The Elizas

by Sara Shepard

  “They’re good,” Posey told me. “You really should read one.” But I’m not sure I’m brave enough yet.

  Desmond is in the shower, preparing for work, and while I’m staring at my phone, wondering if I can do it, Stefan lumbers into the living room with his JanSport backpack and his jug of milk. I have been told that this week he is working as a production assistant on a cable-channel zombie show, though other weeks he works in lighting or sound or even at the commissary, making tacos. Stefan doesn’t limit himself to Hollywood stuff, either, Desmond explained. Last year, he took a job as a trumpet player on a cruise ship and was gone for six months. Before that, he aided a veterinarian who specialized in giant, exotic, illegal Hollywood pets, like white Bengal tigers. Some big-time director had a rhinoceros in his backyard, and Stefan helped it give birth.

  Stefan plops down on the couch opposite me and pushes his dirty water–colored hair behind his ear. “You’re nice,” he says, looking at me carefully.

  I give him a guarded half smile and glance toward the shower door, hoping Desmond finishes up soon. “Thanks.”

  “No, I’m serious. My brother’s a fucking freak. We all know it. He knows it. But you’re nice. You seem to get him. You’re way nicer than Paul.”

  Paul. I know that name; after a moment I remember why. “Paul, the guy from work?” The guy who was there when I drowned.

  “Paul’s a girl. It’s short for Paula.” Stefan peers into his backpack, gives me a mysterious look, rearranges something in there, then zips it up. “They had a thing for a while. Des took it hard when it ended. He seems better now.” Then he stands and shoulders the backpack. His feet are dinosaur-heavy as he plods toward the door, and before he steps into the hall, he jabs his finger toward my forehead. “So don’t wound him, okay? I’ll have to hurt you.”

  The door closes, and I stare at the God’s-eye someone has hung on the knob. I feel slimy and sour, like Stefan has coated milk on my face. Is it because Paul, my co-rescuer, is a girl—and Desmond’s ex? Hadn’t Desmond deliberately hinted that Paul was a guy, though? Does he still see Paul? Do they work together? I curse Desmond for not having a cell phone. It’s so hard to spy on him.

  I stop myself mid-thought. I’m being dramatic. Creating problems where there aren’t any. So what if Desmond lied about Paul? He didn’t want me to assume he was attached. And Stefan was giving me a compliment, as backhanded as it was: I have cured Desmond of his misery. I understand Desmond, and that’s something to be celebrated.

  Of course, worrying like this doesn’t mean I love Desmond. Not yet. But maybe I will, eventually. We’re on our way to becoming two peas in a pod. We are on our way to finishing each other’s sentences.

  Now where have I heard that before?

  • • •

  It’s MRI day, finally. I feel like I’ve been waiting for years. I need someone to accompany me in case I have a bad reaction from the injectable dye, but I can’t imagine asking anyone in my family. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of admitting I, too, believe I’m sick again. I’m not sure they even know that I know the truth about the pool; I doubt Gabby had the balls to tell them. Really, I should call my mother and tell her what I know and that I’m never speaking to her again—for a lot of reasons. But maybe it’s not worth it. She’ll just say they lied for my own good. And she’ll have an explanation for the incident in the parking lot, too—she’ll say she was trying to protect me. She’ll say whatever bullshit she needs to.

  I want to bring Desmond to the appointment, but it’s crunch time at the convention and he can’t take the time off. So I ask Kiki. I have to tell her everything, all the truths I’ve kept hidden, and I expect her to panic, but instead, she receives it with calm. “It fills in some holes,” she tells me. “Now I understand why you’re you. Now I understand why you don’t remember going to yoga.”

  “I didn’t go to yoga that time,” I argue with her, but then stop myself. Maybe I did go to yoga. Maybe it didn’t matter that I didn’t remember.

  We meet at my house before the appointment. The inside seems unfamiliar when I walk in, and then I realize why: it’s clean. There isn’t any dust on the Theremin. The baseboards don’t have a layer of grime. The place no longer smells like a dying horse.

  Kiki’s in the kitchen drinking a glass of lemonade. She’s in the same rainbow skirt she wore when we met at the writing group, and her hair is tied back with a yellow ribbon. She looks scrubbed, young.

