Elena Vanishing (4 page)

Outside, a deep voice is talking. And then a soft voice answers it, taking turns. I try to stay in the dollhouse, but it slides away from me.

I open my eyes. Mom is having a conversation with a big African American man in a splendid white lab coat. Two other doctors are with him, but they don't speak. They watch him in respectful silence, one on either side.

“It's
dissociation
,” he's telling Mom, rolling the word in his mouth like it has a taste he enjoys. “Dissociation doesn't have a basis in medical or physical causes. She's retreating from reality, to another place in the mind. A safe world the patient can control.”

“I was in a dollhouse,” I say.

Mom and the two other doctors look at me in surprise, but the man in the lab coat keeps right on talking.

“Yes, a dollhouse—that's what it's like,” he continues smoothly. “That's a great metaphor for the dissociative state.”

“That's not what it's
like
,” I say. “That's what it
is
. That's where I
was
.” But he doesn't listen to me. He's another man who doesn't need to listen because he already knows all about me, even though he doesn't know me at all.

That's how I know that I've got another psychiatrist.

The three men leave. Mom goes back to her typing. I close my eyes and try to slip away again, but this time, I can't leave my body behind. My hair feels like it's been coated with wax, and my mouth feels like I'm chewing cotton. I try to remember the dollhouse, but worries prick me instead. Senior year starts in another month. My coursework is all planned out. Did Mom pack the books I'm supposed to read for AP English?

You won't have a senior year
, says the voice in my head.

Why shouldn't I have a senior year? Valerie did. Valerie walked around like a groupie at a death-metal concert, and she even got to go to college. After she ran away, it took nine big gray plastic bags to clean all the trash out of her room.

In my mind, those trash bags crackle open and release a swarm of ugly thoughts. With a jolt of pain, the black hole starts spinning and resumes nibbling away inside me. Can anybody tell the black hole is there? What do people see? What do I look like?

You look like a mental patient
, says the voice in my head.
You look like some kind of a freak.

I reach under my pillow, find the makeup bag, and check my face. The little tube sticking out of my nose is bright yellow. My hair doesn't just feel like it's dipped in wax, it pretty much looks like it's
dipped in wax, too. My lips are scaly, and my pores are a disaster. The skin on my nose is dull and covered in black dots.

I look like hell. I need to fix this. Did Mom bring my facial masks?

There's a bustle at the doorway: techs in hospital scrubs bring in a small table and two folding chairs. It's part of the anorexia protocol, they say. I'm supposed to sit there to eat supper, and a tech is supposed to sit opposite to watch me.

The black hole spins faster, and a searing pain stabs through my gut. Food? Really? They think I can eat with this tube poking down into my stomach?

They've been pumping calories into you while you were asleep
, says the voice in my head.
They've fattened you up. You're obese!

The techs tell Mom she needs to leave while I eat. She folds up her laptop, picks up her purse, and heads off down the hall.

I sit on one side of the little table, and a tech sits on the other side. After days of lying in bed, it feels weird to be sitting. My body feels like a puppet, ready to flop over. I have to think about which strings to pull to keep it upright. The nurses let me wear scrubs at the last hospital. Now I'm not in scrubs anymore, but a hospital gown. I feel inadequately dressed.

Is the tech really going to sit there and watch me eat?

I never let strangers see me eat. It's one of my rules.

The tech is only a couple of years older than me and cute in a mousy kind of way. She's wearing pale shades of rose eye shadow, and a pink bead tie holds her ponytail.

I resist the urge to touch my stiff, dirty hair.

The other tech brings in my meal: a fat, squashy white-bread sandwich, pickle spears, and a bag of chips. More food than I've eaten in I don't know how long. More food than I could possibly eat! Soaked
in sodium and preservatives—that stuff makes the body swell up like a sponge. It takes all my self-control to keep from bursting into tears.

You can't eat those chips
, says the voice in my head.
Nineteen grams of fat at least—you better not eat those chips!

