To Feel Stuff (14 page)

“Your call. But you might as well enjoy yourself in the back. Make yourself a stiff drink,” the driver told me.

After we situated me in the very back seat, the driver got in up front and, making eye contact with me in the rearview mirror, asked, “Do you want to listen to the radio?”

I said, “Yeah, anything popular's fine.”

So he turned on the radio and the first thing we heard was Diana Ross's “I'm Coming Out,” and then I felt like the limo had suddenly been turned into the saddest disco that had ever existed.

“Do you want the divider down or up? Company or no company?” he asked.

“Please, please don't think I'm rude,” I said, “because this in no way reflects on what I think about you, or what kind of person you may be, but—no company. Definitely no company. I feel like I need to be alone right now.” So the driver pressed the button on his dashboard and the divider went up.

On the way back to the infirmary, other cars kept adjusting their speeds so that they could try to get a look at who was inside the limo. There was a mirrored treatment on the windows, making seeing in totally impossible, but this didn't seem to sink in, ever. One lady almost rear-ended the car in front of her because she was trying so hard to figure out who I was and if I was worth it, and after a few seconds she rolled down her window and mouthed the words, “Roll down your window!” to me.

“It's futile! It's futile!” I yelled back at her, which was futile on my part because it's not like she could even hear me.

When we got to the corner of Waterman and Brown and Health Services came into view, I saw you. And what else can I say except that I pussied out, El, because I thought I would have more time to mentally prepare myself for our next interaction. So I started begging the driver, and I'm not proud of it at all, “Please, oh shit! Slow down and pull over! Back up and go back around the corner! Stop the limo!” but the divider prevented him from hearing me. The car kept going toward Health Services like I didn't exist. Totally panicked, I poked at all the knobs and buttons that were near me, hoping that one of them activated the speaker system. Some chunks of ice came out of a dispenser and rolled onto the carpet, and a cigarette lighter popped out of a nearby panel. “Stop, stop, stop!” I kept saying this whole time, just in case the microphone had started working.

Realizing I had no time to spare because we'd be in front of you in seconds, I flung myself off the seat and onto the floor, and I used my arms to drag myself across the length of the limo. When I got to the partition I supported my weight with one fist. Like a maniac, I began pounding on the glass with the other one.

“Stop! Please stop!”

As the limo jerked to a stop, the divider came down. The driver looked completely riled.

“What's wrong?” he yelled. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I said. “I'm fine. I just need you to stop the car and pull over, please.”

“Why? What's wrong? We're like two buildings away.”

“You see that girl coming down the walkway?” I asked, and I ducked farther down while I was mentioning you even though I knew you couldn't see me through the windows. But you'd been insanely observant during my first encounters with you, and while I was lying on the floor, I was honestly nervous. I was nervous that somehow you'd be able to figure out that my eyes were on you if I left them there. I was even nervous that you'd know I was thinking about you, that all of your crazy illnesses had left you with the supernatural ability to eavesdrop on my brain waves.

“The older one or the younger one?” the driver asked.

“The younger,” I said.

“What, you like her? You're embarrassed about my limo in front of her?”

“Yes, something like that,” I said, because it was all too much to explain. “Can we just park for a second and wait until she's gone?”

“Depending on how long this takes, I'm going to have to charge you a waiting fee.”

“That's fine.”

“Whatever you want,” the driver said, and pulled the limo over to the west side of Brown Street. We were on the wrong side of the road, but since it was the end of a holiday weekend, no one was around to stop us.

“Is she still there?” I asked after awhile, because I was still on the floor and couldn't see anything.

“She's getting into a van. Still getting into the van. Still getting into the van. Annnnnnd, they're pulling away.”

“Okay,” I said. “As soon as they've rounded the corner, let's count to ten to make sure she didn't forget anything, and then we can pull up to Health Services.”

“They've rounded the corner,” the driver told me while turning the ignition. “Do I really have to count to ten, or can we just ballpark it?”

“Ten, please. Ten.” I knew I was being a pain in his ass.

Under his breath, the driver muttered, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.” Then he raised his voice. “Is now okay? The older one's still out there on the curb.”

“Yes,” I said. “That's okay.”

 

When Vivian and I were riding up in the elevator together, I tried to keep my tone as casual as possible. “So where was Elodie going?” I asked, thinking to myself, “You jackass.”

“Elodie? She had a follow-up at the hospital for her Raynaud's.”

“Oh. Do you think she'll be gone for a while?” I sounded like such a fraud, but people get away with being fake every day and no one calls them on it, so I thought I had a fair chance of pulling it off.

At the second floor Vivian got behind me and pushed me into the hallway, and I was instantly hot. “I think it'll take at least a few hours,” she said. “They're running some tests to make sure everything's under control. Why all the questions about Elodie?”

“Just asking,” I shrugged.

“Wait a minute. Do you like her?”

“Sure, I like her.”

Vivian seemed to be getting worked up about what she was slowly discovering, and I let her discover it, since I figured, you know, the jig was up. “Wait, do you like-like her?”

“Yes,” I finally admitted. “I like-like her.”

Hearing this really excited Vivian, because she took a step back and slapped her heart and faked some swooning in front of me. “If she likes you back, it'll be just like
General Hospital
up in here.”

I said, “Exactly.”

It was easier to talk Vivian into going to CVS than I thought it was going to be. I'd predicted that she was going to give me a speech about how she had a responsibility to ensure my safety while under her care, but when I pushed her just a little bit, she stopped saying no. All I had to do was hold onto her knees and say, “I'll only let you go if you agree to go to the drugstore. Otherwise I'm going to hold on tight to you forever, just like this. We'll make your boyfriend so jealous, he'll want to kill me, except he won't be able to kill me because I'll be attached to you, and he'd never want to cause you bodily harm.”

