Here at Lilyvale, women with a range of psychiatric disorders live in an environment where they have access to outstanding medical professionals, a caring staff, and supervised recreational activities—all within the beautiful surroundings of Mendocino County in Northern California. Whether your family member’s illness is mild or severe, we feel certain that choosing Lilyvale is a decision you can feel comfortable with; we provide the close monitoring our patients require and the reassurance and peace of mind their families want.
We look forward to Melanie Splinter’s arrival on June 20, and to admitting her into our residential program. Please forward all medical records in advance of your arrival.
Note: New patients are welcome to bring personal belongings, but these will necessarily be subject to search. Our furnished rooms meet the needs of most of our patients.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to give me a call.
Regards,
shirley monroe
Shirley Monroe
Director of Residential Services
Lilyvale Residential Facility
“Juliet,” said Gilda. “What’s the date on that newspaper article about the suicide?”
“June twenty-first. Why?”
“Very interesting,” said Gilda. “Do you know what that means? It means that Melanie committed suicide the night before she was supposed to go to Lilyvale.”
“Lilyvale? What are you talking about?”
“Here—take a look at this. It sounds like your parents were planning to send Melanie to some kind of fancy mental institution up north, but she never made it there. She killed herself the night before she was supposed to go!”
Juliet chewed a thumbnail as she read the letter from the Lilyvale Facility. She had known for some time that her aunt Melanie must have been experiencing emotional trauma at the moment she committed suicide, but now she began to wonder about the nature of her aunt’s illness. Just how disturbed had she been?
“I don’t see why your parents couldn’t just tell you that,” said Gilda. “I mean, why should having a mental illness be such a big secret for all these years?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they were ashamed of her.”
Juliet suddenly remembered an evening in San Diego when she was sitting on the beach next to her mother. As the sun set over the ocean, the two of them watched Juliet’s stepfather play volleyball with his two athletic daughters. Something about the roar of the ocean and the fuchsia color of the sun had made Juliet feel very melancholy.
“Don’t you want to play volleyball?” Juliet’s mother asked.
“No,” said Juliet. “I hate games.”
“What do you mean, ‘I hate games’? You can’t possibly hate all games.”
“Yes, I can. Games are so—so futile.”
Her mother stared at her. “Well, futile is an impressive vocabulary word to use, but having that attitude is going to get you exactly nowhere, young lady.”
“Where, exactly, am I trying to get?”
Her mother sighed. “I don’t know,” she said. “Somewhere!”
The two of them watched the game of volleyball as the sun descended, turning the water shades of purple and rose.
“What a lovely sunset,” said Juliet’s mother.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the sun that color before,” said Juliet. “It looks like a swollen pink eyeball.”
Juliet’s mother regarded her daughter with a disturbed expression. “I hate to say it,” she said, “but you’re beginning to remind me of your father’s sister, Melanie.”
“The one who fell from the tower?”
Her mother nodded. “You’re even starting to look like her.”
“What do you mean? What was wrong with her?”
“Never mind,” said Juliet’s mother. “I’m sure it’s just a phase you’re going through.”
Juliet had already been feeling inexplicably morose, but something about her mother’s words made her feel completely worthless. Clearly, her mother viewed any resemblance to Aunt Melanie as a negative thing, although it was unclear exactly why. All Juliet knew about her aunt was that she had died a tragic death at a young age. What if I resemble Melanie in that way, too? Juliet thought. What if I’m destined to die young?
“I wonder if I’m going to end up like Aunt Melanie,” said Juliet as she flipped through the Lilyvale brochure’s hopeful images of patients eating breakfast and strolling in a garden outside the clinic.
“Why would you end up like Melanie?” Gilda asked.
“Well, I look like her, for one thing. For another thing, I saw her ghost. What if that was just some kind of hallucination, and I’m really in the early stages of going insane?”
“You aren’t crazy,” said Gilda. “There’s been plenty of evidence that there’s a real ghost in this house. And besides—the ability to see a ghost is a gift. In fact, I’m jealous!”
