Adaptation (9 page)

California smelled of dry grass and oak trees, a scent that immediately made Reese remember summers at her grandparents’ house in Marin, hiking around Phoenix Lake as her mom argued good-naturedly with her grandfather about criminal law. Her eyes watered as she inhaled deeply, homesickness now throbbing like a drumbeat inside her as she climbed down from the plane.

They had landed at an airport, but it didn’t look like a regular airport. It wasn’t until they were herded into a black town car and began driving away that she saw the signs for Travis Air Force Base. Reese had never heard of it before, but after they left the base and turned onto the freeway, she realized they were north of Oakland. She gazed out the tinted windows as they drove south toward San Francisco. Nothing seemed to have changed. There were the rounded brown hills in the distance, dotted with gnarled live oaks; the bay, gray and windswept; the sprawl of Oakland; and then the Bay Bridge, with traffic just as backed up as always.

But as they left the Bay Bridge behind and the freeway curved up in a concrete ramp over the edges of the city, she saw an electronic billboard mounted on the side of the ramp with a message scrolling across it:
9 PM CURFEW ENFORCED WITHIN SAN FRANCISCO CITY LIMITS. VIOLATORS WILL BE ARRESTED
.

“Hey, look at that,” she said, pointing it out to David. “That’s crazy.”

David leaned across the seat toward her to look out the window. “I didn’t think anything happened here. Did Dr. Brand give you those magazines to read too?”

“Yeah, but they didn’t focus on San Francisco.”

Agent Forrestal glanced over his shoulder from the front passenger seat. “It’s a precautionary curfew. There was rioting in Fremont and parts of Oakland, and the city of San Francisco wanted to prevent any further outbreaks of violence.”

“How long is the curfew going to last?” Reese asked.

“No idea. It was eight
PM
at first; they raised it to nine
PM
last week.”

They exited the freeway at Cesar Chavez, and at the bottom of the ramp traffic barriers were piled up on the side of the road, as if they had only recently been pulled aside. It reminded Reese of Las Vegas: the blocked interstate, the exploding gas station, Mr. Chapman. She turned to David. “I forgot to tell you—I told Dr. Brand about Mr. Chapman. I told her to call the police.”

“I told her too,” David said. “Hopefully, she did.”

“Are you referring to your debate coach, Joe Chapman?” Agent Forrestal asked. “Dr. Brand informed me about what you said. We’ve passed on your information.”

“Did you find out what happened to him afterward?” Reese asked.

“I believe his body had already been identified and returned to California.”

Hearing Mr. Chapman referred to as a “body” made Reese sick to her stomach. She turned her head to look out the window, rolling it down to let in some air. They were paused at a stoplight, and on the corner yellow police tape was wrapped around a collection of Dumpsters. A biohazard sign was taped to the side of each one. The Dumpster lids were closed, but something was poking out of one of them. She could swear it was a wing from a bird.

They arrived at Reese’s house in Noe Valley first. She was already reaching for the door handle as Agent Menzel pulled the car over in front of a yellow Victorian. She glanced back at David before she opened the door. “Um, bye,” she said, feeling awkward.

“Bye,” David said. “I guess I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you around.” She got out of the car and then impulsively leaned inside again. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”

He smiled. “I’m glad you’re okay too.”

She backed out self-consciously and closed the door, nearly banging into Agent Forrestal as he climbed out of the passenger seat.

“I’ll bring your suitcase,” he said. “You go on up.”

Reese’s mom opened the door before Reese finished walking up the steps from the street. The sight of her in the doorway sent a torrent of relief through Reese, and she took the last few steps two at a time until her mom crushed her into a tight embrace. She smelled of jasmine shampoo and laundry detergent, and Reese’s eyes stung with tears as the tangled knot of anxiety and homesickness inside her began to unravel, making her limbs feel watery. For a long time her mom held her, and Reese heard her directing Agent Forrestal to leave the busted suitcase in the front hall.

