by Sandra Block
After finishing the pizza, we sat a little longer in the restaurant. A group of college kids was leaving as another gaggle came in, and I started yawning. James yawned too and asked if I wanted to get going. He looked at the side of my face as he asked. I noticed that sometimes, how he doesn’t look straight at me. I agreed, and we walked to the T together, then he went his way, and I went mine.
All the way to the subway, I wondered if he would ask me to his place, but he didn’t. Which is just as well. I don’t know if I would have said yes or no. Probably yes.
I turn on my fan, which starts at a low moan before building up to a steady pace. Lying on my bed, I pick up my book from the nightstand. The pages flutter in the breeze every time the fan spins toward me. Simone keeps trying to lick the air. I read until my eyes go blurry. Then I flick off the light and slide my hand under the pillow to cradle my Beretta.
My own little teddy bear.
When I close my eyes, I can see the thunderbolt tattoo.
As I drift off, the Japanese characters float in front of me, worming onto a stark-white sheet of paper, then floating off the page again. I keep trying to grab them, but they slip away like wisps of smoke. The question pierces me as I am falling asleep.
Why does he want revenge?
Chapter Ten
James
On the last leg of the subway ride, I Google her again.
There’s not much out there. Tons of awards from high school, including valedictorian. It looks like she was really good at field hockey. Some article about a legal aid club at Harvard, a picture from a picnic at Miller and Stein, then her Instagram. That’s not too revealing either, because she’s too smart for that. A couple pretty pictures of her with all her tattoos, one with her cat, some quotes. I don’t do Instagram, because it seems like a waste of time.
The subway isn’t too bad right now. Quiet, only a few people in my car. Usually, I hate the T. So sweaty and loud, people bumping against me, and all those exhaust fumes. I never take the subway if I can help it. But my car is still at the shop so I don’t have a choice.
Earlier, the subway was delayed, which nearly killed the date.
Some sort of electrical problem, and it went on forever. I sat there in the smelly car with people groaning and ranting all around me, and I wanted to explode. Just rip the metal pole right out of the floor. I was trying to calm down and deep breathe like Jamal taught me, but I could feel people staring at me. So I sat there, sweating and looking at my phone, watching the minutes go by and thinking how she’ll probably leave. I hate it when people are late. It tells me that they don’t respect me or my time. If it were me, I would have left.
She didn’t leave.
But she didn’t look happy to see me either. The coffee place was small and dark, and I was too nervous to admit that I hated coffee when she suggested it. I burned my tongue drinking it too fast, but then we went to the pizza place, which was perfect. She showed me her tattoos, the sleeve going up her arm. I’ve always wanted to see it up close. Ramona had a tattoo on her chest, in Japanese characters that read Reborn. My father hated it, of course, but my mother smiled when she saw it. Because she understood it, like a code. My father didn’t even bother to ask what it meant.
So after what happened, I got my tattoo there too, in Japanese characters on my chest. But mine doesn’t say reborn. It says revenge. And my mom read that too and looked troubled.
Dahlia liked it though, I could tell. And I could have told her, what happened to Ramona, what it meant. I could have told her how the tattoo shamed me now, when I saw it in the mirror every morning. Because I never did anything. I never got my revenge.
But I couldn’t tell her. Not yet. She put her face up so close, I could feel her breath against my neck. And when she touched my chest, I wanted to hold her hand there forever. Her soft fingerprints on my skin.
I think she’ll see me again. I really do. But even if she doesn’t, I’ll always remember that moment. Jamal said I focus too much on the bad things that happen and forget about all the good things. He said a negative viewpoint can mold your brain that way. Something about neural pathways, which sort of makes sense, and Jamal’s smart about those things. He said I should save room for the good things in life. I thought that wasn’t a bad idea, so I freed up some RAM in my brain and put a file folder in there called good things. It isn’t very full yet, but that moment will go in there, definitely.
Her fingers on my chest. My skin tingling.
