The Secret Room

by Sandra Block

  “Maybe.” I rub my socked foot against Arthur, who is sitting on my feet. “She said she wouldn’t kill herself, though. She promised me. She got angry when I brought it up, even.”

  “Sometimes these things are spontaneous. You can’t control everything.” He rubs my arm in consolation. “I don’t know what the warden’s talking about. People die in prison all the time.” He shakes his head. “Gardner’s an idiot. You just ran into a string of bad luck.”

  Grabbing another tissue, I wipe my raw nose. “Maybe.”

  “Definitely. And Dr. Nowhere just needs to retire already.”

  I adjust my head on Mike’s thigh, feeling a crick in my neck. “I won’t argue that one with you.”

  “You’re a wonderful psychiatrist.” Mike pushes a stray hair off my forehead. “Don’t worry. They’re not going to suspend you. This is on Novaire.”

  I raise my head to finish off my generous glass of Chardonnay (my fourth, but who’s counting). As I lay my head back down, the room takes a brief, pleasant spin, as the wine is finally doing the trick. My limbs are feeling mellow and soft, my brain wiped clean.

  “You want me to go get the pizza now?” he asks.

  I don’t answer, as I happily realize at that moment that my face is conveniently planted against Mike’s anatomically perfect thigh. I stroke the inside of his leg, feeling him squirm.

  “Um, Zoe, what are we doing here?” To make it more obvious, I start kissing his thigh, biting at the fabric just a bit. “Ah, okay.” His voice comes out a bit choked. “See now, I thought I was comforting you.”

  “You were. But I was getting bored of the comforting.”

  “Bored of the comforting,” he repeats.

  Without finesse I undo the scrub tie with my teeth. Then I reach underneath his scrubs for the other perfect part of his anatomy. “I have an idea,” I say.

  His eyes are closed. “What’s that?” he murmurs, his warm hand reaching under my sweater.

  “Let’s skip the pizza,” I whisper.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In the parking lot, I see Newsboy and try not to catch his eye. My head is still pounding from all the wine last night, and I couldn’t find any Motrin in my purse. All I want to do is get into work to score some Tylenol off Jason. But unfortunately, the reporter sees me.

  “Oh, hey, Zoe!” He says this with forced surprise, which makes me think he was waiting there for me. He lifts a wait-a-minute finger to his cameraman, who is getting out of the car.

  “Oh, hi, New—” I almost call him Newsboy.

  “Logan,” he reminds me. “You have my card, I think.”

  “Yes, I do. Sorry about that. I’m in kind of a rush, so…”

  “Oh, no worries. I’m on my way in, too.”

  “Okay,” I say, because I can’t exactly refuse. We walk into the bitter wind, the top of my head stinging because I keep forgetting to buy a hat to replace the one that Arthur snacked on. The wind isn’t helping my headache either. As I dig my mittens out of my pockets, snow whirls up in front of us like an apparition.

  “Freezing out, huh?”

  “Yup.” And we walk on, hard snow crunching at our feet. I suspect he does not want to talk about the weather, but I’m also not about to offer an easy opening. The cameraman trails a few feet behind us, like Logan’s personal butler.

  “Did you think any more about what I said?” His breath comes out in puffs. “About the interview?” He pushes his hair back, revealing the tip of his ear, already turning pink with cold. I’m sure his silver earring is especially frigid right now.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been really busy, Logan.”

  “Sure, yeah. It’s just that…I’ve been hearing some rumors.”

  “Is that so?” I walk faster.

  “Yeah, I have,” he goes on. “That the warden isn’t happy.”

  “I’ve never known the man to be especially happy.”

  He allows a smile. “More unhappy than usual, I should say, then. Another suicide, I heard.”

  “Off the record, Logan, incarceration isn’t exactly the safest lifestyle choice.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” He nods. “But just so you know, your name came up, in some of these rumors.”

  I don’t answer, climbing the stairs to the prison and feeling as if I’m reaching home base.

