by Sue Wallman
We sit awkwardly on the towel and he says, “Spill the beans,” which I guess means What’s going on?
I tell him that since I’ve stopped taking the vitamins it feels as if I’m losing my mind. “Perhaps I’ve had something wrong with me for years that I didn’t know about,” I say.
Noah bites his thumb. On anyone else it would probably be super-annoying, but on him it looks endearing. “Thing is,” he says at last. “There are a few of us patients who are given a white vitamin tablet, not the beige one.”
The one Dad takes.
“When I asked why I didn’t have the same as other people,” says Noah, “I was told my blood test showed I needed a different combination of vitamins. But the thing is, I’ve only seen two colours. White and beige. If everything is so individualized, why are there only two types?”
“How many people are on the white ones?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” says Noah. “But Piper’s one of them. I’ve noticed that she and I have a similar sports schedule. It’s not as full-on as other people’s. I mean, it’s still loads, but it’s not the hours and hours other people do. I thought it was because I was new, but Piper’s been here a while.”
“You haven’t experienced muscle aches, blurry vision or a prickly neck?”
Noah gives a sort-of laugh. “Muscle aches, yes. God, muscle-burn after those hideous workouts. But it doesn’t sound quite the same as the deep aches some of you talk about, and I’ve never had blurry vision or a prickly neck.”
“D’you know what vitamins or drugs Austin was on?” I ask. I think of his complex medical issues. The Creek tries to be drug-free wherever possible but, perhaps he was on something else too.
Noah shakes his head.
I tell him about the conversations I’ve overheard between Dad and Peter, and he’s shocked. “There’s something bad going on, isn’t there?” I ask.
He nods. “I think so. I don’t think it’s us being paranoid.” I can’t help but wonder if Noah’s history with paranoia makes him better or worse at identifying it.
“I have to figure it out, and the only way I can do that is to break into the medical suite to see if I can find some sort of clues, or hack into Dad’s computer.” I hug my knees. “Both of them are impossible.”
“Not impossible,” says Noah. “You could distract your dad somehow once he’s logged into his computer.”
My feeling of hopelessness grows. “He’s not the type to be distracted,” I say. I thud my head into my open hands. There has to be something wrong with me; my mind has thickened so much I can’t think of a single way I can get to Dad’s laptop. And even if I managed it, would I even understand what’s written there?
I can’t hold the tears back any more. It’s a relief to let go, to give into the exhaustion. I sense Noah crouch closer, and I long for him to hold me tight.
“Mae? Start taking those pills again. They can’t be vitamins, and it might be dangerous for you to stop.”
I nod, pathetically grateful that Noah’s made the decision for me. My symptoms frighten me; I feel as if I’ve lost control of my body.
“Take this.” Noah’s off the towel and handing me a corner of it to wipe my tears.
“I just want to sleep,” I say.
“Have a power nap,” says Noah. “I’ll keep watch.”
He indicates that I should curl up on the towel, and I wordlessly do as he says. My body jolts once, then I relax and close my eyes.
TWENTY-FOUR
While I watch TV with Mom, Dad’s in his study on his laptop. I fantasize about spiking his mint tea with a sedative, so that he slumps in his chair long enough for me to go on his laptop and search through my medical files.
Mom leans across from her sofa to pat my leg. “I’m so happy that you’re watching this programme with me, Mae.”
I let what’s on the TV screen come into focus, and see that the soap opera we were watching has changed to a gardening programme. Some guy is raking up leaves with ridiculous enthusiasm, and talking about building a rockery. What the hell is a rockery?
I imagine the two pills that I swallowed earlier slowly dissolving in my stomach, making me well again. I think about being on the rooftop with Noah, of feeling safe and believed.
When Greta strolls into the classroom, I’m trying to decipher Macbeth. My head is still woolly and I have to rub my eyes when the words blur, but I’m feeling slightly better.
