The Girl Without a Name (7 page)

I lean back in the chair, telling her with my posture that I'm open to sharing, then wait a long moment before gathering up my pen and chart. The intake has been carried out. There's not much more to discuss right now. Or at least Chloe doesn't think so. “You've had your weigh-in. Group therapy at eleven. I guess I'll see you tomorrow.”

She doesn't answer.

“If you need anything in the meantime, just call me. Dr. Goldman.”

“Who's the attending?” she asks.

“Dr. Berringer.”

She rolls her eyes. “The great Dr. Berringer.” Her red bangs hang in spikes over her eyebrows.

“You know him?”

“Yeah, you could say that. I had him last time I was here.”

I nod, giving her time to elaborate, but nothing is forthcoming. “Did you have a problem with him?”

She smirks. “Yeah, I have a problem with him. He's an asshole.”

Her response surprises me. Most of the patients love Dr. Berringer. The parents, especially the mothers, won't stop raving about him. “Okay,” I answer, evenly. “Would you like to tell me more about that?”

“Yes, I'd love to tell you more about that, Dr. Goldman!” She claps her hands together. “He's the most egocentric individual I've ever met!”

“Because?” I ask.

“I don't know.” She shrugs. “I guess you'd have to ask him. An overindulgent mother, I'm thinking. That would be the Freudian explanation anyway.”

“Right.” Sometimes you need to quit when you're ahead, and she is the last patient of the day. “Maybe we can talk more about that tomorrow.”

“I'm counting the minutes,” she says, rolling her eyes again, harder if possible. A seizure-inducing eye roll. I stand up to leave, figuring she's probably just splitting, meaning someone is either all good or all bad. Black and white, no gray zone. And this can shift. Dr. Berringer may be the devil today and her savior tomorrow.

On the elevator, a man in a turban walks on, cradling a coffee in his hands. A priest steps in on the next floor, nodding at the man in the turban and then me.

“How's the weather up there?” he asks with a broad smile. I smile in response to this question I've heard a million times. It's hard to get mad at a priest. In the lobby, health-care folks in scrubs and white coats mix it up with the civilians: patients and visitors. They all line up for the coffee shop, jonesing for their fix. People are scattered about the room in various states of disarray. A balding man in a suit, pacing with a bouquet under his arm. A very pregnant woman in sweats, staring at the vending machine. A redhead, stiff in his wheelchair, drooling and grimacing while his mother stands next to him eating pizza. A resident talking on his phone, his scrub hat lopsided. Automatic doors slide open to a fading blue sky, and I feel a twinge of sadness at these folks in the lobby who have to stay in the hospital.

But it's time for me to go home.

Someone is sitting in my usual eggplant-colored settee by the fireplace at the Coffee Spot (annoying, but it's not like I had a sign on it), so I've settled into a bone-colored sofa chair by the window, the faux leather flaking off its arms. The night grows darker outside, a soft rain dotting the sidewalks.

Acing the Psychiatry RITE
sits on one side of the table, and a thick journal article, “Catatonia: A Case Series and Literature Review,” is on the other. Both untouched. Eddie walks by, straightening up the table to my left. The chair knocks against the table legs. With a sigh, I open up the RITE book, flattening out the page.

I circle
b
, because every psychiatric drug seems to cause weight gain, then immediately check out the answer below.
E
. Kidney stones, damn it.
Topamax is known to frequently cause significant weight loss.
Of course it is. Probation is starting to look like a life sentence. I take another sip of decaf espresso (an oxymoron, I know, but my heart has been trying to escape from my chest all day), readying myself for the next question, when Scotty wanders over.

“How's life?” He sits beside me in the French-blue chair, crossing his long legs at the ankles. The music changes to Vivaldi's
Four Seasons
, of course.

“Life is life,” I answer. “How about you?”

“Similar,” he says, downing the last of his coffee. “I was going to visit Mom's gravesite on Sunday if you wanted to come.”

“Oh.” I play with the pages of the book. “I don't think I can because—”

“Quick, think of an excuse,” he says. Snarkily, I might add.

“What's your problem?”

“I don't know.” He leans back again. “Sometimes it's like you care more about Jane fucking Doe than you do about Mom.”

