A Danger to Herself and Others Read online

  “So that’s why I’m stuck in this room?” I asked. “Because you think I’m dangerous?”

  “You’re in this room for your own safety.” I was already sick of Lightfoot’s dull, monotonous voice.

  “And the safety of others,” I added. Lightfoot didn’t respond.

  Patient may pose a danger to herself and others.

  I always hated when people said maybe, maybe not in answer to a question. What an absurdly redundant, completely unnecessary expression. Maybe is maybe not. There’s no reason to say both. Saying I may pose a danger to myself and others is also saying that I may not.

  I sigh and pace the room in perpendicular lines. Just because I’m stuck in here is no reason to forgo exercise. I will not get fat. My muscles will not atrophy down to nothing. These people will not keep me still and pump me full of food like they do to the girls with eating disorders down the hall. Or anyway, the girls I imagine are down the hall. I haven’t actually seen any other patients yet, but sometimes I hear doors opening and closing, hear muffled female voices rising and falling as they approach then pass the door. More than once, I’ve heard one girl or another yelling, though the walls are too thick for me to make out exactly what they’re yelling about. Maybe they don’t want to take their medication. Or maybe they’re complaining about the locks on the doors. (I assume all the doors have locks like mine.) Or maybe they’re protesting being here at all. They didn’t come here calmly and quietly like I did. Of course, the other patients are here because there’s actually something wrong with them. I’m only here because of a misunderstanding, so there’s no need for me to panic.

  Anyway, the sounds I hear make it clear that at least some of the other patients here (all girls, judging by their voices) aren’t left alone in their rooms like I am. I stand between the beds and do a few sun salutations. When I was little, Mom used to bring me to the yoga classes she frequented to help keep her belly flat.

  Maybe being stuck indoors will be good for my skin. Maybe when all this is over, I’ll emerge with a preternaturally youthful complexion, like those kidnapping victims who are kept in underground bunkers for half their lives and emerge with non-sun-damaged skin after their rescue. Maybe my perfect skin will be a sign of my survival, a show of solidarity with those kidnapped girls, like a uniform—we were all held indoors against our will.

  Not that I intend to be here that long. Like I said, this is all just a misunderstanding.

  Eight steps. Turn. Seven Steps. Turn. I’d prefer to keep to the walls and circle the room like it’s a tiny little track, but the beds get in the way.

  Dr. Lightfoot never uses the second bed. I don’t mean uses like sleeps in it or anything, but when she comes in here to talk, she brings a plastic folding chair with her and sits in the center of the room with her back to the vacant second bed while I sit on the first, the one in which I sleep. Maybe Lightfoot doesn’t sit on the bed because she doesn’t want to make our interactions feel too casual. After all, we’re not two friends catching up. We’re not roommates in a college dorm. She’s not my new Agnes.

  Agnes never knew that I was hooking up with Jonah. Don’t let the biblical name fool you. Two biblical names: Hannah and Jonah. We were doing some pretty non-biblical things. Or actually, completely biblical things, when you think about it.

  I gaze out the window. Dusk and dawn look the same here. The fog is rolling through. There are redwood trees as far as I can see, and when the fog gets thick, it condenses on the needlelike leaves and drips onto the roof. It sounds like rain, but it isn’t.

  It’s not true that I can only see a few plants from here. We’re actually in the middle of a forest.

  I was lying before.

  three

  Here’s what I remember about this place from when they brought me here (I haven’t left the room since, so I only know what I saw that day):

  This building is three stories high, and I’m on the third floor. There’s no elevator, or anyway, they didn’t bring me up in one. I trudged up the stairs behind Clipboard-Man. The walls in the stairwell are the same vomit-green brick that they are in here.

  When we reached the second-floor landing, I heard shouting. Almost the kind of sound you’d hear coming from a classroom of unruly kids or a group of teens hanging out in the cafeteria. (I assume this place has some sort of cafeteria.)

