“I doubt it,” Alice said. “Daphne lost three pounds today, you lost two, and I was down four. I weighed a hundred and sixty-two pounds, meaning I lost forty-three pounds in a bit over three weeks. Honestly? It’s pretty insane.”
“It’s not insane. It’s pills.” Daphne nibbled at her thumbnail, the only one with any real estate left. A dark mood descended. “It’s probably us that’s crazy.”
“How soon until we take our sleeping pills?” Hania circled her arms forward three times, back three times.
“No pills for at least an hour.” Alice rose from the chair and began bending from her waist and touching her toes. “Right, Daph?”
Being a doctor’s wife, close as they had to expertise, Daphne had been appointed the medic in charge of their small group. She checked the clock. Eight thirty. Once Valentina started feeding them nightly sleeping pills, her medical responsibilities doubled. They were supposed to sleep for eight hours, which meant taking the sleeping pill at nine thirty.
“An hour sounds about right.” Daphne began bending in time with Hania.
“One pill makes us skinny, one pill makes us sleep.” Daphne swayed as she sang to the tune of an old Jefferson Airplane song her father used to sing. “Let’s put on music. Dance till we drop.”
Only CDs and an old boom box provided entertainment. Since beginning the pills, each night they danced off their jitters, putting the system on Mix and moving to whatever played. They stood, silent, waiting, until “Single Ladies” poured out.
They talked as they moved, none of them giving a damn how they looked shaking to Beyoncé in their yellow jumpsuits.
“I’m betting Susannah will be the first to gain weight back,” Alice said. “All she talks about is what she’ll eat first when we’re released.”
“ ‘Released.’ ” Hania’s jumping jacks made her words skip like an old record. “You make it sound like leaving prison.”
“Isn’t it?” Alice dropped to the floor and began a series of leg lifts.
“You always think it will be one of the white women.” Daphne jumped from foot to foot, ready for their nightly debate.
“Face it, white women aren’t used to deprivation as much as black women.” Alice swirled in a fast circle. “And there are only two white women here—you and Susannah—so stop crying about race. At least I’m not picking you.”
“Pick whoever you want,” Daphne said.
“Could we leave if we wanted?” Hania asked.
Daphne and Alice stopped midshake and stared.
“Of course,” Daphne said. “What would stop us?” She turned to Alice, who by dint of working in a more socially righteous field than Daphne or Hania had been crowned the group lawyer. “Right?”
“I suppose.” Alice sank to the floor, legs crossed, as Beyoncé continued singing. “Why not?”
“How would we leave?” Hania sat beside Alice. “They locked away our wallets. For ‘safekeeping.’ And took our phones.”
“We ask for them,” Alice said.
“And our clothes? And a ride?” Hania twisted side to side.
“Do you want to leave?” Daphne asked.
“I want to know I can, damn it!” Alice said. “Don’t you?”
“My husband would come if I asked. I guarantee.” Daphne pressed her hands to her waist, calming herself by running her hands down her sides.
“But how can you ask if they won’t let us call?” Hania continued. “I don’t want to go. I want to lose as much as I can. But what if they won’t let us go? What does that mean?”
“You sound paranoid, Hania,” Alice said. “That’s the pills talking. We all know Valentina isn’t giving us vitamins. I took a million courses in substance abuse for my job. We’re showing so many signs.”
“Like what?” Daphne studied Alice, who looked up as though retrieving information.
After a few moments, Alice nodded. “Speed brings on hyperactivity, insomnia, anorexia, and tremors. High doses or chronic use have been associated with paranoia and aggressiveness. And . . . death.”
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“We’re definitely on speed.” Daphne couldn’t lie one more minute. Not with her heart racing. Blood thudded through her arteries. “I’ve been in denial. My mother’s doctor put me on something like this when I was seventeen. And I’m feeling the same shitty, jittery, fucked-up way.”
“Should we stop?” Hania asked.
