As the bus rattled and rocked down the dirt road, she fiddled with the strap of her purse just like she always did when she was deep in thought. Twisting and bending it so often that now the edges of the thin pleather were creased and cracking. She thought of her mother’s voice, telling her over and over again that she needed to purchase a new one; her response had always been the same: “No Emma,” she would glance down at the raw, tan strap, “I like this one,” she stroked it gently, “we’ve been through a lot together.” Her aunt would always sigh and say, “Well, hate to burst your bubble baby, but in the end, that doesn’t mean too much,” and would sigh again.
With a particularly violent jolt – the potholes were becoming deeper; the ride must be approaching an end – her thoughts were brought back to the green seats before her and moved on to the landscape on the other side of the dusty, scratched window.
Tall oaks arched over the road and created mosaic like patterns of various degrees of shadows. Aside from the monstrosity the hospital called a bus, which was currently bumping up and down the road, this would have been a lovely place for a walk. Sadly it was very unlikely that any of the inhabitants of this hospital would be out and about alone.
She remembered, again, why she was coming here and the reason she could not turn back, what she had to face. She imagined herself as one of the patients, telling a stranger all the reasons that she had done this, or perhaps that. As she was formulating her first sentence, the bus came to a sudden halt, nearly ejecting her from the seat.
The driver stood at the front of the bus in a rather silly pose, with his hands clasped behind his back, bending slightly in each direction as though addressing each corner of the bus and each person aboard. This would have been quite all right if there had been anyone else on the bus; perhaps he was an escapee.
She stood and began to walk towards the folding doors; almost immediately she could feel the invisible hands holding her back, others pushing her away from the exit. Hardly hearing Stan politely stifling a laugh as he told her he would wait here for a few minutes, she pushed by him. He would be ready this time when she came speeding out of the building, he said. This time he promised, she wouldn’t have to run down the road after him, wouldn’t sprain her ankle this time. She smiled as she stepped off; glad when the cool air rushed into her nose, down to her lungs.
As she walked across the dirt path she could almost hear the bus calling to her, “Louisa, Louisa. Come back Louisa. You know you won’t make it in there. You’ll walk in the door, see the shine of the marble white floor, the walls, and you will come back. You can’t beat me!” The voice grew louder as it neared the end of its raging; so loud that it became a ringing in her ears, a constant buzzing that drove her crazy.
“Oh no you don’t,” she mumbled, “you won’t get me this time; I have to do this.” She walked on, pushing the voice out of her head, closing it in a Mason jar, silencing it for now.
Hearing the click of her heels on the stone, she realized that she was quickly approaching the steps of the massive building. It had always been a little odd to her, this building. It looked like a castle that should have been filled with knights and ladies, quite different from the orderlies and white cloaked doctors that actually roamed the halls. She stopped as the toes of her black pumps reached the bottom step. Breathing deeply, she closed her eyes and lifted her heel. As her body rose and her foot came to meet the first, she felt the exhilaration that usually comes only with the take-off of a roller coaster, the rising of the curtain on opening night.
This first step was the hardest, she would surely make it up now; all she needed to do was concentrate…
“Hey Louisa!” Stan’s voice shattered the silence, her focus. “You gonna make it? They told me I’ve gotta go now!”
She raised her hand without turning around; hearing the raspy ignition of the bus. She resumed her momentum, this time eager to reach to top before she was interrupted again. As she arrived on the last step, she had to stop herself from running into the towering front doors.
Flattening her skirt and adjusting her hat, she squeezed her purse and walked forward to the front hall. Every time she entered, this hall stunned her. To the right was a massive marble staircase, twisting here and there to allow travelers off at various doors and levels. How she wished she could stay in this bright part of the hospital, but alas, those appealing doors did not yield her destination.
She turned to the left, glancing at the front doors, which were now being closed by a man in a red suit. It was odd, he rather looked like Stan, or maybe that was simply because of his foolish grin. She reached out and pushed the tiny, lighted button to call the elevator.
As she waited, she listened to the sounds around her; the hum of the cables as they lowered the elevator, the distant whistle of someone down the hall, and the beating of her heart. She had not realized before how nervous she was, her heart was pounding so loudly she would have been surprised to learn that the doorman couldn’t hear it. When she heard the ding that announced the arrival of her ride, and the door opened, she instinctively placed her hand over the opening the door had just disappeared into, and walked in.
