Death in a Funhouse Mirror (42 page)

"You can be a real bitch, can't you? I'm surprised that Cliff hired you to do such a sensitive job."

"I wonder why it is that whenever a woman refuses to abandon her schedule or her point of view to accommodate a man, he immediately calls her a bitch? Not very creative, is it? You sought me out here so you could criticize my behavior and tell me what to do instead. If I choose not to take your direction or to discuss my decisions or my actions, personal or professional, that's my business. Business I should be able to pursue without being manhandled by you. And it is our policy not to discuss an ongoing project, except with the client. Am I making myself clear?"

"Quite." He tried for a placating smile. It fell off his face before it even passed from rictus to something pleasant. "I didn't mean to offend you, Thea. You don't have to be so hard-nosed...."

Foolish man, standing there dotted with flower petals, trying to make me think he was my friend when anger was glaring out of his eyes and he was clenching and unclenching his fists. When the marks of his anger circled my wrist like a bracelet. Did he think I hadn't noticed? It looked like Dr. Ansel's caring facade was about as thick as cheap veneer. "Sometimes it takes a hard woman to do a hard job, Dr. Ansel. If you'll excuse me?" I turned and walked away. I could feel his eyes on me but I didn't look back. I'd caught a glimpse of something there that was too unpleasant, like I was a cockroach and he was a giant shoe.

The afternoon flew by, and by four I was sorry I hadn't eaten lunch. Old habits die hard. Someday I'll reform and start carrying emergency rations. It would be better than letting myself get so hungry a candy bar seemed acceptable. I was interviewing a young woman, quite new to Bartlett Hill, and getting a refreshingly different set of answers. She had such an upbeat attitude and such a caring demeanor that I thought she probably helped the patients just by being there. When my rebellious stomach, angry at being ignored, let out a particularly loud rumble, she smiled and opened her desk drawer. "I'll bet you're a lunch skipper, like me," she said. She pulled out a can of liquid diet food. "Not the greatest tasting stuff, but it does appease the appetite. You want it?"

"Guess I'd better. I'm going to be here until eight." I took it and stuck it in my briefcase. We finished up the interview and I went back to our newly decorated office to wait for Lisa. She came dragging in a few minutes later and caught me drinking DietPro.

"Now I've seen everything," she said. "I think I'm offended. You've got the best figure of anyone I know, you never eat, and now you're dieting?"

"Someone gave it to me because my stomach kept rumbling. Can't interview with a noisy stomach. I was going to feed it a candy bar, but the woman I was interviewing gave me this instead. Ever tried it?"

"You're kidding. That stuff's all chemicals. Well, I did try it once, but it tasted like chalk. Hard enough to diet anyway, without making yourself eat chalk. Have a good day?"

"Fine. Spoke to some real people this afternoon. I think tomorrow afternoon we should go to the office, evaluate this stuff, then see if we can meet with Cliff and map out a strategy for the next phase. What do you think?"

She sat down, kicked off her shoes, and put her feet up on the table. "I think we should take a vacation and move on to the next phase next week. My feet hurt and my head is pounding. Whatever made me think I wanted to get back to work?"

"Reentry difficulties?" She did look tired.

"Sleep deprivation. That's what does it. I think I could work and mother if only I had enough sleep. You know what not getting enough sleep does to the brain?"

I did know, of course, since another of my bad habits, right up there with not eating properly, was working too hard and not getting enough sleep. "Impairs its function," I said.

"Right. I'm practically brain dead. I don't know what I've written down on these interview sheets. Probably my grocery list." There was a crash as the door flew open, knocking over one of the broken chairs. Someone stuck his head in, pulled it back quickly, and slammed the door. "What was that?" Lisa asked, taking her feet off the table. "A runaway patient?"

"Who knows. I didn't get a good look, did you?"

"No. Don't know who it was and I don't care. I'm going to go get Charlotte and take her for a nice long walk." She shoved her feet back into her shoes, grabbed her stuff, and stood. "See you in the morning. You want a croissant or a bagel tomorrow?"

"Croissant. Chocolate, if you can get it."

"No problem, mon," she said, in perfect imitation of our Jamaican janitor. "Catch you later." She made her fist into a little handgun, aimed it at me, and fired.

