Lingering in the back of Wendy's mind, though, is the phenomenon of Hamilton and Pam having stereo heroin nightmares. The nurse showed Wendy the tape of stereo dreaming as well as parallel stalagmite brain readouts. So now Wendy has two medical mysteries on her hands at the same time. Best to keep the video hush. Pam and Hamilton are unaware it even exists. Best to scoot Karen home immediately—away from public intrusion.
Megan enjoys visiting her mother at the hospital, where she helps her flex her arms and legs and fingers. She has never been able to help others, and the sensation is as though she had opened her bedroomdoor and found an enormous new house on the other side full of beautiful objects and rooms to explore.
Megan is relieved that Karen has a good sense of humor and, though older, is technically the same age. "Megan, tell me, all the young girls I see on TV these days dress kind of, um …"
"Slutty?"
"Your word, not mine."
"It's Lois's word." Megan giggles. "Lois is from another era where girls had to be doormats. Nowadays we dress for strength. Didn't you?"
Karen ponders her adolescence: "No. I think we felt equal to guys but never more forceful than them."
"I guess that's a switch. Soon we'll have you going to the gym."
"I think I'm a bit far gone for that."
"Crap—Mom." Megan loves saying Mom with extra vim, as each mention is a small stab at Lois.
Yes, Karen is happy to see that Megan is rebellious—and that she talks back to Lois. Karen had never dared. Megan is also angry—at Richard and at her parents and at the world. And Karen is angry with Richard for being so shiftless in helping raise Megan. That's something to be dealt with in the future. Karen is mad and lost and found and bewildered. The new world lies before her eyes like an opened chest of treasure, a flock of birds over Africa, a thousand TVs all playing at once.
Wendy thinks about Karen. Unsurprisingly she is front-page news the world over; a medical oddity, a feature-section story, tabloid grist. Yet the only photo the media have is Karen's old graduation photo. The media have been unable to snap a new picture of Karen; such a photo has become the golden fleece of journalism. There have been attempts to bribe relatives—Wendy herself was approached by a French photographer, Linus by the Germans. Such cheek. And to think that Karen never wanted to be photographed even at the best of times—it would be too cruel to exhibit her in such a frail, emaciated state.Friends and family want to protect Karen and her innocence from the modern world, the changes that have occurred since her sleep began. Her innocence is the benchmark of their jadedness and corruption. The world is hard now. The world doesn't like simplicity or relaxation.
The world also wants photos of Megan—the girl who met her dead mother. Dozens of photos of Megan abound, courtesy of her schoolmates. She is the "Lost Child," the "Child of Corpse Born."
In particular, the U.S. news networks have been fearsome in demanding interviews at top dollar and wide exposure. "Maybe in the future, Richard, but not now." What Karen doesn't tell Richard is that she feels the onset of some previously withheld news on the brink of making itself clear. From where? What? A message from the other side—from the place she went to for all those years. She needs to wait for the right moment to use it correctly.
18 EXTREME BODY FAILURE
Less than two weeks after awakening, Karen is taken home to Rabbit Lane. She has gained two more pounds; Lois changes her diapers and inspects her waste as though Karen were a Chinese Empress, reading meaning into her waste's patterns like tea leaves on a cup's bottom. "Mom, do that somewhere else, pleeeze."
"Dr. Menger says you can start on solids next week."
"Gee."
"No need to be sarcastic, young lady."
Once home, Karen is both relieved and annoyed by the absent signs of time's passage, by the same owls, furniture, knickknacks and carpets that adorn the house. Only Megan's room, Once Karen's, gives evidence of time's march: posters of strange young pop stars engineered to disturb parents, unfamiliar and annoyingly provocative garments strewn hither and yon and a plaque on the door made in wood shop: MEGAN'S SPACE.
Richard spends an inordinate amount of time in Karen's new room, which was previously George's never-used den. At night he sleeps on the floor beside Karen's bed, and sometimes on the bed with Karen. Thus the geography of their lives has become the same as when they were teenagers. The two of them quickly develop baby talk words between themselves and when they aren't together they begin to experience a sweet ache. Their conversation devolves into a secret patois and the two are wonderfully aware that they are in love.
"I look like a telethon child," she tells Richard. "My body may be interesting to others as a science project but that's all. I'm not sexy."
"Well I'm head over heels for you," says Richard.
"Toot toot, Beb," Karen says.
"Ick," says Megan, overhearing them speak, beginning to feel pangs of jealousy. Megan is allowed to be helpful, and enjoys being so, but between Lois and Richard, she feels the way she imagines a Best Supporting Actress must feel when she loses her Oscar. Megan and Karen have many chats, but they aren't as deep or intimate as her chats with Richard. Karen saves all her intimacy for Richard. How can she jimmy her way inside Karen's heart? Fashion? How pathetic. Dyeing Karen's hair was fun, and the new hairdo is at least serviceable. But that was just a few hours. She must try harder. Food? Lois has taken complete charge of both Karen's nutrition and her hospital functions. Lois is blissed out. Even a few days earlier, when a coyote from the canyon made off with the bison friche, Lois took the event with almost cheerful equanimity. "Nature's way. Sigh. Here, Karen— freshly squeezed orange juice—no pips, either."
Karen jokes with Richard that her bedroom is a jail cell with Lois as warden. "It's her dream situation, Richard. I'm her dietary lab rat. No chance of escape." She bites her knuckles. "There must be something karma-ish about this. I might as well be a newborn."
"We'll break you out of here soon enough."
"As if."
"Don't be so negative."Richard is happier than he's ever been, juggling Karen and his TV work. Hamilton and Pam are happy enough, too, juggling work with Narcotics Anonymous meetings and clinic visits. They live in a bedroom cocoon of un-rewound VCR tapes, rancid yogurt containers, empty prescription bottles, color-coded vitamin jars, half-eaten meals, lipsticked napkins, stained blankets, and half-read magazines and books. Wendy oversees their recovery.
Richard, looking at all of their lives from a distance, sees the recurring pattern here, the one mentioned on a rainy poker night months ago—a pattern in which the five of his friends seem destined always to return to their quiet little neighborhood. Karen notices this, too. What she doesn't tell Richard, though, is that in a strange way her old friends aren't really adults—they look like adults but inside they're not really. They're stunted; lacking something. And they all seem to be working too hard. The whole world seems to be working too hard. Karen seems to remember leisure and free time as being important aspects of life, but these qualities seem utterly absent from the world she now sees in both real life and on TV. Work work work work work work work.
Look at this! Look at this'. People are always showing Karen new electronic doodads. They talk about their machines as though they possess a charmed religious quality—as if these machines are supposed to compensate for their owner's inner failings. Granted, these new things are wonders—e-mail, faxes, and cordless phones—but then still … big deal.