“Violet.Keep walking.”
He studied a sign on the wall, then steered me right, down a different corridor. This one was quiet, dim. There were no people. He stopped me in front of a door. He knocked on it politely.
“Come in,” came a woman’s voice from inside.
Bradley looked at me. His expression gave nothing away. Then he said, “I don’t know what the hell’s going on right now. But get your shit together, Esmie, so we can get out of here.”
I grasped the words like a drowning woman grabs a life jacket. “Go screw yourself,” I said back, my voice shaky.
“I do that every day,” Bradley said matter-of-factly. “In the shower most mornings. It helps to clear the pipes because divorce is shitty. Now let’s go talk to this lady.”
I wiped clammy sweat from my forehead and nodded. “Fine, you pig.”
He opened the door, and we walked through.
Joan Sleeter, at least, was real. She was about sixty, with a short perm as hard as a helmet and an ill-fitting sweater on. She didn’t bother with introductions or greetings before she started in.
“Gus Pine found my daughter at the bus station and returned her home when she tried to run away in ’81,” she said, her voice the hard kind that hinted at how much she dealt with in her job every day.“That’s the only reason I took his call and agreed to this. But I don’t like it. I don’t run the records department, and I don’t know what’s going on.”
Both of them looked at me. I was supposed to speak, to say something. To make this happen. I had come all this way. Instead, I froze.
There was a soft shuffle in the corner behind my right shoulder, a flicker of movement. I saw blue-striped cotton from the corner of my eye. Pajamas. The boy from the hallway was standing right there, and as I listened, he shuffled forward, closer to me.
I stared forward, refusing to look at him.Go away,I thought as sweat broke out on the back of my neck and my stomach turned.You aren’t really there. Go away.
“Well?” Joan Sleeter asked.
The boy came closer, so close I could feel a chill on my upper arm and in my ear when he leaned to whisper into it. “Sister sent me,” he said.
Darkness clouded the edges of my vision. I was going to pass out again. I dug my nails into my palms to fend it off.
From somewhere far away, Bradley slung an arm around my shoulders, tugging me into his side. He smelled strongly of Speed Stick deodorant. “Joan,” he said, “my girlfriend here, Violet, just needs a quick favor.”
The darkness receded, though the boy didn’t move. Bradley’s touch made the urge to pass out fade, though I was still rigid and sweaty, my voice gone.
Joan said something, but I didn’t hear it because the boy was whispering again.
“She thinks you’re crazy,” he said. It was a normal voice, a teenage boy’s voice, except for the fact that no one else could hear it and it was as cold as ice slicing into my ear. I stayed rigid under Bradley’s arm.
“Her little brother died young,” Bradley was saying. “A long time ago. Maybe you heard. It was tragic. Violet would like any record shecan find of her brother. You know, as a memento. To help her move on.”
He was good. It was a good story, told smoothly. The thought was far away as the boy kept talking, his voice burrowing into my brain.
“She thinks you belong here,” the boy said. “Because you do, don’t you? You should be locked up because you see things. You can’t take care of yourself. Maybe she’ll give you an assessment. Just an assessment, right? Just an assessment.”
I flinched, hard, and Bradley noticed. He and Joan were still talking. He tugged me closer, and his hand went to my temple, pushing me down so my head was on his shoulder. “It’s okay, honey,” he said, as if he was comforting me. “Don’t be upset.”
“I suppose I could make a call,” Joan said.
“Could you?” Bradley asked.
“Get out of here,” the boy hissed in my ear. “Go home. Before they assess you. Before they find out how crazy you are.”
My stomach turned. I gave a low moan.
“There, there, honey,” Bradley said.
“Take a seat in the hall,” Joan said. “I’ll call the girl in Records. Just one phone call. That’s all you get.”
