Marshal looks at me for a moment, then shakes his head. Lesson learned, he’s not gonna fight. I offer my fist and say, “No hard feelin’s, man. It’s just … well, you caught me by surprise and I reacted.”
He taps my fist with his, relieved, I think, to find the dramatics over and done with. “So, what’s this guy….”
“Halberstam.”
“Yeah, what’s Halberstam up to that you wanna take this risk?”
I have to think about it for a moment, to organize my thoughts. “Look, if you reviewed a transcript of one of Halberstam’s sessions, you wouldn’t find anything to complain about. It’d all seem normal. But the jerk reminds us at every session, and usually more than once, that he holds….” I’m about to say our, but catch myself at the last minute. “That he holds Carolyn Grand’s future in his hands. If he snaps his fingers, she’ll find herself confined to a crazy house for an indefinite period of time. So, maybe I’m completely wrong. Maybe Halberstam’s on the up and up. Maybe he sincerely wants to help me. But I’ve dealt with malignant therapists before and I’m not willing to take the chance.”
“I hear that, Kirk, and I can’t criticize you.” Marshal nods agreement. “But I can’t give you a price off the top of my head. Like what you want’s not somethin’ I do, so I gotta look around. Give me a day.”
Back in our dark apartment, I strip off my sweats and slide into bed, still nobody else awake. The bed feels empty tonight, empty and enormous, with me a tiny speck barely afloat in an empty ocean.
I’m still keyed up and I draw my legs toward my chest. For all the macho bullshit with Marshal, at heart I’m scared shitless. I’m scared and I’m tired of living under threat and I’m thinking maybe we weren’t meant to survive. I mean, not every baby lives to be an adult. Thousands and thousands of little kids die every year. And not just from disease or accident. Maybe we were meant to be one of them.
All in a rush, Hank Grand—I won’t call him our father—leaps into my consciousness. He’s been lingering, a shadow just out of sight, and now he’s come to say hello. Unlike the rest, I watched the movies, as much as I could stand. Hank appeared in many, his blurred face no more than a dancing gray balloon. I was also shown a mug shot taken when Hank was first arrested. His regular features were composed, his mud-brown eyes slick and shiny, his posture relaxed. Like he didn’t give a shit.
I picture those zombie eyes, compare them to Halberstam’s. The doctor’s blue eyes glittered with life, with …
The bed shrinks as a question forms. Halberstam’s eyes are first of all calculating. For him, it’s about making plans, devising strategies, putting them into play. It’s about watching other people dance to his tune. But there’s need there, too. Need and lust.
So, which of the two—Hank Grand or Laurence Halberstam—is more dangerous? Or are the threats merely different, neither one more or less deadly than the other?
Suddenly I feel Eleni’s presence, as real as if she were breathing in my ear. As if she were spooned into me, holding me in her arms. Victoria and Martha have been dominating the body for almost two weeks, leaving Eleni, Serena, and me to communicate in bits and pieces. Halberstam’s been the sole topic most of the time, specifically whether Eleni should let him into her pants. That’s not Eleni’s style, not at all, but the way we’re thinking, Halberstam won’t commit us as long as he gets laid every so often.
Lying here now, thinking about Halberstam’s cold stare, I’ve had a change of heart. Halberstam doesn’t need an incentive to keep us around. He’ll toy with us until he decides we’re no longer fun. And then—
I stir, suddenly restless, when Tina’s voice sounds in my ear. “Daddy,” she announces, her tiny voice surprisingly cool, “will come for me. Daddy always comes for me.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
SERENA
I don’t find il Dottore’s office bland, only soothing, colors not a single shade as Victoria claimed. Pale threads of orange and red and ochre and green running through the fabric of the wallpaper, the blue edge of a robe worn by a porcelain statue of the virgin in a lit niche, a celadon bud vase, a dragon of lavender jade that belongs in a museum, two rosy-red pigs on their hind legs doffing top hats, they lead my eyes around the room, from pleasure to pleasure, the whole screaming money, money, money. The price adds to the seamless whole, everything connected, a single message conveyed in a sensual dance, the chefs’ cliché confirmed: you eat first with your eyes.
Il Dottore’s working hard when I enter his sanctuary, the picture of diligence, one hand brushing his forehead, leaning forward, shoulders stiff and bent, the posture by now as predictable as it is studied and I know he can’t help himself. It’s all he’s got.
I wait patiently, my delight in the room sufficient for the time being, wait for his gaze to turn my way, wondering if I’ll find the piercing glare reported by Victoria or the predatory calculation discovered by Martha or the lust Kirk recognized. But I don’t see any of that when he looks up, only a tired man approaching middle age, hoping against hope to maintain the superhero fantasies that fueled his adolescence. His eyes travel the length of my body, across my windblown hair, amber eye shadow, curving lashes, violet lipstick, over a multitiered necklace of glass beads, my necklace of many colors, a female echo of Joseph’s coat that drops into the neckline of a silky white blouse.
“Please introduce yourself,” he demands.
“Serena Grand, at your service.”
“Ah, you’re the one Martha called a troublemaker. Last week, according to Martha, your control of Carolyn Grand caused her to be late for her appointment.”
Il Dottore’s stilted tone is unexpected, the man trying too hard, his effort only revealing the child beneath, vulnerable, unprotected. I want to console him despite Martha’s warning: Do you remember what it was like in the hospital? Don’t give the bastard an excuse.
I do remember what it was like, the lost days, weeks, months, heavily drugged, each moment weighing down the next. Cinderblock walls framed the long corridors, every hallway identical. You were in the same place no matter where you were, and the worst part—the absolute worst—your suffering might never end, no time limit to the dead time, no life or liberty or pursuit of happiness. Your most basic rights taken away because you happen to be who you are.
“I did,” I admit, my tone contrite. “I was carried away.”
“By what?”
“By a chance to exist, to become flesh and dwell among you.”
Halberstam responds with a sagacious nod. “‘Dwell among you,’” he says. “Very nice. But Carolyn Grand committed herself to an appointment she couldn’t keep. And before you say anything about there being no Carolyn Grand, please understand this. From my point of view, there must be a Carolyn Grand, a responsible adult who can function, with appropriate support, in the community.”
I can see why Martha hates this man who doesn’t get it, who will never understand because he cannot step far enough away from his own needs to know the needs of another, to make those needs his own, a burden freely held.
Victoria whispers in my ear and I repeat what she tells me, word for word.
