The Girls of No Return (42 page)

“I don't know.” Margaret looked away. “Lida, we don't know anything yet. The doctors weren't sure if . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she blinked. “Boone's brother was her guardian, and he's in jail. If she . . . She'll probably become a ward of the state, at least for another year. Then . . .” She cleared her throat. “Alice Marshall was the best place for her. Bev and I were devastated when we learned that her scholarship had been discontinued.”

“Bev?”

She nodded. “I know she's prickly. But she cares more about you all than you'll ever know.” She stared absently at an old woman in a seat nearby who was tapping her cane rhythmically against her chair leg.

“And Gia?” One of my hands was shaking. I covered it with my other hand, hoping she hadn't noticed.

Margaret took a deep breath. “I don't know if Gia . . .” She exhaled loudly. “She'll probably go back to the Juvenile Detention Center in Des Moines.”

I started. “
Back?
”

Before Margaret could respond, the sliding doors hissed open, and a doctor with a stack of manila envelopes in her arms stepped through. Her eyes roved over the motley assortment of waiting room inmates until they rested on Margaret. She walked over.

“Margaret Olsen?”

“Yes.” Margaret stood so quickly that the magazine slithered off her lap and onto the ground.

“Let's speak privately,” the doctor said, gesturing with a free hand toward an unoccupied corner of the room.

They walked away together. I bent down and retrieved the magazine. There was an elderly couple on the cover, beaming as they held a squirming toddler between them. “The New Wave of Nontraditional Households,” the text read in bold lettering. I set the magazine facedown on Margaret's seat.

When Margaret returned, the doctor at her side, she was pale. She wouldn't make eye contact when she said, “Boone's awake. She'd . . . like to talk to you.”

“What about Gia?” I asked.

“She's still under sedation,” the doctor explained, her tone perfunctory, “and she previously expressed a desire for solitude when she wakes up.” She looked over at Margaret. “She will be speaking with you and the police, of course. Her wishes only extend so far.”

“Is she okay?” I couldn't keep the pitch of my voice from rising.

“Her arm is broken,” said Margaret, “and they'll have to re-set her nose. But yes, she'll be fine.”

I let the air out of my lungs and nodded.

“Lida. Boone's not . . .” Margaret's voice broke suddenly, and she took a couple of deep breaths before continuing. “Go see her.”

I followed the doctor through the doors and into a world completely at odds with the one I had just left. Gone were the anxious faces, the smell of people who have been sitting in one place for too long. This part of the hospital smelled like antiseptic and citrus. The halls were bright and noisy, with doctors and nurses speaking to one another in a clipped, abbreviated sort of language. The floor was made of white tile that squeaked underneath my hiking boots.

I followed the doctor down first one hall and then another. The hospital was much bigger than it appeared from the outside. I would never be able to find my way back alone. Finally, she stopped in front of a room and placed one of the manila folders in a file holder that hung on the door.

“I'll give you about ten minutes and then send a nurse in to escort you back to Ms. Olsen.” She twisted the knob on the door and pushed it open a crack. Then she turned to me. “Don't overdo it in there,” she said. “Your friend can't handle much right now.” She walked away.

I looked at my feet as I entered the room. Watched as first one foot and then the other squeaked across the tile, passing the wheeled base of a rolling table, inching past the foot of the hospital bed, making their way toward the head. Only when my feet had nowhere farther to go without crashing into what appeared to be a makeshift nightstand did I look up.

Boone lay propped up on four or five white pillows. A thin sheet lay over her waist, and she was wearing a threadbare hospital gown adorned with hundreds of pastel stars. Her arms were bruised, claw marks cascading from elbow to wrist. Her lip was cracked, and a yellow-and-green flower blossomed above it. A black patch covered her right eye, attached to an elastic band that circled her head. From beneath the patch, I could see a thick red line that stretched toward the middle of her cheek, black stitches forming a crosshatch all the way down.

“Well,” she said. “What should we call this scene? How about: ‘The Troops Come Back from Battle.' ” She coughed weakly and cleared her throat. “You should probably come over to my other side. Otherwise, I'll get dizzy from the effort of trying to figure you out.”

