The Reckless Club Page 8

  “I am not playing dress-up!” Lilith snaps. “Haven’t you ever heard of method acting? I’m getting into character. If I were Opal, where would I look? Rex said TBN stashes the loot somewhere. Maybe it’s in here.” Chin popped in the air, Lilith pulls back the shower curtain. Jason rolls his eyes and turns back toward Ally, who seems to be vibrating with the effort of sitting still on the edge of the bed. Her knees knock as her feet bounce up and down.

  A soft knock at the door draws all of their attention, except for Opal’s, who simply continues to watch Ally. The door creaks open slightly, and it’s Mike, the quiet senior paired with Jason.

  “I see you have some visitors, Opal,” he says just barely over a whisper. Opal doesn’t react at all; she might not have even heard him. “I’ll come back.”

  Ally jumps to her feet. “No, no. It’s okay. We were just going.”

  “No we’re not,” Lilith says. She has a gray newsboy cap on her head. “I’m still”—she glances at Mike—“getting stage design ideas for our skit.”

  Mike chuckles. “Once upon a time, you’d never see Opal without that hat on.” He moves into the room, sitting on a chair on the other side of the bed. “Her Rebecca always said it covered up too much of her pretty face, but Opal said it made her feel alive to have it.”

  “Her Rebecca?” Jason prompts. Opal leans forward and picks up the hairbrush, handing it to Ally again.

  “Yeah,” Mike says. “Her Rebecca.” He gestures around the room. “From the time they were knee high to a grasshopper, they were together. Best friends, always. Couldn’t be more different, but somehow made a complete set.”

  “How long have you known them?” Jason asks.

  “Since I was ankle-high to a grasshopper.” Mike laughs into his hand. “Rebecca is—was—my big sister.”

  “And how long have you been in love with Opal?” Lilith twirls another bright scarf around her head and angles her face for a new reflection in the mirror.

  “Lilith!” Ally gasps.

  But Mike laughs into his hand again.

  “What? I thought it was obvious.”

  Ally gasps again. “That doesn’t mean you—”

  Mike just chuckles. “I love Opal like a sister. I’m not in love with her. I’ve always been in love with them, with what they mean—meant—to each other. How what they had made them both better, bolder. Rebecca, on her own, she wouldn’t sit still long enough to have a conversation, let alone look someone in the eye.” Mike nods toward the childhood picture of the girls, and Jason’s eyes snag on those blurry edges around Rebecca’s image.

  “My mom always says I ruin pictures because I can’t sit still.” Ally stares at her lap as she speaks.

  Mike nods. “Sounds about right. But when Rebecca and Opal were off on one of their adventures, Rebecca was there. One hundred percent there. Opal could, I don’t know, pull her brake in a way no one else could.”

  Opal smiles at Mike as if just realizing he is there. Then she points to Ally, leans forward, and boops her bun again. Again, she laughs with her whole body.

  “So Opal could slow her down,” Jason says. Ally glances up at him; his cheeks are so red he can see them burning.

  Mike nods. “And Rebecca could speed Opal up. Like when Opal said something wasn’t right, Rebecca would say, ‘So what are we going to do about it? How are we going to fix it?’ She wouldn’t let her coast, not ever.”

  No one says anything for a moment. Opal leans forward and boops Ally’s hair.

  “You being here? It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile in a long time.” Mike says. “We watch out for her, me and Christi, I mean. That’s my daughter. She works here. We watch out for her, but she’s just not the same since Rebecca passed. A force of nature like my sister? She leaves behind a pretty powerful emptiness.”

  “What happened?” Ally asks.

  “Heart attack,” Mike says. “Happened quickly, of course. Not like Rebecca to waste anyone’s time. No symptoms at all. They were getting a gift for Christi, you know, for graduating nursing college. Rebecca dropped over in the middle of the jewelry store and was gone. Opal, she already was on the decline, passing in bits and pieces. A stroke made walking tough on her. Another took her ability to talk. The doc thinks maybe another smaller one took some of her memory, or maybe it’s just the getting older that makes her seem stuck sometimes. She appears to be all right, but has had some peculiar habits we’ve got to keep our eye on.”

