Imola (2 page)

Then again, maybe Dr. Leahy was doing all of this because of Jason. Agnes stiffened in her chair. This was the only subject that made her think Dr. Leahy wasn’t such a great doctor. Jason didn’t come to see Dr. Leahy. Maybe the doc wasn’t so perceptive. She didn’t even realize who Jason came to visit.

Agnes tightened her crossed arms and felt something poke her left forearm. Milo’s spoils. But she didn’t want to look. That was Milo’s business.

“I’m going to give you to the count of ten to give themto me,” Nurse Reginald said to Milo. She stomped her right foot in time with her backward count. “Ten … nine … eight …”

Milo’s grin widened, his body frozen in place. His chest didn’t even move with his breathing.

Agnes stood and walked around behind Nurse Reginald. She smiled at Milo.

“… three … two …”

One of Milo’s eyelids twitched. His version of a wink?

Nurse Reginald stomped her foot twice more. “God damn it.” She spun around and rushed down the women’s hall, a string of unintelligible words flailing in her wake.

Milo tiptoed over to Agnes and nodded.

She pushed her chest out toward him and turned so he could reach into the pocket. His hand barely touched cloth as it slid in, then out with his prize.

Agnes stared at the object and shook her head. “You need reading glasses?”

He shrugged, smiled, and turned toward the men’s hall. The bells on his shoes rang in triumph all the way to his room.

The days passed in bunches, sometimes dragging on forever, sometimes over in a blink. To Agnes, time was marked by Dr. Leahy’s weekly visits—the days had lost their formal names. They were called “one day until Dr. Leahy,” “two days until …” “three days …” and so on. What day of the outside week did she visit? Thursday? Sunday? It didn’t matter. Not in Imola.

Agnes straightened in her chair and turned her right ear toward the door of the Day Room. It was the only connection to the outside world—the passageway for visitors and visiting therapists. Every time the door opened, a breath of the outside world wafted in, only to be terminated by the hiss of the gas cylinder of the door closer, and the clunk of the automatic lock.

Agnes tilted her head like a curious dog. There shewas. Dr. Leahy. If Agnes listened carefully, she could tell it was the doctor. The double tap of each heeled shoe on the tiled hallway was like the gait of a tap dancer: two sounds from each foot strike.

Agnes slumped in the chair and gripped the armrests.

Dr. Leahy leaned back a little when she walked, so her weight shifted forward slowly. Tip-tap. Maybe it would sound different if she didn’t wear those shoes with the big, blocky heels.

You know why she does it
.

Agnes nodded.

It pushed her breasts out. And gave them a bounce when she walked. She wanted everyone to look at her breasts.

Dr. April Leahy pushed open the self-closing door of the Day Room and tip-tapped along the far wall. Agnes’s eyes followed her. The doctor’s shoulder-length auburn hair flowed behind her, exposing her ears and dangling earrings, each a single, thin bar that widened at the apex to accommodate a diamond. At least half a carat each.

She slid her soft sided, leather attaché onto a table at the far right of the Day Room and opened it, fishing inside. “Hi, Agnes. Are you ready?” Her jaw hinged against her ever-present piece of gum.

Agnes leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. She didn’t like to walk over too soon. It wasn’t because the sessions were unpleasant. She just didn’t like to give in to Dr. Leahy right away. And she didn’t know why.

You know why
.

“Agnes?”

Agnes scanned Dr. Leahy from head to toe.

Brown and orange today. She always wore a suit: tight fitting, with a coordinated blouse, also snug. Seventeen meetings now, and she hadn’t duplicated an outfit yet. But they weren’t really that different.

Agnes looked down at her own jumpsuit. She could get the same variability if she rolled up the sleeves one day, cuffed the legs another day, changed the level of the zipper, and then varied the combination.

But Dr. Leahy’s clothes were way different if she knew Jason was visiting. Then the skirts were higher—upper thigh—and the blouse was low cut, showing cleavage. Her walk changed, too. The tip-tap went to tip-TAP. It made her cleavage sway as well as jiggle.

Dr. Leahy didn’t talk the same way when Jason was around either. She was more animated, and she laughed a lot. Not laughed. Giggled. She giggled when he was around. She didn’t giggle when it was just the two women.

She’s fucking him
.

