The Girl Without a Name (10 page)

B
right and early Monday morning, Candy is sitting in her street clothes, a plastic bag full of her belongings perched at the foot of her bed. I can't put my finger on it, but something is different about her. Maybe because she is no longer a patient but a person now. Her own person, ready to start a new life and literally discover herself.

And it's our best bet at this point, since Black and Missing was a dead end and none of the limousine companies had gotten back to me with further information. “You ready to go, Candy?” I ask, realizing that I will miss her.

Her eyes are like daggers. “Who the fuck is Candy?”

My breath catches, and I stare at her. “Excuse me?”

“Who the fuck is Candy? I ain't no fucking Candy.”

“You're…not…Candy,” I repeat, feeling distinctly like I've entered the Twilight Zone, like I'm the one who's been catatonic for the past month.

“Candy,” she huffs. “Sounds like some stripper's name. My name is Daneesha.”

“Daneesha,” I repeat stupidly, wondering if this is some kind of sick joke. But Candy doesn't joke like that. Sweetness and sunshine, our Candy. No sick jokes and definitely no f-bombs.

She pivots her legs so they are hanging off the side of the bed and looks around the room like it's the first time she's been here. “And who the fuck are you?”

“I'm…Dr. Goldman.”

“Dr. Goldman?” she asks. “What I need a doctor for?”

I shove my hands in my lab coat pockets. “Do you know why you're here?”

“I don't even know where the hell I am,” she says, standing up to look out the window for a clue. “Running away from some white dudes is the last thing I remember, and now I'm in some hospital. That's all I know.”

Running away from some white dudes. Detective Adams might be interested in that.

“Do you remember a limousine perchance?”

“A limousine?” She looks at me like I've grown a third head. “I ain't playin' with y'all. White guys, running after me. Now I'm here, and I want out.”

“Can you tell me more about those white guys?”

“Yeah, right, lady. How about you tell me something?”

“Okay.”

“When am I leaving?”

I take a step away from her. “Soon, very soon,” I say, which was true five minutes ago. “I just have to talk to the right people, and we'll get that going.”

“Yeah, you do that. You talk to whoever y'all need to talk to, and you get that going. I can't be waiting around here all day.”

“Just one second,” I say with my pointer finger in the air, then tear out of there like the room is on fire. Down at the nurses' station, Dr. Berringer is standing with coffee in hand, chatting with one of the LPNs.

“Oh, yeah, he took a
punishing
hit,” Dr. Berringer says, his voice animated.

“Marion ain't doing all he should, though,” the man answers back, his face serious with the discussion of insider football.

“He's still a rookie, really,” Dr. Berringer says. “You guys look good. I'll root for them, but my heart still bleeds for the Saints. You know what I'm saying?”

“Oh yeah. They got a good team, too. Nothing to sneer at.”

I clear my throat.

“Why hello, Zoe!” he says with a big smile, dapper in his khaki sports coat, his eyes fresh and sparkling blue. Looks like he's staying on that wagon. “And how are you today?”

“Um, there's a problem with Candy.”

“What is it?” He takes a long swallow of coffee. “Some screwup with the foster home?”

“No.” I circle my finger around the white plastic button on my lab coat. “I think you better just come see her. It's hard to explain.”

“Okay.” He tilts his head in good-bye to the LPN, and we march down the hall to see Candy, or maybe Daneesha.

Dr. Berringer swings through the door first. “What's up there, Candy?”

She takes one look at him and leaps off the bed. “My name is Daneesha!”

“Okay, Daneesha,” says Dr. Berringer, who I note with some satisfaction has lost his composure and is staring at her with the same expression I must have had a minute ago. “Let's just calm down there, my girl.”

“I ain't your girl!” she screams. “You get away from me!”

Dr. Berringer steps in closer, which is a mistake, as she lunges at him, scratching one side of his face, then landing a fist on the other side of his head with an ugly
thump
. He puts up his arms to ward off more blows. “Hey, could someone get security in here?”

“You get away from me, motherfucker!” She is half snarling, half screeching, her arms windmilling out punches. “Don't you fucking touch me!” A nurse rushes into the room and then out, and we hear security called overhead. Time crawls, and I move in toward Daneesha to try to reason with her, which is also a mistake and results in a well-landed punch in my left eye. Sparks shoot through my vision as footsteps pound outside of the door and the security guards rush in. It takes two burly guards to keep this twelve-to-fourteen-year-old down.

“Get off me! Get off me! Jesus, help me!” She is squirming out of their grasp, her legs kicking out at whatever she can connect with. By now, a group of nurses has circled around the door to see what the commotion is all about. Not that commotion is all that uncommon in the psych ward, but so far it's been notably absent in Candy's room.

