Dancing on the Edge

  He stood up and patted my head. I pulled away. “I’ll see you in a few days. If you have any questions or want to talk to me before then you just let them know and I’ll come over as soon as I can.”

  I watched him walk away, ducking back through the door. I stopped shivering when I heard the sound of his running shoes at the far end of the hall.

  Chapter 19

  AUNT CASEY stood by my bed and picked at her fingernail polish the next time she came to see me. Her eyes were clear, but they kept moving while she talked to me, glancing at the windows, the walls, my legs, the floor, anything but me. She said she wanted to explain about seeing Dr. DeAngelis, about staying in the hospital.

  “I know it’s . . . weird . . . you know, talking to a stranger and all. I mean, no one in the family’s ever done that—talked about problems with a stranger, I don’t think. We don’t even talk to each other . . . really . . . so talking with a stranger . . . I know, it’s weird.” Aunt Casey stopped picking at her nail polish and rubbed her hands up and down her arms as if she were cold.

  “At work, clients talk to me all the time—you know? They tell me all kinds of personal stuff while I’m doing their hair, even if it’s their first time in. But it’s weird being on the other side, being the one who’s doing the talking, taking someone else’s advice. But Miracle”—Aunt Casey glanced at my shoulders—“this family’s got too many secrets. We need help sorting it all out, the secrets, and . . . and problems. In my textbooks there are all these case studies, I mean really strange cases, like a man who can’t find his head and this lady who thinks she’s a circus horse, and you know, they get cured! They go home and lead normal healthy lives. All these wacko cases, so just think how easy it’ll be for us. So . . . so, it’s not a bad thing. I mean, you didn’t do anything bad. It’s not a punishment or anything. I’m not . . . I’m just wanting to help you.” Aunt Casey frowned, her gaze settling on my bedcovers. “It’s the right thing to do.” She nodded. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  THE NEXT DAY was moving day. I was going to another wing of the hospital, a locked wing they called the yellow unit. Aunt Casey said she’d go with me and planned to come by at two-thirty in the afternoon. At two-fifteen, Gigi showed up with a hospital attendant who was holding the back of an empty wheelchair.

  Gigi bustled into the room. “Come on,” she said, gesturing to the chair. “Hop in, it’s time to go.”

  “But what about Aunt Casey, wasn’t she . . .”

  Gigi waved her hand. “That’s all changed. Now hop in the chair, you’ve got to leave here riding one of these so you don’t fall and sue the hospital. Come on. Come on.”

  I shuffled to the chair, with Gigi beckoning to me the whole time, urging me to hurry.

  “Good, good,” she said when I was finally in the seat and the orderly was rolling me out the door. We rode the elevator to the main level and then they wheeled me down the corridor to the exit. That’s when we ran into Aunt Casey.

  “Where are you going?” Aunt Casey said, blocking the exit, her hands on her hips.

  Gigi stepped in front of my chair so that I was looking at the back of her robe. “We’re going home, what do you think? Now get out of the way.”

  “She’s not going home,” Aunt Casey said. “It’s already been arranged.”

  “Well, unarrange it. How can you think of locking Miracle up in a cage and letting her be electrocuted?”

  “Gigi!” Aunt Casey leaned sideways beyond Gigi’s body and said to me, “It’s not like that at all.” Then to Gigi she said, “Stop trying to scare her. She needs help. We all do.”

  “That’s right, and I can cure her in two days,” Gigi said, stepping around to the back of my chair and bumping the orderly out of the way so she could hold the chair herself. “She doesn’t need some prying, nosy doctor getting into our business. All those silly questions he asked me. It’s not his business, and I told him so.”

  “Ah! That’s what it is.” Aunt Casey nodded. “You’re afraid she’ll learn the truth. You’re afraid . . .”

  Gigi raised her voice. “You’ve never liked this family. Never! You never liked Miracle. You only stick around because you feel guilty. It’s guilt. It’s all your fault. I should think you wouldn’t get within a hundred miles of a shrink. You want Miracle to learn the truth? I can tell her the truth.”

