three.”
Devon says nothing.
“Are you urinating more frequently?”
Devon looks up suddenly. “Yes,” she says, surprising herself. Then she presses her lips together. Why is she saying anything at all? She was just going to get a quick physical and get out of here.
“How much more frequently? About how many times a day, would you say?”
Devon feels her heart pick up again, feels the palms of her hands grow slick. She wipes them on her jeans. “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe . . . ten? Twelve? I don’t know.”
“Hmm,” the doctor says. “And for about how long have you noticed this going on?”
Devon swallows. This line of questioning makes her uneasy. “Since just before school started, maybe? So, about three weeks? It’s just, like, I have to go after almost every class, that’s all. But it’s not a big deal, really.”
The doctor turns to the manila folder, writes something down. Then he turns back around, watching Devon, thinking. “What about nausea? You’ve been feeling like throwing up lately?”
“She threw up this morning,” Devon’s mom says.
Devon glares over at her mom.
“But that’s only because I ate something bad last night,” Devon says quickly. “Some tuna, I think. Tuna salad. It’s been in the refrigerator a really long time.” Devon feels her eyes dart from the doctor’s face to her mom’s, then back to the doctor’s.
Devon sees the doctor shift his eyes then, toward Devon’s mom.
He looks back at Devon. He’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “You know, Devon, when young women get to be about your age—fourteen, fifteen, sixteen—they sometimes have personal issues they would like to discuss with their doctors. Questions they’d like to ask, issues they are worried about. And then there are a few personal questions their doctors may have for them.” He smiles then. “That’s sort of where we’re at in the exam right now. Some girls like to have this conversation privately with their doctor. Others don’t; they prefer to have a parent stay with them. It’s totally up to you, Devon. Whatever makes you feel most comfortable.” Then he waits, his dark eyes on Devon’s face, his hands still folded neatly in his lap, his legs crossed.
Devon glances at her mom. She doesn’t like either option; she’d rather just skip this part and go home. This wouldn’t be happening if she’d kept her mouth shut.
“What Dr. Katial means, Devon,” her mom says, “is I can step out for a minute if you want.” She smiles at the doctor then, plays with her hair. “You know, we moms . . . We make everything so complicated, don’t we?” She winks at him. “We’re so obnoxious.”
The doctor smiles at her. “Yes,” he says. “At times, yes.”
“Oh, so you think I’m obnoxious, huh?” Devon’s mom’s voice is higher, flirty. “That’s not nice, Dr. Katial.” She fake pouts. “Now you hurt my feelings.”
He gives a little laugh, his face a shade darker. “In my professional opinion, Ms. Davenport, your feelings will recover.” Then he turns his attention back on Devon.
“I—” Devon looks at the floor, wipes her hands on her jeans again. “Like, what kinds of questions?”
“More personal questions,” the doctor says steadily.
Devon looks up at him, looks at him straight in the face. She feels anger then, intense hostility. It came on suddenly, inexplicably, just like that. “I’m not having sex, if that’s what you want to know,” she says, her voice shaking. “And I know all about birth control. I’ve had Sex Ed in school, you know. I’m a sophomore . So save the lecture.” She crosses her arms, hugging herself at the waist. “I don’t have a boyfriend anyway—”
“No, she doesn’t,” Devon’s mom puts in quickly. “What’s the matter with you, Devon? You’re being very rude.”
“So, is that it, Doctor?” Devon asks, her body trembling.
“’Cause I’m missing school right now. And I have a geometry test to take.”
Dom is fiddling with her pen. Touching its tip to her yellow legal pad, then its clicker, then the tip again. “Okay, so then what happened?”
Devon shrugs. “He just kind of looked at me, said a bunch of stuff to smooth things over. Eventually, he said that he’d like to get a urine sample from me and see me back in about a week if I wasn’t feeling better.”
“Did he say why?”
“Because my fever and my throwing up and my peeing so much could all point to me maybe having some kind of infection or something. Urinary tract infection, I think he said. And he also wanted to make sure that nothing was going on with my electrolytes and . . . some other stuff. I forget what they’re called—”
“Glucose levels, probably,” Dom says. “Pretty standard tests.”
“Yeah . . . whatever. Anyway, he said that you can get a lot of information from a person’s urine. He said he wanted to rule out anything like diabetes. Stuff like that. I wasn’t really listening.”
“Okay, so you gave him that sample.”
“No.”
“No?” Dom leans forward. “Why not?”
Devon looks down at the tabletop, shrugs. “I couldn’t go.”
“Go?”
“To the bathroom. You know, pee?”
Dom frowns, leans back on her stool, her arms crossed. “Wait a minute, Devon. A girl who has to pee after every single class when she’s at school, several times a day, suddenly can’t go when her doctor asks her to in a cup?”
