The Lost Queen of Crocker County: A Novel

by Elizabeth Leiknes

  With my Ramones T-shirt, Mom’s pink cardigan, Dad’s horn-rimmed reading glasses, and my jet-black and trendy blunt-cut bangs, I look like a hipster Zooey Deschanel on the way to the Brentwood Whole Foods. I make sure my blond hair is tucked into the wig, no trace of Jane anywhere, and get into character. Today I’m not Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra from Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1963 big-screen version in all its Ptolemaic splendor. There’s no Richard Burton to woo, to slow me down.

  Today, I am an ordinary woman with an extraordinary task.

  Today, I am Bliss’s savior.

  • • •

  So Cleopatra walks into a hospital.

  With the getup I’m in, the insane situation I’m in, I realize I’m the punch line of this sick joke. But when I walk through the front entrance of Crocker County Regional Hospital—a self-contained city—nobody seems to think anything out of the ordinary, except perhaps that my fashion choices are not homegrown, and this is exactly what I want.

  Unlike True City itself, the hospital seems to be disconnected from the land, and the people here bustle past one another like strangers rather than neighbors. Thank God. In the heart of True City, everyone seems to know me, but here I will be among strangers, and after this morning’s quick Google search, I know the first lie in a series of necessary lies—I know exactly who I need to be.

  “Hi, I’m Kate Snelling,” I say to the nurse behind the desk. “I’m a representative for the National Institute for In-Transition Coma Patients.”

  “ID?” the nurse says, nonplussed.

  “Oh, shoot,” I mumble, rummaging in my laptop bag. “Left it on my… I’ll bring it next time.” When the nurse meets my stare, I speak in a calm voice. “I can give you a number to call…to verify…if you want… I won’t be here long, but as you know, the first two weeks are crucial in terms of long-term prognosis.”

  The cranky nurse scans her finger down a clipboard, then shoos me in the direction I need to go. “Bliss Anderson. Room 212—they just moved her from ICU.”

  Bliss. What a beautiful goal.

  I look back at the nurse’s name tag, which reads “Marsha,” but that must be a mistake. Clearly she is Nurse Ratched. Milos Forman himself has conjured up some high-key lighting to accentuate the grayed-out, lifeless hallway. The extreme contrasts and muted camera movement make this cuckoo’s nest seem movie-fake.

  But it’s not fake, and I’m not a cinematic character, a live-free-or-die Randle McMurphy who inspired his twelve disciples to find their voices. I am Jane Willow. Barely hanging on. Where are you, Milos Forman? Where are you, Randle McMurphy? Where are you, Hollywood? Nobody is going to save me, because I’m not the one who deserves to be saved. I tuck this feeling away where nobody will see it, then walk away, faking the confidence of a real health professional.

  When I reach the room, I enter after a soft knock. I see her, and my heart grows heavy, each beat held hostage with guilt, accelerated with remorse. This girl in the bed looks nothing like the girl on the television. This girl—swollen, bruised, still—shows no signs of life.

  I step back out into the hallway to catch my breath. My heart hurts. A sharp pain shoots through my chest. I face the hallway wall, pretend to read a sign, but then bury my face in my hands.

  I did this.

  This is my fault.

  I want to run, and almost do, but I have to face what I’ve done. I have to help her. I force myself to walk back into the room and see her. They’ve wrapped the top part of her head in gauze. Shiny blond hair spills out from underneath, and bandages cover both arms, resting frozen on top of the blanket.

  Hello, Bliss.

  I watch her chest move up and down, and, in solidarity, synchronize my breathing with hers.

  Mid-breath, a voice startles me. “Are you family?” A nurse enters the room and begins to check the monitor hooked up to Bliss.

  “No,” I blurt. “Therapist.”

  “Already? That’s great. Her dad will be happy. He’s just grabbing some coffee—hasn’t slept a wink.”

  Dad? Of course she has a dad. My heart free-falls.

