Sleeping Beauty (7 page)

Slowly, slowly, the burst of energy fuelling my mania is spent, and my body goes limp against him.

“Okay now, Claire?” he says roughly, his mouth just in front of my ear.

My eyes are lidded. My body feels like it weighs half a ton. When I don’t answer he lifts his head to look at me. I’m surprised to see his face covered with something besides blood and my lipstick. Compassion, and desire and…something else. Disappointment? Disgust?

“I’m so tired,” I say, my voice quavering with embarrassment and cold.

He drops his head back down on my shoulder. “I know you are.”

“And don’t call me Claire,” I add, just as the mist solidifies and drags me into the black.

Chapter Six

July 13
^th

I notice the glaring light and the heat first. The sun is warm on the side of my face, and uncomfortably hot on my left arm. I roll out of reach of the sunbeam and open my eyes to my bedroom. I’m in my own house, in my own bed.

My cell phone is missing from its spot on my night stand. In its place is a greeting card with a chicken on the front, bundled up in a bed, a thermometer jutting from its mouth. The words below that read, “Try the Chicken Soup.” I flip it open to find the standard “Get Well Soon.” Underneath that are three lines in handwritten block letters.

CLAIRE, PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND COME BACK. YOUR PART IS WAITING. SHOOTING ON EVENSONG BEGINS JULY 22
^nd
.

BEST, ANDY GORDON

What the hell
…

“Claire-Bo!” West appears in the doorway of my bedroom, clutching one of his ubiquitous stringed instruments–this time either a viola or a violin, I can’t tell the difference.

I sit up. “What day is it? Where’s Davin?” My voice is scratchy and deep, like it hasn’t been used much.

West frowns, like I’ve brought up something painful. “Well, it’s nice to see your happy face too. So you’re
awake
awake?”

“What day is it?”

“You hungry?”

Even though all I’ve done is sit up and say ten words, I’m already exhausted. And now I’m annoyed by the turn this conversation is taking. “West, I’m twenty-nine, not four. Can you please just tell me what day it is? It’s not like I can’t look at my phone or calculate the sun’s position in the sky.”

“You actually
can’t
look at your phone,” he says, fishing it out of his shorts pocket and holding it up so I can see it. “Sorry, doctor’s orders.” He turns around and takes a few jaunty steps down the hallway, calling over his shoulder, “Let me know if you need some graph paper or a protractor for that sun calculation thing.”

“Doctor? What doctor?”

His head pops back around the door frame. “Brendan? The sleep doctor?”

I feel like I’ve been body-snatched and dropped into someone else’s life. “Who?”

West looks exasperated now. “Claire, seriously? Doctor…” he snaps his fingers, trying to remember. “Chummy, Charmer…ah, hell, I can’t remember how to pronounce it. You know:
Brendan
.”

“Dr. Charmant?” My voice cracks completely on the second syllable, and I swallow hard against the dryness in my throat. I stare down at the comforter, shaking my head, searching my memory banks for something, anything, and come up with nothing. “West, the last time I remember seeing Charmant was the morning of my appointment in the sleep lab. When did
you
see him?”

West claps his hands together three times in quick succession. “Wakey-wakey, Claire. Practically every day since then.”

“Every day…”

He smirks. “I didn’t know doctors still made house calls.”

“He was here? Here at my apartment? Every day?”

West shrugs. “Not
every
day. The guy had to work. If it hadn’t been for him and Wib, though, I think the band would have finally booted me. You really pick crap times to have an episode, you know that? Can’t you schedule them around national holidays or something?”

With this helpful suggestion floating in the air, he heads back down the hallway. I grind my knuckles into my eyes, and then rub my cheeks until they’re burning.
What is happening? What is happening?
I massage my temples, praying for a shred of a memory to anchor me in the present.

I remember showing up at the sleep lab. I remember him being surprised when he saw me. I remember going into the bedroom at the sleep lab. Yeah, yeah, I definitely remember that. I remember the fake plant
.