“It's not like there's a contest.”

“You know what I mean.”

I take a deep breath. “Obviously we just have different ways of dealing with Mom's death.”

“Obviously so.” He checks his watch. “The Charles Schwab thing came up empty by the way.”

“What Charles Schwab thing?”

“For the bonds. I told you I was going to talk with that woman from Charles Schwab. She said they can't go back that far, but she has some nice ETFs to sell me if I'm interested.”

I cackle. “I bet.”

We sit another minute, not talking, and I notice my foot tapping to the music. Scotty yawns, then catches the eye of a skinny blond girl a couple of tables ahead of us. He glances at the floor a second, and when he looks back up at her, she's still watching him.

“Aren't you still seeing what's-her-name?” I ask, because I actually don't remember her name.

“I don't think so,” he answers, which isn't an answer as far as I'm concerned, then strides over to meet the newest what's-her-name. Brushing his hand through his already messy hair, he bestows his trademark eyebrow raise upon her, then says something. Who knows what? No doubt a well-worn pickup line that only he can carry off, and she laughs with her friends, throwing her head back with strands of golden hair shining under the lights. Target acquired. My brother and his way with the fairer sex, one of life's great mysteries.

I turn the page, but the next question is over three paragraphs, which seems like an inordinate amount of reading right now (again, cue ADHD and utter Adderall failure), when luckily an e-mail pings onto my phone to save the day. Probably another coupon from Banana Republic, but I check anyway. It's a chain e-mail from a medical resident who barely qualifies as an acquaintance. Delete. I abhor chain mails, a gratuitous source of angst. The next question is also way beyond the pale of what I'm willing to read, so I sail on to question number five.

I picture Chloe rolling her eyes with disdain over “the great Dr. Berringer,” which probably has a lot to do with answer
d
.

As I sit there, the rain hitting the window in silken taps, a sudden, overwhelming exhaustion overtakes me. It brings me back to my high school years, when we were still experimenting with stimulants, trying to get the right dose and the right combination to corral my thoughts into line. There is the surge of dopamine release.

But then there is the crash. I had forgotten about it.

I
hardly recognize Jane out of bed.

She is leaning over the art table, her elbow against the scratched rubber siding, with her head on her arm like she's about to go to sleep. But she is wide awake, in deep concentration as her left hand draws out a picture. I pull in closer to see.

“That's great,” I say.

She does not answer right away. “Thanks,” she manages quietly.

“She's very talented,” the art therapist agrees, smiling. Donna is a large woman (or zaftig, as my mother would have more gently put it) in a willowy, wine-red outfit. She always favors shapeless outfits in earth tones, like she found out her color was “autumn” at a makeup counter once and she's sticking to it. “I taught gifted and talented kids in the Williamsville school system for twenty years,” she says. “And I'm always amazed that our kids here are heads and tails above all of them.” She washes off some paintbrushes, a muddy purple color flowing into the sink. “I guess with burdens come talents.”

The pictures are good, actually, much better than my stick-figure composition would be, my artistic achievement having plateaued around second grade. “What was the assignment today?”

“Self-portraits. It helps to see how they visualize themselves,” she explains. “Tells me about their hopes and fears. That sort of thing.”

The life sort of thing. I inch back over to Jane and flip through her drawings from the last week. There is one with numbers and letters. Symmetrical and straight, no bubble letters like another tween might have drawn. Plain numbers and letters interspersed with symbols of the sun. Perfect circles with spokes radiating off in glistening yellow.

“What do these mean?” I ask her.

Jane shrugs and keeps drawing.

“I told them to just draw what they wanted yesterday. This is what she came up with.”

Numbers and letters and suns. Part of the recovery process? “I like them.”

Jane pauses. “Thanks.”

I glance at my watch, slim and silver with a pearl face. My mom's old watch. “See you later, okay? We'll be rounding this afternoon.”

Her pastel crayon sticks to the paper. “Okay.”

Walking out of the art room, I ready myself to see Chloe next, taking a deep breath. Every day, I walk into Chloe's room with my head up and walk out with my head down, feeling like a human punching bag. I drop the bulky chart on her table and pull up a chair. “I see you've lost a bit of weight.”

