“Your mother will do what she wants, when she wants to,” José says.
“I’ll refuse to heal,” I throw out.
“Oh, Marlenita.” His voice is heavy, sagging like the center of a raft with too much cargo. “She would never allow that,” he says. The sound of the car starting comes through the phone, followed by silence.
SIX
José drives along the coast. The spray of the ocean leaps into the sky as waves crash against the rocks. A path winds by the side of the road and people are out taking walks, jogging, running. Occasionally a couple admires the view, hand in hand. I’ve never walked down this path, but I’d like to. I suppose José would stop the car and accompany me if I asked, but as much as I love José, he’s not the person with whom I imagine sharing this experience. Our destination isn’t too far away, but it takes us well beyond the distance my mother would approve.
When I’m not staring out the window, I’m staring at my legs. My jeans. My bare arms and shoulders. I put a finger to my lips and it comes away dark red. So many transgressions in a single day. First my swim. Now this.
“José?” I call up to the front of the car.
He glances in the rearview mirror. “Sí, Marlenita?”
“Has my mother noticed we’re gone? Has she texted or called?”
There is a long sigh—José is the master of the long sigh. “Not yet, guapa. Not yet.”
I don’t have a phone, so when my mother can’t find me she has to call José. There are a lot of things I don’t have or do that most people have and do. Television. Computers. A phone. I’ve always been homeschooled, which basically means I sit by myself all day reading books. I used to think this made me like Julian and Hildegard, Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Ávila, since women mystics studied alone in their cloistered, sheltered lives, their educations solely from books. But now it just makes me want to scream. It’s yet another thing I’ve missed out on, that separates me from everyone else.
“What’s different this year from other ones, that suddenly you want to go to school?” my mother said in July when I begged her to let me go this fall. “You’ve always been so happy to stay home with me. Besides, now is not a good time. You have a reputation to protect.”
I wiggle my toes, admiring the heeled sandals on my feet.
What reputation do these give me? Can a pair of skinny jeans and a tank top that shows off just a hint of cleavage really affect my image? Might it feel a little bit good to stop protecting it for a while?
“José?”
He harrumphs. “Sí, guapa?”
“Can I borrow your phone? Please?”
This time he doesn’t resist, reaches back to pass the phone to me. I take the crumpled business card from my purse, type the number into the keypad, and wait for it to ring. Someone picks up right away.
“Hello?”
I take a deep breath. “Dr. Holbrook.” My voice cracks. For a second I think I might pass out. I take another deep breath. “It’s me. Marlena Oliveira. Finally calling you.”
There is a long pause, long enough for me to wonder if I called the wrong number. But then she speaks. “Marlena!” She sounds happy. “What an unexpected surprise! What can I do for you?”
My heart pounds in my chest. “I’m actually on my way to see you. To your office, I mean. It’s kind of a spontaneous trip.” I close my eyes, suddenly feeling stupid. “I guess I should have called sooner. Before I left. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. You’re probably very busy.”
“No, no,” she responds. “I’m glad you’re coming. I can be at the office in ten minutes. I live just down the road. Does that sound good?”
My heart pounds harder. “That sounds perfect.”
“See you soon, Marlena,” she says, then hangs up.
I hand the phone back to José. She made that seem so easy.
“Everything okay, guapa?” José calls back.
“Yes.”
He holds my gaze in the rearview mirror, before his eyes return to the road.
After a few more minutes the Center for the Mind & Brain Sciences appears ahead and I press my face against the window. It is a beautiful glass box on the edge of the sea that calls the sun and the ocean to its windows. It is bright in the hazy heat of the day.
“We’re here,” José says, turning into the drive and pulling to a stop.
I loop my arm through the straps of my bag and scramble out of the car. “Bye, José,” I call, one foot already on the asphalt.
“Marlenita!” José sounds nervous. “I’ll be here waiting. No more than an hour or we’ll both be in trouble with your mother. Por favor.”
“Sure,” I reply, hoping that I can live up to his expectation. I really don’t want José to get in trouble. He sighs like he doesn’t believe me, but the whoosh of it is cut off when I slam the car door.
I practically run to the entrance, my legs strange and stiff in these jeans. I want to get inside before I change my mind.
“May I help you?” a pretty young woman asks, looking up from a thick textbook. She’s sitting at the front desk, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Dressed like me.
Or is it that I’m dressed like her?
Even our skin is the same color, our eyes and our hair. Maybe she is Portuguese, too. Maybe she eats toasted sweet bread on Sunday afternoons and malasadas during the summer as a special treat and endless amounts of kale soup during winter. Maybe soon we’ll find we have so much in common we’ll become best friends.
“Um,” I try, speechless.
Recognition dawns in her eyes. “You must be Marlena! Angie called and told me you were on your way. I’m Lexi.”
“Do you like malasadas?” I blurt.
“I don’t know.” She gets a funny look on her face, but her voice is still sunny and cheerful. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“It’s kind of like a doughnut.”
Her smile helps me to stop feeling like such an idiot. “Well, I love doughnuts, so I’m sure I’d like one if I tried it.”
“Okay. It’s, um, nice to meet you. Lexi.”
She laughs. “Sure. Let me show you where you can wait for Angie.” Lexi leads me to a spacious room with a plaque outside with Dr. Holbrook’s name on it. She smiles again and tells me to have a seat. I do as I’m told. “I have to keep studying,” she says apologetically, but I am relieved when she disappears back down the hall.
When I am sure Lexi is gone, I jump up and go exploring. Around the corner is a lab. It’s enormous, with a beautiful view of the ocean. There are four machines, strange and intimidating. I am glad to be in jeans. In my white sheath I would feel like an ancient relic surrounded by so much science.
One of the machines is an MRI. I’ve seen one of those before. The others I don’t recognize. They look like they would better outfit a spaceship than a room on earth. There is a long table and at the end of it a thick, doughnut-shaped white ring, nearly the size of a small car. There is what looks to be a stainless steel bathing cap, with wires coming out of it, and another cap made of a strange white mesh. In the far corner of the room is some sort of chamber, like the ones that scan the body at airports.
What is this place?