Once in my room I pick up my iPod. I jam the earbuds into my ears and crank up the sound of waterfalls and singing birds, hoping the peaceful sounds of nature will still the restless demons pacing inside me.
The singing birds remind me of the white bird. I flop on my bed and stare at the ceiling.
Maybe that bird was Mom’s guardian angel. Maybe it did watch over her and then carry her away to the stars, to the heavens, to someplace she believed existed. Mom always taught me there are some things you know, like the laws of nature; for other things, like souls and heaven, you have to have faith. Maybe she gave me my name as a reminder of this, so that whatever happened, my faith would carry me through.
But what kind of faith am I supposed to have? If an albino bird was Mom’s guardian angel, then she never had a shot at survival. Albinos stand out in the wild. Forget being cared for and watched over. Her guardian angel would be attacked by predators and ripped to pieces.
Seven
I spend most of Sunday in my room, listening to music and obsessing about all that happened at Melinda’s. First thing Monday morning, after a night of tossing and turning, I call the methadone clinic to see if I can get an appointment with whoever’s in charge of the clinical trial. I figure it’ll be days before someone can see me, that is if someone will see me. What if they won’t talk to a minor? What if I need some kind of parental consent?
I’m working out a plan, which basically comes down to begging, when a woman answers the phone. I tell her that I’d like to make an appointment to discuss the clinical trial and wait for her to a) laugh, b) hang up, or c) ask to talk to my mother.
“Dr. Wydner’s in charge of that,” she says instead. “Hold please.” She pushes whatever button turns on the really bad music, and after a round of put-you-to-sleep piano, she’s back. “He can see you at one today.”
“He can? Today? One o’clock?” I don’t even both considering the consequences of missing school or the logistics of getting downtown. “I’ll be there,” I say and hang up.
***
A few hours later, I’m crossing the school parking lot, ditching the rest of my classes so I can catch a train and make my appointment when I hear someone calling my name. I turn and there’s Anj bounding toward me. In her pink fluffy sweater and matching pink hat, she looks like she’s been wrapped in cotton candy.
“What’re you doing? It’s freezing out here. Don’t you have class?” she asks when she reaches my side.
“Skipping. What about you?”
“PE, but that’s not a class. I told Mr. G it was that time of the month and I had cramps and he excused me. Works every time.” Anj smiles. It’s the smile more than anything that lets her pull this kind of crap. Big, bright, radiant, and oh so earnest. “So what’s your plan?”
“I’m going to the city,” I say, tapping my foot. I have an eleven o’clock train, and I’m late as it is. Laz cornered me after third period and wanted to know when I was planning on handing in my Hemingway term paper, due sometime last week. I promised I’d get it to him tomorrow and took off before he could protest.
“The city?” Anj bubbles. “Sounds fun. There’s something I have to tell you. Mind if I tag along?”
“Well, actually—”
“Great, because Mondays are a total drag. I have three electives in a row. Spanish, German, and French.”
I lean against the hood of a red car with a license plate that says GRLTOY and stare at Anj. “Since when are you taking German?”
Her cheeks turn the same color as her sweater, and she looks at me with a sheepish grin. “I started two weeks ago. What can I say? Romance languages look good on applications.”
“But German isn’t a romance language,” I say as a boy driving a truck with purple racing stripes peels out of the parking lot. “And anyway, who takes three languages? That’s crazy. You’re going to get your bonjour mixed up with your buenas dias and your buenas dias mixed up with your guten tag. I can just hear it, Guten jour…or is it buenas tag?” I say, laughing at my joke.
Anj brushes a curl off her face and works me with the angelic smile. “Yeah, well, I’ll worry about that if I ever actually speak any of the languages for real. So where are we going?”
“We’re not—”
“Never mind.” She grabs my hand. “You’ll tell me later. Come on, let’s go. I’ll drive.”
I check my phone. Ten forty-five. Good chance I’ll miss the train even if I leave right now. The next one’s not until two. “Fine,” I tell her. “Let’s go.”
We head to the back of the parking lot and load into Anj’s car, this enormous twenty-year-old Chevy with like 200,000 miles. She calls the car Hazel in honor of her grandma who left it to her when she died. Anj starts the engine and Hazel makes every bad car noise imaginable, sputtering and spewing enough smoke and fumes to increase the planet’s temperature a full degree. But the car starts and a few minutes later we’re on the West Chester Pike heading into the city.
At some point I’ll have to give Anj directions and tell her where we’re going, but I have some time before we get to that part because it’s at least a twenty-five-minute drive, and Anj immediately starts updating me on her relationship with Duncan.
“He’s not the type I usually go for,” she reminds me. “It’s the accent. I don’t care what he’s actually saying. I just like listening to him say it. What about you and Jesse?”
“What about us?”
Anj swerves into the next lane without looking and nearly causes a collision. “He’s pretty cute in that grungy I-haven’t-taken-a-shower-in-a-week kind of way,” she says, smiling an apology into the rearview mirror at the woman behind us who’s wailing on her horn. “Do you have the hots for him? Are you guys hooking up?”