Chloe has lost a pound, a major achievement in the Eating Disorders Unit, where every ounce is monitored. “Yup. Reportedly that's the big news today.”

I readjust my chair with a squeak. “Any idea how that could have happened?”

She appears to think about this. “Evaporation?”

It takes all my training not to laugh.

“Or maybe not,” she continues. “I'm a bit hazy on the water cycle these days.”

I nod. “I was thinking more along the lines of hiding food.”

“Now,” she chides me, “you know that's against the rules.”

“I do know that. But that doesn't mean you're not doing it.” She doesn't answer my accusation. “In any case, you know the rules. You won't get any privileges for losing weight, unfortunately.”

She blows her bangs out of her eyes, and they plop back down. “No privileges. Woe is me.” The tendons in her wrist stick out like taut rubber bands, her pulse throbbing under her skin.

It strikes me then that I need to change my tactic here. She doesn't see me as an ally, just another pain-in-the-ass adult in her life telling her to do what she fears and abhors most: to eat. Tomorrow, I won't talk about food at all. Maybe that will buy me an inch with Chloe Brown. She is looking out the window now, a soft rain slicking the street below.

We both turn to the doorway as Dr. Berringer walks in with a perfunctory knock. He looks spick-and-span today, refreshed and fully pressed. Like he got over his flu.

Chloe refuses to meet his gaze.

“Hello, Chloe,” he says. She still doesn't respond. “How are you doing?”

After a tense minute, she shrugs, not looking at him. Her face is hot red. “I'm back. So obviously it wasn't the ideal outcome.”

He sits down in the chair next to me, his knee brushing against mine. His hair is damp and smells of shampoo. “It's going to take time, Chloe. But we'll get there. You were getting better, and we can get there again.”

She turns her whole body away from us toward the window.

“Chloe?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got to eat. It's not healthy. I'm not actually fat. I have a body dysmorphic disorder. Blah-blah-blahsy-blah-blah.” She is talking right to the wall.

“I know you're angry,” he says. “But I'm not sure why.”

“Then you're not a very good psychiatrist.” There are tears in her voice.

He starts to say something, then stops with a frown. He gives me a helpless shrug and motions toward the door.

“See you later, Chloe,” I call out to her.

She doesn't answer. “We'll give her some time and come back,” he says, once we're in the hallway. “How's Jane doing today?”

“Good, she—”

A middle-aged woman in a purple suit with a flouncy, cream-colored top interrupts us. “Hi there. Are you going to see Jane Doe?”

“Yes,” Dr. Berringer says.

“I'm Tina Jessep,” she says, pulling her ID tag off her chest. “The discharge planner. Just wondering what your thoughts were on her.”

We both stare at her. “For discharge?” Dr. Berringer asks, making no attempt to hide his disbelief.

She nods with a tight smile. “Well, it's been nearly a month. She's not catatonic anymore. She's not suicidal.”

“That's true. But I wouldn't expect her to be suicidal. She wasn't depressed.”

“Okay, but my point is, there's nothing acute going on here. Nothing she necessarily needs to be hospitalized for.”

“Yeah, but it would be nice if she knew her name, don't you think?” he asks. Tina doesn't answer the rhetorical question. “Seriously, this is egregious. She doesn't even know who she is. Where exactly are you going to send her?”

Tina tugs on one of her flounces. “I guess that's my job to figure out. The hospital is just looking for a more appropriate placement at this point.”

“A cheaper placement, you mean.”

“Listen,” Tina entreats. “Don't shoot the messenger. We're all part of the same team here. We all want her to get better, but we also want to get her out of the hospital as soon as it's safe for her.” This sounds suspiciously like a talking point.

“I just don't think she's ready,” he says. “She just started speaking, for God's sake.”

She nods. “I understand. I do. Keep me posted with how things are going. On my end, I'll be looking for a good place for her.”

“Where might that be?” I ask.

She turns to me, like she just noticed the six-footer to her side. “I'm not sure yet. Probably Gateway or Father Baker. A home for children with emotional disturbances. Maybe foster care if we have any further progress.”