  “Listen, I don’t want to be rude here. But the fact is, the News wants this story, the warden wants this story. It’s going to happen, whether you like it or not. But if you talk to me, then you get to tell your side of things.” He combines an impish grin with an eyebrow raise, a look that probably gets him laid a fair amount. He pushes the door open for me. “What do you think?”

  “What do I think?” I repeat, rubbing my mittened hands together. For a second I consider telling him about everything. About the Elavil that I didn’t write for Barbara Donalds. About the fact that the warden seems to have it out for me. About Dr. Nowhere, who is barely equipped to treat a cold at this point. Maybe Newsboy could be my ally, instead of my enemy. I consider it, but decide not to. As my mom chided me over and over throughout my childhood, Zoe, you don’t have to say every single thing that’s in your head.

  “I think,” I say, as he scrounges in his satchel for a notebook, “that you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

  * * *

  “Please tell me you have some Motrin.”

  “You look like crap,” Jason says. “And no, I don’t have any Motrin. I’m not a pharmacy, you know.” He inches away from me. “And don’t get me sick.”

  “I’m not sick. Just hungover.”

  He scrolls down on his computer. “Hope it was worth it.”

  “It was,” I say, but don’t elaborate further. “My clinic is really light today,” I say with surprise. “Just Aubrey and one other. Hey, I’m not complaining, but what’s up with that?” Jason shifts in his chair, staying suspiciously quiet. He busies himself with his ever-ready hand sanitizer from his pocket. “Is something going on?” I ask him.

  He clears his throat. “They’re sort of giving me most of the patients right now.”

  “Oh.” I turn back to the computer screen so he can’t see my face. “But I still have Andre, right?” I am trying not to sound as crushed as I feel.

  “Yeah. But he’s on the med floor right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Tried to pull off his thumbnail in shop class.”

  “Seriously?” I rub my temples. “I don’t get it. He was doing better on his Abilify increase.”

  Jason shrugs. “Made a damn mess of himself, but I don’t think he got the nail off.” The thought makes my stomach quiver. “And he was saying some freaky shit. About some furry thing with—”

  “A hundred ribs going up and down,” I say.

  “Sounds about right.”

  I start looking through his chart for the incident note. “Oh, guess who was stalking me this morning?”

  “Newsboy,” Jason answers. “Don’t feel so flattered. He’s stalking me, too. And he is definitely playing for my team. My friend saw him at Fugazi.”

  “What’s Fugazi?”

  “Gay bar.” He rips open a snack bag of pretzels from his pocket. He probably has a hat rack and umbrella in there like Mary Poppins. But no damn Motrin. Catching me eying them, he hands me a pretzel. “You never heard of Fugazi? You must not get out much.”

  “No, you’re right. I don’t go to gay bars all that often.”

  “Point taken.” He stands up with a stretch, then goes off to see his patient.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dr. Novaire’s slightly stooped form loping my way. I’m surprised to see him show up in clinic, and smile at him in greeting.

  “Ready to go through your patients?” he asks with false cheer.

  “Yeah. Sure. Don’t have too many, but—”

  “Oh, before we get into that. I heard you saw Sofia yesterday,” he says, a sunny lilt in his voice. “How did that go?”

  “Fine,” I
say. He waits for further explanation, but I don’t know what to say.

  “Well, that’s good. She thought it went very well, too, and wanted to see you again.”

  “Uh-huh.” I roll my pen on the table.

  “So I told her you would come to meet her, later today.”

  I nod as my pen falls off the table. “See, today’s pretty busy, though—”

  “You just said you didn’t have that many patients.”

  I open my mouth to speak, but have nothing to say. Because he’s absolutely right.

  “Okay, then,” he says. “Who shall we start with?”

  * * *

  On my way to the women’s clinic, I stop by Medical to see Andre.

  He looks ashen, lying on the cot with one gloved hand handcuffed to the rail and the other hand, wrapped as if it were in a white gauze boxing glove, resting on his lap. The other red glove is on a shelf on the metal table, stored in a baggie for safekeeping. He stirs as I approach the foot of his bed. “Oh, hi…” he says with an embarrassed yawn.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Okay.” He glances down at his bandaged hand. “I know I shouldn’t have done it. But I could feel him burrowing in. The seeds were taking hold.”

