Pretty Girl-13

RENOVATION




ANGIE RELAXED INTO THE SOFA, READY FOR THE ALTER team meeting. Dr. Grant had helped her come up with this plan. There was a lot of mess to clean up. She and the other two girls would work together in the imaginary world where they’d met before, the derelict cabin in her mind. Tattletale didn’t live there like the others had—she only visited—but Angie felt that with the threat of Yuncle neutralized, she’d be able and willing to join them. They had some serious personality renovations to tackle as a team. A building project together was a perfect metaphor for reconstructing Angie’s unitary mind. Not more shortcuts, not more losses and erasures. Girl Scout and Tattletale had been issued an invitation—let’s talk about complete integration.

The pine knots in the wall paneling no longer looked like threatening eyes to Angie. That had to be a positive sign. The girls were much less afraid than they had been.

Dr. Grant brought out the light bar to initiate the deep visualization; she would begin the guided meeting, but Angie would have to do the heavy lifting once things got started. She fell under the sway of the bouncing light within moments.

Of course, I was there to help you, Angie. I heard everything you hear. I saw everything you see. I stood outside it all, recording and watching, controlling the walls and the gates. I supported your goals. We would have a happier and calmer, and certainly more predictable life if we worked together instead of taking turns.

You came to the porch, ready for action, holding a broom and a bucket of paint. Daylight shone on the cabin, and the dry boards and rusty nails stood out. You began by sweeping the cobwebs that hung from the rafters and fresh webs that wrapped the runners of the rocking chairs. Tattletale crept out of the shadows to see what you were doing. “Come help me?” you suggested. “We need to clean these before we put them away.”

“Away?” Tattletale asked. “Why? Where’s everyone going?”

“Into the sunlight,” you said. “We’re not going to sit in the darkness anymore. We can all be in the light. Would you like to come too? Would you like to be with me all the time?” You were careful not to show how anxious you were.

“Will there be horses? Real horses?” Tattletale asked.

Sure. Why not? There were stables and a riding school nearby. If Friday night babysitting became a regular thing, you could take riding lessons and pay for them yourself. “Yeah,” you promised her. “If you come with me, we’ll ride beautiful horses.”

Tattletale gave you a huge smile. She took the broom and started dusting the rockers. “Then as soon as we clean up, can we go?” she asked.

So soon? You’d expected this to be harder. “As soon as we’ve put everything right,” you said.

Girl Scout had been silent the whole time, rocking and sewing. She lifted her feet when Tattletale got to her chair.

“Aren’t you going to help us?” Tattletale asked.

“Why should I?” Girl Scout snapped. “We’ll just disappear like Slut and Angel.” She crossed her arms around her chest and frowned.

You hurried to reassure them. “No, no. I don’t want you to disappear. I decided to take you with me. Please. I want you with me.” You handed a hammer to Girl Scout. “You look kind of mad. Would you like to pound some nails?”

Girl Scout rose reluctantly, but she took the hammer and began taking huge whacks at the rusty nails poking out of the wall boards.

I brought a can of cornflower-blue paint out of the shadows where nobody went. Angie, you noticed and said, “This is just what we need.” Three brushes were next to the can, so after you opened it, the three of you could stand side by side, painting the wall of the house—the only wall you had. The paint covered the weathered wood, making it fresh and vibrant again. Progress on the wall was quick. Soon, it was blue as the sky.

Girl Scout stepped back and admired it. “That’s a good day’s work,” she said. “We’re a good team.”

You understood the message. She wasn’t yet ready to merge, but she was considering it. That was great progress for one session, Dr. Grant told you. We were closer than we had ever been to integration.

Angie was out of school for that full week, daily sessions with Dr. Grant and the girls taking all her time and energy. They made a ton of progress, both on the imaginary porch and on their mutual understanding. The rockers had been replaced by flower boxes filled with blooming chrysanthemums, appropriate to the colder weather. The front railing was painted a bright and welcoming yellow. The floorboards had been firmly nailed back into place and refinished, providing a firm foundation. The metaphor worked. Angie felt herself standing on firmer ground.

“Any day now,” Dr. Grant said. “I think Girl Scout is ready to come aboard.”

“That would be pretty cool,” Angie replied. “And will I actually absorb all her knowledge of cooking and living off the grid?”

“The good and the bad,” Dr. Grant replied. “Be prepared as well for firsthand memories of the captive experience.”

“She’s told me all about it. I’ve got the scars to show for it,” Angie said somewhat defensively.

Dr. Grant twisted a pearl earring. “It’s not going to be a walk in the park. You’re in a good place right now, which is great. Just be aware that incorporating what’s coming may set you back a little emotionally. I’m not saying you can’t handle it. Just don’t underestimate.”

Angie sighed. Even without Angel, she felt strong. She could handle it. It was time to put the rest of her life in order as well. She signed up for riding lessons as promised, shopped for the ultimate riding outfit, and took her first lesson on the Sunday afternoon before she was due back at school.

