If You're Lucky (17 page)

I remember hearing voices around my head, saying things I didn't understand, and the sound of a siren and the feeling of speed, but I kept my eyes squeezed shut. Much later my eyes fluttered open in a small room. The walls were painted swimming-pool turquoise. I felt a peaceful floating-on-water feeling, like when you go to a public aquarium and you stand in those darkened rooms and watch the fish glide by slowly on the other side of the glass. Bubbles and ripples of light reflected onto the walls. My head was quiet. The voices seemed to be gone. My wrists were tethered to the bed with restraints. My right hand was heavily bandaged and my left hand had bandages around a couple of fingers. I felt drugged. I lifted my head with effort and looked around. Lucky dozed in a plastic chair next to my bed.

“Lucky,” I whispered.

His eyes opened and he smiled. “There you are, George. I was so worried.”

“Am I dead?”

“ 'Course not.”

“What happened?”

“You fell down a hole.”

“I did?”

“Yes. But you're back now.” He stood up and bent over to kiss the top of my head.

“Where're my glasses?” I asked.

“What glasses? You don't wear glasses.”

I looked down at my hair. It lay in long strands against my hospital gown. It looked silky and smooth and fell around me like I was Sleeping Beauty.

“My hair,” I said.

“It was all tangled so I brushed it. You want to see?”

“Yes.”

He produced a hand mirror and held it up to my face. “See? Beautiful.”

I smiled. I did look beautiful. My face was full and round and my eyes were bright. I was back to my old self—I was
better
than my old self.

“Why are my hands tied up?”

“Because you bit me,” he said, but he wasn't Lucky anymore; he was a dark-skinned man in a white doctor's jacket.

I tried to focus my eyes to look around. The room was beige in every way. A bag hung on a metal thing with a tube that was attached to my hand with tape. The man in the jacket smiled warmly. “Welcome back, Georgia. How do you feel?” He had an English accent.

“Who are you?”

“I'm Richard. You're at UCSF. I'm an intern here. We're going to help you get well.”

“Where's Lucky?”

“Is Lucky your dog?”

“No, he's my brother.”

“Well, maybe he's waiting outside with your parents.”

“Maybe.”

“I'll take the restraints off if you promise to behave.”

“Okay.”

He unbuckled one and then the other.

“There you are. Free as a bird.”

I felt my hair. It was cut close to my scalp. It felt ragged and horrible. There were painful raised pink welts on my arms. I touched my right eye. It was still swollen shut.

“Poison oak,” said Richard.

A tear rolled down my cheek.

Richard grabbed a tissue and touched it to my cheek. “Aw, hey, don't do that. You're going to be okay. I promise.”

“Do you know where my glasses are?”

“I do, actually.” He pulled open a drawer next to my bed and handed them to me. “I want you to get some rest. We're going to get you hydrated and get you eating again and you'll feel a lot better, okay?”

I nodded. I wanted him to leave. I wanted to cry in peace.

“I'll send your mom and dad in.”

I remembered something important. “Hey, Richard?”

“Yes?”

“Did you see my T-shirt? I need my T-shirt.”

He opened the little door on my bedside table and pulled out a plastic bag. He showed me the filthy, tattered Bugs Bunny T-shirt. It was cut open, right down the middle.

“Sorry. Looks like it didn't make it. We were trying to get you hooked up quickly. Maybe your parents can get you a new one? Or maybe your brother?”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Not too long. She's been sedated,” I heard him tell my parents as he passed them in the doorway. I put my glasses on.

My mom started to cry when she saw me. She awkwardly tried to hug me without hurting me. My dad put his hand gently on my arm. My eyes were too heavy. I couldn't keep them open. I slipped into a deep sleep.

Over the next few days I drifted in and out of consciousness. I started to feel better. Whatever meds they gave me seemed to be working. I did a lot of sleeping and the committee in my brain diminished and then disappeared. It was like I'd been listening to speed metal at full volume on my stereo and then someone suddenly yanked the cord out of the wall. I hadn't realized just how loud they'd become. It felt luxurious to just lie there and think one thought at a time, one
logical
thought at a time.

