She, Myself, and I

by Emma Young

  What happened?

  “And for my last word,” Dmitri says, “slut!” He’s gleeful. He looks at me. “Rosa, lighten up. It’s just fun.”

  • • •

  “Rosa? Were you asleep?”

  Elliot.

  I shift the phone a little away from my ear. “Almost.”

  “It’s . . . nine twenty-seven,” he says, half accusingly, a guitar loud in the background.

  “I was off my face last night,” I deadpan. “I needed an early one.”

  I hear his grin. “We’re celebrating. Aula’s sold her idea. It’s about”—he adopts a spooky voice—”the creatures that come out at the crepuscule.”

  I roll over onto my stomach, wave my hand to turn on the bedside lamp, and prop myself up on my elbows. “Not even you can make crepuscule sound scary.”

  “As dusk falls, we witness the emergence of the moths, the bats, the”—dramatic pause—“anteaters.”

  “It sounds like some kind of organ,” I tell him.

  “The crepuscule of Langerhans!” he says, in the manner of a pompous doctor.

  “The crepuscule of the corpus callosum!”

  “What’s the corpus callosum?” he asks.

  “The part of the brain that connects the hemispheres. It used to be cut in cases of uncontrollable seizures.”

  Silence. Then he says, “Everything all right, or do I have to come and kick Jane in the crepuscule?”

  I didn’t even tell Elliot about the prayers.

  “I would like to see that,” I tell him.

  “Or that boy? Jared. Does he need a kicking?”

  “No . . .” I roll over again. “Elliot, I wish I knew about her.”

  “Who?” he asks.

  But I know I don’t need to explain.

  After a few moments, during which the music gets quieter, which I assume means he’s going outside, he says, “You remember all those reasons everyone decided an anonymous donation would be best for you as well as her parents?”

  “I have her body,” I say quietly. “She’s part of me.”

  “You are you. If I had someone else’s kidney, would that make me partly them?”

  “It’s different.”

  “If I had their kidneys and their liver? Their kidneys and their liver and their lungs. Their kidneys and liver and lungs and heart—”

  “Elliot—”

  “You remember that report that psychologist gave you? Before you even signed up for all this.”

  I don’t answer. My elbows are beginning to hurt. I flop over onto my back.

  “I remember entire pages. You remember the stats on heart transplants when recipients knew about the donors? I do. Forty-six percent had fantasies about the donor’s physical strength, forty percent felt guilty the donor had died, thirty-four percent thought they’d taken on a part of the donor’s identity with the heart. Just a heart. There was all that stuff from doctors arguing for totally anonymous organ donations, like they do in France, partly to stop all that from happening. You remember?”

  “How many of those doctors actually had someone else’s organs?” I ask him. “How many of them lived because someone else died?”

  “You remember the case of Isabelle Dinoire?”

  How could I forget?

  Dr. Bailey’s initial report included a section on her. She’d been mauled by her Labrador after overdosing on sleeping pills, and she was the first person to receive a face transplant. This was in France, so when the transplant took place, she knew nothing about the donor. But eventually, the donor’s family approached her.

  “So which do you think was better?” Elliot says. “Living with knowing nothing about the donor? Or finding out that this woman had hanged herself—and seeing her face in the mirror every day? I know with Sylvia it wasn’t like that, but if you knew about her life, you’d look at yourself and you’d think about her. You wouldn’t be able to help it. Why are you worrying about this so much now?”

  Why am I worrying about this now? Perhaps it’s because I’m close to leaving the hospital and she is who Joe—who everyone—sees.

  Elliot says something else, but it’s muffled. Not to me. “Rosa, I have to go. You know what I think: Maybe you should try to get to a point where you forget there even was a donor. This is you. I’ll come and see you tomorrow or the weekend. Are you all right?”

  “No need for us to go and live in a dark house,” I tell him.

  A pause. “Good.”

  The connection is cut.

  I think, Forget... ?

  Is he insane?

  And if I did forget there was ever a donor, what else would I have to forget?