“Nancy!” Dr. Berringer calls out into the hallway. “We need five milligrams Ativan, ten milligrams Haldol in here, stat.”

“Coming right up,” she says, scurrying through her coworkers.

We move away from Daneesha's squirming, screaming mass, which the security guards have managed to pin to the floor. “She's a live one,” one of the guards puffs out, leaning a muscled arm on her shoulder.

“I see what you mean about a problem with Candy,” Dr. Berringer remarks, his face bloody with three parallel scratch marks, like a still from a horror movie. His cheekbone is swelling on the other side already. He laughs a little, and I start laughing with him.

“Are you okay?” he asks me, reaching up to touch my eye, and my hand goes up at the same time, brushing his knuckles. The skin around my eye tingles, and I can see in the room mirror that it's pink and swelling already.

“It's fine,” I say.

He nods, admiring my face. “Gonna be a shiner for sure.”

Nancy hurries back, ripping an alcohol pack open, and finds a bare spot on Candy's (Daneesha's?) shoulder. She taps the bubbles out of the syringe and shoves it in.

“Bitch!” the girl is screaming out now as the nurse stands up from a squat. “Fucking whore of a bitch!” One of the security guards shifts to get a better hold. “You all fuckers! You all fucking motherfuckers!” she yells out in a hoarse voice, the last words slurring as the drugs finally hit. After a couple of halfhearted kicks, she stops. Her eyes roll up, and she relaxes. The security guards lighten their grip but don't let her go. Her breathing steadies.

“Phew,” one security guard says to the other, sweat running down his temples. They stay on the floor for a minute. “What should we do?” the guard asks Dr. Berringer. “You want to put Sleeping Beauty back in her bed?”

“Yes, let's do that.” He turns to me. “Can you put an order in for four-point restraints?”

I start writing it. “I guess she's not going anywhere today?”

“I'd venture to say.” He dabs his scratch with a tissue from her nightstand.

Sink or swim. It looks like Candy drowned and left us with Daneesha.

“So she has an alter?” asks Sam, who despite his best intentions, perhaps, is interested. He leans forward on his glass desktop, his brown eyes lit up.

“So it appears.”

“That's something,” he says, nodding. “I didn't see that coming.”

“You and me both.” I laugh. “She was like ten minutes from leaving the hospital!”

He pauses. “You know, maybe that's why it happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“It makes sense, actually. If there was a trauma which was the cause of her catatonia, maybe she wasn't really ready to leave the safety of the hospital. Candy didn't know how to tell you, so Daneesha stepped in.”

Wind bangs against the window. The sky is white gray with clouds in charcoal swirls this late afternoon. I left work early because Sam had to change the appointment. Dr. Berringer didn't object, and I didn't bother to mention my psychiatrist's name.

“Interesting theory,” I say.

“Yes, theory is all it is, really. Most people agree that a dissociative disorder is caused by emotional trauma. But we can't seem to agree on much more.”

“And it's a bitch and a half to treat,” I add.

He shrugs. “Multiple personalities are tough. But maybe with some cognitive behavioral therapy—”

I cackle at this one. “CBT?” I point to my eye. “Does this look like it's going to respond to CBT?”

He gives a half smile. The wind shakes the pane. A swath of pink-orange leaves flutter down from a sugar maple.

“So how's the concentration? Stable?”

“Yeah, I guess. It's not great, but it's probably as good as it'll ever be.”

He twirls his fake Montblanc. “And how's everything else going? Things with Scotty?”

“Fine. As long as we don't discuss Mom or Treasury bonds.” I hold back a yawn.

“Any more from Jean Luc?”

“Well, he called me. Wanted to let me know all about his wedding.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

I think for a moment. “Surprisingly shitty.”

He lets a smile escape. “That's an honest answer.”

“Yes, well. Brutal honesty has always been my strong suit.” I pick at the rake in the sand. “Doesn't always work so well in psychiatry.”

“Or life, even,” he adds.

Which is true, though I could do without the editorial.

“What the hell?” Mike says as I walk into his apartment, which is soothingly warm and smells of garlic.

“Long day,” I say, dropping my satchel.

He walks over to take a closer look at my eye. “What happened?”

“Daneesha hit me.”

“Okay.” Mike throws some ice in a bag and hands it to me. “And who might Daneesha be?” A touch football schedule flaps up under a Sabres hockey magnet as the freezer door closes.

“You remember Candy?” I sit at the kitchen table, maneuvering the ice cubes on my face.

“Yes, I remember Candy.”

“Candy has an alter.”

“A what?”

“An alter,” I repeat. “It hurts more with the ice.”

He answers this with an eyebrow raise and drops a handful of pasta into boiling water. “You were saying something about an alter.”

