Luckiest Girl Alive

by Jessica Knoll

“There are better ways to learn,” Andrew said.

  I smiled sadly. “I would have welcomed them. I did the best with what I got.”

  Andrew tucked his chin into his neck, like he was gathering his thoughts to make an important connection between the Museum of Natural History and Holden Caulfield’s fear of change. “You’ve been honest with me, so”—he cleared his throat—“I want to be honest with you.”

  There was a perfect plot of light illuminating the space behind him. It was so bright that he appeared to be nothing but a figure, faceless, expressionless. My heart boomed in my chest, sure he was about to admit something of importance. Our connection, our exquisite chemical reaction—it wasn’t just in my head. “About what?”

  “That dinner. It wasn’t just a matter of us living in a small world.” He took a noisy breath through his nostrils. “I knew Luke was your fiancé. I pushed for him to set up dinner so I could see you.”

  Hope rose in me like a temperature. “How did you know that?”

  “I can’t even remember who told me, one of my co-workers who knew I’d taught here, though. Told me that Luke was engaged to a Bradley girl. Luke had mentioned your name to me before—Ani—but I couldn’t remember any Anis from Bradley. I did the Facebook thing.” Andrew mimed typing, then covered his face with his hands, a sweetly girlish gesture, and laughed. “God, that’s embarrassing, but I looked Luke up on Facebook. Saw you in his pictures. I couldn’t believe that was you.”

  The sky was done changing and the room went still, complete with the shadows it had collected for the night. But now something cut the street light, and, for a second, without that blinding blast of yellow behind him, I saw Andrew’s face entirely. He looked terrified.

  We watched out the window as a little silver bullet of a car parked in front of the old mansion’s entrance. The word “Security” broke in half when the driver opened his door and stepped out, walking with an official stride toward the school.

  My heart seemed to drop down and back, the thing it always does right before I start to spin and spin. I refuse to call it a panic attack. Panic attacks are for nervous fliers, hipster neurotics. Their demons, whatever they are, can’t even compare to the terror of knowing it’s about to happen, the something bad I’ve been waiting for ever since I got out of the cafeteria. My turn. “Is he here for us?”

  Andrew shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “What is he doing here?”

  Again, Andrew said, “I don’t know.”

  The security guard disappeared into the building, and in the distance we heard a door bang shut and a shout’s echo. “Hello?” Andrew put his finger to his lips and motioned for me to come close to him. He was pushing the chair away from the desk, and then, I couldn’t believe it, we were climbing underneath the desk together, Andrew bending and arranging his enormous limbs to make room for me.

  When we were knee to knee Andrew pulled the chair in behind us, really squishing us in, and then he grinned at me.

  I couldn’t feel my heart beating anymore, another characteristic that separates the spin from a panic attack—no brave palpitations, only a sad white flag—and in a few minutes I felt the sureness of a presence in the room. Had that really been the car of a security guard we’d seen? The Women’s Magazine had run a slew of articles over the years warning women about predators who dressed up as police officers, plumbers, even deliverymen in order to gain access to your car, your house, you. Always you they wanted, to rape, to torture, to kill. My vision seemed to narrow to a pinprick, like when you turn off an old TV, that one dot that lingers until the screen goes totally blank. I wasn’t breathing, I was sure of it. My heart had stopped, and these were just the last few moments of consciousness, the neurons in the brain still burning embers, before I dipped off into the dark.

  A light swept over the front of the room, and someone cleared his throat. “Anyone in here?”

  He sounded low and uniform, the way Ben had. “Boo.” So flat, it could have been any word. “Hi.” “No.” “Sure.” Mr. Larson covered his mouth, I could tell by the extra crow’s-feet gathering around his eyes that he was trying not to laugh, and a tremble began in my hips—why my hips? Maybe because I wasn’t standing; it would have been in my legs, but my hips were supporting me now.

  The light disappeared, and we even heard footsteps retreat, but I knew he was still there, I could feel him. He had exaggerated his exit, then crept back, waiting for us to crawl out, two dumb idiots thinking they were safe. A copycat. Bradley had tried to pretend like we didn’t need to worry about that. But we would. We always would. Mr. Larson whispered, “I think he’s gone,” and I shook my head, widening my eyes at him desperately.