  I remember trying to thump Elliot after he broke my new Shrek Slinky, and him, age eight, holding me at arm’s length and saying calmly, “Rosa, you’re a freak.”

  I remember dancing on my own in the kitchen to Rihanna’s “Umbrella.”

  Feeling a glass of Coke slip out of my hand at Bea’s eighth birthday party.

  Losing my grip on the monkey bars in the playground, and Dad insisting, “Everything’s all right, Rosa. Everything’s all right.”

  I remember peering through the crack between the living room door and its frame and seeing Elliot kiss Catherine Smith, and feeling sad but not crying. Kissing someone . . . It would never happen. I was a different kind of person.

  It was one thing to watch Elliot enjoying his life. Maybe Mum was right: It would have been unbearable to hear Bea and Lily talking about boys and parties and dancing. I shut myself in, Elliot and later my laptop my umbilical cord to life. And now . . . ?

  Enough.

  I couldn’t ever forget.

  15.

  The next day, nothing happens until 4:42 P.M.

  After a gym session, followed by two hours on an essay about the English Civil War, I go to the park and sit on the Denise bench, fully expecting to see Joe. But he doesn’t show.

  Dr. Bailey has given me lessons in avoiding what he calls catastrophizing. “If you find yourself with a bitterly negative thought about a situation”—Joe has decided I’m completely unstable and the last thing he wants is to run into me again—“try to think about the ‘most likely’ and the ‘best case’ scenarios.”

  Best case: He’s utterly fallen for me and after a sleepless night of ardent obsession, he’s so occupied in writing a detailed exposition of my many irresistible personality attributes that he hasn’t noticed the time.

  Most likely: Something came up at Bostonstream, and he’s busy.

  Still, my cheeks flush. Why did I ask him about Dr. Frankenstein? Why did I ask him if I’m pretty?

  When I’ve finally accepted that for whatever reason he isn’t coming to the park, I head back inside. I slump on my bed and I read. First, trashy websites:

  THIS CELEBRITY LIED FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS

  TWENTY MISSPELLED TATTOOS THAT WILL MAKE YOU DIE INSIDE

  Then I download The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe.

  I’ve read it before, but not recently. It’s a short story about a man who is mesmerized—hypnotized—on the brink of death. His flesh lives on, though he, M. Valdemar, claims in a distinct, “gelatinous” voice to be dead.

  The hypnosis has preserved him. It’s incredible! It’s horrible! It’s also utterly outside his control. Once released from the trance, he instantly decays. Even the mesmerist is revolted: Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putridity.

  My flesh is dead. And I live on . . .

  On a tray on the desk, my lunch is untouched. There’s a skin across the vegetable soup. It’s the color of detestable putridity.

  I need air.

  Something.

  It’ll have to be air.

  After grabbing a sweater, I manage to slip back through the gym and out of the rehab wing unnoticed by anybody who might care. It’s cool out here now. Dusk. The first stars are flickering between swathes of cloud. Beneath them, pale pa
tches created by the park lights spread across the water.

  There’s no one else out here but me. I start to feel a little exposed. Perhaps because it’s the only thing in the vicinity at least suggestive of protection, I head toward the wooded area beyond the last of the benches.

  As I take the path in and walk among the trees, toward a clearing, I glance down at acorns so much bigger than those in England. I look up at the leaves. The fall isn’t beautiful. It’s a violent blood-spatter of death. Yet some of us—no not some of us. Just Sylvia and me. Like this tree, or at least its leaves, we are reborn.

  My heart skips. Sudden nerves. I shouldn’t have come out here.

  I hear something. The flop of shoes on damp leaves. Someone behind me. There’s a ripple in my heart. Another swish of leaves. Red alert through my nerves. Excitement. Joe.

  It isn’t Joe.

  16.

  He’s looking at me. He isn’t moving. He isn’t moving.

