The Elizas

by Sara Shepard

  “I can take a cab back to the resort to pick up my car. No biggie.”

  The nurse shakes her head. “No, dear, you can’t get behind the wheel. There’s too much medication in your system.”

  And just like that, we’re walking out to the parking lot toward Bill’s Porsche Panamera.

  My father died when I was very young—I barely remember him—but my mother was lucky to hook up with Bill thirteen years ago for this car alone. He opens the back door for me, and I sink into the leather seat in the back and shut my eyes, relaxed by the sudden growl of the engine. Who knows how my car will get home from the resort’s parking garage?

  Gabby slides into the backseat, too, her hands flat across her thighs. She gives me a sideways glance, grimaces slightly, and scrunches against her door. “I know, I know.” I gesture to the Lakers shirt. “They said they washed this stuff in Clorox, but they should have burned it.”

  Gabby’s smile flickers. “I guess it’s better than wearing the gown home.”

  “Totally,” I agree, because I think this is her idea of a joke, and I think she’s being kind, and I need her on my side.

  Bill inserts a paper card into the automated pay booth, and the barricade lifts. Soon enough, he turns onto the I-10. Drab desert sweeps by. We’ve got the SiriusXM business channel at a low volume. No one is talking. Clearly they want to; I can feel it in the air, crackling. Everyone would love to scream at me how it was a terrible idea for me to have checked myself out. It wafts off them like sweat.

  Gabby shifts next to me, and I sneak a peek at her. She’s typing furiously on her phone. “Whatcha doing?” I ask, as though we have conversations all the time.

  She flips the phone over, concealing the screen. “Um, just work stuff.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  She flinches, then slips the phone in her bag. “Not really.”

  She looks out the window, though there’s nothing to see. Gabby’s got a long face, a sloped nose, a shrub of light hair, and a turned-down mouth. I was nine when my mother met Bill. Not long after their first date, he and Gabby appeared at our house for dinner, and I had stared Gabby down. I’d been told she was my age, and that her mother had died of pneumonia. But with her pink-tinted, plastic-framed glasses and Shirley Temple curls, Gabby looked more like seven. She wore hard black shoes with thick soles that made her feet look large and cloddish. And there was something about her expression that reminded me of a big gray rain cloud. When I stomped my boot, she flinched.

  “You’re still at that infinity-scarf place, right?” I ask brightly now, as the car hits a pothole in the road. “What’s it called again?”

  Gabby stares at me for a moment, and I wonder, briefly, if I’ve made this up. Maybe she never worked for a company that makes scarves that cleverly hide headphones and neck braces and colostomy bags. It seems, all of a sudden, quite fantastical—and also sort of lame.

  But then she says, “Yes. I’m still there. The company’s called That’s A Wrap.”

  “And you took the day off to bring me home?” I squint. “That’s really nice of you. I really appreciate it.”

  Gabby flinches, and I wonder if she thinks I’m being sarcastic. It’s not like we’re the best of friends. So I give her a sweet, grateful smile. When she smiles back, her eyes are full of sadness. “We were worried,” she says softly.

  “She’s volunteered to take you to your follow-up appointment, too,” my mother adds.

  Gabby’s phone pings again. I try to look at the screen, but she tilts it in such a way that I can’t see what she’s typing. A car swishes past us; for a moment, someone in the backseat meets my gaze. I am struck, suddenly, with a blinding sense of fear. I breathe in sharply. The world recedes. My brain folds in two.

  When I come to, I see only my reflection in the window. My dark hair is shoved into a greasy ponytail. My bruise-colored eyes look bloodshot. My small, delicate features, normally moderately lovely without makeup, look bloodless and haggard. I glance around the car. Gabby stares at me nervously. My mother eyes me from the front, her lipstick halfway to her mouth. Have I said something? Done something? Made some sort of sound? The lane next to us is empty. There isn’t a car behind us or ahead of us for a quarter mile.

  I straighten up and pretend nothing has happened. I glance at my own phone, smiling secretly at the text I’d sent just before getting into the car . . . and at the response I’d received. Just you wait, I want to tell my family. I’m going to show you all.

