Jodi Picoult - Sing You Home

Not gonna happen, I think. But she is right-to drive home in this would be stupid, reckless.

“I have two words for you,” she says, cajoling. “Room service.”

I hesitate. “I pick the pay-per-view movie?”

“Deal.” Zoe holds out her hand to shake.

There is no real reason for me to fight an impromptu hotel stay. I can afford the luxury of a room for one night, or at least justify it to myself. But all the same, as we check in and carry our CVS bags upstairs, my heart is racing. It’s not that I’ve been dishonest to Zoe by not talking about my sexual orientation, but it hasn’t exactly been a topic of discussion, either. Had she asked, I would have told her the truth. And just because I am a lesbian doesn’t mean that I will ravish any female in close proximity, in spite of what homophobes think. Yet there’s an extra wrinkle here: it would be ludicrous to think that a straight woman would not be able to maintain a platonic friendship with a man… and yet, if she found herself in this situation, she probably wouldn’t be sharing a room with that male buddy.

When I told my mother, finally, that I was gay, the first thing she said was “But you’re so pretty!” as if the two were mutually exclusive. Then she got quiet and went into the kitchen. A few minutes later she came back into the living room and sat down across from me. “When you go to the Y,” she asked, “do you still use the ladies’ locker room?”

“Of course I do,” I said, exasperated. “I’m not a transsexual, Ma.”

“But Vanessa,” she asked, “when you’re in there… do you peek?”

The answer, by the way, is no. I change in a stall, and I spend most of my time in there staring down at the floor. In fact, I probably am more uncomfortable and hyperaware being in there than anyone else would be if she knew the woman in the purple Tyr suit was gay.

But it’s just one more thing I have to worry about that most people never do.

“Oooh,” Zoe says, when she steps into the room. “Swank-o-la!”

It is one of those hotels that is being redone to accommodate the metrosexual businessman, who apparently likes tweedy black comforters, chrome lighting, and margarita mix on the minibar. Zoe opens the curtains and looks down on the Boston Common. Then she takes off her boots and jumps on one of the beds. Finally, she reaches for the CVS bag. “Well,” she says, “I guess I’ll unpack.” She holds out two toothbrushes, one blue and one purple. “Got a preference?”

“Zoe… you know I’m a lesbian, right?”

“I was talking about the toothbrushes,” she says.

“I know.” I run my hand through my ridiculous, spiky hair. “I just… I don’t want you to think I’m hiding anything.”

She sits down across from me on her own bed. “I’m a Pisces.”

“What difference does that make?”

“What difference does it make to me if you’re gay?” Zoe says.

I let out the breath I didn’t realize I have been holding. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For… I don’t know. Being who you are, I guess.”

She grins. “Yeah. We Pisces, we’re a special breed.” Rummaging in the pharmacy bag again, she comes out with the box of tampons. “Be right back.”

“You all right?” I ask. “That’s the fifth time you’ve gone to the bathroom this hour.” I reach for the television remote while Zoe’s in the bathroom. There are forty movies playing. “Listen up,” I call out. “Here are our choices…” I recite each title while an Adam Sandler clip plays on endless loud repeat. “I need a comedy,” I say. “Did you ever see the Jennifer Aniston one in theaters?”

Zoe doesn’t answer. I can hear water running.

“Thoughts?” I yell. “Comments?” I flick through the titles again. “I’m going to make an executive decision…” I pause at the Purchase screen, because I don’t want Zoe to miss the beginning of the film. While I wait, I pore through the room service menu. I could practically buy a small car for the cost of a T-bone, and I don’t see why the ice cream is sold only in pints instead of scoops, but it looks decidedly more gourmet than what I might have cooked myself at home.

“Zoe! My stomach is starting to eat its own lining!” I glance at the clock. It’s been ten minutes since I paused the screen, fifteen since she went into the bathroom.

What if the things she said about me aren’t really what she feels? If she’s regretting staying over, if she’s worried I’m going to crawl into her bed in the middle of the night. Getting up, I knock on the bathroom door. “Zoe?” I call out. “Are you okay?”

No answer.

“Zoe?”

Now, I’m getting nervous.

I rattle the knob and yell her name again and then throw all my weight against the door so that the lock pops open.

The faucet is running. The tampon box is unopened. And Zoe is lying unconscious on the floor, her jeans around her ankles, her panties completely drenched in blood.

I ride with Zoe on the short ambulance trip to Brigham and Women’s Hospital. If there is a silver lining in any of this, it’s that being stranded in Boston has put us in spitting distance of some of the best medical facilities in the world. The EMT asks me questions: Is she usually this pale? Has this happened before?

I don’t really know the answer to either question.

By then Zoe has regained consciousness, even if she’s so weak she can’t sit up. “Don’t worry…,” she murmurs. “Happens… a lot.”

Just like that I realize that, no matter how much I think I already know about Zoe Baxter, there is a great deal more I don’t.

While she is examined by a doctor and given a transfusion, I sit and wait. There’s a television playing a Friends rerun, and the hospital is deathly quiet, almost like a ghost town. I wonder if the doctors have all been stranded here by the storm, like us. Finally, a nurse calls for me, and I go into the room where Zoe is lying on the bed with her eyes closed.

“Hey,” I say softly. “How do you feel?”

She swivels her head toward me and glances up at the bag of blood hanging, the transfusion she’s being given. “Vampiric.”

“B positive,” I answer, trying to make a joke, but neither of us smiles. “What did the doctor say?”

“That I should have come to a hospital the last time this happened.”

My eyes widen. “You’ve passed out before from having your period?”

“It’s not really a period. I’m not ovulating, not regularly anyway. I never have. But since the… baby… this is what a period looks like, for me. The doctor did an ultrasound. She said I have a fluffy endometrial stripe.”

I blink at her. “Is that good?”

“No. I need a D & C.” Zoe’s eyes fill with tears. “It’s like a bad flashback.”

I sit down on the edge of the bed. “It’s completely different,” I say, “and you’re going to be fine.”

It is different-not just because a stillborn isn’t involved. The last time Zoe had a health crisis her husband and her mother were at her side. Now, all she’s got nearby is me-and what do I know about taking care of someone other than myself? I don’t have a dog anymore. I don’t even have a goldfish. I killed the orchid my principal bought me for Christmas.

“Vanessa?” she asks. “Can you give me the phone so I can call my mom?”

I nod and take her cell phone out of her purse just as two nurses come in to prep Zoe for her surgery. “I’ll call her for you,” I promise as Zoe is wheeled down the hallway. After a moment I flip open her cell phone.

I can’t help it. It’s a little like being invited to someone’s home for dinner and you go to the bathroom and peek in the medicine cabinet-I scroll through her contacts to see if I can get a better picture of Zoe from the people she knows. Most of the people listed I have never heard of, predictably. Then there are the old staples: AAA, the local pizza place, the numbers of the hospitals and schools where she is contracted.