The Girl Without a Name (5 page)

T
he week flies by, and it's Yom Kippur already. Scotty and I walk out of the temple into a misty rain. This morning it was gray and muggy out, impossible weather to dress for. Clothes start out sweaty, then get soaked from a downpour an hour later. I can't wait to get into my jeans and out of my “temple clothes”—my pin-striped gray suit, which is a hair tight in the waist (likely due to a dry-cleaning issue), and scratched-up flats. I feel like a women's basketball coach in that suit, clapping up and down the sidelines and wishing she had her sweats on. As we walk down the street toward his car, rain starts falling in a lazy, light spray, deciding whether or not to come down in earnest. The type of rain that makes you consider but decide against an umbrella, a decision you'll regret in a half hour.

“So what did you think of the service?” Scotty asks.

“Fine. A little heavy on the music.” Our rabbi is a big believer in music. My mom once cracked that his guitar was surgically attached to his hip. (She was the queen of one-liners before her brain started shrinking.) Not that I'm antimusic, but I can do without five musical versions of every prayer. If I wanted to sit in temple for three hours, I would have been conservative.

Scotty folds a rectangle of gum up like an accordion and pops it in his mouth, the same way he's eaten gum since he was six.

“You going in to work today?”

“No, I'm being a good Jew. You?”

“Yeah, unfortunately. Eddie's got the flu so I have to cover.”

The rain has made its decision to go full bore now, pelting us and sending rivulets down the side of the street. Water rolls off my raincoat and onto my skirt, and Scotty's strategically gelled hair now lies flat on his head like a bowl cut. Our leisurely stroll becomes an all-out run until finally, we reach Scotty's car, a tiny silver hybrid. Being tall like me, he has to fold his body in half to get in. I lumber in on the other side.

“So I'm dropping you home?” he asks. The rain thuds against the windshield.

“Yup.”

“Hey,” he says, looking into the rearview mirror and wiping moisture off his forehead, “did you get a chance to get any of those pictures together?”

“Oh, right,” I say, stalling. “Not yet.”

Scotty's been asking me to gather pictures of Mom for a Web memorial he's doing. I'm not exactly sure what a Web memorial is—something like a website of Mom's life. It's under construction but he showed me the home page, a photo of Mom from a party, her head back and laughing, unaware of the camera. She is beautiful in that picture, the essence of herself, a joyful, loving, self-assured woman. The complete opposite of who she was before she died. There were tabs running down the left side in categories: Vacations; Parties; Zoe; Scotty; Mom and Dad. An entire life shrunk down into a website, as if that were even possible.

We drive home, a sports station squawking about the Bills, with each caller enumerating the ways each player sucks, and Scotty pulls into my driveway. “Is Mike there?”

“No, he's working. You want to come in?” I ask.

“Nah. I got to get changed and back to work. Thanks anyway.”

“Okay, see you later.” I race in and let Arthur out of his crate. He immediately assumes the position, lying down rather promiscuously on his back, his tongue out and tail wagging. I can't claim to be as happy. Though getting out of my soaked temple-wear and into my lovely, dry jeans is a good start.

Now that I'm home, though, I have no idea what to do with myself. Yom Kippur means no schedule and no work, filling a Type A-er like me with dispiriting ennui. And anything I might want to do surely constitutes sinning. I can't study for the RITE or read up on further treatments for catatonia because that would definitely qualify as work. Crashing on my couch, I flip through a gossip magazine but realize this is most likely a sin, too. I vaguely recall a pronouncement against slander. The gas fireplace flickers orange over the fake gray-black stones. The fireplace would have been inconceivable before today, but the rain has finally stopped, and the day has turned precipitously cold. Fall has officially fallen. The sky outside is still gray, but a cool, misty gray now. Everything looks gray in fact, like the sky sucked out all the color. Gray glossy grass, gray sodden sidewalk, silver-gray underbellies of the leaves flittering like fish scales.

The gossip mag (more a picture book than a magazine really) is finished in two minutes, and I thump my fuzzy-socked feet against the coffee table. I am officially bored, a dangerous state of affairs for an ADHDer who needs her dopamine fix. I could call Mike, but he might not want to pause from stitching up a gunshot wound to chat with me. Then it occurs to me: I could call the Nigerian girl again. The family's name was on the school website, but their machine has been “full and cannot accept new messages at this time” all week. I unfold the creased paper where the number is scribbled, make the call, and am shocked when someone picks up the phone.

