You could not walk out of the hospital, for insurance reasons. If you tripped before you crossed the threshold, you might sue. However, if you chose to throw yourself in front of a car the minute you stepped outside, no one would give a damn.
Trixie was thinking about it.
She?d already had to sit down with a shrink this morning, and apparently she was going to have to do that twice a week for the next five forevers, too, all because she had seen a brass ring in the bathroom and had tried to grab it. It didn?t matter if, like Janice the rape counselor, these sessions could eventually wind up in court. She had to attend them, or she had to stay in the hospital on the psych floor with a roommate who ate her own hair. She was going to have to take medicine, too-under the watchful eye of her parents, who would actually check the sides of her mouth and under her tongue to make sure she didn?t fake swallowing. Since arriving at the hospital this morning, her mother was trying so hard to smile that Trixie expected her face to crack, and her father kept asking her if she needed anything. Yeah, she felt like answering. A life.
Trixie seesawed between wishing everyone would leave her alone and wondering why everyone treated her like a leper. Even when that stupid psychiatrist had been sitting across from her, asking things like, Do you think you?re in danger of wanting to kill yourself right now? she felt like she was watching the whole scene from a balcony, and it was a comedy. She kept expecting the girl who played her to say something smart, like, Why yes, thanks, I would like to kill myself right now?but I?ll restrain myself until the audience is gone. Instead, she watched the actress who was really her fold like a fortune cookie and burst into tears.
What Trixie wanted, most of all, was what she couldn?t have-to go back to being the kind of girl who worried about things like science tests and whether any college would admit her, instead of being the kind of girl everyone worried about.
She survived the ride home by closing her eyes almost immediately and pretending she?d fallen asleep. Instead, she listened to the conversation between her parents in the front seat:
Do you think it?s normal, the way her voice sounds?
How do you mean?
You know. Like most of the notes are missing.
Maybe it?s the medicine.
They said that would take a few weeks to kick in.
Then how are we supposed to keep her safe in the meantime?
Trixie almost would have felt sorry for her parents if she wasn?t so sure that they?d brought this on themselves. After all, her mother didn?t have to open the bathroom door yesterday.
She felt the truth that she?d been hiding, like an after-dinner mint that might last for ages, if you were careful enough; the truth that she hadn?t told the shrink or the doctors or her parents, no matter how much they tried to pull it out of her. She would swallow it whole before she spit it out loud.
Trixie made a big show of stretching and yawning as they approached the turn to their street. Her mother turned around, that Halloween-mask smile still on her face. ?You?re awake!?
Her father glanced at her in the rearview mirror. ?You need anything??
Trixie turned and stared out the window. Maybe she had died, after all. And this was hell.
Just about when Trixie decided things couldn?t get any worse, the car turned into the driveway and she saw Zephyr waiting. The last conversation they?d had wasn?t one that invited future chats, and it had left Trixie feeling like she?d been quarantined from the rest of the earth. But right now, Zephyr was the one who looked nervous.
Zephyr knocked on the window. ?Um, Mrs. Stone. I, was kind of, you know, hoping to talk to Trixie.?
Her mother frowned. ?I don?t really think that now?s the best time-?
?Laura,? her father interrupted, and he glanced at Trixie in the rearview mirror: It?s up to you.
Trixie got out of the backseat. She hunched her shoulders, so that her wrists were even more hidden by the sleeves of her coat. ?Hey,? she said cautiously.
Zephyr looked the way Trixie had felt for the past twenty-four hours-like she was completely made up of tears and trying to hold some semblance of human form together before someone noticed that she was actually just a puddle. She followed Trixie into the house, up to her bedroom. There was one terrifying moment when Trixie passed the bathroom-had anyone cleaned up since yesterday? But the door was closed, and she fled into her own room before she had to think about it anymore.
?Are you okay?? Zephyr said.
Trixie wasn?t about to fall for the false sympathy routine. ?Who dared you??
?What??
?Are you, like, supposed to come back with a lock of my hair to prove you got close? Oh, that?s right, I don?t have any hair. I cut it off when I started to go psycho.?
Zephyr swallowed. ?I heard you almost died.?
Almost doesn?t count, Trixie?s father used to say. Except in horseshoes and hand grenades.
What about in rape cases?
?Do you almost care?? Trixie said.