Agnes balled her hands into fists and ground her molars together.

Dr. Leahy must have thought Jason came to see her. Why else would she bounce her breasts and giggle? But she was wrong. He didn’t come to see her.

She is fucking him
.

Dr. Leahy shifted her weight onto her left leg and tapped a pencil on the table. “Come on, Agnes. I haven’t got all day.” She cradled her attaché in the crook of her arm and tip-tapped into the small conference room midway along the far wall of the Day Room. She turned. “Now, Agnes.”

A slight hint of a smile tugged on Agnes’s lips as she stood. She tried to duplicate the tip-tap walk, but her hospital-issue sneakers squished with each step. She squeezed through the door and stood next to her chair. “Good morning, Dr. Leahy. How was your week?”

Dr. Leahy sat. “You can call me April, you know.”

April. Her parents probably named her for the optimism of spring, and she fulfilled their prenatal hopes and expectations. MD, psychiatrist. Not one of those newly graduated, strange-talking psychologists who fingered imaginary Freudian pipes when they pontificated. Imola was sprinkled with them, and their apprentice-level salaries. Agnes smiled as she slid onto the chair opposite her private doctor.

Dr. Leahy touched her pencil tip to a steno tablet. Her jaw relaxed, the gum apparently shoved into some secret pocket in her mouth. “I’d like to review a little, if you don’t mind.”

She always started the same way: her review was a review.

Dr. Leahy crossed her legs. “We made excellentprogress last time. Remember?”

There was nothing else to do in here but remember. “Yes.”

“So you remember that your twin sister died when she was four years old?”

“Her name is Lilin.”

“Yes, I know.” Dr. Leahy wiggled in her chair and fingered her tablet and pencil. “Do you remember anything else about her?”

“Not much.”

“Can you remember your time with her? Were they happy times?”

Her memories from her childhood were mostly nonexistent, but since Dr. Leahy had been coming around, asking questions, probing her past, little parts were coming back to her. Times with Lilin. Laughing. Playing. But there was something eerie in that background. Something big. Something dark.

“Agnes? Were there happy times?”

“Some.”

“What were the happy times?”

“Playing together.”

Dr. Leahy wrote a few sentences. “Do you remember anything about your father?”

“Yes.” A large door. Closed. “Vague memories.”

“Happy memories?”

“I don’t know. Just that he was there.”

Dr. Leahy wrote without looking at the tablet, except for an occasional glance. “I know your mother passed away too soon for you to have memories of her, but do you remember if another woman was in the house with you and your sister?”

“Lilin. Her name is Lilin.”

“Sorry. Was there another woman?”

“No. I don’t remember a woman.”

Dr. Leahy’s hand danced on the tablet. “What was your house like?”

“I don’t know. Just a house.” Not a home. Not like in Mendocino, with Gert and Ella.

“Do you remember anything in it?”

Agnes rubbed her face with her hands. “I remember some toys.”

“What kind of toys?”

“Blocks. A train.”

Two trains
.

Agnes frowned. “Two trains.”

“Anything else?”

“Not really.”

“Any dolls? All little girls have dolls.”

“No!”

Dr. Leahy jumped. “Why did you answer like that?”

Something wasn’t right. Pictures flashed in her mind. Pictures of a doll. But it wasn’t smiling. Was it real?

“Agnes?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t have a doll?”

Agnes’s gaze drifted to the ceiling. She paused. Her heart pounded; bubbles of sweat traced her hairline.

Dr. Leahy leaned forward.

Agnes sensed the closeness, but it was momentary—then she felt like she was drifting away. She felt her body relax, lose all animation, like it was just a shell. “I think I did have a doll.” Her own voice seemed to echo, like it was almost mechanical, from somewhere in the distance.

The pencil scratched at the tablet. “Can you picture the doll?”

“I think so.”

“Did you play with it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Lilin took it.”

“What did she do with it?”

Hurt it
.

Agnes didn’t answer. She was sliding back, a little too fast. She felt her eyes well with tears.

“Agnes. What did Lilin do with your doll? Do you remember?”

“Yes.” Barely audible.

“What did she do with it?”

Agnes took a deep breath and let it out fast. A flash of memory. A closed door, opening. “She took it intothe bad room.”

