Raveled

by McAneny, Anne

  Not really, but I nodded anyway.

  “How may I help you?” he said. The friendly demeanor and sing-songy voice juxtaposed with the image of the former football player who still ate as if a coach was putting him through two-a-day workouts. But it was a welcome contrast, and friendly faces were a rarity these days, so I returned the smile and it felt real.

  “Hi. I’m Allison—”

  “Hello, Allison,” he said. “I’m Ray. Welcome to Ravine.”

  Okay, we already did that, Ray. Step away from the antidepressants and take it down a notch.

  “Nice to meet you, Ray. I’m here to see—”

  “I know who you’re here to see. Jasper Shifflett. Smart guy. Very bright. He told me he might have a young lady visiting. Isn’t he the popular one?”

  I had no idea. I waited for Ray to go on since he seemed to have a handle on the situation, but he just stared at me apologetically.

  “So what do I need to do here, Ray? Sign in? Show I.D.?” I walked past him and signed in as I asked the question. An idle bartender is a poverty-stricken bartender, after all.

  “I’m afraid you can’t see Jasper today,” Ray said, his face emoting enough sadness that I feared for all the joy on the planet.

  “What? Why not?”

  “He fell ill a couple hours ago. Can I confide in you, Allison?”

  I didn’t see why not. We’d known each other all of forty seconds.

  Ray cocked his head and held the side of his hand to his mouth, pretend-whispering like Groucho Marx delivering a punch line. “I think it was the clam sauce on the linguine last night.” He huffed and returned to his normal voice. “I told Julia we needed to take that off the menu, but no, they don’t listen to Big Ray here. I’m just the receptionist. But guess what? I know food.”

  He grabbed his belly with both hands and rocked it up and down like Santa and a bowlful of jelly. “This isn’t all air and spare parts, you know.”

  I felt like he wanted me to pat him on the stomach and join in the fun, maybe draw a happy face on there with his belly-button as the nose, but I had no trouble refraining. “Food poisoning?” I said. “That’s awful. Are you sure I can’t talk to him, though? He might be feeling better by now.”

  “He’s in the infirmary. No can do on the visitor front, if you know what I mean. Against regulations.”

  “I’ve driven several hours to see him. Could you just ask him if he’s up for a visit?”

  Ray’s bright attitude dimmed a tad. He heaved out a sigh, but remained in puppy mode—eager to please and receptive to edible treats. “For you, Allison, I’ll check. Hold on a moment.”

  “You’re the best, Ray. I really appreciate it.” I resisted the temptation to reach into my purse, pull out a treat, and toss it towards his stubby snout.

  He walked back to his station and slid the glass partition between us closed, then he sat down on a chair that was one third the size of his butt. He picked up the phone and spoke in a hushed tone. A good two minutes went by before he finally slid the window open. “No can do on the visitor front, Allison. Doctor’s orders.”

  My turn to sigh. I scratched at an itch between my eyebrows and hoped it wasn’t the seed of a migraine coming on. “Okay, Ray. I guess I can reschedule if it’s absolutely necessary.”

  It wasn’t a migraine after all, but the seed of an idea. “Would you mind, though, if I went up to his room for a quick second?”

  “Whatever for?” Ray said. “I don’t see that you’ve brought a gift.” A hint of judgment crept into Ray’s voice.

  Should I have brought a gift? It didn’t even occur to me. What did one bring to a former genius acquaintance who had cracked like a Ming Vase in an earthquake and couldn’t possibly hope to conceal his life’s journey because his current address included the words psychiatric institute? I gave Ray my best look of sincerity. It worked well on customers who chose to unload their life’s lamentations moments before they were due to dole out a tip. “I, um, I told Jasper, well, he wanted to show me something in our old yearbook,” I said. “We went to high school together.”

  If Ray wanted to assume we palled around and graduated together, let him. I just needed to steal a glance at Jasper’s room and get a glimpse of how his mind worked these days. Who knew? Maybe Jasper had left me those thousand words in written form in a nice, neat envelope. On the other hand, if the room was covered in pictures of E.T. and Alf, that would be telling in another way. But maybe Jasper’s environment would hint at middle ground, giving off something subtle that could be ammo for the next time I spoke to Smitty. Either way, I had to hurry. The reunion was the day after tomorrow and Smitty would surely skedaddle back to D.C. the moment it was over.