Sadly, every recollection between the fake plant in the sleep lab and the bed I’m sitting on is a big nothing. The blackouts are typical of my episodes, and they’re the hardest part to come to terms with. Hours, days, weeks of my life are wiped away. It’s like I’ve time-traveled into the future.

My brother comes back holding a glass of orange juice. I grab it from him and chug it down.

“Whoa, take it slow!” he says, reaching for the glass.

I shake my head and hold out my hand, daring him to touch it. The sugar goes right into my bloodstream, and I feel the cobwebs in my head start to clear. I drop the empty glass on my nightstand with a
thunk
!

“West, have you ever had too much to drink and blacked out?”

He grins. “Is this the ‘lampshade on my head’ lecture?” He plops down on the stool in front of my makeup table and rubs his hands together. “I love this one.”

I ignore him. “I don’t know if it’s been three days or three weeks, but either way I can’t remember any of it. And it’s irritating for someone to sit there and tell me what I did or said during that time, okay? Just pretend like I went on a drinking binge and I danced for a few weeks on a table with a lampshade on my head, and keep it to yourself.”

“But what about the—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I say, putting my hands over my ears.

“But if he—”

“Shut up, West!”

Behind him on my makeup table I see one of The Sentinels. This one is the goofy stuffed bear with the pink snout.

“Whose idea was it to drag out the Sentinels?” I snatch up the card where it’s fallen on the comforter. “And what’s this? Why is Andy Gordon sending me a get well card?”

He looks miffed. “You don’t want to hear it, remember?” He stuffs his hands in his jeans pockets. “Unless you want me to make you some food, I have to head out.”

“Head out?” I try to jump out of bed, but end up doubled over, grimacing in pain. “Ugh!”

“Sore?”

“A little. Geez, West, didn’t you guys have me do any stretching at all?” I bend over, trying to ease the aching in my back. “Where are you going?”

“Our agent finally booked us on a decent tour.”

“Took him long enough. Where are you playing?”

“Everywhere. We wrap up in Portland September first.”

I freeze halfway through a windmill, and stand up slowly. “You’re going to be gone for
three months
? You’ve never been on tour that long.”

He holds his hands up, a strange, uncomfortable look on his face. “Well, it’s not quite that long, you know because…” He trails off. “Look, I know it’s weird, and I’m sorry. You seemed like you were past the worst of it, and I can’t keep turning down chances to tour.”

I shake my head. “No, no, it’s okay. Davin will be around, right?”

“Yes,” he says, his voice as artificial as plastic. “Davin
will
be around.”

I figure he’s still a little mad over my preference for Davin’s company post-episode, so I let his acidic remark slip by. “There’ll be plenty of time until the next one,” I say, trying to be encouraging. “And Dr. Pickering seems sure that she can get to the bottom of this, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. Of course you have to go.”

“Who’s Dr. Pickering?”

“My sleep doctor at the kiddie hospital they sent me to a couple of days ago.” I check myself. “Well,
whenever
it was that I went to the kid’s hospital. Didn’t I tell you?”

He looks confused. “Is Pickering the woman?”

“Yes!” I can’t hide my relief.

“I talked to her after you conked out at the sleep lab, and the day I picked you up, but the only sleep doc I’ve talked to since then is Brendan.”

I’m already disoriented, and West’s confusion is just bringing on a panic attack. “Never mind, I’ll figure it all out. Lampshade.”

He smiles. “Lampshade, got it.” He picks me up in a rough hug. “Eat,” he orders once he puts me down. “You’re wasting away. You’re going to have to run laps in the shower just to get wet.”

It happens just like that: the drawer in my brain labeled “shower” falls open, and all related content spills out.
Shower, shower, shower
. Pictures flash by one after the other: My first apartment after college, me trying to shower without a curtain; slipping and falling in the shower at the gym and breaking my wrist; yelling at my brother for leaving the shower dripping; tiny gray tiles in an open shower.

And then it’s gone.

“Claire?”

I jerk my head up. “Shower.”

“Right,” he says. “Take a shower. It’ll wake you up.”

“Hardy-har-har.”

