by Beth Neff
Ellie reads the letter twice, too, but all she says when she is done is, “July twenty-fifth. That’s less than a week. Do you think I should call them right now?”
Donna shakes her head. “It’s up to you, but I think it would be better to give this a little time to sink in. You don’t even know what questions you want to ask until you’ve had a chance to think more about it. And we should tell Grace, too, before you do anything.”
Ellie closes her eyes then and slumps back in her chair as if the thought of telling Grace is worse than the news itself. “Oh, Donna. This is exactly the kind of thing that Grace has been afraid of.”
A look of irritation passes over Donna’s features, but she quickly composes herself, glances over at Lauren, and then sits down and pats Ellie’s hand. “Okay, yeah, but you don’t even know yet what ‘kind of thing’ this is. Don’t drive yourself crazy. There isn’t enough information here to come to any conclusions. You’ll talk it over with Grace and tomorrow, you’ll call.”
Ellie then glances at Lauren, too, nods. The two women are silent for a bit and then stand together, Donna saying, “Thanks for doing that, Lauren. I’ll be right back.”
Lauren barely acknowledges their departure. She is almost dancing from dish drainer to cupboard. She has always had total faith that she would be rescued from this place, and even though this isn’t quite how she imagined it, she is sure this must be it.
To pass the time and keep herself from going totally nuts, Lauren has invented all kinds of stories about how it would happen. She always starts with the image of her own father’s car driving up into the yard, and, in her imagination, Lauren is actually able to feel her legs pumping as she runs to it, the joy as she sees him step out, throwing herself into his arms. That picture is so flawed in so many ways that she rapidly abandons it. Then, it is a strange car, one she doesn’t recognize, but when the man, wearing a dress suit and carrying a briefcase, steps out, Lauren sees that it is her attorney. He is, of course, polite, maybe a little brisk, but he just tells Lauren to go get her bags packed while he stands in the yard talking to Ellie.
Lauren hasn’t been able to decide if Ellie protests, or if she would just stand there listening, nodding with her head lowered, an obvious sense of failure all over her face. Lauren’s story needs to have Ellie contrite, sorry she didn’t pay more attention to Lauren, apologetic and maybe even crying as Lauren climbs into the front seat of the car and they slowly back out of the drive. She also hasn’t settled on a good scenario for what happens with the other girls, if they are gathered around, maybe crying, too, or if they are just watching from the field or the house, jealous and unnerved that Lauren has been successful where they haven’t, that she has a life to go back to and they know, more than ever, that they don’t. In one image, she has herself hugging them good-bye. She can’t really quite picture that with Jenna or even Cassie, but she is able to imagine it with Sarah, and it seems somehow important to the story for her to be sad about something, for her to have someone, a reason, why the parting is tinged with sorrow.
Grace doesn’t fit in the picture at all nor, really, does Donna. They are minor characters in the plot, though Lauren does get some satisfaction from thinking about how Grace will react when she finds out. It has always been completely clear in her mind that, if anyone is destroyed, anything at all, it will be Ellie and her program. But Lauren really doesn’t care that much about what happens after she is gone. She just wants out.
Actually, she hasn’t given much thought to what happens to her when this is over either. Or, more accurately, when that thought enters her mind, she quickly sidesteps, as if it is something unappealing smashed on the sidewalk. Something has definitely changed, and she doesn’t like the feeling of it. A sensation she only knows to describe as squirminess attacks her limbs and muscles whenever she finds herself part of the group of girls—working together, playing ball or Frisbee just before dark, at the sessions. She hates the feeling, bats it away like she does when the smell of food makes her hungry. She tries to study them, note the details of their actions like scientific inquiry so she can convince herself of her own detachment. Still, the little intimacies that have developed between them, the shared jokes, the familiarity, are like pin pricks stabbing her skin.