That moment goes in there and can never be erased.
Chapter Eleven
Five Years Ago
We take a taxi to the hospital.
A piece of electrical tape sticks against my thigh from the seat. The road is bumpy, and everything hurts. The windows are open, and students are rushing by, laughing with their backpacks on. Like everything’s okay. Like it’s just another day.
The driver keeps checking back on me with a worried face and gives Daisy his card to bring us back when we’re done.
I ask the hospital not to call the police. They call the police anyway.
We don’t wait long. Not like freshman year, when they thought I had the flu but ended up getting my appendix out. We are ushered right into a room. Soft voices. My dirty, torn clothes in a thick, blue plastic bag on the chair. The doctor says he’s from Puerto Rico; I never catch his name. His face is embarrassed. He doesn’t meet my eyes.
A nurse rips open a packet officiously, as if she’s done this too many times before. She doesn’t baby me, but she’s not mean either. She treats me like a person. She talks me through the exam.
Cold stirrups. Swabs. Speculum.
Daisy’s warm hand holding mine behind a curtain and my eyes keep crying. I don’t feel like I’m crying, just my eyes. Someone gives me a tissue. I touch my cheek and there is gauze on the brush burn. I don’t remember anyone putting it there. Time is flipping. Jagged pieces of time. Memories of men laughing. Men clutching me. Pain. Someone else’s mind. Somebody else’s body.
A soft voice breaks into my head.
“Do you want to talk about it?” The social worker asks me. I don’t remember her name either. Light-skinned black woman, or maybe Hispanic. Big purple glasses and kind eyes. Daisy repeats the question, because I must have forgotten to answer.
“No,” I say finally, then realize this might sound rude. “No, thank you.” It’s like I am reading a handbook on how you are supposed to act. Talk to people. Don’t shower. Try not to cry too much. Let them touch you. And above all, be polite. Remember: just by being there, you are making them uncomfortable.
“Here’s my card,” she says. “Is your mom here, or anyone?”
I haven’t called my mom. I have to call my mom.
“Just me,” Daisy answers. “I’ll take it.”
“Do you need anything for pain, honey?” A nurse asks. A different nurse.
I nod.
“Where do you have pain?”
But I just shake my head. I don’t know where I have pain. Everywhere. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to cry. It hurts to sit. It hurts to pee. It hurts to move.
It hurts to be.
“Give her ten of morphine,” the doctor says.
“She’s little,” the nurse says.
“Five, then.” His rolling chair squeaks. “Wait a second. Did they already get a tox screen?”
“Yes.”
“Her roommate thought she’d been drugged,” the doctor says.
Daisy nods in response. “Definitely. She was definitely drugged.”
“The tox was already done,” the nurse repeats, annoyed at the doctor for not trusting her. “I drew it myself.”
“Okay, five milligrams.”
I am swimming in and out of the conversation. In and out of the room. The only anchor is my hand, clenched to Daisy’s hand. I have to tell my mom. I have to te
ll my sister. I don’t want to tell them. I don’t want to tell anyone.
The nurse finds a spot on my ass that isn’t bruised or scratched and plunges her needle in. A bee sting. A flare of pain then the soft, soft wooziness. The blaze of hurt everywhere that is my body recedes. My brain unclamps. My body is my body again. But then, I remember, it’s not.
A flash of a vision. Men in a line. Laughing.
Is this real? I try to cling to this pseudomemory, follow it to its source. But the image tunnels away as soon as I chase it.
And finally, I give into the warm, lovely rush of medicine, and I sleep.
Chapter Twelve
Dahlia
“So did you sleep with him?” Sylvia asks.
“No,” I say, coldly. “I didn’t.”
“Yeah, he is kind of weird,” she says, misunderstanding.
I grip my pen, so I don’t grip her neck. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know.” She scans her computer screen. “He doesn’t really look you in the eye. And he talks kind of weird. Like a robot or something.”