Dr. Leahy uncrossed her legs and sat up straight so fast her pencil tip drew a line across the tablet. “Agnes. What’s the bad room?”

The tickle of tears rolled on Agnes’s cheeks. She could feel her mouth move, but no sounds came out.

Dr. Leahy sat back into the chair and rubbed her chin with her thumb. “When Lilin took your doll into the bad room, did you try to get it back?”

“Yes.”

“Did you follow her into the bad room?”

“Yes.”

“What did she do to the doll?”

Hurt it
.

“She hurt it.”

“How did she hurt it?”

No answer. Agnes didn’t move. The room was bright, like her eyes were wide open, staring through the opposite wall, to an open door in the distance. She tried, but she couldn’t close her eyes—not even to blink.

“Agnes?”

The door swung wide. “Oh no.”

“Agnes. What is it? What’s happening?”

Agnes. Stop him
.

“Him!”

“Who’s him? Is there someone else in the bad room?”

Help me
.

Tears again, with sobs.

“Is it your father?”

Agnes. Please
.

A deep breath. A large figure hovered. Speaking in incomprehensible words. A feeling of panic pierced her, but as soon as it penetrated, it swirled away, like it was being pulled down a drain. Then, an overwhelming sense of calm. “I’m not Agnes.”

Dr. Leahy leaned forward again, pushing against the table. She stared into Agnes’s eyes. “Who are you?”

“I’m No One.”

Jason Powers knocked on the door of the second floor apartment. The building was not yet a flophouse, but it had great potential. It was difficult to tell the paint color on the walls of the hallways and stairwell. Where the paint wasn’t peeling, it was smudged with who-knows-what, or decorated with graffiti.

The door opened and Jason barged in, walking carefully as if the hallway dishevelment were contagious. “Hey, big brother. Place looks the same. Maid on vacation?”

Donnie Powers’s laugh echoed in the small apartment. “Thanks for stopping by. Did you bring me anything?”

“It’s just a social call. I haven’t seen you in a long time. I’m on my way over to Napa.”

“Imola again? I always knew one of us would end up there. I just thought it’d be me.”

Jason looked for a place to sit. “If I’m a passenger on that train, you’re pushing the throttle.”

“All aboard.” Donnie slapped his knee and faked a loud laugh.

Jason walked to the only upholstered chair in the room and snatched a copy of
National Lampoon
from the seat cushion. “I see you’re into classic literature.” He dropped it on a pile of newspapers, cheeseburger wrappers, and unidentifiable paper products.

Donnie clapped both hands over his heart. “Why do critics miss the brilliance of good satire? It’d be a boring world without a few out-of-round wheels. Besides, who’s going to keep all the suits honest?”

“National Lampoon
keeps people honest?” Jason flopped into the chair, and a spring jabbed his right butt cheek. He adjusted his position.

“The best way to stagnate this country is to have coast-to-coast conformity,” Donnie said. “Anybody or anything that pushes an envelope contributes to societal evolution.”

“What does that have to do with honesty?”

Donnie leaned against the bathroom doorway, the only interior door in the studio apartment. “Most people recheck their own ways before mounting a defense against an outlier. Except for Republicans.”

Jason moved again, but he couldn’t escape the pinch of the spring. “If you live long enough, you’ll become a Republican, too.”

“Now, that’s something to look forward to.” Donnie wandered across the room and sat, cross-legged, four feet in front of the chair. “Will Dr. Leahy be at Imola?”

“How do you know about her?”

Donnie swung his arm and pointed at a large table piled high with computer equipment. “I’m an information merchant. Remember?”

“You check up on me? Your only brother?”

“Always have. You don’t stop by very often.”

Jason raised the middle finger of his right hand and grinned. “Maybe because you always ask for money.”

“Work is sporadic. And it doesn’t pay that well,” Donnie said.

“With your talent for computers, you could get a real job. You could drive a Beemer.”

Donnie snapped his fingers. “Oh, yeah. Me in a Beemer. Mom would have a heart attack.”

Jason scowled. “Mom did have a heart attack. Two years ago. You were at the funeral. Remember? I swear. You need to lay off the weed.”

“Relax, little brother. I remember. It was just a figure of speech. I like to think of her as still alive.”

“Because she gave you money?”