“Hello?”

Even the hello has a Southern accent. “Um, hi. I was looking to speak with Sarima?”

“Can I ask who's calling?”

“Well, yes, but she doesn't know me. I'm a doctor from Buffalo. Dr. Zoe Goldman. And—”

“Oh, all right. I'll get her.”

I hear a name being called. Arthur wanders by and tries to make off with the paper with her picture, and I shove him.

“Hello?” Now it's a Nigerian hello.

“Yes, hi, this is Zoe Goldman.” I realize at once this will be an impossible situation to explain, especially with a language barrier, so I improvise. “I'm calling from a health agency. We just need to verify that you are in fact Sarima Balewa.”

“Yes. That is me.”

“And you are matriculating as a foreign exchange student in Oak Hills High School?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And your vaccinations are current?” I throw this one in to sound official.

“Absolutely,” she answers.

I pause then, out of things to say. “That's fine then. Thank you for your time.” I hang up with a sigh. So I have proved the obvious. Sarima Balewa is in fact Sarima Balewa and not Jane. I put the paper down and lay back on the couch. My stomach growls, but it'll have to wait until sundown. Maybe it's the gray day, the fuzzy socks, or the empty stomach, but all at once I feel drugged. Pulling my blanket (Mom's old lilac blanket that she knitted herself, pre-dementia) over me, I fall into a deep slumber.

When the phone wakes me up, three hours have slipped by. My right leg has gone numb from a dog lying on top of it, and I'm starved.

“Hello?” I sit straight up, and Arthur woofs awake.

“Hi, is this Dr. Goldman?” says a woman's voice.

“Yes?”

“Yes, it's eleven north. We're having a bit of an issue here.”

“Okay?” My voice is still husky with sleep.

“Our patient in 1128 is threatening to leave AMA.”

“What's the patient's name?”

“Tiffany. Tiffany Munroe.”

Tiffany Munroe leaving AMA. Why is this night different from any other night? “Okay, here's the thing. I'm actually not on call. Maybe the service didn't get the message, but I switched with Dr. Chang.”

Papers rustle over the phone. “No, we definitely have you down.”

“Yes, I can see how that might be, but it's actually a holiday. A very important Jewish holiday, and I'm not on.” I'm trying to keep my voice even. “Jason is on call. Dr. Jason Chang.” With fucking whom I switched one month ago, of fucking which I reminded him yesterday.

“I don't know anything about that,” the nurse says, annoyed. “And your name is down here as the on-call doc. So, unless you'd rather I call Dr. Berringer—”

“No, no, that won't be necessary,” I grumble. Probation Girl surely does not need that. I flick off the charming fireplace and the room blacks out like a light switch was turned off. “I'm on my way.”

“Thank you very much,” the nurse says with a tone that sounds more like “Fuck you very much.” I slip on my new brown (seal brown, per the box) boots, and Arthur gives me a mournful “say it ain't so” look. Time to go to the hospital, to work.

I'm trying hard not to sin, but it isn't easy.

Room 1128 is empty, of course.

The bed has been stripped, leaving a stained, blue-striped mattress. The bathroom is empty, too, a mint-green toothpaste line running down the middle of the sink. Ms. Tiffany Munroe has left the building.

I march over to the nurses' counter ready to blaspheme like a drunken sailor, Yom Kippur or not, when the nurse preempts me. “I'm sorry,” she says, sounding in fact sorry. “I tried to call you. Like five minutes after we spoke, Tiffany vanished.”

I pull out my phone, which was conveniently on vibrate, and notice a voice mail from the hospital. “Oh,” I answer, deflated. It's hard to be mad at someone who's actually contrite. And it
is
Yom Kippur, after all. “That's fine.” From the chart rack, Jane Doe catches my eye. “How's Jane doing, by the way?”

The nurse squints her eyes. “The catatonic?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing's up with her as far as I know. Stable.”

“Oh well. While I'm here, might as well go and check.”

