Loud Awake and Lost (6 page)

Holden stretched, extending his arms along the back of the couch as he tipped back his head. “First time they let me visit you had to be the end of February. Do you remember that?”

“When I was still drinking meals through a straw.” And peeing through a catheter, and barely tolerating the pain that hammered down my spine, through the backs of my legs, into my feet, even through the wall of painkillers.

“But we broke up three months before the accident,” said Holden. “The plain fact of it is we weren't together. And you weren't spending much time with Rachel.”

“I don't remember. I don't remember about Lissa, either. January is just so not there for me.”

“Well, in terms of the whole Rachel thing, neither of us wanted to involve her to the extent that she wanted to be involved. Rachel can be really bossy—”

“No way! Rachel?” I snorted.

Holden grinned. “Exactly. And it was a private thing.”

Yes, private. Like that night, back in October, when Holden and I had been fooling around, nearly naked under the duvet, a nest of warmth against the autumn cold snap. Holden's parents had been away that weekend. He'd bought an apple votive from Yankee Candle. Docked “our” playlist. Made everything perfect. Except it wasn't perfect. I'd used the moment to confess that I thought we were getting too serious. The pre-breakup breakup. I remembered it perfectly.

He'd been crushed. So had I. A year ago. Did he still think about that night?

“Lissa's uptown, doing the full ballet press. I think you should get in touch.”

“Did I really know her that well?”

He nodded. “Yeah, she was with you a lot, you know, after you and Rachel had a falling-out.”

“Wait—now you're saying I had a
falling
-
out
with Rachel? Why?”

“It sounds mildly ridiculous to say our breakup was major drama for Rachel, but there it is.” Holden shrugged. “She was like this kid that we both had custody over. And we wanted to be good parents, but sometimes we couldn't because that would have meant getting back together. Which was the only thing she wanted.”

“I can't imagine not being friends with Rachel.”

When he looked at me, eyes narrowed, I could feel it. Something Holden could have said right then, in the intimacy of the moment.

Could have said, but wouldn't. And I didn't even know how to ask for it.

“What'd I miss?” Rachel bounded like a gazelle into the room, hurtling over the back of the couch to land between us, then taking charge of the remote control.

“Nothing,” we answered in unison.

Dear Ember,

Of course you're not “bugging” me. I'm glad to hear from you, and to learn that you're handling a full school-day workload. You've come a long way. And I promise to explain my answers to your questions in “regular” (I'm guessing by that you meant not too technical?) words. Send me a follow-up if there's anything you don't get. Or call me directly. Or, better yet, stop in—I can always make time for you!

1. Numbness/disembodiment. A common problem. We've spoken about miscalibration. People who sustain frontal lobe injuries often find it hard to emotionally communicate in response to a personal/charged situation, even if they are connecting with it. In response, they check out—the med-slang term is “to dishrag”—rather than react “correctly” to sudden noises, lights, loud music. Dishrag responses should mitigate with time. Ember, at vehicular impact, your brain was subjected to massive depolarization from acceleration/deceleration. It is the cause of most neurological fatalities. And even when the victim survives, it can take years for brain tissue to fully regenerate. You are probably far more sensitive to these “moments of departure,” however, than those around you. Accept them; do not let them shock you.

2. Paranoia/terror. I appreciate your bravery in coming forward with this. I'm sure it is a disturbing sensation, to feel that you're being discussed or that secrets are being kept from you. I agree that you are grappling with a lot of stresses as a result of returning home and resuming your life. Nevertheless, if this persists or worsens, I can contact a clinical mentor at Long Island City Psychiatric Hospital. Let me know if you would like me to pursue this.

3. Missing memories. We have discussed this a bit, yes? And don't forget the good news: in over 70% of cases such as yours, a head-trauma patient will get partial-to-full memory restored. Given what you have told me about the preceding weeks (a breakup with your boyfriend and a fight with your best friend), your amnesiac brain merely might want to bury unpleasantness. It is a bit as if Brain is telling you, “Ember, why do you need to hold on to that disturbing file? Let us delete it! We certainly have got enough on our plate right now!”