  “I had three Elsa parties yesterday,” she then grumbles, sinking into a seat at the table. “It’s been a nightmare.” Then she peers at me. “It’s lonely without you in the house!”

  “I didn’t mean to stay away this long,” I tell her. I would like to offer for Desmond to stay here, but the idea of him having a run-in with Steadman nauseates me. It’s bad enough I’ve had to cross paths with him four times at the curiosities shop. Kiki doesn’t ask why we haven’t come to the house, either. She probably knows.

  “So what’s Desmond like?” Kiki leans forward, fluttering her lashes. “He’s so handsome.”

  My mouth drops open. “You think?”

  “Of course. Don’t you? He’s so . . . swashbuckling. Definitely a step up from Leonidas.”

  “Leonidas wasn’t that bad,” I mumble, not that I really know. Thinking about him still freaks me out—I don’t like that there are so many blank spaces in my memory about him, but I’ve decided to think it’s a minor blip, a boyfriend obliterated by lack of brain function. I have to believe Leonidas is a good person, a person who worries about me, just like Gabby. I hate, though, that he was in on the who-pushed-Eliza ruse. I still get the crawling feeling that they’re all snickering behind my back, or else covertly filling out the forms to send me to the Oaks.

  “But Desmond is . . .” I search for adjectives for Kiki, and all at once there are too few and too many. “. . . lovely.” I tell her about his role at the convention and his place in Westwood. I describe the dates we’ve been on, real dates where he shows up with flowers and holds the door for me. I thought I wouldn’t be into that sort of thing, but it’s quite charming. “He even bought me a gift,” I say. “A nineteenth-century baby carriage and two of the scariest kewpie dolls you’ve ever seen.”

  Kiki grins. “Classic!” Then she leans closer. “That said, you need to hold on to him. You need to be careful.”

  I frown. “How so?”

  She fiddles with her straw. “Don’t go out as much.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She studies me carefully. “Steadman saw you at this club he likes. Kosmos, I think? You were talking to some guy.”

  I give her a crooked, incredulous smile. “That’s impossible.”

  “That’s what I said, but he was sure it was you. Just watch it, okay? He said Kosmos has this website where they take pictures of the crowd. Don’t get snapped in one. I’d hate for Desmond to find out.”

  “Kiki. There’s nothing to find out. I haven’t been to any of those places.”

  Kiki looks at me carefully. I can tell what she’s thinking. How do you really know, Eliza, if you can’t remember everything else? But I have a witness. Desmond can vouch for where I’ve been every night, because every night I’ve been with him. Except for the few nights when he’s had a conference emergency, but even then I’d hung back at the apartment and watched TV. A doorman could corroborate my whereabouts. Or Stefan. Right?

  At the imaging center, an assistant smiles at me and hands me a form to fill out. I list that a year ago, I’d been at UCLA for surgery. I list my doctor, Dr. Forney, and his address and phone. Kiki checks her phone while we wait; after its battery dies, we pass the time by watching Rachael Ray force her guest, some actress I’ve never heard of, make duck ragout with her. There’s a lot of fake laughter that makes me feel jittery.

  They call my name, and I walk through the door and into a long hall. In a small room, I change into a gown and lie down on the table. They start the IV of dye, which w
arms my body slightly but otherwise feels like nothing. After a few minutes, I’m led into another room where they slide me into the long, dark, metal tube, the walls closing around me. I wince at the ear-splitting sounds of machinery and play Beethoven’s Ninth loudly in my head. The lyrics and melody of a 311 song I may have listened to with Leonidas come back to me in a rush, and I let the whole thing play out, realizing I know every word. I feel an itch coming on, and I’m about to scratch it, when I hear a voice: Don’t scratch. They’ll be mad at you. They’ll sequester you to the ICU for this.