“Anj, give me a break. The kid’s been here all of four days. I don’t work that fast.”
I turn and look out the window, making it clear that the conversation about my love life, or lack thereof, is officially over.
Anj tries a few more questions, but when I refuse to say more, she drops the subject and starts telling me about the Happy Cow campaign, which I was right about and she is spearheading. She tells me all the campaign gossip, how they’re trying to get the school cafeteria to go vegan, and how, of all things, the head of food services didn’t even know what vegan meant! Then she starts telling me about something called mechanically separated chicken and pink slime, which makes my stomach turn. With hardly a pause for air, she changes the subject—classes, boys, teachers—whatever pops into her brain.
Twenty minutes later, the old-money, Main Line estates have been replaced by boxy rows of storage units, fields of crisscrossing train tracks, and abandoned warehouses—an urban, industrial gloom untouched by the historical tourist-Mecca of Franklin Square and Independence Hall.
Anj breaks from her monologue to offer a suggestion for our outing. “How about Society Hill? There’s this awesome new vintage boutique Tara told me about.”
How can I tell Anj we’re not going shopping for retro outfits and having our nails done? We’re going to a methadone clinic to talk to someone about my mother. Anj has a dad who works at a marketing firm, a mom who sells real estate, and a little sister who plays on a basketball team. Anj lives in the same house she was born in. Once a year she goes on Club Med vacations with her family to places like Jamaica or Costa Rica. How could I expect her to understand?
“Turn left on Chestnut,” I say instead. “And head to Twenty-third.”
The bronze spire of William Penn gazes down at us from his heavenly position on top of City Hall as Anj drives past the treelined streets of Center City. “I totally suck at parallel parking,” she moans when we reach Twenty-third and the only empty spots are in line with other cars against the curb. After a long and fruitless mission of searching for an easier solution, she gives in to the inevitable, bumping both the car in front
of us and the one behind before finally managing to maneuver Hazel into a spot.
“Where to?” she asks, cheerfully cutting the engine.
I look at my hands knotted in my lap. The moment of truth is upon us and I search for a lie. “You can just drop me off and I’ll meet you in a few hours,” I say, unable to come up with a fib and instead going for vague.
Anj rolls her eyes toward the roof of the car. “You dragged me out here so I could hang out by myself?”
“I didn’t drag you,” I remind her. “You wanted to come.”
Anj ignores this detail and pierces me with a stare. I swear the CIA could use her for counterinsurgency intelligence operations. She could get a terrorist to rat out his own mother with a single look.
“Okay, fine,” I say, buckling to her silent method of interrogation before she pulls out the water board. “I’m going to a methadone clinic, but you don’t have to come. You can go shopping or whatever and pick me up later, or I can take the train back.”
Even as I say this, I realize how much I want Anj to come. Not so I can get all sentimental and teary eyed about my mother, but because Anj drags me out of the nightmares that play in my head when I’m alone and keeps me in the world of the living.
“A methadone clinic?” she asks without taking her eyes from my face. “What are you going there for?”
“Some unfinished business about my mom,” I respond, offering just the right amount of information to keep the chemistry of our friendship in balance. Too many details and the relationship erupts in flame, not enough, it fizzles and dies.
For a minute I think Anj is going to break the formula and unbalance the equation with a question. Instead she switches her well-glossed lips to the side and reaches into her purse. “Okay,” she says, handing me a brush. “But you have to comb your hair. You look terrible.”
I do my hair as directed, and Anj announces that before she can go anywhere, she needs something to eat. We find a deli on Twenty-second where she apologizes before ordering a cheese steak sandwich and makes me swear I won’t tell Tara.
“Okey dokey,” she says when she’s devoured the last bite. “Let’s go meet some heroin addicts.”
***
The first thing I notice when we walk into the clinic is the nasal assault of chemical disinfectant, B.O., and cigarettes. The second thing I notice is the uniformed security guard. His presence is ominous and I guess that’s the point, to make sure no badly behaved junkies lose their cool and start wielding a knife at anyone.
Anj takes a seat on a folding metal chair, plucks a magazine from the floor, and starts to read, as if sitting in the lobby of a methadone clinic is the most natural thing in the world. I, on the other hand, can’t relax. It’s been years since I went to a place like this with Mom. The memories are there though, burned into my mind, tattooed into my flesh. Every cell of my body holds a piece of her story. Some things you can’t forget.
I drop into the chair next to Anj and watch a scrawny guy with a greasy ponytail and leather vest pace the floor. This is where I come from, I think, noticing his skinny, track-marked arms.
I stare at the wall, seeing nothing, and remember.
I’m ten years old, just home from school, the thrift-store Cinderella backpack I scribbled all over with black sharpie slung over my right shoulder. Mom’s in a tank top and shorts, standing at the sink, washing dishes. I notice the row of red bruises following the blue veins on her arms.
“What are those marks on your arm, Ma?” I ask, rolling up my sleeves to inspect my own arms. “Will I get them, too when I’m older?”
