See How They Lie

by Sue Wallman

  “I’d like to go to Austin’s funeral or memorial service,” I tell Dad at dinner. He arrived late and snapped at Mom for not having the vitamins out.

  He prods at his Pad Thai with chopsticks. “It’s been a very difficult day, Mae. Please don’t make it worse. Austin’s family live too far away – it’s a ridiculous idea.”

  “That poor boy,” murmurs Mom.

  “We’ll send flowers, of course,” he says. “Louelle, you can be in charge of that.”

  “Sure,” Mom says.

  “Make it big. Classy. Let me write the message. I’m thinking of naming the cycle track after Austin. Or setting up a fund in his name for research into anger-management techniques.”

  Mom nods.

  For the first time in a while, I can’t eat. I hide as much as I can under my cutlery, and prepare to say I feel sick, which is true, but Dad doesn’t say anything when Mom clears away my plate.

  When I go to bed, it’s impossible to sleep. I close my eyes and the images of Austin stumbling, his arching body on the floor and his grey, unresponsive face frighten me. I want more air than is in this room. If I could open a window or sit on the roof terrace I might feel calmer, but I can’t. Everything in this apartment is controlled, including me.

  I’m aware of the low growl of someone speaking, of the floor being paced in the living room. I climb out of bed without a sound to listen.

  “I know all that, Peter,” Dad says. “If we could have avoided it, we would have.”

  He’s on the phone to the man who was here in our apartment.

  Dad’s voice becomes a rumble instead of distinct words, and then I hear, “I’ve told you. The cause of death will be inconclusive.”

  My head pulsates in the silence while Peter is saying something back to Dad. They must be talking about Austin.

  “His watch?” Dad says, his voice rising as if Peter’s being ridiculous. “Of course we have it. Yes. Perfect data.” He finishes the conversation and I creep back to bed.

  I’m not being paranoid.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “You can’t stop thinking about Austin, right?” asks Noah in a low voice, as I pretend to scrape the remains of my granola into the waste bin. But I’ve eaten every last bit of it, of course, and hunger still gnaws at me.

  “Right,” I say. I can’t stop thinking about the phone call either. Dad’s cold response to Austin’s death. The mention of data on the watch.

  The supervisors aren’t looking at us, and we’re in a camera blind spot, but I need to be very careful that we’re not overheard. I’m frightened of Dad. It’s the first time I’ve properly admitted it to myself.

  “Did you hear Will had to be sedated, he was so traumatized?” asks Noah.

  I shake my head.

  “I don’t want to be here any more,” says Noah. “They probably won’t let me leave early, but I’m going to ask anyway.”

  “Please don’t,” I say.

  “Why?” asks Noah. He turns his plastic cup of water round and round.

  “You’ll sabotage your wellness plan and … and I don’t want you to go. I’m scared about what’s going on.”

  He tips his water away into the spill tray and fills up the cup again, which seems odd until I realize that a supervisor is nearby. I shouldn’t be so public about being friends with Noah; I’m still on quarter privileges, and I don’t want him on Dad’s radar.

  “You two!” shouts a supervisor. “Move along.”

  I’m called to a therapy room to give a witness statement about Austin. Abigail is there with her laptop open. She looks me up and down when I walk in. There’s something about me that she’s never liked, even before that time I hid in her car.

  After a brief how-are-you-please-sit-down, she starts firing off questions. Was I fearful that Austin was going to be violent when he walked to my table? Did I witness Thet scream because she thought the glass might hit her? How quickly did the member of kitchen staff react?

  If I try to explain things more fully, she says, “Don’t stray off-topic, Mae. We’ve got a lot to cover. Your father is doing his best to get to the bottom of what happened.”

  The more detailed questioning is about how Austin was after he collapsed, before Dad and Dr Jesmond arrived, and he became unresponsive. What colour was his face? Did I touch him? What temperature would I say his skin was? Did it look as if he could see anything? Was he sweating? Foaming at the mouth? Clutching any part of his body? Gasping for breath?