I read the list of ingredients I'd just consumed and considered sticking my finger down my throat, but there wasn't time. I pitched the can across the room, using the wall as a backboard, and scored a three pointer. Basketball is one thing tall girls do well. My heavy hair was pulling loose from the pins, and I was tired of looking like Heidi anyway, so I pulled out the rest of the pins, unbraided it, and set it free. Then I consulted my interview list. I hadn't noticed it before, but Cliff had put himself down for the last appointment of the day. My briefcase was so full of papers it looked like a short snake that had just swallowed a pillow and it was heavy. Two and a half more hours seemed like a long time.

Time flies when you're having fun, but the opposite is also true. Time crawls when you aren't having fun. When you're tired, and the people you are interviewing are just as tired as you are, and don't have your professional reasons not to be cranky, simple little structured chats like the ones I was conducting can be grueling. At 7:30, I headed for Cliff's office with a headache worthy of the Jolly Green Giant. Even my feet were sore. When you look at a beautiful campus with widely spaced buildings, it looks very nice. When you hike from building to building in high-heel shoes—shoes designed by sadists frustrated because they can no longer bind women's feet—carrying an overstuffed briefcase, you realize how impractical such a design can be.

I wasn't disappointed to find the outer office empty. Sharing space with Roddy gave me the creeps. Cliff's door was closed, and when I raised my hand to knock, I heard voices inside. I was about to knock anyway when his voice suddenly got louder. "I don't understand why you did that." A softer, female voice responded with words I couldn't make out. Then Cliff's voice again, still loud, "... could have been thinking. She's not the kind to..." and then it died out again, and anyway, my ears were blocked by a prodigious yawn. Time to call it a day. Maybe I'd hunt around and see if I could find some coffee, and come back when Cliff was done with his interview. As I turned away, his voice rose again, "... can't make a habit of it, just because you don't like the way people are behaving." And then the woman's voice, "... do what's necessary." The voice sounded vaguely familiar. Probably one of the women I'd interviewed today. I felt a little sorry for her. When someone who rarely raises his voice finally does, the effect can be devastating.

I met Rowan Ansel in the hall and he didn't look happy to see me. I asked him if there was any place I could get some coffee while I waited for Cliff. He shrugged. "Cliff usually has some in his office. Otherwise, I doubt it. I have a machine, but I'm out of coffee. Have to pick some up on the way home. I think the kitchen is locked. If you want me to get you some, I will. He won't mind if I disturb him."

I didn't like asking him favors, but he wanted to show off his connection to Cliff anyway, so I let him. I asked him to tell Cliff that I'd be waiting in my office. Since I'm never one to waste time, I got out the interview sheets and started making notes on the responses. A few minutes later the door opened. I looked up, expecting to see Dr. Ansel, and found Roddy. He thrust a cup of coffee at me ungraciously. "Dr. Paris asked me to give you this. He's just finishing something and then he'll come and get you." Some of it slopped onto my papers.

"Thanks." I took a sip of the coffee. It had so much sugar in it it was almost like syrup but I needed the caffeine so I drank it.

It seemed like a long time before Cliff came to get me. I tried to work, but I was sleepy enough so I couldn't concentrate and the coffee didn't seem to be helping at all. He finally came to get me, and I followed him back to his office, but though we both made an effort, I couldn't seem to keep up my end of the conversation. I kept losing my place on the questionnaire and having to ask him to repeat answers. He wasn't much better. He didn't seem to be paying attention and kept fiddling nervously with things on his desk. It was like the day he'd fallen asleep on me in reverse.

"I'm sorry. I don't think we're going to get anywhere tonight," I told him. "I can't seem to keep my eyes open."

"I've noticed," he said. "You should have another cup of coffee before you go out on the road. Have you been having trouble sleeping?"

"No. I haven't. I've been sleeping well. Maybe I've been getting too much fresh air, if there can be such a thing."

He poured me some coffee. "Cream or sugar?"

"Both, please." The coffee was too hot but I gulped it down anyway. I waited for the expected reviving effect, making small talk with Cliff and setting up our next meeting, but nothing seemed to be happening.

