I get out of bed to go to the bathroom and almost fall over.
“¿Qué pasó?” Gabi rushes over to me, but I wave her away, grabbing the nightstand to steady myself.
“Nada, I’m fine. It’s a cold. You have to go to school. Ask Olga to make me tea.” She leans in for a kiss, but I turn away. “I don’t want to give you my germs.”
“I don’t want your yucky germs. And there’s no school today. Did you forget? It’s Sunday. Juliette is coming over to do a 4-H project.”
I didn’t remember. “Juliette again?”
“Sol, she’s my first friend here. I don’t want to screw it up. Please be nice.”
“I won’t even see her. I’ll keep my germs here until I’m better. Won’t infect your friend, promise.” I smile weakly. “Weren’t you going to make me tea?”
She looks me over, hesitant. “Go, peste,” I say.
When she finally leaves, I slowly make my way to the bathroom. My bones feel hollow and full of stones at the same time. I swear I can hear them rattling inside me. There is so much saliva in my mouth that when I swallow a mouthful, there is only more waiting. In the bathroom I see my reflection and I know why Gabi was worried. My skin is more yellow than café, and my eyes seem too big for my face.
My brain is making fantasias. I put my hands on the sink. I tell my hands to turn on the faucet so I can wash my face, brush my teeth, and begin my day. But they won’t listen to me.
So slowly that I have time to observe it but not stop it, my knees unlock and I slip to the floor. The three light bulbs above the bathroom mirror grow bigger, expanding like suns. I hear my name, but I couldn’t answer if I wanted to. I close my eyes and hope they go away.
* * *
“Marisol. Marisol, wake up now.”
Desagradable, I think. What a disagreeable voice. I wish it would be quiet.
“Marisol, honey. Can you hear me?” That voice is better. I open my eyes. I am back on my bed. Indranie is next to me, holding my hand. Behind her, Dr. Deng watches.
“What happened?”
“You fell down. Are you feeling better now?”
“Yes. I have gripe. A cold. No, not a cold. A big cold. What is the word in English? I can’t remember.” I push the sweaty strands of hair from my face.
“Did you hit your head?” Dr. Deng steps in front of Indranie. He puts a cold hand on my head, then lifts my chin to look into my eyes.
“Gripe,” I murmur. What is the word in English? I know un resfrío is a cold and gripe is . . . a bigger cold. What is the word? And why can’t I remember?
“She’s fine,” Dr. Deng says.
“She’s clearly not fine,” Indranie responds with a frown.
Gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe, I say in my head.
“I see that she is exhibiting signs of distress, but there is no fever, no sign of viral infection, seizure, or concussion. Her BP is normal, and I tested her blood sugar just to be sure. She’s not diabetic. Anything else will have to be tested at a hospital. Which, as you know, would end the experiment.”
“I know,” Indranie says.
Gripe. La influenza. “Flu!” I nearly shout. “I have flu. That’s what gripe is. It’s flu.” I look at Gabi. But it’s not Gabi sitting on my bed, it’s Indranie. And Dr. Deng. Why are they here? I swallow, afraid the saliva filling my mouth will dribble out.
“Marisol,” Indranie says. “How are you feeling?”
“I have flu,” I repeat.
“Does your head hurt?”
“A little. And I have to swallow a lot. Can I have some water?”
I drink from the cup that Dr. Deng hands me, and the cold water washes away the thick, salty saliva in my mouth.
“Do you feel dizzy?” Indranie asks.
I put the cup on the nightstand. “Not now.”
“It’s not likely to be flu,” Dr. Deng says. “I swabbed her for influenza A and B, just to be sure.”
“What can we do to make her feel better?” Indranie asks.
“I can give her an antihistamine. The worst it will do is make her sleepy. It may give her a bit of relief if she really does have a cold.”
Indranie turns back to Dr. Deng. “Could it be working? Could this be part of the transference?”