4. Tingling/sensations of cold & heat. Your last EMG (8 Sept.) was consistent with the radial nerve damage that was a direct result of spinal trauma. Your best treatment: plenty of sleep, a balanced diet, and scheduled, rigorous physical therapy. Your body wants to regulate and reestablish normalcy. When you come in next month for your cortisone shots, let's do another EMG.

Finally, just to restate what you already know, please keep up your work with Jenn. She was a visiting practitioner here, and she is extremely competent. A mature commitment to therapy will bridge the difference, in terms of restoring your body's flexibility and easing residual pain, as you return to a full schedule of physical activities.

Best regards,

“Dr. P”

Vassilis Pipini, MD

Department of Neurosurgery

Weill Cornell Medical Center

Just before I'd left, I'd given Kai my number. So he had mine, and I had his. But I figured he'd be the one to call me. Not the next day or even the next. But he'd be in touch. No doubt he would. So when I hadn't heard from him by the middle of the following week, I started to check my messages compulsively—a few times even phoning my cell phone from the landline. Just to make sure the ringer was on and working.

Full-on doubts began to replace my anticipation. I'd just assumed we'd made a connection. Had my battered brain missed some basic social cue? Maybe Kai hadn't felt the same entrancement, the same intrigue to know more about me.

He sure hadn't felt the same urgency.

Or, or—maybe he'd been playing me. Maybe I'd been the victim of one of those cruel best-friend bets. Maybe there'd been some second guy in the shadows across the street, egging him on: “Kai, twenty bucks says you can walk over and hook up with that lonely girl hanging out on the fire escape.”

And then Kai took the dare and strolled across the street and stepped into the building while his pal—maybe that guy Hatch, his T-shirt business friend—stood smirking from across the street.

I could just imagine Hatch, the wingman. That semi-Neanderthal guy's guy with the greasy skin who looks like he'd barely know his own address.

Before we'd parted, Kai had torn the first page from his precious notebook, ripping a scrap for me to scribble my number, then printing his own above the quick sketch he'd drawn of me. The lines were loose but the likeness was spot-on. He'd even given me more hair, not that I'd asked for it. But it was as if he'd guessed how I felt about the raggedy chop I'd gotten in the hospital, and wanted to help me out.

Forget him, I decided, when it seemed the call was not happening. But I couldn't. Kai was stuck in the grooves of my thoughts. It scared me to think that I'd bungled the situation. Like I was too damaged and “miscalibrated,” imagining there'd been an electric connection between us when there hadn't been anything.

I felt duped, and in other moments I felt like an idiot.

On Wednesday evening, almost a week later and still no call, I decided to do it. Just one brave, quick “Hi, how are you?” and then I'd know exactly where I was with him. I wouldn't even ask Rachel's advice—if it went badly, I'd bury it, and force myself never to think about Kai again. But somehow I'd misplaced the scrap of paper. Which just didn't make sense. I tore through my room like a CIA agent, searching everywhere—pockets, drawers—before I sat down and attempted Kai's number from memory.

When I punched the numbers in, I was pretty sure I had it right. But the voice mail message was impersonal, a droidbot informing me that if I wanted to leave a message, please wait for the tone.

I didn't. I clicked off, my cheeks hot. Maybe Kai had given me a wrong number? Or I'd memorized it wrong. How could I have lost the paper?

I sank to the edge of my bed.

Okay,
think,
Ember. I wouldn't have thrown it out. And now I was going to turn my room upside down to find it. Again, I ransacked my backpack, my desk drawers, my closet, my bureau, searching, flinging items, cursing—where the hell, what the—
aha!

There it was. Inside my jewelry box. Folded into a tight square, in the corner. Next to my teeth.

My heart beat hard as I smoothed the stiff creases and stared at the sketch of perfected, prettier Ember. The sequence of digits above, in Kai's elegant, artist's lettering. And yes, it was the same phone number that I'd memorized. How could I have forgotten that I'd placed it here? My temples were beginning to throb with the threat of one of my headaches—a pain I'd never suffered until the accident, but which now frequently plagued me.

I called the number again. Again, voice mail. My voice was the worst kind of girl-speak, too high, quavering.