  “What?” Mr. Larson whispered again, and he pushed the chair back.

  I seized his thick wrist and shook my head at him, begging him not to go.

  “TifAni.” Mr. Larson looked down at my hand, and I saw the horror on his face, knew we were done for. “You’re like ice.”

  “Still. Here,” I mouthed.

  “TifAni!” Mr. Larson shook me off and crawled out onto the floor, ignoring my manic signaling to come back. He used the chair to hoist himself to his feet, and I slunk back deeper underneath the desk, readying myself for the hot pop of the gun, the soggy inside of Mr. Larson’s head. But I just heard “He’s gone.”

  Mr. Larson dropped to his knees and peered under the desk, at me, a feral cat in a cage. His brow splintered, and he seemed contrite, ready to cry for me. “He’s gone. We’re okay. He couldn’t have done anything to us.” When I didn’t move, he dropped his head and sighed. The sound was full of remorse. “Tif, I’m so sorry. Shit, I wasn’t thinking . . . the desk . . . I’m sorry.” He held out a hand and pleaded at me with his eyes to take it.

  All this time with Andrew, I’ve worn my victim’s mask, thinking this was what he wanted from me. But there was no performing in my arms, gelatinous and quivering, as I reached for him, the limbs themselves so useless he had to take hold of my elbows, the only sturdy points he could find, the only way he could get me to my feet. My lower half wasn’t doing much better, and he propped me up against his chest. We stayed pressed together much longer than we needed to, well after I got my legs back, the not doing anything the most dangerous part. Eventually, his hand asked the question on the tender small of my back, and then we were kissing, the relief that much greater for all the terror that came before it.

  CHAPTER 14

  * * *

  In my memory the hospital is green. Green floors, green walls, gangrene hollows under the officers’ eyes. The retching even produced a dull chartreuse substance that sunk to the bottom of the toilet. I flushed, thinking about all those times Mom told me to wear clean underwear, “because, TifAni, what if you’re ever in a car accident?” Not that the underwear I was removing at the moment wasn’t clean, but it was old and there was a hole above the crotch, big enough for a few pubic hairs to wiggle through. It would be many years before I regularly spread out for the Indian women at Shobha. “Everything?” “Everything.”

  I stuffed the ratty underwear in the leg of my khakis before stuffing those in the clear evidence bag and handing it off to the female officer, the one who looked more like a man than Officer Pensacole. In there already was my J. Crew cardigan and Victoria’s Secret tank top, both ombréed with blood that hadn’t completely dried yet. The smell of it so nostalgic and familiar to me. Where had I smelled that smell before? In cleaning supplies, maybe. Or at the Malvern YMCA, where I first learned to swim.

  Whoever received that plastic evidence bag, with clothes that held the DNA of several dead teenagers, would no doubt find the underwear in the leg of the khakis. It wasn’t some brilliant hiding place. But there was something about my underwear bouncing around in that plastic bag, on display for all it passed, that filled me with despair. I was so tired of everything that was embarrassing about me being on display.

  I wrapped myself in the flimsy hospital gown and tiptoed across the ho
spital room to sit down on the hospital bed, holding my arms across my chest, trying to contain my breasts. They seemed enormous and unpredictable without a bra. Mom was in the chair next to the bed, under strict orders from me not to come near me or touch me or anything, and she was weeping. It was infuriating.

  “Thank you,” Officer She-Man said to me, and she didn’t sound like she was grateful at all.

  I folded my feet underneath me. It had been weeks since I’d shaved, and I didn’t want anyone to see the black prickles around my ankles. The doctor, also a woman (no man shall pass. Even Dad was in the hallway) came toward me to do the examination. I insisted I wasn’t hurt, but Dr. Levitt said that sometimes we’re in so much shock that we don’t realize we actually are hurt, and she just wanted to make sure that wasn’t the case. Would it be okay if she did that? I wanted to scream at her to stop talking to me like I was a five-year-old about to receive a tetanus shot. I’d just stuck a knife in someone’s chest.

  “I’m sorry”—Officer She-Man stepped in Dr. Levitt’s path—“but I have to swab her first. You could destroy evidence in the examination.”

  Dr. Levitt backed away. “Of course.”