“Yes, she's dissociating.” I take the ice bag off to let my skin regain some feeling.

“Which in English means…?”

“Split personality, in the old parlance. And the other girl is named Daneesha.”

He stares at me. “So tell me if I got this right. Candy turned into Daneesha, and Daneesha hit you?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

He adds some more garlic to the tomato sauce. Mike makes sauce instead of using the canned stuff. He actually wrinkled his nose when I picked up a jar at the grocery store. “And why, may I ask, did she hit you?”

I shrug. “It was my fault, really. I did get in her space. And the girl doesn't even know who she is.”

“Huh.” The sauce starts sizzling, and he turns down the heat. “Is this common, then?”

“Which—disassociation or being hit by your patient?”

“Um, either one, I guess.”

I ponder this. “No, neither are common. But they both happen.”

He takes a taste off the spoon and adds another shake of salt. “You know what's really surprising?”

“What?” I ask, grabbing a paper towel for the dripping ice bag.

“You said she's twelve or so?”

“Yeah, thirteen maybe.”

“So you must have, like, fifty pounds on her. I figured you would have kicked her ass.”

“Very funny.” I laugh, which hurts my cheek, reminding me to put the ice back on. “Is the food almost ready? I'm starving.”

He hands me a loaf of Italian. “Cut up some bread, Rocky. It'll be ready soon.”

“You know,” I say, slicing in, “after a hard day of work, I expect dinner to be on the table when I get home.”

“Shut up,” he says with affection, “or I'll punch you in the other eye.” Leaning in, he kisses me, his five o'clock shadow scraping against my cheek. I put down the bread and kiss him back as the water bubbles beside us. And pretty soon, I've forgotten all about my eye.

C
hloe looks up from her
Catcher in the Rye
(which Candy devoured in one day), the paperback cover shining in the sun. She gained two pounds, which means book privileges at last.

“What happened to you guys?” she asks drolly. “Out fighting crime again?”

“Something like that,” Dr. Berringer says, smoothing his Band-Aid. I am quite sick of being asked about my shiner. “And how are you today?”

“Same as yesterday, and the day before. Actually, I could just put a hologram in here, and you could ask me the same questions and I could give you the same answers, and then I could be off doing something valuable with my time.”

That
would
be clever, I think. I could have a hologram, too, so it could go to the hospital every morning while I sleep in.

“And what valuable thing would that be?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Don't know. Anything is better than rotting here.”

“You know the way to get out, Chloe.”

“Hey, didn't you hear the big news? I gained two pounds! Woo-hoo! Party time!”

“I did hear that. That's good. That's what we want.”

“A fat patient,” she says morosely.

“A healthy patient,” he corrects.

She glances back down at her book, surely connecting far more with Holden Caulfield than the likes of us. I can't say I blame her.

“Keep it up, Chloe,” Dr. Berringer says.

She gives him a rock-on horn hand gesture, not looking up from her book.

“Okay.” He turns to me. “Let's go see Daneesha. Or Candy. The suspense is killing me.” We get to her room, and by her slouched posture I can tell it's Daneesha. Detective Adams is standing next to her, grinning. Dr. Berringer must have called him.

“She's a live wire, isn't she?” he asks.

“Whatever,” she says. “Just tell me what I need to do to get the hell out of here.” She has calmed down, though, probably from the Haldol and Ativan cocktail still on board from last night.

When Daneesha turns away, the detective motions to my eye with a questioning look. I mime a punch, pointing to her, and he stifles a smile. “I've been asking her about her story.” His notebook reads, in black scrawl, “running away from white dudes.”

“And I been telling him,
I don't know
,” she answers with frustration. “If I knew, don't you think I'd tell you already so I could get out of this shit-bag of a place?”

“Hey,” he scolds.

She rolls her eyes. “Please, that is the nicest way I could say it.” But I notice she doesn't drop any f-bombs around the detective. “Like I told him. Running away from white dudes trying to rape me and shit. Then I sort of remember some nice lady in the police station, and that's it. And I wake up in some ratty-ass clothes with y'all calling me Candy, shoving me out the door to some foster home, which I'm not even hearing about, and that's it. Present day. I think we all caught up now.”

She is definitely more vocal than Candy. And, I have to admit, more entertaining.

“How old are you anyway, Daneesha?” I ask.

“Come on. Tell me you people don't have all that in your big doctor charts.”

I shrug.

“How old you think I am?”

“Fourteen?” I guess.

“Close. Thirteen. Everybody thinks I'm older, though. Heaven said I was sixteen by the time I was two.”

“Who's Heaven?” the detective breaks in.

“My momma.”

“Heaven?” Detective Adams asks, writing.

“As in, her name is Heaven, or she's
in
heaven?” I ask.

