A Cold and Quiet Place Read online

  There’s no body hair in sight. The athletes are all on taper. Most of them shaved the night before to shed extra drag in the water. Lily loves the sensation when it all goes right: energy and smooth skin working like a new car engine so her body shoots through the pool. Combined with muscle memory, it’s a win.

  “What are you thinking about?” Tyler demands.

  Lily hesitates. “Hope I’ll swim fast tonight,” she admits. “What are you thinking about?”

  He snorts. “Pepperoni. It’s the way to go.”

  The soggy slice of pizza leaks orange grease, soaked up by the paper plate. Lily realizes she’s not going to be able to eat it, and she pushes the food away.

  “Are you really not going to eat that?” Tyler doesn’t wait for her answer before he folds her pizza into his mouth. She mutters her stomach hurts, has been killing her all day. “Oh,” he responds. “My last swim will land me straight onto the A relay when I get to Rosemont College. Can’t wait. They won’t know what hit ‘em when I finally arrive.”

  ◆◆◆

  The snap of the silicone cap against her forehead drags Lily back into the present. She forgets pepperoni pizza, the word bitch on her phone screen, and even Tyler. It’s time to go through the race in her mind, picture her dolphin kicks, the usual pull through the water, and the snap of her feet on fiberglass as she goes into her turn.

  Two shrill whistles. Lily suctions her goggles onto her eyes and steps up on the damp block, one foot behind the other. She’s hunched over, almost touching her toes. It’s a completely vulnerable position.

  Lungs burn as Lily sucks in air. Her thighs tingle from the tech suit where its elastic cuts off circulation.

  The loud Beep echoes throughout the large pool arena, and Lily dives into her element. After a full day of competition, the final swim is torture. Lily uses the hurt to forget her stomach and the way her head aches. She pushes through the pain and feels her body take over. As though she’s separate, watching from above as muscles and bones pull through the water, Lily’s conditioning takes her to the start, to the turn, to the final heat. Already she can feel the gag reflex in her throat, and she forces it back.

  No. Not happening. Not here, not now, after all those mornings and swims and hard work.

  Through sheer determination she makes it to the end of the pool. When she looks at the scoreboard and sees her time among the leaders, Lily’s nausea fades. Still, it’s difficult to climb out of the pool, and she nearly falls onto the scarred concrete around the water.

  “Whoa,” the girl next to her says. Her hand claps onto Lily’s elbow to steady her. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just been a long day of competition.”

  “I hear you. Come on, I’ll help you over to your coach.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Lily insists. She doesn’t want to ask for help, wants to stay strong. Beside her the pool wavers in splotches of blue and purple, and her vision grays out from the edges. “Just a tough race. Tough, tough race. Got to get onto the road, you know? Get back to school, right? Can’t stop. Gotta keep going.” Lily knows she’s not making any sense, and it’s not just from oxygen deprivation or nerves.

  Something is seriously wrong.

  5

  Lily wakes up in a place she doesn’t recognize. The room is dark, but muted light struggles in through what look like heavy curtains over a large window. A boxy table stands between two hotel beds. She lies in one, and a fuzzy lump snores softly in the other.

  The room whirls as she struggles to get out of bed. Blankets seem to knot around her ankles, and Lily nearly cries with frustration. It feels like she has a poker speared through her skull, and she knows she’s about to throw up.

  There’s a thump from the other bed, followed by soft, purposeful footsteps. Her mother stands in front of Lily and holds out a plastic bin. There’s no time to process her mom’s presence before Lily loses the contents of her stomach.

  Lily’s face is sponged off with what feels like a wad of damp tissue. She hears the tinny clink of a ginger ale can on the table near the bed. “Just in case,” Mom shouts. No, she’s not shouting, but the noise sears through Lily’s ears like red-hot wires.

  “Hurts,” she moans. The pillow under Lily’s neck is warm, too warm. She grumbles and tugs at the hot lump until Mom supports her head and flips the pillow. “Race,” Lily whispers.

  Mom kneels next to her bed. “Ow, my knee popped,” she complains. “It sucks getting old. Nine out of ten would not recommend.”

  “Race,” Lily repeats. “Wha-?” It’s impossible to talk more. Her mouth feels like cotton batting, but she knows if she drinks the ginger ale she’ll have to upchuck again.

  “…Your personal best… a solid third… Robert says…” Mom’s voice wavers out as the room begins to expand and contract. Lily feels like she’s imprisoned inside a beating heart.

  The lamp by the side of the bed is turned on to its lowest setting. Even that dim light hurts her eyes.

  Somewhere a shrill voice demands Strawberry, a stuffed lion Lily owned when she was in pre-school. The girl asks for Strawberry, over and over again, and the words go through her brain like hot wires. Water runs down her cheeks. “They won’t shut up,” she hiccups.