  Going to the head of the bed, I put my hand on his shoulder. “Andre, have you been taking your medication still?”

  He doesn’t answer right away. “It makes me groggy. I hate feeling that way.”

  “We can try something else eventually, but let’s see if this will work first. Just give it a chance, okay?”

  He nods, moving in the bed and clinking his handcuff against the railing. After a few more minutes of stunted questions and answers, it is clear he’s not in a talkative mood, so I write a quick note before continuing to the clinic.

  After a few minutes, Aubrey is let in. She settles herself in the chair and flashes her red fingernails at me. “What do you think?”

  “Nice.” But the shade of red on top of the fluorescent light isn’t helping my headache.

  “Portia did it for me. For Christmas.” As she displays them, I can’t help but notice three new slash marks along her wrists. When I point to them, she pulls her hand back.

  “Solitary, Aubrey,” I remind her. “You won’t be given a choice next time.”

  She bites the inside of her lip, then looks up at me, her green eyes oddly luminescent. Her fingers push on the new cutting marks. “Maybe it’s time to talk about the nightmare.”

  I nod. “I’m ready when you are, Aubrey.”

  She pushes on her cuts again. “I should have listened to my family about him.”

  “About Todd?”

  “Yes. They hated him. And they were right, it turns out.” She rubs her hands together. “It’s about what happened that night. The nightmare.”

  “Yes.”

  “In the room.” She takes a deep breath, her chest rising. “Todd said we needed more money. We were staying in a motel. Some fleabag place. Dirty carpet, smelled like piss, you know the kind of place.”

  “Sure.” I didn’t but could easily imagine.

  “We couldn’t be picky, you know. Anywhere cheap, that would let us in. That’s where we’d end up.” She squeezes her hands together. “He said he was going to score. And I should wait for him. So I did.” She appears to be trying to steady her breathing. “He was gone for a while. I was still pretty high, but I could feel it wearing off, you know, by the time he came back.” I nod for her to keep going, and she licks her lips. “But when he came back, he…” She pushes on her slash marks again, hard. “He…” She takes another deep breath and lets it go. “I can’t do this right now. I’m sorry, Dr. Goldman. I just can’t.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Later that day I go to see Sofia as per Dr. Novaire’s “suggestion.”

  She sits in the clinic room, idly looking out the window. “I love watching the birds.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” I say, grumpily. “Why do you love watching the birds?”

  “Because they remind me there’s still a world out there,” she says, talking to the window, “where people are free.” As if on cue, the black birds scatter across the sky like an ink blot.

  “What about your last gig, the mental hospital? Weren’t there birds there, too?”

  She turns away from the window. “There was a chance of freedom there, at least. There was some hope.”

  “Yeah, well…” I cross my arms. “Maybe you should remember that next time you stab someone with a nail file.”

  Sofia laughs, which is unexpected. “You’re funny, Tanya.”

  “Dr. Goldman,” I practically growl. “And I have exactly ten minutes.” I tap my watch. “Then I’m done. I have actual patients to help.”

  Sofia snorts. “I hear that’s going real well.”

  I stand up. “Okay, I’m done. Have a fun twenty years, Sofia. I’ll make sure to be there at your parole hearing.”

  “Wait,” she says. “I’m sorry. Look, I don’t…I’m trying, okay?” She looks almost guilty. “It’s a process.” As she puts her head in her hands, I suddenly see her as she is—a pathetic middle-aged woman in orange clothes and leg chains. “I’ve just been angry with you for so long.”

  “Angry with me?” I put my hand on the back of the chair but don’t sit back down. “That’s rich.”

  “I’m not saying it’s right,” she amends. “In fact, I’m saying it’s wrong. But I can’t help it…It takes time. The rabbi talked about old patterns and trying to reconfigure our—”

  “Sofia,” I groan, “you are so full of shit.”