Daphne chewed her lip. Part of her feared for their lives; the other part wanted to keep swallowing this shit until every bit of fat fell off. “Stopping suddenly might hurt us. And I don’t imagine the dosage is very high—if it is speed.”
“Didn’t you just say we were definitely taking speed?” Alice asked.
“Hey, what do I know? I’m a makeup artist, not a chemist.” Daphne smiled to allay their fears. Balancing losing weight against an unfounded worry, she’d choose the side of trust. After all, these were award-winning filmmakers.
“I don’t want to die from being fed uppers and downers.” Alice nodded at the dish of sleeping pills waiting for them.
“We may be in danger. Or we’re all being paranoid. Or not.” Daphne shook her head, unable to stay with one opinion. “Maybe Hania woke us up.”
“And there’s something I didn’t tell you.” Hania pressed her lips together until they disappeared.
“What?” Alice reached for Hania’s hand. “What aren’t you telling us?”
Hania touched her chest. “It feels fast.”
“You mean your heart? What do you mean by fast?” Alice led Hania to the closest bed—Daphne’s—and urged her to sit. Daphne sat on Hania’s other side.
“Does it feel as though it’s racing?” Daphne touched the spot where Hania’s heart resided, as though a mother’s hand were a stethoscope. Then she placed her index and middle fingers on Hania’s wrist and looked at her watch.
The three women remained silent until Daphne looked up. “You’re twenty-eight, right?”
Hania nodded. Daphne subtracted 28 from 220. With that formula, one she’d learned from Sam, Hania’s maximum heart rate during exercise should be 192. Daphne had clocked her pulse at over 220.
“Your heart rate is high.” Daphne sent a look to Alice. “You’re a healthy person. My guess is this is the pills combined with exercise.”
“You need to reach your husband,” Alice said to Daphne. “I’d call someone in my family, but I don’t think we need lawyers, retired history teachers, or social workers.”
Daphne thought of her options. “Sam will become crazy inside if we call him, but he’ll handle it like a scientist.”
Hania held up her hands. “I can’t do it. My parents would charter a helicopter.”
Sam might answer simply and directly. Or he might drive right up. Probably the latter.
Daphne tried to concentrate, think clearly, but pills and lack of food fuzzed her thoughts. The aphorism “Speed kills” floated into her thoughts.
Alice stood. “We’ve gone crazy staying here. Have we lost our minds?”
“But we’ve lost weight, right? So maybe they’re on to something.” Hania considered the mirror, turning from front to back. “I don’t ever remember looking anywhere close to this.”
Daphne felt the crash coming: that feeling when the pills wore off, leaving behind nausea and a depressed exhaustion. “We bought their bullshit, but, really, how long do you think this kind of weight loss lasts? How long before one of us collapses?” Or dies.
“We’ll be fine for another week, right?” Hania sounded unsure.
Dap
hne shook her head, trying to clear the chattering speed. “No. Not with your pulse like that. How do we know if we’re okay if we don’t know what the hell we’re taking? Things might work out. And maybe not. I don’t want to wait until one of us drops dead.”
“I could die?” Hania brought her legs to her chest and cradled them with her arms.
“I’ll take your pulse after you’ve rested for a bit. I’m sure you’re fine.” Daphne’s words of reassurance were based on air and hope.
“We’ve ridden on fumes for weeks,” Alice said. “Vitamins. Christ. Not facing that they were feeding us some sort of amphetamine makes all three of us either certifiable or so deep in denial we’ll need to be dug out of our fog.”
“Somewhere in this mansion, there must be a ton of computers,” Daphne said. “We should be able to access at least one. Then I can contact Sam.”
“Do you think Jeremiah knows? About the drugs? Or is it just Valentina scrambling for money?” Hania asked.
Alice scrunched her face. “Wow. Who to trust more, Jeremiah or Valentina? Talk about rock versus hard place.”