  First floor: admitting, arrivals, emergencies, offices.

  Second floor: cafeteria, classrooms (or something like that).

  Third floor: a long hallway of closed doors, behind which I guess are all patients’ rooms. I wonder if any of the rooms are different inside. Like, depending on what you got sent here for.

  There could be a basement, I suppose, but I don’t think they have basements in California because of earthquakes. Also, the building is kind of built into the side of a mountain, so in order to have a basement they’d have had to carve a hole into the hill. That seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a place like this.

  I can tell this isn’t the sort of building that used to be something else. You know how hospitals become boarding schools become jails become high-end condos because they have good bones? Not this place. This building was designed to be exactly what it is. What other use could there possibly be for a long, rectangular, three-story stone box built into the side of a mountain?

  My window faces the woods, but I’m pretty sure the windows on the other side of the building face the Pacific Ocean. I’m not positive, but I think I smell salt water sometimes.

  I want to know whose idea it was to build this place here. The building may be ugly, but the location seems better suited to a high-end resort where rich people from the big city spend thousands of dollars to relax and unplug, seemingly oblivious to the fact that millions of people relax and unplug for free.

  But then, putting this facility someplace beautiful probably makes it easier to convince parents like mine to allow their children to be sent here. I imagine mothers telling their daughters: It’s so lovely in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It’ll be like you’re on vacation.

  Right.

  There are certain allowances that have to be made if you don’t leave a room.

  Allowance 1: Bedpans.

  They offer me a chance to go to a bathroom down the hall a few times each day, but there’s also a bedpan in the room just in case. I actually prefer using it because at least that way I get to decide when I perform my bodily functions. I know a bedpan is supposed to be humiliating, but I have to disagree. There’s something oddly luxurious about not having to leave the bed to pee. And about the fact that someone else has to take your waste away. You don’t even have to flush it yourself.

  Allowance 2: Food.

  My meals are brought to me on a tray three times a day. I guess it’s the same food the others eat—whatever they serve in the cafeteria for the girls who aren’t a danger to themselves and others. It’s safe to assume that no one here gets to choose when they eat; mealtimes are probably strictly adhered to whether you’re in a room or in the cafeteria. This morning, they brought me Honey Nut Cheerios, or what was probably some generic off-label version of Honey Nut Cheerios. I wanted to tell them that I hate honey, but it’s not like there’s a menu to pick from. Jonah had Cheerios for breakfast nearly every morning this summer, though we always suspected that the dorm cafeteria stocked the generic off-label brand, which Jonah thought was ridiculous considering how much our parents paid to send us to that summer program. Maybe the food in this place is supplied by the same company that supplies food to the dorm I’d been living in before I came here. But having the same cereal we’d eaten on the outside doesn’t make this place seem any more normal.

  Wherever he is, Jonah is probably still eating Cheerios for breakfast.

  Allowance 3: Clothing and bathing.

  There’s no closet in this room. No furniture at all other than the two beds. They bring me a change of clothes every other day. The cloth is paper thin, and the pants are held up by a short string that I have to double knot above my hip bones. I think the clothes are specifically designed so that you can’t use them as a weapon. The string on the pants is so short that you couldn’t even wrap it around your neck to strangle yourself. I suppose you could wrap the legs of your pants around your neck and tie them tight if you really wanted. But then you’d be found naked from the waist down, and that might be worse than staying alive in this place.

  Then again, the pants are so thin they’d probably rip into tiny, useless pieces before you could do any real damage.

  Once a day (or so), a (female) orderly brings me a bucket of water and a washcloth so I can give myself something resembling a sponge bath. The orderly doesn’t look away. Maybe most patients wash themselves with their clothes on, but I strip naked and scrub myself clean, just to show them I’m not ashamed.

  Dr. Lightfoot tells me that I’ll probably get to take a shower soon. But she never explains the delay, and I’m not about to ask. It’s too obvious that she wants me to, and anyway, it’s easy enough to guess that it has something to do with my being a danger to myself and others.