I walked around the foot of the bed and stood on her left.

“Quiet today, aren't you?” She studied me with one eye. “You might want to say something about now.”

“Is that —” I couldn't finish. My hands gripped the metal bar on the side of her bed until my knuckles turned the color of the bone beneath.

“It's as permanent as sin,” she said, and then laughed abruptly. “The eye's gone. I'll be able to work around it, sure, but it's never coming back.” She nodded. “There's an upside, though.”

“What?” I whispered.

“I'll only be able to see half of what's waiting for me in Minster. And that's worth something, wouldn't you say?”

I shook my head.

“Come on, Lida. Let's cut the crap. You can play the penitent later. Just tell me why you did it.” Boone spoke without malice; it was as if she had been preparing for her injury all her life, waiting for the inevitable. She seemed calm, unhurried. “What was going through your head?”

“I don't know.”

“Bad answer.”

“I don't know!” And the truth was, I didn't know — not really. Whatever it was that had compelled me to hand over the knife in that moment had disappeared as soon as I'd done it, like a figure retreating into shadow. Now I just felt empty.

“Look. You'll be going over this in your head for the rest of your life. The rest of your life. You might as well start to make sense of it now, before you forget what really happened, or you begin to change the facts so you can live with yourself. Here: I'll help. You picked up the knife and . . .” She waited, crossing her arms over her chest and staring at me.

I started to cry. What do you say when there is no explanation for what you've done? “It was the firelight,” I said, as I had to Margaret, the tears washing down my face. “I couldn't see.”

“Bullshit.”

“I didn't —” I started to say again, and then gave up. I couldn't fool myself any longer. Until that moment, I'd been able to pretend it was a dream, some sort of nightmare that I'd erase in the daylight. But looking at Boone's face, I got it. I finally got it. I'd created this nightmare, and now I had to live in it. My legs shook under me. “Oh my God, I'm so sorry,” I said.

“Your apology is all I need. Thank you. No, really, thank you. That and a nickel will make up for all of this.” She swept her arm up, cringing as she did so, and pointed to the patch over her eye. “Save your fucking apology. How about saying this, instead: ‘Gee, Boone, I meant to give you the knife. Really, I did. I just got confused and gave it to Gia, instead. Whoopsie-daisy. My bad.' ” Her eye narrowed, but not before a tear slipped out, inching its way down her face. “You chose her. After everything she did to you.”

I couldn't catch my breath. Every inhalation felt like a mountain ascent.

“Lida! Tell. Me. Why.” She raised a fist in front of her face and held it there. The knuckles were white, the veins popping out like raised riverbeds.

I tried to wipe the tears away with the heel of my hand. “You were always so much stronger.” My voice trembled with the truth.

“Double bullshit! I don't need your excuses.”

“Boone, I'm trying to tell you. I thought I'd gotten over her. I hoped I had. Hoped I was all better. Fierce, like you.”

“But.”

“But something —” I stopped. Took a breath. Tried again. “Something wouldn't let go. Not when I needed it to.” There was no stopping the tears now — they swam down my face, stinging. A sour wave of despair rose up through my stomach and into my throat and I bent over, heaving drily. When I straightened, I was breathing shallowly. “I love her.” I closed my eyes and shook my head. “I loved her.”

And that was it, exactly.

I listened to the hospital bed squeak and settle under Boone's shifting weight. I thought I could hear it creaking with every labored breath she took.

Finally, she said, “You were just her reflection. That's all you were to her.” She leaned forward. “And no one can love a reflection. Not really.”

A nurse knocked on Boone's door and stuck her head in. She had a crown of dyed copper curls that rested on her head like a bowl. “I hate to break this up,” she said perfunctorily, “but it's time Elsa rested.” She had a stack of papers in one hand, and she pulled one out and placed it in the manila folder on Boone's door.

Boone rearranged a pillow behind her back. She looked at me for a long time. When she spoke again, her voice was tired. “You never thought anyone understood you, Townie. But I did, all along. Too bad you didn't realize that sooner.” She closed her eye. “Good luck living with this,” she said. “You'll need it.”

