Phrases Clara didn’t understand leaped out at her: Integrate the traumatic event of the death within the psychic structure of the bereaved . . . move beyond shock and numbness to despair and sorrow, and finally to remembering and mastering the events with an eye toward the reorientation and equilibrium of the self and object.
Just last month Evil Lynn had researched Chinese herbs and brought home bags of yellow and brown powders. She looked positively witchy, sifting powders together and placing the mixture in clear capsules that had no effect on Clara.
Clara felt her phone buzz.
But her phone never buzzed anymore.
She opened her phone and saw Selena’s ID pic jump out at her, big smile, freckles, dimples. Her message, however, had flames shooting from the words:
Mr. S got computer back on but Astrid had to rush & pierced the heart & we all got D-minus on the frog thanx to you meaning no thanx.
All at once Clara bumped into someone. It was entirely Clara’s fault—she’d been staring at her flaming phone. She glanced up and saw a girl about her age. She wore a jean jacket and her lipstick was dramatically red. She had short dark hair just above her chin; on one side her hair was behind her ear, and on the other it was in front. She held a leash, which led to a small dog in a sweater.
Clara ought to apologize.
But the girl gave her a big, warm, open, completely spontaneous smile and said, “Oops.”
In that moment Clara felt an intense surge from her innermost core to the outermost reaches of her being:
Change places with me.
One of the therapists Clara had been taken to had told her that every thought and emotion reached out to every cell in the body. It hadn’t made sense until now. With everything in her and more, Clara wanted to be this girl in the jean jacket, think her thoughts, live her life—which Clara could already imagine with perfect clarity. This girl was on her way to meet her friends, because of course this girl had lots of friends, and they’d all listen to music or go to a movie, it wouldn’t matter what, because just being together would be wonderful by itself. And they’d send messages to one another because they had something funny to say, not messages burning with leaping flames. And time would just zip by, not drag from one moment to the next. This girl was kind and had a big heart; she loved animals, clearly—she’d put a sweater on her dog—and she reached out to those in need, people who seemed lonely, and everyone remarked on it, what a good soul she was. Her parents were so proud and astounded by how lucky they were, having such a daughter.
If only, Clara thought, I could change places with her. Not that she’d ever want to. . . .
Although—some ads for memory manipulation and the new techniques available had popped up on her phone. She’d never checked out the long versions. If Clara could somehow slide this girl’s memories into her head, replacing her own, that would be just as good, right?
Or, no—it sounded too crazy.
Clara, who wouldn’t stop for sunsets, turned to watch the girl walk away. There was a large embroidered rose on the back of the jean jacket. Clara had never seen anything like it: layers of gorgeous red petals, maybe a little uneven; she imagined the girl’s mother hand sewing it. Here, try it on, she could hear the girl’s mother say. Now go to the mirror and turn around.
Why should I—?
Look over your shoulder.
Oh . . .
Do you like it?
I love it!
CHAPTER 17
Clara’s block, with its complex of two-family redbrick houses arranged in a long line of two-story buildings, felt crowded and claustrophobic to her, with pairs of families on top of one another and stuck to other pairs on either side, all in the long shadow of the monstrous Belle Heights Tower.
Upstairs from Clara and Evil Lynn lived an old lady who had always had two enormous dogs. At night Clara could hear their toenails clicking on the floor overhead. Didn’t the old lady have carpeting?
As it happened, the old lady was coming downstairs just as Clara and Evil Lynn reached their front door, those huge dogs panting heavily and pulling at their leashes. One of them barked, shrill and hollow; it echoed in the stairway.
“Do you see that sunset? Isn’t it breathtaking?” The old lady always tried to engage Clara in conversation, but Clara never, ever engaged back.
Evil Lynn took a moment to agree that the sunset was lovely.
“Oh, my dear, you look terrified,” the old lady said.
“I’m fine,” Clara said, even as she felt her breath catch in her throat. Those dogs could lunge at you, it suddenly occurred to her, not just want to lick your hand. How would you know, until it was too late?
“But my dear, they wouldn’t hurt a soul!”
Clara went straight to her room, closed the door, and waited for her heart to stop thudding. She grabbed the old elephant, the stiff, bald toy that had belonged to her mom, and held on for dear life.