Suddenly Zephyr?s face crumpled. ?I?ve been a total asshole. I was mad at you, because I thought you planned this whole revenge thing for Jason and didn?t trust me enough to tell me-?
?I never-?
?No, wait, let me finish,? Zephyr said. ?And I was mad at you for that night, when Moss paid more attention to you than to me. I wanted to get back at you, so I said-I said what they all were saying. But then I heard that you were in the hospital and I kept thinking about how awful it would have been if you?if you, you know, before I had a chance to tell you I believe you.? Her face crumpled. ?I feel like this was all my fault. I?d do anything to make it up to you.?
There was no way to tell whether Zeph was telling the truth, and even if she was, that didn?t mean Trixie trusted her anymore. There was every chance that Zephyr was going to run to Moss and Jason and the rest of the hockey team and regale them with tales of the freak. But then again?maybe she wasn?t; maybe the reason Zephyr was here had nothing to do with guilt or her mom telling her to be here but simply because she remembered, like Trixie did, that once when they were five they had been the only two people in the world who knew that fairies lived inside the kitchen cabinets and hid under the pots and pans when you opened the doors.
Trixie looked at her. ?Do you want to know how I did it??
Zephyr nodded, drawn forward.
She slowly pulled the tape that sealed the bandage around her wrist and unraveled the gauze until the wound was visible: gaping and saw-edged, angry.
?Wow,? Zephyr breathed. ?That is sick. Did it hurt??
Trixie shook her head.
?Did you see lights or angels or, like, God??
Trixie thought about it, hard. The last thing she could remember was the rusted edge of the radiator, which she focused on before blacking out. ?I didn?t see anything.?
?Figures,? Zephyr sighed, and then she looked at Trixie and grinned.
Trixie felt like smiling back. For the first time in a long time, when she told her brain to do it, it actually worked.
Three days after Trixie tried to kill herself, Daniel and Laura found themselves in Marita Soorenstad?s office, with Trixie between them. Detective Bartholemew was seated to their left, and behind the desk the DA was ripping open a Pixy Stix. ?Help yourselves,? she said, and then she turned to Trixie. ?I?m certainly glad to see you?re with us. From what I understand, that wasn?t a sure thing a few days ago.?
Daniel reached over and took his daughter?s hand. It felt like ice. ?Trixie?s feeling much better.?
?For how long?? the district attorney asked, folding her hands on the desk. ?I don?t mean to sound insensitive, Mr. Stone, but the only thing consistent in this case so far has been the lack of consistency.?
Laura shook her head. ?I don?t understand??
?As a prosecutor, my job is to present facts to a jury that make it possible for them to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that your daughter was the victim of a rape perpetrated
by Jason Underhill. However, the facts I?m presenting are the ones that your daughter presented to us. And that means our case is only as good as the information she?s provided me with and as strong as the picture she paints on the stand.?
Daniel felt his jaw tighten. ?I?d think that when a girl tries to kill herself, it?s a pretty good indicator that she?s suffering from trauma.?
?Either that, or mental instability.?
?So, you just give up?? Laura said, incredulous. ?You don?t try a case if you think it?s going to be a tough sell??
?I never said that, Mrs. Stone. But I do have an ethical obligation not to bring a case to court if even I?m unsure a crime happened.?
?You?ve got evidence,? Daniel said. ?That rape kit.?
?Yes. The same rape kit that allowed a laboratory to find evidence of semen in Trixie?s mouth, when by her own statement she did not have oral sex that night. On the other hand, Jason Underhill alleges that the intercourse was consensual-and was both oral and vaginal.? The DA turned over a page in a file. ?According to Trixie, she screamed no while she was being raped but said that her friend Zephyr wouldn?t have been able to hear her over the music. Yet according to other witnesses, no music was playing during the time of the assault.?
?They?re all lying,? Daniel said.
Marita stared at him. ?Or Trixie is. She lied to you about going to her friend?s house for a quiet sleepover that night. She lied about losing her virginity the night of the assault-?
?What?? Laura said, her jaw dropping, and at that moment Daniel remembered he?d never told her what the detective had said. Had he forgotten, or had he intended to forget all along?
?-she lied to the ER physician about the cuts on her wrist, some of which were made long before that Friday night,? Marita continued. ?Which begs the question: What else is Trixie lying about??