Settling into the corner, she looked up and let out a small gasp. Standing opposite of her, there was a man. He had a pleasant face, the paleness was hidden behind an array of freckles and his small glasses were resting over eyes so dark she thought they were black.
“Hello.” He nodded his head without offering a hand.
Louisa smiled not knowing what to say. What is he doing in here? She had never seen anyone else here. He drew in a breath as though he had found some polite conversation in the reaches of his mind, just as the elevator door opened. Louisa smiled again and walked out past him. Turning to give him a wave, the door had already closed and she was left alone.
This hall was far less entertaining than the other was; it lacked the paneled walls and plush area rugs. Perhaps, though, it only lacked the charm of the previous spaces because she, truly, did not wish to be there.
Here was the part where she usually broke. She usually turned, pressed the tiny button and rode the elevator back to the ground floor and dashed right out of the building. Yes today, she felt that by some odd sort of luck, if she turned back now she would meet up with the man from the elevator, he would demand an explanation for an action which did not posses one.
Realizing, that forward was her only option, Louisa turned down the hall toward a woman standing behind a large vase of fresh flowers.
“Excuse me,” she whispered, an act that seemed quite appropriate in these sterile conditions, “I have an appointment with a patient of Dr. Earnest Ferdinand’s.”
“So, you must be Louisa Velda, nice to finally meet you,” the nurse smirked.
“Excuse me?”
“You think what comes in on the first floor never makes it to this one?”
“I…I don’t understand,” she looked down at her purse, the small shiny buckles comforting her.
“Hunny, we’ve all heard about how long it’s taken you to finally get yourself up here! Glad you finally made it, name’s Doris Atwood.” The woman leaned over the ceramic urn, her large bust resting on the lip and extended her hand.
“Nice to meet you,” Louisa smiled, rather ruffled. “May I please…”
“Oh. Yes, yes, of course dear.” The nurse resumed her seat and began shuffling across the carpet to a well lit room just out of sight. “Damned thing, where are you?” she mumbled, rifling through a large pocket. “Ahh,” she held up what looked to be a small microphone and suddenly the voice of Doris Atwood was booming over a PA system, paging the doctor. “Doctor’ll be around soon, he told me that he wants to talk to you first. You can go and sit in that room over there,” she indicated a small conference area across the hall.
Striding briskly to the room and though the door, Louisa was met immediately by the distinct odor of new plastic. When she looked around, she realized that this was nothing more than a storage closet furnished with a few chairs, a table and a coffee maker. Sitting down, she began to play with her purse strap. This was a little odd, a closet being used as a meeting room.
What was it going to be like, meeting with this man for the first time? Would she cry? Would she try to hurt him? Would he hurt her? The opening of the door interrupted her thoughts; looking up, she saw a man that was far too young to be the doctor.
“I’m sorry,” she said, standing,” I’m waiting here for Dr. Ferdinand.”
“Yes,” the man chuckled, “that’s me.”
“Oh,” she blushed slightly, “I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right, it happens all the time. Well, as you already know, I’m Dr. Ferdinand, but you can call me Earnest. I’m assuming that you’re Louisa? May I call you Louisa?”
“Yes, and I am sorry about before, the mix-up I mean,” her fingers instinctively ran over the worn fabric of her purse.
“Fine, it’s fine. Now I must warn you, he is not…I assume you know who I am referring to when I say ‘he’?”
“Yes,” she nodded rather quickly; more a sign of her nerves than she wished to exhibit.
“I thought so. As I was saying, he is not like anyone you have ever met before. The only reason that he is still here is this: no matter how what doctor comes in, no matter how qualified he or she might be, they can find nothing, nothing, wrong with him. Yet also, nothing right. He is extremely intelligent and a fantastic con. Now I want to warn you, having a conversation with him can be frightening at times. He is blunt, yet somehow there is always a question in your mind. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Did she understand? Well of course she understood. He was trying to tell her that because of the connection she had with this man, this doctor was not sure that she would survive a conversation with him. She was not even sure herself.
“Yes, I understand.” She could not control the words as they slipped from her tongue.
“Well then, I’ll lead the way.” With that, Dr. Earnest stood and strode out of the closet, his white jacket billowing out from behind him like the cape of a magician.
Collecting herself, Louisa stood and followed. Walking past the nurses’ station, Doris gave her a reassuring thumbs-up. As they moved down the hallway, Louisa could feel the knot tighten in her stomach and her heart began to pound to the rhythm of her pumps on the tile floor.
“Well,” Dr. Earnest said, “here we are.”