We both pause to process this, and she gives us another fake smile and walks off as we get ready to see our patient. The girl who may or may not be leaving soon, whether we know her name or not.

“Where the hell would they send her?” Detective Adams asks.

Static sounds over the car phone. Mike is navigating our route via Google Maps when the detective calls for the latest update. “Gateway,” I say. “Or Father Baker. They're calling her emotionally disturbed.”

“Oh, please,” the detective groans. “That's not going to be a good fit. Some of those kids are…” He pauses. “How do I put this delicately? Really fucked up.”

I wonder what the indelicate way of putting that would have been.

“To the left,” Mike calls out. “Left!”

“I was going left,” I argue, swerving as Mike hangs on to his seat belt for dear life.

“It's not subjective, Zoe. You're either going left or you're going right, and you were going right.”

“You guys okay over there?” the detective asks over the speaker.

“Yeah, she's just trying to kill me,” Mike says.

I jab his ribs.

“Tell her that's illegal,” the detective says. “People go to jail for that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” I pull into the driveway. “We're fine. Just checking up on some things.”

“Okay, I'll let you go,” the detective says. “But do me a favor, Zoe. Talk to the girl. Find out who the hell she is, would you? Before they send her somewhere she'll get eaten alive.”

“I'll do my best,” I promise. I don't mention that I've inveigled Mike into my dilettante investigation plans, starting with the limousine companies. As I hang up, Mike unbuckles his seat belt, and we make our way into Party Hearty Limousines. The building is cold and smells of cigars.

“Can I help you?” The man has a thick black mustache with matching curly chest hair and a thick gold chain. He could be an extra in a seventies movie.

“Yes, my name's Zoe Goldman, and this is my friend Mike.”

“Hey, I'm a Mike, too!”

My Mike gives him a no-nonsense handshake.

“So what can I do you for?”

“We're looking for a missing girl,” I say. We go with a less confusing story than the catatonic-Jane-Doe one, which didn't work the last two times. I'm hoping for the charm thing on the third. “I was just wondering if you've seen her before.” I flash him her solemn, unsmiling picture.

He takes a long look but shakes his head. “Don't think so. Nothing that jumps out at me anyway. Did she go missing around here?”

“Maybe. She was last seen in a limousine in Buffalo. In September. September fifteenth to be exact.” Actually, by her account, she was chasing the limo, but I don't get into all that.

He holds up the picture. “She looks young.”

My Mike leans against the wall, playing with his phone. He's keeping me company but letting it be known this is entirely my folly.

“Here, come on in back. We'll look at the books,” Mike II says. We wander back to a room that smells even more strongly of cigars. A space heater rumbles at our feet. Mike II flips through a thick, well-worn book to the correct page. “It was a Sunday, so that's usually pretty slow.” He lays a fat finger on two names. “Connors was a bachelorette party. Threw up in the limo but tipped well,” he says, almost to himself. “And Newberger was a fiftieth birthday party. Jewish people, you know. They were very nice.”

My Mike coughs through a smile.

“How about the day before?” I ask. “Just in case.”

“Yeah, sure.” He trails his finger over a date. “So that's a Saturday night, and we had every limo booked.” He lists off the names and an anecdote for each. His memory is shockingly good. “We didn't have any black folks that night.” He pauses. “Not that we don't accept black people. We do business with anyone of course—black, white, purple…” He grins. “As long as their money's green.”

“Right,” I say with nothing more to add to this soliloquy. “Well, thanks anyway.”

“Sorry,” Mike II says. “Wish I could help you.”

“That's okay, you've helped a lot.”

More than the last place, where the direct quote was:
Listen honey. I don't know what you think this is. But we do weddings, proms, and bachelor parties. We don't go carting around twelve-year-olds.
Mike looked like he was about to throttle the guy.

I push the door against the wind as we leave, sniffing my sweater for any lingering cigar smell.

“Are we done yet?” Mike says. “It's past dinnertime.”

I examine the list on my phone. “Three more.”

He groans.

“You won't starve.”

“But I'm hungry,” he says, in a perfect toddler whine.

“Come on. They're trying to discharge the poor girl. This may be our last chance to figure out who she is.”