Flowertown (15 page)

“Probably.” Ellie had told Rachel all about her incarceration. Rachel hadn’t cared. She had needed a place to stay after her other apartment building had been commandeered for the army. Ellie waved her hand over the file. “So you know what all this gibberish means?

“Heck no.” Rachel flipped through Mr. Delmuth’s file, looking for something. “But one of the women from Barlay told me what part of your Med Tech line means.”

“My Med Tech line?”

“Yeah, you know, the thing on your med check receipt.”

“We get receipts at med check?”

Rachel made a sound of exasperation. “For crying out loud, do you even live here? Just how high do you and Bing get? You get a receipt every time you leave the med center.”

“So sue me. I try not to pay too much attention to people sticking me with needles.”

“I’ll show you mine.” Rachel climbed off the bed, unwrapping her hair from the towel as she went. She tossed the towel over the chair and rifled around the mess on her nightstand.

“Is there anything you don’t keep next to your bed?” Ellie asked.

“Here it is.” She pulled out a narrow yellow receipt, like a credit card slip, and climbed back on Ellie’s bed. “See? You think my name is Rachel Abernathy, but you are incorrect. According to Feno and Barlay Pharma, my name is GrF sixteen E plus slash plus plus plus plus plus slash two equals Q.”

“Very sexy.”

“I know. I’m thinking of telling boys to call me Gerf Sixteen.”

Ellie laughed. “So you know what all that stuff means?”

“I know what most of it means. It’s the filing system. I was sixteen when the spill happened and I was female, so that’s the F sixteen.” She moved her finger under the row of plus signs. “And see, this means I had a positive reaction to all five rounds of the medications. Every time they fine-tuned the meds, my contamination level reacted well. So I’m, like, an A plus student.”

“Show-off.”

“I know.” Rachel giggled. “And then this part I actually was responsible for organizing. The E plus part. I helped go through all the files to organize them by this part.”

“E plus? What does it mean? Super egghead?”

“No,” Rachel said, “it means I have a large family outside of Flowertown. If it said just E, it would mean I just had some family. If it said ‘I’ it would mean I have family internally; I plus means lots of family inside, and IE means I have family in and outside.”

“Well, don’t most people have family outside of Flowertown? Even people who’ve lived here for generations? Almost everyone has cousins, don’t they?”

“This was for, how did they put it, family of impact. Or something like that.” Rachel skimmed through Mr. Delmuth’s file. “They only counted family that had to be contacted and that you would maintain a relationship with. You know, next of kin stuff.”

“What if you didn’t have any family you kept in touch with?”

“Then it would be N, for negative.” Rachel found Mr. Delmuth’s line. “Here’s Mr. Delmuth’s. CRnM sixty-three I plus slash minus minus minus. See, he only has three dashes because he must have had a negative reaction to the first three rounds.” She ran her fingers over his line, as if it were his hand. “That’s sad. He must have been sick the whole time, but he never showed it.”

Ellie tried to decipher the line. “So the I plus means he had a large family in the containment zone. What does the CRn mean?”

“I don’t know. That’s all classified. You know how Feno is. They’d probably shoot us both if they knew we could read this much. Sorry, didn’t mean to bring up the execution thing again.” Rachel elbowed Ellie and laughed. “This stuff on the end is new, anyway. It’s like the code is always growing. Stupid suits trying to make everything more complicated. Mine used to end in the number two, and then about a year ago they added the equals-Q.”

“Did you ever ask what it meant?”

“Like they’d tell me. I wish you had yours. We could see what we have in common.”

Ellie raised her voice to match Rachel’s. “We could be, like, Med Line twins!”

“You wish!” Rachel climbed off the bed, flicking her wet hair over her shoulder. “Remember, I have five plus signs in a row. Yours probably has the code for crazy.” Ellie flung her pillow at her roommate, who knew well enough to duck, laughing. It wasn’t the first time Rachel had teased Ellie about cracking up, and Ellie figured the young girl was probably the only person on earth who could get away with it.

“Keep running your mouth, Gappy. Maybe the rest of your teeth will fall out.”

Rachel dropped her robe and spun around naked. “I’ll still be gorgeous!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Ellie laughed. “Get dressed, gorgeous, and let’s get over to the care center. Use your considerable influence to help me find Big Martha.”

