Zoe Letting Go

by Nora Price

  I stared at the building before us. It was a brick mansion, as big as a city library and spreading stealthily across the grounds like a prowling animal. Ten or twelve versions of our cramped Brooklyn apartment could have fit inside the one building easily, though the house’s haphazard angles and additions made it impossible to calculate square footage. When Mom popped open her car door, the rush of garden-scented breeze reminded me again of how stale the air inside the car had grown. I wished to deflate like a balloon into my seat, but Mom was having none of it.

  “Grab your suitcase, pup.”

  Aside from its queasy asymmetry, the building’s most noticeable feature was its windows, which gaped from floor to ceiling like open mouths at the dentist. Sunlight reflected from the panes, destroying any opportunity to glimpse the interiors. It was a blinding effect, and perhaps intentionally so. To the left of the building stood a vegetable garden, and to the right a broad tangle of roses that was either a flower garden or the unkempt remains of one. The grounds behind me were a map of greenish planes, interrupted, now and then, by miniature groves of oak and beech trees. My legs felt weak and car-fatigued as I pulled my suitcase from the back seat and dragged it toward Mom, who already stood in conversation with a thin, rod-shaped woman who had appeared at the mansion’s entrance. The woman was tall, dark-haired, and dressed in red.

  “Welcome, Zoe,” she called.

  How does she know my name? I wondered before chastising myself for the unwarranted paranoia. Get it together, Zoe, I told myself. It may have been a surprise to me, but this woman, whoever she was, had clearly prepared for my arrival.

  “My name is Angela Birch,” the woman said as we approached. “I’m the program director at Twin Birch, and I’d like to introduce you to your new home.”

  “Temporary home,” I corrected. Mom gave me a look.

  “How was the drive?” Angela asked. “Not too much traffic, I hope?”

  “None,” my mother said.

  “I’m glad. Shall we begin with a tour?”

  My mother followed Angela inside, and I grimly lugged my wheelie suitcase up the twelve stone steps and into the building’s main entrance. Inside, it smelled old. Not rotten, but musty—like dust and antique furniture. I paused in the foyer before advancing, looking around to get my bearings. A chandelier supplemented the sunshine ushered inside by those tall windows I’d noticed earlier, though the hallway itself was nearly empty of furnishings. Angela and my mother were heading into another room, so I rolled my suitcase after them into a closet-sized office. Although a morsel of sunshine found its way into the room by way of a porthole window, the light did little to brighten what seemed an astonishingly cramped room. Instead of being square or rectangle-shaped, the office walls zigged and zagged crookedly, creating acute corners and odd shadows. An aerial view of the space would have been dizzying. As Angela bustled about behind a Japanese-style antique desk, I wondered how she could stand to sit for five minutes in a room that felt as though it were keen on swallowing its occupants alive. Even the ceiling had a menacing stoop. I sat down, pulling my sleeves over my hands.

  “The other girls are all in cooking class right now,” Angela said, addressing me. “You’ll join them as soon as we’re done here. Following class, you will have plenty of time to relax, unpack, and explore the facilities.”

  “Awesome,” I said, with a smirk. “I love to explore facilities.”

  “Cut it out,” my mom warned, using the singsong voice she employs when disciplining me in public. As she turned to Angela, her voice was steely and forced again. “It’s quite a beautiful location you’ve got here,” she said. Angela smiled gracefully, as though my mother had complimented her on the bacon-wrapped olives at a cocktail party.

  “We find it helps for the girls to feel safe and comfortable as they recover.”

  Recover from what? I wondered, pulse quickening. I am healthy and normal. My wrists are not encircled by hospital bracelets, or scars, or any other telltale signs of damage. There is no reason for this. No reason.

  While Mom and Angela spoke, I glanced at a stack of papers resting on the empty chair opposite Angela’s. The pages were printed on thick cardstock and looked like brochures waiting to be folded. When neither woman was looking, I slipped one into my pocket. By focusing on a short-term mission—learning as much about this place as possible—I could calm myself down, I hoped. And remain rational.

