He rubbed my cheek with his thumb, then returned his attention to his food.
♦
"Girl, you need some down time," Lettie said in the laundry break room the next morning, at the end of another exhausting shift. "I’m just sayin’." She had a motherly streak as wide as the Illinois River, though her methods of mothering weren’t always by the book. "Why don’t you and I go out tonight? Have a few drinks, dance, and watch the pretty people. It’ll do you good, blow the stink off you."
"I dunno."
"I’m not taking no for an answer. You need a reminder that there’s a real world out there, with real people. You been cooped up in this nut tin for too fuckin’ long." She had a point, and something about the idea actually did appeal to me. I wasn’t much of a partier—never had been—but it was nice sometimes to pretend I was normal.
There was one problem, though. "I don’t have anything to wear."
"You don’t know by now that I got you covered? Come by my place. We’ll eat and play dress-up."
"Indian take-out?"
"Chana masala, yes, please."
Five hours later, we were at the Midnight Saloon in Peoria, drinking lemon drops. I wore my own tight boot-cut jeans and a tank top embroidered with red roses that Lettie had loaned me. I wished Colin could see me. I looked better than was good for me.
Lettie thought so too. She was plucking at my curls with one hand. "You’re hot. I’m telling you. The boys—and girls—are gonna be all over you any minute now."
I said, "God, I hope not," but I was laughing.
"You should wear make-up more often. I didn’t realize you had eyelashes."
"Smart ass."
A laser beam disappeared into Lettie's black hair. She asked, "Wanna dance?"
I enjoyed the sassy beat of the music, but I had no idea what to do with it. The country line dancers had taken over the floor and were kicking out. Although I periodically jerked around my own living room like a Devo puppet, I never felt comfortable dancing in front of others.
"I haven’t had enough to drink," I answered.
"Mind if I go? This song is the best."
I didn’t mind. Lettie slithered through the crowd, all hip-swingy and sexy, into a spot next to a group of cowgirls. Her skin soaked up the light, its natural tan pulling in all the color and flash. Her short dress and red cowboy boots reminded me of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. She'd put sparkles in her hair, and they glimmered from across the room.
A man sat down in Lettie's chair.
"Tell me," he said, raising his voice to be heard. "What’s the first thing you notice about me?"
He watched the dancers, his face in profile to me. He had an enormous nose. And his hair looked like he ran his fingers through it, instead of using a comb. Other than that, there wasn’t much about him that was remarkable, except maybe his eyelashes. They swept out and up, long for a man.
He turned and caught me looking at him. I felt the blush rising even before it hit my cheeks, and I looked quickly away without answering his question.
"I know you," he said.
The music bounced so heavily on his words that I wasn’t sure I'd heard him right. "Excuse me?"
He repeated, "I know you," and that time, there was no mistaking.
"Have we met?"
"No. But I know a lot of things about you—how you see things sometimes—things nobody else sees."
I scooted away, and he put his hand on my arm. He wore a large, gold ring with a symbol stamped into it—a coat of arms for a college or secret society. A roaming beam of light hit it and ricocheted into my eyes. For a moment, it blinded me, and I cringed.
He leaned in. "I know what it’s like. Always wondering what’s real and what’s not. You’re probably even wondering whether I’m real." He squeezed my arm. "I am."
If I had a nickel for every time a hallucination said that to me… I pulled away, but I didn’t leave. "What do you want?"
"I want you to be careful. You’re mixed up in something bigger than you can imagine."
"I have a very active imagination, but I think you’ve got the wrong person."
"You’re Viviane Rose, and you live with your grandfather. You’re engaged to marry Colin Aubrey, a patient at Malum Center. You work in the laundry room there."
"Now you’re freaking me out." I edged away from him.
He shouted to be heard over the music and the distance growing between us. "I’m a psychologist. I can help you."
I got to my feet. He stood too and seemed ready to follow me. I escaped toward the dance floor. I could see Lettie there, through the bodies. They didn’t part for me like they had for her, and I was a pinball, bouncing off the dancers. I sent my apologies on ahead.