The care center was a two-story building that took up the entire block on the northwest side of Flowertown. It looked and smelled like a hospital with the exception of the heavily armed guards posted at the door. Ellie hesitated when she saw they were scanning tags. If she was a person of interest in the bombing, she might be detained from the secure facility. Working up some sort of bluff, she stayed behind Rachel as they passed through the glass doors.

“There she is!” An enormous man with an equally enormous gun showed at least a hundred teeth as he grinned at Rachel. “How many days is it now? It’s got to be close, right?”

“Tomorrow!” Rachel high-fived the guard, and then waved to several other guards around the entryway. “Assuming, of course, I meet all the requirements and pass all the tests.”

“You?” the giant scoffed. “Has there been a test you haven’t passed yet?”

“Well,” Rachel grinned and showed the gap in the front of her mouth, “I failed the dental check. Obviously.”

Another burly man leaned over the first guard. “You make it look good, sweetie.”

“Thanks, Len.” She gestured back to Ellie, who up to now had been invisible. “This is my roommate, Ellie. She wants to be here when I get my final papers. Is that okay?”

“Sure, sweetie. You go right on through.” The guards spoke over each other as they buzzed the two women into the secure building. There were shouts of good luck, and Rachel waved to them all before leading Ellie down the hallway, underneath a sign that read, “From this point on, all patients require an escort.”

Ellie looked around, peering into rooms filled with files and equipment. “So I take it the escort rule doesn’t apply to you?”

“Well, technically you’re escorting me.” Rachel took her arm and walked with her through a maze of white corridors. “Trust me, I’m here so much they don’t even notice me.”

“Oh, I think they notice you, honey. Those guards certainly did.”

Rachel giggled. “Those guys are always flirting with me. When I used to work here—”

She interrupted herself with a squeal as a group of nurses began to applaud her arrival.

“Speak of the devil and the devil appears!” A woman in dark green scrubs stepped out from behind the station desk, holding a bubble-wrapped package. “Look what just came up from the pharmacy.” Rachel jumped up and down, reaching for the bundle, but the woman pulled it back. “Well, first let’s make sure this is the right one. We don’t want to get this far and screw it up.” Rachel handed over her medical tag.

“See, every time I come in for a detox, they send my blood back to the lab,” Rachel explained to Ellie. “Then from that test, they formulate the next dosage specifically for me.”

“And if we give her the wrong person’s dosage,” the nurse in green explained, reading the scanner, “then she
goes to the infirmary and I use her ticket to Las Vegas.” The other women at the station laughed at Rachel’s mock outrage. When the scanner beeped, everyone cheered again. “It’s all yours. Ready?”

“Ready. Is it all right if my roommate sits with me for the last round?”

The woman looked Ellie over and then nodded. “She can stay for the drip, but I don’t think you’re going to want her in there for the rest of it, right?” Rachel grimaced and shook her head. “Okay then, this way.”

Ellie followed Rachel and the other woman down yet another hallway. Along the way Rachel peeked her head in different doors to wave and say hello. “Is there anyone you don’t know, Rachel? You’re like a pageant queen.”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being friendly.” They stopped two doors from the end of the hall, and the nurse led them into a small, plain room with an examination table and an IV pole. Rachel climbed up on the table and lay down, holding out her left arm for the nurse. Ellie sat on a small stool, the only other seat in the room, and watched as the nurse stuck Rachel’s arm with practiced ease, then injected the vial of medication into the IV bag. She waited to be sure the drip was working, then covered Rachel with a thin blanket.

“That feel okay?” Rachel nodded, adjusting the pillow beneath her head. “Then I’ll go ahead and leave you to it. I’ll be right down the hall, so just call me if you need me. And just think,” she touched Rachel’s cheek with her fingers, “this could be the last time you’re in here.”

As the nurse left the room, Rachel’s smile faded, replaced by thinly veiled pain.

“Are you all right, honey?”

Rachel nodded and took a deep breath. “This is always the worst part, when the stuff first hits my system. It feels like getting carsick. I get really cold and kind of…blech.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Just talk to me. If I close my eyes and don’t answer, just keep talking. Sometimes I have to fight to keep from spinning.”