  I see Austin on the floor again. Noah is giving Will and me instructions. We move Austin on to his side, and I can feel the dread in my veins again. The wringing-out of my gut. Panic.

  “I can’t tell you any more,” I sob. “It was horrible.”

  Abigail stops typing, and finds a box of tissues from under her chair. “Blow your nose, Mae. I know this is hard, but this session isn’t about you. It’s about Austin. There will be other sessions for you to process your feelings, but for now you need to set them aside.”

  She tugs the corners of her short-sleeved cardigan and does up the top button. I blow my nose and answer the rest of her questions in an emotionless voice.

  Dad hands me my two vitamins at dinner and I pick up my glass of water. I gaze at the beige tablets in my palm. I hate the way I’ve been feeling the last few days – tired and hungry, and a terrible mix of depression and panic – and it’s only getting worse. Is it because of what’s been happening, or is it because I’m no longer taking these pills? If I swallow them, will I feel better?

  “How’s everyone feeling?” Dad asks.

  I try to compose my face into a blank expression, but my mind is racing. Has he noticed anything?

  “What was the mood like at breakfast and lunchtime?” he clarifies.

  He’s referring to Austin.

  “Sad,” I say, and I fake swallow my pills.

  He nods. “Only to be expected.” I watch him press down on his salmon with the side of his fork. It widens, then chunks apart.

  “His poor mother,” Mom mutters.

  For several long moments the only noise is the clanking of silver cutlery against the white china dishes. I clench my hand round the vitamins, so the round edges push into my palm.

  TWENTY-TWO

  After a week on quarter-privileges I’m moved up to half-privileges. I’m still unable to spend tokens, but I’m allowed to do some unscheduled activities.

  At morning exercise, our instructor has left his laptop open at the front. I’m barely able to keep up during our aerobic routine, but I edge forward to look at the screen, and see an endlessly spiralling screen saver. If I jiggled the cursor and interrupted those spirals I’d be able to see what’s really on the screen. With one or two clicks I might be able to see my data and what it’s being used for.

  “Take a few steps back, folks.” The instructor is right next to me. He flaps his arms as if we’re scavenging birds that have come too close. When he goes back to the front again, he flips the lid of the laptop down with his foot.

  The laptop is never out of his sight. I need someone who’s more flaky.

  Kacey. She’s always popping in and out of the art room. She doesn’t use her laptop to input readings from our watches before or after art sessions, but she writes notes in it, or reads out messages, and she leaves it open on the large desk at the front.

  I wait for my chance. I tell Kacey I’m making a couple of mugs for Thet as a leaving present, and I’d like to practise until I’ve made two that I’m completely happy with. Drop-in art sessions for staff kids and adults are an unscheduled activity, but she grants me permission to attend.

  Unfortunately there always seem to be people in the art room. Zach is working on a project spray-painting dead beetles, and he notices me eyeing up the laptop as I prepare fresh clay.

  “My sister’s getting one of those laptops when she starts her work here.”

  “She already has a laptop,” I say.

  Zach sprays a beetle which is still alive. “
She’s going to be a research assistant. You need a silver laptop for that.”

  I fight the urge to close my eyes. Since I’ve stopped taking the vitamins, my eyelids have become too heavy. “What’s she going to research?”

  “Stuff,” says Zach. “Important stuff. That’s what my dad says. He says she’s an asset to the Creek because she does what she’s told to, unlike some people.” He makes it clear who “some people” are by holding my gaze longer than he needs to.

  My opportunity finally comes when someone spills a pot of paint that splatters over the table, floor and a chair.

  “I’ll find a cleaner at the end of the session,” says Kacey. There are no phones in the art room to call anyone, only the red panic buttons if anything kicks off with the patients.

  When the session’s over, I make sure I’m in the art closet, selecting a glaze so Kacey thinks the room’s empty. After I hear her leave, I take a deep breath and stride towards the front desk, swiftly moving the laptop to the end of the desk where the camera won’t see me. I hope that if anyone saw that movement on a monitor, they’d think it was Kacey’s arms not mine.

