Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

“No, I am. I’m interested.”

Lynne was squared before her; their knees touched. “What do you really know about the Helix?”

Anne-Janet frowned. “Is there any chance you’re talking DNA because we’re in a hospital and my mother broke her hip and maybe I am next because osteoporosis is genetic?”

“No.”

“Okay then. As far as I know, the Helix has a pretty comprehensive website. Lots of info. Events, literature, stuff like that. In its name, people get together to talk and share about their lives. Make new friends. You know.”

“Yes, fine, but I mean — oh, never mind. Why am I even asking you.” Lynne pulled back a good two feet.

Anne-Janet took offense. It was bad being crowded in but worse to repel the crowd once it had started. She thought hard. Did she know anything about the Helix that departed from what anyone else knew? Some nights the only info she got on just what Interior did was from collecting strips of paper from the shredder bins on the Hill and recreating the original sheets. Her mother would say, “Oh, honey, go out, get a boyfriend,” and she’d say, “I am dating the shredder.” Last week, she’d pieced together a memo, which she’d forgotten about until now, that did say something about Dan and his people in Cincinnati. Was this what Lynne was talking about? Her mother’s nurse, Lynne?

She said, “I’ll let you in on a little secret. There is something afoot with the Helix. I think it’s at the Defense Department, but I can’t talk to you about that. I don’t even know how you’d get that kind of information. I guess people talk. Loose lips. No respect for confidentiality.”

She said this and felt indignant and then bolstered, equally by the idea of herself risen above the leaking crowd as by Lynne’s face, which had reinterested itself in her life.

“ Do they talk?” Lynne said, sitting up. “Like, everyone, or just a few people?” Her tone was a little aggressive. Again she leaned.

“I might have overstated it. There’s talk, sure, but probably there’s talk everywhere. I haven’t made too many friends yet — I mean, because I’m rarely at my desk — but the people I know seem moderately interested at best.”

“But you’re in the Helix, right?”

“I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

“How well’s it working out for you? Have you found true love? ”

Anne-Janet frowned. There was venom here, but who had the energy to care? “Not yet, ” she said. “But if you must know, I was just out with some department friends, and, since you mention it, I did meet someone. A colleague. It was a Helix event, jam-packed.”

“I see,” Lynne said. “So, basically, if I’m getting this right, you don’t give a hoot about anarchists or revolutionaries so long as you’re avoiding your mother and scouting for love.”

Anne-Janet’s mouth opened. Her front teeth were overlaid, of which she was conscious to the point of never opening her mouth except to yawn, talk, eat — certainly not to express surprise or, in this case, alarm, because this Lynne of the close quarters was the most repellent nurse ever.

“I have to go now,” she said.

Mental notes: Lynne Somebody, midfifties, Reed Memorial Hospital, short in stature, face arranged like an open cash register. Wears surgical gloves at all times; might be wigged. Further research: look up Jewish Orthodoxy or female hair loss. At least Anne-Janet would have something to do at work.

She returned to her mother, who was, in fact, still asleep. No, she was feigning sleep to avoid chat with her roommate, who had grown vocal about how stuff happens for a reason, like maybe a shot to the gut was going to open doors for her. Maybe her son might come to see in her scrambled intestine a reason to stay out of the gangs. Maybe her boyfriend would come to find in the accident purchase for his self-esteem: he could take care of her, be a man. That neither son nor boyfriend had come did not so much rock her theories as grow them to include the virtue of patience.

Anne-Janet sat on the edge of her mother’s bed. “Now, Mom, listen to me. You’re just getting a plate and some screws in your hip. Not a big deal. You will piss off everyone at the airport, but that’s about it. Recovered in a few weeks.”

Marie opened one eye. “I understand I can stay in a rehabilitation center until I am well enough to be self-sufficient. That way I won’t be a burden on you.”

“Mom, you are not a burden.”

“But you can’t handle my needs at your place, can you? It’s too much. I don’t want to be a burden.”

Anne-Janet looked away, settled her eyes on the rise and fall of the roommate’s chest. It was so tedious, this runaround, her mother never saying what she meant but always getting her wants across.

The roommate said, “You ought to talk to each other — don’t just sit there in silence. When my son comes, you can bet we won’t just be sitting here in silence. Unless I’m slapping ’im up the head or something. Ow, don’t make me laugh. Ow, ow.”

Anne-Janet turned to her. “It’s fine to sit in silence. This is a hospital. Silence is fine. ”

“No, that’s not right. People want to feel like they got people.”

“Feel whatever you like,” Marie said. “But the bottom line is the same. You’re born alone, you die alone”—and she closed her eyes with the thought.

“Mom, you are not alone,” Anne-Janet said. But it’s not like she didn’t know what her sick parent was talking about.

Ned Hammerstein: In my heart, I knew it was true.

DOB 1.18.72 SS# 615-47-2165

Esme couldn’t get her clothes off alone, so she used scissors. She cut through the foam tubed around her arms as well. Probably Martin had doubles in the basement. Doubles and triples. Same for her face — he had all the molds — so she pulled it off in haste. She never went to the basement, but it was like an almanac of all the lives she’d taken on as a means of escaping her own. And Martin was her curator. In this way, her only friend. He knew her better than anyone. He’d lifecast her body a hundred times. He had, over the years, captured its bow to time. He could even tame the outpouring of her moods — acne, sweat, tears. They’d had their glory days, though none so glorious as their stint in North Korea. Even Esme was shocked by what they’d managed to pull off there. Shocked and elated and dismantled in ways she hadn’t thought possible for anyone, certainly not herself.

She put on a nightie and sleep socks, which came up well above her knees. She looked at her console of TVs. At her daughter’s room, where a stuffed platypus was bedfellowed among several sheep and a brindled whale, while Ida kept quarters under the box frame. On a scalloped foam pad. Why choose the underbed instead of the bed itself? Esme couldn’t say, but she imagined it was because down there, Ida felt both denied and protected — safe under the crossbeams but also in self-sacrifice, as if martyring her comfort would keep her mother home.

It was too early for Esme to sleep, and so, instead: surveillance, what she did best. She could do this all night; it would be company enough. Ned, Anne-Janet, one feed per channel. She’d had their places bugged and wired. She took out a pen and paper and sat back to record what she saw.

Ned Hammerstein, 2221 hrs: At his desk, typing. Wearing a Star Wars X-wing pilot’s costume procured via new friends in the 501st Legion’s Old Line Garrison. The 501st was mostly a Stormtrooper outfit, but it had connections. Compassion, too. When a man discovered he had a secret twin, and his response was to brandish affinity with the ur-twin, the 501st understood. The costume was pumpkin romper, chest box, black utility belt, leg straps, and, on the floor, a Rotocast vinyl helmet, which Ned would don for video conferencing. For now, though, he was just in a chat room.