The Girl Without a Name (8 page)

T
he next morning on the way into work, I check my e-mail at a red light. I know it's illegal and dangerous, but right now I can't handle sitting through twelve seconds of unaccounted-for time. Plus the limousine companies promised to write if anything came up on Jane. Unfortunately, the e-mail box remains barren. A horn beeps and I lurch ahead, when the phone surprises me by ringing in my hand.

No caller ID, but it could be one of the limo places. “Hello?”

“Bonjour.”

My heart flutters. I'm not sure whether it's from the Adderall increase or hearing Jean Luc's voice again for the first time in over a year.

“Bonjour,” I answer back as casually as possible.

“How are you doing?”

“Good, good.”

“How is Mike?”

He always asks this. Perhaps out of politeness, but also verifying that I am now safely ensconced in another relationship, just in case I was getting any ideas. “Great. And Melanie?” I ask, though I don't actually care.

“Great.” So now we've established that everyone is either good or great. “Did you get the save-the-date?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah, I did. It looks terrific. Really.”

“So are you coming?” The hope in his tone is almost pitiful, like a kid asking his workaholic dad to come to his baseball game just this once.

I pause too long. “Probably.”

“Probably?” he laughs. It's probably not the answer he expected.

“I mean, I want to, of course. It just depends on flights and vacation and all that, so…”

“So probably.”

“Right.” I get to a red light, and my phone pings with an e-mail. I fight the urge to check it while I'm still talking to him.

“Okay. Well, I should let you go then,” he says.

“Yeah. I'm driving anyway, so I shouldn't really talk. I'll call you. Later. Okay?”

“Yes, this is good. Say hello to Mike for me.”

“Sure thing.” I hang up, thinking, “Asshole.” Yeah, I get it. You're with Melanie, and I'm with Mike. And guess who won in that little exchange? That's right: I did! And no, I'm not going to your fucking wedding! Someone honks at me and I realize the light's been green for a little while now as the driver leans out the window. “Get off the fucking phone!”

I simultaneously flash him a bright smile and give him the finger. Showing uncharacteristic patience, I wait until the next red light to check the new e-mail. It's a message from the Black and Missing website.

She left her number so I give her a call. The phone rings five times, and then a message comes on. “I ain't here. You know what to do.” Short but sweet. I leave a cringingly awkward white-girl message and hang up. For a second, I'm tempted to text Detective Adams the information, but then I remember our conversation, in which he informed me I didn't have to text him every five minutes with an update. Then again, he did ask me, personally, to find out who Jane was. I debate, but the better part of valor wins out, and I hide my phone in my purse for safekeeping for the rest of the ride to the hospital.

Because it occurs to me that I haven't exactly told him I put her information on the Internet.

Brandon has a hundred burn marks up and down his arms. I don't mean about a hundred; I mean a hundred. He counted them.

“I promised myself I'd stop at a hundred,” he says. He gives the floor a dejected look. “But I don't think I can.”

“What's he been on?” Dr. Berringer asks.

“Luvox, Lexapro, Effexor,” Jason lists, leafing through the chart.

“Any antipsychotics?”

“I don't want an antipsychotic,” the patient interrupts.

Dr. Berringer puts an “attaboy” hand on his shoulder. “But you don't want to keep hurting yourself, do you?”

Brandon shakes his head, his eyes brimming with tears.

“Let us help you, okay?” Dr. Berringer asks.

Brandon rubs his eyes hard with the heels of his hands. His eyes are red and puffy when he looks up at us again. “If it were all over, then I wouldn't have to worry about this anymore.”

It, being his life.

“True,” Dr. Berringer says, surprising me with the answer. “You wouldn't have to worry about a lot of things: the sun on your face, scoring a goal in soccer, getting popcorn at a movie, hanging out with your friends.” He pauses for effect. “There are good things you would miss, too.”

“I don't have any friends.”

His words hurtle me back to eighth grade, lying in my bed with my mom stroking my hair, my desk piled up with unfinished homework.
I don't have any friends
, I am sobbing. She doesn't argue with me, knowing it will only provoke my full ire. I am a rage of hormones and dopamine deficiencies, forever the tallest kid in my grade, thorny and miserable and ready to strike at one false look.
You'll have friends
, she says.
Someday, Zoe, people will see how beautiful you are.

Before I know it, we're halfway down the hall. “So what are you going to watch for in this patient, Zoe?”