  “It’s highly irregular,” Ray said, standing. “I’d have to go with you. Which I really can’t do while I’m manning the desk. Julia’s on break.” He glanced at his watch and frowned. “Make that extended break.”

  I glanced around the barren lobby. “Seems quiet now. You sure we can’t go up for a quick minute, see if that yearbook is lying around?”

  Ray needed one more nudge. Let’s see how good I was. “Come on, Ray. As a favor from one football fanatic to another?”

  He beamed. “Now how’d you know that?”

  “Just a guess. I was a football cheerleader back in Lavitte. I know a defensive end when I see one.”

  “Shut up!” Ray said. “I was a defensive end.”

  I removed all trace of New York from my voice and let my North Carolina roots shine. “’Course you were. And wouldn’t you know that the best-looking boys in our class were always the defensive ends? Something about knowing they could protect a little thing like me, come heck or high water, well, it just made a girl feel safe.”

  Ray puffed up, then leaned down a bit to bring himself to my level. It really made his chins pop. He reminded me of a lovable family pet, if the family kept a full-grown grizzly as a pet.

  “Come on, little Miss,” he said. “No reason you shouldn’t at least have a peek in Jasper’s room after driving all that way. And it is slow as a herd of snails in here.”

  After four floors of an elevator ride filled with more gushing and guffawing than a science nerd’s first date, Ray unlocked the door to Jasper’s room. Unfortunately, that’s all it was. A room. As non-descript as my apartment. Cheap, standard-issue furniture. A desk, bed, two chairs, tall bookshelf, cheap dresser, and closet. Some piles of papers on the desk, but all in order. No signs of a psychotic mind. No walls covered in pictures of Bobby Kettrick or Shelby Anderson. No ode to aliens. In fact, no pictures at all.

  “I don’t see a yearbook,” Ray said. “Was he going to leave it for you?”

  I glanced around. Ray was right. Scary piles of yearbooks, catalogued by year and threat level, didn’t surround Jasper’s phone the way I’d imagined. “Maybe he didn’t have a chance to get it out.”

  “You wanna check the bookshelf?” Ray asked. “I can let you do that.”

  I crossed the hardwood floor, picking up the faint scent of spicy deodorant from a flannel shirt hanging on the back of Jasper’s desk chair. Then I ran my finger along the top bookshelf. One picture had found its way into the room, after all. A dusty, framed photo sat almost sideways on the shelf, its edge in place like a book spine. I pulled it out. Jasper and his mom. Jasper sported a beard, wild and bushy like his teenage do, but he had much less hair up top. On his nose, wire-rim glasses shielded pinpoint pupils. Medicated, probably. His thin right arm, its gauntness noticeable even in a vintage suede jacket, hung over the bony shoulders of his mother. The picture must have been shot when she was at the end, someone having nudged them together on the hospital bed for one last image before her death. Still, the resemblance between mother and son came through. Not that Jasper would take that as a compliment. His mom’s pallor resembled plasterboard, her eyes hollow like lightly penciled outlines of life. Maybe the picture was turned because he only wanted to be reminded of his mother periodically, when he felt stro
ng. More likely, though, if the stories of Jasper’s paranoia were true, he didn’t want his dead mother watching him through the picture. Judging.

  His mom’s face drew me in. There was something amiss in her sad and tired expression. Concern or fear. Over what? Her son’s fate? His future without her?

  “Did you know his mom?” Ray asked.

  “Yes,” I said, though she and I had never exchanged a word. “Sweet woman. Sad that she died so young.”

  “He told me once that she was his rock. Said she’d given him only one bad piece of advice her whole life.”

  “What was that?”

  “No idea. Only said he’d remedy it one day.”

  I scanned the rest of the bookshelf, curious if Jasper really had been looking at my picture when we spoke on the phone. No yearbooks, only philosophy books, science fiction by Phillip Dick and Ray Bradbury, lots of military non-fiction, and a stack of psychology journals. Must have been a rip-roaring whirlwind of fun in Jasper’s head.

