Douglas Coupland - Girlfriend in a Coma

"Do you still ever speak with him?"

"No. He's gone. I don't know if it was even really him. It was probably in my head. I work too hard. I don't get enough free time. I still try to talk to him sometimes, but he's never returned. Real or not, I miss him."

"To me, Jared feels like just a year ago," Karen says. "But for you, Jared's gone for almost twenty years. And the feeling has never gone away?"

"Never."

The phone rings, but Wendy doesn't answer. There's a silence between the two. Wendy says, "Off the record? I think, yeah, all your vision stuff means something. But who's to say what? There's no pattern, no direction, no relationship."

"Let's just keep our eyes open, agreed?"

"Agreed."…

Ten days before Christmas, Lois and George approach Karen, who sits by the living room TV watching a tape of The Thornbirds. Karen intuits that their approach will be taxing in some way.

"We'd like you to do that TV interview, dear."

I knew it. "Which one?"

"I don't like that tone of voice, Karen. We're only thinking about the best interests of you and Megan."

"Explain that to me, please." She remotes off the TV.

"They're offering a good deal of money, dear," George says. "You could certainly use it. Megan, too."

"You could put her through college on it," Lois adds.

"Oh, puh-leeeze. I think we should all know by now that Megan is not and is unlikely to ever be college material."

Thus begins an hour-long tussle, after which Karen finally agrees to do a network TV interview for an astronomical sum of money, to be taped in three days—on the condition that the money be put into trust for Megan until the age of twenty-one. "And you're not allowed to tell her how much, because I can just imagine her killing time until she gets a big bundle to blow."

Almost instantly, lawyers are phoned, moneys are negotiated, and people from both American coasts descend on Karen's doorstep for a Thursday shoot. As Karen's friends are intimate with almost every aspect of TV production, they mastermind lighting schemes and color effects and are bossy with their imported colleagues as they protect Karen. Pam instructs Karen on posture (where possible), deportment, breathing, pacing, makeup, and styling. Their competence is a wonder to Karen; for the first time, she understands that her friends have actual skills. Richard and Hamilton "danger-proof" the Christmas tree while Linus stands lost in his own world, mentally rearranging the furniture to best visual advantage.

My friends know how to put a good face on a bad situation, Karen thinks.

"I wouldn't be nervous, Kare," Pam says while applying a Christian Dior 425 foundation. "TV isn't about information. It's about emotion. People will be hearing your words, sure, but first they'll be checking out your skin and hairdo."

"Then I'm up shit creek."

"Piffle. You've got good skin and bones and people will probably feel cheated if you don't look a bit weird. Which lipstick do you want?"

"Do I really have to do this, Pam?"

"What, makeup? God yes. Even the healthiest people on TV look like corpses without it. The less they look at your skin, the better they'll hear what you're saying."

This makes sense to Karen. She calms down, lets Pam do her work, and watches out the front window as a newscaster who looks surprisingly like Lois has her hair brushed and dictates notes to minions. Lois, standing on the lawn, raptly watches.Karen recalls her conversation with Richard, who was unsure why she, a photo hater at the best of times, would participate in such an intrusive procedure. Well, it's not going to atone for two decades away from Megan, but it's something practical I can do to help her. It makes me feel motherly. And Megan wants to be interviewed, too.

A few minutes later, Lois, obviously thrilled, says, "Karen, this is Gloria."

Gloria walks in, wearing a red suit and flashing teeth like baby corn, teeth so perfect she looks as though she has three rows, not two. A white, paper makeup bib sticks out from her collar. "I'm so happy to meet you, Karen. Are you relaxed?" The woman's hand almost crushes Karen's fingers. Before Karen can reply, Gloria is saying, "That's terrific. It's probably best we don't talk too much right now. It makes for a better show if I meet you the same time the world meets you. Paula said she had a lovely pre-interview with you." A smile. Gloria's eyes: blink blink blink. An assistant asks if Paula called. Yes, Paula called. Gloria is out of the room, but her voice is audible. "Aren't these owls just the dearest things!" Karen can hear Lois blush with pleasure.

Technicians—who couldn't look more bored even were they to try—hook up cables, manipulate light meters, set up reflectors, and link a satellite feed from one of three vans. Karen feels like she's in a movie in which scientists discover alien life-forms inside a suburban house. Her hearing vanishes; suddenly, she is deaf. She turns her head and sees Richard and Linus at the dining room table chatting with Megan. Wendy is on the back patio playing with a neighbor's cat. George is out of sight in the front hallway.

And suddenly she is lost in a blast of white light. Her eyelids shut, her arms jitter, and her face bleeds water. "Christ!" says Pam. She, Richard, and Linus come over; Karen's face is running like a river. "Karen." Richard taps her shoulder gently. "Karen!"

She now remembers where it was she went. She was up in the stars and then she descended to Earth, shimmering and blue, into the swirls of clouds over the Atlantic, flying and swooping, joining the birds and feeling like a bright color. And then she was pulled upwardagain—a hand, a clasp behind her shoulders where her wings ought to have been. She was pulled up in the stars. Once there, she turned around and saw the Moon, and then the hand dropped her there— inside a crater. She was dressed for warmth, but this is outer space and why should it matter?

"I remember," Karen says. "Yes, I remember." In her head, she walks into a crater and kicks some dust, which falls downward at one-sixth Earth gravity. "And it's going to happen. It's going to happen here."

She blinks and can hear again.

"Karen, you're scaring the crap out of me," Pam says. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Her eyes open. "It's going to happen here."

"What is? What's going to happen, honey?"

Karen snaps out of it. "Oh. Pam—what did I … ?—I spaced out there."

"From a cosmetician's viewpoint, you did more than space out, Kare."

Pam reworks Karen's face, gooey with sweat and foundation. "Is it fixable?"

"Of course. Relax. Richard—can you get Karen a glass of water?" Richard scuttles to the kitchen and returns with a glass. When he hands it over, Karen says thanks, but refuses to look him in the eye. A few moments later, she looks to her right and sees both Richard and Wendy looking concerned. A technician shouts out, asking if everybody's ready to tape; and so the taping begins.

We now bring you a girl, or rather, a young woman, who's been very much on the world's mind these past few months. On a cold December evening back in 1979, Karen Ann McNeil, a pretty and popular Vancouver, Canada, teenager, was at a party. There, she drank two weak vodka cocktails and took two Valiums—pills she used to calm her metabolism after a two-month crash diet. The price she paid for this youthful folly? Karen spent the next seventeen years in a coma, during which time she gave no evidence of higher brain functions or otherpromising signs. Then, miraculously, after a bronchial infection earlier this fall, Karen awoke on the morning of November first. Her brain functions were fully normal, as was her memory. She could even remember her homework assignments from the week before the coma.