Present Day
Her existence has become this: a series of pokes and prods. Sudden, intrusive taps on her kneecaps and arms. Sporadic commands directed at her, which are sometimes garbled, sometimes not:Squeeze my hand. Wiggle your toes.Occasionally she catches just the tail end of a statement:…Your fingers….Hear me…Vivian tries to respond but crashes with the effort, organized thoughts a painful somnolence.
In between, there sits that heavy silence. It’s too silent for a hospital floor, she realizes with a growing unease. And then, every once in a while the quiet is jarringly interrupted by a series of loud clangs, too brazen to be the chime of a mere IV pump.
Where am I?
Something she needs to remember continues to hover on her periphery. Something, try as she might, she cannot. But the secret grows almost painfully urgent, pressing against her tender brain bruise.
She retreats beneath her eyelids, in the dark abyss.
Pupils equal, reactive, someone says, as they shine anobnoxiously bright light into her eyes. She recalls seeing this used on an episode ofHouse: a light pen. No—penlight, used to assess neurological status.
Okay, fine. So maybe sheisstill in the hospital.
But then—another light is positioned in front of her eyes. It feels inherently wrong—nonmedical. This light is wide, flat. Lazy, too; it lingers far too long.
In the still of the quiet, she grows anxious beneath the continued blunt glare. Summoning all her strength and energy, she pries her eyes open—and is surprised to find her mom’s face filling her vision.
And then Vivian realizes: She’s looking at aphoto, a familiar one that quickly melts away into the now unlocked home screen of her iPhone.
Taylor
The weekend arrives; Taylor has officially finished her first week of employment at the Knox. But there’s no one to celebrate with; Sam is in Miami meeting up with someone he met on Raya, the high-profile dating app. So Taylor spends her time binging reruns ofGossip Girland perusing online luxury consignment shops. Every minute away from the Knox feels multiplied by two.
At one point, when she pulls out her credit card to snag some vintage Gucci buttons from a trusted eBay seller, she comes across a crumpled slip of paper. It’s the receipt that apparently fell out of her wallet at Savenor’s, the one the woman behind her in the checkout line handed to her. Taylor opens it, curious.
But it’s not a receipt after all.
It’s a handwritten note, embossed with the Knox logo:Go back to being a nurse.
Taylor’s heart immediately starts racing. What is this? Who would leave it for her? Is it a warning? A demand? Who at the Knox even knows she’s a nurse?
She closes her eyes, trying to think. Did she somehow let that information slip? No—she’s sure she didn’t.Someone knows more about her than they let on.She opens a new browser to google herself. Maybe somebody from the Knox looked her up online and found something. Perhaps there’s something incriminating on one of her social media profiles. But she’s reassured to find that her Facebook and Instagram profiles are still private, with no classifying information. Her Snapchat is basically inactive. She does have a new Instagram follow request, from a faceless someone named@tdgarden33__.
Either a bot, or someone is sniffing around.
Taylor tries to relax, but a current of anxiety pulses through her. She’s too much in her head, worrying about the note, worrying about everything.
If the Knox didn’t really mean to hire her, and that’s what this note’s about.
If she’s asked too many questions.
If her landlord, Anna, will think her request for an intro to the used-bookstore owner is weird, or suspicious.
If Jerry and the others will ever accept her.
If Sam actually likes her, or if their friendship is more of a neighborly convenience.
If Vivian is long dead, even though Taylor hasn’t yet heard back from the state about Vivian’s death record.
It’s like opening Pandora’s box.
Will Taylor always be an outsider? What if she never comes close to being the woman her mother was? Is she pathetic for even trying? Would her mom be ashamed of her, if she could see her now?
Taylor looks around her apartment, taking in the sagging secondhand couch, the throw with a grease stain from Chinese takeout that she’s been unable to remove, the dirty bowl she routinelyleaves in the sink. It’s embarrassing, really, her doldrum existence.
She wonders if she’s nothing to the Knox. If she were to quit tomorrow, or be fired, would anyone even miss her, remember her? Would she be reduced to terse mentions, like Tara? How quickly would Taylor be replaced? How much more easily would that new person win Jerry’s favor, or Rose’s trust?
