When I finished reading the last poem, I went back to the first one and started again. It was hard to concentrate with Jaime sitting next to me expectantly, and this time around I thought I would try to feel the emotion conveyed by the poems. All poetry that is honestly written is good, I remember reading someplace. But there was something about Jaime’s poetry that didn’t seem honest. It was as if he were writing for someone he wanted to impress. He was trying too hard to be seen as a poet. There were images and metaphors where there needn’t be any, where he could have said what he felt in a simpler way. But then I also thought that maybe his style was just different from the one I would have chosen to say what he was trying to say. Who was I to judge? He had made an effort to express himself and that was good, and I should not say anything to discourage him.
“These are good,” I said.
“Good? Just good?”
“Some of them may need polishing, but I think they’re a good start.”
Jaime turned to me and looked into my eyes. “Vicky …”
I stood up. I did it slowly and I tried very hard not to seem like I was afraid of what he was going to say or of another kiss. “I should be getting home,” I said, straightening my skirt.
“Sure,” he said, standing up as well. “Here.” He offered me the notebook. I shook my head, unsure why he was giving it to me. “Do me a favor. You said they needed polishing. Maybe you could read them over again and make any suggestions that might improve them. Then tell me if there are any you think might be good for The Quill. I’d kind of like to submit two.”
“Okay,” I said. Is this what you do to be happy? I wondered. Say you will do things you don’t want to do?
We walked down the hill, and this time I walked in front so he couldn’t hold my hand. When we were in the car, he moved closer to me and I watched Jaime’s kiss come as in slow motion. I didn’t move my lips or close my eyes as he kissed me. It was like drinking water out of a straw when your mouth is shot full with novocaine. You see the water in the glass go down, so you figure you must be drinking, but you can’t feel anything.
“Vicky,” he said when he pulled away from me, “I know it may seem like we’re going too fast, but I’m real sure about you.”
Tears filled my eyes again and I shut them tight to keep them from flowing out, and when I did I saw the image of Mamá right before she died. Her face was so thin and her skin so tight she looked like a skeleton. Of course this memory made the tears flow even more. I don’t think Jaime saw them, but he must have tasted them as he moved closer to me and kissed my lips, my cheeks, my eyes. I’ve often wondered what he thought as he kissed me more and more urgently.
Would I have tried to kill myself a few weeks later if I had lied to him and told him that I liked him too, if I had kissed him back even though I didn’t want to? All I had to do was pretend. He was offering me a hand to climb out of the pit. And after all, was it so bad to be wanted? And was it so terribly bad to be kissed? All I knew was that if I let him kiss me, if I let him believe that I liked him, if I pretended I was happy with him, because of him, I would lose the only precious thing I had left.
“We should go,” I said.
“What’s the matter with you? Vicky, I really like you. I don’t say that too often. In fact, I’ve only said that to one other person ever.” He began to kiss me again.
“Jaime, stop, please.”
He stopped. It was the tone of my voice. He pulled away from me.
“Why?”
I wiped my eyes. “I’m sorry. I just don’t like you.”
He chuckled. “Wow. That’s a first.”
“It’s not you. I don’t like anything right now. I don’t even like myself. I ran out of like. I’m plumb out of like.”
He grinned and shrugged as if to let me know that it was more my loss than his. He started the car, and we drove back slowly and in silence. There was no anger in his face or in the way he drove. He looked straight ahead and I felt immensely sorry for him, for me, and for every living creature.
As we neared my house, I began to feel the strength that comes when you don’t care about anything anymore. I was strangely calm. I knew what I wanted to do. Not that night. But soon. Very soon. Happiness had knocked on my door, and I opened it long enough to see that I didn’t want what was being offered.
Here in the Lakeview cafeteria, I can see Jaime more clearly. I’ve been afraid to think about him before. But remembering wasn’t as painful as I expected. I’m still glad I did not become the girlfriend of someone I didn’t like, but now when I think of him, I feel a tenderness toward him. He’s like a spoiled child — not totally at fault for the way he is.
And what about Vicky? I imagine Dr. Desai asking me. Do you feel a tenderness toward her because, after all, she’s not totally at fault for the way she is?
Let me ponder that one a little longer, I respond.
“Men,” says Mona, startling me. “They are so predictable.” She pulls out a chair and slouches in it.
“Are they?” I make a mental effort to come back to the present.
She looks over her shoulder at Rudy, who has donned a little blue paper hat and is behind the counter serving meat loaf. “He says he’s in love with me. Wants to marry me. He’s known me all of three weeks.”
“And how do you feel about him?” I ask.
She gives me one of those Don’t ask stupid questions looks and then says, “Although, he said something today …”
“What? Is this about Lucy? You’re not planning to do something crazy with Rudy about Lucy?”
She doesn’t answer my question. “Vicky, if life offered you a chance to be happy and it involved doing something that was considered wrong by others, but not by you, would you do it?”
“Mona …” I want to tell her I’m the last person she should ask about happiness, but she speaks before I can say anything.
“Maybe he does really love me. Crazier things have happened.”
“Be careful,” I say.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mona says. But her mind is somewhere else. Clicking.
