Poor Little Dead Girls (13 page)

Sadie paused, and Brett squeezed her elbow just slightly. “Yes, definitely. It’s a beautiful facility.” The doctor seemed pleased, and she gestured for them to follow as she clicked off down a long gleaming hallway.

First, she led them down the hall to a large, high-ceilinged room decked out with comfortable chairs, couches, a large-screen TV, and Ping-Pong tables. “One of our many patient lobbies,” she said, gesturing toward the TV. “As you can see, our patients are never bored.” She smiled, and Sadie noticed the center had every gaming console she could think of.

Dr. Kent ushered them back into the hallway, but not before Sadie noticed something that flooded her mind with uncomfortable memories. The huge, antique-paned windows were beautiful, but they were also lined with metal bars. Sadie swallowed the memories back down and cleared her throat.

“What kind of patients do you typically have here, Dr. Kent?”

Dr. Kent whirled around, stopping suddenly in her path. “Typically, we handle substance abuse cases, but we are open to healing of all kinds.”

Sadie blinked. “So this is a mental hospital.”

Brett coughed uncomfortably next to her, but the doctor seemed unfazed. “We prefer to think of ourselves as a comfortable environment that is most conducive to mental, emotional, and physical healing.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “But yes, that would be correct in the common vernacular.” She smiled again and practically bounced down the hallway. “Now come on, I’d love to show you our new patient rooms.”

They spent another half hour touring the hospital, but with every new room there was a new memory. The cheerfully painted hallways triggered flashes of cold linoleum, and the clean, crisp white linens in the bedrooms made her see dingy municipal hospital sheets. Every detail was soothing and beautiful. She couldn’t wait to leave.

When they finally said goodbye and emerged onto the porch, the sunshine soaked into her skin like a salve. “Mind giving me a sec? I’m just going to run to the ladies’.” Brett hurried back inside, and Sadie sank down gratefully onto a small wooden bench. A patient and one of the nurses shuffled by in front of the porch, and the woman stared at Sadie with wide, unblinking eyes.

Sadie nodded hello, and the woman smiled back. “Don’t let them take you into the basement,” she said, the smile still plastered across her face.

The nurse put an arm around the woman’s shoulders and ushered her away. He looked back at Sadie and gave her a sympathetic smile. “Alzheimer’s,” he mouthed.

Sadie leaned back and closed her eyes. In the dark behind her eyelids she saw the last time she visited her mom. She had waited in the hallway outside her room for a long time, watching hollow-eyed nurses shuffling back and forth with papers and pills. When her dad finally waved her inside, she barely even recognized her mother — so pale and thin inside her papery white robe. She had been so heavily medicated she barely knew who Sadie was. Her dad didn’t say a word the entire way home.

Sadie tried to focus on taking deep breaths, each one pushing the memory back down a little farther, but something interrupted her thoughts. Someone was crying.

A few yards away on the porch was a little girl Sadie hadn’t noticed before — no more than eight or nine — sitting with her knees drawn up underneath her. She had tears streaming down her cheeks.

Sadie looked around, but none of the staff members were close by. She stood up and took a few steps toward the girl.

“Are you okay?”

The little girl didn’t respond. She just stared out into the garden, her eyes glassy with tears. Sadie sat down next to her.

“You know, I still remember what it was like.” Sadie paused, and the girl sniffled again. “Visiting.”

The girl turned, and for the first time Sadie saw how piercing and blue her eyes were. The girl wiped a hand across her cheek, rubbing away the tears. “Who were you visiting?”

“My mom.”

“Me too,” the little girl said, her voice small.

“It’ll get easier.”

The girl nodded, but Sadie could see she wasn’t convinced. “Your mom’s in really good hands. This is an incredible hospital.”

“Do you think they can make her better? She was in another place before … a not so nice place … and it didn’t work. She was still sick, but Dr. Kent said they could help her here for free.”