“I'm kind of sick to my stomach,” I tell the tech, settling an apologetic smile onto my face to convey the impression that I'd love to eat if only I felt better. “They've had me on such crazy medications the last few days. What if I can't eat this?”

“I don't know,” she confesses, a little embarrassed by her role as enforcer. “I don't do anything about it anyway. I just report it to the doctor.”

“The psychiatrist?” I ask, and I picture the African American man with his deep voice, freshly ironed lab coat, and habit of talking about me right in front of me as if I'm some kind of animal.

“I guess so,” she says, and we avoid each other's eyes for a minute. I count my breaths to give myself courage, one-two, one-two, and pick up a pickle spear as a gesture of good will. Pickles are safe. They don't have many calories.

The sodium will bloat you up
, says the voice in my head.

“I like your eye shadow,” I say to the tech and then bite the pickle spear. It tastes nasty, so I put it back down.

“Thanks,” she says, brightening.

“Do you like working here? Are you an RN?” I ask.

As I talk, I pick up the sandwich with one hand. With the other, I pick up the plastic wrap. I spread the plastic across my lap. Then I hitch my chair closer to the table so the wrap won't show.

“I love it here!” she says. “I started this spring. I'm an LVN right now, but I'm going to start an RN program in the fall.”

“Have you always wanted to be a nurse?” I ask. “When did you know that's what you wanted to be?”

“Let's see . . . ,” she says, shifting her gaze to stare thoughtfully into the distance. People generally stare into the distance when they're trying to remember.

That's when I slip the cheese from the sandwich and drop it into my lap.

By the time the meal is over, I feel like I've made a new friend. I've also managed to stuff half the food into the plastic wrap. I hold it in a fold of my gown while the tech clears away the table, and I stash it under my pillow until she leaves.

She's supposed to stay with me till Mom gets back, but she and the other tech take a minute to haul away the little table. That's a lucky break. There's no time to get to the bathroom, but I slip out of bed and hide the contents of the plastic wrap inside a low cabinet by the door. I've managed to keep hold of the chip bag, too. An empty bag might be useful. My stomach feels tight, and the pickle has bloated me up, but it's not as bad as it could have been.

Take
that
, you damn psychiatrists! Let's see you figure this one out.

This new psychiatrist is just as bad as the other one
, says the voice in my head.
He's going to have you locked up with real anorexics.

The thought staggers me. I'm nowhere near thin enough to handle that! Anorexics have serious willpower. They'll see me as a big fat failure. They'll think being in an institution is my idea, like I'm trying to join their club, and they'll hate me for it. I already wasn't thin enough to meet real anorexics before, and who knows how much I've ballooned thanks to this feeding pump?

My hand flutters nervously to my collarbone to feel how much flesh is there. I can poke my finger into the fat on either side of it. This isn't good! If there's even a chance I could end up with real anorexics, I've got to find a way to lose more weight.

Mom comes back from the cafeteria. Her face is older than I remember. She ought to wear makeup. Everyone can see how tired and pale she is.

“What did you do while you were thrown out of the room?” I ask, trying to cheer her up.

“I went and ate supper, too, at the hospital cafeteria,” she says. “Chicken-fried steak and collard greens—you can tell we're in the South. And chocolate pudding for dessert.”

“I wish I'd had pudding,” I joke. “I guess there's no dessert on the anorexia protocol.”

“That's too bad,” Mom says, and she means it. Mom has a sweet tooth.

The blond nurse comes back to check on me. I like her because she's so direct. “No passing out, remember,” she warns me, and she moves a chair into the shower stall so I can wash my hair. I take note of how she turns off the machine alarms and unhooks me from everything. “Now let me go get some plastic to cover up your IV.”

“You don't need plastic,” I tell her. “Hand me a glove and I'll show you.” Borrowing her scissors, I cut the fingers off the latex glove and pull the wide band that's left up over my IV tube. “Now all it needs is a little tape around the edges, and you don't have to worry about water leaking through the wrap.”