  “Oh, Lily.” Mom’s voice is thick and bracketed by an undignified sob. “I think we have to… your fever…I can’t…”

  The room wheels around, and an unknown force pulls a sweatshirt over her head. Lily feels her mother drag her outside, where the cool air on her cheeks makes her moan. The plastic slide of the SUV seat under her butt, the trashcan between her legs. Throughout the ordeal the voice keeps up its tirade. “Don’t want to go outside, want to lie down, don’t want to go in the car, No mom no no no no no. Strawberry. Strawberry. Now.”

  With a burst of shame, Lily realizes the annoying voice belongs to her. She’s the one who demands Strawberry.

  And she can’t make herself stop.

  She’s hot, plucking at the sweatshirt. She’s cold, shivering so violently her teeth clack together and bite her tongue. The darkness outside the window explodes with fireworks, huge blazing wheels of green and red and yellow. They make her so dizzy her stomach protests, and she spits into the trashcan held between her weak thighs.

  The darkness is gone, replaced by too-bright lights and the sensation of movement. Lily feels herself being pushed into a chair and wheeled inside a room where hunched figures wait. The air is cool there, blown out of a noisy unit along the floor. She shivers again, but the AC brings her back to herself and she’s able to understand where she is.

  They’re inside the emergency room at an unknown hospital.

  Mom’s gone, and her absence leaves a perilous hole in space. No, she’s talking to a person wearing scrubs. A nurse. Or maybe a doctor?

  A long episode follows, filled with pokes and prods on Lily’s fiery skin. Her mother’s voice answers the doctor’s questions and jolts with what sounds like panic. There’s the pinch of a needle on Lily’s arm. The artificial taste of grape on her tongue: disgusting. The liver-shape of a bedpan in her arms. Nothing comes up. Lily is empty, and yet her body refuses to stop those painful heaves. Maybe her stomach is trying to push the illness out of her veins through her throat and mouth. The sound she makes is deep, almost alien, a series of hawking retches Lily’s never heard come from a human.

  “Just have to let her system…work through it…nothing we can do…keep her hydrated…” The figure in blue scrubs is talking, although his words make no sense.

  More movement. Lily lies back on a crunchy hospital mattress. She watches white tiles wheel past overhead, interspersed with Mom’s face and the cool pressure of her fingers. Lily clings to her mom’s hand, afraid her mother will abandon her in this bright space.

  “Strawberry,” Lily moans.

  Her body plunges into water. She swims through submerged tunnels, a maze where she has to find her way out so she can suck in oxygen. There’s a mask on her face and a man’s voice. “Brea
the,” he says. “Just breathe, Lily.”

  The sheets under her hips are slippery with cold. A tube leads out of her arm to a plastic IV on a metal stand. Mom’s in the hospital room, chin slipping off her fist as she dozes in a chair.

  Lily blinks and feels a small, fuzzy object get tucked into the crook of her arm. What the hell? The cubicle, compartmented off by a blue screen, is lit with a soft glow, and she’s able to see there’s a stuffed red lion in her arms.

  None of it makes any sense, and Lily closes her eyes so she can float away from the cold, white world.

  ◆◆◆

  If the bed could stop changing size Lily would feel better. The mattress grows until it’s huge, an endless field of chilled cotton. She’s lost in its folds, unsure of how to return.

  Before she can protest, the mattress shrinks until there’s no room for anything, not pillows or a body sweating out sickness. Only the needle in her arm keeps Lily rooted to the present. A young man with curly, chestnut hair comes into the space and changes the bag. Lily watches from her unstable bed as he unscrews the port and hangs a full bag of clear liquid from the IV stand. The guy never says a word - maybe he’s not even real. Perhaps none of it is real. Time and space have come unstuck, and Lily has no idea if she’s inside a dream.

  He finally stops fiddling with the tube in Lily’s arm and leaves. “Mom, mom, mom.” She hates the whine in her voice. “Mother.”

  “What?” Her mom scrubs at one cheek, sits up, and blinks hair out of her clumped eyelashes. “What is it?”

  The tears burn Lily’s skin. “I don’t know where I am.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” There’s a loud scrape as Mom drags the chair closer to the bed. “We’re in Massachusetts, in the hospital. You started to act – um. Different. Well, crazy actually. Can you imagine? On the road of all places. I had no idea what was… You frightened me, baby.”

  Her mom never talks like this. Lily flops onto her back and looks up at the pitted ceiling. “Everything’s fuzzy. It makes me feel sick.”