It might not even be so bad if they could all at least agree on their disdain for the three women and the program, but the other girls have fallen hook, line, and sinker for that, too. She had some hope for Sarah originally, but now just sees her as a druggie, a weak personality whose motives are simply to get high. She’s had Jenna deciphered right from the start, but Cassie is way smarter than Lauren first gave her credit for and, while the biggest goody-goody on the planet, is seemingly forming some kind of weird friendship with Jenna, of all people. And now Cassie’s got this thing going with Ellie to get her baby back as if they are all part of some big, happy, ridiculous family.
Things are shifting, and Lauren doesn’t like it at all, not one bit. She’s exhausted, not only by the physical work but by the constant effort of keeping watch, resisting, preventing it all from pulling her right in with the rest of them. She wants to shout, “We’re prisoners here! Don’t you remember?” but they have all completely forgotten, it seems, why they had to come here in the first place.
But none of it matters now. Lauren doesn’t need any of them, and she certainly won’t spend another minute thinking about them when she gets home. She concentrates on what it will feel like to sleep late, have meals served without having to clean up after, long days spent doing exactly what she wants: catching up on her favorite TV shows, downloading music, tanning by the pool. And Jason. She just can’t imagine how happy and surprised he’ll be to see her. The squirmy feeling gets almost unbearable when she thinks of him, what he’ll do when he sees her walk into the room. That’s when Lauren knows for sure that the feeling is just her incredible restlessness about getting out of here.
The letter is the beginning. She’s sure of it. She just wishes she could have figured out a way to be the first to see the mail, but it never crossed her mind that the women might be alerted to what was happening before she was. She can’t tell if the fluttering in her stomach is from nerves or excitement. Now she has to wonder what the letter says, what action is being taken. Will she just be told that someone is coming to pick her up on such and such a day? Will they have to go to court, and, if so, will Lauren have to testify? Have the women already been told that Lauren has reported them? None of these questions occurred to her until now.
LAUREN IS IN the living room with the light off. She has got to get a look at that letter. She is waiting, hoping Ellie will go back to Donna’s room or go out to Grace’s cabin and leave the office door unlocked, though she is also afraid, if Ellie goes out to talk to Grace, that she’ll take the letter with her.
They tried to make the rest of the day seem normal, but it was obvious that Ellie was distracted, or worse. She spent the early evening in the office with the door closed and didn’t come to the dining room for supper until the rest of them had already started. Though she exclaimed over the stuffed zucchini, she then went silent, barely acknowledging the conversation around her. Lauren had kept her head down, didn’t want to alert the rest of the girls, though she figured they probably noticed that Ellie was quieter than usual. She tried to watch Ellie and Donna out of the corner of her eye, but they appeared to be avoiding eye contact. Lauren is sure Ellie didn’t tell Grace right away, wonders if she will or when, realizes that she doesn’t even know what there is to tell.
Grace went out to the garden again after supper, though no one seemed tempted to follow, including Jenna. Ellie had gone back into the office, and Donna said she had some stuff she needed to do in the kitchen so the girls had just lingered around the porch for a while, not really wanting to play Frisbee or soccer if Ellie and Donna weren’t going to play. They talked a bit about the chapter Ellie has been reading aloud fro
m The Hobbit as if discussing it might lure her out to read some more, but apparently Bilbo Baggins was going to be stuck in the elf dungeons of Mirkwood for at least another day. Jenna had gone out to ride her bike around for a bit, and Sarah and Cassie had each taken a couple of turns, but their hearts didn’t seem to be in it. Finally, they wandered back up to the house and, one by one, climbed the stairs to their rooms.
Lauren has almost fallen asleep when she sees the arc of light from the office sweep across the hallway, hears the front door open and shut. She jumps to the living room window and can see Ellie crossing the yard to Grace’s cabin, the white envelope clutched in one hand.
There’s nothing more she can do right now. She decides to go on upstairs where she’s pretty sure the rest of the girls are not asleep. Jenna’s and Sarah’s rooms are empty, but she hears voices coming from Cassie’s room, pauses just outside the door. The conversation stops, and she hears Cassie’s voice saying, “Lauren? You can come in.”