Sadie saw the entrance to her mom’s hospital, all cold concrete and flat fluorescent lights. She blinked the image away, and her eye wandered across the grass to where two patients sat, sunning themselves on Adirondack chairs. They looked so peaceful, but still she didn’t want to lie. This girl didn’t need one more person giving her cheap, empty hope.

“My mom never did. But she wasn’t here, and this place seems different. Your mom is exactly where she needs to be.”

The girl smiled hesitantly, just as a new tear slid down her cheek. “Thanks.” She bit her lip and fumbled with the hem of her pink sweatshirt. “Will you wait with me until she comes out?”

Sadie smiled. “Sure.” The girl reached out and took her hand. It felt so tiny.

A door behind them opened.

“Cassandra?”

Sadie and the little girl both turned toward the voice. There was a woman standing with a nurse in the doorway, a wide smile on her face. Her brown hair was pulled up into a neat ponytail, and her cheeks were flushed with pink. She looked happy and alive.

The girl jumped up and ran to her, and she knelt down, enveloping her in a huge hug. The girl was crying again, but it felt different. It felt like relief.

Sadie stood up to give them some privacy, and as she walked away she heard the mother murmuring softly. “Mommy’s going to be okay now, Cassie. Everything’s going to be okay.”

She was standing at the porch railing, watching the mother and daughter as they walked through the garden, hand in hand, when Brett called to her from the doorway.

“Want to sit and talk for a bit?” She pointed back to the bench. “My feet are killing me in these heels.”

“Sure.” Sadie looked down at her new boots. She wiggled her toes and realized they were numb. “Mine too.”

“So are you doing okay? I know this is probably weird for you.”

Sadie took a deep breath. “I’m okay. It just brings back a lot of stuff I don’t really like to think about.” She looked sideways at Brett. “Why’d you bring me here?”

“We wanted to show you what we do — what we’re really about, beyond the ceremonies and the gifts and parties and everything else.” She gestured to the manicured grounds. “We fund projects. Help people. We make things better.”

“So this group — whoever you are — you all volunteer at this hospital?”

Brett paused for a moment, lifting her chin and gazing out over the gardens.

“Actually, we built it.”

Sadie sat back, stunned. Maybe she had misjudged them. The rituals were stupid — and any group who chose Thayer to be a member had some serious problems — but they were making a difference. They were using the power they had to help people. That couldn’t be all bad.

“So this is the group’s thing? Helping people through rehab?”

Brett shook her head. “The Sullas have lots of interests — ”

“The whats? I thought you called yourselves the Order of Optimus or something?”

Brett grinned. “Optimates.” She waved a hand. “It’s a really old name that means ‘Best Men.’ Within the group, we just call ourselves the Sullas — long story. Anyway, once you’re in, you’ll have access to a lot — money, resources, connections. Some people have a pet project they pursue, and the Dawning House was one of them.”

Sadie nodded. “So whose project was it?”

“Sorry, Sadie. Can’t tell you anything about the other members. But I can say he had personal reasons. His girlfriend from a long time ago had problems with this kind of thing. It messed him up, and he swore he would help other people with the same issues.”

For the first time, Sadie felt a twinge of excitement. She was being given the opportunity to be a part of something huge, a part of something that was helping make sure no one else ever went through what she did.

Brett stood up and carefully brushed off her dress. “Ready to go? The hard part’s over. Now we eat.”

An hour later they were lounging over sushi and champagne at a fancy restaurant in Georgetown. The waitress hadn’t even carded them — apparently carrying a $4,000 handbag meant nobody asked questions. The feeling was a little intoxicating, like she was invincible and could do whatever she wanted.

By the time they were landing back at Keating, the chopper blades beating loudly overhead, Sadie was completely drunk — on champagne, and on the overwhelming momentum of everything that was falling into place around her. At the same time, it all felt a little wild, like something had been set in motion that was too powerful for anyone to stop. But maybe that was just it — the power was running straight through her, and for the first time Sadie realized how much she liked that feeling.