  A short man in black outdoor gear. Loose-fitting trousers and a fleece. Hollow cheeks. He’s too far away, and in too many shadows, for me to see him clearly—but I don’t want to. I want to turn and run out of the woods. But his gaze is fixed on me, and it’s so intense it’s reaching right into my muscles, holding them tight. He’s looking directly at me, and his isn’t the expression of a man on a casual walk through the woods. A wild thought occurs to me: You can’t kill me, because I’m already dead. Still, I’m going to get a grip. I’m going to yell and I’m going to run.

  Needles pierce my spine, releasing my legs. I’m about to run when I hear a scrappy noise off to my right. Footsteps. Someone moving fast.

  Someone in a navy hoodie, hood up, making me think of a cobra, hands plunged in the baggy pockets. I can’t see the face. The right hand, still in the pocket, angles up. Something weapon-shaped is aimed at the man in the fleece. A rough voice says: “Wallet.”

  Someone’s mugging my would-be murderer in front of my eyes?

  I’m trembling. My brain’s moving like a slug.

  The hand jerks again. “Wallet.”

  The man flinches and blinks. He looks wildly at me. His arm is shaking as he reaches for his pocket. He pulls out a wallet and throws it down on the yellowing leaves. He says quickly, “It’s everything I have. Please, take it and go.”

  The person in the hoodie grabs the wallet. Then there’s a shout from through the trees. A whoop.

  The person in the hoodie seems startled. He twists, poised to run.

  A girl giggles loudly: “Over here!” A boy’s voice calls after her: “Wait!” Then another boy shouts: “Michael, where are you?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see the gleam of what I guess is a phone flashlight. Then another. In a moment, they’ll be here in this clearing.

  The man in black looks hesitant, but he sees the lights almost upon him, the person in the hoodie starting to stride away—and the man in black runs off, snapping twigs, quickly disappearing into darkness.

  The person in the hoodie stops and turns to face me.

  Joe.

  Jesus.

  Joe.

  “I didn’t think he’d actually give it to me.”

  Joe’s holding the wallet, taking my hand, pulling me after him, away from the flashing beams. He whispers, “You know him?”

  There’s a giggle from somewhere among the trees. But it’s fainter. They’re heading in another direction.

  He stops. In the darkness, I stare at Joe. I shake my head. “What’s in your pocket?” I ask him.

  “My phone. I thought—” He shakes his head. “Maybe that was stupid. But he was waiting for you. He was watching for you.”

  My body tingles and pinches, as if it’s freezing around the edges.

  “You said she was watching you—that woman with the leaflets. After I found out they don’t really exist, I came looking for her. I didn’t think she was coming. Then I found her around the back, where the ambulances pull in, and she was talking to him . . . I thought she was the one to follow.” He frowns at the wallet. It’s black leather. Worn. “Maybe he’ll go to the police.”

  The world is swimming. I have no idea what’s going on. “You did mug him. Even if it was only with a phone. What do you mean, he was waiting for me? Who doesn’t exist?”

  Joe nods, rubs a hand across his face. “I just wanted to know who he is. I’ll send it right back to him.” He glances down at the wallet. A beam flashes somewhere off to our right. “We should get out of here,” he says. He jerks his head in the direction of the path I took in.

  “What about the woman?” I whisper as I start to follow him through the trees. “Who doesn’t exist?”

  “The Shakespeare in the Park company.”

  As we emerge from the woods, he scans what we can see of the park—the benches, the path that splits, one fork leading around to the main hospital entrance at the front, the other toward the gym exit.

  “What do you mean?”

  He touches my back, urging me on. “Four companies are licensed to perform theatrical productions in this park. I checked. The Dalhousie Players. The Independence Company. Holt Street Productions. Southgrove Productions. There’s no Savannah Company. Not that puts on plays.”

  I’m walking again, but I turn anxiously. “Why—”

  “It’s the perfect excuse to hang out in a public place, day after day, however long you like. You’ve got leaflets.”

  I can’t quite work out what he’s trying to tell me. “If people take them—”

  “Why do you care? You’re achieving your true purpose. If people turn up to see your fictional show and there’s no show, no one cares apart from the people who turned up, and they’re irrelevant. I don’t know who she is. But he . . .” We step into the white glow of a lamppost. A hulking oak soars beside us. He flips open the wallet. “Is Daniel Johnson. You know the name?”

