Part 22 (1/2)

I shook my head and cleared my throat. ”Just nervous.”

My mom shot me a quick look. ”The doctor will help you, Perry. Just like he did before.”

Maybe that's what I'm afraid of, I thought. I knew what he was going to say, what he was going to think and do. It hadn't been that long. He'd make me talk, pretend to listen, and write me a prescription. I'd continue to look like a raving loon until the pills squared that away.

I was going to become Dex. He had been on medication, he probably still was. It was meds meant to keep the ghosts away, and for the most part, they did a good job. I had said before, in a fit of anger, that it was cheating. That it wasn't fair that I had to deal with them and he didn't. Now I had that same opportunity to make them all go away.

But how could I do that? I knew now what was behind the curtain. I saw the shadows, the ghosts, the lost ones, the demons. How could I willingly go on blindly, knowing they still lurked and still wanted me. Somehow it was worse to be in the dark about it. That's when they'd really sneak up on you.

Minutes later we had parked and were making our way into a nondescript medical building. The memories the injustice came flooding back. The s.h.i.+ny floors that made your boots squeak. The drab yellowing walls. The ugly faux wood paneling in the elevators.

We got off on the third floor and turned left down the carpeted hall. A few people emerged from one office, chattering to each other. Feeling self-conscious, I pulled down my sleeves so that you couldn't see the ugly bruises, scratches and abrasions that had cloaked my body in the last 24 hours.

With my mom leading the way in her tweed pencil skirt, we squeezed past the pack of people who didn't give us much of a berth. I kept my eyes focused on the floor, not wanting to acknowledge the strangers. Ada stumbled slightly in front of me, apparently elbowed by a blur of s.h.i.+ny maroon.

She rubbed her arm and then I heard a barely audible gasp escape from her lips.

I raised my head. She was stumbling sideways, watching someone over my shoulder.

I stopped and turned around to see. At the very end of the group of people who were now halfway down the hall, was the back of a lavender-haired woman in a stiff maroon ball gown, gliding above the carpet.

Not part of the group. Not even alive.

I looked back at Ada, who had also stopped along with my mom.

”What is it?” my mother asked her anxiously.

Ada kept her expression in full bewilderment and watched Creepy Clown Lady float away, then she looked at me with wide eyes.

Knowing eyes.

It wasn't just me. Ada saw her too.

”You saw her!” I exclaimed.

She shook her head ever so slightly then turned to face mom. ”It was nothing. Someone b.u.mped into me.”

”No,” I cried out, grabbing Ada by the shoulders. ”It wasn't someone, it was her! You saw her too! Creepy Clown Lady!”

”Creepy Clown what?” my mother asked, perplexed. Then she grunted and threw her hands up in the air. ”Forget it, I don't want to know.”

She started walking down the hall and Ada quickly trailed after her, ripping herself out of my hands and avoiding my eyes.

I turned a final time to see Pippa standing at the end of the hall, watching us go.

I forced my thoughts at her with all my strength.

Is that it? I asked. You don't even stop to say h.e.l.lo?

Don't take the pills, was her brief answer. Don't let her trick you. She tricked me.

I was taken aback. I wished I could see her expression clearly at that distance.

Pills? Who tricked you?

”Perry!” my mother called.

I crooked my head to face her. ”I'm coming.”

She crossed her arms. ”No, now.”

I nodded absently, then looked back at Pippa. The hall was empty.

I sighed, frustrated and suddenly angry again, and scurried down the hall after my mother and entered Doctor Freedman's office.

Nothing had changed.

There was still Bethany, the white-haired receptionist who sat on the other side of a frosted pane of sliding gla.s.s. The waiting room was windowless and suffocating with only two magazines and one Reader's Digest, all from the late nineties. There were a few other people waiting for other doctors, looking blankly at each other, at the walls, at the floor.

We didn't wait long. Doctor Freedman appeared outside his door.

He had a beard now, but other than that he looked the same, down to the blase expression on his face.

”Perry,” he said with false warmth. ”Come on in.”

I got up and was surprised to see my mother rise too.

”Thank you for seeing her on such short notice,” my mother said in a sickly sweet voice.

I shot her a look. ”Where are you going?”

”I'd like to come in.”

Over my dead body, I thought. I looked at the doctor. He gave my mom a gentle smile.

”I'm very sorry, Mrs. Palomino,” he said. ”I'll need to see Perry alone.”

I gave my mother a triumphant look, finding only small victories, and went over to join the doctor.

His office looked the same. The same window that looked out onto the same maple trees that were bare and wet with late winter. I sat down on the couch like it was second nature. It had changed. The cus.h.i.+ons were firmer. Or maybe my a.s.s wasn't built like a hippo's anymore.

”You've lost a lot of weight, Perry,” he said, pointing his pen at me. I briefly wondered if he could hear my thoughts. No, but it was his job to read me. ”Since I last saw you, of course.”

”Yeah,” I said, not feeling like elaborating.

”No more blue hair, either.”

”Nope.”

”I've watched your show, you know.”