Juliet shook her head. “There’s something I didn’t tell you about the day I saw my aunt’s ghost.”
“What?”
Juliet hesitated. Why was she sharing this with Gilda, who couldn’t possibly understand? Still, she wanted to tell somebody how she had really felt on that day. “I wasn’t really going to do anything—but I was thinking about what it would be like if I took a bunch of my father’s sleeping pills,” she said quietly. “I was imagining how bad my parents would feel after I was dead…’. And then I saw Melanie—or something I thought was her—and I just fainted.” Juliet looked up at Gilda defiantly, as if daring her to say that this episode was not evidence of imminent insanity.
Gilda knew that she should say something sensitive and encouraging, but she couldn’t think of anything. The truth was, she couldn’t understand why a rich, pretty girl like Juliet would even contemplate suicide.
“Well,” said Gilda, after a few moments had passed, “I admit I don’t really understand why you would think of committing suicide, but I do know what it’s like to feel completely rotten.” She remembered the bland, wobbly feeling she had experienced for months after her father died. “What helps me when I get that feeling is either imagining I’m someone else who’s got a much better life or writing a letter to my father.”
Juliet seemed intrigued with this piece of information. “Does your father write back?”
“Of course not.”
“Oh. Well, I just thought since you’re supposed to be a psychic investigator and all—”
“I mean, I don’t get a stamped letter in the mailbox, but I think he responds in other ways.” Gilda wasn’t actually sure that this was true. She had been on the lookout for signs of a response from her father for the past two years, and aside from the facts that Charlene Duzco (a girl at school whom she loathed) had recently chipped a tooth, that Mrs. Frickle had a new pink wig, and, of course, that she had gotten herself to San Francisco, Gilda hadn’t seen much evidence of anything that could be considered a direct reply from her father. Nevertheless, she somehow felt that he was listening while she typed.
“Well, suicide can be hereditary,” Juliet pointed out.
“Really? Like being short?”
“Sometimes all the kids in one family will commit suicide. I’ve read about cases like that!”
“I see,” said Gilda, now squinting at Juliet as if she were a strange creature in a biology lab. “So you think you may have inherited a suicide gene from your aunt?”
“I don’t know.” Juliet stared at one of her tennis shoes as if she had never seen it before in her life. “I guess it’s something that worries me.”
Gilda felt that Juliet was wallowing in self-pity, and this suddenly annoyed her. “Cancer is hereditary, too,” she blurted, “but do you see me giving up and smoking four packs of cigarettes a day? Do you see me eating lard sandwiches and smoking crack, and crying about how I’m going to die young?”
“You have cancer?”
“My father died of cancer.” Gilda always hated saying the nasal, mediocre-sounding w
ord cancer.
“Oh,” said Juliet. “You never told me how he died.”
“It happened a couple of years ago.” Gilda was annoyed to find that she was surprisingly close to tears. She dug her fingernails into her arm in an attempt to replace a wave of sadness with physical pain.
“I’m sorry,” said Juliet, who sounded genuinely sympathetic.
Gilda didn’t want sympathy; sympathy was dangerous because it had a way of making her want to weep. “My point was that lots of things are hereditary,” said Gilda, attempting to shift the focus back to Juliet’s problem. “Getting bad grades, being poor, being unhappy—I bet you could argue that they’re all hereditary!”
“But—that’s just my point,” said Juliet. “What if I’m destined to end up like my aunt? What if that’s the message her ghost is trying to send me?”
Gilda thought for a moment. “Even if that is true, it doesn’t mean you should give up and assume you have no choice. Besides, did you ever consider the fact that your aunt Melanie’s ghost might have saved your life? You saw her ghost, and instead of taking the sleeping pills, you fell! What if she’s not just haunting you; what if she wants to help you?”
“That’s a nice idea,” said Juliet after a moment. “I don’t know how plausible it is, but it’s a nice idea.”
“Listen,” said Gilda, lowering her voice. “Now that we know a little more about Melanie, I think tonight’s the big night.”