  “Like what?” Jason asks. He sits beside Ally on the bed, the mattress bending under his weight so his hip is right against hers, and she isn’t able to bounce her feet anymore.

  Mike’s mouth twists and he turns away. “I don’t want to get into that.” He rubs at the back of his neck. Mike clears his throat. “She just seems stuck sometimes. Stuck on that last moment.”

  Opal doesn’t appear to understand what they’re saying as she sits, smiling at Ally.

  Mike slaps his knees and stands. “This is the most I’ve spoken out loud in a long time. Opal’s kind of my best friend now and she doesn’t talk so much…” He pats Opal’s shoulder as he passes her. “So, ah, I hope that helped. With, you know, your interview and things.” He nods at each of them.

  “Be good now,” he whispers to the old woman, who shoos him away with her hand.

  Just as he leaves, Agnes’s face pops in the doorway. “I heard from a little mouse that you were looking for your partners to do some interviews!” she says in a super bright voice. “There you are, Lily!”

  Lilith spins so her back is to Agnes and only Ally and Jason can see it. Her face twists into a grimace and she locks her jaw so tight a vein pops out in a straight line down her forehead. “It’s Lilith,” she says in the same cheery voice, even though her face is still twisted. She raises a hand and runs it down her face, leaving behind only smoothness and a smile when she turns back to Agnes’s eager gaze. “And I’ll look for you in a little bit for an interview. Can’t wait!”

  “What an actress!” Jason whispers, and Ally chokes on a laugh.

  “My room is just across the hall,” Agnes says to Lilith. “We could go now and I could show you my whole button collection before I take my afternoon nap.”

  “Button collection!” Lilith echoes, and that vein pops out again. “Wow. That does sound interesting.” Under her breath, she mutters, “Just as interesting as the life Opal led as a lesbian activist in the oppressive nineteen seventies. Buttons! My word.”

  Lilith pulls Opal’s scarf off her head and shoves it back in a drawer. “But, silly me! I promised Wes I’d help him with his interviews before nap time. I’ll catch up with you soon.”

  Agnes claps her hands together. “Oh, yes, my favorite button is so special, I keep it right next to my—”

  “Yes,” Lilith interrupts, sweeping from the room with a backward wave to Ally and Jason, “tell me later, okay!”

  “—Academy Award,” Agnes finishes. She turns to Jason and Ally. “Would you like to see my buttons? I have one from every robot I’ve ever programmed.”

  Jason slowly pushes himself up to his feet. “I’d love to see your buttons, Agnes.” To Ally, he adds, “Maybe you could spend some time with Opal?”

  Ally grabs at his arm, but Jason’s slips right through.

  He glances back into the room at Opal and Ally. The girl’s whole body is bouncing, like it wants to move as fast as it can in every way all at once. She reaches in her pocket and pulls out the hacky sack. Jason guesses tossing it back and forth from foot to foot, even while sitting down, helps her slow her mind a little.

  Opal grabs the hairbrush again. She holds it up for Ally to see. It’s old, but there isn’t any hair in the brush. Slowly, the old woman grabs Ally’s arm. Without any pressure, she runs the brush from Ally’s forearm to hand. Its bristles look soft but Ally jerks her arm out of the woman’s reach. Opal pauses, smiles, and points toward a picture of Rebecca.

  Agnes pats Jason on the arm. “Come on over, love, when you’re
ready.” She winks at him. Jason glances toward Agnes’s open room and back at Opal and Ally.

  “Did you do this for her? When her skin got…” Ally shudders, shaking out her hands. “Itchy like mine. Itchy from the inside, I mean.”

  Opal reaches for Ally’s arm again and gently runs the brush from forearm to hand.

  Ally glances at the doorway and sees Jason. He ducks his head so his bangs hang over his face, wondering if she’s going to be mad that he’s still there, watching them. But something sort of like a smile ghosts across her face. When she speaks, she looks toward him a few times. “It feels a lot like this time when I was small—maybe five or six. My mom…” She swallows. “My mom was still around. She was on the phone. It must’ve been an important work call because she was in the back bedroom. Before Wi-Fi, her cell only got reception there.” That ghost smile flickered again. “She usually paced in circles around the house when she was on the phone but she couldn’t there.” Ally’s shoulders rise and fall. Now she’s not looking at either of them, Jason or Opal. “I remember thinking, and this is dumb, but I remember thinking that I had her. For however long the call was going to be, I had her.”