“Hey. It's me. Ember. Just wanted to see what you're up to. We talked about maybe getting together, sometime? Chocolate silk pie or pizza pie, or whatever. So if you want, or, you know, maybe…” And then I recited my own phone number. Hurried, nervous, not casual enough.

My whole body was thudding with my head as I ended the call.

It was a total desperation move. I should have waited for him to call me. Eager, vulnerable, pathetic me.

If Kai didn't call me back by the end of the week, I'd chalk it up to a Small, Humiliating Failure, with a touch of Learning Experience. The problem with a guy like Kai was that he was too “fringy”—a term Smarty used for city kids we couldn't cross-check through other friends or schools or anyone. He was too many degrees of separation, and I had no character references; nobody I knew would know this kid Kai, not in Lafayette or the neighborhood. Nothing.

And if I really thought about it, the whole thing was too clumsy. To kiss a total stranger on a fire escape? Of course he wasn't calling back. Served me right. No matter how exotic it had seemed at the time.

I'd always been too ready to believe in the fairy tale. But it wasn't good to keep rolling around in the memories of this first chapter, when that was obviously all the story there was.

“Presenting! My famous! Roasted fig and goat cheese with rosemary in a Stilton crust pastry pizza!” I slid it out of the oven onto the counter. It looked pretty damn gorgeous, if I did say so myself. Bubbling and crisping in all the right places.

But right from Rachel's first bite, I knew the truth. “What?” I demanded. “What's with that face?”

“I've told you how I feel about goat cheese. Tastes like goat butt.”

“Oh, so sorry. I didn't realize that my making you this special homemade gourmet lunch was so bottom line, poor you.”

“I'm just saying.”

“Try a corner.”

“Eh. I don't know, Emb.” After a third bite, Rachel set down her slice. “Give me a stuffed-crust Little Caesars pepperoni any day over this.”

“It's not that bad.” Except that when I wheel-sliced out my own triangle, I had to admit it wasn't great, either. It wasn't anything. It had no soul. I flipped back to the recipe. “What the hell. You saw me follow this to a T.” Did it need more honey? Were the figs watery? You couldn't do anything about the mustiness of goat cheese—you were either into it or it tasted dirty, or as Rachel had more bluntly put it, like butt. “The ingredients looked so fresh at the farmers' market.”

But none of the elements had added up.

“The main thing about your cooking,” said Rachel, “is that it used to be…”

“Used to be what?”

Her teeth found her bottom lip. “I dunno.”

“No, seriously. Used. To. Be. What?” I could feel myself all flamed up in agitation. I didn't want to be. I wished that Rachel's answer didn't matter so much to me.

“Ember, not everything about you needs to be remade into a Nancy Drew mystery. And it's the weekend. I thought weekends meant time off from playing ‘The Clue to Your Old Self' or ‘The Secret of the Rehabbed Psyche' with you, right?”

“Don't joke, Smarty. Just tell me—for two seconds indulge me and explain what you meant. How was I different?”

“Okay. Fine.” Rachel sat up straight, like a pupil ready to recite the correct answer in front of the whole class. “Here's the thing. Your cooking used to be a hobby that you enjoyed. You did it for fun and games. A pinch here, a dash of that, oops, forgot to preheat in time, but who cares? That kind of thing. But now you do it like homework. Like something you're studying for—a physics test. And the whole process…well, I hate to see how it upsets you, okay?” She put up her hands. “I come in peace.”

I nodded. I knew Rachel was right. My attitude was off. I couldn't find the joy of the experiment. The measuring, tasting, seasoning, wondering. In the past couple of weeks, I'd challenged myself to multiple dishes—comfort food like lasagna, plus more complicated recipes using egg whites and double boilers. Not a single dish had turned out to be anything special.

I had to face it: I was just an okay cook.

My friends used to love dropping in for Friday Follies because those Fridays had been a party, with the menu made up of their own special requests: blackened skillet chicken for Perrin, butternut squash tart for Rachel, ginger-chocolate ice cream for Keiji. They'd come over, hang out, and inhale my feasts, then gear up for a later night of parties or clubs or the movies—or sometimes they'd just thump downstairs, lazy and overfed, to the den to watch random television.