They had stopped in front of a wide, wooden door; it looked rather out of place in the white hall.
“Why is this different from all of the others?” Louisa asked.
“Well, we like to give special guests special treatment.” Dr. Earnest said as he punched a code into a keypad. They entered a very small room that seemed to be a sort of makeshift checkpoint. On the left wall there was a large mirror that was obviously the kind where the people who ordered its installment actually believed that the person sitting on the other side of it, staring at you, was inconspicuous.
Dr. Earnest waved at the person behind the glass and the walls before them began to slide apart. He led Louisa into a room that seemed to be original to the style of the building; massive columns framed an equally immense fireplace. The walls were paneled with what seemed to be ebony and deep red chairs and couches adorned the hearth. They looked as though they had been taken straight from a palace.
“If you go up those stairs,” Dr. Earnest indicated a set off to the left; “you will find him; most likely in the library.”
“All of this is for a crazy man?”
“Oh, I assure you madam,” he turned to face her, “he is not crazy.” Just as Louisa had feared, he strode by and went back through the open wall. It closed silently and seamlessly behind him.
There is no turning back now, Louisa told herself; though she could not even if she had wanted to. She supposed that there were cameras shooting at every nook and cranny in the place, though this did not comfort her a bit; if he killed her too, all the cameras would do was record the event, much like a heart monitor.
Deciding that now, she had no other choice, Louisa walked toward the stairs; as she came closer, she saw a light shining around the corner of the landing. He must be in there.
She carefully walked up the stairs; surprised by their lack of sound, they looked ancient. When she reached the top, she turned her focus towards the lighted room; the floor here was carpeted in the same blood red as the chairs in the room below.
After walking for what seemed an age, she finally reached her destination room; Louisa held her breath as she peered in; she was half expecting to see a man with white hair like Einstein and beady little eyes. The room astonished her. Gold and white, it seemed that even without the lights, it emitted brilliance all it’s own. In the center was an easel; though it was covered with paint, and the canvas upon it as well, the rest of the room was spotless.
She stepped in, her body tensing in anticipation of a rush by a mad man. As she approached the canvas, she felt increasingly guilty; this was neither her room nor her space at all and she was walking around as though she owned it.
“Well,” a voice echoed through the hall, “I was right now wasn’t I?” Louisa wheeled around, bumping into the easel, nearly knocking it over.
“Who’s there!” she hollered, “I have mace, pepper spray, tear gas! You stay away from me!”
Fumbling through her purse, she could hear the footsteps in the hall coming closer to her. She was rummaging so violently, her one hand pushed the purse right out of the other, spilling the contents all over the floor; she jumped down, trying to gather all of the lip sticks and self-defense mechanisms as a figure appeared in the doorway.
When she looked up, she sighed with great relief; surely this was not the man she had come to see. This man was handsome, with his hands in his pockets and his shirt folding over his wrists, he appeared extremely inviting and friendly.
Looking to be about 35, he seemed to be one of those who had changed little from the time when he was 20. His dark curly hair was gelled in such a way, that one could see each individual curl, but somehow still looked very natural. His face was light, but freckled in such a way that one couldn’t tell; it reminded her of someone she had seen before.
Louisa stood to meet his gaze, of this she was sure: this could not the man she had come to see.
“I, I’m sorry,” she stammered, looking at the mess she had made on the floor. “I though you were someone else, I just didn’t know there was anyone else here. I’m so nervous, I just, I’m sorry.” She looked down at her feet and realized that she had been quite wrong about the room being free of paint. Where she had knelt on the floor, there were two smudged spots, and when she inspected her knees, she realized what had done the smudging.
“That’s quite all right, it happens all the time.” He smiled at her; she felt even more foolish. “Though I must say, I have never seen something quite like that,” he indicated her knees, the various make-up paraphernalia on the floor.
“Well,” she said, an advanced stage of embarrassment in her voice, “you obviously missed last month.” She snorted through her nose, recalling herself running down the muddy-dirt road after a lime-green bus.
“Oh no, I saw that, I just never thought that you were actually so jittery.” He came closer to her.
Louisa’s hand moved to the inner reaches of her purse; automatically searching for some form of spray, only her hand found nothing satisfactory, she glanced down to see if it was hiding in a pocket when she heard him addressing her.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” he asked, holding up a short, thin spray canister.
“Yes, thank you.” She held out her hand, but he did not give it to her; quite the opposite, he snapped it away. “May I have it please?” she advanced toward him, slightly upset.