?I want to speak to your boss,? Laura demanded.
?My boss will tell you that I have a hundred other cases to prosecute that could be commanding my attention. I don?t have time for a victim who?s crying wolf.?
Daniel couldn?t look at Trixie. If he did, he thought he might break down. Where he?d grown up, a Yup?ik boy who cried wolf would simply turn into that animal forever. His relatives would say he had it coming. He?d spend the rest of his life watching his old family through yellow eyes, from a distance.
Daniel turned to the detective, who?d been doing a good job of trying to blend into the 1970s paneling. ?Tell her about the photo.?
?He already has,? Marita said. ?And I?m going to have my hands full trying to keep that out of the courtroom as it is.?
?It?s a perfect example of how Trixie?s being victimized-?
?It doesn?t tell us anything about the night of the assault-except that Trixie wasn?t a choirgirl before it happened.?
?Will you all just shut up!? At the sound of Trixie?s voice, all eyes turned. ?I?m here, in case you hadn?t noticed. So can you all stop talking about me like I?m not??
?By all means, Trixie, we?d love to hear what you have to say. Today.?
Trixie swallowed. ?I didn?t mean to lie.?
?You?re admitting you did?? the district attorney replied.
?There were so many?holes. I didn?t think anyone would believe what happened if I couldn?t remember the whole story.? She pulled her sleeves down farther over her wrists. Daniel had noticed her doing that in the past few days, and every time it made his heart pleat. ?I remember going to Zephyr?s, and all the people who were there. I didn?t know most of them. A bunch of the girls were playing Rainbow-?
?Rainbow?? Daniel said.
Trixie began to pick at the hem of her coat. ?It?s where everyone gets a different shade of lipstick, and the boys?you know, you go off with them?? She shook her head.
?The one with the most colorful penis at the end of the night wins,? Marita said flatly. ?Is that about right??
Daniel heard Laura?s intake of breath as Trixie nodded. ?That?s it,? she whispered. ?I didn?t do it, though. I thought I could-I wanted to make Jason jealous-but I couldn?t. Everyone went home after that, except for Jason and Moss and me and Zephyr, and that?s when we started playing poker. Moss took the picture of me, and Jason got mad at him, and that?s when it all goes blank. I know I was in the bathroom when he found me, but I can?t remember how we got to the living room. I can?t remember anything, really, until he was on top of me. I thought if I waited long enough, it would all come back. But it hasn?t.?
The district attorney and the detective exchanged a glance. ?Are you saying,? Marita clarified, ?that you woke up to find him having intercourse with you??
Trixie nodded.
?Do you remember any other details??
?I had a really bad headache. I thought maybe he?d slammed my head on the floor or something.?
Bartholemew walked toward the district attorney. He stood behind her shoulder, flipping over the contents of the file until he reached a certain page and pointed. ?The ER doc noted a seemingly dissociated mental state. And during her initial interview at the PD, she was unresponsive.?
?Mike,? the district attorney said, ?give me a break.?
?If it?s true, it would turn this into gross sexual assault,? Bartholemew pressed. ?And all of the inconsistencies in Trixie?s story would actually work to the prosecution?s advantage.?
?We?d need proof. Date rape drugs stay in the bloodstream for only seventy-two hours, tops.?
Bartholemew lifted a lab report out of the file folder. ?Good thing you?ve got a sample, then, from six hours post.?
Daniel was utterly lost. ?What are you talking about??
The prosecutor turned. ?Right now, this case is being tried as a juvenile sexually assaulting a juvenile. That changes, however, if the assault is committed either while Trixie was unconscious, or if she was given a substance that impaired her ability to appraise or control the sexual act. In that case, by law, Jason Underhill would have to be tried as an adult.?
?Are you saying Trixie was drugged?? Daniel said.
The district attorney fixed her gaze on Trixie. ?Either that,? she replied, ?or your daughter is trying to dig herself out of yet another hole.?
?Special K, Vitamin K, Kit Kat, Blind Squid, Cat Valium, Purple-it?s got a dozen names on the street,? Venice Prudhomme said, peeling off a pair of latex gloves and throwing them in the trash at Bartholemew?s feet. ?Ketamine?s a nonbarbiturate, rapid-acting anesthetic used on both animals and humans-it?s also allegedly a sexual stimulant. Kids like it as a club drug because, molecularly, it?s very similar to angel dust-PCP. It produces a dissociative state, making them feel like their minds are separate from their bodies. We?re talking hallucinations?amnesia.?
