When My Heart Joins the Thousand(58)

The next question asks, Are you a “people person”?

I don’t see any way to answer that honestly without making myself look bad, so I leave it blank.

As I glance through more applications for restaurants and stores, I find myself leaving lots of lines blank.

Do you consider yourself a team player?

Are you outgoing?

What makes you fun to be around?

How would your friends describe you?

The words start to blur and dance around on the screen like malevolent ants.

On a coffee shop website, I click on a link, bringing up another application. What are your core values, and how do you think working at Jitters would help you express those values?

I believe that it’s important to be honest, and I believe that the feelings of all beings should be respected, and I believe that it’s wrong to hurt people or animals, unless it’s in self-defense. But I don’t understand how working at a coffee shop will help me express any of these values, except that I’m not planning to murder any customers.

What do you consider to be your greatest flaw?

I don’t understand why I can’t just show up and do the job. I don’t understand why simple competence isn’t enough, why they have to dig around in my psyche and examine every filthy secret.

Describe a problem at your last job and explain how you resolved that problem.

I resolved it by getting fired.

My stomach clenches in a spasm. I can’t do this. I can’t—I can’t—

I jerk to my feet and kick over the coffee table. The laptop tumbles to the floor, and Chance’s head swivels toward me. A string of mouse guts dangles from his beak.

All the strength runs out of me, and I slump against the wall as if all my bones have turned liquid. My chest heaves.

I need to get a grip on myself.

I sit down, pick up my laptop. One by one, I go through the applications and fill out the parts that I know I can do: my name, my address and phone number, my education and previous experience. I leave everything else blank. I’ll just have to send them in like this and hope that it’s enough.

Once I’m finished, I collapse on the couch, exhausted, and drift in and out of a troubled sleep. Outside the window, wind howls, and sleet hammers the glass. It’s begun to storm. My vision blurs, then goes dark as I sink inside myself.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


It’s July, and the world outside is velvety dark green. The air is hot and sticky and filled with the syrupy hum of cicadas. Our air conditioner is broken, and damp clothes cling to my sweaty skin.

“You know, you can’t just stay at home all the time,” Mama says. “You’re not making any progress like this.”

I kick my legs against the chair, looking at her across the breakfast table. Since I was expelled a few months ago, I’ve spent most of my time reading. I swallow a mouthful of pancakes and say, “I’m learning about rabbit behavior.”

She smiles a tight, closed-lipped smile and says, “That’s not what I mean, honey.”

I poke at the pancakes with my fork. Her shirt, I notice, is inside out and backward. The tag juts out from the collar.

“I think we should take you to see another doctor,” Mama says. “A specialist.”

There was a time when Mama and I were friends, when we used to laugh together, when she didn’t care so much about the fact that I wasn’t like other children. I was just her little girl. Now, everything is about counselors and treatments and therapies. I know it’s my own fault for causing so much trouble, but I wish things could go back to the way they used to be. “Doctors cost too much money,” I point out. “You’re always saying so.”

“That doesn’t matter.” She grips her fork like a weapon. “I’ll spend whatever it takes. I’ll find a way. I want you to get better.”

I tug on my braid.

“I know it’s difficult, but please try not to do that,” she says. “You remember what Dr. Evans said? It’s better if you learn to control that now, while you’re young.”

I sit on my hands. My breathing comes short and shallow.

“I’ve already made an appointment,” she says. “We’re going to see Dr. Ash this afternoon.”

There’s no point in arguing, no point in saying anything. The decision has been made. Once, a while back, I tried hiding under my bed when I didn’t want to go to an appointment. Mama forcibly dragged me out, ignoring my cries of protest.

At four, we arrive at Dr. Ash’s office, and he asks Mama to wait in the room outside while he talks to me. I sit in the chair, tense and fidgeting. Dr. Ash has thinning blond hair, a lot of diplomas on his walls, and a plastic multicolored brain on his desk. He notices me studying the brain, smiles, and says, “You want to pick that up?”

I nod.

“Go ahead.”

I turn it over in my hands. It’s like a puzzle, with different pieces that snap together. I take it apart, feel the hippocampus—which is small and curled up, like a shrimp—and explore the whorls and convolutions of the cortex.

“Your mother tells me you read a lot.”

“Yes.”

He takes out a notepad. “What else do you enjoy doing?”

“Drawing. Mazes mostly. And I like animals.”