Vibes (21 page)

We stare at each other in silence.

I'm so hurt, I can hardly speak above a whisper. "Well then, I guess you're glad we never got together."

"I didn't say that." He reaches toward me, and before I can pull away he's buried his hands in my hair and pulled my face toward his. Very softly he says, "I
forgive
your faults."

Part of me wants to give in to the plaintive way he's looking at me, but I hate what he said too much. Who is Gusty to forgive me for being who I am? "I didn't ask for your forgiveness. And I don't care what you think of me."

I pull away from him and walk back into the school building. Part of me wants to cry, but I won't let myself. Instead I calmly walk back into the Contemplation Room, find my table, pull out my chair, and sit back down.

I am perfectly calm. I do not care about what just happened. It doesn't affect me at all.

I'm well into the second page of my essay before it hits me like a punch to the stomach. I told Gusty the truth about reading minds because I wanted him to know the real me. But he does know the real me. I'm judgmental, and I never let anyone too close because I'm afraid.

Every word he said about me is true.

I feel like the scum that grows at the bottom of a dirty shower curtain. I feel like the sponge that mops up the scum and then is left wet on the rim of the bathtub to continue growing the scum. I feel like the starving rat who finds the scum on the sponge and has to make the decision: eat the scum or die?

I feel awful.

I keep going over my fight with Gusty, and I can't figure out what it means. He said he forgives my faults, but do I forgive him? Because even if what he said is true, it was still really crappy to lay me open like that.

Is Gusty the jerk, or am I? Are we both jerks?

How many things have to go wrong between us before we finally just accept the fact that we're not supposed to be together?

At the end of the day I'm putting my books away in my cubbyhole when I see Mallory weaving through the crowd. He's carrying two backpacks, one draped over each shoulder, and he seems to be in a hurry. I position myself near the front door so that he has to walk past me. He glances through me for half a second before breezing right by.

Now I feel like the poop of the rat who has eaten the scum off the sponge.

Without even thinking about why, I follow him, brushing past people milling in the hallway. I try to clear my mind completely as I walk out the doors into the dim autumn air.

Mallory is walking fast, and I slink along behind him. He cuts across the park behind Journeys, past the bench where we waited for a victim for our practical joke. I pause for just a moment to touch the graying wood with my fingertips as I pass by. Then I quicken my pace behind Mallory.

It's windy, and the sky is full of clouds. The leaves sound like crinkling paper when I step on them, and I can smell that beautiful scent of autumn. It's the smell of decay, but somehow it smells so green and true.

With the leaves twirling around him and his wild orange hair standing up, Mallory looks like a white wizard striding through the park. I have to jog to keep up.

He turns onto Miller Street, kicking up dust behind him. I'm starting to get a stitch in my side, but I keep following.

I don't know why I'm doing this. I am too afraid to talk to him, but I want to see where he's going. Somehow I think if I can follow him, I might see some sign that he will forgive me and I can feel a little less sad. But that's stupid. Life doesn't work like that. You don't really get signs. But sometimes hoping for a sign is all I can do.

Mallory walks a long way down Miller Street, past the little houses that all look alike, with slanted carports and gravel on the roofs. After he crosses Colchester Avenue, he walks by the big houses where the doctors live. Each house is grand in a false way. One is made entirely of stone, another has thick wooden beams, and another looks like the kind of monstrosity Scarlett O'Hara would live in. Finally Mallory turns in to the hospital parking lot and walks toward the front door.

I know what he's doing. He's going to see Eva.

I hang back behind a fake ficus tree and watch while he talks to a receptionist with penciled-on eyebrows. She points to the hallway on the left, and Mallory takes off again. I follow behind him, careful not to be seen. He winds through the tiled hallways at a fast clip. He finally stops before a ward that's closed off with two heavy double doors. I hide just around the corner near a cart full of gross-smelling food and listen to his conversation with the receptionist.

"I'm here to leave some things for Eva Kearns-Tate."

"Your name?"

"Mallory St. Croix."