“For what?”
“We should have a séance tonight.”
“I don’t like séances,” Juliet said quickly. “But I guess we could try.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” said Gilda.
A door slammed shut downstairs.
“My father’s home,” said Juliet. “Quick! Put the file back!”
“But—I thought he was supposed to be downtown all day!” Gilda hurriedly wedged the file back in the drawer.
“I thought he was, too,” Juliet whispered. “We’ve got to get out of here. You have no idea how angry he’ll be if he sees us in here!”
Breathless, the girls hurried out of Mr. Splinter’s office, down the hallway, up the staircase, and down another hallway to Juliet’s room.
Juliet closed her bedroom door, sank to her knees, and rubbed her ankle, which now ached from running down the hallway and up the stairs.
“Are you okay?”
Juliet appeared to be hyperventilating. Then Gilda realized that she was actually convulsed by a fit of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Gilda demanded.
“I don’t know …” Juliet gasped. “The look on your face when you heard the door slam was like …” Juliet attempted to imitate Gilda’s bug-eyed face. “And then the way you ran up the stairs was just so funny!”
“I’m glad you find me amusing,” said Gilda drily. “Your gimp leg is also hilarious.”
Gripped by a seizure of giggles, Juliet doubled over and rolled around on her bedroom floor.
“Juliet, have you been taking drugs or what?”
“I just—I don’t even know why I’m laughing.”
“You’re hysterical,” said Gilda, wondering if Juliet might be crazy after all.
Juliet could only giggle in reply.
“You know, if you laugh like this during the séance tonight, it won’t work,” said Gilda, speaking from experience.
“I won’t laugh. I promise.” Juliet mimed crossing her heart solemnly, then collapsed into another fit of giggles. She had never laughed so hard in her life. She felt that she had let go of something that had been weighing her down, and for the moment, all her feelings of despair, fear, and irritation had suddenly mutated into a wonderful sensation of silliness.
19
Contacting Melanie
Mrs. Joyce applied pink lipstick and pressed her lips together. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror critically, wondering when her face had become a desert of fine lines and freckles. When she had been married, she had rarely worried about her appearance, but now that she was going on an actual date, looks suddenly mattered again. Her friend Lucy had recently treated her to a makeover, telling her that she needed “to define her features,” but Patty Joyce had never really understood how to wear makeup. She was the opposite of her daughter, who loved trying on different faces and personas. And Gilda’s father had also loved artifice and costumes—but no, she could not let herself think about Nick right now.
“I’m just not ready for a boyfriend!” Mrs. Joyce had protested when Lucy had mentioned that her own boyfriend “had a friend” whom she might enjoy meeting.
“Who said anything about a boyfriend? Just a little male attention is all. A night out, for goodness’ sake. You deserve to enjoy life a little!”
The telephone rang just as Mrs. Joyce was attempting to apply eyeliner. Uh-oh, she thought, eyeing Gilda’s cell-phone number on her caller ID. Maybe Gilda had run out of money. Either that, or someone was hurt.
“Gilda! Is everything okay?”
“Hi, Mom. Everything’s fine—”
“Oh, good. Honey, I’m really sorry, but I can’t talk long right now. I’m getting ready to go out.”
“But you never go anywhere,” said Gilda.
“Well, I’m going somewhere now.”
“Where are you going?”
“To meet some friends.” Mrs. Joyce cradled the telephone under her chin while gazing into the mirror as she attempted to apply mascara with her free hand.
“Friends? You don’t have friends.”
“I most certainly do have friends. I’m going out with my friend Lucy. You’ve met her before.” Mrs. Joyce sneezed and left a black splotch of mascara under her eyebrow. “Damn this mascara!”
“Are you going on a date?” Gilda blurted suspiciously.
“What?! No. I mean, not really. I’m just meeting some friends.” The kid should become a detective, Mrs. Joyce thought. Or an FBI agent.