"Sorry. Sorry. Excuse me. Sorry, excuse me."
The distance between Lettie and me got longer, not smaller. I couldn’t seem to reach her, and the farther away she was, the more I wanted to be near her. That old, familiar paranoia made my head feel thick. Was everyone looking at me? Talking about the strange girl? Saying I didn’t belong there. Laughing at me. Pointing.
Watch out, psycho bitch comin' through.
Then Lettie had her arms around me. "Hey. I thought you didn’t want to dance?"
Her eyes welcomed me, and a feeling of safety enveloped me. The fog lifted, the voices in my head shut up, and I could breathe again. I searched the crowd as the paranoia receded. No one was talking about me or to me. No one had even noticed me.
"I recognize that look," Lettie said. "Are you freaking out?"
"There was a creepy guy talking to me."
Lettie craned her neck to scan the area around our table, but he had disappeared. "What guy?"
"I don’t know. Maybe I imagined him."
♦♦♦
CHAPTER 5
The Friday before my mini-vacation with Colin wasn't as uneventful as I'd have wished. It began with my usual session with Richard. Smooth sailing—until the end.
He sat across from me in his office, one ankle over the opposite knee. Shadows sculpted him into a devil intent on mischief, eye sockets darkened and mouth hard between his black mustache and trim goatee. He would have been mortified if he’d known how the dim lighting warped his features. Everything else about him was calculated to convey a sense of professionalism, competence, and caring. He asked, "Are you still going out to the lake with Colin this weekend?"
"Doc Bella says it’s okay. She thinks it might even do him some good."
"You’ve been taking your medication?"
"Every day."
"Any hallucinations?"
"None." It was a small enough lie, and one I was practiced at telling. I had learned early in life that it did me no good to be totally honest about what I saw, not even with Richard.
He leaned toward me abruptly, his gaze fixed on mine and said, with attention to each syllable, "You know, you don’t have to stay with him out of a sense of guilt or responsibility."
I recoiled and put a hand up between us. "I'm not talking about that again."
Richard closed his leather-bound notebook using the fancy pen I’d given him for his fortieth birthday as a bookmark. He set them both aside and reached for the glass of vita-shake on the table beside him. "Then I suppose we're done for the day. I'll see you next week."
♦
From there, my day got worse. Heading to work, I found the back stairwell empty, as always, a utilitarian tower lit with shabby fluorescent bulbs that flickered from time to time. I didn’t dawdle. I rushed down the stairs so quickly, I almost didn’t hear the noise.
I was thinking about the paperwork I'd have to do the following Monday. Payroll and inventory reports. I wasn't looking forward to it.
And then I heard a shuffling—a whisper. I froze, and my shadow froze too. Other shadows didn’t. They continued to expand, stretching long down the wall.
"Hello? Is someone there?" I shook my head, squeezed my eyes shut, then reopened them. The shadows grew. They moved like a sto
rm front across the wall. "Who’s there? Look, I don’t care who you are or what you’re smoking, but you’re scaring me, so just say something." I went for my straight pin and drove it into the pad of my middle finger. The pain was real, even if the rest wasn’t.
Another hint of a sound that I wasn't entirely sure I'd heard came from above. I strained to listen, and when the first tendrils of fog came rolling down the stairs, my body took over where my mind left off. It pumped adrenalin into my blood. My heartbeat increased, and the approaching choice—fight or flight—stirred in my limbs. My ears rang, the sound amplifying in gradual increments.
"Not real," I told myself.
Then, from behind me, someone grabbed my wrist.
I jumped and screamed.
Colin, in his pajamas, a step or two below me, as edgy as a cat on the verge of a fight, said, "You’re not supposed to be here." He looked crazed. His curly hair stood out in all directions, blue eyes large and over-bright.
"Neither are you," I said. "How did you get through the security doors?"
