Rosebush

  David reached out and tugged on my skirt. “Sexxxy,” he said, pulling me onto his lap. His eyes beneath the glasses were half open, his mouth had a lazy smile, and there was an eighth of an inch of stubble on his cheeks. “I like your surprise.”

  “This is just the beginning.”

  He raised his eyebrows and the smile got wider. “Do tell.”

  “Well—”

  “No talking before knocking!” Dom called. “Let’s get the ladies drinks so we can toast.”

  He led Kate and Langley out to the kitchen while I settled onto David’s lap.

  “I thought you weren’t coming,” I said to Ollie, who hadn’t moved through the entire exchange. Ollie wore a dark-green military-cut jacket, jeans, and vintage brown Gucci loafers.

  “My date got held up at a debutant-ball rehearsal.”

  David had been taking a bong hit while we talked and now, still holding it in, he nodded and said, “I was thinking about that earlier.”

  “About my date?” Ollie asked, frowning.

  David exhaled. “No, man. Today in Mrs. Halverson’s class, there was a spider.” He kissed me on the lips. He tasted like gummi bears and pot.

  “Dude,” Ollie said. “If this is going to be one of your stony stories that doesn’t go anywhere—”

  “No, this is serious, Ollie. So I’m watching this spider building its web in the corner of the window. First it does the main parts, then the little connector rods. It’s like so careful and precise, right? And then, just when it’s done, Mrs. Halverson comes over and says, ‘It’s so stuffy in here I can hardly breathe. Let’s have some air,’ and opens the window. And boom, all the spider’s work was gone.” He paused. “Made me think, man, that was just like life.”

  I touched his cheek. “What do you mean, silly boy?”

  “You work and work, and all it takes is one bitch to ruin everything.”

  Ollie stared ahead steadily and said, “I think it shows that sometimes for one person to keep breathing, something else has to stop.” He turned and looked at me, right at me, jaw tight, his green eyes hard, glittering, and inquisitive. “Do you know what I mean?”

  “Um, I guess?” As we were talking, David had moved his fingers from my neck and was now kneading my shoulders. I closed my eyes and leaned into him. “That feels fantastic.”

  His teeth nipped my ear. “It would feel better if we weren’t wearing clothes. I like your surprise, but I’ll like you even more out of it.”

  Ollie stood up, announced, “I’m going to get a drink,” and took off.

  I laughed at David and kissed him lightly on the nose. “This isn’t the surprise. This is just le amuse-bouche.”

  “I like le sound of that.” His eyes focused. “I thought of 139,” he said. His fingers played along the edge of my tube top.

  On our third anniversary David had given me a card with a list titled THINGS I LIKE MY GIRLFRIEND JANE EVEN BETTER THAN and he’d been adding to it ever since. The last one, BETTER THAN WEEKENDS WHEN DESPOT DAD IS OUT OF TOWN, had been number 138.

  “What is 139?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell you when you give me my surprise,” he said, and smiled mischievously. Even with his eyes at half-mast, he was so handsome I could barely believe he was mine.

  “I can’t wait.”

  “I don’t want to wait. So when’s it going down?”

  “In just a few—” I broke off because I saw Kate waving at me frantically from across the room.

  “I have to go.”

  “Seriously, fairy princess—”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “—don’t fly too far away.”

  I found Kate and Langley in an upstairs bathroom with flocked brocade wallpaper. Langley was crouched on the floor with her head over the toilet. “What’s wrong? What happened? Was it something from lunch?”

  “I didn’t eat lunch.” Her face still against the side of the toilet, Langley thrust her iPhone toward me. “Alex just e-mailed. He says he’s not coming for my birthday party.”

  Langley had been planning her party for six months and the most important part of all was the presence of her boyfriend, Alex. “What? That’s crazy. Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I tried calling him, but he won’t answer.”

  “It is four in the morning there.”

  “That shouldn’t matter. He must be with someone else.” Her lip quivered and her eyes were pools of misery.

  I pointed to the screen of her iPhone. “He signed it ‘love, Alex.’ Maybe something happened. He says he’ll explain later.”