  I didn’t know what they were talking about. They stood leaning over the chair, face-to-face, arguing with each other as if I weren’t even there. They didn’t even notice that the man had left. I saw him through the gap between Gigi’s sleeve and Aunt Casey’s arm. Both of them had their weight on the chair, claiming it for themselves. The man was making a phone call. I closed my eyes and listened to the words pelting my ears, making my head ache.

  Gigi had accused Aunt Casey of not being able to afford to keep me in the hospital even one more day. She said that she and Eugene weren’t going to pay for it and that was that, so Casey should let go of the chair. Aunt Casey stood up and puffed up her chest, reminding Gigi that she owned Hair Etcetera, and that she had all kinds of insurance on the salon and the stylists who worked there.

  “When it came time to renew the health insurance last year, I simply put Miracle on my policy,” she said. “If it’s one thing I know, I’ve always had a good head for business. So now you get out of the way.”

  “Insurance! What good is that?”

  “It’ll at least cover a few more weeks in the hospital,” Aunt Casey said, yanking on the chair.

  “And what will a few weeks buy her? Half a cure?” Gigi yanked back.

  “No, half a chance, which is more than she ever got with any of us. Now you let go!”

  “I won’t! You let go.”

  The two of them were pushing and shoving the chair back and forth between them when Dr. DeAngelis showed up.

  “It looks as if we have a problem,” he said, coming up behind me and Gigi.

  Gigi let go of the chair and fled without saying another word. She was just a flash of purple sweeping through the exit. Aunt Casey stared after her and didn’t move to take my chair.

  Dr. DeAngelis cleared his throat. “Well, then, shall we go?” He turned my chair around and Aunt Casey, nodding, still speechless, came around to the side of my chair, and the three of us traveled down the hallway to the locked doors of the yellow unit.

  Chapter 20

  THE YELLOW UNIT. Yellow. Gigi said a yellow aura means the person values his mind the most and pursues the highest intellectual matters. The walls of the yellow unit were blue. The floors were tan linoleum, except in Dr. DeAngelis’s office. He had a gray carpet and white walls and black furniture, except for the couch. I couldn’t figure out what color the couch was.

  They had me take some tests. I sat alone in a room with computer-printed tests and a pencil. The tests were different from the ones we took in school. These tests had statements like: I think I am attractive—A. All of the time. B. Some of the time. C. Never. Or, I enjoy being with my friends—A. All of the time. B. Some of the time. C. Never.

  I left the answers blank.

  They took me to the dayroom and told me for the first two days I had to sleep there on the couch in front of the night staff and then, if I behaved myself, I would be given a real room. I didn’t know what they meant. Behaved myself in what way?

  The dayroom had couches and chairs that looked like Uncle Toole had donated them from his collection. Two large round tables stood in the middle and there was a Ping-Pong table to one side and the glassed-in nurses’ station on the other. Red tape ran along the floor between the second table and the Ping-Pong table. I was told that for the first two days I couldn’t step over the red line. This was very important. Everyone who came up to me—counselors, day nurses, Dr. DeAngelis—told me I could not step over the red tape. If I did, I’d have to spend another night in the dayroom. If I did, I’d lose points.

  They had a point system. I lost twenty-five points for erasing my name off the blackboard
on the wall across from the nurses’ station. I lost 150 points the first day for erasing my name six times. They didn’t put it up again. The blackboard had said, Miracle McCloy: Restricted.

  They gave us points for making our beds and points for taking a shower. We got points for attending classes and group and for participating in group. We got points for dressing in the morning and behaving ourselves and for listening to the counselors. Six hundred points put you at level four. Five hundred at level three, four hundred at level two, and three hundred and below at level one. Level ones couldn’t walk the grounds, have visitors, fix snacks in the kitchen, watch television, or go to the cafeteria to eat. My meals were brought to me, and I ate in the dayroom alone because I was the only level one.

  The patients in the yellow unit called it the suicide ward or the psycho ward. There were seven of us in all. Gigi said seven is a miraculous number, full of meaning. One is unity, plus six is perfection. Seven also represents the life of the body: spirit, flesh, humor, and bone, and the life of the soul: passion, desire, reason. Seven was the perfect number.