  My eyes open wide inside the tube. The clicking sounds of the MRI machinery rush back, loud and urgent, as though I’ve woken from a dream. The ICU. But I was never there. Dot was, as a child. So why was the memory so vivid? Why did I suddenly and distinctly remember the pull in my chest as a nurse pushed my wheelchair down the hall? Where was I going? Is it just a dream? I follow the memory to its end. I remember glancing at my face in a mirror as we passed. There’s a child staring back. Eight, nine years old—a knockoff Wednesday Addams—but it’s my eyes, my face. Only, there’s no way. I wasn’t in a wheelchair at nine.

  Was I?

  Count backward from ten . . .

  The banging sound stops, and the silence is earsplitting. Slowly, the tube moves, ejecting me. I blink in the beady overhead lights. The nurse smiles above me. “We’re all done. You do okay in there?”

  “Yes,” I think I say. I feel my arms, my legs, and my stomach to make sure they’re still intact. I want my body to feel different, smaller, lighter, more slippery. Like that of an arachnid that’s just fumbled out of its egg, blind and ignorant to the world into which it’s just been thrown. But it’s just the same old me.

  • • •

  It’s Sunday. I am lying on Desmond’s bed, my ear against his stomach. It is dusk; lavender light has cloaked the room. I can hear the gurgle of his digestive juices. I can also hear him turning the pages. I’m letting him read The Dots. It’s time. The book comes out in two days.

  He is focusing so intently on the page it’s as if he is turning each of the words upside down and shaking them for change. I want to get up and go somewhere else—it is torture, lying here, watching him read, trying to gauge what he’s thinking—and yet I cannot move. I can’t go into another room and pretend to occupy my thoughts. I want to know immediately, the very moment he finishes.

  Finally, he marks a page, closes the book with a slap, and looks at me. “Well.”

  “Well?” I practically shriek. “That’s all you can say? Well?”

  “Well.” He runs his hand over his hair. “It’s . . . exigent. Like a pandemic.”

  “Is that bad?”

  He gathers me in his arms. “Of course not. That’s good. I’m not quite at the end,” he adds. “But I feel like it’s going to be tragic.”

  I nod. He is right.

  “But in an apropos way. Shakespearean, yes?”

  “Don’t compare me to Shakespeare.” I let out a sigh. “So why does my mother hate it? Did I make the mother too unyielding? Too much of a bitch?”

  “It’s definitely raw, but she’s not that bad. I mean, she’s sort of absent, she’s sort of angry, but she clearly cares.”

  “So why did my mother get so offended?”

  “I guess it hit too close to home for her.” He scratches his chin. “Roxanne’s going to ask you that, you know. How your family is taking it, if you have any regrets.”

  I nod. Dr. Roxanne is in two days, and I’m no less anxious about it. I’m afraid she’s going to ask cutting questions. Or I’m afraid she’s going to say, to her live audience, that she didn’t like the book. I’m afraid of explaining why I wrote it. It’s a stupid concept, surely—a girl with a brain tumor who has a crazy aunt. The only reason it’s getting buzz is because I made a fool of myself by being pushed into a pool.

  Desmond seems to sense my panic and clutches my hands. “You don’t have to go on the show, you know. Seriously. I’ll still think you’re the most amazing vixen ever, even if you don’t. Don’t let the people you work with push you around. Do this on your own terms.”

  “Posey would kill me. Laura already said that if I did, she’d probably never sign me for another book.”

  “But I thought you didn’t want to write another book.”

  “I probably don’t, but I at least want the opportunity.”

  Later that night, I wake up alone in a puddle of pillow-drool. I sit up and squint at the digital numbers on the clock: 10:30. There are soft murmurs in the hall, Desmond and Stefan. They’re whispering conspiratorially, maybe about something interesting. I slide off the bed and tiptoe to the door, half because I have to pee, half because I’m curious.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Desmond is saying. He sounds upset.

  “Why not?” Stefan’s voice. “What do you even know about her? All those . . .” He speaks even quieter, and I can’t hear.

  “But it’s a big deal,” Desmond says. “Isn’t there something else?”

  His voice trails off. Stefan responds, but the air-conditioning comes on then, rattling loudly. I press my ear to the door, but the voices have been drowned out. I think of Stefan leering over me the other day. My brother’s a fucking freak. We all know it. He knows it. And the lie he told me about Paula. Or was it just an omission?