  Officer She-Man came at me with her little evidence collecting kit, and I suddenly realized how good I’d had it when it was just pretty Dr. Levitt who wanted to examine me. I still hadn’t cried yet. I’d seen enough Law & Orders to know this was probably because I was in shock, but that didn’t make me feel any better about it. I should have been crying, not thinking about dinner, how Mom would probably let me eat wherever I wanted after a day like this. Where should we go? My mouth watered as I considered the possibilities.

  Officer She-Man swabbed the skin beneath my fingernails and that part was fine. But then she went for the opening of my hospital gown, and the tears came steady and fierce and I gripped Officer She-Man’s sausage wrists. “Stop!” I heard that word over and over again, and at first I thought it was Officer She-Man telling me to stop, but then I realized it was me and I was fighting her off like she was Dean, kicking, thrashing, biting. My gown opened and my titanic breasts spilled everywhere and when I realized Mom was over me now too and she was seeing my naked body I rolled on my side and threw up again. Some of it got on Officer She-Man’s dykey black slacks, and that almost made me smile.

  When I came to I felt like I’d gone back in time. I thought that I was in the hospital because I’d had a reaction to the pot I’d smoked at Leah’s house. I thought, There must be so many people who are mad at me.

  I patted my body down before I even opened my eyes, relieved to feel that someone had retied my hospital gown and pinned me in on both sides with a thick white blanket.

  The room was empty and still, dusk shading the windows. Dinnertime. I wanted to go to Bertucci’s, I’d decided. Their focaccia and cheese bread was exactly what I was in the mood to eat.

  I pushed myself onto my elbows, my triceps shaking in a way that made me realize how involved they were in everyday moments that I took for granted. There was a film coating my lips that my tongue couldn’t crack. It was stuck on good and I had to rub it off with a fist.

  Suddenly the door swung open and Mom walked in. “Oh!” She took a step back, startled. There was a coffee cup and a stale pastry in her hand. I didn’t even drink coffee yet, but I wanted both I was so hungry. “You’re up.”

  “What time is it?” I sounded raw. Like I was sick. I swallowed to make sure, but my throat didn’t hurt.

  Mom shook her fake diamond Rolex out of her sleeve. “It’s six thirty.”

  “Let’s go to Bertucci’s for dinner,” I said.

  “Sweetie.” Mom hunched to sit on the edge of the bed but remembered my warning and snapped upright. “It’s six thirty in the morning.”

  I looked out the window again, this revelation making me see the light outside as blossoming, rather than waning. “It’s morning?” I repeated. I was starting to feel woozy and weepy again. I was just so mad that I couldn’t understand anything. “Why did you let me sleep here?” I demanded.

  “Dr. Levitt gave you that pill, remember?” Mom said. “To help you relax?”

  I squinted, trying to see back through my memories, but I couldn’t. “I don’t remember,” I wailed. I covered my face with my hands. I was crying silently for something and I didn’t know what.

  “Shhh, TifAni,” Mom whispered. I couldn’t see her, but I imagined she reached out before remembering again. Her sigh was resigned. “Let me get the doctor.”

  Mom’s footsteps receded, and then I remembered Ben’s calves, so white they nauseated me, disappearing into the smoke.

  Mom returned, but not with Dr. Levitt. This doctor was wearing not scrubs but faded jeans cuffed to reveal slender ankles and white sneakers, brand new. She wore her hair in a shiny silver bob. She looked like a woman who had a garden, who wore a floppy straw hat while she tended to her tomatoes, rewarding herself with a glass of lemonade on her front porch afterward.

  “TifAni,” she said. “I’m Dr. Perkins. But I want you to call me Anita.” Her request was quiet and firm.

  I pressed my hands against my cheeks, mopping up facial grease and tears. “Okay,” I said.

  “Is there anything I can get for you?” Anita asked.

  I sniffed. “I’d really like to brush my teeth and wash my face.”

  Anita nodded solemnly, like this was an important thing for me to do. “Hang tight. I’m going to work on that for you.”

  Anita was gone for all of five minutes before she returned with a travel-size toothbrush, children’s fruit-flavored toothpaste, and a bar of Dove soap. She helped me out of bed. I was okay with Anita touching me, because she didn’t seem like she was about to break down in hysterics at any moment, forcing me to comfort her.