“Here’s my card if you need to be in touch,” Agent Forrestal said.

“Thanks,” her mom said, and reached one hand out to take it. Finally Reese heard Agent Forrestal’s footsteps recede down the steps, and the town car drove away.

Reese pulled back, wiping a hand over her damp eyes. “Hi, Mom.”

“Welcome home, honey. Come on inside. Nanna made a pot of soup for you.” Her mom put an arm around her shoulders and they stepped through the doorway into the cool, dim front hall.

Everything looked the same. There was the Victorian hall
tree with its speckled mirror and burnished oak surface; there was her favorite blue scarf hanging on one of the hooks next to her mom’s purse. It was as if nothing had changed at all, and the familiarity of it made Reese feel as if she had stepped into a parallel universe. Her mom dropped Agent Forrestal’s card on the hall tree table and ushered Reese down the hall past the living and dining rooms into the kitchen. “Sit,” her mom said, nudging Reese into one of the chairs around the wooden table. Dazed, Reese sat, the chair creaking beneath her. “How are you feeling?” her mom asked. “Are you hungry?”

Reese hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and that had only been a bowl of tasteless oatmeal and some orange juice. She looked at the clock on the wall; it was 2:40 in the afternoon. “I feel all right, but I could eat,” Reese said. The house smelled of chicken soup, that rich scent of onions and celery cooked into a meaty broth, and Reese knew, suddenly, that her grandmother hadn’t just dropped off the soup. She had come over and made it here, probably keeping her mom company while they waited for Reese. “Where’s Nanna? Is she here?”

Her mom ladled soup into a bowl. “She was, but she didn’t want to overwhelm you on your first day back. She and your grandpa will be over tomorrow night when you’re more settled.” Her mom set the bowl on the table and handed Reese a spoon. “Dr. Brand said you need to eat bland food for a few days.” The fragrance of the soup pulled a growl out of Reese’s stomach so loud that her mom laughed. “I guess you are hungry.”

The spoon in Reese’s hand trembled as she took her first sip. The flavors exploded over her tongue: salt and fat and the delicate sweetness of carrots over the rich, round taste of chicken.
She had never eaten anything so good; it was as if she had acquired an entire new set of taste buds, and she couldn’t drink the soup fast enough.

“Nanna must have really hit it out of the park with her chicken soup this time,” her mom said wryly, sitting beside Reese. “Or else they weren’t feeding you properly at that fancy military hospital.”

“I was being fed through an IV,” Reese said between spoonfuls. “So, not really.”

Her mom frowned. “Well, I’m glad to have you home. They didn’t call me until three days after you disappeared; your father and I were frantic.”

Reese’s father lived in Seattle, and Reese didn’t see him too often. She liked it that way. She noticed her mom eyeing the expression on her face.

“He really was worried, honey,” her mom said.

“I’m sure.”

“You have to give him some credit. He’s been trying.”

“I know.” Her dad had sent her a bunch of gifts for her seventeenth birthday in April. A shiny new laptop loaded with every conceivable app she might need, gift cards for music and books and movie tickets, a video picture frame that played a message in which he declared how much he missed her. It was so over the top that it felt like he was trying to buy her affections.

“When you’re settled in, I think you should give him a call. He was very supportive while you were gone, and I would have gone crazy if I had to deal with it by myself. I know he would love to hear from you.” Her mom sat back in her chair. “Do you have any pain anywhere? Dr. Brand said you were pretty seriously injured.”

“I’m okay,” Reese said as her mom scrutinized her, although she felt the beginnings of a headache behind her eyes.

Her mom’s eyes narrowed. “I think that we should get you checked out by your doctor.”

“You mean Dr. Wong?” Reese said, referring to the family doctor she usually went to.

“Yes.”

“Why? Didn’t Dr. Brand tell you what happened?”

“Yes, but she said she can’t release your medical records because the treatment is classified. I just want to get you checked out so that we have some record of this. I’ll call to make an appointment.” Her mom was quiet as Reese finished her soup, but as she scraped up the last bits of broth, her mom said, “I also heard from the school. They told me about Mr. Chapman.”

