“And old.”
She doesn’t look much older than me. “How long has she been here?”
“She got here not long before you. Maybe a day or so.” Valentina dares a quick glance behind her. “I heard the doctors say she’s goin’ to wake up soon.” Her shoulders droop and she looks down at her lap. “I wish the doctors said that about me.”
“I don’t think I’m goin’ to wake up,” I tell her. “I already floated through the ceilin’ twice since I got here.”
“I saw Durango float through the ceilin’ when she was here. I bawled like a baby.” Her shoulders droop a bit more. “Even if you don’t have tears on the outside, you can fill them in your heart.”
I learned that earlier.
She looks up from her lap. “What’s it like up there?”
I don’t want to scare her with my experience on the defective conveyor belt, so I say, “About what you expect. Bright light and a path and stuff.”
Valentina’s eyes grow wide with curiosity. “Did you see heaven?”
“I never got that far before I was spit back out.” I take a deep breath and face facts. “I’m fairly certain I’m goin’ to die soon.”
“Maybe you won’t. There’s always hope.”
I just smile like I’m optimistic, but I’m not. I saw my X-rays. I saw broken bones and all sorts of tubes inside me. I saw a lot of damage and not much hope.
“Jemma Jennie,” the golfer calls out. “You’ve got visitors.”
Valentina grabs my hand. “If he calls your name, don’t go. Everyone around here is so boring. Durango was my bestie but now she’s gone. Please stay and we’ll be besties.”
“Okay.” I laugh.
The blonde squeezes between me and Valentina, forcing Valentina’s hand to slip from mine. “Yes, please stay,” the woman says, as if she’s part of the conversation.
I look at her weird smile, then across her flat chest to Valentina, who’s smashed against the arm of the couch. She and I seem to feel the same shock.
“Sorry we got off on the wrong foot, Brittany. I haven’t been myself since I got here.”
WTF? “Ah. Yeah.”
Valentina squirms her way free and stands on her feet. “See ya,” she says, and escapes the crazy, rude woman. So much for being besties.
“Let’s start over.” The woman shoves her bony hand at me. “I’m Detroit.”
I don’t ask if that’s her real name because I’m busy staring at her perfect skin. I know we’re not real, or in our real bodies, but she looks flawless, like she’s never had a zit in her life. I give her hand a quick shake, but I don’t say anything. Her eyes aren’t crazy like they were before, but I still don’t trust her.
“Why are you here? Car accident? Domestic dispute?”
Domestic dispute? “I rolled my momma’s minivan.”
“Ah… a minivan. What a shame.” It’s not what she says but how she says it that gets my back up, as if she doesn’t even like the word minivan in her mouth.
“Yeah. It was a real turd-mobile, but it was paid for,” I say, chuckling at her pained expression.
“Charming,” she says, but not like it’s a compliment. Then she seems to remember that she wants to “start over,” and her smile returns. “?‘Paid for’ is admirable in an intrinsically consumptive world. Your momma must be wise.”
She might be trying to act like she’s normal, but she’s not right. “Why are you in the hospital?” I ask just to be polite.
“I had an accident in the bathtub.” She waves the question away as if it’s nothing. “Let’s be friends, shall we?” Her teeth are really white and her posture is weirdly perfect. Women like Detroit don’t get suddenly chummy for no reason.
I get a strange feeling like I’m back at Marfa Elementary and Andrea Dingell, aka The Dingleberry, is acting nice to set me up. Like when she wanted me to play jump rope with her and her friends, only I always had to hold one end of the rope and never actually got to jump. “Okay. Sure.”