  An hour later, my family pulls up to my rental, a 1920s bungalow in Burbank that’s not far from the Warner and Disney lots.

  “How about we come in with you?” Bill says as I yank open the back door and slide my legs out. “We’ll help you get settled. Get you into bed. Make you some dinner. I can do a good chicken noodle soup from a can.” He chuckles as if this is legitimately funny.

  “Thanks, but I’m fine,” I say, grabbing my mess of discharge papers.

  “Can I at least walk you to the door?”

  Instead, I let him give me a hug. Bill is a man who gives bear hugs: big, emphatic squeezes with a lot of grunts and wiggles. For a moment, it feels nice. My mother hugs me as well, though it feels obligatory, like she’s still upset. Her arms are stiff. I can feel the tension in her jaw. Gabby just touches my shoulder, giving me another gloomy half smile.

  “Call if you need anything!” Bill cries as I turn for the door.

  As I shuffle up the front walk, I stumble a little—some of the slate slabs are loose. On the second floor, another window shutter has cracked. The garage door is busted and therefore permanently up, revealing the nonfunctional steampunk copper car hammered out to look like a snail I bartered the landlord for instead of making him fix the roof. There’s a bill sitting on the welcome mat that reads Final Notice in red ink. It’s not because I don’t have the cash to pay it, I just keep forgetting. I’m not sure I should actually live on my own. For the first three months here, I neglected to activate the gas to power the oven. I twisted the oven’s knobs, thinking the thing would work eventually. I called the landlord to say the oven was broken only to have him come out, check things, and ridicule me for not understanding how basic utilities worked. It’s why I got roommates, I guess. Better to have other people handle those sorts of things.

  I give my family a halfhearted wave as they turn off the street. It’s a relief to be out of that car. If I had to sit in there with those unbelievers for another minute, I was afraid I’d scratch the skin off my arms.

  Stop staring. It’s that voice from the bar at the Tranquility again, and I cringe. I can’t tell if it’s male or female—it’s more of an androgynous hiss. Who said it? The same person who pushed me? A shiver wriggles down my spine. I glance over my shoulder, realizing the risks I’ve taken by leaving the hospital. I am out in the world, and I have an assailant. Maybe I shouldn’t be alone.

  Something shifts in the shadows by my door, and I let out a yelp. A figure stands backlit in the sun, his features blotted out. I freeze. My fingers lose their elasticity, hardening to talons. The figure clears his throat and raises an assuring hand. “Eliza Fontaine? Desmond Wells.”

  Desmond Wells. See, there are certain moments where my memory slips away from me, evasive and taunting, but there are other times where it’s as accurate as a photograph. Yesterday with Lance, despite the cocktail of drugs, despite my frustration, I remember perfectly. Every detail Lance gave me, every tiny shred of a clue I could cling to—it’s all there. Desmond Wells was one of those clues. My rescuer. The person who pulled me out of the pool. His was a name in all caps in Lance’s notebook. There was a phone number next to that name, its digits lining up so orderly in my brain.

  My name is Eliza Fontaine, I’d texted to that phone number on my newly returned phone. I think you helped me Saturday night at the Tranquility resort pool. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?

  Sure, he responded. I happen to be free today. I can meet you.

  Lance
might not be looking into what happened to me, but I sure as hell am.

  From The Dots

  Dot didn’t remember a lot about the start of her illness. There were the grinding headaches she complained of for weeks that made exploding nebulae flash in front of her face. She crumpled against walls, clutching her temples. There was also the blurred vision that doubled the number of Jack Skellingtons on the Nightmare Before Christmas DVD she couldn’t stop watching. One night, hopelessly dizzy, she tipped over while carrying her dinner plate to the table, carrots and chicken all over the floor in a vomitus mess. “There’s something wrong with me,” she said, finding herself on the floor, too.

  Her mother looked startled. “Do you need to go to the ER?” But Dot shook her head. She just wanted to lie in bed. She just wanted the room to stop spinning. Her mother climbed in with her, stroking Dot’s sweaty hair. But twenty minutes in, she checked her watch. “Honey, I’ve got to go to work now. I’m sorry.” She worked as a dental assistant, peering all day at people’s teeth and gums.

  “You have to work today?” Dot groaned.