  Angela retrieved a manila folder from one of her desk drawers and opened it flat on the table, handing Mom a pen. I watched my mother sign the papers necessary to seal my doom, noting that she did so in the same casual way she might use for accepting mail deliveries and signing utility checks. There was a view of the vegetable garden outside Angela’s tiny, circular window, and I craned to see what sort of plant matter was being cultivated within it. Peas, tomatoes, and lettuce, all arranged in obsessively geometrical rows. Other green stuff, too.

  “Let’s see,” Angela said, bending over the desk to rifle through the stack of pages. “I think that’s it. We’re all set for take-off.”

  My mother looked at me for a long moment, her face as blank as the moon. Then she reached out, still unsmiling, and squeezed my arm. The gesture, though it was meant to be kind, made me bristle. It was the same squeeze she gave me when I was about to have vaccine shots or a tooth pulled—a squeeze meant to prepare me for physical harm. The kernel of anger I’d been toting around was beginning, despite my best efforts, to morph into fear. I felt like a kindergartener on the first day of school, marching into the unknown with nothing more than a backpack for protection. Except this time, I didn’t have a backpack. I had a wheelie suitcase.

  “I love you,” my mother said stiffly, and then—ever the disciplinarian—“Be good.”

  I kept my lips tightly sealed as we walked toward the door, and it wasn’t until I heard tires crunching over gravel that I looked up and around at the hallway in which I stood, once again aware of my predicament. Somehow, it was even worse being here without my mother, despite her responsibility for that very fact. With Mom gone, I knew nothing and nobody at Twin Birch.

  Let me emphasize that: Nothing.

  Nobody.

  My organs turned to jelly. The voice came from behind me.

  “Phone,” Angela said.

  “What?”

  “Your phone,” she repeated, summoning me back into her office. “And you may take a seat.”

  I lowered myself into the desk chair opposite hers. It groaned with my weight—was I really that heavy? The thought made me sick.

  “There are no phones allowed at Twin Birch,” Angela elaborated. “No phones, no texting, no Internet.”

  She stared expectantly as I dug out my phone and held it, hesitantly, in my palm. How could I surrender my only link to the outside world? I glanced at the screen, but there were no messages. There was no service, either.

  “We get poor reception out here, anyway,” Angela said, as if reading my mind. “That’s the price one pays for privacy.”

  I gave her the phone.

  “You’ll get used to the phone rule. It’ll help you focus one hundred percent on your recovery.”

  My recovery. It was the second time she’d mentioned it. But what did it mean? From what did I have to recover?

  “Okay,” I said, my tone neutral and unwavering. Fear was vulnerability—whatever I did, I could not show that I was afraid.

  Angela evaluated me coolly from behind her desk before continuing.

  “You are the last of six girls to arrive for the summer session. Arrivals are staggered, and no two girls arrive at the same time. For the six-week duration of the session, you’ll be expected to comply with the rules of comportment.” She paused so that I could signal my acceptance of her statement. When I failed to smile or nod, she simply assumed my response and continued.

  “You are prohibited from entering the bedroom of another patient unless given explicit verbal permission.”

  Patient?

&
nbsp; “Meals are mandatory, as is adherence to the program. Free time will be allotted according to a schedule, which will be consistent from one day to the next.”

  I said nothing, but the feeling of panic continued to grow inside of me.

  “Aside from today, you won’t often see me. I handle the administrative and research aspects of Twin Birch. Your main points of contact will be Alexandra, our in-house psychiatrist, and Devon, our program coordinator.”

  I barely heard her speech; my mind was still stuck on the word “patient.” I didn’t feel like a patient; I felt like an inmate or a victim. “Patient” implied that there was something wrong with me. “Patient” implied that I was sick.

  Finished with her briefing, Angela stood and slipped out from behind her desk, plucking the phone from my stunned, open hand along the way.

  “We’ll keep it safe until you check out,” she said with a smile. “Please follow me.”