  I had my first real session with Dr. DeAngelis my second day on the yellow unit. Kyla, the day staffer, came and got me. I was in the dayroom, looking out the big window with the painted white grille over it. Someone told me they put the grilles on all the windows to keep the patients from punching out the glass. I was watching Aunt Casey and Uncle Toole walking away from the yellow unit. Both of them were talking. I could see their mouths moving at the same time, and I wondered if both of them were talking, who was listening?

  “Come on, sugar, Dr. DeAngelis is waiting for you,” Kyla said, taking my hand and pulling me away from the window.

  People touched me all the time on the yellow unit. When Kyla introduced me to the group on the first day, she stood next to me and rubbed my back. Mike, the group therapist, touched my arm and asked me to join in the group discussion anytime I felt like it. Leah, one of the other patients, slapped the back of my head because I didn’t answer her questions. She wanted to know why I was walking like Frankenstein, what was under the bandages. She lost one hundred points and kitchen privileges for hitting me.

  I wasn’t used to being touched, but I liked it. Every time someone touched me I imagined them placing a new piece of skin on me, as if they were giving me back a lost piece of myself.

  Dr. DeAngelis was sitting at his desk taking notes when Kyla showed me into the room. He jumped up from his desk and smiled and pumped both my hands as if we were old friends. He told me to take a seat anywhere I liked, and Kyla left us alone.

  I turned to the right three times and then to the left. I chose the black chair with the shiny silver legs in the far corner of the room, circled it three times, and sat down.

  Dr. DeAngelis pulled his chair out from behind his desk and rolled it to the center of the room before sitting. It was no fair that his chair had wheels when the others didn’t.

  “Casey explained to me about the circling,” he said. “She was here just before you. Your grandmother, Gigi, is a firm believer in the supernatural, isn’t she?”

  I looked past him at the poster he had above his desk. It was of a runner running down a lonely road toward the mountains and the sun. Written above the runner it said THE MIND SET FREE.

  Dr. DeAngelis twisted around with his chair to look at the poster. “Like it? It’s my favorite.” He twisted back to me. “Do you run? I do. I love to run.

  “No, you dance, don’t you? Let’s see . . .” He wheeled himself backward toward his desk and reached for his notes. Then he rolled forward again, a little closer to me this time, and flipped through his yellow notepad.

  “Yes, Emmaline Wilson said you were a dancer, quite good, too.”

  He looked at me. “You look surprised. Let’s see, what else do I know about you?” He flipped back through his notes.

  I didn’t like it. I didn’t like him having me there on his paper. I jumped up from my chair and ran for the door.

  He raised his voice. “Nothing. Almost nothing. Your relatives know surprisingly little about you, Miracle.”

  I waited with my hand on the doorknob. “They couldn’t tell me what your interests were, who your friends are, what your favorite foods are, your favorite color—well, you always wear purple, don’t you? But that’s at your grandmother’s request, is that right?”

  He waited as if I were going to answer him.

  “Come sit down, Miracle.”

  It was a command not a request. His voice wasn’t so soft. His gaze followed me back to my chair.

  “Very good. I’m wondering why no one can give me much information on you. They tell me you lived with your grandmother. And then you moved in with your grandfather. So then you lived with your grandmother and grandfather? And they are divorced.”

  He returned to his notes. “Then there was a tornado and your grandfather had a heart attack—a warning, I believe Miss Wilson called it. Two days later he had a more serious attack, it almost killed him.” I scratched at my arm. I wouldn’t think about Grandaddy Opal, how I almost killed him.

  He looked up at me. “Miss Wilson says you and he were quite close. He talks about you all the time. You must have been quite upset by the attacks.” He waited. “Miracle, your arm’s bleeding.” He grabbed a tissue from the box on his desk and handed it to me. I wrapped it around my arm without looking at it, without thinking about Grandaddy. I rubbed my nose and looked away.

