Stacy nodded gravely. "Exactly."
After that they sat for a stretch in silence. Amy was about to ask for the bottle again, when Stacy brightened suddenly.
"Want to see?" she asked.
"See?"
"How she ran?"
Amy nodded, and Stacy handed her the umbrella, the bottle. Then she stood up, started quickly across the little clearing, pretending to play basketbalclass="underline" dribbling, passing, feinting. After a jump shot, she jogged back, her hands high in the air, playing defense. Then, once more, she darted quickly to the other side, a fast break, a little leap for the layup. She ran with an odd hitch to her stride, almost a limp, and seemed slightly off balance, like some sort of long-legged wading bird. Amy took a long swallow from the bottle, watching, perplexed.
"You see?" Stacy said, breathing hard, still immersed in her imaginary game. "They saved the knees-that's the important thing. So she could still run pretty good. Just a little awkward. But like I said, this was only after a year or so. She might be even better now."
They saved the knees. Amy understood now: sprinting for a train, jumping, falling. They saved the knees. She took another swig of tequila, ventured a glance toward Pablo. His breathing had quieted somewhat, grown softer, slower, though that unsettling rasp-wet sounding, phlegm-filled-remained an essential part of it. He looked terrible, of course. How could he not? He had a broken back, and two seared stubs for legs. He'd lost a lot of blood, was dehydrated, unconscious, probably dying. And he stank, too-of shit and urine and charred flesh. The vine had begun to sprout on the sleeping bag, which had become sodden with the various fluids seeping off of him. They should do something about this, Amy realized, probably get rid of the sleeping bag altogether, lift Pablo clear of his backboard, yank the fetid thing out from under him. She understood that this would be the right thing to do, that it was what Jeff would probably have them attempt if he were here, but she made no move to undertake it. All she could think of was the previous evening-she and Eric at the bottom of the shaft, heaving Pablo toward the swaying backboard. She knew she wasn't going to try to pick the Greek up again, not now, not ever.
"Without the knees," Stacy was saying, "you have to swing them. Like this."
Amy turned to watch as Stacy moved around the edge of the clearing, stiff-legged, swaying, her face focused, concentrating. She was good at this sort of thing; she always had been, was a natural mimic. She looked like Captain Ahab, pacing the deck on his peg-leg. Amy laughed; she couldn't help it.
Stacy turned toward her, pleased. "I don't have the other one yet, do I? With the knees? Let me try again." She resumed her imaginary basketball game, just dribbling at first, trying out different leg movements, searching for the right effect. Then, abruptly, she seemed to get it, an awkward sort of grace, like a ballerina with numb feet. She ran to the far end of the clearing, did another layup, before coming quickly back toward Amy, playing defense.
Eric stirred. He'd been lying on his side, curled into a ball, and now he sat up, watching Stacy. He didn't look well. Amy supposed this was true for all of them. He was hollow-eyed, unshaven. He looked like a refugee: hungry, worn-out, fleeing some disaster. His shirt hung off him in tatters; the wounds on his legs seemed incapable of closing. He watched Stacy dribbling and passing and shooting, his expression oddly vacant, a waiting-room look, someone in an ER, staring at a television whose volume was too low to hear, waiting for a nurse to call his name.
"She's playing basketball," Amy said. "But with fake legs."
Eric turned his head, transferring that empty gaze from Stacy to Amy's face.
"There was this girl," Amy said. "She fell under a train. But she could still play basketball." She knew she wasn't saying it right, was just confusing the matter. It didn't seem to matter, though, because Eric nodded.
"Oh," he said. He held out his hand, and she passed him the bottle.
They watched Stacy play another point, and then, when she finally stopped-out of breath, sweating with the exertion-Amy applauded. She was feeling better and better for some reason, and determined not to let the feeling slip away. "Do the stewardess!" she called.
Stacy tensed her face into a stiff, exaggerated smile, and then she began, silently, to work her way through a preflight orientation, demonstrating how to use a seat belt, where the exits were, how to don an oxygen mask, all of her gestures clipped and robotic. She was mimicking the stewardess from their flight into Cancún. She'd done it for them the night they'd arrived, after they'd dropped their things off at their rooms and met on the beach, where they sat together in a loose circle, sipping bottles of beer. This was before they'd met the Greeks, before Mathias, too. They were still pale, a little weary from the trip, but pleased to be there-a happy time. And they'd laughed, all of them, at Stacy's performance, drinking their beer, feeling the sand beneath them, still warm from the day's sun, and listening to the sound of the surf, the music drifting toward them from the hotel terrace-yes, a happy time. And perhaps Amy was trying to reclaim that now by asking Stacy to mimic the stewardess once again, trying to prod them back toward that innocence, that ignorance of this terrible place into which they'd somehow stumbled. It wasn't working, of course. Not that it was Stacy's fault: She had the smile down, the tense gestures-she was the stewardess. It was Eric and Amy who'd changed, who were failing this effort at reclamation. They watched; Amy even managed a laugh, but there was a sadness in it that she couldn't keep out.
They saved the knees, she thought.
That first night on the beach, they'd each offered their contributions. They were good at this sort of thing, had all come from the same type of background-summer camps and ski trips-they knew what to do under a starry sky, or around a campfire, how to entertain one another. They each had their appointed roles. Stacy did her mimicry. Jeff taught them things, told them facts he'd read in the guidebook on the flight down. Eric made up funny stories, imagining how their trip might unfold, creating outrageous scenarios, making them laugh. And Amy sang. She had a nice voice, she knew; not a particularly strong one, but quietly adept, perfect for those campfires, those starry skies.
Stacy returned across the clearing now, sat beside them; she took back the umbrella. Her shirt was torn, Amy noticed; she could see her breast. It was true for all of them: their clothes were rapidly being eaten into shreds by that green webbing of vine. There was nothing you could do about it; you brushed it away, but a few minutes later it was back again. And every time you swiped at it, the vine bled its sap onto your skin, burning you. Their hands looked scarred-it hurt to pick things up. They could dig into the backpacks, she supposed, find themselves new shirts and pants, but there was something creepy about this, wearing other people's things, dead people's, those mounds of green scattered across the hillside, and Amy hoped she'd be able to avoid this eventuality as long as possible. It felt like a surrender in some way, a defeat; as long as rescue seemed imminent, what was the point in replacing her clothes?
Eric kept rubbing at his chest. There was a spot right at the base of his rib cage that he couldn't seem to stop touching. He'd press at it, then dig with his fingers, then gently massage it. Amy knew what he was doing, knew that he thought the vine was inside him, and it was beginning to make her anxious, his constant probing; she wanted him to stop.
"Tell us something funny, Eric," she said.
"Funny?"
She nodded, smiling, trying to prod him on, to distract him from that feeling inside his chest, distract all three of them. "Make up a story."
Eric shook his head. "I can't think of anything."