“That's a neat trick,” she says. “I'm going to remember that.”

“I learned it in Germany,” I say. “I volunteer at the hospital there because I'm planning on being a nurse, too. Next year, I'll be working fifteen hours a week in the ER.”

“That's great!” she says. “We need good nurses.”

All my worries leave me under the hot, steamy spray of the shower. Nothing feels better than getting clean. I put on a new gown.
I even get to brush my teeth. And there are fresh sheets on my bed. It's like Christmas.

As soon as I settle into bed, Mom comes over. She has a big smile on her face.

“Look what I've got,” she says in a conspiratorial whisper, and she pulls a container of chocolate pudding out of her purse.

Not pudding!
shrieks the voice in my head.
A hundred and fifty calories—more with those Oreo bits! And you need to lose weight. You don't know your number. Who knows how much weight they've pumped into you already!

But Mom looks happier than she's looked in a long time. There's no way I can ruin this for her.

“Great!” I say, and it takes every bit of control I have to match her smile.

Mom and I lie on my bed together and share the pudding bite for bite.
SpongeBob
is on. How could that crazy square not distract me? But the voice in my head is relentless.

Twenty-five grams of simple carbs
, it hisses.
Twenty-five grams at least! Insulin is flooding your bloodstream right this minute, turning sugar molecules into fat!

The monitor shows that my heart is speeding up. I feel sweat prickling my face. “I've got to go to the bathroom,” I say, swinging my feet over the side of the bed.

“I think somebody's supposed to help you,” Mom says.

“No, I'm not that dizzy anymore. You can help me.” Quickly, I pop the leads out of the heart machine and grab my IV pole to steady myself.

“No, I think someone's supposed to monitor you,” Mom says. “Part of the anorexia protocol.”

But practice makes perfect, and I'm steadier on my feet than I was before the shower. Trundling the noisy IV pole, I'm across the room before she can hit the call button.

Inside the bathroom, I lock the door and turn on the faucet at the sink.

Get that crap out of there!
says the voice in my head.
A hundred and fifty calories! How will you face real anorexics now?

But I can't do it. I can't break faith with Mom after everything she went through with Valerie. I pound my fists on my rock-hard stomach and curse under my breath. But I can't do it. I can't flush Mom's pudding.

You're stupid
, fumes the voice in my head.
You're a fat, stupid bitch! She wouldn't know anyway. It doesn't matter.

But it does matter. It matters a lot. I won't do it.

Knocking sounds on the door. “Elena! Come out of there,” calls the nurse. She sounds upset, but I haven't done anything wrong.

“Just washing my hands,” I call back and open the door.

This isn't the blond nurse. It's a new nurse I haven't seen before. She's heavyset, and she's angry. “We have to monitor your output,” she lectures as I trundle the IV pole back to bed.

Output? They're monitoring my
output
?

“You shouldn't have flushed,” she says. “You should have rung for help.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I didn't know.”

The nurse glares at me as she hooks my lines back up. Seriously, what is her problem? She gives a quick glance around to make sure Mom isn't nearby. Then she leans in close to my ear.

She whispers, “
We
don't think you deserve to be here!”

Shock tingles through me. I smooth my face into an expressionless mask, but the shock lingers even after she's gone.
We
? Who's
we
? Even
the blond nurse? Even the tech with the rose-colored eye shadow? They're whispering about me behind my back! What are they saying?

They think you're fat
, says the voice in my head.
They know you're not an anorexic. They all think you're a big fat fake.

Anxiously, I wrap my fingers around my wrist. Is that true? Am I fat? What's my number?

You're swelling up
, says the voice in my head.
The feeding pump is swelling you up. You're not anorexic! Who do you think you're fooling? You're obese! You're a stupid, fat bitch!

The angry nurse comes back with a tech, and together they hook up the feeding pump. Out of the corner of my eye, I see them load it with strawberry Ensure, but I lie still and pretend they don't exist.