Lauren steps into the room and sees that the girls are all gathered on Cassie’s bed with a deck of cards between them, but they are not actually playing.
“Where were you?”
“What do you mean?”
Jenna doesn’t look at Lauren but she rolls her eyes. “Just what I said. Where were you before you come up here?”
“Downstairs. What does it matter to you?”
“I just wondered. With all your lurking around, did you hear anything?”
“I wasn’t ‘lurking.’ And hear anything about what?”
Cassie says, “Sit down, Lauren. I made room for you right here.”
Lauren hesitates and then moves forward to perch on the edge of the bed beside Cassie, keeping her feet on the floor. She hates this new, pseudo-confident Cassie, the way the girl almost acts like she has something over on Lauren when it should be the other way around.
Lauren asks, “Why? Is something going on?”
“That’s what we were going to ask you. Obviously, something is going on. Ellie is not acting normal, and Donna hardly said a word during supper either. Did you hear them talking about anything?”
Lauren shrugs. She says, “Why would I hear anything?” but has a sudden tremendous desire to tell them, to be the one who does actually know something. She wishes she knew more just so she could tease them with it. She shrugs again.
“I don’t know. They got something in the mail today that seemed to shake them up. I couldn’t see what it was.”
Jenna and Sarah exchange glances, and Cassie starts picking at the bedspread, her eyes wide and worried. Sarah turns to Lauren.
“What did they say about it?”
“Nothing really. Just that they didn’t have enough information to come to any conclusions. That Ellie is supposed to call somebody tomorrow.”
“You’re sure you didn’t see who it was from?”
Lauren considers lying, but she can’t think who she would say the letter is from since she doesn’t actually know the truth. Would it be from her father? Her attorney? It’s just too much speculation and she can’t quite put it together quickly enough.
She just answers, “No, I didn’t.”
“What were you doing downstairs?”
Lauren is starting to get uncomfortable now. She feels like they are ganging up on her, using her instead of the other way around, and she’s said too much already, given them all the information she has.
“Nothing! I was just reading. Is that against some other rule I haven’t heard about?”
Sarah reaches for the deck of cards. “Let’s just play. There’s nothing we can do right now anyway.”
Lauren stands up, ready to leave, waits for just a second to see if they will invite her to stay, walks to the open door and waits just a second longer, but nobody says any more to her so she goes out, shutting the door rather hard behind her.
AFTER LAUREN IS gone, Cassie gets up and opens the door, looks out, and closes it again. The card game is put aside.
“I think we should just ask Ellie,” Cassie says, crawling up farther onto the bed and tucking her legs underneath her.
“And say what? Tell her we know there was a letter and want to know what it’s about? Maybe it’s something private, something that doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
Cassie nods at Jenna’s words, but Sarah knows better. She can’t be sure what’s in the letter either, but she couldn’t be more convinced that it has something to do with Lauren, that this is the first symptom of the disease, some virulent rash or contagious pox that has been lying dormant, just ready to erupt. Sarah doesn’t know what she expected it to feel like when it happened but this isn’t it, not this sense of total loss, and not this uncomfortable awareness of how reliant they have all become on the women and their constant attention and positive attitudes. She is amazed to discover how hurt she feels, paralyzed by the internal battle between selfish fear of what is going to happen and how it might affect her personally and the nameless and elusive suspicion that she has never really deserved what she has been getting.
Sarah’s muddled thoughts are interrupted by Cassie’s quiet voice. “I think the thing Ellie, and Donna, too, is most concerned about is how things are affecting us. So, if it is something we need to know about, they’ll tell us. But”—and Cassie hesitates, traces her index finger over the design on the back of the playing card—“we could maybe show concern the way she would for us. Like, ask if she’s okay, offer to listen if she has something she needs to talk about. I mean, whatever is going on for them does concern us, not only if it has something to do with the program, but because we . . . because we care about them.” Cassie has raised her head and is looking at Jenna. For a moment, their eyes connect and then Jenna’s expression softens, a slight smile forming on her lips, and she nods.