My mom brought me some new clothes and gave me a haircut. A sort of terrible pixie was the best she could do with the hack job I'd done in Sharona's bathroom. I felt it with my one good hand, but I put a towel over the mirror in the bathroom so I wouldn't see what I looked like. The welts on my arms and legs were disappearing, and soon my eye opened up again.

My mom sat by my bed one afternoon. “George, I have to talk to you about something,” she said.

“Okay.”

“When we lost Lucky, it was the end of the world for me. I didn't know how I was going to go on. I lost myself in my grief.”

She stroked my choppy hair.

“But when I saw you lying on the ground outside that shed, burned and bleeding and wasted away to nothing”—tears started to spill down her cheeks—“I thought you were dead and I felt like dying myself because I finally realized that all this time I never really understood how much you were suffering. I was so impatient with you.” She put her head in my lap. “I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I can't imagine how much pain you must have been in.”

I patted her head gently with my bandaged hand. “It's okay, Mom.”

She lifted her head. “No, it's not, it's really not. I love you, Georgia.”

“I know. I love you too.”

She grabbed a tissue from the box next to the bed and dabbed her eyes.

“But things will be different now. We're going to get you well.” She kissed my cheek. “Okay?”

“Okay. Hey, Mom?”

“Yes?”

“You don't think Lucky kept leaving because of me, do you?”

“No, Honey. Lucky loved you very much.”

“I was awful.”

She smiled. “He didn't care.”

The next day a doctor cut the bandage off my right hand. My palm was shiny and pink and swollen. The skin was tight and I had trouble opening my fingers.

“It will get better,” she said, examining it carefully. “Every day it will get a little bit better.” She smiled kindly at me. She had an accent and she told me she was from Argentina. “What does your necklace mean?” she asked, touching the silver charm at my neck.

“Fearlessness,” I said. “It's Sanskrit.”

“I like that.”

I started physical therapy for my hand and daily ninety-minute sessions with Dr. Lundgren, my new psychiatrist, in his office on the sixth floor. Dr. Lundgren seemed too young and too tall to be a psychiatrist. He was nothing at all like Dr. Saul. He had big feet and hands and large thick ears that stayed pink. His hair shot comically up off his head like broom bristles. His gait was a bit Herman Munsterish. He had a picture of his daughter on his desk, next to a spider plant. I was envious of her. She looked like a nice, normal, happy girl.

“Is that your daughter?” I asked.

“Yes. Her name is Holly,” he said.

“Does she have big feet too?”

He laughed. “Yes. We buy her clown shoes.”

I smiled.

The sessions were difficult. Sometimes I would stop talking for minutes at a time. Dr. Lundgren didn't seem bothered by this. He was very patient.

After each session Dr. Lundgren walked me to the door. “To be continued,” he'd say.

It took several sessions to tell my story. I told him about the time when I was eight and I wrapped my entire body in tinfoil and duct tape to stop the radiation from getting to my body. I also told him about the time I was ten and I dug up our dead cat, Nugget, three days after we'd buried her in the backyard because I was convinced we'd buried her alive. I told him how I stopped eating, certain I was being poisoned, and how I stopped going anywhere because I was definitely being followed, and how, when I did finally leave the house, I would have to take everything that meant anything to me with me because I thought the house wouldn't be there when I returned. It took me hours to get out of the house.

Every session was exhausting.

“Are you going to make me go back on my meds?” I asked.

“Not the same ones. We're going to try something new. I've already given you an injection. So far you seem to be responding to it very well. If it keeps working, you'll only have to get an injection once a month. I'll give you some literature on it so you'll understand it better. We'll wait and see now. We'll keep a close eye on how you're feeling.”

“So, I won't see Lucky anymore,” I said wistfully.

Dr. Lundgren looked at me solemnly. “Georgia, you have a mental illness. There isn't any way for you to live anything even close to a normal life without meds. You deserve a chance at happiness. Lucky would want that for you, don't you think?”

I nodded. He was right.