I'd daydreamed of those Follies while I'd been at Addington. It had been yet another reason to get well and come home. Dr. P had even encouraged it.

“Find your safety zone,” he'd told me. “Find your comfort.”

Once upon a time, I'd loved being in the kitchen. And I'd been good at it, too. Was the love still there? Or was the new me just flying blind in a wobbly parody of my old self?

I refocused. The sheet of figs and cheese, no longer bubbling, now looked curdled and sad. I picked at my slice. “It's like somewhere down recipe lane, I just dishrag and then—”

“Will you please,
please
stop describing yourself as a
dishrag
?” Rachel asked exasperatedly. “I don't need a smelly hand towel for a best friend.”

“Easy for you. You're not the one who's lost—”

“You haven't lost a single—”

“Don't tell me what I haven't lost,” I snapped. “Or what I was. Or who I am.” I foil-wrapped the pizza—maybe my parents would want it—and then began tearing the extra pastry apart with my bare hands, shoving it through the garbage disposal's rubber shield to the teeth below and flipping on the switch for the motorized grind.

Had Anthony Travolo liked to cook?

These kinds of questions had begun to circle me like vultures lately, especially since my Google searches hadn't pulled up anything more breakthrough than names and addresses of various random Travolos in Carroll Gardens and Bensonhurst. His name was Italian—had he been a pasta guy? A steak eater? What had his last meal been, before he got in the car with me? What had we been talking about, that moment before I lost control of the wheel? What were the last words in his last conscious breath? My eyes brimmed at the thought, my throat went thick. Another side effect of head trauma—laryngeal reflux. Also known as occasional mucus overload.

Pretty gross. Plus it made me hate to cry.

Rachel was at my side, her hand steady on my shoulder. “Relax, Ember. It's only food.”

“It's not. It's me. It's a part of me that's missing. Where did I go?”

“You're right here. Come on. You have to stop being so hard on yourself. It's going to come back just the way you want, Embie. I know it.” She began to crack her knuckles, her usual sign of nervousness. “Okay, here's my worst, but I really feel like you asked for it. What did the cannibal order for takeout?”

“What?”

“Pizza, with everyone on it.”

“Ugh.” But I could feel myself smiling. “Are all your jokes from the How to Be an Annoying Fourth Grader's operating manual?”

“Hey, I got a smile out of you. I'd way rather see you be exasperated than sad. And listen—you've got your whole life to be a French chef. Truth is, the average high school class runs on Pop-Tarts, Corn Pops, and Red Bull. So how about you just sit back and enjoy something that crunches while we talk Halloween.” With one long arm, Rachel easily plucked two bowls from the top shelf and then shook the box of cereal on the counter.

“Yes, Halloween. No, Corn Pops.”

“Cereal snob.” Rachel replaced one bowl with a sigh, then dumped her own bowl straight to the rim. “So here's our dilemma, as I see it. Are we going to Lucia's Halloween party? Even though it's in Tribeca and we have no idea if superrich Italian beauty queens know how to throw a party?”

“I think so,” I answered. “If we don't drop by, Claude will feel snubbed. And then we'll never hear the end of it.”

Rachel made a face. “Annoying but true. Agreed.”

“So, wedding zombies,” I said. “Are we definitely decided on that?”

“Yes, but not gross-out. Fashionable zombies, all dressed up. With the blood daubed on like perfume. A couple of tasteful splotches at the neck and wrists.”

“Mmm. Let me write this down.” I found a notebook by the phone and wrote,
blood—perfume.
“What about shoes?”

“Dunno, but it sounds like a joke, doesn't it? Where do zombies buy their shoes?”

