“The drugs.”
“Yeah, I thought so.” The kindness in her voice made me almost want to cry. Dr. Rezwari wasn’t kind. I mean, she wasn’t some kind of monster. But she didn’t really care. You could tell. I could tell.
“You said there was a guy, a—”
“Already done. Dr. Lewis doesn’t think you’re ready for group, but he’ll meet you before. Massey Bowling Alley, six p.m.”
I looked at my watch. Two hours. “Okay,” I said. I must have sounded pretty bummed because Paris said: “Come see me now. I’m close to there.” She gave me the address of her condo.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes! Come hang out. Meet my roomie.”
I wrote a note for Dad. It took me a while to think what to put in it. I couldn’t say I was meeting a friend; he knew I didn’t have any friends, and I didn’t think he would be cool with me hanging out with someone I’d met at the mental hospital. He and I had been living together like two people made of bone china, scared to bump into each other.
In the end I wrote:
Gone to see a movie. Love you. Cass.
Most likely he wouldn’t be back from the restaurant before me anyway. I left the house. I passed your apartment, but of course you and Shane were working. I walked the whole way—Oakwood is a small place, as you know, and Paris didn’t live far away.
Her condo was just back from the boardwalk; a fifties building like a pink iced cake, with white balconies like wings. I rang the bell, and she buzzed me up.
When I got to the door, another girl opened it. She had red hair, but I thought it was probably dyed—it was a really bright color. There was a tattoo on her arm of a kind of pinup woman from the forties or something, and she was wearing a vintage dress and her hair was swept up with bobby pins.
“I’m Julie,” she said. “Paris is in the kitchen, making cookies.”
I must have looked surprised.
“She bakes,” said Julie. “I know. Go figure.”
“I’m Cass,” I said. “Um, hi.”
“Nice to meet you, Cass. Go on through—I’m heading out. I have a team meet.” She picked up a pair of roller skates by the door and slung them over her shoulder.
“You do roller derby?” I asked.
“Yep.”
I’d watched a movie about roller derby with Mom once. So I knew a tiny bit about it. “What’s your, like, player name?”
“Player name?” She raised an eyebrow.
I felt stupid then. “I don’t know what you call it … but don’t you have, like, crazy names that you put on your shirts and stuff?”
“I was messing with you. I knew what you meant. And, yes, I do. One Thousand Mega Joules. ’Cause I’m Julie, and I study—”
“Physics?”
Julie smiled. She wasn’t pretty—her face was a little blunt—but her smile was like the sun when it hits the ocean on a gray still day, and even though the water is flat, matte, it flashes. “Close. Chemistry.” She turned to face back into the apartment. “Hey, Par, this one is smart.”
“I told you,” said Paris’s voice, from an unseen corner of the condo.
“Kitchen’s on the left,” said Julie. “See you soon, I hope.” Then she whisked out. She was someone with her dial always turned to full, Julie. She still is.
I followed the sound of Paris’s voice, across a smooth wood floor. There was a small hall that went straight into the main living room. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked over the beach and ocean, like you were sailing over it. Just to the left, I could see the first pier jutting out over the wide expanse of sand, the Ferris wheel slowly turning. There were a couple of armchairs like you see in magazines—curved metal bases, leather stretched over them. A coffee table made of polished driftwood. It did not look like a student’s condo.
I turned left and into the small kitchen. Paris banged the oven door shut. “I’m baking cookies,” she said. “For the occasion. They’ll be ready in a half hour.”
“Wow,” I said. I was worried about cookies and my allergy, but I didn’t want to put a downer on things.
“I know. I will make someone a fine wife one day.”
I smiled. “Someone eligible, I hope,” I said.
“Oh, Mother!” she exclaimed, in a surprisingly good British accent. “He hath two hundred a year, and a good house.” She did a curtsy. “I ****** love those old books. Austen and stuff.”
“Me too.” I would have said more. I would have said that I had loved Austen anyway, or I would have asked her if she knew that Jane from the library was actually Jane Austin, but I was wiped out from the walk. I just waved vaguely at the living room and reached out for the countertop to stabilize myself, and Paris looked stricken.
“Sorry! Sorry! Go sit down.” She ushered me ahead of her.
I sat on one of the armchairs. It kind of cradled me.