Mom whirls around from the sink and grabs my shoulders. “No! You’ll never have them. Okay, Faith? Promise. You’ll never be like me.”
“Do you have a light?” I hear someone say.
I blink and look up to see a hollow-eyed girl with a gaunt, angular face standing at my side. I realize she’s talking to me.
“No,” I murmur, fingering the empty Zippo in my pocket.
She turns and goes to a corner. I watch the dead look in her eyes as she sits on the floor, muttering to herself, and I think maybe the real issue isn’t where I come from, but where I’m going. Is it enough to try really hard to be different, to try and do better, or in the end is it just a story of genes, and no matter how hard I try, I was screwed before I was even born?
I tear my mind from these thoughts and glance at Anj, the little piece of normal holding me up like a life raft. I didn’t come here to wallow in self-pity. I have a purpose. I get up, cross the peeling linoleum floor, and go to the back of the room where a small corner is sectioned off with glass blocks. I assume this glass cubicle is the check-in. Hello and welcome! Come lead a happy heroin-free life!
I stand next to a poster of a sunset dangling from a single tack and tap on the window. A young black woman with her hair in cornrows and a name tag that says Veronica pinned to her blue smock raises her eyes from her computer without lifting her head and slides open the window.
I tell Veronica my name and appointment time. Her long, pink fingernails click the keyboard as she types my information.
“Doctor Wydner’ll be with you soon,” she says in an accent that makes me think of white sand beaches and clear blue ocean water. “Have a seat.”
I slump into a chair next to Anj and burrow into my hoodie. The guy with the leather vest sidles toward me, aiming to strike up a conversation. I pick up an informational pamphlet from a dusty table and busy myself reading. I’m in no mood for chitchat.
“The Twenty-third Street Methadone Clinic is a public health clinic offering low cost treatment choices to help stop substance abuse. We offer both counseling services and detox programs. We have two medical treatment options: Methadone and RNA 120.”
I skip the part about methadone and read on to RNA 120.
“For patients interested in a new, experimental approach to substance abuse, the Twenty-third Street Methadone Clinic is working with researchers at PluraGen, a leading biopharmaceutical company, to offer a clinical trial to those who meet our eligibility requirements.”
I’ve just finished reading when Veronica calls my name. She leads me out of the waiting area and down a long, mildew-stained corridor, past a cluttered desk guarded by two tall filing cabinets. A stocky, unsmiling nurse waits by the copying machine. A few others flock around the coffee maker. I trail after Veronica to the far end of the hall where she stops and knocks on a door beside a plaque that says: Dr. Joseph Wydner, MD, RNA 120 Clinical Trial Administrator.
The first thing I notice about the guy who opens the door is his hair, a do that reminds me of a big fuss in the news a few years back about a political candidate who spent like five hundred dollars on a haircut. This guy’s hair is styled and combed meticulously into place and then gelled so carefully that even if a windstorm tore apart the city, I doubt a single one of his hairs would move. Maybe the hair is an attempt to draw attention away from the rest of his face, which is tired and weathered, skin sagging around his cheeks and neck as if he’s about to molt.
“I’m Dr. Wydner,” Hairdo says, offering a hand. “Please, come in.”
He leads me to a folding chair opposite a large desk. I take a seat and look around. Besides a few framed photos of a girl about my age, there’s nothing personal in the office. No diplomas or art or posters. Just a computer, some papers on his desk, and the obvious need for a vacuum and dust rag.
“So,” he says, peering at me with tired eyes before sliding a form across the desk. “You’re here about the clinical trial. Are you eighteen?”
“No,” I say, unsure what my age has to do with anything.
“You have to be eighteen,” he tells me, taking in my hoodie and faux leather skirt, my black eyeliner and the curtain of my bangs.
Suddenly it dawns on me—my clothes, my hair, the way I look. He thinks I want to be in the clinical trial.
“You got it all wrong,” I say. “I’m not here for myself. I’m here about someone else.”
Dr. Wydner raises his eyebrows and steeples his fingers beneath his chin. I can tell he doesn’t believe me. It’s like going to Planned Parenthood for condoms and saying they’re “for a friend.”
“No, really. I’m not…I don’t…” I stop and inhale, fold my hands in my lap, and start again. “I want to find out if someone by the name of Augustina Flores was in this clinical trial.” I cringe hearing myself call Mom Augustina. She hated that name. She used to say it was too Catholic for a New Age Pagan like her. Everyone called her Auggie.
Dr. Wydner scrutinizes me like I’m a lab mouse and he’s waiting to see which way I’ll go in the maze. “I’m sorry,” he says, without taking his eyes off my face. “That information is confidential.”
“But, I’m her daughter,” I protest, digging through the clutter in my bag for some kind of ID. I find my birth certificate crumbled at the bottom along with several other papers from school registration I never bothered cleaning out. “You can give the information to family, can’t you?”
“Her daughter?” A look of surprise crosses his face.
I pull out the crinkled document, push it across the desk as proof of my existence, and sit patiently as I wait for the doctor to study my birth certificate and confirm I am who I claim to be.
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