I missed all the back and forth, but it appears Brandon grumblingly accepted the idea of an antipsychotic, and we are moving on to the next patient. I bite my lip. “I'm sorry, what antipsychotic did we end up using?”

“Seroquel,” Dr. Berringer answers with forced calm.

“And you're asking for common side effects?” I ask.

“That I am.”

Every thought in my head evaporates while Dr. Berringer examines a scuff on his tan bucks and Jason draws blue doodles on his patient list. So the Adderall boost has given me palpitations, loss of appetite, and pressured speech, but no boost in my brain speed. “Weight gain,” I say.

“Okay,” Dr. Berringer says with encouragement that verges on pathetic.

“You have to watch for suicidal ideation in young adults and teenagers.”

“Uh-huh. Anything else?”

“Tardive dyskinesia. Rare, but it can happen.”

He nods. “Excellent. Can you think of anything else, Jason?”

Jason looks up from his doodles. “Nope, that's all I got.”

“Me neither. Okay, Zoe, you're off the hook.” He grabs my shoulders, leaning in so close that I can see gray flecks in his irises. “Pay attention next time!” he jokes, giving me that white-bright Chiclet smile, then lets me go. Jason is doodling again. “Let's go see Jane?” Dr. Berringer asks.

And we're off. On our way down the hall, I wonder at his admonition.
Pay attention!
Seems an odd thing to say, even in jest, to someone who just admitted to struggling with ADHD. But then again, he's my attending, not my doctor. Jane's room is empty, and Nancy informs us she's in speech therapy. Time for a group journey to the speech room.

“I just have to grab something.” Dr. Berringer goes off toward the nurses' office, and Jason and I lean against the wall, waiting.

“He's in a good mood, huh?” I ask.

“Mr. Happy,” Jason remarks, playing with his gelled-up bangs. “Especially with you.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

He yawns. “It means you two should get a room somewhere.”

I roll my eyes. “I'm not even honoring that with a reply.”

“That was a reply,” he says, then we both shut up as Dr. Berringer comes back our way.

“It sounds like we need to back down on the Adderall.”

I plow through some sand. I've been telling him my symptoms. My cocaine-like pressured speech, five-pound weight loss, palpitations. “Yeah, I guess you're right.”

He leans back in his chair, fingering his glossy, thin, but fully grown-in goatee. “How do you feel about that?”

His question makes me think of a cranky elderly woman I saw last year.
What's all this crap about how I feel? I feel with my hands. And that's the last thing I'm going to say about it.

“Fine, I guess. It didn't help much anyway. Just made me keyed up.”

“How about other stuff? How are you doing with your mom?”

“Okay, I guess. Scotty wanted me to go with him to visit the gravesite the other day.”

“And?”

I scratch the back of my neck. “I couldn't do it. I don't know.”

Sam looks at me but doesn't speak.

“I guess I just don't want to see her there.”

He nods. “You know, I do think that starting to accept it, on whatever level you can, may be helpful for you. Running away from it won't help.”

“I know.” Scotty, for whatever reason, is handling it better than I am. My immature kid brother is outshining his accomplished, luminary, Yale-graduate big sister. Who's on probation. “I told you about his thing with those stupid bonds, right?”

Sam nods.

“It's weird. He's never been like that before. If anything, the opposite. He never gave a shit about money.”

He leans back in his office chair. “Maybe he finally feels the pressure of working while he's going to college.”

“Maybe.”

“Or it could be his way of coping. Trying to find meaning out of something which essentially makes no sense.”

I stifle a yawn. “I guess.”

He looks down at his yellow legal pad. Sometimes I wonder if Sam and I should really be going out for tea instead of having a psychiatric relationship. But then again, maybe that's just how it always goes after a couple of years—the bloom fades.

“Have you been running yet?”

“Well…” I hesitate, guiltily picturing my new running shoes, swathed in tissue paper and stuck in their box.

“Get running, Zoe. It'll help.”

The ship-wheel clock ticks out the remaining minutes until “It's time,” and I walk outside to a bright fall afternoon. Finally the rain is giving us a reprieve. I had to leave work early today for the appointment, but Dr. Berringer didn't mind. It turns out he had to leave early for some appointment, too. The coppery leaves of an oak tree sway above me as I step into my car. Staring at my phone, I consider leaving another message for Jasmine, but since I've already left three jacked-up messages throughout the day, I should probably hold off. The poor girl's going to think I'm a stalker.