The following evening, I’m sitting next to E.M. and Gabriel in the fifth-floor dining room when Mona comes in waving two cafeteria vouchers. Now and then we can get vouchers to eat on the first floor, where there are more kinds of food to choose from.
“I can’t,” I say.
“Oh, come on!”
“Stay with us,” Gabriel says to Mona.
“But they have chicken pot pies tonight. My favorite. Come on, Vicky. Rudy’s working there. I don’t want to be alone.”
“That guy’s bad news,” E.M. says. “All he wants is your body.”
“You’re my father now? For your information, he wants to marry me. And if he’s after my body, can you blame the poor guy?” Mona strikes a pose with one hand on her hip and the other behind her head. “How do you know he’s bad news? You don’t even know him.”
“I know,” E.M. says.
“Vicky?” Mona pleads.
“Take Gabriel or E.M. They’ll help with Rudy.”
Mona looks at E.M., considers briefly, and then says to Gabriel, “Will you come with me?”
“Don’t you think someone ugly and mean would work better?” Gabriel points at E.M.
“I ain’t going,” E.M. says, swallowing.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Gabriel says. “Rudy’s tough. I better go. I don’t think you can handle him.”
“Don’t play those psycho tricks on me,” E.M. says.
“Go with her,” Gabriel tells E.M. “Don’t you want to have a little fun? How long has it been since you scared anybody?”
“Yeah?” E.M. says, suddenly intrigued.
“Okay,” says Mona. “But you just sit there and don’t give me any of your Aztec warrior stuff. No You’re weak. No nothing. We don’t talk or we keep it light, just like we do when we eat here. And don’t scare the guy so much that he stays away permanently. It’s always good to have an extra guy or two who wan
ts to marry you.”
“I guess,” he says, pushing his tray away and standing.
“Be back soon,” Mona says, fingers wiggling.
When they’re out of the room, Gabriel begins to cut his Salisbury steak into little pieces. My mother liked to do the same to her food before she ate it, I remember. “What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “It’s hard to cut meat with plastic knives.” I stir my mashed potatoes with my fork. When I look up, I follow Gabriel’s gaze to Gwendolyn, who’s wearing the same lavender terry-cloth bathrobe she wears every day and sitting at the other end of the table. She folds her hands, closes her eyes, and prays. Gabriel stops cutting his meat to watch her. He sighs and then pushes his tray away.
“Not hungry?” I say.
He shakes his head.
“Think the Heaven Scents will make it?” That afternoon, after I finished in the laundry room, I helped Gabriel plant roses.
“I hope so. Sorry about your hands. You should have used my gloves.”
I touch the places on my right hand where thorns pricked them. “You know what I’ve always wondered?”
“What?”
“Why do roses have thorns? Everything in nature’s supposed to have a purpose, right? But what purpose do thorns serve? They don’t scare away pests or birds or attract bees to pollinate. Do you know?”
“They’re not really thorns,” Gabriel says, staring at his food. The energy he had earlier today in the rose garden has disappeared. “They’re more like sickles — little hooks. My grandpa says that when roses first came into the world, other plants were jealous of their beauty, so they crowded around and smothered them so no one could see them. That’s when roses grew these little hooks that would help them climb up above the other plants, because beauty like theirs needed to be seen.” He rubs his temples. He seems to be in pain.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice softer, apologetic. “I’m not having a good day. Sometimes … it’s like … my head is like a radio when you’re driving in the middle of nowhere and you’re trying to find a station. You hear a few words of a song now and then, and lots of static.”
“You never talk about … why you’re here,” I say tentatively.
“It’s not easy for me to talk about it. It’s hard for people to understand. I feel like I’m burdening them.”
“That’s what the group meetings are for, aren’t they? Mutual burdening.”
“You’re right.” He smiles for the first time that evening. “I’ll tell you someday. If you ask me again, I’ll tell you. Not today, though. Not here.” He glances at Gwendolyn in the purple robe.
“I gave you my whole life,” she says to nobody — at least nobody we can see. She speaks loud enough for the whole room to hear. “What about me? It’s my turn! Don’t I count for anything? What am I? Chopped liver?”
Gabriel sighs again. I try to open the foil on my pudding cup, but my finger is tender from a thorn. He takes the container from my hand and opens it. “Thanks,” I say.
“You’re very welcome.”
I dip my spoon into the runny chocolate pudding. “Mona says that mentals have a kind of intelligence that non-mentals don’t have. That the stuff that happens in our heads gives us an ability to see what non-mentals can’t or won’t.”
“I think Mona’s onto something there.”
“So whatever is happening to you, I’m pretty sure us other mentals would understand.”
Gabriel furrows his eyebrows and studies me. “You think you’re mental?”
“Not wanting to live is an illness. Isn’t that what you said?”
“Sometimes it is. So you believe you’re ill?”
“Depression.” I say the word out loud. I’m still not used to how it sounds as applied to me. “I don’t know. It’s something I’ve been thinking about and talking about with Dr. Desai. It’s hard to accept that depression is an illness, that moping around from day to day with no will for so many years is not my fault. It feels like it’s my fault. Isn’t it your fault when you have all you want and need and much more than ninety-nine percent of the world has, and you still feel miserable?”
