“So,” I said, lifting my BK prosthesis out of the trunk. “You were about to tell me about the Arcadia Project.” I aligned the suction suspension and slid my shin into it. Once the carbon foot was solidly on the floor, I pushed myself to a stand with both hands, balancing one-legged and forcing the rest of the air out of the valve with a moist, embarrassing sound.
“The Arcadia Project,” said Caryl, “is funded partially by the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health and partially by private donations from members of the entertainment industry. We seek mentally ill adults who meet certain qualifications and provide them with meaningful employment, housing, and ongoing—”
“What sort of employment?” I interrupted as I pivoted to sit down on the edge of my bed.
“Employment opportunities vary depending upon the quali-fications of the individual, but the majority are part-time or freelance creative positions in the film and television industry.”
I blinked at her a few times, an assortment of sarcastic replies clotting together in my brain like cars on the 405. I tried to remember my former Hollywood manners, then remembered that as a mental patient I had a license to say whatever the hell I wanted.
“Let me be sure I understand,” I said, reaching into the chest for the silicone suspension liner of my AK prosthetic and starting to powder the inside of it. “I flipped burgers for five years putting myself through community college, got fifteen grand into debt making a bunch of pretentious indie films about people trapped in rooms together, then bullshitted my way into what’s arguably the most prestigious film school in the world, when all I really needed to do to break into the industry was jump off a building?”
Caryl looked at me with the kind of aplomb that comes from dealing with the mentally ill on a daily basis. “No,” she said flatly. “You needed to do all that and then jump off a building.” There was nothing in her demeanor to suggest that she was making a joke, or even knew what one was.
I snorted at her, hiking up the leg of my shorts. I slipped the powdered liner onto the stump of my thigh as far as it would go.
“You used lotion to make the first seal and powder to make the second,” Caryl observed. “Why?”
I stopped and looked at her, but her face held only the same detached curiosity. “You just learn to do whatever works,” I said with a shrug. “Every amputation is different.”
I reached into the chest for the AK. AK stands for above-knee, but I liked that it sounded like an assault rifle. The silicone--only suspension fit like flesh, and with a twist of a knob the hydraulic knee gave the right resistance at anything from a stroll to a sprint. There are some occasions when a girl just has to splurge a little.
“So you think I fit some kind of qualifications?” I said, shoving my thigh and its silicone sheath into the socket of the prosthesis. “Now there’s a list I’d love to see.”
“Most of the list is confidential, but I can tell you some of it. I am looking for people with management potential, and your success as an independent filmmaker points to leadership skill and creative thinking. Then there is your diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and your willingness to accept and manage that condition, as well as your noted aversion to -psychoactive drugs, legal or otherwise.”
“Drugs don’t work on BPD,” I said defensively, squirming my way more firmly into the socket and wondering how the hell she knew I’d never tried recreational drugs. “It’s not a chemical imbalance.”
“Nonetheless, many Borderlines choose to medicate comorbid conditions such as anxiety or depression. Our project only accepts those who can function, at least minimally, without the use of controlled substances.”
I paused to sweep a hand pointedly around the room. “Is there something that makes you think I can function?”
“The twenty-five years of your life that elapsed before you did something colossally stupid.”
Indignation flared, and my thighs responded by trying to push me to a stand. But that’s exactly the sort of thing a prosthetic knee cannot do, and my weight was centered over both legs. So I just ended up lurching a few crooked inches off the seat and crashing right back down.
“Be careful,” said Caryl mildly.
One of the fun bits about BPD is a phenomenon shrinks like to call “splitting.” When under stress, Borderlines forget the existence of gray. Life is a beautiful miracle, or a cesspool of despair. The film you’re making is a Best Picture candidate, or it’s garbage. People are either saints, or they’re scheming to destroy you.
Caryl Vallo, thanks to the shards of pain jangling through my pelvis, had just found her way onto the latter list. But she was dangling a hell of a prize, so I pushed aside my sudden surge of paranoid hatred and tried to keep my voice as calm as hers.
“There has to be a catch,” I said. “Otherwise every starving wannabe in Los Angeles would be faking BPD to get this gig. So why aren’t they?”