I had done a lot of growing up in the halls of Monument Hospital. We’d taken Judy there since her first flares at age 11, because they were supposed to have the best rheumatologist in town. There were very few good memories associated with the place, yet when Rhodes and I walked through the automatic front doors, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia.
Nothing had changed. The green patterned carpet at the entrance. The rows of green and mauve cushioned chairs attached at the arms. The cheerfully lit gift shop bursting with flowers, stuffed bears, and mylar balloons. The hushed atmosphere. The stomach-roiling smell of ammonia. It was almost as it I’d tumbled back in time. Just like on that terrible last day, everything around me seemed to slow down and disconnect. Colors looked saturated and the lights overly bright. And suddenly my body felt hollowed out all over again, as if my viscera had dissolved to make room for the boundless pain.
“Paulie, what’s up?” Rhodes asked. “Did something happen in this hospital?”
Stop, I told myself. Just stop. I forced a smile. “No. I’m fine.”
I ordered my legs to move passed the familiar lady at the information desk. I followed Rhodes down the brightly lit, white tiled halls that I knew like the back of my hand. We passed a tall, pretty nurse in green scrubs who’d once brought Judy a tupperwear full of Rice Krispie treats. A miserable-looking, chubby nurse ambled by, and I flashed to the jokes Judy and I would make up about her, because she always had a sour face, and she always smelled like blue cheese. I kept my head down, hoping no one would recognize me.
“At this hour, he’s often in the cafeteria,” Rhodes said. “If not, I’ll have him paged.”
I followed him down a wide corridor and through the double doors to the cafeteria. It was exactly the same—florescent-lit mauve and beige decor, free standing salad bar, refrigerated case stacked with fruit salad and dry, wheat-bread sandwiches wedged into plastic containers. We’d had countless family meals huddled around the oddly small tables.
“There he is,” Rhodes said quietly. “Playing Doctor McDreamy, as usual.”
I followed his gaze to where his father sat with a cup of coffee. He was wearing a long white coat with a dark blue tie, a stethoscope draped around his shoulders. He looked very handsome. At his table was a shorter man with reddish hair and a white coat, and a young woman wearing a form-fitting skirt, long boots, and an expensive-looking, blue silk blouse.
“Let’s get in and get out, okay?” Rhodes said. “Oncologists will hold you up for hours with their bad jokes. And I mean deadly bad. It’s probably what kills most of their patients.”
The woman seemed familiar, but I wasn’t sure why. She had long, dark hair that was pulled into a ponytail, and long, slender legs.
“Okay,” I said. “Is that woman also an…”
At that moment, she turned her head in our direction, pointing at the salad bar as she spoke. The instant I saw her face I knew who she was.
“Jesus Christ!” I grabbed Rhodes’s arm and pulled him behind a mauve pillar. “Do you know that woman?”
“Not really,” he said. “She works with cancer patients, but I don’t know what she does exactly. She’s always on nights. I think her name is Julie. And I think my dad wants to shag her.” He studied me closer. “Are you okay? You look super pale.”
My heart was pounding and I found myself struggling to breathe. It was Juliana. I turned back toward the door. “I’ll meet you out front.”
I walked as calmly as I could through the double doors and back down the brightly lit corridor. When I passed a board on the wall featuring photographs of the medical staff for oncology, I paused and scanned for Juliana. She wasn’t listed. A half hour later, Rhodes found me slouched in a chair near the entrance, hidden behind a large, leafy plant. He looked amused.
“You ran out of there like Eva Marie Saint in On the Waterfront.”
“Let’s just get out of here.”
“I mean, it was very dramatic. All that was missing was the Leonard Bernstein score.”
“Seriously. Let’s go.”
Casting constant looks over my shoulder, I led the way through the sliding doors and into the dark parking lot. Pain in my fractured arm and ribs seemed to throb anew, and my whole body was shaking. What was she doing working out in public? What if someone recognized her? And why, of all things, would she be working with cancer patients? I realized with dismay that the secret wasn’t just mine anymore. It was time to tell Rhodes.
“Paulie,” Rhodes said, unlocking my door and holding it open for me. “If you’re about to warn me that Julie is a doctor-baiting gold-digger, save your breath. Those are his favorites.”
I was quiet. We pulled out of the parking lot, and down a poorly lit residential street. The hospital was only nine or ten blocks from Rhodes’s house. I realized with a shudder that all this time Juliana had been working within a mile of us. I looked out the passenger window at the cozy houses rolling by, envying the occupants and their normal lives. What did they have to worry about? Finding time to finally take down their stupid Christmas decorations? Why couldn’t my life be so simple?
“Rhodes,” I said in a low voice. “I have something really weird to tell you. I swear on my life that it’s all true. I’m not crazy.”
Rhodes looked over at me. “Okay.”
I took a deep breath. “You know all those suicides lately?”
“Yeah.” He sounded uneasy.
I sat there for a moment staring out the window, unsure how to explain it all. Rhodes shifted restlessly and looked over at me.
“What about them?”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. “You know I’m not crazy, right?”
“Of course you’re not crazy. Paulie, come on. You’re killing me here.”
Just say it, I thought. You have to say it. I kept my eyes on my hands.
“Well, all those people came back. From the dead. Because… Well, there’s this…this… Once a year there’s this thing called the Waking Moon when dead people can find their way back. But their bodies aren’t real. They’re replicas that are meant to break down. When they do, the people become ghosts. But there’s this new group that’s come back from the dead, the suicides, and they’ve figured out how to keep their replica bodies alive by stealing energy from living people. They’re called Noirs. They’re really strong and really fast. And Juliana…”
Rhodes sat at a stop sign staring at me, his lips parted as if he were about to say something, but was too riveted to interrupt me. He took his hands off the steering wheel and pressed them together in front of his mouth. Suddenly, I felt as if I’d taken off all my clothes. But I forced myself to go on.
“She’s dead, Rhodes. She died in a car accident in Boulder. I’ll show you the pictures online. And she’s the one who figured it all out. The first Noir. And she’s very dangerous.”
“Paulie,” Rhodes said, his voice serious and low. “I need to ask you something important. I’m not joking around here, okay?”
“What?”
“Are you taking any medications? Prozac? Zoloft? Prednisone?”
I looked out the window. It was hopeless. I wouldn’t have believed me either. “Forget it,” I muttered.
“No,” he said insistently. “I’m not saying that you’re crazy. You’re obviously not crazy. There are so many possible reasons why you would be experiencing this…whatever it is. I know you’ve been through something seriously traumatic. It could be PTSD. My dad has a friend who’s a psychiatrist who would be happy to…”
“Rhodes, stop.”
“Paulie, it’s important to me that you…”
“I said stop.”
He pursed his lips together and stared at the steering wheel.
“You don’t have to believe me,” I said. “But if you mention medication or psychiatrists to me again, I’m leaving tonight and never speaking to you again.”
Rhodes stared at me, clearly at a loss of what to say. Where do you go from here, I wondered. A car came up behind us and honked its horn. Rhodes jumped. Then he continued through the intersection, scowling at the headlights in the mirror.
As we drove home in silence, I stared sullenly out the window, slowly coming to terms with the fact that my world and everyone else's had been knocked into hopelessly distant orbits. And, like my dad always said, nary the twain shall meet.