Pretty Girl Thirteen (7 page)

Steepling her fingers under her chin, the doctor pursed her lips. “Curious. Angela, I think I would like to get your mother’s permission to try hypnosis. We may be able to push past the thimbleberries. How would you feel about that?”

She felt—well, she wouldn’t call it hopeful. She was just being open-minded, that was all. “If you think it’ll help, go for it. I don’t see why you need Mom’s permission, though. I’m the one who needs help here.”

“I’m glad you see it that way, Angela. I’m glad you understand that you need help. Still, I am going to pop out and advise your mother.”

While she was out, Angie moved to the couch. Not knowing what to expect, she figured that if she fell over when she went under, it might as well be soft.

Dr. Grant smiled without comment at Angie’s relocation. “Mom’s on board. Are you ready?”

Angie nodded, wondering about the device in Dr. Grant’s hands. The doctor touched a switch, and Angie watched the light travel back and forth. It was vaguely annoying. Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Am I supposed to feel different yet?” Angie asked.

“Patience. Relax. Just breathe in and out,” Dr. Grant said in a swaying voice. “In and out. Imagine a pine tree, a perfect pine tree.”

Angie let an image creep into her head, a perfectly symmetric dark green tree, like the kind a little kid draws. Like a Christmas-card tree.

“There’s another one beside it,” the doctor said. Angie imagined another tree, taller.

“Now there’s a woodsy smell,” she added. “Can you smell it? Breathe in and out, very slowly. In and out. In and out.”

Angie did. She breathed slowly, and caught a hint of pine and wood smoke. “Yeah, I think I can smell something.”

“Now add five more trees.”

She saw them. Unreal.

“Can you take a step toward them?”

In her mind, Angie stepped closer to the trees. She stood and turned around in a circle, slowly. The knots in the paneling watched her relentlessly.

“What are you looking for, Angela?” the doctor asked. “What do you see in the trees?”

“No. Stop,” a loud voice said.

“Angela, Angela.” The doctor had a hand on her arm.

Angie blinked. The light was gone, and she was sitting in the beanbag chair. “How … when?”

The doctor had an extremely serious expression on her face. “I think we have an unexpected complication,” she said.

W
HEN THEY LEFT
D
R
. G
RANT’S OFFICE
, M
OM GRIPPED A
photocopy of the textbook article and a page of web references. Angie trailed her unhappily back to the car. She didn’t believe any of it. There must be more rational ways to explain her lost time, her blank memory. And jeez, they were just talking about camping. Of course Angie would have mentioned she was a Girl Scout. The doctor just got confused, is all—must have misunderstood something she said. Angie would straighten it out next time. She had been starting to like Dr. Grant, to tell the truth, and she didn’t want to argue with her.

“Do you think … ,” Mom began awkwardly as she started the engine.

“Come on, Mom. Isn’t that a bit out there? I thought we already decided that I have temporary amnesia from post-traumatic stress. That, I can believe. This multiple-personalities thing? Not.”

“Yes, well, Dr. Grant did say it wasn’t exactly typical, right?”

“Sure. The book she showed me said blah-dee-blah a pattern of abuse and blah-dee-blah in infancy or early childhood. I mean, I don’t have that. I had a perfectly normal childhood, right? I mean, you and Dad didn’t tie me up or stuff me in a closet and torture me, right?” She laughed.

Mom tried to match her light tone and failed. Her voice squeaked. “Of course we didn’t. What a ridiculous notion. No one could love a child more than we loved—love you.”

She corrected herself quickly, but the slip was another stab in the heart. Measuring Mom’s waistline, Angie wondered how long she had to get her feet back on the ground, to fix her life before the baby came and messed everything up again. She didn’t ask.

Angie put her guitar away, fingertips throbbing. Aside from mirrors, nothing else reminded her so much of the obvious time gap. Chords didn’t fit under her hands the same way—her longer fingers kept overshooting. And then, in spite of all the unexplained calluses on her palms, she’d lost the useful ones four years of guitar lessons had built up.

Mom’s call to supper echoed up the stairs. Angie hurried down, but her feet stuck fast on the landing at the sound of raised voices. Dad’s voice—no, his words—glued her in place.

“Just not the same,” he was saying. “Look in her eyes. Something’s missing. She’s angry, then she’s, I don’t know … brain-dead. Flat. For God’s sake, I haven’t seen her cry even once.”

What did he expect? That she would sob all over him? He’d never been that kind of teddy-bear dad, and now he was so uncomfortable and distant. She’d seen more of his back than his front.