Gilda reflected that her mother’s response reminded her of her own evasive answer when she had been asked point-blank whether she had flushed cigarettes down the toilet several weeks ago. “Well no,” Gilda had stammered. “I mean, not intentionally…’.” There was no question about it; her mother was lying. “YOU ARE GOING ON A DATE, AREN’T YOU?!” Gilda practically shouted.
“Gilda, please calm down. It’s nothing—just a friendly drink.”
“Well, I’m just a little surprised, that’s all. I mean, you never said you had a boyfriend, and just when I turn my back, you’re out carousing around the town.”
“Gilda—I don’t have a boyfriend, okay?”
“Just don’t ask me to call him ‘Dad,’ because I won’t do it!”
Mrs. Joyce sighed. “You’re way ahead of the game. I said I don’t have a boyfriend. In fact, I don’t even know how to put on lipstick and mascara, so this may be the only date I’ll get.”
“Well, you need to curl your eyelashes first,” said Gilda. “If I was there, I could have told you that. You probably need to wear false eyelashes anyway. And maybe a wig.” She suddenly felt guilty. It was true that her mother never went anywhere fun, so she knew she shouldn’t begrudge her a night out; nevertheless, she couldn’t help worrying about the potential ramifications of a mother who was now actually going on a date.
“I will not be wearing false eyelashes,” said Mrs. Joyce, wiping off all of her makeup with a tissue. “Or a wig, for that matter.”
She opened her closet door and stared at rows of shapeless hospital garments and stacks of blue jeans and sweat-shirts. She realized that she didn’t have a thing to wear.
“I’m sorry, Gilda,” said Mrs. Joyce, looking at the clock, “but I’ll have to call you back later.” She was supposed to be at the restaurant in fifteen minutes.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” said Gilda.
“Same to you, young lady.”
Gilda turned off her cell phone. She knew that she should be happy for her mother, but instead she felt betrayed. W
ho knew where this new development would lead? Gilda had initially called to ask whether her mom had ever heard of Lilyvale Residential Facility and whether she remembered anything else about Juliet’s aunt Melanie, but the revelation of her mother’s date had taken the wind out of her psychic-investigation sails for the moment. It was frustrating to Gilda to discover that her mother was going on a date without being there to witness, supervise, and, ideally, spy on the event.
Attempting to distract herself from imagining her mother’s behavior on a date, Gilda decided to prepare for her séance. She turned to a chapter entitled “Reasons Ghosts Appear” in her Psychic’s Handbook:
Some spirits become trapped in the material world due to unresolved trauma or extreme emotion at the time of death—rage, lost love, regret. These spirits may appear as “ghosts”—phantom fragments of a personality, often trapped in an endless cycle of repetition of the events or feelings that preceded their death.
In rare instances, a spirit may appear with a specific message or warning for a relative. It is unclear whether such spirits have the ability to perceive events in the present and react to them, or whether they are actually a projection of the relative’s mind—a kind of psychic connection with the past that may surface at a time of danger or distress.
Gilda reread the passage, noting that it sounded as if Melanie had appeared to Juliet at such a moment of “distress.” She also couldn’t help but reflect that part of what made ghosts scary was the idea that a bad feeling could continue long after the body had disappeared.
Gilda removed her Ouija board from her suitcase and then changed out of her jeans and into the crumpled vintage evening gown she had discovered at a thrift shop. The Psychic’s Handbook said that it was important to treat a séance as a serious ritual and to dress appropriately for the occasion of speaking to a ghost.
Gilda had tried several séances in the past—most of them attempts to communicate with her father after his death—but the truth was that none of them had really worked. While Gilda’s mother believed that this was because Mr. Joyce’s spirit was completely at rest—far beyond the realm of the living—Gilda blamed Wendy Choy and her brother for her failure to “make contact.” She suspected that it was Wendy who kept making the planchette slide across the letters on the Ouija board to spell the word buttmunch—although it was possible that this was a joke from her father’s spirit. After all, Gilda reasoned, it was the kind of thing he might do.
Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator Page 15