In my head, The Leg is capitalized because The Leg is what my whole life seems to be about now. Every single person I’ve seen in the past few days asks me about The Leg.
How is it?
How’s The Leg?
The Leg is attached. Thanks for asking. There’s The Leg right there. It’s on display, always outside of the sheets and blanket, although the whole thing is still so wrapped up it looks like I borrowed The Leg from some ancient Egyptian mummy.
How’s The Leg?
It seems a bit mummyish, thanks.
I had a dream where The Leg was no longer attached. Not a happy dream, that. It scared me. I try to be glib and tough and all SEAL Team Six about it, but in all desperate seriousness: I was scared.
“I need Aislin,” I say to my mother.
“Aislin is a drunken slut,” she replies, without looking up from her laptop.
This is diplomatic for her.
I decide to change the subject. “What are you working on?”
With effort, she pulls her gaze from the screen. “Fluff. A vanity project for one of the biochems.”
“Fluff?”
“Educational software. Project 88715.”
“Catchy. The kids’ll eat that up.”
“Mm-hmm.” She returns to her screen.
“Aislin is not a slut,” I say. I don’t deny the drunken part. “She’s been in a steady relationship for months. Anyway, she’s my friend. I miss her.”
“Talk to the masseuse,” my mother says. She glares at Luna. “Who are you? Talk to my daughter.”
I feel the tremor go through Luna. Luna is probably fifty years old, a very nice Haitian woman. I like Luna. She doesn’t hurt me as much as the various other physical therapists.
Luna has six kids. Two are in college and one is a real estate broker in San Rafael.
Number of things I have in common with Luna? Zero.
“I want my friends,” I say.
“Pfff. Friends, plural?” my mother asks. “Since when do you have friends, plural? You have one friend and she’s a drunken slut.”
“I’m lonely. There aren’t even any other patients. The only one around who’s my age is Solo.”
“You haven’t talked to him, have you?” my mother asks, feigning a casual tone. Casual, like warm and fuzzy, is not part of her emotional repertoire.
“No,” I lie, wondering why she cares.
Actually, I’ve seen him every day since my arrival, passing by my room with studied indifference. He only spoke once, to tell me that he called Aislin and told her not to worry about me.
His eyes are disturbingly blue.
Against my better judgment I ask, “Who is Solo, anyway? And why is he here?”
My mother ignores me. She has different Ignore settings, and this one means she’s hiding something. She thinks she is inscrutable, and maybe she is, to her minions, but I’ve had seventeen years to deconstruct her poker face.
Before I can press her to answer, Dr. Anderson strides purposefully into the room. He always strides purposefully, although he doesn’t seem to have much purpose, what with me being his sole patient.
“How’s the leg?” he asks.
“The Leg is bored,” I answer. “The Leg wants to know why it can’t go home and recover.”
“You’ve been here three days, Evening! Are you insane?” my mother cries.
“I should leave,” Luna says meekly, half-question, half-hope.
“Stay,” my mother commands. “Calm her down.”
“I don’t need to be calmed down. I need Aislin. I need something to do.”
“You have to take this slowly, Evening,” Dr. Anderson intones. He has perfect teeth and the graying temples of a Just For Men model. “This kind of recovery is measured in months, not days.”
“I’m missing the end of the school year.” I am starting to feel quite sorry for myself. “I have homework, tests. Oh crap, my bio exam is Tuesday! And my Life Drawing project is half my semester grade.”
“You can’t draw,” my mother says. “Your fingers are crushed. Your arm’s a mess.” She pauses, mentally thumbing through her What Mothers Are Supposed To Know file. “She is right-handed, isn’t she?” she asks Dr. Anderson.
He nods discreetly.
“At least can I have my laptop? I can type with my left hand.”
My mother glances at her own laptop.
She is having an inspiration. You can practically see the giant lightbulb throbbing over her head.
“Evening, I have just the project for you! Something to keep you thoroughly occupied.”
“I don’t want a project. I want to spend a couple of hours with Aislin. I want you to send a car for her and bring her here.”
Luna has moved to my lower back, and seriously, my desire to fight with my mother—even if it is a respite from boredom—is diminishing with each deep, healing stroke.
“It involves genetics.” My mother sets aside her computer and comes to my bedside. “You love genetics. I would even pay you to do it.”
“Pay me?”
“Why not? I’d have to pay someone else to test it. What do you want? A hundred dollars? A thousand?”
My mother, ladies and gentlemen: one of America’s preeminent businesswomen. Not a clue as to what a dollar is.
“I want ten thousand dollars,” I say.
Dr. Anderson nods his approval.
“Is that a good number?” my mother asks. She turns the question over to Luna. “Is that a good number?”
“Ma’am, I don’t—”
“Whatever,” my mother snaps. She makes a brusque gesture with her hand. “The point is, I have something that will keep you busy.”
“Aislin will keep me busy. That’s my price: Aislin. You can keep the money.”
She taps her freshly tended nails. French manicures, twice a week. Five tiny crescent moons dance on my bed rail.
She sighs.
Dr. Anderson examines a smudge on his stethoscope.
“One visit,” my mother says at last. “I’ll have security search her. If she has any drugs or booze on her, I’ll confiscate them and have security rough her up.”
I assume that’s bluster.
Then I look at her again, at my mother, and I’m not so sure it is. This is a woman with a billion-dollar company. This building is big enough to house what amounts to a small hospital among many, many other things.
Can my mother actually have people beaten up?
Maybe. Maybe she can.
She smiles to show she doesn’t mean it. The smile convinces me that she can.
“So what’s the project? You want me to wash some test tubes?”
“No, that’s why we have people like Solo,” she says. “You’re a Spiker.”
I feel a slight twinge of sympathy for Solo. I’d been assuming he’s some kind of wunderkind, and here she’s talking about him as if he were her servant.
People like …
Quite a bit of condescension locked up in those two words.
“This will be a wonderful introduction to the kind of thinking and creativity we require at Spiker,” my mother says. “It’ll challenge you, sweetheart. Bring out the talent I know you have hidden deep, deep down inside you.” She’s getting excited now. The lines in her forehead seem to smooth; her eyes gaze with a certain wild excitement at the horizon.