  A soft noise trickles from Opal. She leans forward and squeezes Ally’s knee, then keeps stroking with the brush.

  “I sat next to her. She did this”—Ally nods toward the brush—“but to my hair with her fingertips. I think to get rid of the knots, at first. But then maybe just because she couldn’t pace around. It made… It made me…”

  “There,” Opal murmurs, the first word she had uttered. She pats Ally’s knee again.

  Jason turns toward Agnes’s room, just catching the whisper Ally utters in the quiet of the old woman’s room. “Do you miss her?”

  Jason pauses. Maybe Opal didn’t hear her. But when he turns back, for the first time since he met her, Opal isn’t smiling. She nods.

  Ally bites her lip. “I miss my mom, too.”

  Opal squeezes Ally’s hand. Her forehead is peaked and eyes watery. Ally shakes her head. “No, no, she isn’t dead.” Ally winces at the word. “She’s just gone a lot. Most of the time, really. I see her every couple of weeks. She’s an important sales person.” She shakes her head. “Truth is, I don’t really know what my mom does. Sometimes she makes it to my meets.”

  She’s going to run, Jason realizes. Ally pulls her arm out of Opal’s grasp. “Thanks for the… um, time. I’ve got to go.” Ally pushes herself up from the bed.

  When she gets to the door, Opal makes a squeaking sound. She pats the bed again. On her lap she has a photo album.

  Ally glances at Jason then back to Opal. Then she slowly turns back to the old woman.

  11:40 a.m.

  WES “The Flirt”

  Wes rushes to keep up with TBN as she moves from room to room. At first, he thinks she’s just trying to ditch him. Then he realizes this is how she moves—how she has to move, really. Every few steps, residents ask her for help. (“Where’s my medication? I’m supposed to have it at eleven thirty and it’s eleven forty-one. If my daughter knew how I was treated here…”; “Listen, now, I think Eloise is sneaking around my side of the room at night. I can’t prove it, but I have suspicions”; “When is my son visiting me next? I think he’s supposed to be here.”) TBN answers each question without pausing to think. (“You’re not due to have that medication until one o’clock and you know that”; “It’s her room, too. That’s why you’re called roommates”; “He’s on a cruise this week, remember? He called you from the ship on Tuesday.”) All the while, she also checks charts, helps a resident to the bathroom, and wheels another resident to a doctor’s appointment on the fourth floor.

  “Wow,” says Wes, rushing to keep by TBN’s side as she marches down the hall while checking things off using her iPad. “How do you remember all of these things? Like, you know everything about all of these people.”

  “It’s my job,” TBN says.

  “But…” Wes pauses. He’s supposed to be buttering her up, getting TBN to trust him enough to let her guard down. Would what he’s about to ask do that? Probably not going to help. In the back of his head, he hears Lilith’s “skill set” comment and lets his voice trail off.

  “What?” she prompts.

  And suddenly Wes is blurting out what’s probably the worst possible thing he could say: “No one likes you.”

  She snorts and goes back to her iPad.

  “I mean it,” Wes says. “I’ve watched you help, like, six people in the past ten minutes. And not one said ‘thank you’ or ‘please’ or anything. It’s like they’re mad at you before you even open your mouth to say a word.”

  Now TBN lowers the iPad, letting it fall against her leg. She arches an eyebrow. “Do you have parents, Wes?”

  “Yes,” he draws out. “Two of them.”

  Her little mouth twitches. “When was the last time you thanked them for, I don’t know, making sure you have toothpaste? Or for reminding you to do your homework or to clean your room or to wait for the thing you’re most excited for?”

  Wes’s mouth opens and closes.

  “That’s what I thought.” TBN picks up the iPad again and gives it her attention. “I’m not here to be their friend. I’m here to take care of them. And I do a darn good job.”