  There are other allowances, of course. But let’s call those the big three.

  four

  A little background.

  I was born seventeen years and approximately one month ago (like I said, I don’t know exactly what day it is) in New York, New York, to a pair of adoring parents, Byron and Margaret Gold. I’m an only child, and my parents brought me with them to the sorts of places and events that other parents hired babysitters for: going to the theater or to fancy restaurants, on luxurious vacations during which I always got my own private hotel room, no matter how young I was.

  I came to California in June of this year for summer school. Not the kind of summer school for d
elinquents who won’t graduate without extra credits, but the kind for kids who are so smart and so studious that they choose to spend their vacations living in dorms and taking classes at one of the most prestigious colleges in the country in order to get a head start. If I’d been allowed to complete the program this summer, I’d have accumulated nine credits to put toward my college education. And I haven’t even started my senior year of high school.

  After I was brought to this place, my parents came to visit me. I’d been in California for more than six weeks, but so much had happened that it may as well have been six months. My mother had a perfect tan from spending her weekends in Southampton back in New York. Her hair had been highlighted recently; the strips of blond were still bright and yellow, not the brassy color they always faded to after a few weeks in her naturally brown hair.

  She hugged me, and I smelled her perfume and shampoo.

  “It’s only temporary,” she said. “Just until everything…passes.” Maybe she would’ve cried if she hadn’t gotten her semiannual Restylane shot into her tear troughs a few days prior. (I recognized the telltale shadowy bruises beneath her eyes that meant she’d had a recent trip to the plastic surgeon’s office.) For days after her injections, she’s scared to cry, or laugh, or sleep on her side—anything that might affect the way the filler sets under her skin.

  My parents’ lawyer tried to keep me from getting sent here in the first place, but eventually he gave up, saying that we had no choice but to let this thing play out for now. He’s the kind of attorney who usually deals with wills and estates—family law, that kind of thing—but my parents are good clients, and he’s authorized to practice law in both New York and California.

  I nodded calmly. I’d never had a temper tantrum, not even as a baby—a fact all three of us were proud of—and I didn’t want to break my streak. Anyway, like my mom said, this was only temporary. (Let this thing play out. Just until everything passes.) Plus, I knew my parents had made plans for a trip before any of this happened. They were going to spend the last two weeks of August in Europe, even though my mother had always said that’s the worst time of year to travel on the continent.

  My mother is the kind of woman who says things like on the continent.

  My father wrinkled his nose, as though he could tell—despite the fact that I’d stashed the bedpan beneath the bed—that I performed all my bodily functions in this room, which is almost the same size as my mother’s walk-in closet in Manhattan. (I’ve counted my steps in that room too: nine long by six across.)

  “I’m fine, Dad,” I said. I let my lower lip quiver a tiny bit. Just to show him that no matter how much I was trying to be strong, no matter what had happened to make them send me here, I’d always be his little girl. I fingered the plastic bracelet on my wrist, the one they’d given me when I arrived, with my name and an identifying set of numbers, the kind they give to hospital patients.

  He put his arm around me and squeezed. I knew he was proud of me for being so brave, for taking this on with such maturity. (My parents have always praised me for acting grown-up. The inside joke in our little family is that I was born mature. Mom’s voice, full of pride: Hannah was even a mature baby!)

  “I’m glad you’re getting to see more of the West Coast,” Dad answered finally. Maybe he thought this was the kind of place where they take us on field trips. Maybe he thought I’d already waded through the tide pools in Monterey, admiring the flora and fauna.

  I didn’t bother correcting him. I knew how much he liked the idea. The mature thing to do was to let him keep that thought if it comforted him.