  “That’s how we eat. I’m your sole support.” Long ago, Dot’s father had passed away. Dot barely had any memory of him except for a kind-eyed man handing her a plastic egg from a grocery store gum machine and saying, “Dottie, there’s a surprise inside.” She couldn’t recall what the surprise had been.

  “How is it that Aunt Dorothy doesn’t have to work, then?” Dot asked.

  Her mother slid out from under the covers. Her expression hardened. “She’s in a different boat than us.”

  “Can you see if she’ll come over?”

  “I guess,” her mother said, reluctantly.

  Dot told Dorothy about her mother always having to work. Dorothy sighed. “You know, your mother doesn’t realize that time with a child is so fleeting. Money isn’t everything. Work isn’t everything. If I were to do it all over again with Thomas, I wouldn’t have spent a moment on Riders of Carrowae. I would have devoted all my time to him. I would have watched him while he slept. I would have never taken my eyes off him. Maybe he would have lived. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough.”

  Thomas. Dot always held her breath when her aunt mentioned her dead son. He had died a few years before Dot was born, so Dot had never known him. Dorothy carried around a photo of him, though, a little blond boy in a baseball cap clutching a toy train. Apparently Thomas was a peculiar, moody child, prone to wild fits and severe bouts of melancholy that no medication could fix. At ten years old, Thomas had found a handgun Dorothy kept in the house as protection after her husband died. Thomas figured out how to load it and turned it on himself.

  Dot knew Dorothy still thought of Thomas constantly. Her aunt kept some of his clothes and toys in a closet in her bungalow—she showed Dot the box once, though she said never to look inside. Dot wondered if Thomas had said anything prophetic to Dorothy before he passed on. And where did children go when they died? Heaven? Was there a kid version? She wondered if Dorothy had seen him die, and if she’d sat with his body for some time afterward, soaking up its blood, watching it grow cold and stiff. Dot would have.

  Dot didn’t remember the epic seizure that had her knocking against the wall in the middle of the night, waking her mother in her room next door. Nor did she remember the ride to the hospital and the nurses whisking her back immediately. Nor did she remember the slide into the long tube that clanked and bonked, though she knew it must have been one of the first things that happened—it was the way the doctors searched for dark trouble. There must have been a conversation, too, where a doctor explained the mass they’d found in her head. The mass was pressing on a critical part of Dot’s brain; they would have to operate immediately. Dot would likely survive, the doctor told Dot’s mother, but the post-op recovery could be very hard on a child, so they had to be ready for that.

  The next thing Dot remembered, she was waking up on a little bed with curtains pulled tightly around it. The air was cold, and she was alone. Her head was wrapped in bandages. Her body felt too heavy, like she’d gained a hundred pounds. Outside the curtain, she heard beeps. Someone was gagging. Her last memory had been going to sleep in her bed; she’d had a dream about Wednesday Addams, whom she idolized. Sometimes she wrote Wednesday Addams on the line for her name on tests. But where was she now? She stared in horror at a needle taped to the back of her hand. It fed into a tube, which led to a bag on a post. She wanted to pull the needle out, but something told her not to—that it would hurt even worse.

  A figure parted the curtain. “Mommy?” Dot cried. It was a nurse in bear-print scrubs. “Your mother will be back,” she said.

  Tears spilled down Dot’s cheeks. She felt scared. Why wasn’t her mother here?

  A few minutes later, the curtain to her little bed parted, and Dorothy burst through. She wore a beautiful silk wrap dress, but the ties of its belt trailed behind her, unfastened. A slash of lipstick sloppily decorated her mouth; her Chanel purse bumped against her hip, its clasp undone. She reached toward Dot and pulled her to her chest; Dot smelled her Dorothy scent, orange blossoms and Indian bunchgrass. “My girl,” she said, cradling Dot’s head close. “My sweet, sweet girl. I’m here now.”

  Dot nuzzled her nose against the soft, smooth skin of Dorothy’s neck. Her aunt’s pulse was so calm—usually, it chugged swiftly and industriously, like a giant nineteenth-century machine. She stroked Dot’s hair. “We’re going to beat this. I’ll be here, always. I’ll help.”