  My suitcase squeaked as I pulled it down the hallway behind Angela, keeping my eyes focused on the hem of her suit in order to avoid becoming dizzy. When I chanced a wider survey, I saw that her black hair was gathered into a French twist and secured with a single, glossy chopstick. A pair of pumps rapped against the floor sharply, their assault amplified by the acoustics of the hallway. As we moved away from the periphery of the building, I saw that the house wasn’t as bare as it first seemed. Bit by bit, pieces of furniture accumulated: antique mirrors, end tables, settees, statuettes, and ottomans that, by their looks, hadn’t supported a pair of feet in decades. Just as I considered complaining about my suitcase, Angela came to a stop before a plain chair and table arranged at the tail end of the hallway.

  On top of the table sat a red box, shiny and new-looking among the surrounding relics. But Angela hadn’t led me here to show me a box. Next to the collection of items was a door—a closed door.

  “Sound-proofed,” Angela said, rapping against the door to illustrate her point. “You’ll be here every day.”

  I swallowed hard, determined not to reveal an iota of bewilderment. Angela scrutinized my face in response, no doubt searching for signs of weakness.

  “You’re nervous,” she said.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “That won’t last long,” she continued, confirming the diagnosis despite my silence. “I’ll take you to meet the rest of the girls now. This way, please.”

  With one hand I grasped the suitcase; the other I jammed tightly into my jacket pocket, where my fingers traced the deckled edges of the paper I’d snatched from Angela’s chair. When would I have a moment of privacy to read it? I wanted badly to examine it—needed to examine it. The state of semi-paralysis that had enveloped me early in the morning was disintegrating fast. I needed answers soon.

  I followed Angela as we headed up a staircase, around a bend, and down a second hallway roughly perpendicular to the one downstairs. As with the ground floor of the building, the rooms upstairs were arranged chaotically, with no apparent logic guiding their placement. Navigating the crooked passages, I realized that I’d need to draw some sort of map in order to keep my compass oriented amid the bamboozling array of corners and half-staircases. After what seemed like a mile inside the maze of the second floor, we arrived at a straight-ahead hallway lined with bedrooms.

  “Here we are,” Angela said.

  I let go of my suitcase handle, and it fell to the ground with a violent thump.

  “Well, not quite,” Angela amended. “Come this way.”

  Three bedrooms abutted the corridor, their doors wide open to show scattered clothes, books, and personal objects. Evidence of inhabitation.

  “The bathroom,” Angela said, directing my attention through an opposite doorway as we continued. I paused and surveyed the large, white-tiled room. A counter was already clotted with a drugstore’s worth of shampoos, conditioners, moisturizers, toners, cleansers, soaps, lotions, contact lens solutions, shaving creams, glosses, serums, sprays, toothpastes, tweezers, and sticks of deodorant. Staring at the bottles and tubes on display, I was reminded unpleasantly of how much effort it takes to be a female. And how much money, too—there must have been three hundred dollars worth of shaving products alone.

  My own room was the last of the bunch.

  “This is you,” Angela said. “If you have any questions about accommodations, I’m sure Caroline or Devon would be glad to help you.”

  “Caroline?”

  “Your roommate.”

  “Oh,” I said uncertainly. A roommate? Was I supposed to know this information already? If so, how? I pinched my thumb and forefinger together tightly, which is something I do when my composure is failing me. The presence of minor pain keeps me on my toes.

  “Devon,” Angela continued, misreading my confusion, “is the coordinator of our program.”

  I reviewed this information once more. Had I been told about Caroline? I had not. My processing devices were cluttered with new data: the layout of the house, the names of the people, the rules and regulations and schedules. It was a lot for one afternoon. Especially for a summer afternoon, when my brain wasn’t primed for anything.

  I wheeled my suitcase into my new room, which was arranged as if for a pair of twins: two beds, two desks, two dressers, all identical. A clean, scrubbed room. The kind of room where you could swipe a finger along any surface, no matter how obscure, and find it free of dust and cobwebs. Nearly everything my eyes swept over was painted or woven of the same color, and the predominant feeling of the room was, therefore, an overwhelming sensation of yellowness. Yellow walls, yellow curtains, yellow lampshade, yellow bedding: Nothing was the same shade of yellow as anything else, but it all belonged to a very specific category of yellowness. The shades were rich and saturate, like shortbread and banana cream pie, or the golden tips of a crisp meringue cookie. I wondered if this was supposed to add up to a subliminal message, and if so, how I would resist it.