I'm pulling on my seat belt when a black Jeep swerves into the parking lot, missing my side-view mirror by a few inches. I'm half a second from pulling down my window to berate the guy, when I realize that there is someone I know who drives a Jeep just like that and duck down just in time to catch his unmistakable form in my rearview mirror.

Emerging from his Jeep, with a brown leather jacket and sunglasses on, is none other than Dr. Tad Berringer.

I
'm finishing my coffee, about to run out the door, when she calls.

“Hi, it's Jasmine.”

Dropping my satchel, I put my coffee down. “Jasmine, yes.”

“From the missing people website? I was calling about Destiny.” The voice sounds young.

“Yes, hi, this is Zoe. Zoe Goldman. Dr. Goldman,” I add, for no obvious reason.

There is a pause. “And how do you know this girl?” Jasmine asks.

Like a Jewish-sounding white doctor knowing her friend Destiny seems a bit implausible. “Here's the thing. I didn't want to get into the whole thing on the website to protect her confidentiality and all.”

“Okay.”

“But she's actually my patient. I'm her doctor. She came to the hospital because the police found her and she wouldn't speak.”

There is another pause as she processes this. “Okay,” she repeats. Her voice is full of doubt, like I might just be some crazy person trying to insinuate herself on a missing persons case. The amateur-sleuth type. And my coked-up, Adderall-enthused messages from yesterday probably didn't help matters.

“Um, she is talking now, actually. But she still doesn't know her name. She doesn't know who she is at all.”

“That's weird.”

“Weird yes, but not unheard of. Likely she's been through some kind of shock or trauma maybe.”

“And so you think she got amnesia?”

“Sort of.”

She pauses. “Sounds like some kind of soap opera.”

I laugh. “It does, doesn't it?”

My laugh wakes up Arthur, who launches on a mad dash around the family room, knocking over last night's wineglass in the process. “Shit.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It's my dog, I mean.” I grab a paper towel. At least it was white wine. Arthur spilled an entire bottle of red last month, and the place looked like a crime scene.

“Well,” she says. It sounds like she's deciding whether to trust me or not. “She does look like Destiny. And she would be the right age and everything.”

“Yes.” I'm dabbing the carpet with a paper towel, which Arthur keeps trying to grab like I'm playing a game of keep-away, unaware he's at the top of my shit list.

“Who knows?” she goes on. “Maybe she did go through some kind of trauma with him.”

“Who?” I ask.

“Her sister's boyfriend. Maybe he holed up in Buffalo. Not that far from Philly.”

“No, I guess not.”

There is another pause on the phone, where I guess she makes the decision to trust me. “How you want to handle this?” she asks.

I think a minute. “Could I have her call you?” Maybe just hearing her friend's voice could jog her memory.

“What, from the hospital?”

“Yeah.”

She pauses. “I guess I could do that. I don't see a problem with that.”

“How old are you anyway?” I ask. “You seem pretty mature for your voice.”

She laughs. “Fifteen. We was twelve when she went missing. Well, I was thirteen, 'cause I got held back.”

The math fits, age-wise. We set up a time for the phone call, and I take a last gulp of now-chilly coffee and grab my keys. I was running a little late before, but now I'm undeniably so.

Another golden moment for Probation Girl.

Jane was in physical therapy today so our threesome took a group trek to the PT room, only to find out she was having therapy outside today. We exit the lobby to a cool but sunny autumn day. Cars roll by in front of us like a parade, discharging wincing, bent-over passengers for the ER or picking up smiling but still slow-moving patients from their wheelchairs to go home at last.

Jane is farther up ahead in a wheelchair (unneeded, but I'm assuming hospital regulations prevailed) with Jeremy, the physical therapist. We walk over, past the gaggle of smokers—all wearing scrubs, incidentally—with Dominic among them. He may or may not be flirting with one of the female nurses. He glances up when we pass, and we pretend not to see each other. I notice Jason not noticing him, too. Finally we reach Jane, the sweet sound of her laughter ringing out. It's a sound I've never heard from her before. Jeremy is popping wheelies with her wheelchair on a sunny patch of grass.

“Hello there,” Dr. Berringer says.

Jane beams up at us.

“We thought we'd play hooky and have a session outside today,” Jeremy says. He is handsome in the typical physical-therapist mold. Brush cut, square jaw, perfectly proportioned muscles in his golf shirt with the hospital logo on the chest. “And I think we've just about graduated PT. She can walk up and down thirty feet. Actually, she beat me in the last five races.”

Jane looks down at the grass, smiling.