“A bad joke. A Rachel Smart joke.” I wrote,
shoes?
Then I stared at the paper. The words
blood
perfume
shoes
seemed to blur and break apart into fragments before my eyes. It was as if a winter wind had slivered through the room. Shivering, I looked down. I saw my bare feet and I saw black biker boots with thick silver metal grommets at the ankle. I saw a kitchen floor and I also saw a concrete pavement. Wet leaves blown by the chill of a first freeze. I could hear a rhythmic thud of footfalls. I was on a bridge, a gray chop of water stretched all around me, and I was singing, from faraway I could hear an echo of my own voice, the tune was Weregirl, I was singing with someone, and now he stopped and I could feel his mouth on my neck, nipping it, his lips soft and cool against me, but somebody was watching, somebody I disliked, my body tensed, I turned my head—

“Ember!” Rachel had zoomed in close, flapping a hand in front of my face. I jumped. “Dishrag girl! Where'd you go?”

“What?” I blinked.

“You just completely freaked me out! Talk about zombies! You weren't here!”

My heart was pounding. On the notebook, I'd doodled that funny-looking
A,
that same character that I'd written on my hand my first day home. I stared at it hard, as if it were capable of giving me more. Was the
A
for
Anthony
?

“Smarty,” I whispered. “I think I went back.”

“Back where?”

“To January. In the memory pocket. In my head.”

“Aaaand?” Rachel raised a stagy eyebrow. “Whatever did you see there, time traveler?”

She was joking, but I was right. I'd been back. I closed my eyes to find it again. Pressed the heels of my hands into the hollows of my eye sockets. “Nothing really. It was winter, and I was walking, singing. I was with someone.” I didn't mention my neck, his mouth. “It was ice-cold, but the images were etched so clear. Like a dream.”

When I glanced at Rachel, she had her arms crossed. Skeptical.

“Sorry.” I flushed. “Forget it. I'm back! Zombie costumes. Shoes—to be decided.” I picked up the pen and scribbled loop-de-loops through the mark. “Let's see if we can find hospital gauze instead of toilet paper. I bet that the gauze will be more durable. Especially if it's raining on Halloween, our costumes will dissolve.”

“Ember.”

I looked up. “What?”

“Are you okay to be a zombie?”

“What do you mean? Why not?”

“Maybe you'd rather be something less morbid. Maybe zombies are putting you in the wrong head space.”

“God, Smarty. I'm not that sensitive, am I?”

Rachel began popping her knuckles, from thumb to pinkie. “Sometimes it's hard to tell what you want, minute by minute.”

“The bandages will hide my scars.” I touched my forehead. “Unless…I went as the lead singer of Weregirl. Now
that's
an easy costume—ripped tights and an army jacket and patrol boots.”

“And then you can enjoy all the blank stares since nobody knows that band.”

“Smarty, when did I start liking Weregirl? I listen to them all the time now.”

“Ugh, Ember. I don't know. I wasn't keeping babysitting tabs on you after you deep-sixed Holden,” said Rachel—her voice had gone flat in that way I'd come to recognize when she spoke about last year. “You turned distant. Holden was in a terrible place, and I had cousin custody of him. Plus you didn't want me.” Then it was as if she were making a conscious effort to lighten up, as she stuck out her tongue, then dug back into her Pops. “So bottom line, poor me.”

“I don't remember Holden being in bad shape.”

“Well, he's proud, you know. Not pitiful.”

“The breakup was hard on us both.”

“Hard on us
all.
You checked out, Emb. Even when I tried to find a way back to being friends.”

“Right. I know.”

“Hey, I think I want to be the groom zombie,” she said. “I'm taller with no boobs. You wear—used to wear—dresses all the time. You should be the one to go bridal.”

Used
to. I used to wear dresses all the time. But I don't anymore. Ever.
I fobbed off the suggestion with a shrug. “Except it's the one night I can put on Dad's eighties tux jacket. So how about let's be two groom zombies?”

“Oh, you're so
difficult
sometimes.” But then Rachel begrudged a smile. “Okay, fine.” And then, as if daring herself, she wolfed down the rest of the pizza slice. “Not bad, actually.”

“Liar.” I smiled. She was trying, I knew. Trying to understand this girl I'd become, after the breakup, the accident, the year away from her. She wanted to preserve and maybe even reinvent our friendship, to be here for me—whatever parts of me she could find. And I knew I wanted her back, too. It wasn't her fault I was partly hidden from her. In many ways, I was hidden from everyone. Myself included.