  The nurse, an Altman-inspired character from some dark comedy, a less-sexy Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan—tucks a blanket under Bliss’s side. “Physical?”

  “Physical?” I repeat.

  “Physical therapist?” The nurse turns around, takes a break from checking vitals.

  “No, not physical therapy.” I don’t want to hurt the poor girl any more than I already have.

  Believe so.

  Will it to be.

  That is to say, a leap of faith.

  I stick my hand in my bag and pull out the only book I have with me—my parents’ copy of my own award-winning book, Real Movies for Real People: Living in the Dark, and try not to choke on the fact that, at the moment, I am a completely fake person.

  “Story therapy.” I turn the book over so the nurse won’t see my black-and-white author photo on the back cover.

  “Story therapy?”

  “Yeah, it’s like music therapy…but with words.” I nod in hopes of believing it myself. “Research shows”—I scour my memory for my five-minute research—“that sometimes it isn’t anything physical that wakes a coma patient. Sometimes it’s a word or phrase that stirs something in the cerebral cortex, prompting the emotional and physical to work in sync once again.”

  The nurse walks over to me, speaks with sincerity. “That’s wonderful. Just wonderful.”

  “Two years ago,” I say while looking at Bliss, “the family of an Iowan farmer who was in a coma after falling off his machine shed decided it was time—after eight weeks only one percent of coma patients recover—so they prepared to say goodbye, turn off the life support. But then”—I touch Bliss’s blanket, wanting to caress her face—“his wife, as part of her goodbye, whispered to him the exciting news that their daughter had given birth that very morning to their first grandchild. To this, the man who had not spoken, let alone moved on his own accord for two months, simply sat up and said, ‘Is it a boy?’”

  “No!” the nurse says, hands on hips, her pink scrubs clinging to her curves. With an excited nod, she said, “I’ve cared for many coma patients over the years… People give me grief for talking to them. But I don’t like the idea of giving up on them, you know?”

  “I know.” I glance up at Bliss and once again match her breathing cadence.

  “Loves Audrey Hepburn. Guess she can quote every line from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” She sighs. “Wanted to be a movie star.” The nurse stops fiddling with the IV bag and stares at Bliss.

  “Wants to be a movie star,” I correct her.

  The nurse smiles, nods, embarrassed by her pessimism. “Right.” She moves toward the door, then turns around, extends her hand. “Stella.” She stares just long enough for me to panic. “Have we met before?”

  I tuck my book back into my bag and readjust Dad’s reading glasses. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Something about you seems familiar. Like our paths have crossed before.”

  “Nope. Don’t think so.” I choked out the next words, pulling Mother’s cardigan tight around me. “I’m not from here.”

  “Funny…you seem right at home.” Stella stands at the door’s threshold. “Well. We cross paths when we need to in this life.” Years of experience show in the lines on her face.

  After she leaves, I walk to Bliss’s bedside.

  Believe so.

  Wake up.

  I look for movement in her eyelids.

  Please wake up.

  I shut my eyes and try to remember what the great thinkers—Einstein, Gandhi, Buddha, Harold Hill—said about the law of attraction and the power of thought. Everything is energy, and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other w
ay. This is not philosophy. This is physics.

  But I can smell the faint hint of manure as this New Age philosophy tries to ring true. I think of Harold Hill and realize a truth. He is actually not in this camp of believe-in-yourself-and-you-can-do-anything; his true transformation came about from recognizing his negative effects on others and understanding that he could give rather than take.

  I imagine what I will give this girl if—when—she wakes up. Together, we’ll watch some of the greatest moments on film, starting with Truffaut’s Jules et Jim. I’ll watch her face light up when she sees the famous bicycle scene where three carefree people, lost in joy, ride their bikes in the sun in France before they are ruined by war. I won’t even lecture her about the film’s genius—the newsreel footage, the panning shots, the photographic stills, Jeanne Moreau’s on-screen definition of smart equals sexy. I will just help Bliss see the beauty in sadness.