  Ten minutes is probably all I’ve got, at most.

  I place my finger on the touchpad. The screen wakes up, and it’s a page on a patient who must have been here earlier. My head throbs, but adrenaline pulses through me and I try to stay focused.

  The patient’s calorie intake/expenditure is red. I don’t know if that’s because he’s eaten too much or too little. His heart monitor reading is green. There are descriptions of him throughout the day.

  Pale. That’s from Mick.

  Lacking in energy. From a grad student.

  Motivated for first half of session, not for second. From Abigail.

  Fine motor skills poorer than usual. That’s from Kacey. Harsh.

  There’s a box that says Symptoms patient has complained of in your session. Kacey has written Headache. Says he thinks it’s the glue. (He’s making a mosaic tile.)

  I click on the x in the corner. The page shrivels to his name in a list. It’s in alphabetical order. My heart speeds up as I scroll up to mine and click on it.

  Mae Ballard.

  Both my calorie intake and heart rate readings are green. In the comments section it says:

  Rubbed eyes a lot.

  Angry demeanour – poss to do with Austin?

  Quieter than usual.

  There’s a link in blue that says: Latest Test Results. I click on it. Each line on this page has something that has been measured in my body, including different hormone levels, blood oxygen level, blood pressure, pupil dilation and brainwave pattern.

  The date for my brainwave pattern is last year. I remember going into a scanner that had been rented by the Creek for a month. All patients were scanned. I remember the words Dad used: Standard practice.

  “It’s standard practice, Mae, to check that everything is as it should be.”

  We took our watches off and placed them on a tray. I had to work hard not to panic in the scanner. I thought about doing my favourite trampoline routine. What helped, too, was realizing that my watch couldn’t record the excessive pounding of my heart and the increase in sweat. Panicking in private was a luxury.

  When I click on “brainwave pattern” it says Access Denied. Level 2 Clearance Required.

  My eyes go to the menu bar at the top. Detailed Medical Records. Groups. Schedules. Data Graphs. I click on Detailed Medical Records. A small box appears saying Level 3 Clearance Required. I try Groups. Same thing. Each section at the top requires Level 3 clearance.

  Kacey must only have Level 1 clearance.

  There’s a noise from outside the room. Kacey. I fumble back to the long list of names. I can’t remember the name of that patient. I might throw up right over the keyboard. What was his name? My brain stalls.

  Snap – I shut the lid down. Shove – I slide it along the desk.

  The door opens.

  “Mae? I didn’t know you were still here.” She eyes the laptop, lid down, in a different position on the desk.

  “I was choosing a glaze,” I say weakly.

  “I see.” Kacey shouldn’t have left her laptop unattended. If she reports me she’ll be in trouble too.

  “I’m just going,” I say.

  “I don’t ever want you alone in the art room again,” says Kacey. She points at the door. “Get out.”

  I nod. The number of staff who dislike me is growing. But I’ve learned what my next step needs to be: find someone with Level 3 clearance. And I know who’s going to have it: Dad.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Noah is standing by the breakfast fruit platter, trying to get his allotted portion but having trouble with the tongs.

  “Mango too slippery?” I say.

  “Oh my God, Mae,” says Noah in a whisper. His breath touches my cheek and it tingles. “I’ve been waiting here for ages for you. It’s safer than the water cooler. Don’t look round.” He blows out the breath from his puffed cheeks as he pretends a slice of mango has slipped out of the tongs, and I can’t help smiling at his antics. “I’ve got nothing on from three to three-thirty. You want to come up to the rooftop and tell me what’s going on round here?”

  I tap discreetly on my watch and scroll through my day’s schedule to double-check. I try to make it look as if I’m doing it because I’m impatient waiting for Noah to finish up with the fruit. I’m on half privileges, so we don’t have to lay as low, but … still. “Yes. I’m free then too.”

  He looks up and my insides melt as our eyes lock. Noah feels differently about me than Drew did. I can feel it.