“Follow me.” He turned and waved the spray over his shoulder like a baton; not sure of what else to do, Louisa followed.
He went around the corner in the opposite direction from that at which he had come; walking with considerable speed, Louisa had to skip a few times to keep up with him. Suddenly, he halted in front of a bedroom.
“You can go in there, and take off that awful, filthy dress. You will find a considerable amount of clothing in that closet,” he indicated a door in the far corner of the room, “there will be something that you like. When you complete that, I will be in the library; waiting for you.”
At that, he walked out of the room. Quite thrown off by his statements, Louisa was not sure what to do. She stood for a few moments contemplating: she did not have enough power to overthrow him without her spray, nor did she know how to get out; for lack of a better idea at the moment, she approached the closet.
Opening the door, it looked very much like her closet at home; selecting a pair of khakis over a skirt and a sweatshirt over a tank top, she walked out of the room; she had left her pumps behind and was now realizing how luxurious the carpet truly felt.
Continuing to walk, she passed the room with the painting, she was surprised to see that now dark, she had been wrong; there was no light from within. As she rounded the corner, she spotted what must be the library.
An amazing spectacle met her eyes when she entered the room; the ceiling was topped with a gorgeous clear-glass dome. Every wall of the round room was covered with massive bookshelves and a number of rolling ladders sat perched at various heights. In the middle, an open fire, over which a huge copper flu hovered, was burning brightly; it was near this fire that the man sat, reading a tattered book.
Louisa cleared her throat hoping to get his attention; he looked up at her and let out a short laugh; one that was produced from the throat and sounded more like a cough than a laugh.
“What?”
“Well, you are just very predictable.”
“I am not,” she said defensively.
“You left your dress on the bed, paint side down; your shoes on the floor, facing the closet; another garment is in your purse, which should be hanging on the door?” Louisa stared at him, how had he known all of that? “Don’t look so worried, I did not watch, nor did I see the tape. I know more of you than you think.”
“Really,” she said as she backed down a ladder, the only way, it seemed, to reach him, “and how is that?”
“Ahh, that is for later my dear. We will not get into that right now.”
Louisa walked around the massive room, looking though the ceiling as the birds zigged and zagged over at various intervals; there must be a garden around somewhere nearby.
As she walked around the room, dragging her fingers along the bindings of the books, he turned his chair to follow her with his gaze.
“You must settle down. Come and sit, you’re going to be fine.” Louisa stopped and looked at him, how was it that he seemed able to read her mind? “Come and sit with me.” She walked to the other side of the fire pit and sat directly across from him.
“This is a lovely place,” she said after a few minutes of watching him read.
“Yes, it is,” he said, keeping his gaze set upon his book, “I always loved it, even before I spent this much time here.”
“Were you here before now? Why?”
“I went to medical school, I interned here.”
“Why’d you stop?” At this he looked at her then dropped his head back to his book; realizing that she had unintentionally hit a soft spot, “I’m sorry,” she said, missing her purse, “I didn’t think that would bother you,” he didn’t respond so she continued to look around. “Um, Mr. err, well I don’t believe that I’ve caught your name.”
“Well Miss Louisa,” he said rising rather abruptly from his chair, placing the book on the cushion. He began walking toward her; his hands in his pockets, “there is a very obvious reason why you did not ‘catch’ my name,” he looked from the ground holding his head at an angle, “and that is this: I did not offer it. I wanted you to be comfortable before you knew.”
“Why? You are not the man I came to see. Why should I be uncomfortable?” She looked at him suspiciously, cowering in her chair; she was suddenly very aware that there were few other sounds into the room besides her breathing and the firs cracking.
He leaned close to her; she could fell the curls of his dark hair resting against her forehead. Paralyzed by his proximity, she began to breathe more heavily and grip the wooden chair arms more tightly. Placing his hands over hers and sliding them up her arms, when he came to her shoulder, he moved them to the chair wings on either side of her. Not knowing what else to do, she allowed her body to relax, her eyes to close; there was no sense in trying to see what he was going to do to her, in this position she had no control.
“Louisa,” he said, his mouth so close to her own, she could feel his lips brush against hers as he spoke, could taste the words as they fell from him. He began to move his face across hers so slowly the tick of his watch was her only assurance that time had not ceased to be. He moved across her cheek until he reached her ear, sensing the wisps of hair at her temple dance as he drew in a breath; she could feel his lips brush skin as he whispered, “I am.”
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