  And then, with no time to catch our breath, we’ll watch Spielberg at his bold-faced-storyteller-of-humanity best—when Stern tells Oskar Schindler that he who saves a life saves the entire world.

  Please be right, Dad. Please let life be one big work in progress, every situation changeable, revisable. Please let one person be able to change the course of history.

  Yes. There will be so much to do after I’ve saved her.

  After I’ve saved her, I’ll tell her how they thought she was as good as dead. Fin. Lights out. Final curtain call. Fade to black. I’ll tell her how she now has her whole life ahead of her.

  Until then, I will keep reading about times when mere words prompt a coma patient to awaken. What will make Bliss want to come back to life?

  She’s eighteen. Wants to be an actress. Acting class! That’s what I’ll tell her. I’ll get her into Lou’s coveted acting workshop. He owes me a favor.

  I stand close to her, feeling her warmth through the bedsheet, and breathe with her, the only thing we can do together. I try to imagine what Bliss imagines, wherever she is. I try to imagine which one of us is more lost. I tell her I’m going to help her dreams come true.

  Believe so.

  Will it to be.

  That is to say, open your eyes.

  Open your eyes.

  I wait for some sign—any sign—that my words have resonated, but she is still. Not the right words, I guess. I search her will for hope.

  But there are so many words.

  I pull out Living in the Dark, turn to page one, and begin to read.

  Preface

  Film unites us. Like a sunrise peeking out from behind whatever landscape we call home, movies bring us together.

  Most people need to look backward, dig deep, to envision that scene, which plays every day, every hour in some home, some theater somewhere in America.

  Movies have always been the thing that connects us to other people, the thing that reminds us of our shocking sameness. No matter where we come from, they remind us who we are, who we’ve loved, where we’ve been, where we want to go.

  I fell in love with movies on a Tuesday morning.

  Chapter Eighteen

  INT. THE MIDDLE—TODAY

  BLISS (V.O.)

  You know that feeling when you know you’re dreaming, but you can’t wake up? Well, that’s not how I feel. Not even close.

  FADE IN: Auditorium ladies’ powder room

  BLISS stands in an enormous bathroom complete with a sitting area for two plush, purple settees. She looks into a rectangular mirror surrounded by vintage, theater globe lights.

  BLISS

  (to her reflection)

  This place, The Middle, is real. And I’m glad, because my hair looks amazing. Really. The mirror doesn’t lie, especially in this kick-ass bathroom I’m in.

  BLISS stares into the mirror, lets the golden, ethereal light from the mini globes bathe her in a warm glow. BLISS remembers she’s from a place called True City; that’s what people call it, but it doesn’t seem true at all, more like a lie to use words that have no meaning, to talk of a place she doesn’t really recall. She decides to call it The Other Place until she remembers what it means to her.

  BLISS

  (looking at her reflection)

  The Other Place did not have one of these. Not even close. This bathroom is bigger than my bedroom. Hmm. There’s another detail. I had a bedroom. Back there. It was yellow, my bedroom. Not a dumb baby-pastel yellow, but a canary-yellow. Happy yellow. Like liquid sunshine.

  WIDE-SHOT

  Over the whole bathroom, which is flooded with the sound of elevator Muzak. One by one, as if choreographed, several mirrors in a long row as far as the eye can see, come into view. Four female FIGURES—in different-colored dresses, fantastical gowns all magically swaying and flowing without as much as a breeze in this still, windless bathroom—stand in front of their respective mirrors, and lean forward over sparkly, gem-adorned sinks. The FIGURES examine their reflections. BLISS follows their lead. They turn their heads to the left, letting the light hit all facets of their perfect faces. BLISS turns to the left, then when they do, to the right. They take lipsticks out of tiny red purses and color their lips in unison.

  The first GIRL, in a tea-length, red organza dress, turns to BLISS. She’s older. She knows things.

  RED-DRESS GIRL

  (with a pouty face)

  No purse?

  BLISS shakes her head, then touches the top of it, piled high with shimmering blond hair, and winces in pain.