A week later, Thayer waltzed into the dining room looking even more smug than usual. She hadn’t said anything to Sadie about the canceled practice, or about anything Sadie had seen in D.C., but every once in a while she caught Thayer watching her, an odd expression on her face. Sadie was getting the feeling there might be more to Thayer than the standard-issue entitled heiress she seemed to play so well, but she still didn’t want anything to do with her.

That morning her cheeks were flushed, and she held a huge bouquet of roses cradled in one arm like the runner-up at a small-town beauty pageant. Her followers trailed behind her, screeching even louder than usual, jockeying for position and tossing their shiny hair in each other’s faces.

Before Sadie could ask, Jessica let out a groan. “Every effing year. Like anyone here gives a crap that Finn invited her to a fifteenth dance and gave her a forty-seventh present that his dad’s latest personal assistant-slash-mistress probably picked out anyway.”

“I don’t know,” Brett said. “I think it’s kind of sweet. At least he’s romantic.”

“Yeah well, easy to say when you have a date. When you don’t, this whole thing feels like a regularly scheduled kick in the face.” Jessica slumped down in her chair.

Sadie flashed her a sympathetic look before Thayer’s envoy closed in.

“Hey, laaadies,” she cooed. She thrust the flowers forward like a woman offering her baby up for baptism. “So pretty, right? Finn is such a sweetheart. I just can’t get him to stop spoiling me.” She slithered into one of the chairs as her sheep performed their usual standoff — each one trying to grab the closest seat while keeping up the constant stream of phony compliments they were always lobbing at each other. Their restraint was actually kind of impressive. Sadie was sure one day someone was going to throw an elbow and end up spraying blood all over the dining room floor.

“So,” Jessica said, with obvious sarcasm. “How. Did. He. Do it? We’re all just dying to know.”

Thayer’s blue eyes narrowed to slits. “I would be, if I were you.” She leaned back in her chair and tossed her hair over her shoulder, revealing a giant diamond earring. Reverential gasps echoed around the table. “I don’t really want to tell the whole story now, though. It’s so long, and I mean, it’s really not that exciting. Once you’ve had a boyfriend as long as I have, this kind of stuff just starts to feel” — she curled her lip and shrugged — “average.”

All around the table, faces fell. “Tell us! Tell us!” the chorus kicked in.

Thayer broke into a coy smile. “But then again, I guess it’s selfish of me to deny you single girls the chance to live vicariously.” She looked pointedly at Jessica, then launched into a story that spanned breakfast, the walk to chapel, lunch, dinner, and half of practice the next morning. By the time they all straggled into the locker room, Sadie could recount the name of the jeweler who had designed Thayer’s new diamond earrings, the model of the limo Finn had used to deliver the gift, the name of Finn’s family’s private “suit guy,” and all twenty-seven of the sappy texts he had sent her, verbatim, since Friday morning.

In the shower, she let the hot water pound against her forehead, drowning out all the other girls’ voices as they carried over the tops of the stalls and mingled with clouds of steam. Afterward, she dressed and hurried out the door, calling to the other girls that she would wait for them on the bleachers. Brett tossed her a knowing look, and Jessica yelled, “Just want some fresh air, huh?”

Sadie ignored her, but as the door swung shut she heard her call out, “Tell Jeremy I said hi.”

The weather had turned in the last week, and the autumn air felt cool and crisp as she walked toward the bleachers. She pulled her jacket closer around her body and climbed a few rows up.

After that first night on the field, she had been sure she would hear from Jeremy. She had made excuses to run back to her room between classes to check her e-mail and carried her cell phone with her at all times, even though he didn’t even have her number. And every time she had checked and found nothing — no e-mails, no texts, not even a lame wall-post — she had hated herself just a little more.

Lately she had stopped hoping for contact, but she couldn’t help looking for him whenever she got the chance. She scanned the players on the field — all alike in their white mesh jerseys and forest green helmets — until she found number forty-two. Just finding him in the crowd was enough to make her pulse speed up. He was still there, within reach, and if he turned around she could imagine he just might be looking at her, too.