Mike had begged Venice to run the test at the state lab, in spite of a two-month backlog of cases. He?d promised, in return, a pair of club-level Bruins tickets. Venice was a single mom with a hockey-crazy son, a woman who didn?t get paid enough to spend $85 per ticket; he knew she wouldn?t be able to turn down the offer. Where he was going to actually get two club-level Bruins tickets on his own salary, though, remained to be seen.
So far, Trixie had tested negative for GHB and Rohypnol, the two most common date rape drugs. At this point, Mike was close to conceding that Trixie had, again, duped them. He watched the computer screen, an incomprehensible run of numbers. ?Who?s dealing ketamine in Bethel, Maine?? he asked rhetorically.
?It?s fully legal when it?s Ketaset and sold to vets as a liquid. In that form, it?s easy to use as a date rape drug. It?s odorless and tasteless. You slip it into a girl?s drink, and she?s knocked out in less than a minute. For the next few hours, she?s numb and willing?and best of all, she won?t remember what happened.? As the computer spit out the last analysis, Venice scanned it. ?You say your victim?s been lying to you??
?Enough to make me wish I was working for the defense,? Mike said.
She pulled a highlighter from her towering nest of braids and ran a yellow line across a field of results-a positive
flag for ketamine. ?Keep your day job,? Venice replied. ?Trixie Stone was telling the truth.?
There were not, as most people believed, a hundred different Eskimo words for snow. Boil down the roots of the Yup?ik language, and you?d only have fifteen: qanuk (snowflake), kanevvluk (fine snow), natquik (drifting snow), nevluk (clinging snow), qanikcaq (snow on the ground), muruaneq (soft, deep snow on the ground), qetrar (crust on top of snow), nutaryuk (fresh fallen snow), qanisqineq (snow floating on water), qengaruk (snowbank), utvak (snow block), navcaq (snow cornice), pirta (snowstorm), cellallir (blizzard), and pirrelvag (severely storming).
When it came to snow, Daniel thought in Yup?ik. He?d look out the window and one of these words, or its derivatives, would pop into his mind ahead of the English. There were snows here in Maine, though, that didn?t have equivalent terms in Alaska. Like a nor?easter. Or the kind of snow that landed like goose down, during mud season. Or the ice storm that made the needles on the pines look like they were fashioned out of crystal.
Times like those, Daniel?s mind would simply go blank. Like now: There had to be a term for the kind of storm that he knew was going to be the first real measurable snow of the season. The flakes were the size of a toddler?s fist and falling so fast that it seemed there was a rip in the seam of the gunmetal sky. It had snowed in October and November, but not like this. This was the sort of storm that would cause school superintendents to cancel afternoon basketball games, and create long lines at the Goodyear store; this was the kind of storm that made out-of-town drivers pull over on the highway and forced housewives to buy an extra gallon of milk.
It was the kind of snow that came so fast, it caught you unaware. You hadn?t yet taken the shovels down from the attic where you?d put them last May; you didn?t get a chance to cover the trembling rhododendrons with their ridiculous wooden tepees.
It was the kind of snow, Daniel realized, where you didn?t have time to put away the errant rake and the clippers you?d used to trim back the blackberry bushes, so you?d find yourself walking in circles, hoping you might trip over them before the blades rusted for good. But you never did. Instead, you were bound to lose the things you?d been careless with, and your punishment was not seeing them again until the spring.
Trixie couldn?t remember the last time she went out to play in the snow. When she was a kid, her father used to build a luge in the backyard that she?d slide down on a tube, but at some point it was no longer cool to look like a total spaz when she tipped over, and she?d traded her rubber-tread Sorels for fashionable stacked-heel boots.
She couldn?t find her snow boots-they were buried under too much stuff in the closet. Instead, she borrowed her mother?s, still drying in the mudroom, now that her mom had canceled her afternoon lecture in the wake of the storm. Trixie wrapped a scarf around her neck and jammed a hat onto her head that said DRAMA QUEEN across the front in red script. She pulled on a pair of her father?s ski mittens and headed outside.