  From down the hall, a woman’s voice entered the room before she did. “Ray, what are you doing in Mr. Shifflett’s room? Don’t you know he’s in the infirmary?”

  Ray shifted from foot to foot, while his eyes took a quick liking to the floor. I owed him. I grabbed the first book I saw from the middle shelf and held it out triumphantly. “Found it!” I said to the slender, thirty-something brunette woman in the white slacks and practical shoes who appeared at the door. Despite her attempt at stern disapproval over Ray’s intrusion, her lack of wrinkles and relaxed stance indicated that her default attitude was mellow and approachable. Definitely a white wine kind of gal, one glass a night, who kicked it up to a watered-down appletini on Fridays.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Jasper’s high school girlfriend. He called me earlier and asked me to pick up this book. Wanted me to read a selection at our reunion since he can’t be there.” I tilted my head and worked up a sentimental pucker, as if remembering a solemn oath. “Promised each other senior year that we’d do that at the fifteen-year reunion.” I hoped Ray wasn’t appreciating the ease with which I could lie.

  The woman glanced at the book and read the title aloud. “Edgar Allan Poe. The Raven and Other Stories.” Her eyes, upon returning to mine, held doubt mingled with concern. “Aren’t reunions usually lighthearted occasions?”

  “I suppose,” I said, “if you’re willing to settle for that.” A glance at her badge confirmed my suspicions about her role here: Dr. Liza Graft, Staff Psychiatrist.

  “Hm,” she said. “Interesting. Which story had you two planned to recite?”

  Why not give her something to chew on in her next session with Jasper? “The Telltale Heart, of course.” I winked at Ray. “After all, he got that regrettable piece of advice from his mother, and we all have our crosses to bear.”

  “What do you—”

  “Look at the time,” I said, letting energy burst forth like I was the busiest person in any room I entered. “Must dash. Ray, thanks for your help. Let Jasper know I got it. I’ll see myself out.”

  I took off down the hall and watched the elevator doors close me in, leaving Ray and Dr. Graft in the wake of my lies. As I stared absently at the elevator buttons, the word Infirmary jumped out at me. Second floor. Before allowing my internal good girl to pipe up in protest, I pushed it.

  The ding came almost immediately and the elevator doors slid open to reveal a cloying watercolor of oversized butterflies in a meadow. If you weren’t sick when you got here, you would be after you toured the artwork. According to the chipped sign at eye level, the administrative offices were to my right, the infirmary to my left. I turned left.

  What was the worst that could happen? A janitor would tell me to get lost? A nurse would reprimand me for not having a hall pass? Probably, but neither of those things happened as I passed a tired janitor and an overwrought nurse on my way to the double doors. A metal plate screwed into the wall required an entry code to access the actual infirmary, but a stout doctor with adult acne and huge feet exited, leaving the doors with their arms wide open to greet me. How could I not take it as an invitation?

  A thrill shot through me as I crossed into the forbidden zone. Not that it was my first time slinking through doorways. I’d gone home with a few bar patrons over the years whose questionable housekeeping habits and subpar bedroom performances had found me sneaking out in the middle of the night, cursing their unoiled door hinges.

  The nurses’ station stood empty. I waited at it for a moment and my plan fell all to pieces. I grasped blindly at the desk as a current of queasiness ripped through me like chilled water through a dehydrated runner. Memories came rushing back and the ecstasy of the hunt for Jasper lost any element of enchantment.

  I had forgotten and sure as hell didn’t want to remember now, but the incessant beeping of monitors and the smell of the infirmary’s forced sterility brought it back full force. The whiteness of the floors. The barely perceptible tap of soft-soled shoes. The institutional coldness. The walls closed in around me. I looked longingly at the water cooler a few feet away but knew that if I stepped towards it, I’d faint. It felt like someone had shoved a hot poker in my ear and was swirling it with abandon around my brain. Come on, Allison, get it together. But I couldn’t. Old words and sensations throbbed in my head like a warped record. “He’s gone. Took his own life, apparently.” Phrases whizzed at me from over a decade ago. A shrill nurse mumbling to a doctor in the background. “Can’t say I blame him.” My mother squeezing my hand so hard that the bones crunched together, trying to give me strength while keeping herself from cascading toward the floor. The doctor repeating to no one who could hear, “I’m sorry. He’s gone. We tried but it was no use.” My mother talking over the doctor as she clung to a reality that no longer existed. “No! No! This can’t be!”