Ellie watched Rachel’s color fade and saw her lips whiten as she lay there. “Let’s talk about Las Vegas.” Even though her eyes were shut tight, Rachel smiled. Ellie talked about what she remembered of the city, telling her roommate for what had to be the hundredth time about the lights and table games and cocktails and nightclubs. Rachel listened and laughed, and when Ellie couldn’t think of another story to tell, they sat together quietly, listening to the women down the hallway going about their business. Someone was complaining about filing and someone else was telling her to suck it up. The exchange was getting heated, and Rachel and Ellie laughed at the snarky comments flying back and forth.

“Thanks for coming with me, Ellie.” Rachel’s face was pale and her hairline was damp with sweat. “I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. I wish I’d known you wanted company. I’d have been here.”

“Nah, you were working. And in the beginning this was a lot grosser. The last part is still gross, when they scrub my skin and give me the, you know.”

“I know.” Somehow Ellie couldn’t see Rachel ever saying the word “enema,” even though she had already suffered
through dozens of them. Ellie watched a tear slide down onto the girl’s pillow.

“I can’t wait for this to be over. I can’t wait to see my mom again.”

Ellie blinked back tears from her own eyes. “I bet she can’t wait to see you too. She must miss you so much.”

“She blames herself.” Rachel stared at the ceiling. “My sister said she’s been going to therapy because she’s been so depressed. Says she thinks it’s all her fault, that she should have made me go to the beach with them.” Ellie didn’t know what to say and so said nothing. She knew only the barest details of how her roommate had come to be in Flowertown alone. It was never discussed. Rachel seemed to be talking to herself, the tears streaming into her hair. “I just want to tell her face-to-face that it was my decision to stay. I know it sounds stupid, but I raised Radishes all by myself. I picked her out of McClusky’s litter and I fed her and I cleaned her pen. I loved that pig, and I knew I was going to win that ribbon. I knew it and I wanted to show Patty Samples that she didn’t know everything, that she wasn’t the only one who knew how to raise a pig. I just wanted—” She threw her arm over her eyes, and Ellie hurried to the bed.

“Don’t. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“Can I tell you something? Something bad?” Ellie nodded, and Rachel glanced at the door to be sure no nurses were nearby. “Sometimes when I think about getting my pass, when I think about being in Las Vegas, I think about running away. Cutting off my anklet and just running, running to Mexico or someplace.”

“Of course you do, honey. That’s only natural.”

Rachel grabbed Ellie’s arm and stared hard into her eyes. “But I’d contaminate all those people. I’d make them sick. But when I think about it,” her voice broke with a sob, “I don’t care. I don’t care about them. I don’t care about any of them. I just want out of here.”

“How you doing, sweetie?” The nurse in green stuck her head in the door, and Rachel and Ellie drew apart. Both of them had tears in their eyes, and the nurse stepped farther into the room. “Is everything okay?” She looked at Ellie as if she were guilty of something.

“We’re just talking,” Ellie said, leaning back on the stool.

“Uh-huh.” The nurse stared at her for another moment and then turned to Rachel with a softer expression. “Looks like you’re done here. You know what comes next.” Rachel nodded, wiping at her tears, and looked at Ellie.

“Wait for me?”

“Of course. I’ll be right outside.” She squeezed Rachel’s hand and winked at her as the nurse unhooked the IV. As much as she hated hospitals in general and as gruesome as she knew the next steps would be, Ellie had to force herself to leave her young friend’s side. She looked back at the doorway as Rachel began undressing. A flicker of helpless rage tickled the base of her spine.

The women at the end of the hallway were still arguing about whatever filing crisis had arisen. A short plug of a woman with badly permed hair was huffing and puffing about how unfair it was that she had to drop everything she had to do to shuffle paperwork. When Ellie came into view, she directed her complaints at the fresh ears, since no one else was listening.

“It’s not like we had any kind of warning. We have patients to take care of. Do you think that’s the top priority?”

She seemed to be waiting for an answer from Ellie. “No?”

“Of course not. People can just drop where they stand as far as the office is concerned. And is there any point to it?”

“No?”

“Exactly.” The little woman bustled past her, her cheeks red with outrage. “And it’s not like they’re not going to completely revamp it again in six months. Look at this.” She gestured to a room full of file cabinets of varying sizes. “It took us over a year to get all the BTM recorded and refiled. That was all they talked about—BTM scores, BTM scores, like it was the freaking holy grail of filing, like it was going to solve the mysteries of the universe. And then six months ago they start talking about the QEH, QEH, and we have to redo everything QEH.”