  Her hands were fists and her voice was rising with hysteria. “What can he say? There’s no excuse for it. He’s ruining everything. Everything.”

  “Not everything, L.?” Kate’s tone was quiet, soothing, her face filled with concern. A few wisps of dark-blonde hair fell forward as she leaned down to put her hand on Langley’s shoulder. “Honestly, I’m sure there’s a good reason and—”

  “Honestly,” Langley repeated, mocking the word. She moved her shoulder from Kate’s fingers. “Honestly, what do you know, Kate? Everyone loves you. Your parents, teachers, guys. Men follow you down the street just to tell you how beautiful you are. You have everything and you don’t even care. But I have nothing. No one.”

  Kate recoiled like she’d been hit. She hugged her arms around herself.

  “That’s not true,” she said quietly. She reached out and ran the fingers of her right hand along the edge of a large stone soap holder in the shape of a cupid. “I do care. And I don’t have everything.” Her voice got louder and more angry. Her hand closed on the soap dish. “You don’t live my life. You don’t know—” She broke off, shaking her head. “I’m going to go.”

  No! I wanted to shout. This can’t happen. No fighting. I got that knot of panic in my stomach I always got when they fought, even just pretend. The feeling I got at the thought of anything ruining our friendship, of being alone again. I had to make this better. I stood in front of the door, took a deep breath, put my hands on my hips, and said, “Kiss and make up, you two.”

  There was a long pause. They both looked at me.

  Then Langley said, “Kiss and make up. I bet the boys outside would pay to see that.”

  We all laughed and the tension was broken.

  Langley stood and wrapped her arms around us both. “I’m sorry. I was just so disappointed in Alex. I should know better than to trust any boys. I love you two. You are the best friends I could ever have or ever want in the world.”

  We each kissed our pinkies and brought them together in salute. “All for one,” Langley began, “and one for all,” Kate and I finished off.

  Langley frowned, took my face in her hand, and turned it toward the light. “Speaking of which, someone has been wearing off her lip gloss. You need another coat before you go tell your boy the news. Pout for me.”

  I pouted and she glossed me.

  I remember that moment, the three of us in the mirror, Langley with her light-blonde hair, Kate with her honey brown, and me with raven black, three fairy princesses indeed. This was my life, I thought. Like a Clairol commercial. And it was perfect.

  Five-and-a-half hours later, I’d been left for dead in a rosebush.

  Friday

  Chapter 5

  I stood at the tip of the dock, shaking my head. “Come on, Jane,” the pretty brunette camp counselor said. She was floating just off its edge, beckoning to me. “Come on, the water’s great. Just jump.”

  I heard the buzzing of cicadas in the bushes around the lake and felt the sticky midwestern air and the splintery boards beneath my bare feet.

  The water was brown and thick with weeds. I knew this because my best friend, Bonnie, told me about them. “They grip your ankles like slimy tentacles and won’t let go,” she said, wiggling her fingers menacingly in my face.

  “Jane Freeman, you have to jump.” A new voice spoke behind me. I turned and saw one of the boys’ counselors, Cass. I’d h
ad a crush on Cass since the first day of camp, when he took a bee stinger out of my foot. “I know you’re not chicken,” he said.

  I was. I absolutely, positively was chicken. But with him smiling down at me, brown curly hair and blue eyes with thick dark lashes, I didn’t want to admit it. “Go on,” he said, broadening the smile.

  To please him, to save face, I jumped. At first it was great. Bonnie had just been pulling my leg. I laughed, at my fear, at my stupidity, at the exhilaration of being in the cool water.

  And then I felt it. First one and then another oleaginous tendril slipping along my skin. What began as a fawning caress was soon a series of slimy ribbons looping around my ankles. I felt the long weeds wrapping themselves around my calves and thighs, like sea witches grasping my feet with greedy fingers, trying to drag me into their underground lair. The more I struggled, the tighter they gripped me.

  Stop moving, a voice in my head said. You’ll be fine.