Mom’s hushed reaction was too soft to hear, but Dad’s response sounded loud as a megaphone. “I don’t know. Just damaged. There’s no spark, no bounce in her.”

This time a few of Mom’s words came through. “… time to readjust … more if she remembers. And you know what Dr. Grant thinks… .”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it!” Angie had never heard Dad yell like that, or use that kind of language with Mom.

She thumped deliberately all the way down. Bounced hard so they had to notice. The voices stopped. She glared between her parents, who now had this strained silence to explain.

Mom whacked a spoonful of mashed potatoes onto Angie’s plate. “We were starting to discuss school again,” she said with deceptive calm. The spoon clanged on the edge of the pot.

An obvious evasion. Plus, what was left to say? They’d already had a discussion about private school, a fresh start in a new place. Sadly, out of the question. Dad crushed that hope with the excuse that with Mom working, it was too far to drive. The crease between his eyes told Angie that the truth was, after the search for her, there wasn’t enough money. Sacred Heart was out for the same reason, plus they weren’t Catholic. That left La Cañada High School, the place where everyone knew her as the girl who disappeared. Sure, the grades seven and eight teachers and classrooms were separate from nine through twelve, but it was still a small world. Same campus. Too small.

The only remaining question was what grade. Thank God Dr. Grant backed up Angie. With everything else going on, she said, and now this possible weird diagnosis, she ought to go back to school at the level where she felt most comfortable. Also, as soon as possible before she missed any more.

“I’ve already decided.” Angie striped the pile of potatoes with her fork. “I’m going to start in ninth.”

“But—” Mom began.

Angie cut her off. “Look, my old friends will be around, but they’re juniors. I can’t take classes with them. You can’t expect me to, even with tutors.” Since she had been a year ahead in math, ready for Algebra I, that would put her in the regular stream for ninth. She’d always been an A student in language arts, so she wasn’t afraid of skipping one year. But that was where she drew the line. Skipping more than one grade was too stressful to think about.

“I still think you’d want to be with your friends,” Mom said, a slight whine in her tone.

Dad chewed his baked pork chop and kept his opinion to himself.

Mom couldn’t let it go. “I really think being with kids your own age will help … will help you feel like yourself again. Your words.”

“Two days, Mom. I’ve been getting used to this supposedly sixteen thing for two whole days.”

Mom sighed and rested her forehead on her hands, elbows on the table. “Sorry. Okay. It’s just strange to think you’ve been aging in my mind but not your own.” She gave a tight, sad laugh. “I even lit candles on all your missed birthdays.”

“So, where are all my presents?” Angie met Mom’s startled glance with the hint of a teasing smile. “Where’s that red convertible I always wanted?”

“That sounds more like my Angel,” Dad said. The worry lines on his forehead smoothed down a bit. He leaned back and loosened his tie.

Angie’s newborn smile stretched into a grin. Peace restored.

She didn’t entirely know why the idea of contacting her old friends filled her with terror, why she couldn’t even pick up a phone. It was just so hard to jump into the middle—much easier to start over. Blending in with three hundred ninth graders who didn’t know her, who had no expectations of her, sounded safer. If she caught up, she could move up.

“So we’re agreed,” Angie said. “Ninth.”

Mom nodded. Dad shrugged.

“Anyway,” Angie added, “are you in such a hurry for me to graduate and get out of the house?”

“Absolutely not.” Mom served the green beans, and not another word was mentioned about skipping ahead.

Wednesday morning, she walked through the doors of La Cañada High School with a backpack full of school supplies. Angie still hadn’t called her old friends to tell them, to warn them. Only the school administration knew that the missing girl had been found and had re-enrolled. They were just as anxious as the Chapmans to avoid turning the school grounds into a media circus. Detective Brogan had performed a miracle, keeping the press off the scene so far.

According to Mom, the teachers had been instructed not to make a fuss of any kind. Since none of them knew her personally—she hadn’t had any of them in seventh—her mysterious return wouldn’t affect them anyway. She was just a curiosity, no more. So she hoped.

Somehow, she’d had this crazy notion that she could slip into school unnoticed and disappear in a sea of ninth graders. But Stacey Tompkin’s punky little sister, Maggie, who was apparently in ninth grade now, recognized Angie as she squeezed into the back of first-period English. Her round green eyes kept swiveling from the whiteboard up front to gawk at Angie, as if making sure. Stacey had been on the campout, and her tagalong sister knew all the “big girls” Stacey hung out with.