  Two cold hands suddenly clutched me around the waist and brought me back to the present. A bony arm wrapped itself around my back to brace my drooping body. “Ma’am! Ma’am, are you all right?” A hesitation and an impatient sigh. “Judy, is this woman a patient?”

  I didn’t hear Judy respond. Maybe she’d shaken her head or shrugged her shoulders.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I stood up. I swallowed hard and stared at the woman to my left with concentrated focus to keep the dizziness at bay. “Very sorry. I’m diabetic and I forgot to bring a snack with me. Orange juice?”

  Another nurse appeared with orange juice and, looking bored, handed it to my rescuer who pressed it to my pale lips. “There you go,” she said. “You’ll feel better in a second.”

  Yes, because orange juice always makes you feel better about your dad’s death. “Thanks,” I said. “Much better.” And I was. The moment had passed and I resented my weakness.

  “Are you a patient?” she asked, although I felt sure that the mysterious Judy had already answered that in the negative.

  “No, I needed to deliver something to Jasper Shifflett. Dr. Liza Graft said it would be okay.” Heck, I’d gone to all the trouble of reading her name tag. Might as well use it.

  The nurse looked confused so I clarified. “Jasper Shifflett. Checked in today for food poisoning. I need to give him this book.” I gestured absently to the Poe still clutched in my hand.

  Again, the flustered expression. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. I don’t think he’ll be able to read it, but maybe you could read it aloud to him. They say they respond to familiar voices sometimes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. Shifflett is in a coma.”

  Coma? For food poisoning? Forget the clam sauce. Something in the water ain’t right.

  Chapter 19

  Allison… present

  I remembered the day the verdict came in. The lawyer called early on a Saturday morning to tell my mother that after two days of deliberation, the jury had reached a verdict. I heard her throw up in the bathroom, the running water unable to hide the sound. Kevin planned to escort her to the courtroom. She emerged from her
room twenty minutes later wearing a black dress, as if she were already a widow. I begged to go, even threw a tantrum complete with thrashing arms and legs until Kevin took me aside in his room.

  “Look,” he said, “Dad wouldn’t want you there. He wouldn’t want you to see him like this.”

  “It’s the last time I might see him, Kevin.”

  “That’s not true, Allison. Even if he’s found guilty, we can visit him all the time.”

  “It’s the last time I might see him as an innocent man,” I said. “That first moment, when they walk him out in the handcuffs and stuff, even though it won’t look like it, he’ll still be innocent. We learned it in Civics class.”

  Tears formed in Kevin’s eyes. He tried to sniff them back without success. I needed to find anything else to look at: the weightless spider in the corner, the lint on Kevin’s brown-checkered bedspread, the third-grade tornado painting he’d tacked to his wall—anything so I wouldn’t see him cry. It was a version of my brother I didn’t want lodged in my memory. But some occurrences are so poignant and sharp that their sounds alone brand the entire episode onto the tangles of a brain. I wrapped my hands around my head to keep the hot iron from penetrating my skull. It didn’t work.

  “Look,” he said, his voice thick, “Mom’s not going to be able to handle it if he’s found guilty. I’m gonna need to be tending to her. Last thing I need is you fainting or crying.”

  “But I’ll help,” I said. Even then, I knew I would rise like a beacon of strength above this whole sordid situation, or at least stand firm beside it. I’d never let it inside me, never provide it such an easy vantage point for destruction.

  “I know you would, Allison. But Mom doesn’t want you to see Dad like this. Can’t you understand?” He spoke unabashedly through his blubbering. “She’s been trying this whole time to keep things normal for us. Makin’ dinner every night. Helpin’ with paperwork at the garage. Askin’ you about school each day. The last thing she wants is for you to have a memory of your father being dragged off to jail.”