“I’m sorry to hear that,” Walcott says. He affects a level of sympathy in his voice that almost makes me believe him. “And what about later? After you left your uncle?”
This is now treading into dangerous ground. I won’t talk about Charlie. I can’t. I’ll die in here before I ever get out otherwise. “I lived on the street. I did what I had to survive. Stole, worked casual jobs, moved around a lot. Avoided the system.” My uncle kept on cashing the care checks the government sent, supposed to be spent on looking after me, until the day I turned eighteen and they refused to send them anymore. They have no proof I even really know Charlie. To bring him up now is to open a can of worms marked danger: extremely hazardous to health.
“I see.” He writes all of this down. No fucking point, though. The story I’ve just given him is the same one nearly every other inmate in this place shares. “Okay, Mayfair, can you please recount to me your single happiest memory from childhood?” His pen having caught up with him, the nib hovers over the paper ready to record whatever profound moment I am about to impart.
“No.”
Silence.
“Listen, if you go back to not cooperating—”
I cut him off. I can’t be fucked dealing with administrative threats; I just want this session over. “I’m not being difficult, Doctor Walcott. I can’t tell you about a single happy memory in my childhood because there isn’t one.”
“Not even one?” He seems doubtful.
I tell him the truth. “Nope. Not even one.”
Because even the memories of my parents—the perfume, the hair, the laughter, the thrum, thrum, thrum—they are perhaps the saddest parts.
If anything, Lacey grows quieter as we approach Pippa’s apartment. It seemed like a bad idea to take the girl to the practice. It’s an undeniably medical place, and I get the feeling that’s the last thing Lacey needs. Especially given her reaction to her recent experience in a hospital bed. I park my Volvo in the underground lot and we take the elevator up to the sixteenth floor of Pip’s apartment block. The vista is breathtaking as we exit the elevator—the space needle is a distant grey hiccup in the skyline of the city, almost swallowed by the other high rises. Green parkland stretches for miles between here and there, dappled with the bronzed, evolving colors of fall.
When she sees the view from the window, Lacey shrinks into the hoody she’s wearing, two sizes too big and most definitely not hers. I’m oddly uncomfortable about Lacey wearing Zeth’s clothes. God knows why.
You’re a crazy person, that’s why. He’s not yours. And you’d be mad to want him as yours, a sharp voice in my head advises me. That voice has started to bear a shocking resemblance to Pippa’s, a fact that makes me want to unreasonably slap my best friend square in the jaw. I know she’s protecting me. I know that, and yet I can’t help but resent her words of caution. To his face I might be reticent and as standoffish as possible, but the honest truth of the matter is that I can’t stop thinking about him. Can’t stop thinking about his hands on me. His hot mouth teasing over my skin. His strong hands possessing me in the most demanding way.
“Do we really need to do this?” Lacey’s small voice cuts through the silence of the hallway. She looks tiny, delicate. Fragile, like her name I guess. Like lace. Above all else, she looks frightened.
“It’s gonna be fine,” I tell her. “Think of it this way—you’re here of your own volition. We can leave any time you want. You don’t have to take any pills or tell Pippa anything you don’t want to. There won’t be any record of you ever being here, and it’s free. There’s nothing for you to lose, Lacey. But a lot to gain, right?” I carefully place my hand on her shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze. I haven’t touched her at all yet, and I think I’ve kind of expected her to shy from the contact. She doesn’t, though. She doubtfully nods her head, pinching her bottom lip in between her teeth.
“Okay. And we can go whenever I want?”
She obviously needs the extra reassurance; I give it to her, smiling, and guide her to Pippa’s apartment.
I rap sharply—my police knock—and Pippa only leaves us waiting on her doorstep for ten seconds. The door smoothly opens and there she stands, in neat blue jeans and a crisp white shirt, tucked into her pants. Pippa’s casual wear is akin to something I would wear to a job interview. Her hair is down, though, flowing to her shoulders, and the effect makes her look less severe. Less doctorly and more soccer mom.
“Hi, girls,” she says, smiling broadly. Her breezy tone makes it sound like we’re gathering to watch movies, drink wine and talk about boys. Absurd, but necessary. Lacey flashes her a grimace that could pass for a smile—a painful one—and the two of us enter Pip’s apartment. The place smells softly of lilies and jasmine. Beautifully kept, the place has the pristine feel of a showroom to it, although small touches make the place seem homely all the same. Her couch is the only reason I ever come over here: the thing is huge and beaten, the leather grown soft and supple with age. I immediately collapse into it, gesturing for Lacey to do the same. She sits on the couch beside me, tugging the neatly folded throw from the back of the chair behind her and wrapping it tightly over her legs. The action makes it seem as though she wants to bury herself from sight.
Blue Moons—the power of invisibility.
Pippa points a thumb over her shoulder toward her open-plan kitchen. “I was just making a cup of tea. Would you guys like one?”