  He went back to the notes. “Then you went to live with your aunt and uncle. Back to Alabama. Whew!” He looked at me again. “That’s quite a lot of moving. It’s hard, isn’t it? Leaving what you’re used to—your friends, your home, and in your case, your family.”

  He rolled his chair toward me. I pushed mine back, but there was nowhere to go so the front legs just lifted off the floor. Dr. DeAngelis rolled all the way up to me and took my hands in his.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Miracle.” He looked directly into my eyes, and I turned away and looked at the blank wall. He reached up and took my chin and pulled my face forward again.

  “When we communicate in this room, we look at each other, eye to eye. That’s one of my rules, Miracle.”

  He held my face, but I kept my eyes down. I couldn’t look at him.

  “Miracle, I think you’ve gotten a bum deal. I think things have been pretty rotten for you at times. It makes me angry. Miracle, I’m very angry.”

  I looked at him, right in the eyes, and there was a face looking back at me—a tiny, angry face staring out at me from the center of his eyes.

  Chapter 21

  EVERYONE THOUGHT I had set myself on fire. I wasn’t sure, I couldn’t remember. Leah had cut her wrist. She had a large white bandage wrapped around it, but she liked to pull it away and look at the slits. She showed them to me and asked to see my legs. I wouldn’t show her. I still had to have goop smeared on them twice a day, and new dressings put on. I wore my purple pants to keep them covered up. They still hurt. Sometimes at night I’d wake up with them on fire all over again, that’s what it felt like. I thought maybe because I didn’t feel it the first time, when it happened, I was going to have to feel the pain every day for the rest of my life.

  Everyone there liked to talk about what they had done to themselves. They would remind each other over and over, show their scars, tell their story—horror stories. I knew I wasn’t in the right place.

  In group, Mike, the counselor, asked for suggestions for ways of handling our anger and depression, ways of dealing with disappointment. Leah said the best way was to cut yourself. Jon said it was to OD on drugs. Then the others started in, and Kyla had to clap her hands and tell everyone to stop acting out.

  They liked to act crazy in group, too, say crazy things like “I’m a cat,” and then crawl around on all fours and lick people’s legs. They did it on purpose, a show for the counselors.

  The girls all liked Mike. He looked like a tennis player. He wore pink shirts and white tennis shorts and ha
d a tennis tan.

  Mike asked me for a suggestion, and when I didn’t answer, Leah shouted, “Talk!” Then they all started chanting, “Talk, talk, talk, talk!” Kyla had to clap several times and threaten them with losing points before they would hush up.

  After two days in the yellow unit, they gave me a bedroom. I shared it with Deborah. She was eighteen years old, pretty, with big bright blue eyes and dark eyelashes, and she was very fat. She liked to cuddle with people, especially Kyla. She had taken sleeping pills because her boyfriend had dumped her. She had engraved his name on her arm. She showed it to me. It was brown. Roy, carved in brown. It looked like a little child wrote it. She said she did it with the metal clip broken off her father’s Parker Brothers pen. “My father made me get a tetanus shot for it,” she said, holding it up for me to see and then bringing her arm back in close to her and staring at it a long time, as if she had never seen it before.

  She told me Roy left her for someone who didn’t do things like scratch her boyfriend’s name in her arm. She said he was afraid of the commitment a Roy scar demanded.

  I couldn’t have any visitors for two weeks. I didn’t mind. I didn’t know who would come visit me anyway—maybe Uncle Toole. They had a television set in the TV room and it was on all day. He could sit with me and change the channels.

  Anytime I didn’t have to be in class, or in group, or sitting with Dr. DeAngelis, or eating, I watched television. Everyone fought over which programs to watch, but I didn’t care what I watched: Every bit of it fascinated me—the way kids talked to their parents and the way parents talked to each other. The people on TV always had something funny to say, or something smart, or they were goofy and weird but people talked to them anyway.

  Kyla always knew where to find me when it was time to go see Dr. DeAngelis. She called me a couch potato. I had never heard of a couch potato before, but it made me think of the potato chips I found under the cushion of my bed in Aunt Casey’s wig room. I slept with them under me a long time and then one night, back when I was just starting to fear the dark, I ate them.