  The door shoots open, throwing me backward. I scuttle to the bed, pretending I wasn’t listening, but Desmond has come in too quickly and I probably have a guilty look on my face. “Oh,” he says, stopping short. “You’re . . . up.”

  “Yep. Just now!” I hate the chirpiness in my voice.

  Desmond walks slowly to the bedside table and turns on a lamp. His expression is guarded and suspicious. My gut burns with acid.

  “What were you talking about out there?” I blurt out. “Was it about me?”

  Desmond’s face tightens. He gets a look of annoyance I’ve never seen before. “What makes you think that?”

  “I . . .” My hand rushes to my chest. “What were you talking about, then?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He opens a drawer.

  “Why can’t you tell me?”

  He turns. His eyebrows knit together. “Are we really having this discussion, Eliza?”

  “I just . . .”

  “It was boring work stuff. Stefan is helping with some of the convention details.” He pulls out the blue silk pajamas he loves to wear and begins to pull them on. Halfway through the process, his shirt off, his hairless nipples winking at me, his eyes meet mine. “You aren’t that kind of girl, are you? The kind who’s suspicious about even her boyfriend? I like that you question things, but you don’t need to question me. You strike me as way more highly evolved than that.”

  I know I should smile back, too, but I can’t make my lips do it. I feel wrapped very tight in invisible bandages. The shaking has extended to my arms and stomach. Come on, I tell myself. Snap out of it. Stop this right now. You have nothing to worry about.

  I swallow down the paranoia. “Of course I’m highly evolved. I’m Darwin’s dream.”

  Desmond seems to visibly relax. “That you are.” He leans down, and his hair tickles my cheeks. “That you are.”

  ELIZA

  IT’S TWO DAYS later. Book release day. Dr. Roxanne time.

  I’m at my house. Desmond is on his way here to meet me, and we’re going to go together to Dr. Roxanne in a limo the studio is sending. I’m trying to figure out the answers to the questions the studio has sent. What inspires you? Does any of The Dots stem from your real life? What’s your writing process? I am trying to decide whether I outlined this book or went with the flow instead of freakishly writing it in one vomitus go, start to finish, with barely any shifting of scenes. I am trying to come up with a creation myth on how this story came about, but really, it just poured out of me, maybe always there.

  But amid all this, something is bothering me. There’s a detail that just doesn’t make sense. I can’t believe t
hat Gabby was at the bar at the Tranquility. Or, rather, she might have come in at the end, and she might have pushed me into the pool, but I spoke to someone else at the bar, too. It was that someone else who riled me into hysterics.

  I can feel it. I know it.

  I hate that my brain is fighting against what Gabby told me. I hate that reality has begun to shift again, like sand. I want to think that my tumor, surely there, is playing tricks on me, fucking with my happiness, but I know that isn’t true. There was someone else at that bar. More happened at the Shipstead than Gabby’s saying. Whatever happened before, whoever I was talking to before Gabby came in, that’s why I was so panicked when she found me.

  And that’s who I need to be afraid of.

  After all, who filmed that video of me in my hospital room? I’d asked Gabby, and she swore up and down it wasn’t her—she’d gone back to the hotel for the night, and my parents could corroborate the alibi. And who do I keep seeing lurking about? And who sent my novel to my parents? A different person might have let this go. You could say I chase strife and welcome complication. And yet, after I dial Gabby for the seemingly zillionth time and yet again get her voice mail—so she’s avoiding me? She knows that I know there’s more to the story?—I find myself dialing the Shipstead bar again and asking for the elusive Richie.

  It’s the Aussie who answers, and I swear when he hears my voice he starts to snicker. I hang up and toss my phone to the mattress. But then I grab it again and type in the website for the Tranquility resort—if Aussie is lying about Richie being there, then maybe I can file a complaint. A picture of a stucco archway surrounded by succulent desert flowers serves as the resort’s homepage. I consider the navigation options, settling on “amenities.” A list of the bars within the resort pops up along with pictures of each. I click on the Shipstead and narrow my eyes at the familiar swaths of polished wood and the rigging ropes. No list of bartenders, though. Not even a name of a manager to whom I can grouse.