"I need to see if you're on the list. One moment." I hear the clicking of computer keys, and then she says, "Okay. You need to empty your pockets. I'll give you everything back when you leave."

"She's not in here for drugs."

"I still need you to empty your pockets, and I'll need to look through those bags."

I hear a couple zippers and then lots of shuffling, as if the nurse is sifting through Mallory's backpacks.

What kind of unit is this?

Once she approves the backpacks, she gives him something to wear on his wrist and then I hear a loud buzzer go off. Soon I hear the voice of a man say, "Follow me," then the thunk of the heavy doors closing behind them.

Finally I can peek at the sign on the doors. All it says is I
NPATIENT
W
ARD.

What the hell does that mean? Is that for chronically ill people? Does Eva have some kind of horrible disease?

I know there's one person here I can ask—the chief of surgery. I follow the hallways back to where I came from, looking for the surgery ward.

I haven't come to my mom's workplace for a few years, but it's still familiar. They have lots of arrows painted on the walls to help patients find their way from one department to another. There are fake plants everywhere that my mom wishes they would take away. It seems as though there's always someone mopping the floor and there's always something beeping and buzzing. When I finally find Mom's new office, I stop to read the nameplate. It says S
ERENA
T
HEOPHILUS
, M.D., C
HIEF OF
S
URGERY
in large white letters. The door to her office is open and I poke my head in.

She is sitting behind a pile of charts two feet thick. She rubs her forehead as she scribbles. In the middle of a sentence she seems to get an idea and mumbles into a little tape recorder. She seems tired and stressed out, but she also seems really competent and smart. For the first time in a long time, I'm proud of my mom for who she is and what she does. She cuts into people to save their lives. She is the chief of surgery in a big hospital. That's pretty cool.

I wait quietly, watching, until she closes one chart and picks up another. Then I clear my throat.

"Kristi!" She stands quickly, almost knocking over a big pile of papers. "What are you doing here?" She seems crazy happy to see me.

I shrug as I take a chair across from her. It's fake leather and makes a farting sound as I sit down. "I just wanted to check out your new office."

She spreads her arms wide to show off how big the room is. There's a large philodendron drooping over a tall file cabinet. On the wall behind her is a tapestry of a human face composed of different geometric shapes, all in brown. It's very ugly, but it's interesting to look at, too. There's a frame propped on her desk next to her phone. I don't have to look at the picture to know it's a photo of her, me, and Dad that we took for a Christmas card five years ago. I hate how I look in that photo. My face is too round and my eyes are too big, and I'm smiling like a red-faced maniac. I complained about that picture, but Mom loved it because she said everyone in our family looked really happy. It makes me sad that she still keeps a picture of Dad around.

"It's nice in here," I tell her.

"It sure beats having nothing but a locker." She leans back in her chair, studying me. Strands are pulled haphazardly from the bun in her hair. "You know, honey, that phone call from Brian got me thinking. Maybe it's time to pull you out of Journeys after all. Give you a chance for a fresh start."

I can't believe my ears. "Where is this coming from?"

"Well, you've been complaining about the school from day one. And it struck me as very strange that Brian apologized for a staff member assuming you
can't
read minds. That seems a little kooky to me." She raises her eyebrows. "How about it? Want out?"

Now's my chance to escape Journeys forever, if I want to. I'd never have to go back to Explorations of Nature to learn about how Robert Frost informs the study of cellular biology. I'd never have to sit in the stupid Contemplation Room scratching at homework. I'd never have to listen to Brian exuding his joy in life during Morning Meeting. I've been wanting an escape from Journeys for a long time, but suddenly I don't want to leave. It's weird, it's crazy, it's loopy, but where else would the principal entertain the possibility that a student has psychic powers? It's probably the only school in America where I halfway fit in. "I think I'd rather stay," I tell Mom.

"Wait!" Mom picks up her tape recorder and points it at me. "Can I get that on tape?" I think she's kidding, but she pushes record.

To humor her I say very clearly, "I, Kristi Carmichael, still think that Journeys is
totally
bogus, but I don't want to leave."

"Totally
bogus?" she asks testily.