  Ms Ray rattles on about the food groups as if we know nothing about nutrition. We’ve filled in our work booklets for the morning and she’s talking to us as she goes round the room collecting them. I struggle to keep my eyes from closing. I know I’m at constant risk of falling asleep in a therapy session or not trying hard enough during a workout. My body feels weak and I swing between being too hot or too cold. I have a new sort of headache; it’s as if my whole head is muffled, and it’s hard to concentrate or manage complicated thoughts.

  How much of this is to do with not taking my vitamins? Is it worry? Grief at Drew being gone, mixed in with confused feelings about Noah?

  “Sit up, Mae,” snaps Ms Ray. She flicks her eyes over the extra work that was in the centre of my booklet: a printout about a parasite that lives in dogs, and a comprehension exercise based on it, followed by handwritten math questions so incomprehensible it’s as if they were written in a different language. The comprehension started off quite fun, but it required serious knowledge of biology. My brain was so fuzzy that I abandoned the work and practised writing my name around the paper with the vintage Montegrappa pen I brought to the schoolroom.

  “Disappointing,” says Ms Ray quietly.

  I’m disappointing. Disappointed. Not myself. That’s why I ask her the question in front of everyone: “Do you know anything about the vitamin tablets we take here?”

  “What’s to know?” says Zach. “Vitamins are the building blocks of good health.”

  “You all take multivitamins, do you?” asks Ms Ray.

  “Yes,” says Ben. Luke and Joanie nod.

  Ms Ray shrugs. “If you have a balanced diet, which you certainly do, there should be no need to take supplements,” she says. “In fact studies have shown that multivitamins can sometimes do you more harm than good.”

  We’re silent for a moment, shocked.

  “You’re talking nonsense,” Zach finally says. He scrapes his chair back by pushing against his desk, stretches out his legs, and folds his arms. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s a work booklet about vitamins. That has all the facts.”

  Ms Ray’s face reddens. “OK. I’ll have a look for that booklet, Zach.” She consults her Creek watch. “Ten minutes left. Let’s draw self-portraits.”

  But what if we’re not really taking vitamins at all? If we’re taking something else,
which hasn’t been fully tested, I wonder what harm it might be doing to us. I think back over how I’ve been feeling for the past few days: the tiredness, the anxiety, the incredible hunger. If I’m feeling this bad from not taking the pretend-vitamin, what does it mean? That I need it, or that I’m having severe withdrawal symptoms after being on it for so long?

  After lunch I have my medical check-up. Raoul isn’t there, so another nurse takes my blood and stares at the readings from my watch. I wonder what sort of clearance she has.

  “You taking your multivitamins?” she says.

  I nod. “My dad gives them to me at dinner.”

  “How are you feeling right now?” she asks.

  “OK,” I lie with a shrug. I don’t want more tests, or questions.

  She studies my face closely. “Are you feeling light-headed? Tired? Weepy?”

  Can she see my huge, heavy tiredness? Has it shown up in my readings? “Stop interrogating me,” I say.

  “I’m just doing my job,” she says through tight lips.

  Did you see Austin’s watch readings after he died? I wonder. I’m guessing Level 3 clearance was required for that. She’ll probably mark down that I’m being combative.

  Dr Jesmond leans back in his chair when I’m shown into his room. “There seems to be a few irregularities with your results today, Mae,” he says. “Nothing to worry about.” He laces his hands together as he speaks, and I focus on his perfect nails, the white tips all the exact same size. He talks about keeping an eye on things and reviewing the results again in two weeks. I wonder if by then he will be able to tell that I’ve stopped taking the so-called multivitamins?

  There’s a faint ruffly breeze on the rooftop, and the clouds are tinged with grey.

  I arrive with a towel for us to sit on. I’ve kept my watch on – it’ll be worse if the alarm goes off. I just have to pray that no one has any reason to want to track me down.

  A faint clicking sound has me on my feet, alert for danger. It’s OK: it’s the three-tap signal. Noah appears. “Hey, Mae.” He’s wearing sunglasses and his sunburn is now more brown than red. He looks good. More solid, somehow – probably from all the exercise. More confident, but with a shyness that tugs at me.