  “Wait a second. Hear me out.” She moves closer to the table, clanking her chains. “You have your own issues with self-control, right?”

  I shake my head. “I’d hardly say they’re in the same plane, Sofia. The same solar system.”

  “Okay, but”—she clasps her hands so tight that the web of lines on her knuckles stands out—“I’m just trying to explain.” She pauses, then clears her throat, as if she’s rehearsed this. “All my life, I listened to a voice. The wrong voice. A bad voice. It told me to do things, and I did them. Bad things.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Things that kept getting me in trouble. Fucking patients. Fucking doctors.” She looks at me to gauge my response.

  “Trying to kill doctors,” I add.

  “I’m trying to listen to the good voice now,” she says, ignoring my jab. “Not the bad one. I’m training myself to do that. And it isn’t easy.” The noise of a prisoner shouting and arguing emerges outside in the hall, and a guard rebuking him then passing by us.

  Finally I do sit down. “Why should I even trust you for a minute, Sofia? Why on earth would I do that?”

  “You shouldn’t. And you don’t, I know. But I’m going to change that.” She pulls her chair closer to me, her deep-blue eyes drawing me in. “Somehow I will show you that this isn’t just another game. This is me, the real me.”

  “New and improved, huh? The perfect Sofia?”

  She shakes her head. “I never said I was perfect. I’m still a bitch, for instance,” she says with a wry little smile. “But I am different. And all I’m saying is, we don’t have to be mortal enemies.”

  We sit a moment, appraising each other. I can feel myself fighting against her magnetic pull. Sofia is like this. You have to watch yourself or you end up in her net. This is what Sam warned me about.

  I back my chair up, rubbing my temples. My headache is roaring now, and I’m exhausted. “Look, I’m not feeling great, Sofia. Why don’t I come back later, another time?”

  Her lips turn down in disappointment. I don’t know if she’s truly trying to change or not. Probably not. But in either case, I figure I can drag this out a bit longer, until Newsboy is done with his article, at least. “I promise,” I say. “When I have more time.”

  “More time.” She glances around at the mottled concrete walls of the clinic room. “I sure have plenty of that.”

  * * *


  With one hand on the steering wheel, I pop some Motrin in my mouth and chug it down with some fizzy, lukewarm pop from the convenience store. Sofia’s mind games have me whirling, and I decide to speak to the only person who really understands my relationship with her, my biological brother, Jack. He lives in Chicago, so I never see him and rarely call, but I figure it’s worth a shot.

  “She’s playing you, Zoe,” Jack says, his voice a warning. “I don’t understand why you’re even talking to her.”

  “I know I shouldn’t, but…” Making a sharp turn, I put down the pop, letting the sentence hang. I don’t tell him about the news article, which would certainly bias him, as well it should. “I just wanted to get your opinion. It’s probably all an act, I know. But there’s something about what she says…”

  His laugh booms over the car speaker. “That she found God? Are you honestly falling for this? It’s just her latest excuse, Zoe. That’s all it is. It’s never Sofia’s fault. Remember, she claimed she was high on PCP and that’s why she did it? Then it was our father abusing her?”

  “Yes.” I was never sure whether she was lying about that one or not, though.

  “Now it’s just a mean voice in her head, I guess.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you’re right. But I can’t help feeling like…” A horn honks at me, and I proceed through the just-green light. “There was a kernel of truth in there.”

  “Truth?” he says with scorn. “Sofia is a liar, through and through. You don’t ask the devil how to get to heaven, and you don’t ask a liar for the truth.”

  “You’re right.” I pull into the Galleria mall parking lot. “It’s just, I feel like ever since I met her, I’ve spent so much time hating her that I’ve never actually gotten to know her.”

  “I know her well enough,” he mutters. “And you took care of her for months last time, right?”

  “True. But that’s just a little window of time. And I was her doctor, so that’s different.”

  I hear him breathing deeply through the speaker. “Zoe, I don’t know how to say this, but I’m just going to say it.” There is a long pause as I put the car in park. “You were able to get out, right?”