Why am I talking so much? It’s Gabriel. He’s worse than Dr. Desai in the way he listens. It’s like you don’t want to disappoint that kind of attentiveness. I go on. “So do I believe I have depression? Even if I did, I don’t think it absolves me from not wanting to live. Not caring about anything is a weakness. I’m with E.M. there.”
“You really, really don’t care about anything?”
“If I did, would I have tried to kill myself?”
Gabriel shakes his head. “You’re so hard on yourself.”
We are both silent. Am I hard on myself? I notice then that I’m not as hard on myself now as I was before Lakeview. The thought of killing myself now comes only at night. It’s as if the pointed corners of a square are being slowly rounded off and I’m becoming more of a circle. All the sharing and talking has dulled the sharp edges. Then I say, “We were talking about you, not me.”
He takes a deep breath. “Whenever I talk to people about the way that I may be mental, I lose them. You know how many friends I had when I was going to school? Zero.”
“Unlike the rest of us, who had tons.”
My sarcasm goes unnoticed. Gabriel continues, “But it wasn’t just that I had no friends. I couldn’t have normal interactions without at some point scaring whoever I was with. The way I am mental affects people. There’s a — I don’t know what the right word is, a seriousness to what I say — a corniness, even — that drags people down. People would hear me philosophizing about roses or going on about the Beatitudes, or I couldn’t help giving them some kind of psychological advice, and I’d lose them.”
“So you think you’ll lose Mona and E.M. and me if you tell us how you’re mental?” I say. “We’ve seen your heaviness and your corniness, as you call it, and we’ve heard you give us psychological advice and impress us with all you know, and you haven’t lost any one of us. Not even E.M.”
“I upset you,” he says. “I’m sorry. You see? I do that to people.”
I give up on trying to control my irritation. “I don’t think it’s fair that you don’t trust us — trust the group. We’ve all made ourselves vulnerable in there. You just sit there and analyze us and tell us that we’re ill.” I’m suddenly angry at Gabriel and I feel like hurting him, almost, and it feels good and terrible at the same time. “You should trust us. Lots of times in the GTH, you encourage me to speak. Why do you think you’re so special?”
He lowers his eyes, and I wait. I’m surprised at the words that came out of my mouth. For someone who doesn’t care about anything, it sure sounded like I cared about Gabriel just then.
When he looks up, his eyes are moist. “You’re right,” he says. “All my life, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had this feeling that I’m special somehow. Because I … notice things that no one else does. Because I see divine messages and symbols everywhere. Because I’m so-called spiritual, or I try to be holy, or because I believe I’m called to do something meaningful with my life. I’ve tried to get rid of this sense of being different — special. I haven’t been able to. It’s just there.”
“Maybe you are special,” I say. “You’re just not better.”
He looks at me for the longest time. I do my best to keep my eyes fixed on his, but in the end I look away. Gwendolyn has quieted down. She’s tapping the fingers of her hands on the table, playing a soulful piano concerto. Her demons are giving her a rest.
Finally, Gabriel speaks. “That’s good, Vicky. That’s good. I’ll talk to the group. Thank you. You helped me today.”
There’s another little silence as I let Gabriel’s words sink in. “I helped you?”
“Yeah. You did.” He smiles.
I helped another person. Me. My words gave someone something they didn’t have before. I feel lighter somehow, as if gravity has lost a bit o
f its grip on me.
“Hey,” he says, making an effort to brighten up, “Dr. Desai said we could go to my grandparents’ the day after tomorrow for my birthday dinner. My grandpa is picking us up. You’re coming, right? Mona and E.M. are on board.”
“I don’t know. I’m not very good at parties.”
“It’s not really a party. Just the four of us, some good Mexican food. Cake. It’ll be good. You’ll get to meet my grandpa, my grandma. Please come.”
“Okay,” I say.
Gabriel stands when I stand. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says.
I walk out of the room and hold the door open for Gabriel, but he’s not behind me. He stopped by Gwendolyn and is pulling out the chair next to her. He sits very straight and closes his eyes in concentration. He locks the fingers of his hands and stretches them until I hear a crack. With his hands poised over an imaginary keyboard, he waits until he has her attention. She looks at him and slowly imitates him. She sits as straight as she can and lifts her hands parallel to Gabriel’s. Then on the count of three, Gabriel begins pounding the imaginary piano, playing what must be a happy upbeat melody, and soon Gwendolyn joins him and they are both bobbing up and down and tapping their feet and swinging left and right and making silly joyful faces.
I stand there watching them along with everyone in the dining room for the two minutes their silent performance lasts. When they stop, we break into thunderous applause, and Gabriel helps the beaming Gwendolyn to her feet. They take a bow.
A sidewalk circles Lakeview Hospital. If you walk it slowly, the way Dr. Desai and I are walking now, you can end up back at the entrance in about fifteen minutes. On our second lap, the clouds part, and we look up to see a patch of pale-blue sky. Today, Dr. Desai is wearing a turquoise sari, and it feels at times as if I’m walking next to a pulsating source of warm light.