Dr. Deng frowns deeply. He looks like a cartoon dog. I would laugh if I didn’t feel so awful. “It could be. It’s hard to say. We have no other point of reference—no subjects have tested this long.”
“Dr. Deng—” Indranie starts to say.
“I have flu,” I interrupt firmly, so they remember I’m still here and actually listen to me. “Or something like it. I’ll be fine in a few days. Can I have some more water, please? I’m thirsty.” Dr. Deng’s eyes find mine. I’m surprised to see he’s smiling.
“Exactly. You’ll be fine in a few days. Very smart.” He hands me the cup of water again, and I empty it.
“Let’s talk downstairs so Marisol can rest,” Dr. Deng says.
Indranie takes my hand again. I can’t tell if my hand is cold or if her hand is very warm.
“You rest up. But if you need anything, Olga says to ring this, okay?” She places a crystal bell, nearly see-through, on the nightstand. Only in America do they have glass bells you cannot ring too hard in case they break. I close my heavy eyes. The only thing I need is sleep.
* * *
“Sol, Sol! Wake up!”
I’m very far down in sleep but Gabi’s voice pulls me awake.
“¿Qué pasó?” When I open my eyes, Gabi is excitedly dancing around the room.
“Juliette invited me to a party next weekend. For her birthday.”
“What?”
“She says we’re besties. BFFs. You know, like your show, the Hollow one.”
“You never liked that show,” I say. I sit up against the pillows, then move over to make room for her.
“Okay, but you talk about it all the time. It was like I was watching.”
The pain in my head is gone, but I still feel very tired, as if I’ve had the flu for days, but my body doesn’t ache and my head is clear.
“Anyway, back to Juliette’s party. I need to ask Rey what I should get her. I mean, we can borrow a little money from Indranie, right? I won’t buy anything expensive, but I want to get her something good.”
“You haven’t even asked permission to go to this party,” I say.
Her face darkens, but she controls her anger with effort.
“I know you don’t feel well,” she says finally. “So, we can talk about it later.”
“You can’t just go to some stranger’s house. I don’t know anything about this friend of yours.”
“What’s the big deal? Juliette’s family is nice. Her mom drives a Lexus.”
“Gabriela, are you serious? What does it matter what kind of car she drives? And I’m not worried about her mother. What about these other kids? And Juliette? How come she is your best friend in two days?”
“You think I can’t make friends?”
“I’m not saying that. You’re twisting my words.”
“What was the point of coming here, Sol? So we could continue to be miserable? I don’t want to be miserable anymore. I’m tired of misery.”
“The point of coming here was to keep you safe. It’s not to have some fantasy life. We’ve been here less than a week, and you think you have a best friend?” I don’t want to say it’s a waste of time, becoming friends with this girl, with these kids, because that’s cruel. But if we are lucky—lucky like we have not been in years—Gabi and I won’t be living here in a month.
“I know that! I live in the real fucking world,” Gabi shouts at me, and I feel like she’s hit me. A moment ago, she was happy, dancing around and excited. Now we’re fighting again. I don’t know how to get out of it.
She pulls her ha
ir into a ponytail.
“If Mom were here, she’d say yes—you know she would.”
“If Mamá were here, she would be ignoring both of us and crying for Pablo!”
Gabi scrambles off the bed. “I cry for Pablo too, you know. You aren’t the only one.”
I don’t know what to say. I haven’t seen Gabi cry, not since the night Pablo died. Not once. And I have never let her see me cry.
“What does that have to do with anything, Gabriela? And I didn’t say you couldn’t go. I only said you had to ask!”
“You aren’t my mother,” Gabi says coldly. “And I don’t need your permission.”
She’s looking at me like I’m an inconvenience. I’m so sick of this stupid argument.
“I might as well be tu mamá. I have to do everything for you except wipe your nose!”
Gabi stomps back to the bed. If we don’t stop arguing soon, Olga will hear us. I don’t want to have to explain.