  Wes swallows, a pit in his stomach growing. TBN isn’t the villain he thought she was. She actually reminded him of… himself. Remember Rex, he orders himself. She knows TBN is up to something.

  “What?” TBN asks.

  “What what?”

  She cocks an eyebrow. “You just nodded to yourself. What’s up?”

  Wes shakes his head. “I don’t know. It’s just… I’m class president.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  If TBN arched her eyebrow any higher, it’d be swallowed up by her forehead. “Well, I know what it’s like to be underappreciated. To do everything and not get any credit.”

  Again TBN snorts.

  “What?”

  “I’m sure you’re appreciated, kid.” TBN shakes her head. “Something tells me you’re well appreciated in your school.”

  Wes smirks. “I guess. But it must be tough, you know, to do all of this work and not get anything back.” He thinks of Hubert. “I mean, they’re not even going to get better.”

  TBN stiffens. “So what?”

  “Well, it’s just…” Here’s your chance, he tells himself. Here’s where he can get this conversation back on track. Back to what the rest of them—Rex, especially—is counting on him to do. “You don’t get anything out of it. I mean, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably, you know, want something in return. Like you might want to take something in return.” He lets his smile stretch as slowly as melting caramel while his eyes rise to meet hers.

  TBN is boiling. Her round face is a tomato, her tiny mouth is disappearing in a slash as she glares at him. “Get something out of it? Are you serious, kid? I’m helping them through the hardest, scariest, and most painful time of their lives. Every single day they lose more of what they once were. Every day, their ability to move, to breathe, to think gets a little worse. Every. Day. What I get out of it is pushing them to make the most of each second. What I get out of it is seeing them through their journey.”

  Wes holds up his hands, turning on his signature charm. “I’m sorry that came out wrong. I shouldn’t have said that.” Something I’ve never said before.

  TBN takes a deep breath. Some of the red in her cheeks fades to light pink. “No, I’m sorry. It’s just been a bad day. Five years ago today, my aunt died. And I didn’t even know. I was mad that she wasn’t at my graduation party for my master’s in nursing. I never got to tell her how much I loved her and how much she meant to me. Now her partner is slipping away, getting worse and… stranger… every day. I’m trying so hard to make her better but—”

  Wes realizes with a shudder than TBN is about to cry. Oh, no. He shoves his hands in his pockets
and that swallowed-up feeling fills him again: respect. He respects TBN. Maybe even likes her a little. She does everything he does—keeps everyone together, even when it seems (even when it is) impossible. Only TBN does it without the help of good looks or a charming personality.

  Wes kind of pats TBN’s shoulder, not sure what to do now that he knows he can’t keep trying to play her. Luckily, she shakes him off. “I don’t need a hug, kid. I just need my aunt’s partner to stop acting out long enough for me to let her know how much I need her.” TBN straightens and shakes her shoulders like she’s brushing off the emotions. “So I figure it out. I clean up her messes.”

  “Don’t you get tired of that?” Wes asks.

  “Sure.” TBN shrugs. “But what’s that got to do with anything? We all have our roles to play. Stay here a second.” TBN slowly opens a resident’s door. Wes glances through the door frame; the room is empty. TBN steps in anyway and then closes the door behind her. But she doesn’t close it all the way. It’s opened just a crack, just enough for Wes to see TBN pull something from her pocket and slip it under a book on the patient’s nightstand. When she comes back toward the door, Wes pretends to be checking his phone. TBN opens the door, letting just enough light in to glimmer on something shiny under the book.

  “What was that about?” Wes says, hoping his voice sounds casual. “The room looked empty.”

  “Like I said,” TBN answers. “I had something to clean up.”

  11:43 a.m.

  JASON “The Nobody”

  Jason knows one thing for certain: he will never be as interesting as Agnes.

  “And that’s how I taught my pet monkey to stop biting people.” Agnes takes back the little photo album from where it has been resting on Jason’s lap. “Want to see the scar from Mr. Fuzzbutt?” She pushes up her sleeve, but Jason shakes his head. Agnes shrugs.

  “You’ve done so many things,” Jason says.

  Agnes nods. “We only get one life, I figure. Why not live it? Be as reckless and joyful and curious as possible.”