I shrug. “I think he’s cute.”
She uncaps the Wite-Out, and the scent fills the cubicle. “He’s not bad looking, I guess, if you’re into that.”
I don’t ask her what that is.
“Anyway, I wouldn’t have slept with him either. I always went with the three-date rule.” She applies dots of Wite-Out onto a document with precision, then waves her hand over it to dry it. “Sometimes I couldn’t hold out though,” she says, then laughs. Sylvia has a donkey-like laugh that you can hear for miles. “Lucky, I won’t have to worry about that anymore.” She gives me a conspiratorial grin. “Beau’s an animal. He can go for hours.”
Fortunately, Tabitha walks over to the cubicle and saves me from further details. Tabitha is a first-year associate. She’s a mousy little thing, afraid of her own shadow. And she has an odd habit of giggling after everything she says. “Dahlia?” (Giggle, giggle.)
“Yes?”
“Do you mind if maybe you could make a medical chronology on the Stevens case?” (Giggle, giggle.)
“Sure, no problem.” I grab the towering stack of paper from her with two hands.
“And are you almost done on the Rizzo closing?” (Giggle, giggle.)
“Finished this morning.”
“Great.” (Giggle). She scoots out of the room. I have a feeling she won’t be partner track. Not in litigation, anyway, unless the jury can overlook a giggle after every phrase in a murder case. I stare down at the stack of papers. The top one is an orthopedics office note, dated 1993. I highlight the date and put it to the side, because you have to start somewhere, then tackle the next one in the pile. Cardiology, 2010. It strikes me that this is going to take hours, and I need sustenance.
So I grab my COFFEE mug and make my way to the break room.
Some lawyers are gathered in a cluster, glued to some video on a cell phone. It’s odd to see them in the break room, since they rarely hang out there. Usually, this is the province of the lowlier types, the secretaries or the paralegals. The lawyers are behind a divider in the corner and can’t see me, which is just as well. Someone might come up with a project for me or something. After pouring out the last dregs from the pot, I rip open a new bag, being a good Miller and Stein citizen who always refills the coffee maker when I’ve finished the last cup.
“Holy shit,” one of the guys barks out. Steve, from tax. He’s an asshole. Unlike Tabitha, he probably will make partner.
“You think that’s her?” another voice asks. “It looks like her.”
“Holy shit,” Steve repeats. “That’s got to be her.”
“Guys, this isn’t cool. Turn that crap off,” another lawyer says. It sounds like Connor, my boss. Moaning sounds are emanating from the corner. Not really sexual, more like a hurt animal. Laughter erupts on the phone’s speaker, and the lawyers turn silent. So silent, they might be holding their breath.
I stride over, because now I’m curious. “What are you all looking at?” I ask.
Steve’s eyes widen, like he’s seen an actual ghost, and Connor turns a fierce red.
Now I’ve got to know what they’re looking at. “What is it, you guys?” I grab the phone from him. Connor reaches over to stop me, but I hold it up like a game of keep-away and duck over to the corner so I can see what they’re looking at.
And then I see it.
A girl, barely awake and moaning. Her face is slack, drugged. A young man with his shorts fallen around his ankles. Raping her. He emerges from the bed, laughing, sweaty, and drunk and beckons another young man, who starts undoing his belt. Her white shirt is torn. Her black skirt is pushed up.
Pretty Girl.
The last thing I hear is the phone dropping out of my hand. The screen shattering.
And then I feel the tunnel sucking me in.
Chapter Thirteen
Dahlia
“It was on some video site,” I say. “At work.”
My speech is heavy and a bit garbled, since they gave me about ten shots of Ativan in the ER. I tried to tell them it wouldn’t work. Fake seizures, I said, stress seizures. But I don’t think it came out right, and my body finally stopped shaking, so maybe it did work in the end.
“What did you say?” Eli asks.
“They were watching it in the break room. On their phone.”
