In Her Skin(11)

“I don’t get my period,” I lie, because it’s none of his business.

“Sexually active?” he says.

I look at him in horror. Where is Ginny when I need her?

“You know my story, right?”

He peers over his glasses at me. His eyes are rimmed pink and the lashes are sparse and that face has a lot of rodent going on.

“Are you sexually active?” he repeats.

“No,” I say.

“Have you been sexually active?” he says.

“Shouldn’t Mrs. Lovecraft be in here?” I say. I do not like this man, and I don’t especially want Mrs. Lovecraft in here, but I’d also like these questions to stop.

“I’ll give Mrs. Lovecraft my thoughts following the exam.” He hands me a paper smock and tells me to undress except for my bra, which I should leave unhooked.

“What kind of an exam is this?” I ask.

“A thorough one. Look, Vivienne. The sooner you undress, the sooner you’re on your way. We both have a job to do. Let’s do our jobs.”

My job is to be Vivi. Is his job to make sure? I wait for him to leave and yank my sweater over my head. He returns before I finish tying the smock. Holding up one long yellow hand, he says “No need,” grabs my wrists and stretches my arms like wings, examining.

“Lie back, please.”

Five seconds later, that yellow hand is in places I swore no man would ever go again. He keeps asking me to scoot down. I shut my eyes so tight they water. Finally, he’s done.

“What was that for exactly?” I hiss, grabbing for my clothes. Vivi Weir might tolerate being groped, but Jolene Chastain freed herself from bad men, and she isn’t having it.

He snaps off his rubber gloves and tosses them in the trash. “To determine if you’re pregnant, and if you have any communicable diseases.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s a routine exam, Vivienne. You can get dressed.”

I get dressed, trembling to get in character, because Vivi couldn’t have stood Dr. Krebs’s grabby hands the way Jolene did—Jolene, who’s had worse and got stronger for it. When Mrs. Lovecraft walks in, I leap for her, wrap my arms around her neck monkey-style, and cry. She strokes the back of my head and shushes me.

Dr. Krebs turns away coldly.

Mrs. Lovecraft unwraps my arms and smooths her hair. “I think we’ve had enough for one day. I’ll call you from home and we can discuss the results.”

“Sounds just right.” Dr. Krebs sheds his lab coat like he wants to shed us. He is acting like a TV doctor forced at gunpoint into fixing a criminal’s wound, and I resent that, because he doesn’t know jack about me, and I sure hope it isn’t going to be like this with every doctor/person who doubts that I am who I say I am, because then it’s only a matter of time before their suspicions infect the Lovecrafts.

You might be infected already.

Mrs. Lovecraft extends her hand. “Thank you, Dr. Krebs.”

Dr. Krebs shakes it, then pumps my hand with a smirk. “Welcome back, Vivienne. I hope you enjoy your new home.”

We slip into a car that Mrs. Lovecraft has called up on her phone. City driving makes her nervous, she explains, so she leaves her big SUV home, in case Slade should need it. Which makes little sense, since Slade is apparently nocturnal. I’m starting to realize Slade’s purpose seems to be to guard the Lovecrafts when they are home, which I guess is reasonable if your house is the kind of place children get stolen from.

As soon as we’re buckled in, she starts.

“Dr. Krebs is not our usual family doctor. He’s a friend of a friend, but he came strongly recommended, and he’s discreet. It’s better to avoid the more public places people expect us to go. Until we get our proper footing, see?”

I don’t answer, because my head is against the glass and Dr. Krebs’s manual explorations have me bugging. In Immokalee, I could shake bad thoughts by replacing them with good ones. The antidote to bad men like Dr. Krebs is Wolf. Wolf in our tent and the tire covered by the crusty tablecloth printed with strawberries. You couldn’t set things on it, if we’d had things, because of the hole in the middle. The tire-table sat between his bed and mine, and by bed I mean crushed cardboard boxes covered with blankets. Mine has—had, I have to think Wolf is using it by now—that old foam egg crate underneath, which Wolf found but insisted I use. Two beds were silly, because not a night went by when I didn’t end up freezing and curled next to Wolf, nose pressed to his skin, making sure he knew how much I liked it, because Wolf is not a boy who likes his own skin. If Wolf could, he would take off his own skin and leave it on a bus seat. Climb right off that bus and walk away from it.

Mrs. Lovecraft gazes ahead in her dark sunglasses.

I clear my throat. “The doctor had cold hands,” I say.

The corners of Mrs. Lovecraft’s mouth curl. She lets go of a laugh, a loose, beautiful sound, not like any I’ve heard before. The relief is sweet and I am glad I chose to say something dopey, because dopey is right, dopey works with these people.

“What Dr. Krebs lacks in bedside manner he makes up for in discretion,” she says, giggling.

That word: discretion. Twice now she’s used it. It’s not often I have to look a word up, but I will when we get home. That is not, however, the question I want answered right now. “Can I ask you a question?”