“We're kicking you out of here,” said Dr. Lundgren at the end of our fourth session. “I'd like to keep seeing you, though, if you can manage to get to the city for appointments.”

I didn't want to stop seeing him. I would have to talk to my mom and dad. I had to figure out a way to make it work.

The prospect of going back out into the real world scared me to death. I hadn't been in the hospital long, but I felt safe there.

When I left Dr. Lundgren's office that day there was a boy slouched in a chair in the waiting area. He drummed his palms against his legs. He wore a knit beanie and tinted glasses. Dyed blond hair sprouted out from underneath the hat. He looked up at me and nodded. Dr. Lundgren came out of his office.

“How are you today, Mr. Black?” he said.

The boy got up and followed Dr. Lundgren into his office.

I went to the cafeteria and loaded a tray with fish sticks and corn. I sat down at a table. I said hi to Douglas, a really nice guy who thinks he's from the future. I looked around the room. I was ready to go home.

Home was hard for me. I felt so vastly different from the girl who left False Bay in an ambulance. People spoke to me in simple sentences with the volume turned up as though I'd become mentally disabled and deaf somewhere along the way. I could tell by the way they kept their distance that they'd all heard the stories. My mom and dad treated me like a fragile, unstable child. They smiled way too much and watched me carefully, constantly asking me if I was hungry or tired. Even Rocket looked at me tentatively. My room was different too. They'd tidied it up and lunatic-proofed it. They took out all the matches, lighters, razors, and scissors.

Every day I felt a bit better. When I looked at myself in the mirror I still saw someone who scared me a bit, but at least I was looking in the mirror again. I had scars all over my body that only I could see. It occurred to me that I looked more like Lucky now.

I went over to Sonia's as soon as I could muster up the confidence to face her. She looked pale and drawn.

Things were awkward between us at first. She laughed nervously. “I missed you,” she said.

“I wasn't gone that long.”

“I think I started missing you before that. I'm so glad you're you again.”

“Thank you for rescuing me. How did you know I was up there?” I asked.

“I looked out my window—you know, we were all looking for you—and I saw you on the path heading up to the bluff. You were close to the top. I was about to run after you when I saw Fin leave your mom's studio and jump in his truck. He was in a huge hurry. He was looking up at the hill. I was going to flag him down so I could go with him but he zoomed right past my house, which I found strange. I knew I could get to you pretty fast if I hiked up on the path. When I got there, the shed was already on fire. I was going to run inside, but I heard Fin talking to you, so I stayed by the door, listening.” She shook her head sadly. “You tried to warn me. I should have listened. I still can't believe it.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“You look so much better. I like your hair.”

“Shut up.”

“I do.”

“How do you feel?” I gestured at her stomach.

She looked down. “I lost the baby that day you went missing.”

“Oh, wow. I'm sorry.”

“That's why I was a little slow getting up the path that day.”

“No one told me.”

“I told them not to. I wanted to tell you myself.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, you know . . .” she shrugged. “The doctor says I'm fine.”

“What will you do?”

“I think I'll go back to school. My mom's moving in with her boyfriend, so we're giving up the house.”

“You won't live here anymore?”

“I've gotta get out of this place. It's full of ghosts for me, you know?”

I did.

After I left Sonia's, I continued on down the hill. The view of the ocean as I walked was a postcard, and I wondered how long it had been since I actually saw it that way. The sun danced off the ripples on the water and the air felt crisp and clean. I felt peaceful. What a concept.

It was just a few weeks earlier but it seemed like another lifetime that I had worked at Katy's. I needed to stop by and see Sharona. She'd left several worried messages on my phone, which I'd found under my bed. I wanted to thank her for trying to help me. The bell on the door at Katy's jingled and Sharona's face lit up when she saw me. She hurried to finish ringing up a woman at the register.

“Hey stranger! I heard you were back.” She hugged me tight. “Look at you! I love the short hair.”

I cringed when I thought of the filthy coils of hair I'd left on her bathroom floor that horrible day.

“Oh yeah? You like it?” I ran my fingers through it and saw her look at my burned hand and quickly look away. “Hey, thanks for . . . that day . . . I was a mess.”