  But I didn’t, I couldn’t. I fought and fought, getting weaker, until I had no choice. I couldn’t go on. My body, nearly airless, went limp. I stopped moving.

  And then, like magic I was free. The weeds unwrapped. I slipped away.

  My lungs ached for air, my chest felt like it was going to cave in. I kicked with all my force, arms pushing forward, parting the greenish-brown water around me. There, above me, I saw it, a spot of shimmering sunlight. With my last remaining strength I broke through the surface of the water, gasping for breath, triumphant at having pulled myself back to life.

  I opened my eyes, blinking the water out of them. And found myself staring into a gaze filled with malice.

  “You stupid bitch. I hate you,” a voice I knew but didn’t know said. “Goodbye, Jane.”

  I was hit with a wave of devastating pain and I felt a hand pushing me back under, pushing me into the brown water, back into the darkness, to the weeds. The tentacles reached for me again, imprisoning me. My arms and legs were trapped. Water was pouring into my open mouth and my throat stung and I couldn’t breathe and there was a long wailing sound and someone said, “Get her back under!” and—

  Blackness.

  Scratching.

  A woman’s voice. “Mr. Carl St. James. White lilies in a green vase.”

  More scratching.

  “Nicola di Savoia. Balloon bouquet in shades of pink with a Mylar alligator balloon.”

  “Pontrain Motors family. Bucket of four-flavored popcorn.”

  A man’s voice. “That’s the one I like. Pass that over, will you, Rosie?”

  I hate it when Joe calls my mother that. That’s the first thing I thought when I regained consciousness the second time. Before even realizing that I could hear, that I was awake, that this time it was for real.

  My eyes flew open and I saw him there, my soon-to-be stepfather, gorging his face with four flavors of popcorn.

  My mother was sitting in a blue upholstered chair next to him, her legs together, ankles crossed, in the posture she described as Casual but Respectful when she made me and my sister, Annie, master it. She was wearing jeans with a perfectly ironed crease down the center of each leg, a white silk blouse with a bow at the throat, and an American-flag stick pin. She was rail thin and looked misleadingly delicate. Her hair was a perfect gold bob with bangs that ran straight across her forehead.

  Beneath them the red-framed glasses she used when she was working were pushed forward on her nose. The scratching I heard was the sound of her burgundy-enamel Mountblanc roller ball making notes on the leather-bound pad in her lap.

  I watched her for a moment, seeing her the way I always did recently, as a stranger. Like someone I was seeing on television, not someone I lived with.

  I followed her gaze to my younger sister, Annie, who was standing near a shelf half filled with bouquets. For reasons that undoubtedly made sense to her, Annie was wearing the special red-velvet dress she’d gotten at Christmas, now a few sizes too small. It would have been obscenely short, but any hint of impropriety was erased by the black-and-white-striped tights and yellow rubber boots with duck faces on the toes she’d paired it with. At seven, Annie looked like a mini-version of my mother complete with an air of maturity far beyond her years, red-framed glasses, and golden bob—although my mother’s was dyed—but Annie was very much her own person.

  My mother reached a hand toward her now. Annie lifted one of the bouquets and held out the card nestled beneath it.

  “Arthur and Susan Kazarhi,” my mother said aloud as she wrote on the pad. “Pink-and-white orchid in green-patina planter.”

  Joe lounged on my mother’s left, ankle on his knee, arm across the back of my mother’s chair, taking up as much room as possible. I’d heard people say he was handsome, but to me he looked like a gorilla. He had hairy hands and the perpetual shadow of a beard. He was wearing a blue-and-white-checked button-down shirt with gold cuff links and khakis. The shirts were specially made for him, as he’d tell you if you were unfortunate enough to talk to him for more than five minutes. Expensive, but can you beat the feel? Here, touch the fabric. What a guy, that Joe.

  Joe must have felt my glare because he was the first one to notice me. His face split into a grin. “Well, isn’t that a sight for sore eyes. Look, Rosie, Sleeping Beauty has awakened.”