  And she was. And she did.

  ELIZA

  BLINDED BY THE sun, I am granted a few blissful seconds of imagining—daydreaming—what Desmond Wells must look like. Rugged, wavy hair, olive skin, and squinty eyes with baked-in crow’s feet. A rough-looking sort of fellow; the human version of a pickup truck, but sensitive, too, the kind of man who shyly brags about the yield from the fig tree in his backyard. Big hands, big muscles, a man who is strong enough to pick up a girl and spin her around on his pinkie. Not normally the type of guy I go for, but definitely the sort of person fit to pull me out of a pool.

  Then he steps out of the direct sun. “Eliza,” he says in a tenor tone. “Hello.”

  He’s no taller than I am, with thick black hair that’s cut in a pageboy at his chin. His eyebrows are woolly, and his nose ends at a comical point. There is something oily about his complexion, and he has a puzzling configuration of facial hair on his upper lip and chin. He looks like Guy Fawkes. He’s wearing an Oxford shirt and a tapestry vest. His shoes are very shiny and narrow. His arms look thin. I can’t imagine this person skimming a pool for bugs, let alone pulling a person from it.

  My shoulders droop. It isn’t fair to be disappointed. Maybe I should have suspected this sort of person, since the text message response I’d gotten from him included a Game of Thrones–themed gif.

  “H-hi,” I say tentatively. “Thanks for coming.”

  Another awkward pause. I can feel him looking at me. I feel grimy and puffy from my hospital stay, and the Lakers shirt reeks of sweat.

  “Anyway,” I say, leading him toward the back of the house. I’m not sure I want to let him inside. I’m funny about letting in people I don’t know, especially people who look like this guy. “Let’s talk in the back.”

  The backyard has a natural water stream and a guesthouse so small it can barely fit a bed. There’s also a shed out back that can hold two horses. When I moved in, I heard a cacophony of whinnies, and the air smelled like manure. Who knew people in Burbank kept horses? I don’t have any, but there is one mare down the road that I like to visit—Beauty. She always pokes her nose out of her stall when she hears me coming, as if she knows my scent. Her eyes are so dark and limitless. She seems like she could keep a secret. There are times when I press my face to her muzzle and just stand there for a few moments, hoping no one will come around the bend and catch us.

  The patio has a lot of dead plants and a nonworking fountain that’s full of sticks and seedpods. I grab an empty Zywiec po
rter beer bottle that was resting atop one of the lounge chairs and throw it into a spongy bush. Desmond narrows his eyes at the miniature carousel wedged between the guesthouse and the wall. I found it on eBay; it’s a replica of an Allan Herschell from the 1950s, except it’s got psychotic zebras, a pissed-off looking swan, and a lion without a head.

  “That’s quite a piece,” he says with what seems like true admiration.

  “Thanks. It works, if you want to ride on it. The song it plays sounds like ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.’ ”

  His chuckle is a half-avuncular, half-creepy heh heh heh. His gaze drifts to the papier-mâché rat sculpture I’d bought at a flea market. The rainbow rodent is smoking a joint and giving the finger. “Same to you, my friend,” he says to it, elaborately bowing. I try not to grimace.

  “So!” I say impatiently. “Thanks for coming.”

  I offer my hand to shake. His hand is calloused, and his grip is stronger than I expect. “Charmed,” he says, holding my gaze. “I feel like I already know you.”

  “Well, you pulled me out of the water. So I guess you sort of do.”

  There’s a flicker of something across his face. “Actually, milady, that’s not what I mean.”

  My eyes narrow on the paisley brocade on his vest. He’s got an amulet around his neck that looks like the same ones this shaman I once visited in the desert, post-tumor, was selling in his gift shop. There is a crawling feeling up my spine, and I recall the residual sense of fear I experienced just before dropping into the water at the Tranquility. Maybe it was a bad idea to invite him here. I glance around the high walls that surround my house from everyone else’s. It’s hard to know if anyone is home in this neighborhood. The houses are smashed together, but they’re eerily quiet and sequestered.

  “Um, explain?” I ask, trying not to let my voice shake.

  He looks sheepish. “I happen to know you’re an author. I even requested a copy of your book.”