“He’s not my doctor.” Devon glares at Dom. “I just needed a sports physical. I never saw him before in my life, okay? And, plus, I’d just thrown up. Remember? I was probably dehydrated from that or something.”
“Uh-huh.” Dom eyes Devon suspiciously. “So, you’re telling me you took the cup, went to the bathroom, sat on the toilet, tried really really really hard, and—darn it all—you just couldn’t go. Not even one little drop.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“I’m not buying it, Devon.”
“What, you think I didn’t go on purpose?”
“Well.” Dom raises an eyebrow. “You tell me.”
Devon presses her lips together, says nothing.
“We’ll explore that later. So, moving on. What next?”
“Well—” Devon takes a second to collect herself. She’s all ratt
led inside. Why couldn’t she pee? She had tried, hadn’t she? Devon shakes her head, shoving the questions away. “So, anyway, the nurse told us to take the cup home and bring the sample back later. Like, the next day or something. She said we should keep it refrigerated until we brought it in.”
“And did you? Bring back the sample?”
Devon looks down at her hands. “No.”
“And why not?”
Devon says nothing, her eyes still on her hands. Why not? There was a reason, wasn’t there?
“Your mom knew about this, right? That they wanted a urine sample from you?”
“Yeah, she was still sitting there in the room with me, remember? Plus, on our way out, he—the doctor—saw us leaving and told us again to bring it back as soon as possible. So, yeah, she definitely knew.”
“Okay, so your mom understood that there was a possibility that you could have had a urinary tract infection or, even worse, something like diabetes, and she didn’t make sure they got that sample?”
Devon shrugs. “He wasn’t her type.”
“What?”
Devon looks up at her. “You know, the doctor? He wasn’t her type. He was too . . . refined. Had too much class. Was too smart. Basically, not a loser. I knew she’d never bother going back there just to bring in a cup of pee.”
chapter twelve
A rap on her door, not the usual lock snapping, is what pulls Devon out of her sleep this morning. Her eyes spring open, check above her head at the window slats. Gray light, thick like fog, hangs there in the corner of her cell. A thought drifts through Devon’s mind, Too early to wake up. Devon closes her eyes, throws an arm over them.
The rap again. Then the door scrapes open.
Devon sits up quickly. That staff person, Henrietta, stands in the opening. Devon can see the light from the common area bright behind her. Henrietta shields most of it.
“Time to wake up, okay?” Henrietta says. “Your lawyer wants to talk to you. People who say lawyers have it easy don’t know any who work here. Okay?”
Dom’s here? Again? It’s been less than twenty-four hours, and she’s back already. Devon bends to retrieve her rubber slides from the cubby under her bed. She won’t stand on the floor, even in her socks, without them.
“You’ll need this, okay?” Henrietta tosses Devon’s toiletry bag on the bed. “Your lawyer won’t appreciate morning breath hitting her from across the table.” She looks around the cell then, nodding to herself. Inspecting, as always.
Devon glances around, too. Everything is in its place. Henrietta will have nothing to correct, thankfully.
“Come out when you’re ready,” Henrietta says at last. “I’ll leave the door open. And don’t take forever, okay? Your lawyer has other things to do today than to just sit around waiting for you. Okay?”
“Okay.” Devon’s voice is scratchy from sleep.
“I’ll leave a note for the next shift, okay? So they’ll hold a tray back from breakfast for you. If you’re still with your lawyer by the time breakfast rolls around. Okay?”
“Okay, thank you.”
Henrietta turns, scraping the door behind her. Leaves a crack for an opening; a sliver of light falls in an arc upon the cement floor.
Devon picks up her bedding, folds it before stacking it at the foot of her bed. Takes her toiletry bag to the corner of her cell where the stainless steel sink and toilet are waiting.
Dom looks up at Devon when the door clanks shut. This morning, she’s wearing warm-ups. Devon notices Dom’s damp hair, her ponytail hanging limply. Salt residue marking her temples, along her hairline. Her flushed face.
“Good morning, Devon.” Dom smiles. “Sorry it’s so early. I was at the Y, working out”—she unzips her warm-up top—“running on the treadmill and thinking over what we talked about yesterday. I do my best thinking when I’m running. I guess my mind is free to put things together. Excuse the sweatiness, but I just wanted to talk to you while it’s all still fresh in my mind.”
Devon pushes herself off the door she’d been leaning against.
“So,” Dom says. “I have some questions. I hope you can help me out.”
Devon raises her hands straight above her head in a long stretch. Yawns. “I’ll try.”
“Great.” Dom pulls out her yellow legal pad and pen. “Let’s revisit that doctor’s appointment. The day you went to get your sports physical.”
