“Thank you! Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Clulow,” she said, backing out of his tiny office.
* * *
It was eight o’clock on a school night and Isabel’s mother was furious.
“I thought rehearsals were never more than two hours after school.”
“Mom, we’ve got a play coming up and no one knows their lines yet. We had to stay late. Mr. Clulow said—”
“Mr. Clulow said. Mr. Clulow said. That’s all I ever hear—Mr. Clulow said this, Mr. Clulow said that. Well, Mr. Clulow said rehearsals wouldn’t take time away from homework assignments on school nights!”
“I don’t have that much work tonight. I have history and English and that’s it.”
“No math? No science?”
“No. And for English all I have to do is read one chapter and I can do that in fifteen minutes.”
“Your father’s home and he hasn’t seen you in a week. You missed dinner and he’s got a conference call at nine, so I don’t know when you two will have a chance to visit.”
“He’s coming to the play, right? Please tell me he’s not going to miss the play.”
“Of course he’s coming to the play.”
“It’s just…” she trailed off.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“What were you going to say? I hate it when you do that.”
“Nothing! Seriously. I forgot what I was going to say. He’s just…like…he’s just never here.”
“Don’t be silly, Isabel,” her mother said sharply. “Your father has to work, you know. He loves you, but his job—”
“I know, I know. His job calls for a lot of travel. I’ve been hearing that since I was born. I get it.”
“But he tries.”
“But he tries,” said Isabel.
Five
“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Isabel slowly follows the sounds of the shrieks, unsure whether she wants to find out who or what is behind them.
“Get your hands offa me, you motherfucker!”
Through the front window of the unit, Isabel watches as two aides try to pin down a young, wiry newcomer. Just as they seem to get her under control enough to slip her lanky frame into restraints, she lets out a piercing scream.
“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you! You hear me? I’m gonna kill you.”
Because she is young-looking and breakably thin, it startles Isabel to hear this come from the girl’s mouth.
The restraints are finally in place. The new girl is sapped of all her angry energy and is sobbing on the ground, her head twisted to the side, her face shiny with sweat.
Isabel looks down the winding driveway and, as the black girl is hauled past by two hospital aides, stares at her only way out.
I’ll walk down the driveway, wait for a truck and step in front of it.
The thought calms Isabel. It soothes her to plan her fatal escape.
First I’ve got to get privileges.
* * *
Kristen, the girl Isabel had met the night before, chirps “good morning” and walks past Isabel out the door of the unit. Isabel watches Kristen’s hand shake as she attempts to light her cigarette from a box on the wall that contains what appears to be something resembling a car lighter. Matches and lighters are confiscated on arrival.
The blubbery man she sat next to the day before lumbers past and joins Kristen just outside the door to the unit. Isabel turns her head and hopes her ear can bionically pick up their conversation through the pane of glass. It’s so riddled with greasy fingerprints that Isabel is careful to keep at least one inch of space between herself and the disgusting barrier.
“What’s up with that new girl?” Kristen asks him. “Did you see her yesterday?”
It’s disconcerting for everyone on the unit to see someone in restraints. In the jacket. To hear someone resist. The new girl will provide conversation material for the entire day: Did you hear the new girl this morning? Did you see how long it took the orderlies to get the jacket on her?
“Her name’s Keisha,” the giant tells Kristen in a conspiratorial voice. “She was gang-raped.”
“She was gang-raped?” Kristen repeats it slowly, as if it’s a spelling bee and she has to use the vocabulary word in a sentence.
“Yeah,” he answers, pleased to have Kristen’s undivided attention. Isabel, inside the unit but off to the side where they can’t see her, feels her head butt up against the slimy window. “She was raped for four hours or something. And she was baby-sitting her nephew or something, and the guys? They killed the kid. They killed her nephew she was sitting for. Then they took off. She lost it. Completely fucking lost it. They found her wandering in the middle of the street.”
Isabel jumps when the quiet is broken by a voice coming from behind her: “Asshole don’t know what he’s talkin’ about.”
“Oh, my God.” Isabel steps back. “You scared me!”
Keisha calmly turns her eyes from Kristen and Ben through the window to Isabel right in front of her.
Keisha could be the poster child for the inner city. She looks about fourteen, with long, skinny limbs and a head full of short nappy dreadlocks. Her entire outfit consists of sportswear: Air Jordans, five years old but pristine, nylon Adidas sweatpants that would make a swish sound if her lanky legs ever rubbed together, which they don’t, and a hooded sweatshirt about four sizes too big. It’s her uniform. She takes a long time to look as if she hasn’t taken any time at all.
“Listen to them goin’ on and on like they know.” Keisha juts her chin in the direction of the smoker’s deck, Kristen and Ben.
Isabel knows Keisha wants to be asked about herself but cannot summon the energy it would take to enter into any conversation, much less this one. She turns and looks out the window and hopes nothing will be required of her in what is threatening to be a social interaction.
“That ain’t it!” Keisha says to the window, after hearing another fragment of Ben’s prattle. “Okay, you want to know what happened?” She is addressing Isabel.
Did I say I wanted to know what happened?
But Isabel is finding herself begrudgingly drawn to the edgy teenager.
“I wasn’t walkin’ in the street, first of all,” Keisha begins without encouragement. “The police came and got me from my sister’s place when neighbors called 911. Hours, my ass. It wasn’t no hours passed. A few minutes, sure. Maybe, and this I’m not sure about, but maybe half an hour. But no hours, Lord. They talkin’ shit out there,” she says, again motioning with her chin to the gossiping patients outdoors.
“Wow,” Kristen says, exhaling smoke and looking down. “Hey, Ben? How do you know all this?”
“You think I’m a freak, Kristen.” Ben pouts. “You think you’re the only one who’s got a clue. You’re not, you know. I know stuff, too.”
Isabel looks over her shoulder and past Keisha toward the nurses’ station to see if anyone cares that they are eavesdropping.
“Ben,”