by Oliver, Tess
“What color are her eyes?” Hal asked.
“Huh?”
He looked at my book. It was about some guy’s climb up Mount Kilimanjaro. Julian had sent it to me a year after I’d been dropped behind bars. He was obsessed with climbing. Julian had been part of that time, that time when the three of us, Sugar, Jules and I had run for our lives. Only our shadows had followed us. And no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t outpace them.
I rarely talked about Sugar, not even to Hal, who I’d spent more time talking to than anyone else. Talking about her twisted my gut up into an iron hard knot. It was pain I didn’t need.
“Blue. Her eyes are blue.” Sugar’s sapphire eyes could always see right through the steel wall I’d taken years to build, the wall hiding all the shit that needed hiding, the crap that I’d even hidden from myself. But Sugar saw it. She saw everything as if she could see right into my heart and pull out the ugly strands and unravel it all. But she didn’t say anything. She left the strands there in the blackness of my damaged soul. She knew that’s where I wanted them to stay.
“Remember, Tommy, when you’re out there, keep away from the shit that clogs up those brain cells.” Hal’s bulbous nose pushed closer to his mouth as he grinned. “You’ve got plenty of them, and I don’t say that to too many people in here.” His laughed bounced off the walls. “Come to think of it, you’re the only person I’ve ever said that to.”
“Nah, I’m clear of the stuff now, Hal, thanks to this place. No better place to sober up than jail.” After the thousands my parents had sunk into psychs and posh rehab facilities trying to save their son, the only male heir to the Jameson fortune and, therefore, keeper of the Jameson gene pool, from his sordid habits, turned out all I’d needed was a two year sentence for assault and I was free of chemicals. I’d refused my dad’s high caliber lawyer, knowing that it would come with an entire shitload of conditions, and opted for flipping open the yellow pages and looking for a name that seemed credible. The guy, Trent Carlton, defense attorney, was far more interested in getting his fee than studying my case. He got a new sound system for his Beamer, and I got a cavity search and orange coveralls.
“Well, Hal,” I lifted my hand and his swallowed mine in a handshake. “Take care of yourself. And watch out for those pesky paper cuts.”
His laugh thrummed off the walls again. The sound of it would be one of the few things I missed about this place.
I tucked the book under my arm and walked through the room one last time. The entire library was outdated as if it had been dropped here from the nineteen fifties, which it just might have been. The card file stood like an ancient relic in the center of a group of empty round tables. The yellow walls were dotted with posters of celebrities encouraging you to open your mind with books. For me, it had been the one place where I could sit and think and wonder what the hell I was going to do next.
Chapter 2
Two and a half years earlier.
The pink sticky note Sugar had slipped under my door said noon. I was early but figured the hallway was clear of nurses and doctors and other people who might object to me walking into the controlled substance storage closet. Julian had cracked the code on the door weeks ago, not for any nefarious reason but just to see if he could. And, turned out, he could. The guy’s head churned with stuff like that all day, cracking codes, hacking into security systems and figuring out shit that took a lot of math. I’d never met anyone smarter than Julian. But the guy was a mess. Sometimes I wondered if it was because he was such a goddamn genius, the kind of person who could never shut down, never power off. That would make anyone a basket case.
Jules, as Sugar and I called him, had been born a twin but his umbilical cord had been wrapped around his brother’s neck. His twin was dead at birth. Murderer before you’d even taken your first breath had to mess with your head. He’d been at Green Willow Recovery Center longer than Sugar and me. It was an exclusive semi-resort, semi-mental hospital set in one of those states that starts with a vowel and gets its fifteen minutes of fame every year when a category three tornado rips through a trailer park or small town. Jules said Green Willow was like home to him. Helped that his grandfather’s name, Colin Fitzpatrick, was on the building. The old man had been some important doctor of psychiatry. Wonder if he ever expected his grandson to be one of those twisted people housed in his recovery facility.
The hallway was deserted, even Sugar wasn’t around yet. All the doors had been painted a watery green, except the yellow door that led to the controlled substances. It was stupid. They might was well have written ‘all the shit you junkies are dying to get your hands on is inside here’ on the door. The yellow paint was like a big neon sign, tempting us, reminding us that we had to be locked away from the stuff behind the door. The irony of it all was that Julian had cracked the code on the door through his laptop, but the drugs were all inside padlocked cages. Julian had no code for padlocks.
I looked around once more and flipped open the cover on the key pad. An invite to be alone in a storage closet with a girl who made my fucking head spin would normally . . . make my head spin. But, more than likely, Sugar had managed to get me a pack of cigarettes. Sugar was a notorious flirt, but I hadn’t touched her. There was no way I could touch her. If I did then that would be fucking it. Like taking a tourniquet off a severed artery, that would be fucking it.
A tiny beep let me know I’d hit the right numbers. The lock clicked and I opened the door. Lawson’s naked, dimpled ass shined back at me. His pale blue hospital scrubs were down around his ankles. He glanced back over his shoulder. “What the hell are you doing in here, Jameson?”
Sugar was perched on a metal rolling cart in front of him, her shirt up above her tits and her hands jerking the asshole off. “Shit, Tommy, you’re early,” she said.
