Lois Metzger - A Trick of the Light

Amber: “Food that tempts me. I took some saltines and crushed them in my front yard. Back in my room, I pledged to Anamadim: ‘Fill me with the ecstasy of emptiness, empower me to endure the necessary deprivations, make light the vessel where I sojourn upon this earth.’”

Mike thinks, She’s having a re

She cares about something, deeply.

Amber (with a laugh): “It’s a bit much, I know, but it really helps me, okay? To reach my goals. Anyway, I had to write down the pledge and then sign it in blood. Wouldn’t you know it—that’s when my mom woke up. The problem was, when I cut my wrist, I used a really sharp steak knife—”

Mike (alarmed): “You cut your wrist?”

Amber: “I wasn’t trying to kill myself! I just made a tiny cut, here.” She shows him a spot on the side of her wrist, where she has a Band-Aid. “Anyway, it wouldn’t stop bleeding. My mom flipped out. She thought I was a cutter. Like she knows anything. If I was a cutter, I’d wear a black-and-blue bracelet.”

Mike: “They have bracelets for cutters?”

Amber: “And purple for bulimia, where you throw up after you eat. Which is disgusting. I only throw up when I absolutely have to.”

Tamio was right, Mike thinks; Amber does throw up.

Who cares? He never applies himself to anything worthwhile.

Amber: “Anyway, my mom took me straight to the hospital.” She shrugs. “The cut was no big deal. It didn’t even need stitches. But that’s when they told my mom I was severely emaciated. C’mon, do I look severely emaciated to you? Also they found the arrhythmia. And the fact that the mass of my heart had decreased. Weird, huh? I didn’t know hearts could do that.”

Mike: “Amber, are you scared?”

Amber: “No, I’m just mad because I’m stuck here for six weeks, maybe longer.”

Mike notices a closed door in the corner of the room.

Mike: “What’s that?”

Amber: “The bathroom. It’s locked. All the bathrooms are locked. You have to ask permission to go. And they watch you, to make sure you’re not throwing up. They even watch you in the shower. There’s zero privacy here. Before they weigh you, they do a cavity search.”

Mike: “A what?”

Amber: “Some people put rolls of quarters in their butts.”

Mike wants to leave. He wonders what he’s doing here in the first place. Do I even know this person? he thinks.

Of course you do.

I don’t, not really, he thinks. Amber’s always telling me all this stuff she does, but actually nothing about herself, if that makes any sense—

It doesn’t.

Amber had an aunt who died, and they were close—

Why bring up something painful? You know what you need to know.

Mike stands. The chair sticks to him.

Mike: “I have to go.”

Amber: “Okay. Will you come back?”

Mike doesn’t want to.

You’ll come back.

Mike: “Sure.” He notices, for the first time, Amber’s eyelashes. They’re so sparse. He thinks those eyelashes, and his jacket, make her look like a little kid, lost and alone.

She’s neither.

Amber takes off Mike’s jacket and gives it back to him.

Amber: “Hey, will you tell that witch outside that it’s freezing in here?”

Mike goes to the nearest nurse at a desk. Her head is bent over a magazine.

Mike: “Hi, I was just in the Sun Room with Amber Alley. She’s wondering if you could turn up the heat?”

Nurse: “They’re always cold. Anyway, I can’t change the thermostat. It’s controlled.” She doesn’t look up.

Mike passes the TV room again. He sees Deirdre. Is she blond? Hard to tell. She doesn’t have much hair, and the intermittent light from the TV gives him only strobelike glimpses. Someone is sitting next to her.

Mike stops.

He can’t move.

It’s a boy, Mike thinks. He sees short hair, sideburns… an Adam’s apple.

You’re seeing it wrong. It’s a girl who looks like a boy.

I can’t move, Mike thinks. I’ve turned to stone, like in Clash of the Titans , when Perseus’s men look at Medusa—

You are not stone. You are living and breathing.

It’s like I’m stuck between frames in a movie.

You can move. Just put one foot in front of the other. It’s only a trick of the light.

OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL, EVERY STEP IS A STRUGGLE. Mike moves painfully slowly, sometimes stopping just to stare at a—what? A squashed leaf, an ancient cocker spaniel trudging along, a crack in the sidewalk.

There’s the Q33 bus. Get on the bus.

Mike has to be led by the hand like a child, so to speak. He stands the whole ride home even though there are plenty of seats. He stoops over and looks out the window at the darkening sky—it gets dark early now. He starts thinking about another one of Harryhausen’s movies, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad . For once I don’t think this is a bad idea. Maybe it’ll calm him down. He remembers the part where Sinbad fights a skeleton. But it reminds him of that girl, Deirdre. He thinks, She’s practically a skeleton; she could end up like the skeleton in that movie, a pile of broken bones.

Don’t let some silly movie upset you. When you get home, go straight to your room, turn on some music, work out.

To my relief, this is exactly what he does—150 crunches, 100 push-ups.

You are becoming infinitely strong.

Mike is sure, now, that he saw a girl at the hospital, a girl who only looked like a boy. That kind of mistake happens all the time.

With some effort, Mike is himself again.

His mom knocks on his door. Quickly Mike puts on a T-shirt and then lets her in.

Mom: “Could you turn the music down, please? The walls are shaking.”

Mike turns it down.

Mom: “Have you had dinner?”

Mike: “I ate in the hospital cafeteria.”

Mom (clearly not believing him but asking anyway): “What’d you have?”

Mike: “Grilled cheese and fries.” He’s memorized what to say by now. He has whole menus in his head.

Mom: “You’re having lunch with your father on Saturday.”

Mike: “What? Why?”

Mom: “He’s your father.”

Mike: “So?”

Mom: “It’s been a long time. He wants to see you.”

No one’s asking if you want to see him.

Mom: “He’ll meet you at a Chinese restaurant. I wrote down the address.”

Mike: “What’s the name of it?”

Mom: “I don’t think he told me—just that it’s on the corner of Belle Terrace and Seventy-Fourth Lane.”

Mike: “Mom, I need the name.”

Mom: “Why?”

So Mike can look up the menu online and see what he can eat, that’s why. He doesn’t tell her that, though.

Mom: “Well, I don’t think your father knows the name.”

Mike: “That’s so stupid.”

Mom: “You’ll find it. How hard can it be?”

Impossible, it turns out. Mike takes a bus to Belle Terrace and Seventy-Fourth Court, a block from Seventy-Fourth Lane. It’s across from the expressway, and there aren’t any restaurants, just fruit stands and depressing, down-on-their-luck stores. One place has mannequins with missing arms. Mike is feeling grumpy anyway because he fell asleep at dawn and woke up too late to go for a run.

A Chinese woman is staring at him. Mike knows what she’s thinking: That boy didn’t run today. He’s so lazy.

Mike thinks, It’s not my fault I have to meet my idiot father for lunch.

Mike (to the Chinese woman): “Stop staring at me!”

The Chinese woman looks at him blankly. Maybe she doesn’t understand English. Or maybe she’s only pretending not to.

Man’s voice (behind Mike): “Mike, is that you?”