I walked mechanically to the door. Just as the nurse was about to close it behind us, Boone called out. “Hey.”

The nurse opened it a bit wider.

“You know, Townie, it occurs to me that maybe I should be thanking you.” She was choosing her words carefully, each one a tight bullet of sarcasm.

The nurse looked at me. I looked at Boone in confusion.

“I guess you did me a good turn, in a way.” Her laugh was hollow. “If you'd given me the knife, I would have killed her.”

The nurse raised her eyebrows, but she shut the door softly and started to lead me back to the waiting room. Right before we reached the sliding glass doors, I stopped.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” I asked, pointing to the unisex restroom on my right.

The nurse glanced from me to the bathroom. I could see her trying to decide if it was a good idea to let me go.

I pointed at the glass doors, through which I could see Margaret in her chair. “I think I can find my way out,” I said. “Really.”

She nodded once. “When you're done, go back to the waiting room. You're not allowed to be in this area unattended.” She shuffled the papers in her hands.

“I promise,” I said. My fingers were already turning the bathroom knob.

I shut the door behind me and waited until I heard the nurse walking away before turning the lock and sliding down onto the tile with my back against the wall. I placed my head between my knees, willing the nausea to go away. I sat like that for a long time, wanting so badly not to think, not to remember Boone's face, the set of her jaw, the sound of her voice, but knowing that it was useless. I'd never forget.

Finally, I stood and walked to the sink. I splashed water on my cheeks, trying not to glance up. I didn't want to see the face looking back at me. But I had no choice. As I straightened and turned toward the paper dispenser, I caught a glimpse of my cheek, my hair. I stared at myself in the mirror and wished there was someone else there instead.

Was that what Gia wished for as well? The question came out of nowhere, as clear as if I was reading it on a billboard. I could hear Boone:
You were just her reflection. And no one can love a reflection. Not really
. Gia didn't love me; she loved how I loved her. I'd been so eager for her friendship — for whatever she could give me — that I hadn't stopped to wonder why she'd picked me. Why she needed me.

I'd never know what Gia really saw when she looked in a mirror. No one would, I expected. But just as Ben's Gia was a perfect, sexy woman, mine was fearless, stunning, brilliant, and thrilling. Gia needed me to be her mirror, to reflect that version of herself back to her, the version that I loved.

I knew I'd take that Gia with me, whether I wanted to or not. And I know this is crazy, but it felt like I was stealing something precious. Because I knew that my Gia,
that
Gia, would live on only in my memories, nowhere else. And the real Gia wouldn't be able to get her back, to be that person ever again.

And what about Boone? What would she see in the mirror? I asked myself the question, but I knew the answer already. She saw what I saw — what everyone saw. Boone was herself. Irredeemably, unabashedly, ferociously herself. She lived in her skin the way we all wanted to live: without excuses. And I hadn't seen that. Or, if I had, I hadn't cared. I'd wanted what Gia offered instead. I'd wanted to be chosen over and over, no matter what, no matter why. No matter who.

That's when it happened. I grabbed onto the smooth lip of the sink and sobbed. My knuckles were white against the porcelain, veins protruding as my hands shook with every gasping breath. From some deep, black cavern inside of me came a sound that I'd never heard before and haven't heard since, a sound that contained the sudden, piercing knowledge of what I'd done to Boone, what I'd done to her life. And worse: that I could never, ever take it back. It was there in that bathroom in the Steele Memorial Hospital, faced with what I'd done, that I felt my heart truly break for the third time in my life. And this time, I knew
I
had broken it.

 

Margaret stood when I came through the sliding glass doors. She had a concerned expression on her face that turned to a deep sadness when I came closer and she could see the splotches and tearstains on my cheeks. She enveloped me in a hug that surprised me with its warmth. Pressed up against her shoulder, my face buried in the flannel of her shirt, I cried again. I thought, perhaps, that I might never stop. She held me there, and she didn't say anything. Finally, I pulled away and wiped my face messily on my sleeve. We sat down again. I took a deep breath. I thought I would speak loudly, forcefully, but my voice came out in a whisper.