In the end, I dragged my failing body out of his office. Eve was sitting on the edge of Roddy's desk, swinging her legs. "Surprise," she said. "I was supposed to meet Cliff for dinner. He said he needed a few minutes with you first."

"We're finished."

She watched me curiously but she didn't say anything. Maybe hanging up on her had finally gotten my point across. Not likely, though, knowing Eve. She was probably just planning out what to say. She was dressed for her dinner out in something my mother might have worn to gym class in college, a kind of a one-piece romper with very full shorts on the bottom and a camp-shirt top. It was white with a black-and-red print and she had funny little black sandals with all sorts of crisscrossed straps. Her toenails were painted gold.

"Well," she said rudely, "do I pass inspection?"

"You look nice." I hesitated. "I thought you were mad at Cliff."

"I don't think my relationship with my father is any of your business."

"Sunday you were quite sure it was my business."

"That was Sunday," she said. She jumped off the desk and flounced into his office. Her outfit was perfect for flouncing.

I trudged down to my car, wondering if this could be a chemical reaction to the diet drink or the onset of some terrible illness. It wasn't flu season but that's how I felt. Spacey. Disoriented. As though my limbs weren't quite connected.

The glory of the day was reluctantly releasing its hold on the world as the last of the sun faded from the sky, leaving only a streaky blue-pink memory. The city below had a warm, pink glow. Even the smokestacks out by the Charlestown bridge looked pretty. A jet taking off from Logan Airport gleamed like a silver bullet in the sky. It was all an ironic tease to me as I blundered down the path almost too weary to move. I felt like my brain had been sucked out by a vacuum cleaner.

Across the parking lot, I could just see the bobbing back of someone bending down behind my car. A flash of adrenaline restored me enough to reach in my briefcase and bring out the alarm. I rushed around the car and pressed the button.

Roddy Stokes, looking like he'd just been set on fire, reared up away from my tire and whirled to face me, knife in hand. Leaving the alarm wailing, I pulled out the stun, pointed it at him, and squeezed. He dropped the knife and went down like I'd used dynamite, rolling on the ground, yelling and rubbing his eyes. It was a revolting sight, the flopping, bloated body and beet red face. Ignoring him, I bent and checked my tires. They seemed to be all right.

I started the car and backed up, slowly so I wouldn't run over Roddy. Not that I would have minded much after what he'd tried to do. If he'd succeeded in slashing my tires, I would have been alone in an almost empty parking lot with a disabled car. Open-minded as I tried to be, I couldn't pretend it wasn't scary to be on the deserted campus of a mental hospital at night. I was grateful for Andre's gifts.

Probably no sensible person would have come up and challenged a vandal the way I had, but he knew that I could be hot tempered and impulsive. Not that I felt very hot tempered now.

The oppressive sense of heaviness and lethargy, sent reeling briefly by my encounter with Roddy, had returned more strongly than before. There was probably a mountain of stuff waiting for me at the office, but I was going straight home to bed.

Maybe I was coming down with some kind of a fast-acting flu. My arms and legs were weak, my hands were trembling so violently I could barely grip the steering wheel. My eyelids felt like they were holding up gigantic cinder blocks and were threatening to give up the fight. I crept carefully down the hill, trying to master my body. Trying to keep my eyes on the road. Trying to keep the car on the road. I crept through the gate and turned onto the street. An oncoming car charged at me, horn blaring. I swung back into my own lane, swung too far, felt the tires bite gravel and the car shift sideways. I fought with the wheel, pulling it back onto the road.

There was a strange ringing in my head and my ears felt hot. The rest of me was experiencing an odd, almost euphoric lassitude. The combination was unpleasant and vaguely familiar, like the only time I'd taken Valium. It had been prescribed by a well-meaning doctor at the hospital after David died. All I'd been doing was trying to personally dismember the cop who had kept me from seeing him. A perfectly reasonable response under the circumstances, but the doc had found my behavior unseemly and offered a tranquilizer. Perhaps offered isn't the right word, since as I remembered the circumstances, two burly cops held me as the doc jabbed a needle into my arm, while the third cop stood there fingering the scratches on his face and called me a bitch. Bitch is such a tiresome word. But if it was bitchy to be angry at someone who kept you from sharing your husband's last minutes of life then I was definitely a bitch.