He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me after him. "C’mon!" I had no choice but to follow down the stairs, focusing on my feet so as not to stumble or miss a step.
He said, "Maybe the hag knows you're my weakness."
"Colin." I tried to sound calm, although I didn’t succeed. More loudly, I said, "Stop!"
But he didn’t stop. He kept racing downward, his bare feet slapping on the concrete. Talking to me or himself, he said, "Maybe she’s just a spiteful cunt."
At the bottom landing, Colin input the security code on the keypad. He shoved me through the doorway ahead of him and looked back over his shoulder.
"How did you get that code?" I asked.
"Stay back, bitch," he growled. "I won’t let you touch her." He pulled the door shut behind us. He grabbed my wrist again and tugged me down the deserted corridor. The giant laundry machines thrummed in the distance.
"You’re hurting me!"
He stopped and swung me around him until I slammed against the wall. My head reverberated against the concrete blocks. He turned me to face him, pressed his body against mine, and closed his hand over my mouth. I bit the inside of my cheek and tasted blood.
"Shhh," he hissed. "Shhhh. If she hears us, she’ll kill you." His eyes were frenzied—terrified, he looked everywhere but at me. The aroma of his sweat was pungent in my nostrils. Colin watched over his shoulder toward the door. His hand slid upward, closing off my nostrils as well as my mouth.
I couldn’t breathe. I pulled on his arm, but the harder I fought him, the more firmly he pressed himself against me, all the while, saying, "Shhhh. Hush. Shhhhh. Stop."
I kneed him in the groin.
It took a second, but then Colin released me and fell to the floor with a loud groan.
I dropped my hands to my knees, breathing in gasps, trying not to puke or cry.
Ajani came out of the laundry room door. When he saw us, he sprinted the length of the hall and knelt beside Colin, though his concerned face lifted to me. "Are you all right?"
I nodded.
"What happened? Did he hurt you?"
I shook my head.
Colin sat up and told Ajani, "It was her. She came after us."
Ajani said, "It was her? Are you sure?"
Colin cocked his head to one side, listening. "She’s gone now."
I sat back on my heels. "Please…don’t encourage him."
♦
Ajani took Colin back to his room, and I continued on to the laundry. Shaken, I had a hard time focusing. I regretted letting Ajani leave with Colin. He might report the incident, and I didn’t want Bella to cancel our weekend. After all, no one would have believed he’d been trying to protect me from my own hallucination.
I took Ajani’s station until he returned, pulling hot loads of laundry out of dryers and putting in wet loads. It didn’t take him long to get back, and he came straight over to where I was. We put our heads close together so we wouldn’t have to yell over the machines, tall Ajani bending down to me.
I asked, "Did you have any trouble?"
Ajani shook his head, though his expression still held concern.
I needed to know. "Did you tell anyone?"
"No." He looked me over with his black-gold eyes. "You sure you’re okay?"
My lip was swollen, but not in any visible way, thank goodness. The bump on my forehead—there wasn’t any blood or broken skin—was already bruising, but I’d survive. "Positive. Is he?"
"He’ll be fine. What happened?"
I waved the question off. "It was my fault. I imagined a noise in the stairwell, and it freaked me out a little. I mentioned it to Colin, and it got him worked up too. We both overreacted. That’s all."
Ajani’s eyes narrowed more instead of less.
I added, "We’ve been under a lot of stress lately." I wasn’t lying. Stress comes with the territory of mental illness. It’s rough when you can never relax your guard. I put my hand on his arm. "Thank you. I’d give you a raise, if I could."
Ajani laughed, and his whole body relaxed, tension draining from him as if someone had pulled a plug. He made a silly face to make me smile.
It worked.
♦
The next day, I visited Colin in his room, and we wallowed together in tearful regret for having hurt each other. I apologized. He apologized, and we agreed to never mention it to anyone, especially not Doc Bella. He made me promise to stay out of the back hallway. I humored him.