“Don't mention it. It was pretty exciting stuff, you know, for False Bay. Wow, a psychopath, who'da thought?” She shrugged.

I still believed that the beam falling on Fin was some sort of intervention orchestrated by Lucky. I'm pretty sure Sharona would agree if I asked her, but I didn't.

“Well, I'm on my way to the Inn to ask for my job back. Wish me luck.”

“You don't need it. Karl told me they're dying over there without you.”

“Karl?”

“Yes, Karl. We're giving it another go.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup, I guess I just can't quit that guy.”

“Too bad he lasered your name off his arm.”

“I know, right? Hilarious.”

I remembered how I'd yelled at Karl the last time I saw him. That was another person I should apologize to.

“Hey, you can hang out at the Inn again.”

“Jeff hates me.”

“He does not. It's just his nature.”

The bell on the door jingled again and a carload of loud tourists came in.

“I better get back to work. Katy's been working weekends with me, and oh man, is that ever brutal. I don't know how long I can hang in here.”

I left Katy's and walked back up the highway to the Inn.

I took deep breaths as I opened the heavy front door. I'd composed a compelling speech, but I was nervous. I realized now that my hands needed something important to do. Creating those desserts made me happy. In the hospital I'd started thinking about the Culinary Institute again. Dr. Lundgren encouraged me to have a goal. He thought that the Institute was something I could manage easily in a year or so.

The breakfast crowd had mostly cleared out of the dining room, and Jeff and Miles were sitting together at a table when I walked in. I only had to look at their faces to know that they'd heard all the stories about me.

“Hi, Georgia,” they said together with matching levels of discomfort.

“Hi.”

“How are you?” said Jeff, followed by Miles who added, “Feeling?” at the end. Jeff glared at Miles.

“I'm great. Listen. I wondered if I could have my job back. I wasn't doing well when you fired me and I'm really sorry about the way I behaved but I'm much better now and I promise you can depend on me.” I blurted all of it out without taking a breath.

They exchanged glances. “Oh, thank God,” said Jeff. “We'd love to have you back. And we're really sorry about what happened with Fin. We should have believed you but . . . you know, you were waving that knife.”

Miles looked at Jeff with alarm. “Well, she was,” said Jeff quietly.

It turns out that they hadn't found anyone to replace me yet and Marc was hurling French insults at them daily because he had to pick up the slack. They wanted me back. They actually needed me.

“When can you start?” asked Miles.

“Today would be good,” added Jeff.

“How about tomorrow?” I asked.

“Fine, tomorrow then.”

“And you know what?” said Miles. “That raise you were asking for? I think it's time you got it.”

Jeff glared at Miles.

I beamed as I walked out of the dining room and out the front door of the Heron. I felt like skipping as I started back up the highway toward home.

When I arrived home my mom was drinking tea and eating toast with blackberry jam on it.

“That smells good,” I said.

“I'll make you some.” She started to get up.

“Mom, relax. I'm fine.” I put the kettle on and sliced the bread and put it in the toaster.

“By the way, I got my job back.”

“Oh, honey! That's wonderful.” She got up and kissed me on the forehead.

“I'm so proud of you.” She smoothed my hair. “You know, I think I like it short like this.”

Rocket curled up at my feet and sighed heavily. My mom and I sat at the table together, talking, eating toast, sipping tea. If a stranger had looked in the window at that moment they would see a mom and her daughter, enjoying each other's company.

Every Tuesday my mom drove me back to the city to see Dr. Lundgren. She said she didn't mind. She visited art museums and galleries while she waited. At the end of my appointment one afternoon, Dr. Lundgren handed me a card with a phone number on it.

“This is completely against the rules, but Mr. Black sees you come out of my office every Tuesday and he's asked me all about you. I'm not allowed to talk about you, but I told him I'd give you his number and then you can decide if you want to talk to him yourself. I will add that he's eager to hear from you.”

“Is his name really Mr. Black?”

“No. It's Cole. I don't think it's against the rules to tell you that.”

I took the card with Cole's number on it and slipped it into my pocket.