As I walk in, her shadow looms on the wall, a camel with two humps. A soft light buzzes over her head, giving her a pale cast. Jane is the nighttime version of herself. Staring, grimacing, doing the bunny-nose thing. No change whatsoever, despite our sizable bump in the Ativan yesterday. The vision is beyond depressing. I turn around to leave and nearly slam into Dr. Berringer in the doorway.

“Hey, you,” he says, like we happen to be running into each other at a shop. “What are you doing here?” He's wearing old corduroys and a pilled tan sweater. Like me, he's in “hang-out clothes.” He usually wears khakis with a blazer on rounds.

“They called me for Tiffany. She left AMA. But I figured I'd check on Jane while I'm here,” I say.

He nods, turning to her. “No change, huh?”

“No, unfortunately not.” There is a pause. The bed moans, the IV bag whirs, her stockings fill with air and deflate again. All the sounds in the room are inanimate.

“Tough case. I was talking about her with a colleague.”

“Yeah?”

“She said the next step may be ECT.”

I pause. Electroconvulsive therapy. The big guns, or more like the assault weapons. His colleague is right, though. It's the last-resort treatment in the literature review on catatonia.

“But we have some time before we get that drastic,” he says. “Got some more meds we can try.”

“I hope so.” We stand another moment. “Well, I was just leaving, actually,” I say.

“Yeah, me too. Just checking up on things on the floor.” We walk into the hallway together, our feet clacking two different rhythms against the tile. I don't know whether to be impressed or alarmed at his obvious workaholic tendencies. Maybe this is how he got to be “wunderkind from the Big Easy.”

“Wait, isn't it your holiday or something? New Year's?” he asks.

“Yom Kippur. But they couldn't reach Jason, so I came in.”

“Ah, that's too bad. I wish they had called me. Did you park far away?”

“Not too far.” Though this is a lie. The resident lot is a good ten-minute walk, through not the nicest neighborhood. A neighborhood where people shoot one another.

“Let me walk you,” he says.

“No, that's all right.”

“No arguing. It's a Southern gentlemanly thing. I insist.”

“Well.” I laugh. “I suppose I can't argue against the Southern gentlemanly thing.” We head into the elevator. But instead of pushing the down button, he pushes the twelve. The top floor.

“I want to show you something first, if you don't mind,” he says as the elevator lumbers up.

“Sure,” I answer, though I'm feeling a bit light-headed and really just want to go home and get something to eat. But I'll admit that I'm intrigued. The elevator dings open, and I follow him out. The twelfth floor, oddly, does not have the same mud-brown color scheme as the rest of the hospital. The carpet is a light pink, with tuna-colored Formica furniture, a basic block coffee table, and pink plastic chairs with scratched-up seats. A pale-pink curtain covers the large window.

“It's like a ghost town up here,” I say, looking around. Dark, no patient lights, no beeping noises, no nurses calling from overhead. A forgotten, orphan floor.

“Yeah, it's been empty for over a year. They're still deciding whether or not to move dialysis up here.” He gazes around, too. “You want a drink?”

“A drink?”

“Sure,” he says, heading to the corner where a Pepsi machine buzzes softly, casting a gray-white glow on the wall. “Pick your poison. It's on me. The least I can do for them calling you on your holiday.

“All right.” I tap on the Diet Pepsi window. He stares at the machine, fingering his chin in a semi-comic gesture of deep thought. “Going to have to go with the root beer.” He clinks in the quarters, and the machine spits out our drinks. I spy a bag of Fritos calling out to me and push that button, too. It's as good a break-the-fast as any. He sits down in one of the plastic chairs.

“Have a seat.” He points to the other one and unscrews his bottle with a loud hiss. Then he leans back, his long legs crossed in front of him. We sit a moment, drinking our drinks. The chips are heavenly. Though after a while, I wonder what the hell he wanted to show me in this musty, old abandoned floor.

“Okay, you ready for the big reveal?” he asks as if in response to my unspoken question.

I raise one eyebrow doubtfully, and he takes this for a yes and walks over to the window.

“You sure you're ready now?” he asks, and before I can answer, he rips open the curtain with a soft metal scrape. A thousand hazy city lights spring up in the window, miles of buildings and streets laid out before us.