“I want to go to Mrs. Rosen’s house. Now. I don’t want to wait until this experiment is over. We had a plan, and we should just do that plan,” Gabi says, crossing her arms.
My anger deflates, seeing the tears in her eyes. “Gabi, I explained this to you. It’s not that simple. New York is far away. If we were there, you wouldn’t be able to go to this party anyway. It would be too far.”
Gabi lifts her chin defiantly. “Mrs. Rosen would let me go. She would be reasonable.”
I push myself out of bed with more energy than I knew I had. “You are being ridiculous!”
“I want to call her. She should be the one taking care of us right now. You said she’d be our guardian until Mamá came. So, let her decide.”
“Gabi—”
“I don’t want you telling me how to paint my nails and making me eat things I don’t want to eat. And I don’t want you making fun of my friends.”
I grab my hair because I don’t know what to do with my hands. I want to grab Gabi. Make her understand. “Gabi, I don’t make fun of your friends—”
She picks up the cell phone Indranie gave me and throws it onto the bed. “Call Mrs. Rosen.” Her face is a mask of anger.
“I can’t call her, Gabi.”
“Because you’re afraid she’s going to agree with me. Because you don’t want me to do anything. You just sit on me and try to make me small. You don’t want me to grow up, and you want to control me—”
“She’s dead, Gabi!”
It’s like turning off a light. She just stares at me, empty. In the space between my last words and my next, I wish too many things. I wish Pablo had never met Antonio. I wish I had never seen Liliana at the bar. I wish Gabi had stayed home the night Pablo died. Or even if all that couldn’t be different, I wish we could have made it to Mrs. Rosen’s house, seen her once more, or that we had never been caught. At every place where we could have had a chance, La Mala Suerte has pulled us into disaster.
Chapter 20
Olga makes me stay in bed the rest of the day, even though I feel all right, just weak. There is no television in this room and my eyes are too tired to read much—though Gabi has borrowed all the Harry Potter books from someone. I read a little of The Goblet of Fire, which is my favorite, but I don’t get far. Gabi doesn’t come back into the room, but I hear her and her friend Juliette laughing and moving around downstairs. I think she will forgive me, later in the day, but I don’t know. Mostly, I sit and doze, remembering things that I’ve been trying to forget, as if I’ve let my mind get weak as well as my body.
Like, I remember what Liliana was wearing on the last day of Pablo’s life. I remember it more clearly than I remember what I was wearing or what Pablo was wearing. That’s not completely true. I remember watching his blue shirt turn purple with his blood. I push that thought away, my brain a stubborn horse refusing to be led. Instead, I let myself remember Liliana and her feather earrings.
We stood outside el Club Atlético. “Mira, hermanita, what Pablo bought me,” Liliana said, lifting her long hair to show me her tiny ears. The earrings were long, almost touching her shoulders, shaped like feathers the colors of sunset. First dark orange, then gold, then light blue turning darker to azul marino. She laughed and twirled, letting her feathery earrings fan out with her golden hair.
“Can I come in?”
I open my eyes. I didn’t realize that I’d closed them. Rey stands at the door to my bedroom. I sit up.
“I brought you some tea and snacks,” she says, coming into the room holding a tray. “It’s about time I return the favor, right?”
I don’t want to nod because that would sound like I’m agreeing with her. “Thank you.”
“Want me to put it on the bed? Or the nightstand?”
“Bed is good.”
She looks healthy, if not happy. I hope it isn’t something else that Pixie gave her. I hope this is the real Rey. I search her eyes for the wildness of last night, check her hands to see if they are restless. Her eyes are clear, her hands steady. She wears a white T-shirt and jeans that fit her better than the other clothes I’ve seen her in.
“How are you feeling?” I ask. “After the butterflies, I mean.”
She laughs. “Oh, yeah. That was one of the stupider things I’ve done, and I’ve done some monumentally stupid things, so, yeah,” she sighs, sitting at the end of my bed. “One of Pixie’s fixes.”