“What’s that you’re reading?” she asks me, bypassing a hello. She looks like an old-fashioned teacher with her low, neat bun and that thick cotton skirt that bunches round her waist – and no doubt cost a fortune because Greta only buys her designer clothes at full-price.
Ms Ray scurries over. “Hi, Greta, can I help?”
“It’s more the other way round,” says Greta. “I’ve finished my summer sessions now. I’ve got a job in admin but I have a few extra hours to help out here. I could start now, if you like?”
“Ah,” says Ms Ray. “Let’s have a chat after lunch, when I’m not busy. Just so you know for the future, I’d prefer it if you told me when you’ll be coming to the schoolhouse.” She glances round at us, frowning, and we return to the books we’re supposed to be reading.
Greta stands up straighter, so that she’s taller than Ms Ray. “Just so you know, my dad and Dr Ballard are keen for me to support your teaching when I have time.”
“I see,” says Ms Ray. “Well, thanks for coming by. I’ll see you later.”
Greta turns the cover of my book over and screws her face up. “Since when did we read plays?” she asks.
“Things have moved on since you left,” I say.
The corners of Greta’s mouth turn down. “By the way, Mae, you’re invited to our apartment for dinner tonight.” She glances up at Ms Ray in a dismissive gesture. To tell her that this is a private conversation and she has no business listening in.
Eating at someone else’s apartment is such a big thing she must have already gained permission from our dads.
“Why?” I say. The others are curious too – they stare from Greta to me.
She shrugs. “Your dad thought it would be nice,” she says.
“But I’m only on half-privileges,” I say. We both know that eating dinner somewhere other than your usual place is something you have to be on full-privileges for.
“I was only told to pass on the message, Mae,” says Greta.
Mid-afternoon and I find Thet writing her novel in the juice bar with a cucumber cooler and no straw. “I’m working on the lips on glass thing,” she says.
“Will you come to the sensory garden with me?” I ask.
As we walk across the lawn, I notice that her toenails are painted with bright pink nail varnish apart from the second one of each foot, which is painted her new colour, orange. We sit on a safe bench, one that’s not covered by a security camera, and I ask her about her vitamin dose and colour. She’s down to quarter of a beige tablet and has no side effects.
“Are you sure?” I can’t quite believe it.
She nods.
“Don’t you feel tired?”
“I’m not doing so much exercise, so no.” She studies my face. “You know the exercise schedule is reduced alongside the vitamins? It’s to get you ready for real life again.”
I sit up. “Noah and Piper are on different sports schedules. Whatever is in the so-called vitamins must be linked to exercise.” That’s it. I feel so much more energetic now that I’m back taking my tablets. I’ve always been scheduled for huge amounts of physical activities.
Thet plays with the elastic on her notebook. “Are you sure you’re OK, Mae?” she asks. “You seem hyper. I’m worried about you.”
I tip my head back so I can only see the sky. “Maybe it’s a good thing you’re leaving, Thet,” I say quietly. “For you, I mean. It might be better to be away from all this.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I feel her there beside me. Her feelings of being torn between two worlds. Mine,
and her life waiting for her back home.
Into the silence, a message beeps on my watch. It’s from Earl: I’ve been moved straight from half-privileges to full.
Three o’clock feels more like five as I climb the ladder to the rooftop, hoping that Noah will be there. The temperature’s dropped and the brightness of the day has softened.
He’s hiding behind the fire-escape structure, even though I tapped on my way up. When he emerges, I think for an exhilarating moment that he’s going to hug me, but he doesn’t. Maybe he’s distracted by my backpack which I thump to the ground.
“Textbooks,” I say. I brought them in case he wasn’t here.
“You know how to make someone feel good about their conversation skills,” says Noah. He sits down on the towel, and I sit close. So close, our shoulders might touch if one of us tilted ever so slightly sideways. “Show me what you’ve got in there, then.”