♦♦♦
CHAPTER 6
The morning of our trip finally arrived. On my way to the Center, in my little yellow Fiesta, I sang with Heart’s "Crazy on You." The sun radiated happiness, a new warmth that promised spring flowers and an eventual harvest. Tractors streamed along tracts of land, turning the soil. Signs of renewal lined either side of the road, across the Illinois plains, barns being painted and the first few calves of the season. Crows gathered, waiting for their chance to pluck the seeds that didn’t get buried deeply enough.
I sang at the top of my lungs.
Colin and I had taken short vacations before. Six months earlier, he’d proposed to me during one of them.
When his more serious symptoms had presented, Doc Bella had resisted letting him leave the Center. I’d finally talked her into it. I'd reserved us a room at the Cozy Comfort Bed and Breakfast, right on the shore of Clinton Lake where Colin had proposed to me. I filled a basket with chocolate, fruit, cookies, and nuts, and I bought him a new shirt, new jeans, and a toiletry kit. Living with Abram, I didn't have many expenses, and it made me happy to spoil Colin.
I parked in a visitor’s spot on the circle drive and walked around to the side of the building. Second-class citizens, patients, and employees didn’t use the front entrance. I entered on the Women’s Wing side—out of habit—and used the code to get through the locked door.
Jared Barker was on duty in the Receiving office. He looked up when I came in and gave his trademark nod, slow and low. "Morning."
"Hi, Jared. How’s it going?"
"Quiet. Got no deliveries until later. I’m reading baseball blogs." He pointed at the computer screen. "No surfing porn at work. This is next best." Jared was younger than me, a brawny farm boy who’d been badly injured in a combine accident. He walked with a limp, and the arm they had reattached was forever bent, the muscles shortened and tight. His mind worked differently too, since the accident, all his etiquette barriers having fallen. "You’re in early. You switch shifts?"
I leaned on the counter. "No. I’m not working this weekend. My fiancé and I are going out to Clinton Lake. We’ve got reservations at a little B-n-B, and we’re going to relax for a couple days."
Jared’s eyebrows went up. "Are you going to have sex?"
I winked. "God, I hope so."
He buzzed me through the interior door. "You get tired of him, I’m available. My dick works, even if the rest of me don’t!"
"Thanks. I’ll keep that in m
ind."
The Men’s Wing seemed deserted, but that was an illusion. The distant rumble from the dining room signaled breakfast, the busiest time of the day for the patients, orderlies, and nurses. Everyone was there—everyone but Colin. I found him seated on his bed, reading. He stood and I went to him and slipped into his arms. "Good morning. Are you ready for an adventure?"
"I’m so ready." He kissed me on top of my head, and I rubbed my face against his chest.
"Perfect. Car’s all packed, and I checked the list twice: lingerie, bubble bath, massage oil, a special playlist on my cellphone—R&B for those quiet moments. Did I mention I got a mani-pedi?"
He laughed. "You had me at lingerie."
I squeezed him. "Did you pack your toothbrush? That’s the one thing I always forget."
"All packed. No halitosis monkeys allowed."
I didn’t recognize his suitcase. "You got a new bag?"
"Doc Bella loaned it to me. I outgrew the other one. It’s amazing how much stuff a person can accumulate."
Two years earlier, when Colin had first arrived at the Center, he’d only had the clothes on his back. He didn’t even have a name, because he couldn’t remember it. He chose "Colin Aubrey" for himself and said that having amnesia was like being born a second time, including the pain of the birth canal. Everything he'd known about himself had been gone, and he'd been left feeling broken and vulnerable.
A city hospital had transferred him to Malum Center because no one had shown up looking for him. The state paid for his care, feeding, and sessions with Doc Bella. The police had given up trying to find his identity, though Colin never had. He sat for hours browsing social media and scanning local news sites, studying faces, wondering if any of them—any single one of them—might know who he was and where he came from. He wanted to know his parents, whether he had brothers or sisters, and how they might have damaged him.
Stalking the Moon Page 4