“I think OT is still doing some work on writing, getting those hands back into fighting shape.” He grabs her hand and wiggles it teasingly, and she grins again. (I'm sensing a crush on said physical therapist.)

“That sounds positive,” Dr. Berringer says.

A gust of wind rushes by, and the smokers huddle, while Jane pulls her blanket over her lap.

“Getting cold?” Jeremy asks.

“A little,” Jane admits. “But I don't mind. Let's stay out here just a little longer?”

“Why not?” He stretches his back, his chest straining the buttons of the polo. “It's good to get some sun.”

The wind picks up again, whispering through the papery, dried-out, pink petals of the hydrangea bush in the planter. The base is littered with cigarette butts. A long, black car pulls up, nearly as long as a limousine, and idles in the driveway. A girl and her mother get out and glance around nervously before heading in, with no obvious physical ailment. I wonder if this girl will be my next patient. The sun glints off the license plate, and a little girl in the back window waves slowly at us, a somber look on her face. The car pulls away, and Jane looks up at us.

Her eyebrows are furrowed, and her face is different somehow, like she just awoke from a long slumber.

“My name isn't Jane,” she says. “It's Candy.”

“So Jane has a name?” Mike takes a swig from his dark Dos Equis.

“Jane has a name,” I say, delving into the chip dish again. “Jane is Candy.”

“Don't eat them all,” Mike says, whacking my hand.

“We can get more,” I argue.

“Fine, eat them all. Eat all of the chips. But don't eat your hand.”

My appetite has rebounded nicely with my Adderall back down. “So what do you think? Her name is Candy. The last thing she remembers is chasing a limousine.”

“Hmm.” He dips a chip in guacamole. “A really bad prom experience?”

“Ha, ha, ha.”

He shrugs. “I've had my share. But I've got my pride, you know. I never actually chased after the limo.”

“No last name still. But I did hear from Jasmine.” I take a long drink of margarita.

“Jasmine?”

“The girl from the Black and Missing website.”

“Oh yeah. What did she have to say?”

“She thought she could have been a girl named Destiny. Her friend who went missing, from Philadelphia.”

Mike takes another chip. “Doesn't sound like a fit.”

“No, probably not. We'll see.”

A round of laughter floats over from the bar as we keep plowing through the chips. Mike taps his nearly empty beer bottle on the table. “So, about next year.”

“Not to change the subject or anything,” I say.

“Of course not.” He spins the bottle. “Any thoughts?”

“Thoughts? Lots of thoughts. Just no concrete decisions.”

“Uh-huh.” A man with a sizzling platter swoops by us and on to a different table. “The thing is, they're talking about jobs now. So I really do need to figure this out. Jeff told me he could pretty much guarantee me a job at the County.”

“That's good.”

“But some of that depends on your decision, you know? I could just as easily go with that urgent-care center in North Carolina, where Mom is.”

I nod. “I just don't know. Fellowship-wise. Definitely not child psych. That I know. And I was thinking maybe addiction, but Jason told me the burnout rate is through the roof. And geriatrics is just too depressing.” I slurp my margarita. “I don't know.”

“You could do a year of practice and figure it out?”

Mike, the ever-practical. “Yeah. The fellowship thing may be a moot point anyway. My loans aren't going anywhere, so maybe it's time to just face the music.”

He scrapes the bottom of the basket for some chips. “One more year of loans won't kill you. And I could help out,” he adds in a quiet voice, “if need be.”

Mike, the ever-kind. “That's sweet of you, but…” I let the sentence trail off, and we sit in silence for a moment. A basketball game plays on the TV overhead. “You know, even if we do end up in different places,” I say, “it doesn't mean we have to break up or anything. If you go to North Carolina and I'm here, let's say…we can still be together.” I steal the last chip. “They have these things called planes nowadays.”

He toys with the beer bottle again. “Yeah, I guess.”

But he doesn't sound so sure. And I must admit that it didn't work so well with Jean Luc. “We'll see. I just feel like the answer will hit me someday. Hopefully, someday soon.”

“Hopefully.” His tone is vaguely annoyed as he stares into his beer. “But you know, Zoe, sometimes doing nothing ends up being the same thing as doing something.”

I don't answer.

“Here we go!” A cheerful waitress in a billowy Mexican shirt comes to our table, her arms raised high with our own sizzling platters. The smell makes my mouth water.

“Thank you, Lord,” I say.

“That's right, come to Papa,” Mike says as the fajita plate descends to him. Digging into our food, with the mariachi music blasting through the speakers, I feel like I've been given a momentary reprieve.