  California was why he’d wanted to send me to summer school in the first place. I’d never lived anywhere but New York, and with college applications just around the corner, good ol’ Byron thought I should audition living away from the Upper East Side. (Though he said he and Mom would miss me terribly.) I wonder if now he wishes he’d kept me closer to home. If he wishes he hadn’t put such a premium on broadening my horizons. (A phrase I’ve heard in his voice for years.)

  He kissed the top of my head when he left, even though he hasn’t been more than two inches taller than me since I turned fifteen. Mom didn’t kiss me at all. At five foot seven, I tower over my mother, who’s only five foot three. She always marveled at my height, wondering where I’d gotten it from, as if she couldn’t believe that someone who grew up to be so tall had ever actually lived inside of her. Once, she and I were out to lunch with a friend of hers, and Mom said that the hospital must have mixed me up with some other baby, there was no way she could have given birth to someone who ended up this size. I pointed out that we had the same green eyes, and I clearly share her husband’s hair and eyebrows.

  “But where’d you get all that height?” she countered with a smile, and I couldn’t come up with a clever response.

  “You two are so lucky,” Mom’s friend said. “You’re more like best friends than mother and daughter.”

  Mom beamed.

  Before they left me alone in this room, I said, “I like California, Dad.” He smiled and I smiled back. Whether or not it was the truth hardly mattered since I was stuck inside. This room could be anywhere and the only thing that would change would be the view through the small window.

  In case you’re wondering, though: I don’t particularly like California. In fact, I think the whole state is weird. And not in the way that so many New Yorkers think it’s strange—too laid back, too culturally shallow, too much driving, too many cars, too much space. Too dark at night. Too much sky. (I don’t think those things, but I’ve heard other New Yorkers say them.)

  To me, the weirdest thing about California isn’t only that the ocean is on the other side, but that north can feel like south, and south can feel like north, and east and west don’t feel quite right either. The university’s campus is what they call “on the peninsula,” which (as far as I could tell) means near Silicon Valley. You could go north into the city—not the city (Manhattan), but San Francisco—and the temperature would probably drop precipitously. But then farther north, up in Napa Valley (where I went on vacation with my parents years ago), the temperature might rise ten, twenty, thirty degrees.

  And here—up in the mountains along the water with the too-tall trees and foothills and valleys—the temperature is cooler than it was on campus, even though this place is miles south of the peninsula. On top of all that, there’s a severe drought, but the fog is so thick that each morning it condenses into water that drips off the roof, and there’s frost on the window even though it’s August.

  It’s like California doesn’t have to follow the laws of nature.

  five

  Lying on the bed, I can only see a skinny strip of sky out the window, so I shift my attention to the ceiling. It’s one of those pockmarked ceilings, full of dents and drips, like gravity tugged at the plaster before it had time to dry and harden. At least, unlike the walls, it’s white. If I concentrate on the ceiling hard enough, I don’t notice the springs in the cheap mattress digging into my spine.

  After a while, I stop staring at the ceiling and shift my gaze to the walls instead, studying every manufactured crack and divot.

  Then I look up again. This time, I stare at the lights: two long, skinny fluorescent bulbs under a plastic cover. What will happen if the bulbs die while I’m here? Will they send someone in with a ladder and a fresh set of bulbs? Maybe they wouldn’t trust me with a maintenance worker in the room. There’d be too many items that could be used as weapons: the glass in the bulbs, the screwdriver they’d need to take the cover off the light fixture, the metal hinges on the ladder, to say nothing of the ladder itself. They’d have to take me outside while the bulbs were changed, even if it was just into the hallway.

  Footsteps. The sound of the door opening. I don’t have to take my eyes off the ceiling to know that it’s Dr. Lightfoot, tap tap tapping in her ballet shoes. Then Stephen, in his heavy, black boots, too warm for this climate (not that I’ve been outside lately), peeking out from under the hem of his scrubs. I’ve gotten used to the rhythm of their steps: they check on me every morning, and then come back in the afternoon for what Lightfoot refers to as our “session.”