He tests me on cell biology, reading out chunks from the book that has Ms Ray’s pencil notes scrawled in margins from when she was a student. He pauses now and again for me to fill in the missing words. I mumble them into my folded arms. “Course, this is just a memory test, Mae. I should be making you apply this knowledge to something.” He flips to the front of the book. “This was published ten years ago. You need something more up to date.” Seeing my stricken face he says, “But in the absence of that, this is good.”
We discuss poetry from the anthology Ms Ray gave me. It’s toe-curlingly awkward when it comes to the sexual references. Noah blushes a little as he tries to explain things.
“Don’t you know anything about sex?” he asks.
It’s shameful how little I know about life. About how my own body works and sex. “There’s a book in the schoolhouse about it,” I say. It’s about eggs and seeds, and saving yourself. It’s a scruffy book because we’ve all looked at it so much and tried to make sense of the vague drawings. I used to try to talk to Drew about sex but he never wanted to. Perhaps it was because he didn’t want me pulling him out of the friend zone into something else.
“I’ll explain anything you want,” says Noah. “But some things are more embarrassing than others.” He pulls a freaked-out face which involves a double chin, then flops back against the brick structure to flick through the anthology. When his face is back to normal, I study it more closely.
“Your skin looks nice,” I say without thinking, and immediately cringe at myself.
He touches his cheek. “I’m trying to hang out more at the spa. I gather it’s where you hear the best gossip.” He grins and goes back to the poetry.
His face comes alive when he speaks, eyes sparkling, and his smile pushing laughter lines out all over the place, but when he’s concentrating, like now, it’s alive in a different way. “Any faves in here?” he says, shutting it and waving it in my face.
“Not yet,” I say. “I’m only just getting into it.”
He places it on the concrete.
“I’ve been thinking. I’m going to smuggle out one of the so-called multivitamins, one of the beige ones, when I leave,” he says. “But I’m going to stay until the end of the summer.”
He’s staying for now, but the thought of him leaving at the end of the summer hollows me. No Drew. No Thet. No Noah.
“My sister has access to a chemistry lab. She’s doing a masters. I’m going to ask her to analyse it.”
“Really?” Excitement drops to dismay. “But you won’t be able to tell me the results.”
“Aha.” Noah looks super-pleased with himself. “Will’s having an iPad smuggled in very soon. One of the mini ones. Drew was first in line, then someone else, but I’ve outbid them. It’s for you. For when Thet and I’ve gone, so we can keep in touch.”
I can’t speak. I never completely believed Drew when he spoke about the iPad. I thought it was more of a fantasy. Noah’s prepared to pay goodness knows what above the market price for an iPad for me? His generosity lightens my limbs and brightens the mess in my head. I find my voice. “Thank you. I’ll pay you back one day,” I say.
Noah blinks away my thanks. “No need. We’re big on good causes, my family. You’ve made my stay here better. You’ve made me feel…”
“More paranoid than you were when you arrived?”
He laughs. “Maybe.”
I admit to him that I saw that his referral letter mentioned paranoia.
He chews his bottom lip. “I’ve got it under control,” he says. “But I reckon I’m just more watchful now. More aware of things that other people choose not to see.”
I’d like to hug him or squeeze his arm but the moment passes because he says, “I think you should still work on accessing your medical records.”
“I can’t see a way.”
Noah bites on his thumb, then removes it to say, “How about I cause a massive disturbance sometime when your dad’s on his laptop, so he has to visit me on call-out.”
“No!” I’m shocked Noah would even consider that. “Dad would log out before he left his laptop, and he only does a call-out if someone’s way out of control. You’d be sedated. Maybe punished.” I twist my watch strap. The smoothness of it no longer pleases me. I’ve worn different versions of the same watch for nearly ten years. That means Dad’s received ten years’ worth of data from me.
“Some of the patients are talking about a protest,” says Noah. “About Austin and the lack of answers.”
“What sort of protest?” Nothing like that has ever happened before.