He grins. “A little narcolepsy joke there. I gotta go help pack up the gear. I’ll be back in a few hours. I’ll text Davin, let him know you’re back from the dead. He should be here soon.”

I feel a wave of relief wash over me, but I don’t want to hurt my brother’s feelings. “There’s no reason for him to rush over. God knows what he did over here while I was out cold.”

“I let him scrub your bathroom and buy you groceries, but I drew the line at coordinating your accessories. You’ll be okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ll shower. Looks like the baby monitors are set up–”

“Davin’s idea, I couldn’t stop him.”

“–
so
if you’re worried about me just find a wi-fi signal somewhere.”

The Sentinels, aka “the baby monitors”: When they’re needed there’s one in every room, all shaped like innocuous household items. There’s a clock in the kitchen, a digital picture frame and a houseplant in the living room, even a dictionary on the bookshelf in the study. And, of course, the stupid teddy bear in my room.

Davin, the little technology nerd that he is, bought them after my first episode. Every Sentinel has a little camera in it, and the images from each room can be viewed on a secure website. It was a fast and clever solution when neither Davin nor West could be at the house during an episode. Davin regularly checked on me from his work computer, and West would make sure his band stayed at hotels that had wi-fi.

I hate them. They’re a reminder that when I’m enduring an episode I’m as helpless as a newborn.

“You’re my favorite sister, you know,” he says.

It feels good to hear our familiar, private joke that dates from my early surfing days. Although I was five years older, I had unwisely waited until I was seventeen to take it up. West, understandably, had not been happy to have his big sister tagging along with him to the beach, making him look uncool in front of his new friends.

I play along, delivering the required response. “I’m your only sis, tool.”

“Never said you were a sis,” he says, pretending to punch me in the shoulder.

Even though I’ve heard it a million times, I still smile at the double meaning, “sis” being surfer slang for an expert surfer girl–something West was delighted to remind me that I was
not
every five minutes for the first year I was “flailing and bailing.”

“Never said you were a bro,” I say.

“Never wanted to be friends anyways.”

We smile at each other.

“It’s good to be back,” I say.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” says West. A few minutes later, I hear the front door open and close.

For whatever reason the word “shower” is bothering me so much that I decide to take a bath instead. I use the clay face mask a friend gave me for my birthday and float in bubbles until my skin’s puckered up with water. I go the extra mile, putting on makeup and getting dressed. It’s when I’m blow-drying my hair that I notice how much longer it is. About three, four weeks of new hair, I think, holding a strand between my fingers and pondering the oddity of measuring time this way.

Then I sit on the bathroom floor and have a good cry.

An hour later I’m feeling pretty good, munching on a tostada, drinking iced tea, and reading and re-reading the mysterious card from Andy Gordon when I hear a key in the door.

Davin
, I think. I toss my tostada on the plate and wipe the grease off my fingers. I try to sound like casual ol’ me. “If I need my accessories coordinated,” I yell at the opening door without looking up, “I’ll call you.”

“I don’t do accessories.”

I jump out of my seat, knocking over the glass of iced tea I was drinking.

Dr. Brendan Charmant stands on the threshold, a fat manila envelope dangling from one of his hands, as unsmiling as ever. He takes the key out of the door, and looks me over while I scramble backwards through the fallout of ice cubes on the floor.

“You’re up,” he says. When I don’t answer he studies me closer, eyeing my hair and makeup. “Looks like you’re having a good day.”

I stand there in a puddle of iced tea, the empty glass in my hand, staring at the key he used to open my door. It’s attached to a ring of other keys, not loose in his hand. I don’t know what to say, this situation is so bizarre. “I’m–I…what are you doing here?”

He squints and purses his picture-perfect lips. “I told you yesterday I was coming over. Is Davin here?” He leans around me, looking into the apartment. “Did West already hit the road?”

“How do you know about that?” The smell of grilled steaks and sunscreen has followed him in from the hallway, reminding me that May is almost over and summer is just around the corner. Just another few weeks until the real heat starts–the kind that bakes into your skin, makes you sweat like a pig, and allows you to wear as few clothes as possible.
Almost time to hit the beach
.