"Well, fifty percent bogus."

"Okay, then." She clicks her recorder off, smiling. She seems proud of me. If I didn't know better, I'd say I can feel it coming out of her. I even get a quick flash of myself through her eyes. For a second I hear her thinking how grown up I look and how pretty, but then I remember I'm probably not psychic after all. Old habits. One thing I do know for sure, though: my mom kind of admires me. At least, she's looking at me like she does.

I guess I kind of admire her, too.

But I'm not one to dwell on mushy crap like this. I'm here for a purpose. "I was walking around earlier," I begin, carefully choosing my words. "What's the inpatient ward for?"

"It's for the mentally ill, mostly. But they have a drug-treatment program there and a clinic for eating disorders."

"Like anorexia?"

"Yes, like that." She narrows her eyes at me, suddenly suspicious. She can sense an ulterior motive lurking behind my wide, innocent eyes. "Why do you ask?"

"Why do people need a clinic just to start eating again?" I ask. Blink, blink, innocence, innocence.

"Anorexia isn't that simple, Kristi. Don't you know that?" Her eyes trail me up and down, checking to see if I'm starving myself, which is a real laugh.

"Don't worry about me, Mom. I'm not so caught up in my looks that I'd stop
eating
just to get skinny."

Mom grinds her teeth the way she always does when she's offended. "Kristi, people don't become anorexic out of
vanity
."

"Then why else?"

"I don't know. Control? Fear? I'm not a psychiatrist, but I've seen enough organ failure in anorexics to know it kills plenty of people. And it's an awful way to die." She shakes her head, seeming to relive some distant memory of a patient.

This makes me think. All this time I've made fun of Evil Incarnate for being anorexic. I never thought that she might
die
from it.

If she weren't evil, I would apologize to her. But she'll just have to settle for a cease-fire.

"So," Mom begins, weaving her fingers under her chin. "Dad's coming over tonight."

My stomach drops and I have to catch my breath. "Why?"

"He owes us that much, don't you think?"

"He owes us more," I tell her, but I swallow hard. After everything that's happened, I don't want to see him.

"You don't have to be there if you don't want to. Ann and you could go to the movies."

This is tempting, but slinking away seems a pretty cowardly thing to do. I should be there. This is my family, and it's important. "No. I'll come home."

She nods, and I can see she's even prouder of me.

Mom and I agree to meet at home at six o'clock, and I head toward the front of the hospital to start my long walk home. I'm following the yellow arrows, deep in thought, so I don't even see him before I turn the corner and ram right into him. "Mallory!"

"Oh. Hi," he mumbles. His hand goes up to the red patch on his neck. The skin still looks a little raw, but I can see there's no more infection. Now that his skin is better, I can notice his nose is straight and narrow, and his lips are full and even. Mallory is going to be a good-looking guy soon, and for a moment I wish again that I could want him. But even knowing how handsome he'll probably be, I still don't want him the way I want Gusty. I can't imagine wanting anyone else that way. "What are you doing here?" he asks, his eyes hooded and wary.

"My mom works here," I say, glad I don't have to admit I followed him.

"Oh." He tucks his hand into the pocket of his white jeans and waits for me to say something.

There's only one thing to say. "Mallory, I'm sorry," I tell him. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

His eyes skirt over me, unsure. He bites the corner of his lip. "What happened to your clothes?"

I look down at the blue T-shirt and jeans I'm wearing. "I didn't have the energy."

"Well, you shouldn't dress just like everyone else. It's not you."

"I know." We stand there dumbly, each of us looking over the other's shoulder. Part of me wants to run away, but I know if I do we'll never be right again. It's now or never. "Mallory, Gusty and I have unfinished business. It's been that way since long before I met you."

"Eva told me." He nods abstractly.

"She's really sick, isn't she?"

"In a way you and I can't imagine." His brown eyes light on the floor.

I look at him while I try to get my courage up. He seems worried and burdened, but he no longer seems angry at me. He shifts his weight as though he wants to leave, so I finally make myself say it. "Our friendship means a lot to me."