  My mother looked up instantly. Too fast, in fact, not giving herself time to compose her face, and what I saw, in that moment, was fear. And age—it was like she’d aged ten years since I saw her last.

  Then the fear vanished and she was smiling, perfect lipstick, just the right degree of concern in the eyes. “Jane, darling!” She set aside the notebook and came toward me. “We were just making a list of people for you to write thank-you notes for and—”

  Thank-you notes? For what?

  My mother trailed off, the brightness fading. “Janey, oh, my precious girl.” She was at the side of my bed now, clutching my hand. Which was when I realized I couldn’t feel anything. “Jane, do you know where you are?”

  Or speak.

  Horror, terror washed over me.

  My chest tightened and I felt tears pricking my eyes and a scream started in my stomach and tried to work its way out, but it couldn’t. It was trapped, a prisoner in my own body. What is going on? I wanted to scream. Someone tell me what is happening!

  Nothing came out.

  Tears blurred my vision and I felt like I was suffocating. My brain sped, Where am I how did I get here what is this let me out where am I? but no one heard, no one answered. Everyone was talking at once, saying things I couldn’t understand, coming in and out of focus. “Don’t leave me, Mommy make it better, Mommy—!” I knew she stood next to me crying, I knew somehow that there were tears falling on my arms, and I couldn’t feel them.

  I couldn’t feel them.

  I was completely isolated. Completely alone.

  The fear that coursed through me then was white hot and chilling at once. I was being buried alive, I was stuck, trapped, alone, forever.

  My heart began to race. I have to get out of here I have to be able to move this can’t be happening to me this can’t be happening! The heart-rate monitor started to beep more quickly as my pulse picked up. The me inside me tried to claw its way out, fighting, twisting, pushing. Dying. I have to get out of here, I have to escape. My vision blurred, went black. I’m in danger. Let me out let me out. The heart-rate monitor beeped faster.

  I felt my throat closing up. I’m going to die, I can’t breathe, oh God, please please let me out, let me—

  The heart-rate monitor began to shriek and my mother’s face, chalk white, was replaced by a face I didn’t know, the face of a woman in pink scrubs with big yellow suns grinning on them.

  “Shhh, baby,” she said, smiling down at me as much as the suns on her shirt. “I know this is all a shock, but it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay. But you’ve got to calm yourself down.”

  She held my eyes with hers and there was something about that, about her steady gaze and soothing
voice, that seemed to reach deep inside me. “Relax, sweetheart,” she said, and as though she’d hypnotized me, the monster fighting inside of me stilled. “Let’s try to do this on your own without more medicine. Breathe with me, baby. One in, nice and slow, now let it out. Another breath in, that’s good, you’re doing great, and out.”

  After four breaths, my throat opened up. After six, the heart-rate monitor started to beep more slowly.

  “There’s a good girl,” she said to me. “And waking up just in time for lunch, too. It’s chicken stew. Hope you don’t regret it.” She laughed, a ringing peal that blanked out the humming and beeping of the machines around my bed and made the room feel human for an instant. I think I fell in love with her then. “My name is Loretta and I’ll be your guide through the world of critical care for the next few hours.”

  “Is she okay?” my mother demanded. “What happened?”

  “She’s better than okay, aren’t you, sweetheart?” Loretta said. “Did you see how she focused on me and responded to my words? Shows there’s little if any cognitive impairment.”

  Little if any cognitive impairment. What were they talking about? What did that mean?

  Loretta turned to me. “Keep breathing, baby. It’s natural to be a bit disoriented when you wake up, what with the drugs and all you’ve been through. But you’ll feel better in no time, you’ll see. There’s a clock straight in front of you on the wall. Can you see it?” I moved my eyes to it. It said one fifteen. “You just blink once for yes or okay and twice for no or bad.” Like it was normal not to be able to speak.

  I blinked once, and there was a collective exhaling of breath. It wasn’t until later that I learned they weren’t even sure if I would be able to do that. Based on where I was hit on the head, I could have been fine or—as Dr. Connolly put it when he appeared a minute later—“One millimeter more to the left and bang, you’d have been no better than a rutabaga.”