They gave her the most gentle horse in the stables. Even so, as the pace picked up a little, Angie felt herself flying. The wind blew her hair back where it hung below the riding helmet. Her knees gripped the bounding animal. Her heart pounded. “Take it, Tattletale,” she whispered, and slipped aside. From a close spot, she watched the little girl take up her body and gallop the horse around and around the corral. The smile in her mind was priceless, worth handing over control for a while.

“Excellent progress,” the instructor said at the end. “Are you sure you’ve never ridden?”

“Only in my imagination,” Angie told him.

“Well, you must have an excellent imagination,” he said.

“So I’ve been told.” Angie smiled inside. Tattletale squeezed her hand in thanks.

Angie, I was so proud then, of you and what you’d done. And you finally realized, that evening as you sat on your bed rubbing lotion into your sore muscles—you had opened the gate to Tattletale yourself, on purpose, and you had brought her back in again. You didn’t need me to do it for you. You could handle this job. I was fired.

At that moment, your heart swelled with strength and joy. You never even felt me go, as I vanished and blended into the whole we would become.

“What is up with you?” Kate said when Angie went back to school the next morning. They caught up at the bank of lockers. “You look great.”

“Oh, thanks a lot,” Angie said. “Why so surprised? You were expecting me to look hideous?”

“They said you were out with the flu—that’s why I didn’t call—but obviously not.” Kate pulled two heavy textbooks from her locker.

“Hey, if that was the rumor, go with it.” Angie tapped her chest and faked a cough.

Kate eyed her skeptically. “So what, really? Hiding from the press? Taking an unauthorized family vacation?”

Angie laughed. “Not in the sense you mean. I’ve been communing with my other selves, doing some housekeeping and renovations.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Kate demanded, shouldering her backpack.

Angie grabbed her history book and slammed her own locker shut. “Mostly a lot of hypnosis and visualizing and internal conversation stuff. We’re negotiating a merger. Harder than it sounds.”

Kate snorted. She set off down the hallway with a quick stride. “I didn’t think it sounded easy. Jeez. Your life is way complicated.”

“But there’s a pot of gold at the end of my rainbow, a light at the end of my tunnel.”

“A dawn at the end of your day?”

Angie snickered. “Well, something like that. Have the reporters stopped hanging out at school?”

“They finally gave up Friday. Thank God for the short attention span news cycle. Hey, here’s where I get off. See ya at lunch.” Kate ducked into her Spanish class.

Therapy sessions hadn’t taken all day. Angie had kept up with the schoolwork while she was out, so settling back into each class was no problem. Several teachers asked if she felt better, and she answered as if they meant the flu.

She dreaded lunchtime, just a bit. She figured the best strategy with Greg and Liv was to pretend nothing had happened, that is, if they would let her. She could stand up to them. She could endure. Considering what else she had been through and survived, their petty meanness was nothing. The question was, would they let her?

At the end of the first day, it seemed they might. She was invisible to them at lunchtime, and with no classes together, she thought she had skated by when she heard her name called, and Liv jogged up behind her.

“You’re back,” Liv said bluntly.

“Did you hope I’d changed schools?” Angie asked. “Well, I didn’t.”

Liv scowled. “If you think you’re—”

She didn’t get any further before Angie interrupted. “Liv, before you say anything else, I want to apologize for going after your boyfriend. It was rude and stupid, and I was partially out of my mind.” Wasn’t that the truth! “You can be sure I have no desire to repeat the experience.”

Liv stepped back with a strange expression. “Why not? What’s wrong with him?”

Oh God. “Nothing. He’s just not the right guy for me,” Angie said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Hmm.” Livvie seemed to be considering the merits of the apology. “I couldn’t have told you that?”

“You never had the chance. You stopped talking to me after the first day. Remember?”

“You stopped talking to me,” Liv shot back.

Right. What could she say? Try the truth? “I guess I felt guilty—”

Liv cut her off. “You know, I sensed something, right off. Like there was still this chemistry between you.”

“All physical,” Angie said. “And that’s way over. Emotion-wise, there’s nothing there. You’re the one he likes.” For better or worse, she thought. “He never really wanted to break up with you.”

“Really?” Liv’s shoulders rose a little. “He said that, but I didn’t know whether it was true. You know guys. They’ll say anything they think you want to hear.”

Didn’t she know it! “Yes, they do. But in this case, it was true. He’s all yours, Livvie.” Take him. Please.

Livvie’s lips closed in a self-satisfied smile. “Good. So, whatever. See you round.”

She took off for the parking lot with a bounce in her step. Angie watched as she headed straight for Greg’s car, climbed in, and grabbed him for the public display of affection that was banned in school. Making quite a point of it, actually.

She tested her emotions. Any regrets? Any jealousy? Not a hint.