From where she stands, Devon can see writing on the legal pad. Things circled. Notes scribbled in the margins. It makes her feel strange inside. She knows Dom takes notes, has watched her do it. But still. Dom’s been studying those notes, thinking them over. Generating more questions even while she’s exercising. Devon hates questions. Questions require answers, and answers require reflection. Probing. Remembering. Hard, exhausting work. She hugs herself, her hands cradling her elbows.
“Why don’t you sit down, Devon?” Dom opens her palm toward the stool across from her. “I don’t know how long this will take.”
Dom waits as Devon moves for the stool, sits down. “So, back to that doctor’s appointment,” Dom says. “Why do you think you reacted the way you did? When the doctor wanted to talk to you alone. To ask you more personal types of questions.”
Devon shrugs. “He was annoying me. He wanted to know stuff that wasn’t any of his business. And—”
“But you came to his office for an appointment, Devon. How is your health none of his business?”
“I was there for a sports physical. Nothing else. He didn’t need to know any of that other stuff.”
“What ‘other stuff’? What did you think he’d ask you when he got you alone?”
Devon shifts around on her stool. “I don’t know. He creeped me out, okay? I didn’t want to be alone with him.”
“But wait, Devon. Didn’t you tell me—” Dom flips through her yellow legal pad until she finds what she’s looking for. “Okay, didn’t you say, and I quote: ‘He wasn’t her’—meaning, your mom’s—‘type. He was too refined, had too much class, was too smart. Basically, not a loser.’” Dom looks up at Devon. “I mean, those actually sound like some pretty positive descriptions. Don’t you think? Creepy doesn’t seem to fit.”
Devon glances from Dom’s face to the legal pad. Dom takes down exact quotes? Devon brings a hand to her mouth, chews on her thumbnail. “So what? He was creepy. Okay?”
“And, anyway, didn’t he give you the option to have your mom stay in the room with you?” Dom looks down at her legal pad. “I think you mentioned that. . . .”
“Yeah. So what?”
“So, in that case you wouldn’t have had to be alone with him, Devon, that’s what. I’m thinking this excuse you’re giving me? It’s a bunch of crap.” She pauses. “If you get tried in adult court, that’s exactly what a jury will think, I can tell you that.”
Devon looks at her thumbnail, gnawed down to the quick. She picks at the cuticle. She really shouldn’t do this; a keeper’s hands are too important to chew up, bit by bit.
“Which leads me back to my previous question: what did you think he’d ask you when he got you alone?”
“Nothing. I didn’t think anything.”
“Oh, really? Then why did you freak out and—”
Devon glares at her. “I didn’t ‘freak out,’ Dom. I never ‘freak out.’”
“Devon, you told me yourself that you started yelling at him. About you not having sex, and that you knew all about birth control, et cetera.” Dom hesitates. “You know what that says to me? First, it says that you did, in fact, have an idea of what he might have asked you—questions involving sex. It also says that you were feeling very defensive about having to answer any such questions. Why else the attack? And, furthermore, you lied to him—”
“No, I didn’t! I wasn’t having sex, Dom.”
“Okay, fine. That may be technically true; you were not currently sexually active. At least, that’s the story you’re telling me.” Dom waits, lets the words stick.
“Maybe your words were meant to deceive,” Dom continues. “Maybe you wanted him to conclude that you’ve never been sexually active. You definitely wanted any further discussion of sex to end right then and there, that’s obvious. You were pretty frantic about it. Why? That’s what I’m trying to figure out here.”
Devon traces the ink heart with her index finger. “Because it’s embarrassing, talking about that stuff! To a man, especially. And I think that any other kid my age would feel the exact same way.” Devon flicks her eyes toward Dom. “I bet you felt the same way when you were my age!”
Dom watches Devon trace the ink stain over and over for a moment without saying anything. Then she shrugs. “Okay, point taken. But . . . you were wearing a sanitary napkin. Why? You weren’t having your period.”
“Because, I told you, it’s embarrassing. I didn’t want him looking . . . down there.”
“That’s it, huh?”
Devon looks over at Dom. “Plus, my mom suggested that I—”
“So, you’re the kind of girl who gets embarrassed easily, huh?” Dom raises an eyebrow. “So shy and innocent—”
“Yeah, maybe I am!” Devon jumps off her stool, starts pacing the room. “You think you’re so smart. You think you know everything. Well, you don’t know me!” She slams her back to the cinder block wall, hugs herself. “You know nothing about me. Not! A! Thing!”
Dom smacks the tabletop. “Okay, then tell me! If I’m missing something, Devon, fill me in! Because if I don’t know it, the judge at the hearing on Tuesday won’t know it. And the twelve people who may be sitting in the jury one day if this case goes to trial won’t know it, either. But they will know the facts. And right now, the facts are all against you. Shall I list them?”