“As in, her name is Heaven. I ain't being all metaphorical and shit.”

“And where is Heaven from?” the detective asks, pen in hand.

“Who the hell knows?” she answers with disdain. “I ain't seen my momma in years.”

“Okay,” he says. “Well, where were you living?”

“I don't know.” She sits up in the bed, getting agitated again. Her wrists are lined with red marks from fighting the restraints all night. They're finally off now, but she's been warned they could go back on at any time. “When we gonna talk about me getting out of this place?”

The detective pulls up a metal chair with a squeak and sits down so he's at her level. “Think about it, Daneesha. Where are you going to go?”

She snorts. “I can take care of myself.”

He shakes his head, kindly. “I think that's how you ended up in here.”

“Then I'll go find my momma, or my momma's people.”

“Who you haven't seen in years.”

“Whatever,” she says, but some of her fire has faded.

Dr. Berringer steps closer to the bed. “We're all trying to get you out of here as soon as humanly possible.”

She looks at him like she just noticed him in the room. “Who you supposed to be? Doctor somebody or another?”

“Dr. Berringer.”

“I know you from somewhere?” she asks.

“I was in here yesterday.”

“What happened to your face?” Then she looks at me. “You two get in a fight or something?”

“You don't remember?” he asks.

She throws him a sidelong glance. “Would I be asking you if I remembered?”

“Never mind. It's a long story.” He turns to me. “How did it go overnight?”

“Okay. She got two more Ativan and five more Haldol.”

Daneesha watches us warily.

“Can we talk more about those white guys, Daneesha?” the detective says. “I'd really like to find them.”

“And I'd really like to stay away from them.”

He smiles. “I can understand that, but we also don't want them to hurt anyone else. And it might help us find your home.”

“I don't need no help finding my home,” she shoots back. “I got a home. I just ain't discussing it with y'all right now.”

“Well, Daneesha,” the detective says, “the quicker you feel like discussing it, the quicker you can get out of here.”

She huffs and crosses her arms, looking like a thirteen-year-old for the first time since I've seen her. She refuses to answer any more questions, so we all leave the room, Detective Adams heading back to his office.

As soon as we get to the nurses' station, Dr. Berringer says, “So what should we do with her?”

“Maybe…cognitive behavioral therapy?”

He gives me the same look I gave Sam at the suggestion, then reaches into his pocket and tosses a blue gumball into his mouth. (A gumball? Who carries around gumballs?) “Multiple personalities,” he says with a grin. “Read up on it.”

Three hours later, Candy is back.

I can tell as soon as I walk in the room. Daneesha is all movement, sitting up, tapping her foot, pacing, and looking out the window for any activity. Candy is content to sit in bed, hands folded. She gives me her bright, wide smile.

“Candy?” I ask with some hesitation.

She lets out a sweet laugh. “Yes. Who'd you think it was, silly?”

“Uh, I'm not sure.” We stare at each other. “Do you by chance know a girl named Daneesha?”

She purses her lips a second, thinking. “I don't think so.”

“How about Heaven?”

“Oh sure, I believe in heaven,” Candy answers.

“No, no. I mean, do you know anyone named Heaven?”

Her face flashes a hint of recognition, but then it's gone. “No. That's a weird name, though.” She starts tidying up her nightstand. Daneesha left it a mess. “Why do you ask?”

I sit down next to her. “I don't know. We thought it might help figure out your identity.”

“Oh yeah, like my last name and where I'm from and stuff? I don't know. I'm sorry I can't be more help with that.”

It strikes me then, for the first time perhaps, that Candy doesn't much care who she is or where she's from. Or if she cares, she is certainly laissez-faire about the whole matter. La belle indifference.

“So what happened to the Watsons? My foster family. Did that fall through or something?”

“Yes, it sort of did.”

She shrugs, then smiles brightly again. “Oh well, that's okay. I'm sure we'll find someone else soon. And the hospital's not so bad,” she says, channeling Little Orphan Annie again. The contrast with Daneesha couldn't be more stark. “Hey, what happened to your eye?”

You hit me.
“Long story,” I say, stealing Dr. Berringer's line.

Candy nods, content with my nonanswer. My cell phone rings. Detective Adams's name pops up on the screen. I mouth “one minute” and leave the room. “Hello, Detective.”

“How's Daneesha doing?”

“Candy. She's back to Candy.”

“Oh, crap.”

“What do you mean, oh, crap? Candy's perfectly nice,” I say, feeling defensive for the less flamboyant personality. “She doesn't hit me, for instance.”

He laughs. “It's not that I don't like her. She's just kind of”—he pauses—“useless. That's all. I felt like we were getting somewhere with Daneesha.”

“Don't worry,” I say. “If I know anything about multiple personalities, Daneesha will be back.”