Daphne kept thinking about the pills. And Sam, who, if he thought there was an ounce of danger, would drive up and force her to leave. Pros and cons leapt in circles. She thought of her kids, and Alice’s daughter, and came down on the side of contact and safety. Maybe Sam would calm her.
“Should we go on a computer hunt? Now?” Hania sounded strangely excited. She worked in IT. Only extreme workouts and exhaustion had kept her from relentlessly complaining about being separated from her electronic equipment.
“We should try asking Jeremiah.” Alice laced her fingers and brought them to her lips.
Daphne laughed. “I can see you weren’t the sneaky one in your house.”
“My mother believed in open access. We could barely hide our thoughts.”
“If we ask for anything, we give them too much information. Too much power,” Daphne said. “I don’t have a clue what their end game is, but I sure as hell don’t trust them. When in doubt, lie. We start by not taking those sleeping pills tonight—ensuring we’re alert enough to search—and then pray we’re surrounded by deep sleepers. We’ll try to find a phone, but if we locate only a computer, then it’s all up to you to connect us, Hania.”
“Count on me. It would kill my parents if anything happened to me. I’m not using hyperbole. Do you have any idea what it means being an only child in an Indian family?”
“We need to do this fast,” Alice said. “God knows what we’re taking, and God knows what they’re planning.”
Daphne nodded in agreement. Like Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Lion, the Scarecrow, and Toto rising from the poppy fields in The Wizard of Oz, they awoke.
CHAPTER 17
* * *
DAPHNE
The next day, only half their brains were engaged as they ran, swam, and dragon walked. They forced themselves to eat everything available, despite Valentina’s angry words and grim glances. They needed to store energy. As they roamed the mansion, moving from gym to dining room to pool to bedrooms, they memorized details and searched out likely places for electronic treasure.
Like spies on alert, they were more than the sum of their seeming parts.
Back in their room for the night, they played gin rummy past midnight until they thought it safe to leave the room, flipping the cards as quietly as possible.
Hania, their sneaky little sister, turned out to have begged an extra vitamin from Valentina for an “emergency,” playing on being the pretty, favorite one, who, being the thinnest, had to work hardest to lose pounds. They split the pill among themselves, giving Hania, whose pulse had remained normal, only a sliver—enough to ensure she stayed awake. Daphne vowed to watch Hania as carefully as she would her daughter.
When it was past midnight, the three women prepared. They removed their socks and then pulled their hair into buns, aware that even the sound of swishing hair might draw attention. They used the thickest of Daphne’s face oils on the hinges of the door.
Dim sconces provided murky light in the halls of the house’s sleeping quarters. They walked carefully, terrified of bumping into something. If discovered, they planned to declare this a search for food.
They crept down the hall, grateful for the carpeting when sneaking past bedrooms of the other Waisted members, even more as they approached the staff area.
Alice, the tallest, led, followed by Hania, with Daphne last. Alice’s pulse pounded through her ears as the drug thrummed through her system. She held up her long arm and waved a halt signal and then pantomimed climbing steps, indicating the end of the hall.
Daphne closed her eyes, picturing the next convergence, where the hall turned left and led to the gym and, beyond that, to the dining areas, while straight ahead a narrow staircase led up and down. Uncarpeted. Squeaky. Down led to the main floor. Up went to the third level. The offices.
The only time they’d come up here was on their way to the pool, situated at the other end of the mansion, overlooking the garden, or, as it was now, a hard, frost-covered expanse of brown lawn. Snow came early and often in the Northeast Kingdom.
Alice held up one finger and then indicated walking upstairs by using two fingers. One at a time, yes. Daphne nodded her understanding and watched as Alice climbed slowly. Daphne, meanwhile, stuck to the middle, where a small strip of rubberized treads muffled sound.
The ancient stairs creaked. Not every tread, but enough for Daphne to feel sick as she waited for Alice to reach the top.
