“What?No,” Emily said.“No one.Not…like that.But does it go away on its own?”Fear bubbled in her throat.
“I don’t think so.Dr.Stone’s got something for it, though.Couple other girls have it, sounds like it’s spreading.”
“How does it spread?Off the toilet seats or something?”She was seized with a new fear of going to the washroom, or having to clean one.They weren’t even given rubber gloves for cleaning duty.
Lizzie gave her a pitying sort of look.“Maybe.But mostly from, you know, touching.Sex.There’s lots of girls here like Gertrude.Maybe it’s going around.But anyway…if you want to get out of here at the end of your sentence, you gotta go back to Dr.Stone, and hope you get rid of it fast.”
“Annie,” Emily said, sliding gingerly into a seat at her friend’s otherwise empty table in the noisy dining hall the following day at breakfast.Annielooked up from her meal and smiled.There were bags under her eyes, and she seemed more slouched than usual.“Are you all right?”Emily asked.
Annie shrugged.“Same as always, I guess.”She studied Emily.“Though I reckon I feel about as good as you look.”
Emily had been up half the night.Several things had combined to render sleep next to impossible: the burning in her groin, the thought that she could be trapped in the Mercer for some indefinite period if she didn’t recover from the VD, her rage at Dr.Stone—both about her own condition and what Annie had confirmed were renewed electroshock therapies.
Emily hesitated, then spoke quietly as chatter and the clinking of plates and glasses swirled around them.“You told me once that Dr.Stone experiments on you with different medications, is that right?”
Annie exhaled heavily, nodded.“Yes.Some of them work.They sometimes help me feel better, truly.Other times…not as much.”She hesitated then, eyeing Emily shrewdly.“I appreciate your concern, Emily, really I do.But can I ask why you care so much?It’s not as though there’s anything you or I can do to stop it.”
Emily opened her mouth, then closed it.She was on the verge of telling Annie who she was and why—precisely—she was so interested in the actions of Dr.Stone and all the goings-on at the Mercer.But she held her tongue for now.She and Annie had grown closer.They were friends, and she believed Annie could be trusted.But she still worried about tipping her hand too soon.It wouldn’t do for word to get out who she really was before she’d had a chance to gather the whole story.She probably owed it to Annie to tell her the truth, but this wasn’t the right moment.
“I just think maybe she’s done some kind of experiment on me, too, that’s all,” Emily said, hedging.“So I’d like to know if it’s just me, or if any of the other girls have had the same thing happen.”
Annie watched her, musing, then nodded.“Well, you can always try to talk to the other girls.They usually want to share, want to talk about themselves.Because everyone feels they’re in here unjustly,” she said, smirking without humour.“If you ask them if they’ve been wronged, I’m sure they’ll—”
She was cut off as a tall woman wearing a blue dress that seemed too small for her plunked herself down at their table.Emily and Annie looked up in surprise.This was a first.Usually everyone avoided Annie.
“Um, hi, Bernie,” Annie said now, offering the other inmate a small smile.She was watching her curiously, though, as was Emily.
“Sorry to break up your little party,” the woman said, “but since those pregnant girls came, there’s not as much room to sit anymore.”Emily recognized Bernie as one of the other Blues she would occasionally see at a table by the door, closely monitored by Matron White.Bernie had a plain but not unattractive face with long eyelashes, and hair buzzed short like a boy’s.Emily had never seen a woman with hair that short, not even on the twenties film starlets.
“That’s all right,” she said, shifting her mental track away from her and Annie’s conversation.She was curious to speak to another of the psych inmates—at least, one who seemed safe enough to engage with, unlike the violent Rose.She thought of what Annie had just told her, about the inmates all generally being willing to talk about the injustices that had landed them in the Mercer to begin with.
“I’m Emily,” she said, reaching out a hand.The woman squinted at her a little skeptically, as though Emily were trying to trick her.But Emily kept her hand extended, and eventually Bernie shook it.
“Huh.Hi.What are you in for, Emily?”Bernie asked, tucking into her meal with gusto.
“Oh, you know,” Emily said, raising a humourless eyebrow.“The usual.My parents thought me incorrigible, wanted to straighten me out.”
“Mm,” Bernie said, nodding, mouth full.“Is that the usual?”
Emily shrugged.“For some, yes.How about you?”
“Emily—” Annie began quietly, but Bernie held up a hand like a stop sign.“ ’S okay, Annie,” she said.She swallowed, then spoke to her plate, not meeting Emily’s eyes.“The trouble is, I’m a man.So they all think I’m a lunatic.”
Emily stared at Bernie, uncomprehending.“I’m sorry?I—”
“There’s nothing wrong with my mind.I was just born with the wrong body,” Bernie said simply.“I’ve known that since I was eleven.I can’ttell you what happened, but I got the wrong body.I haven’t done anything wrong except tell my sister I thought God made a mistake.Now I’m here.So I get a prison within a prison.Isn’t that nice?”
Emily was speechless, unsure what to make of what she’d heard, or how to respond.Annie gave her a sidelong look and a small shrug.Bernie finished eating a few minutes later and stood suddenly.“See you around,” she said, and stalked off without another word.
Emily tried to gather her thoughts.“She doesn’t seem insane,” she said quietly to Annie, who shook her head.
“No.I don’t think she is, either.She’s pleasant and chatty with the matrons, but she maintains she’s a man in a woman’s body, so I think by their definition she’s insane.Delusional, they’ve called her.But…I don’t know.It doesn’t make much sense to me, but I suppose a lot of people’s lives don’t make much sense to others, do they?”
Emily chewed this over for a moment, considering all she knew of Annie and the other women, of Bernie.“I’ve been thinking a lot about that,” she mused, watching Bernie’s back as she exited the dining hall.“With you, and now with Bernie.They seem to be able to call women insane just forsaying thingsthatsoundinsane, even when there’s no evidence of insane or violent behaviour, like there is with Rose.That seems wrong somehow, don’t you think?”
Annie nodded.“Yes.It is wrong.But there isn’t much we can do about it, is there?”
Emily watched Annie finish the last of her food, wondering when she should tell her new friend who she really was, but the bell rang a couple of minutes later, and Emily bid Annie goodbye.
