Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(5)
Dr. Davis sighed and ran her fingers through her hair; it fell back to sleek perfection. “My job is not to tell you what to do,” she said. “My job is to help you find the answers for yourself.”
“I understand.”
“Then understand what it costs me to say this: leave the Arcadia Project alone. Please, just leave it be.”
3
At eighteen, I drove two thousand miles west toward the siren call of Hollywood, hoping it would drown out the cruel voice in my head that I thought was my father’s. By the time I found out that the cruel voice in my head was my own, my father was two years dead and I’d already let the voice talk me off the roof of Hedrick Hall. Whoops.
That song had been silent ever since, silent until Caryl brought it back, and I bitterly regretted telling Dr. Davis about her. After a year spent following orders and eating institutional food, a dose of reality was exactly the last thing I needed.
Don’t get me wrong; neither Davis, dead father, nor demons had the power to talk me out of meeting Caryl Vallo that Tuesday. But they did manage to leach some of the joy out of my first sight of Los Angeles in months.
“June gloom” was in full effect, draping the sky in silver mink, but it was early enough in the month that a few lacy blooms lingered on the jacaranda trees. After six months of the Leishman Center’s relentless beige, the violet glow of the petals sang through my every nerve. I kept trying to frame them, to set up a shot in my mind, but I’d been too long without a camera, and the trees slipped by too quickly.
I felt like a tourist in my own city. The cabdriver took the Fourth Street exit off the 10, and I made a nose print on the window trying to see everything at once. Fourth Street ran parallel to the ocean; at every intersection the western horizon flashed by like chrome.
A little ways south we entered a residential district, where the streets were lined with pastel stucco apartments. The cab pulled in beside the tiny park where Caryl had arranged to meet me. The inviting patch of green sloped down toward Main Street and the sea.
I got carefully out of the cab, relying on my hands and my right knee to get me to a standing position, then grabbed my cane off the seat and used it to steady me as I went around the back of the cab. I hadn’t tried using my prosthetic legs on anything but hospital tile, and I didn’t trust my balance.
The driver pulled my suitcase out of the trunk as I wrangled the folded wheelchair onto the street with excruciating awkwardness and opened it back up. He helped me put the suitcase in the chair, I laid my crutches and cane across the arms behind it, and then I tipped the guy hugely before rolling all my earthly possessions in front of me into the park.
The sea-kissed breeze, the rustle of leaves over my head, the dappled dance of shadows on the grass: it was all enough to make me giddy. Holding on to the wheelchair made me feel more secure, even though I was supporting it and not the other way around.
Caryl Vallo sat with her back to me on a bench in the center of the park. She was nondescript to the point of invisibility; she’d have made a fantastic background actor. She was dressed in neutral shades again, this time a lightweight summery pantsuit in dove gray and cream. She looked over her shoulder as I approached, then hesitated for just a moment before rising and coming around the bench to meet me halfway.
“Miss Roper,” she said, holding out a hand. Gloved, again, to match her blouse. As she stepped into the shade, her hair appeared coffee black.
“Millie is fine.” I gripped her hand firmly, then lifted it to our eye level. “Why do you wear these?”
“I am eccentric.”
“Fair enough.” I let go of her hand, watching her face. As always, she gave away nothing.
“Please sit,” she said, gesturing back toward the benches.
I decided to be cooperative, even though I’d already been sitting for an hour and could have sworn I’d told Caryl I preferred standing. I wheeled my stuff over and sat on a different bench from her; something about her discouraged even the most basic of intimacies.
To repay her for my discomfort, I started the conversation by saying, “Dr. Davis warned me about you.”
Dr. Davis had also encouraged me to continue dialectical behavior therapy on an outpatient basis, but I could tell by the doe eyes she’d given me on my way out that she wasn’t holding her breath.
Caryl offered me a thin smile. “Amanda doesn’t know what she is warning you about, and therein lies the source of her distress. She is not a woman who enjoys being left out of the loop.”
“You know her that well?”
“I suspect she knows me better than I know her. I am a -former patient.”
That brought me up short. “She—didn’t mention that.” I looked Caryl over, reconsidering the gloves. Obsessive-compulsive?
“Of course she didn’t mention it,” Caryl said. “Whatever else Amanda may be, she is a consummate professional.”
“And what else may she be?”
“Uninspired.”
It’s funny how your own thoughts sound meaner when they come out of someone else’s mouth. “She’s helped me a lot,” I said.
“Sometimes after a trauma, mediocrity is exactly what we need. But I think you are past that now.”
I leaned forward. “Look. I’m going to need some kind of reassurance that this is on the level. You obviously weren’t authorized to recruit at the Center.”