“Fucking hell,” I grunted and walked back out. I yanked the door shut not giving a damn if it echoed through the whole building. My fingers opened and closed, and I had to remind myself not to make fists. Fists always ended up doing something stupid like planting themselves in plaster, or doors or people’s faces. Lawson’s face would have made a great target.
Nurse Greene glanced up from her desk as I stormed past. “Mr. Jameson?” she asked. “Tommy?”
I ignored her, still trying to pry open my fingers. The morning air was already thick and stifling, like wet cotton, as I stepped out onto the grounds. Strips of purposely aged bricks lined each ambling pathway. The grass was perfectly trimmed and green, not a blade out of place. No weeds. Not a damn weed in sight. There was a fountain with benches around it where you could sit and stare at the patina covered stone fish with water spurting from its mouth. The birds enjoyed the fountain more than anyone else. A perfectly planned vegetable garden was set up on some rectangular raised beds for any residents who liked to get their hands dirty and putter with plants. No one was ever in the garden except the cooks, who came out to pick vegetables. Everything was neat and orderly at Green Willow, everything except the minds of the patients that lived inside its pale green walls.
I headed to the farthest corner, a spot where most nurses and ward assistants rarely ventured out to, especially in the heat. A set of climbing bars and even some adult-sized swings had been erected over rubber mats just like equipment on a little kid’s playground. I leaned against the bars and yanked out my last cigarette. I lit it. Smoking was prohibited at Green Willow, but the doctors and nurses had learned to look the other way. When you strip a junkie of all his favorite candy, the least you can do is leave him with the one drug that is more likely to kill him than anything else.
I took a long drag and squinted through the veil of smoke. Sugar’s long legs carried her across the grass in her flimsy pajama style pants with the pink skulls. Much to the irritation of the nursing staff, she always wore the top of them rolled down so low, her sharp hip bones stuck out and the ‘sugar and spic
e’ tattoo running across her lower back was exposed.
Sugar stopped directly in front of me, huffed in disgust and put her hands on her slim hips, a gesture of anger inadvertently morphing into a tease when her nipples pressed against the thin fabric of her short t-shirt. Sugar wasn’t big on wearing bras, said they were just mini-straightjackets. She wasn’t big but she wasn’t flat either. Tauntingly ample was my mental category for Sugar’s breasts. Just big enough to keep me staring at my ceiling at night. Sometimes Sugar teased on purpose, with the pure goal of tormenting me, and sometimes, like now, she did it unwittingly.
“I told y’all to come at noon,” she finished with another huff. When she was pissed her southern drawl came out. Her accent had just enough of that sultry twang that if she said something just right, even something as pedestrian as pass me the salt, then I’d think about those words all day, playing them over and over again in my warped mind like some long lost sailor drawn to the siren’s song.
“Why the fuck d-d-do you do shit like that?” Seven years of speech therapy and I still couldn’t lose the stutter when I was pissed.
Sugar lowered her arms and bit her lip in sympathy. She knew I only stuttered when I was upset, and she knew it was the quickest way to seal my mouth shut. If there was one person in the entire fucking world who I never wanted to stutter in front of it was Sugar. And if there was one person in the entire goddamn world who could make me stutter, it was Sugar.
Her long lashes flitted down as she stepped close enough that I could smell the soap on her skin. It was the same regulation soap we all used, but somehow, it smelled way better on her. She reached up and tucked my long, dark hair behind my ear. I held my breath as her finger grazed my skin. My arms were down at my sides. For the second time that morning, my hands balled into fists, cigarette and all. Same fists. Different reason. It could have been a conscientious tease, or it could have just been her way of apologizing for upsetting me. Sugar seemed to feel everyone’s pain as if she was experiencing it herself. And I knew it was something she couldn’t stop, even though it would eat her up inside.
She was too fucking close. I stepped back. She looked hurt.
“Here, and you’re welcome.” She threw two packs of cigarettes at me. The packs bounced off the black rubber mats.
I bent down and picked them up. Without making it obvious, I sucked in a long breath hoping that an extended exhale would usher out my embarrassing speech impediment. “I need to stop sucking on these cancer sticks anyway.” I swallowed back the thickness in my throat. Sometimes, all I had to do was look into her blue eyes and my throat would tighten. We’d only know each other a few months, but sometimes, like right now when we were standing face to face, with no nurses or doctors interfering, it felt as we’d known each other forever. Sugar saw right through me as if I was as transparent as a clean window. But it was a two way pane of glass. She could just walk into a room and I’d know how she was feeling, and there was no way she could walk into a room without me reacting. But it wasn’t just me. When Sugar walked into a room, it seemed like even the walls and furniture took notice.
I stuck the packs in the pockets of my jeans and took another hit off my cigarette. I exhaled slowly, and she watched me through the smoke. “Don’t do it again, Sugar. Please don’t touch that guy again. Not for me, anyhow. I’ll go without the smokes.”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t just for you. Peggy, in the room next to me, has been in a really bad way. I can hear her crying all night. I promised I’d get her a joint. So, don’t go believin’ that was all for you.”