  RED-DRESS GIRL

  (snobbish)

  You’re gonna be here awhile. You should have a purse.

  RED-DRESS GIRL’s tea-length dress suddenly grows longer, the color deepening to a bloodred. Suddenly it forms an exaggerated pool around her on the shiny marble floor, making BLISS’s head throb.

  BLISS

  (whispering)

  I definitely don’t have a purse.

  (a smile creeps onto her face)

  My dad says I have an unhealthy affinity for adverbs.

  (Pauses.)

  Hey! I have a dad! I just remembered. I totally have a dad!

  RED-DRESS GIRL

  (Rolls her eyes)

  Congratulations.

  BLISS looks at RED-DRESS GIRL like this place is indeed real—right at home with the reality that mean girls are everywhere.

  Camera drifts left to the next GIRL, wearing a full-length, green mermaid gown. There is a peacock pattern on the front, and when BLISS looks at it, the bird comes to life, blinks its small black eyes, displays its vibrant plumage.

  BLISS

  (baffled)

  Your dress is alive.

  GREEN-DRESS GIRL

  (smiling)

  This kind of thing happens here.

  GREEN-DRESS GIRL hands BLISS her crimson lipstick, and BLISS puts it on. She looks just like the other GIRLS now. When BLISS thinks of her dad telling her to wipe the lipstick off, she realizes that he is back in The Other Place. Some cobwebby corner of her mind tells her this might be bad. She knows it’s bad, for sure, when she remembers his sad eyes.

  BLISS

  (to herself)

  I wonder if my dad would be happy here.

  GREEN-DRESS GIRL

  Probably not. Sad people are sad wherever they go.

  BLISS

  Totally.

  (pauses, stares at GREEN-DRESS GIRL)

  Do I know you? There’s something familiar…

  GREEN-DRESS GIRL smiles at BLISS.

  Just then, a memory from The Other Place arrives like a gift, a tiny silver box wrapped in yellow silk ribbon. BLISS closes her eyes and opens it.

  BLISS

  (eyes closed, recalling)

  Yeah, he’s all up in words, my dad.

  (smiles)

  He likes to mock me. “’Never’ is a very strong word, B
liss,” he’d say.

  She floats around the memory, breathes it in. His words come to her in flashes.

  To GREEN-DRESS GIRL

  BLISS

  (opens eyes, saddens)

  “’Always’ is worse, Bliss. Adverbs never live up to their bold promises.” God, his delivery is so…like, award-winningly depressing. Totally. What happened to this guy? What happened to my dad?

  BLISS remembers a hint of her dad’s smile, but it drifts away, like something is making it impossible for him to smile. She opens one last gift.

  BLISS

  (concentrating)

  “Adverbs are a writer’s worst enemy,” he’d say, even though he’s not a writer. He does something else…

  (closes eyes again—tries to remember)

  It’s bossy… He wears a uniform.

  To GREEN-DRESS GIRL

  BLISS

  (teenage-confident)

  Anyway, thanks but no thanks, because I’m not going be a writer. I’m going to be an actress. And not one of those after-school-special actresses who tell you to love yourself and all sorts of other cheesy crap—and no offense, Miley, but I don’t want to be one of those Disney sitcom actors either, with a built-in laugh track. There’s nothing funny about the kind of actress I’m going to be. I want to be totally serious, you know. Like Audrey Hepburn serious. Like

  (forces a sweet lisp, Hepburn style)

  “Which accent do you want me to do, Mr. Huston, because I can do them all.” Seriously. Really.

  But before an answer comes, the elevator Muzak stops and an invisible guitar strums the notes to My Fair Lady’s “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly.” The third mirror lights up, and AUDREY HEPBURN in her prime appears wearing her signature Breakfast at Tiffany’s black dress, sixties updo with tiara, black gloves, and pearls.

  BLISS

  (wide-eyed)

  It’s you!

  AUDREY HEPBURN