  I shake my head.

  “Fifteen Lake Drive, Hartford, Connecticut.”

  Hartford. I haven’t heard of it. “What do you mean, true purpose?”

  He looks at me. There’s a metallic glint to his eyes.

  “She was watching you. I saw her last time, and the time before. So today I followed her to a bus stop that takes you into the city. Then I realized he must have taken over. I didn’t even see you go into the woods. But I saw him.”

  “. . . Daniel Johnson.”

  “You’re sure you don’t know him?”

  I wrap my arms tight around my waist and shake my head.

  It may seem unlikely, but I don’t think I’ve even met any Daniels. As far as I know, I’ve never heard of a Daniel Johnson. Never seen him before. Never seen her before, whoever she is, before she turned up in the park with the leaflets. But if they’re watching me, they must know. One, or both, must know what I am.

  Perhaps they’re journalists, too, and someone’s tipped them off. Suddenly, I remember the shadow. The woman was with someone who vanished into the woods. I knew that shadow. Jane. Jane, who believes I’m a blasphemy against her god. Has she told someone about me? Maybe they already have the photographs that Dr. Monzales was worried about.

  Panic freezes my brain. But somehow it feels right to be on edge, out here, separated from everything I’ve known for seven long months. Then I’m struck by another thought. Joe noticed her. He was watching the park. Watching out for me. And I’m not paranoid. I should tell Dr. Monzales. Or Mum. Or both.

  “I need to know who he is,” I whisper. “If he’s following me.”

  Joe’s already pulling out his phone, to search the name, I guess. Mine is back in my room. He looks up. “No reception. Must be signal blockers in the ER.” He eyes me uncertainly. “You have any idea why people you don’t know are watching you?”

  I have no clue what to say. A flash in the sky grabs my attention. A plane is soaring way above us. Some trick of the distance or the harbor sucks up the noise. I watch it, that flashing, humanly vulnerable leap of faith. I want to tell Joe something true. But what?
/>
  “You think maybe you knew them but you’ve forgotten?” he asks.

  “I . . . don’t think so.” Be precise, Rosa. At least, to the extent you can. “I had brain surgery. Maybe everything isn’t normal. But it’s not like I have memory loss. It’s . . .”

  “It’s what?” he asks.

  I look at him, and a heartfelt truth spills out. “Like I was . . . mesmerized. I feel like I still am.”

  It’s an odd word to use in modern conversation, I know. Or an old-fashioned meaning of the word. It’s also the closest I can get to an explanation fit for Joe’s consumption.

  A breeze suddenly gusts. The leaves of the oak beside us tremble in a death rattle. Droplets of old rain are spattered on our heads. The stale water moistens my lips. I want to spit it out.

  “Mesmerized,” Joe repeats, frowning now at the path. It’s scattered with rotting leaves. They reek of bacterial decay, of vile putrefaction. “Yeah. I understand.”

  To my surprise, the expression in his eyes tells me he does understand. I don’t know how. But it’s like another loop of invisible thread has just been wound around us. Does he feel it, too?

  17.

  I slink furtively into the hospital through the gym entrance. At the last moment, I glance back, hoping to see Joe, but his image is blocked by my light and his darkness. I see only myself, reflected in the door.

  I’ve never tried to get phone reception outside. But it makes sense that they’d have signal blockers in the ER, an enforcement of the signs requesting you to refrain from using cell phones in case you should interfere with the functioning of sensitive equipment.

  I hurry out of the deserted gym, past the rec room, toward the elevators. There’s good reception in my room. My plan is to get my phone. I’ll search Daniel Johnson. Then I’ll meet Joe in the café, Les Baguettes, which is open to visitors.

  As I summon an elevator, I suddenly sense eyes on me.

  Jared.

  He’s slouched against the moss-green wall, hands in his pockets.

  He straightens a little. “You’ve been out?”