I Must Have You by JoAnna Novak

Author:JoAnna Novak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2017-04-17T04:00:00+00:00

3 ·· LISA

VITALS

“I’M THIRSTY,” I SAY TO the nurse hovering at the foot of my bed. Her maroon hair is corrugated with a bad crimp, her expression is pinched in her face’s bloat: you know she just works here to torture pretty girls. She’s cracked open the door, and EDP’s sodium fluorescence spits into my room. Am I dreaming? My head aches, thick and congested, from last night’s fried chicken. Leave it to my mom to bring me to hospy in time for dinner.

“Weight and blood pressure. No liquids until, Lisa. You know the drill.” She consults her clipboard. “Right?”

The nurse walks to the window and pulls a cord that raises the blinds. The sky is as blue as Easter egg dye and snow falls by the fistful. The nurse’s body is a cobbler, lumpy and bubbled, poured into an old-school uniform dress, white and tight, like Jenny McCarthy might wear. Her butt, Junior Carlos would call a badonk—ew. I wish he were popping out from the shitty tack-board bureau next to the one stiff-backed wooden chair, reaching a hand under her skirt, mouthing, Watch this, Lee. Hey: watch. I wonder if this vision is a sign that he’s read my note. Yesterday, with LeeLEE_69, the AOL screen name I made solely for him, I messaged RotTheCasbahJr, right before my mom grabbed my elbow and tugged me down the hall, down the stairs, down the driveway, into the van: “She’s psychoer than we think. Back to Carousel Gardens. SAVE ME, SEXXXY!! `_` Rescue ur bb girrrrrrrl!!”

“Have you seen my chart?” I try affecting chummy. “I’m not even supposed to be—PHP, intake told my mom. Day—IP is unnecessary. You should have, like, a sticky note, all caps: PATIENT’S MOM INSANE. BE GENTLE W/ HER.”

The nurse stops at the foot of my bed. Her hair is the maroon-black that makes women look Wiccan. With daylight, her orangey foundation, a bad match for her dye job, is visible. Ugh. In another circumstance, I really might pity her, but here I hate her smug, queenly attitude. If Elliot wore makeup, I bet it would be equally hoochie.

“Hello? Are you listening to me? How long have you worked here? Protocol is, ‘well, sweetie, I hear you but …’ So what’s your but? Why can’t I have water?”

“Noncompliance?” the nurse asks, her tone flat. “Early start. But, I suppose, when you’re only in for a week, you’ve got to make the most of it.”

I clutch the thin blue blanket to my chest. I sleep naked—someday, Junior Carlos will appreciate this, I think. Even in the hospital, I do what I want.

SHOWER

“Count or flush,” says the woman who’s introduced herself as Marjorie, not the skank vitals-snatcher from fifteen minutes ago, but an older woman in kitten-gray slacks and lace-up black leather slippers, like tap shoes without the taps. Marjorie has white, Bill Gates hair, and she’s whatever’s not a nurse and not a doctor: the toe wedged inside my bathroom door.

“Neither?”

I can’t pee. Every time I try, my urethra squints shut.

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