  I turned on the water so I couldn’t hear Anita and Mom talking about me while I used the bathroom. I peed and scrubbed my face, brushed my teeth next, spitting one long sticky line of the sweet-tasting toothpaste into the sink. It refused to break away from my lips, and I had to cut it off using my fingers.

  When I reemerged, Anita asked me if I was hungry, which I was, viciously. I asked Mom what happened to the coffee and pastry, and she said Dad had eaten it. I glared at her as I climbed back into bed.

  “I’ll get you whatever you want, sweetheart. The cafeteria has bagels, orange juice, fruit, eggs, cereal.”

  “A bagel,” I said. “With cream cheese. And orange juice.”

  “I’m not sure if they have cream cheese,” Mom said. “They may just have butter.”

  “Anyplace that has bagels has cream cheese,” I snapped.

  It was the sort of rude response that would usually incite Mom into calling me an ungrateful bitch, but Mom didn’t dare in front of Anita. Just put on a big fake smile and turned on her heel to go, revealing the dent in the back of her hair she’d gotten from sleeping in the stiff hospital chair.

  “Is it okay if I sit down here?” Anita pointed to the chair next to the bed.

  I shrugged like it didn’t matter to me. “Sure.”

  Anita tried to sit with her legs tucked underneath her body, but the chair was too small and too uncomfortable. She settled for the normal way, one leg crossed leisurely over the other, hands cupping her knee. Her nails were light purple.

  “You’ve been through quite a lot over the last twenty-four hours,” Anita said, which wasn’t entirely true. Twenty-four hours ago I was just getting out of bed. Twenty-four hours ago I was just a bratty teenager who didn’t want to go to school. It was eighteen hours ago that I discovered what the slimy inside of a brain looks like, what a face looks like without skin and lips and the odd pimple.

  I nodded, even though her calculation was incorrect, and Anita said, “Do you want to talk to me about it?”

  I liked that Anita was sitting next to me, rather than across from me, staring me down like I was a pickled cadaver awaiting dissection. Years later I learned this is a psychological trick to get people to open up. I wrote
a tip in The Women’s Magazine that if you have to have a difficult conversation with “your guy”—how I loathe that term—do it while you’re driving, because he will be more open to what you have to say when you’re side by side rather than if you were to broach the subject of moving in together head-on.

  “Is Arthur dead?” I asked.

  “Arthur is dead,” Anita answered, very matter-of-fact.

  I knew the answer already, but it was shocking to hear those words coming from a person who had never even met Arthur. Had no idea Arthur existed until just a few hours ago.

  “Who else?” I dared.

  “Ansilee, Olivia, Theodore, Liam, and Peyton.” I never even realized Teddy’s real name was Theodore. “Oh, and Ben,” she added.

  I waited for her to remember more names, but she didn’t. “What about Dean?”

  “Dean is alive,” Anita said, and I stared at her, slack-jawed. I was positive he had been dead when I left him. “But he’s very badly injured. He may not walk again.”

  I brought the blanket to my mouth. “Might not walk?”

  “The bullet entered his groin and severed a vertebra in his spine. He’s getting the best care possible,” Anita said, adding, “He’s lucky to be alive.”

  I swallowed at the same time a hiccup jumped up my throat. The impact ached in my chest. “How did Ben die?”

  “He killed himself,” Anita said. “It was the plan all along for both of them. So you mustn’t feel bad about what you’ve done.” I was afraid to tell Anita that I didn’t feel bad. I didn’t feel anything.

  Mom appeared in the doorway, a plump bagel in one hand and a container of orange juice in the other. “They had cream cheese!”

  Mom had taken it upon herself to fix up the bagel. She hadn’t applied nearly enough cream cheese, but I was so hungry I didn’t scold her for it. It’s weird, being that hungry. It’s not like lunchtime, when it’s only been a few hours since breakfast and your stomach is popping and gurgling in history class. It’s like the hunger has spread to your entire body and it’s no longer about your stomach. In fact, your stomach doesn’t hurt at all, but your limbs feel weightless and weak, and your jaw understands this and tries to chew as fast as it can.