Next, Hania showed her youth as she stretched to take two steps at a time, not even needing the banister for balance. Watching, Daphne pressed the heel of her hand into the center of her chest, as though her actions kept Hania going, readying her own ascension.
Grit ground into her soles as she began her journey upward. Grit was good. Grit prevented slipping. Despite thinning out, her thighs still brushed together. In the postmidnight quiet, the whooshing sounded like cannonballs hurtling through the air. She moved her legs apart, climbing the stairs bowlegged. After three weeks of constant exercise, flexibility came easily.
Counting helped. Downstairs they could pretend to be stealing food. For the main floor, they might claim that waves of homesickness sent them searching for a phone. But here?
Again, Daphne wondered why she was so nervous, as though they had planned a jailbreak. Being brainwashed into this state of fear and compliance, as though they were acolytes of kidnappers, made no sense. Free will had led and kept them here, after all.
Well, except for the shots and ten-mile runs. And if they had been truly free, their phones would have been in their hands.
If they didn’t find a way to email, Daphne swore that tomorrow she’d demand her phone, and damn whatever bullshit she signed.
With that pep talk, she took the final two steps confidently—until an exposed nail ripped her heel, and pain stabbed through her foot.
“Aeeii,” she whispered as she pitched forward. She knelt on the top of the stairs, rocking in agony.
Hania pulled at her arm. “Stop. Suck it up.”
Daphne pressed against the pain, grateful for her thick calluses. Alice indicated going to the right.
They walked softly down the barely lit hallway. The hall here was wider than the ones below. Chairs placed at odd moments offered weary corridor travelers a place to rest. Eeriness reigned at every turn.
The office marked with Ash’s name came first. Alice touched the doorknob. She shook her head from side to side, indicating that it was locked, and they continued until reaching Valentina’s. This was the one they prayed would be easy to enter, hoping for information about the pills, something—a bottle with a name would be nice. A phone. There must be outside lines, yes?
Valentina’s door wouldn’t budge; nor Coleen’s.
Finally, they approached Jeremiah’s office. Daphne reached out. The bas-relief of the antique brass doorknob pressed into her flesh. She turned it slowly, pushing pa
st the first stoppage, but nothing gave. Impatiently, she turned it the other way.
She raised her hands in a silent gesture of frustration.
Sam’s help floated away like a ghostly apparition.
Hania tiptoed down the hall, ignoring Alice’s head shakes and Daphne’s frantic motion to return.
Daphne underestimated Hania’s breadth of capability. The young woman walked as though she knew where she was heading. When Hania reached the third door, she placed her hand against the wood as though taking its temperature. She twisted the knob. When it opened, she turned, put up two hands and waved at her and Alice to come, calling them silently with her wide grin.
Wires, computer screens, and unfamiliar electronic equipment crowded every surface in the office. Daphne wouldn’t call the space dirty, but it sure was extraordinarily messy. Either the office of someone too busy to keep up or too scattered to care.
Judging by the unlocked door, scattered seemed fitting.
“Where are we?” Daphne asked.
“The filmmaker’s den,” Hania said. “Mike brought me here once.”
“Mike?” Alice asked.
“The guy who’s always shooting us.”
“The videographer,” Alice said. “Why would he bring you here?”
Hania raised her eyebrows. “Not what you think. We just talked.”
“I wasn’t thinking anything, actually.” Alice looked over the table of electronic equipment. “Are we under surveillance?”
“No,” Hania said.
“How are you so sure?” Alice looked all around the room.
“Because when Mike and I were talking about all the damn filming, I asked him. He laughed—saying they were already drowning in footage, and that, anyway, the top guys from Acrobat fancied themselves true auteurs and consider Mike their arms. Apparently that, they insisted, was the difference between filming a reality show and a documentary.”
“Did Mike mention that they came into the world of making docs after doing reality shows?” Alice asked. “Perhaps I should—”
“We can discuss this later. Now, search for a phone,” Daphne whispered. She turned, looking for a landline. “Or computer access.”
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