“I don’t know. A strike. Maybe spray paint or banners. Will’s behind it. He thinks the Creek let Austin down. He says they knew something was wrong and didn’t do enough about it. Says Austin should have been sent to a proper hospital after what happened in the basketball court.”
I admire Will, but I’m worried for him.
The Jesmonds’ apartment is a back-to-front version of ours. The equivalent of Dad’s study in our apartment is Zach’s room in theirs. Greta’s room makes my head spin; it’s like a flipped-over version of mine, with fake book wallpaper and a disturbing amount of cuddly toys for a nineteen-year-old. Their living room looks towards the fields outside the perimeter fence. I step out on to the small balcony that they have instead of our big roof terrace. There’s one plant out here. It looks exactly the same as when I was here for the sleepover five years ago. I reach out and feel a leaf between my fingers; as I suspected, it’s plastic.
Dr Jesmond has a desk in the corner of the living room. It’s tidy, like Dad’s. No sign of a silver laptop. I wonder if Greta has hers yet, and if she’ll ever let me look at it.
Greta’s mom, Everleigh, ushers me to the table along with the others, who are shadowing me but not exactly making conversation. She lifts the lid off a dish of summer vegetable risotto, the same food I’d be eating if I was in my own apartment.
Zach stares at me so hard across the table that I discreetly touch my nostrils to check if there’s anything dangling.
I wait to find out the reason I’m here.
“So, we thought it would be nice if you two girls hung out together a bit more,” says Everleigh with a smile that alarms me. She’s not usually a smiler.
Dr Jesmond – Karl – hands round vitamins. I already had mine before I came.
Greta gulps hers down then shovels risotto into her mouth and speaks before it’s empty. “You’ve really grown since Drew left. It’s had a positive effect on you. You’ve become so much more mature, so much nicer.”
I open my mouth but I can’t formulate the right words. Nicer? I’m not nicer, just shocked and wary. Probably quieter.
“In the fall, we thought you might like to visit Greta for a day at her apartment?” says Karl. He looks at me expectantly, wanting a sign that I consider this the most exciting thing ever to have been offered to me. This is what they want – to push me together with Greta. To get me back on track.
“Would I get to see Pattonville College?”
Karl smiles. “We might be able to arra
nge that. Are you looking forward to college?”
I nod. “But I haven’t decided which one I’d like to go to yet.”
Everleigh says, “Zach, would you pass Mae the salad, please,” and as Zach hands it to me, the silver salad servers slide down into the bowl to become covered in the fat-free dressing. There’s a good deal of tutting, and fetching of another linen napkin to wipe the handles.
Conversation turns to the weekend. Greta and Zach appear to know that it’s the annual Creek kids’ barbecue on Saturday night, something which hasn’t been formally announced yet.
“I love the Creek barbecue,” says Greta. “Don’t you, Mae?”
I used to – none of the top-ranking adults ever attend, and it’s a treat to be outside after the shutters come down. One year Drew and I threw bits of bread roll at another table and had an epic silent battle for about five minutes before a supervisor came by. “Yes,” I say.
Karl watches me. His teeth have been whitened since I last saw them. They gleam like a shiny car hood. “I’ll be at a boring old conference while you kids are having fun.”
“And I’ll be here home alone, probably working on my charity newsletter, which I still haven’t finished,” says Everleigh. She rubs Karl’s arm. “Nice for the patients to have a good time after what’s happened.”
She means Austin.
“I’m glad you’re being sensible about Drew, Mae.” says Karl. “There’s nothing to be gained from moping. We’ve had enough trouble lately with the patients, with silly hysteria over certain events.” He doesn’t mention Austin’s name either. Maybe he thinks we don’t care about Austin because he was a patient we hardly knew.
I reach for my glass of water, so that I can avoid eye-contact with him. A few uneasy silent moments later, Zach tells his dad about Ms Ray turning Greta away this morning.
Karl frowns.
“She’s not what we need, Dad,” says Greta. “She’s not a Creek person. Not at all.”