As I reached the door, I heard Kristin-Doyle Maslow say, “all about quality care. The absolute best specialists this city has to offer.”
Kevin Bracht answered my bell-push wearing the same clothes as last night and looking eroded. Zelda’s shoes were atop his desk. I took them.
“How’s the dog-and-pony show out there, Doc?”
“Rapidly producing piles of waste.”
He cracked up. “Along those lines, I thought of something else that’s messed up about this place. Patients get a toilet in their rooms but nurses don’t. I was lucky, there are those two unused cells, but if they were full up, I’d need to leave the unit to do my business. That tells me there’s no serious intention to ever use this place for inpatient, whole thing’s a joke, the sooner you get her out the better we’ll all be.”
“You bet, Kevin. Let’s see how she’s doing.”
Chapter 11
Zelda was still in bed, on her back, bedcovers heaped along the wall. Her hair was gray wire, her eyes half closed and hazy.
I stopped a couple of feet away. “Hi.”
Nothing for a moment. Then a smile, gradual, minimal, ambiguous.
I edged closer. “Zelda, I’m taking you out of here.”
She blinked rapidly. Her eyes seemed to be acquiring focus. Then, suddenly, the spark was gone, replaced by stupor.
“We need to leave, Zelda.”
Her head rotated toward me. Her lips formed silent words I couldn’t decipher.
“What’s that, Zelda?
She worked at forming the word. “Can-dy.”
“You’d like candy.”
“Hmm hmm.” Childish pout.
“Sure, we can find some candy. First, let’s get you out of here.”
She rolled away from me.
I said, “I’m taking you to a place you’ve been before. BrightMornings.”
No recognition.
“In Santa Monica, the woman in charge remembers—”
“Mounds,” she said. “Coconut.”
She’d used heroin and junkies crave sugar. But during this lockup, no withdrawal symptoms had surfaced. Ativan could be partly responsible for that but it couldn’t have masked a serious addiction.
Was craving candy a sense memory?
Or she just liked the damn stuff.
She pressed her arms to her sides, stared at the ceiling. The window above her was a pleasant blue rectangle. Pretty day in L.A. I doubted she’d noticed.
“It’s time for you to leave, Zelda.”
She remained inert and mute. But when I began to repeat myself, she raised herself to her elbows, sat up and straightened her spine and positioned herself with the grace of a dancer. Swinging her feet over the bed, she rose to her feet. Moving in stages, each segment slow and deliberate.
Reverse origami, a woman unfolding sequentially.
Without a word, she walked past me toward the door, barefoot.
I got in front of her and held out her shoes. She began to take them but let go and they dropped to the floor. Before I could pick them up, she’d stepped into them with surprising agility and resumed her trudge.
We stepped into the outer room. Kevin Bracht called out, “Good luck, Zelda.”
She continued past him, unresponsive. He began clearing his desk.
Zelda trudged steadily. I kept my steps small, the way you do with a baby learning to walk.
The cubicle area was empty. No opportunity for a “teachable moment.”
Here’s one of our inpatients. We ensure that their needs are met in a clinically responsible manner...
Not that this patient would’ve been much of an endorsement, plodding empty-eyed, totally unmindful of her surroundings.
When curiosity goes, a lot else has already vanished.
The rush of noise on Wilshire jarred me but did nothing to Zelda. I guided her toward the Seville and when I seated her in the front, she bent like modeling clay. As I belted her in, she remained still.
Once she was secure, I waited to see if she’d grow anxious but she didn’t and I got behind the wheel and eased into westbound traffic.
When I drive, I listen to music, switching between an MP3, old-school CDs, even Paleolithic cassettes courtesy the tape deck the car came with in 1979. My preferences fluctuate but I can’t tell you what criteria I use. Sometimes I put the MP3 on random shuffle and serve up a bouillabaisse of Sonny Rollins, Bach, Miles Davis, Santo and Johnny, Vaughan Williams, Patsy Cline, Satie, Gershwin, you name it. Along with sprinkles of street-corner doo-wop and any breed of great guitar music.
No telling how Zelda would react to music but I chanced it, choosing something melodic and soothing: re-press of an old French recording of Ida Presti, possibly the greatest guitarist who ever lived, and her husband Alexandre Lagoya, pairing on Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”
It’s a few minutes of gorgeous that rarely fails to settle me. I felt my blood vessels expand, heard my heartbeat slow.
Zelda remained unmoving and unmoved. Existing somewhere else.
Soon, she began to slump, ceding control to the seat belt, head bobbing like a dashboard toy. When I rolled over a rough patch of asphalt, her body flopped passively. Had Mike Nehru’s generous feeding of Ativan suppressed her that efficiently? Or was this typical behavior when she wasn’t sneaking into other people’s backyards and scaring the hell out of them?
That kind of extreme fluctuation would fit a variant of bipolar disorder, but it didn’t rule out schizophrenia. Or a combination of the two, as Lou had suggested.
Or some undiagnosed affliction no psychiatrist could classify beyond the ravages of a brain gone haywire.
Whatever the details, no way could she care for a child. Had she been sane enough to realize that and relinquished custody?
Or...
The music ended. Not an eyeblink from Zelda.
I said, “So you like Mounds.”
She said, “Mother.”
“What about Mother?”
She yawned and closed her eyes. By the time I reached La Cienega, her mouth had gated open and she was snoring. By Doheny Drive, the shuffle beneath her eyelids was unmistakable. REM sleep. The dream phase.
What does a madwoman dream about?
In this woman’s case, something pleasant. She smiled all the way to Santa Monica.
Chapter 12
As I pulled up to BrightMornings, Zelda woke up, saw the sunlit sky, and said, “Good night.”
Sherry Andover was ready for us, clicking the gate open and telling me where to park. Zelda remained pliable as I drew her out.
“Hi, there, Ms. Chase. Welcome back.”
Without a word, Zelda trudged toward the building. Andover sprinted ahead and unlocked the door to Room Six.
The space was no larger than the cell Zelda had just left and was painted an eerily similar yellow. Two windows, both safety-grilled. Clean bathroom equipped with the basics of hygiene, nightstand, closet, one nature print on the wall — grouse in the heather. A change of clothes was folded neatly on the bed pillow. Other garments, including a pair of new sneakers, were visible in the open closet.
The outer surface of the door could be key-locked but no way to secure it from the inside. No guarantee of privacy but freedom easily obtainable.
Zelda lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. Within seconds, her eyelids were ruffling again.
Sherry Andover said, “Glad to see you settle in easily, Ms. C.,” and we left.
On the way back to the Seville, I told her about Zelda’s request for candy.
She said, “You’re thinking junkie-jones?”
I said, “She’s had two days with no withdrawal symptoms. I suppose some of that could be the Ativan, but I doubt it could mask everything.”
“That’s been our experience, too. It calms them down but if they’ve got a serious habit they’re still throwing up and feeling miserable. I’ll keep an eye out.”