“Fine, then I won’t think it was for me.” I leaned against the bar again. Sometimes, I just allowed myself the pleasure of looking at her without emotional strings attached. “How the hell did you end up with a name like Sugar anyhow?”
She jumped up on the bar, hooked her knees on it and pulled herself up to perch on top. Sitting still was rarely an option for Sugar, and watching her made me dizzy, and not just because I wanted to yank her into my arms and kiss her and do everything that I knew she did with other guys.
She smiled down at me from the bar. A long strand of hair had come loose from her bun during her climb, and she pushed it off her face. “My mom was trying to piss off my grandmother, or at least, that’s what I figure happened. Rhonda, as I usually call my mom because it suits her better than Mom, was in her hospital bed. She was dating that rock star who used to wear leopard print midriff tops and black leather pants. Shit, what was his name? He always sang about fast cars and fast women.”
“That could be half the rock stars from the nineties.”
Sugar rocked precariously on the bar as she lifted one hand to wave at Harold, a guy who was in and out of this place so much that he had his own reserved room. He was big on crossword puzzles and had taken a seat on a bench across the grass. Sugar shifted slightly to one side. My heart jumped as she slipped backward. She swung her legs around and somersaulted off, landing perfectly on her feet.
“Fucking hell, Sugar.” I pressed my hand against my chest. “Scared the shit out of me.”
She laughed. “Those gymnastic lessons really paid off.”
I shook my head. “You’re certifiable, you know that?”
“Uh, hate to break it to you, sweetie, but we are all certifiable at this place. That’s why we’re here.”
“Yeah, speak for yourself.” I took another draw on my cigarette. “So, you were named Sugar to make your grandmother mad?”
She came up to me and took the cigarette, making sure to brush my finger with hers as she reached for it. The end of my cigarette slid between her lips. Her cheeks sucked in, and she rolled an impressive smoke ring off her tongue. The ring was gone and dissolved long before I caught the breath I’d lost watching her. She handed me back my smoke, knowing full well that her erotic little puff on my cigarette had just made me hard as concrete. She walked across to the opposite pole and, as usual, my eyes dropped to the tattoo on her lower back.
She spun back around and leaned against the pole. “I think his name was Denver Smits or something like that. Anyway, at that time, he was a big name, and my mom said the nurses kept coming into her room pretending to be helpful and attentive but they just wanted to see the rock star. He wasn’t my dad or anything like that. But my prim and proper grandmother had come to see me at the hospital too. When the nurse came in to get the information for the official birth certificate my mom hadn’t really given my name much thought. She had nothing. So, my grandmother told the nurse to write in Susan, because that was the name of some sister she’d lost in a car accident. Denver said you should call her Sugar. And my mom, who was always pissed at my grandmother, looked at the nurse and spelled out Sugar.”
“And you know all this because—”
“My mom has told me the story about ten times. Always gives her a good laugh. My grandmother was kind of an old, rich prune. She lived in a big house that always smelled like powder and properness, and she sent me monogrammed towels for Christmas. Don’t know what the hell I was supposed to do with towels that had a big S on them but whatever. One time, I convinced her to make rice krispy treats with me. As I swirled the big marshmallowy glob around in the pot, she decided they were too messy. She dumped them in the trash. I mean how fucked up do you have to be to drop a perfectly good lump of rice krispy treats into the trash? I never asked her to bake with me again, and she was glad. She died three years ago, a burst blood vessel in her brain. Being uptight will do that to you.”
I smiled. “Is that right?”
“Yep.” She took a second hit off my cigarette. Another ring lifted off the tip of her small tongue, and I watched her, again, like a hungry dog watching a steak.
“Who taught you to blow smoke circles?”
She tapped her chin as if it could have been one of a number of people. Her nails were trimmed short, but she’d still
painted them pink. I pushed away the notion of what she might have done with Lawson to get him to sneak in a bottle of nail polish. Short nails was a rule. Apparently, some of the previous guests had figured out how to carve gashes in skin with long ones.
“That’s right. It was Griffin, boyfriend number six for Rhonda. She would shop, and Griffin and I would fuck and afterward he would pull out a ciggie and teach me how to blow rings.”
I stared at her trying my hardest to not flinch at her words.
“I’m going in. I heard they’re serving watermelon for lunch.” She strolled away, knowing full well that I was watching her. Because I was always watching her.
“You keep telling me shit like that just to shock the hell out of me,” I called to her as those long legs carried her across the lawn, her tattoo rocking back and forth like a boat made of ink. “And damn if it didn’t fucking work every time,” I muttered to myself. I brought the cigarette to my mouth hoping to catch the slight taste of her lips on the tip. I gazed through a screen of smoke and watched as she sidled past Lawson on her way inside. He made a point of looking at her ass, but she didn’t give him so much as a glance. I was absurdly happy about that.
Lawson was one of those oversized fools who’d, obviously, been hired for the position of ward assistant more for his brawn than his brains. He wore his hair real short, and most of the time, his nostrils were flared like an angry stallion’s. He outweighed me by a good thirty pounds, but they were a soft thirty pounds.