“Chess!” Vivian yelled, although she didn't try to pry me from her, so I could tell I was eventually going to win. “I could lose my job. Something catastrophic could happen to you, and then you could sue me.”

“Nothing's going to happen to you or me,” I said. I was surprised to hear that coming from me and even more surprised to find out that yeah, I actually believed it. The infirmary was doing me good, I thought—not really because of the treatment and care I was being given for my legs, but because it was helping to rebuild my dented confidence.

And I saw that Vivian believed me, too, because she suddenly became calm and told me she'd do it. She asked what kinds of things I needed. I wrote her a list.

Later we went through the bag of purchases on my bed. I'd told her to get me imitation crystal candle holders with white tapers so I could at least pretend to be organizing something slightly classy, but she bought those fat red and green religious candles with Jesus and the Virgin Mary on them instead. She told me that that they'd have the most impact against the white of the infirmary walls. Also, she said she thought they could function as conversation pieces if you and I ran out of things to talk about, but I said no, no, I believed we had tons of hidden things in common.

I was happy with the red plastic tablecloth and the sparkling apple juice, but wished she'd found plastic champagne flutes instead of tumblers. I picked up the can of rose air freshener and asked, “What's this?” Vivian said, “Rose air freshener,” and I said, “I mean, why'd you buy it?” and she said, “I thought it would make this room smell more romantic.” I liked the way the room smelled, which was like the shampoo you'd used before you left for your appointment. It was like mint gum.

Vivian also got herself some red hair dye, which really seemed to mean a lot to her. “If I want to change on the inside,” she said, “wouldn't it make sense that I could force it with some help from the outside?”

I told her, “I don't know about dye, but becoming handicapped definitely works.”

We split up the duties, with me doing most of the stuff having to do with the table, since I could roll around it Vivian handled everything that required heights or extensive mobility. In the middle of all this, Sarah showed up for the overnight shift and looked so bewildered that it seemed like she might quit right then and there.

“What in the world are you guys doing?” she asked. “Establishing a particular mood,” I said.

So she stood in the threshold and watched us for a while.

At 8:02
P.M.
the phone rang. I still remember looking at the clock. It was the hospital coordinator telling Vivian that you were on your way back. I caved in to the rose air freshener because I thought you might like it, thought you might think it was funny, and Vivian pushed me across the room while I held down the button on the nozzle.

Paxil CR: Get back to being you

 

The day you came back, Vivian and I killed time going through the new promotional gifts from the pharmaceutical companies. She especially liked the clear pen from an antidepressant manufacturer that had a changing rainbow light inside it

I said, “I guess the point of this pen is that you're supposed to watch it and feel soothed, and then you're supposed to connect that feeling with the medication.”

“They'd do better to distribute pens that depressed everyone instead, don't you think?” she asked.

“Pens that have ‘WE'RE ALL DOOMED' written across them.”

“I'd carry around one of those pens,” Vivian said.

I cupped my hands around the pen and peered in through a gap between my thumbs. “This is one hell of a pen,” I told her. “Come with me to the blood closet. Let's go see how it looks in the dark.”

We sat on stools in the dark closet and watched the rotating colors. We were hypnotized by the moment when red turned to pink, when pink turned to orange. There was a split millisecond between colors, but the eye couldn't catch the switch. This seemed like the visual equivalent of what it was like to be getting sick all the time. I could never distinguish the point in time when the nausea came on or the fever began or the pain started. Or stopped. Because once things stopped, it was already too late to appreciate the relief.

I figured that it was this way with tons of things. People dumped each other and then couldn't remember why they'd ever thought the love died. So then they got back together, and had to dump each other again if the initial sensation returned. People ate a new kind of food, were grossed out, and then decided to order the same food at a different restaurant, thinking it would taste different. People told the same bad joke to a second crowd, thinking that it would go over better than it did on the first one.

Vivian said the pen reminded her of all the nuclear reactors she'd seen in the late-night movies that she'd liked to watch as a teenager.

We both agreed that the pen was cool. But Vivian let me keep it, because she'd taken the acid-reflux yo-yo last week.

“So, you lost your house?” I asked.

Vivian was rubbing her left eye, dragging its corner even closer to her ear. “Yeah. I did.”

“Where are you going to live now?”

“Well, I can stay in a hotel until I find something to rent, or—”

“Or what?”

“Shawn asked me to move in with him. He wants to live together. He even wants the pets.”

“Are you going to do it?” I asked.

“If I lived with him,” Vivian told me, smiling and cringing, “that would mean that I couldn't do that maneuver where I break up with him anymore. Because I wouldn't have anywhere else to go while I waited for him to beg me to return.” She threw her head back. “Well, I have the cell phone, and I could walk around somewhere, the mall or something, and ignore his first five calls, and then pick up. But if I just want to be at home, it's going to make things tough.”

“Especially in bad weather.”

“I know it's my problem,” she said, shaking her head. “I know that I've refused to let myself be happy with him. When I retain happiness for an extended period of time, I break up with him, and I go back to my house and wait for the anxiety to come. When it does, and it usually takes about forty-eight hours, I feel like I can go back.”

“I'm surprised he keeps taking you back,” I said.

“He knows I'm a coward.”

“Then why doesn't he leave you?”

“He says it's because he knows that I'm such a wuss about the relationship that he can set it aside, like a quirk,” Vivian said.

“I think it sounds like you're planning on moving in with him.”

“I'd have to cut the drama.” She was rocking on her stool while looking at me. “You know me as well as anyone. Do you think I can do it?”

“That's not for me to say,” I answered.