Reese paused with the spoon midway to her mouth. “They did? What did they say?”

“They said he was shot outside Las Vegas.”

The headache began to push more firmly at the insides of Reese’s skull. “Yeah.”

“There’s going to be a memorial tomorrow. Do you want to go?”

“Tomorrow?”

“They wanted to wait until you and David were back, in case you wanted to go. It will be at two o’clock in the afternoon at Cypress Lawn cemetery in Colma.”

Reese dropped the spoon into the empty soup bowl. Her head was really beginning to pound now.

“Are you sure you’re all right? This is a lot to deal with. Is there anything you want to talk about?” Her mom reached out
and rubbed Reese’s neck, her fingers pressing against the tense muscles. But instead of making her feel better, it made Reese’s head spin, and the pounding in her head began to sound like cymbals banging over and over again. “Reese?”

She pushed herself away from the table. “I’m sorry, I think—I have to go to the bathroom.” She sprinted out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her bathroom, stomach heaving. She flicked on the light and slammed the door shut, bending over the toilet, but nothing came up. Her stomach made bizarre gurgling noises, and she heard her mother outside, asking her if she was sick. “I’m fine,” she said, but she stayed on the floor for another few minutes until her stomach had calmed down. Maybe the rich soup had been too much for her after the tasteless liquid diet.

When she stood, she saw herself in the mirror, her face pale and drawn. It was the first time she had seen herself since Phoenix, and the sight shocked her.

She had known that she had lost weight, but seeing it written on her face in hollowed-out cheeks and dry lips was disturbing. Now her hazel eyes looked too big for her face, and deep purple shadows stained the skin beneath them. Her hair was longer too. It fell almost to the middle of her back now, in tangled, dark brown strands. She looked like she had been caught in a windstorm, and she wondered why her mom hadn’t commented on her disheveled appearance.

She hadn’t showered in the bathroom at the hospital, but now the urge to take a shower was overpowering. She felt the accumulated dirt of the last month crawling over her like a second skin that needed to be scrubbed off. She pulled off her shirt, fumbling with her bra and jeans, dropping everything on the
floor. She reached out to turn on the water and caught a glimpse of her body in the mirror.

She turned back. There was a long, pink scar running down the left side of her torso from her armpit all the way to her bellybutton, and another one mirroring it on her right side. It was like she had been cut open and sewn back together. Her heart pounded. She looked down at her legs, searching for the scar over her thigh, but it had thinned to an almost invisible white line. She spun around and peered over her shoulder at her back. Gray-blue bruises bloomed over her shoulder blades. She tried to touch them, but she couldn’t quite reach. Suddenly she saw something near her hairline, and she stepped closer to the mirror, pulling her hair away from her face. She could barely make it out because her scalp was white too, and the scar faded almost completely into it, but it was there: a pale line that skirted the edge of her forehead, around her temples, and disappeared behind her ears.

Reese couldn’t breathe. She gripped the edge of the counter as steam from the shower filled the bathroom. Dr. Brand had told her she had broken her leg and ruptured her spleen, but why did she have so many scars? Goose bumps prickled over her skin. She couldn’t remember anything from the time between the accident and the day she woke up. It was all one giant blank spot, and when she tried to think about it, pain pierced her head.

Slowly, the mirror fogged up with steam. Her sharp reflection began to blur behind a cloud of mist, until she was only an indistinct human shape, her features erased.

She took a deep breath. She pulled back the shower curtain and stepped into the tub, flinching as the hot water stung her
skin. She forced herself to stand under the spray until she adjusted to the temperature. She closed her eyes and ducked her head beneath it too, feeling the hot water streaming down the length of her hair, her back, her legs. She tried to forget about the blank spot in her memory that suddenly seemed so overwhelmingly huge, but she couldn’t. She was certain, somehow, that there was something there that she needed to recall.