Eli looks horrified. “The rape? Someone put the rape online?”
I nod.
He shoots up from his chair and starts pacing. “Jesus. That’s awful.”
I nod again. All I can do is nod. The drugs have slowed down my brain. Eli reaches in for a hug. I am sweaty, hungry, and exhausted, but the hug feels good anyway. I am not crying though. I have no tears in me right now, but when he releases me from the embrace, his eyes are wet. Maybe he is crying for me. “I want to fucking kill them,” he hisses.
My nurse walks in, and Eli quickly wipes off his eyes. Matthew is my nurse—a bit paunchy, ever-cheerful, and, as Eli confirmed, most assuredly gay. Even my gaydar picked up that one. “Lunch time,” Matthew says brightly, dropping off the tray.
“Let’s see,” I say, feigning interest as I lift up the lid. “Oh, chicken.” My stomach burbles.
“She’s vegetarian,” Eli says.
“No she’s not,” Matthew answers.
“Actually,” I say, though it comes out with an extra syllable, “she is.”
“Oh.” Matthew looks peeved. “It didn’t say that on the sheet.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Could you take it back though, please?”
“Okay, hon. Of course,” Matthew says, as if suddenly remembering his role. “I’ll get you the frittata.”
The idea of a hospital frittata makes me want to retch. “No. No frittata.” I can barely say the word with my frozen lips. “I’m fine.”
Eli stands up. “Hummus wrap from downstairs?”
I answer with a thumbs-up sign, and Matthew clears the tray with a smile to show we’re all friends again. I lie in silence a while, my back hurting from the awkward angle of the hospital bed. My head is killing me too, but I don’t want to ask the nurse for Tylenol, or I’ll probably end up with a spinal tap. I’ve been here enough times to know you shut up, put up, and get the hell out as soon as you can.
Rearranging myself in the bed, I hear my roommate through the curtain. She’s berating someone about her son’s birthday party, from what I can gather. Didn’t he call the clown people? Didn’t he pick up the cake? A knock interrupts my unintentional eavesdropping.
“Hello?” a voice calls out.
I pull my covers up, feeling a sudden chill, as James ventures into the room with flowers in a crinkly bag. Mixed carnations, with a strong, not altogether pleasant scent. He lays them by the window. “How are you feeling?” His voice is soft, a bit
unsure.
I smile, weakly. My lips feel tight. “I’ve been better.” My speech sounds a bit clearer though.
“What happened?” He glances around the room then takes a seat next to me. “Do you mind my asking?”
“Yeah, sure, it’s fine.” I rub my arms. “I had sort of a seizure, but not really.”
His eyebrows raise in question.
“Pseudo-seizures, they call them,” I say with some embarrassment, as I’m not even accomplished enough to have real seizures. “They’re stress-related,” I add, but realize how lame that sounds. “But, not like, a little stress. A big stress.”
“A big stress,” he repeats.
“Yes. Big stress. The sort of things that make people join S.O.S. That kind of stress.”
“Oh, I see.” But his unsettled look tells me he doesn’t really.
I decide that it’s time. Time to tell him the why. “There was a reason I tried to kill myself, you know.”
“Yes. I assumed so.” This is followed by an uncomfortable pause. “Is this about the video?”
My stomach turns. “You heard about it?”
He nods, ashamed.
“Bad news travels fast, huh,” I say, venom rushing through my veins.
“Like a virus,” he says.
I lay my pounding head back on the thin, mushy pillow. “Did you see it?”
“No.”
“Me neither.” I rub my forehead. “Which is the worst part. That everyone else knows. And I didn’t even get to see it.”
He nods a moment, then appears to think about something. I close my eyes, which doesn’t help the pounding, and I hear him scoot his chair in closer. When I open my eyes, his dark-brown eyes are staring right at me. I look for pity in them, or revulsion, but find nothing of the kind. His gaze is without any pretense. His dark eyes, which often swim away from mine, hold steady.
