The Elizas: A Novel(72)
“No, I’m serious. My brother’s a fucking freak. We all know it. He knows it. But you’re nice. You seem to get him. You’re way nicer than Paul.”
Paul. I know that name; after a moment I remember why. “Paul, the guy from work?” The guy who was there when I drowned.
“Paul’s a girl. It’s short for Paula.” Stefan peers into his backpack, gives me a mysterious look, rearranges something in there, then zips it up. “They had a thing for a while. Des took it hard when it ended. He seems better now.” Then he stands and shoulders the backpack. His feet are dinosaur-heavy as he plods toward the door, and before he steps into the hall, he jabs his finger toward my forehead. “So don’t wound him, okay? I’ll have to hurt you.”
The door closes, and I stare at the God’s-eye someone has hung on the knob. I feel slimy and sour, like Stefan has coated milk on my face. Is it because Paul, my co-rescuer, is a girl—and Desmond’s ex? Hadn’t Desmond deliberately hinted that Paul was a guy, though? Does he still see Paul? Do they work together? I curse Desmond for not having a cell phone. It’s so hard to spy on him.
I stop myself mid-thought. I’m being dramatic. Creating problems where there aren’t any. So what if Desmond lied about Paul? He didn’t want me to assume he was attached. And Stefan was giving me a compliment, as backhanded as it was: I have cured Desmond of his misery. I understand Desmond, and that’s something to be celebrated.
Of course, worrying like this doesn’t mean I love Desmond. Not yet. But maybe I will, eventually. We’re on our way to becoming two peas in a pod. We are on our way to finishing each other’s sentences.
Now where have I heard that before?
? ? ?
It’s MRI day, finally. I feel like I’ve been waiting for years. I need someone to accompany me in case I have a bad reaction from the injectable dye, but I can’t imagine asking anyone in my family. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of admitting I, too, believe I’m sick again. I’m not sure they even know that I know the truth about the pool; I doubt Gabby had the balls to tell them. Really, I should call my mother and tell her what I know and that I’m never speaking to her again—for a lot of reasons. But maybe it’s not worth it. She’ll just say they lied for my own good. And she’ll have an explanation for the incident in the parking lot, too—she’ll say she was trying to protect me. She’ll say whatever bullshit she needs to.
I want to bring Desmond to the appointment, but it’s crunch time at the convention and he can’t take the time off. So I ask Kiki. I have to tell her everything, all the truths I’ve kept hidden, and I expect her to panic, but instead, she receives it with calm. “It fills in some holes,” she tells me. “Now I understand why you’re you. Now I understand why you don’t remember going to yoga.”
“I didn’t go to yoga that time,” I argue with her, but then stop myself. Maybe I did go to yoga. Maybe it didn’t matter that I didn’t remember.
We meet at my house before the appointment. The inside seems unfamiliar when I walk in, and then I realize why: it’s clean. There isn’t any dust on the Theremin. The baseboards don’t have a layer of grime. The place no longer smells like a dying horse.
Kiki’s in the kitchen drinking a glass of lemonade. She’s in the same rainbow skirt she wore when we met at the writing group, and her hair is tied back with a yellow ribbon. She looks scrubbed, young.
“I had three Elsa parties yesterday,” she then grumbles, sinking into a seat at the table. “It’s been a nightmare.” Then she peers at me. “It’s lonely without you in the house!”
“I didn’t mean to stay away this long,” I tell her. I would like to offer for Desmond to stay here, but the idea of him having a run-in with Steadman nauseates me. It’s bad enough I’ve had to cross paths with him four times at the curiosities shop. Kiki doesn’t ask why we haven’t come to the house, either. She probably knows.
“So what’s Desmond like?” Kiki leans forward, fluttering her lashes. “He’s so handsome.”
My mouth drops open. “You think?”
“Of course. Don’t you? He’s so . . . swashbuckling. Definitely a step up from Leonidas.”
“Leonidas wasn’t that bad,” I mumble, not that I really know. Thinking about him still freaks me out—I don’t like that there are so many blank spaces in my memory about him, but I’ve decided to think it’s a minor blip, a boyfriend obliterated by lack of brain function. I have to believe Leonidas is a good person, a person who worries about me, just like Gabby. I hate, though, that he was in on the who-pushed-Eliza ruse. I still get the crawling feeling that they’re all snickering behind my back, or else covertly filling out the forms to send me to the Oaks.
“But Desmond is . . .” I search for adjectives for Kiki, and all at once there are too few and too many. “. . . lovely.” I tell her about his role at the convention and his place in Westwood. I describe the dates we’ve been on, real dates where he shows up with flowers and holds the door for me. I thought I wouldn’t be into that sort of thing, but it’s quite charming. “He even bought me a gift,” I say. “A nineteenth-century baby carriage and two of the scariest kewpie dolls you’ve ever seen.”