  One half of the room was a blank slate. Presumably, this was my half. The other half was populated with a dozen items, each organized neatly across the top of Caroline’s dresser. I had only a few seconds to eye my roommate’s possessions, but a few seconds was long enough for an uneasy feeling to creep up my neck.

  “All right?” Angela asked. “Ready to meet the girls?”

  I nodded to Angela, signaling that I was ready for whatever came next.

  First came the smell. Then came the heat.

  I sniffed the air as Angela led me toward the kitchen. Christmas. It smelled like cinnamon, spice, and everything nice. Like wood-burning stoves and ribboned gifts beneath a tree. But it was June, not December, and instead of good cheer, the smell cast a disorienting spell. With each step toward the source, the air grew hotter.

  The kitchen was a hybrid of different purposes and shapes, like the rest of the house—a former home kitchen remodeled, with baffling additions and corrections, into an industrial cooking space. Three ovens blasted at 350 degrees each. The room contained three tables, six stools, and six people. Five of the people sat hunched at the stools. The sixth strolled among them, passing out nickel-sized objects. At my entrance the entire group looked up. I pinched my thumb and forefinger together again, praying for the knot of pain to distract me from my nerves.

  “This must be Zoe,” said the sixth person, strolling over to where I stood. She was solidly built, maybe in her late twenties, with a blond ponytail spouting from the base of her head like a garden hose. Her posture was uncommonly erect, and I could tell she was the kind of person who is genetically engineered to be a camp counselor, soccer coach, or some other middling authority figure. Not a stitch of makeup adorned her confident features, and a light sheen of oil cast a glare from her forehead.

  “I’m Devon,” she said.

  “What’s on the menu?” Angela asked.

  Devon turned to address the five girls sitting on stools behind her. “Ladies? Want to tell Angela what we whipped up today?”

  Five frail girls stared at their hands in si
lence. I was struck by the hollowness of their features, though perhaps it was an effect of the kitchen’s harsh fluorescent lights.

  “Tiger milk cookies,” Devon filled in. “Smells good, doesn’t it, Zoe?”

  I nodded automatically—what else could I do? One of the girls at the table glanced up at me with a murderous look. Traitor, her expression said, as though by agreeing with Devon I’d already erred. The girl bowed her head back down, letting a wreath of dark curls conceal her face. My stomach heaved. I clearly didn’t know the rules here yet. I didn’t know who was a friend and who was an enemy. Certainly the gaunt figures in front of me did not look eager to welcome me into their fold.

  “We’re about to perform the Mindfulness exercise,” Devon said, holding up a bag of dried apricots.

  Angela nodded. “I’ll leave you to it. Have fun, girls.” She left without pausing for a reply. I didn’t have one, anyway.

  I took the only free stool in the room. My table partner was a twiglike creature with blond wisps of hair, a ski-jump nose, and marble-like eyes. Her hands were as dainty as bird claws, save for the thin blue veins visible just beneath the surface. My own hands, by comparison, were as ruddy and robust as a farmer’s. I hid them in my lap self-consciously.

  Devon placed an object in front of me, then returned to her place at the front of the class.

  “Ready?” she addressed the group.

  Silence again.

  “Put the apricot in the palm of your hand.”

  I put the apricot in the palm of my hand.

  “Imagine you’re visiting our planet from outer space,” Devon intoned soothingly. “Imagine you dropped in from the moon five minutes ago, and you have never seen anything like this object before.”

  I looked up sharply. Was this a joke? The girls perched around me stared hypnotized at their pieces of fruit. None would meet my eye.

  “Turn it over between your fingers,” Devon said. “Explore the texture of the apricot. Let your eyes explore every part of it, as though you’ve never seen such a thing before.”