“Should we go now? It’s not that late.”
Cassie looks tremendously relieved.
“Let’s wait until tomorrow. Maybe everything will be okay already, or maybe she’ll tell us on her own. I don’t think we should be too pushy about it.”
Sarah keeps her gaze down, watches her hands as they reach for the cards, absently shuffle them and lay them down again. She wishes she had Jenna’s and Cassie’s confidence, could snap her fingers and magic the tension and fear away as they seem to be doing. She glances first at Cassie, then at Jenna, envisions a great looming wall suddenly rising high and impenetrable around her, dividing her from the other girls, from the women, from the farm. She has never, in all her life, felt so alone.
FRIDAY, JULY 20
JENNA HAS KEPT HER EYE ON THE HOUSE EVER SINCE breakfast, waiting for Ellie to come out. She heard Ellie tell Grace she’d be out as soon as she’s done making a phone call. That was several hours ago. Jenna’s been tempted to go in and see if Ellie is still on the phone, but so far she has held herself back. She is willing Ellie to come out, to tell Donna or Grace what she has learned so that Jenna can see her face, watch her expression, know if everything is all right.
She hates picking cucumbers, hates the way they prickle her fingers, the tiny thorny hairs raising tiny welts on the insides of her wrists. Jenna has a passing temptation to throw a couple into the basket from where she stands several feet away but, instead, gathers them in a pouch she makes with her shirt so she can pick all she sees from this spot without moving her feet. She pauses for a second with her arms loaded, waits for the little surge of irritation to subside, realizes she’s not mad at the cucumbers, or certainly at Grace, though she does wonder a bit why Grace herself hasn’t gone up to check on Ellie.
Breakfast was no better than supper last night. Ellie was nervous, pushing her food around, seeming to want to catch Grace’s eye but having no success. Grace is different now, too. She has given them all their assignments but has gone off to do her own thing, Jenna isn’t sure what. Jenna doesn’t want
to acknowledge how severely unsettled she is by the sudden distance, by Grace’s complete failure to notice her, invite her to help with whatever she is doing, include her in the plans for the day. Jenna tells herself that it’s Friday. Grace is always distracted on Friday. She is willing to be convinced, momentarily, that it’s not a sign of anything, not a symptom of something Jenna has done wrong.
EVERYTHING IS OFF balance, out of kilter, her movements clumsy, her steps awkward, nearly clownish. It’s as if the coordination center in her brain has become scrambled, and when Jenna looks around her, the place she has spent months getting to know looks vaguely unfamiliar, the faces around her strange and even threatening. She keeps telling herself it’s just a letter, that people can be momentarily upset about something and then everything can return to normal, but she doesn’t believe it.
Last night’s concern for Ellie had felt noble, enlarging, and she had fallen asleep with a confidence in this newfound maturity, this ability to put her own anxieties aside for someone else. But this morning, with Grace’s attention so severely diverted, Jenna has started to unravel. All of her old suspicions have been awakened like temporarily out-of-favor courtiers, whispering among themselves, conniving to reestablish dominance over Jenna’s attention. Even her heart, which has not bothered her for weeks, seems to be pounding a little harder, a twinge of pain around the edges. She turns toward the back field to see if she can make out Grace’s head above the giant ragweed and tall stalks of goldenrod that line the creek but sees nothing, bends wearily to lift the basket of cucumbers and carry them to the shed.
Jenna has struggled a few steps with her heavy load when Sarah leaps over the bean row she is working on and grabs one side of the basket to help. Jenna tries to smile at her, but Sarah’s expression is serious, concerned.
“Um, are you okay?”
“Sure, why do you ask?”