“She means well,” I say. It’s the kind of thing Aimee would say about Amber, after she did something stupid. It’s a very useful frase.
“Pixie always means well, but she’s good at making things worse. When she and Riley were together, they were like a gorgeous train wreck. After they broke up, I sort of inherited her.”
She hands me a cup of tea. It smells wonderful and flowery. Olga knows how to make good tea.
“She’s sad he’s gone. Maybe that makes her do stupid things too,” I say after a sip of hot tea.
“She’s sad. Everyone is sad. But no one else is missing part of their body.” Rey eats a cookie off the tray. “Maybe Dad feels like that. Maybe I don’t give him enough credit. But he never talks about Riley. No one does. That’s worse than anything else in a way. It’s like they want to erase him.”
I don’t think that’s the worst thing. I think remembering would be worse. So I stay silent for a moment.
“What happened to Riley?” I ask. I sound awful, like Dr. Vizzachero or the woman at the detention center who told me to call her Mary. Like I am going to write down Rey’s answers and look for their meaning later. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“No, it’s okay. I feel better today than I have in weeks. I feel like I can breathe.” She takes a deep breath as if to prove her words. “It hurts. Fuck, it hurts, but it doesn’t seem impossible today. And talking about Riley feels right. At least you understand.”
She looks down at her hands, and I’m glad. I don’t want her to see my face getting hot.
“Riley and I were at a concert. The Sounds at the 9:30 Club. Some Swedish indie rock band that Riley loves.” She scratches her head. “Loved.
“I went with him because Pixie wouldn’t go. She was pissed at him. Oh, I can’t remember why.
“We went, and it was fun. I didn’t get to go out just with my brother anymore, you know? He was always with a girlfriend, or just a girl, or with the other indie kids he hung out with. I think his indie friends were always surprised that Riley had a twin and that she was so—underwhelming.”
“I don’t think you’re underwhelming. You’re—” I hesitate, searching for a word that is enough and not too much. Wonderful sounds foolish and great sounds like something you’d say about a pizza. What word can I use to describe Rey? Luminous. Fierce.
“You’re great,” I finish lamely.
“You say that because you never met Riley,” she says, smiling. Have I ever seen her smile like tha
t? “He was a fucking star. I mean, that’s how brightly he burned. Everyone turned toward him, and everyone adored him. My mother adored him.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t imagine someone burning brighter than Rey.
She laughs. “Well, at least Dad adored me. I was his girl. I’m the good twin, the least-likely-to-cause-trouble twin. Well, I was.”
I don’t know if I should tell her to stop, that it’s okay not to say any more, or if I should wish for her to continue.
“I was so happy that night, it seems weird to think about it now. I was finally over a bad break-up and I liked my new therapist—not Dr. V, obviously. I felt invincible, like it was me and Riley against the world . . .” Her voice wobbles suddenly, as if it will fall away into silence. Her smile is gone. I feel like I am next to her, in her memory, watching a performance with a brother who shines so brightly. And I know a terrible thing is about to happen.
There’s a knock at the door, and Gabi comes in with a girl. They are laughing and nudging each other. When Gabi sees Rey, she becomes serious.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were busy.” From the tone of her voice, I know she is still mad at me.
Rey stands, making room for Gabi. “That’s okay.” I see the effort it takes to pull herself away from her memories of Riley. I can admit that I want to know what happened to him, but I’m so relieved not to have to hear it. Once the image is out in the world between us, I don’t know what will happen.
Gabi sits on my bed, but her friend stands behind her, arms crossed. I remember that I haven’t brushed my teeth today.
“Sol, I wanted you to meet Juliette Guinto. From school,” Gabi says. The girl gives me a polite smile. She has shoulder-length dark hair, dark eyes, and little crooked teeth.
“Nice to meet you, Juliette,” I say. “It’s almost your birthday, right?”
“Yeah,” she says, “on Tuesday.”
“And the party is next Saturday?”
“Yes. My mom says it’s okay to invite Gabi, but I had to ask her family.”
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