  Mom flashes into her vision with another of those kidney-shaped pans. “Think you need to throw up again?” Lily’s arms feel like overcooked noodles as she pushes away the pan, and Mom puts it on the tiny table beside the narrow bed. “You had a bad fever. Talked about all kinds of weird stuff. It started after Nationals and just got worse…” Her mother’s voice tails off, and she bends to tuck her face into Lily’s neck. “I was so scared,” she mumbles. “So, so, so scared.”

  After a few moments Lily nudges Mom away. “Hot,” she grumbles. Her mother nods and returns to the chair. The smudge of dawn outside the window highlights stained posters on the wall: “Una mujer embarazada nunca toma sola” and “Don’t forget your self-exam!” Mom glances around the room before she digs in the leather purse Lily’s dad bought several birthdays ago and pulls out her phone. “Daddy must’ve messaged me a dozen times since we got here.” She types rapidly.

  “Tell him I’m fine.” Lily blows out a long breath. “Guess I can’t have food, right?”

  “Are you hungry? It’s a good sign.” Her mom continues to squint at her phone. “Lily,” she begins.

  “What.”

  “You talked about Erica. A lot.”

  “So?” But Lily knows what her mother doesn’t ask – how bad has it become? Is there any return from the dark space between two former friends? “I didn’t know what I was talking about. It’s no big deal.”

  ◆◆◆

  In bright, cold light of morning, Lily’s fever has reduced enough for her to leave the hospital. Her mom insists on taking her back to the hotel room so she won’t spread infection around the dorms. The plan is to stay there for a few days so Lily can recuperate and catch up on class work. Prescot, in its constant chase for high school rank, doesn’t allow students to fall behind in their studies no matter how sick they get.

  Even though Lily still shakes with chills, her mother stops by the campus for a list of make-up work. When Mom returns to the car, her lips are compressed. “I got a couple of your assignments. Some of the teachers were not very cooperative.” She clips off the words like a trainer who has to harness a young, overly energetic puppy on a leash.

  Lily’s tired from the night. She launches into a long list of complaints, how she doesn’t want to do the work anyway, and even if she did it wouldn’t make a difference because there’s no way she’ll catch up now, not with getting sick right after Finals.

  “Jesus, Lily,” Mom interrupts after they’ve pulled into the hotel parking lot. “Enough. Let’s just do what we can when you feel a bit better. Once you’re settled, I’ll head back over to school to catch up with the other teachers.”

  Instead of calming Lily down the idea makes her go off again. By the time Mom shepherds her into the room, cleaned of germs and puke by the hotel staff, Lily has only enough energy to fall onto the stiff mattress.

  She wakes up to the smell of soup and a knock on the hotel door. Through her lashes Lily sees her mom pull a mug out of the tiny microwave, curse as she wrings her hand, and cross the room with quick, annoyed steps. She grasps the handle and yanks the door open.

  Lily catches a glimpse of Tyler, dark and perfect in the hall beyond the room. “Hey, Mrs. Batista,” he begins. “Thought Lily might need…”

  Mom interrupts. Lily can’t hear what her mom says as she pushes the visitor out into the hallway. The door closes to a slit and shuts Lily out of their conversation.

  Lily grunts, pushes back the sheets, and tries to get out of bed. The room whirls, and tiny stars crowd her vision. She’s determined to stand and walk so she can yell at her mom. Unfortunately, her body disagrees. Suck it up, Lily thinks, and forces her legs to stay straight.

  Before she can say anything, her mother comes back inside with a pile of books. “Thanks again!” she calls before closing the door firmly.

  Lily launches into loud complaint. “Why’d you him out like that? Just so rude. I didn’t even get to say Hi!”

  Mom puts down the books, holds up her phone and presses the camera icon. The image is reversed so Lily can see her own face in the screen. Yellow skin, matted hair, bags under her eyes… “Oh,” she mutters. “Okay.”

  “You’re welcome.” Mom puts down the books. “He brought some of the schoolwork I couldn’t get earlier, so you can start tonight if you feel up to it.”

  “I don’t…”

  “No, ignore what I just said. Let’s start with soup. You haven’t eaten since your last race.”

  The mug, filled with powdery broth and dried parsley, smells good. Lily blows on it and spoons warm yellow liquid into her mouth, but her eyelids droop after a few bites. Mom takes the spoon just as Lily falls asleep.

  A great worry haunts her dreams, chases her through freezing pool water and stifling caverns filled with steam. She’s back inside the enormous maze, the one linked with underwater tunnels. Faraway voices echo through the strange, nightmarish place.

  Lily’s forgotten to bring something important. If she doesn’t find out what it is, she’ll be forced to drown under the metal pylons holding the maze together. The walls are studded with brass rivets and huge flywheels. Her hands slip as she tries to turn one, maybe find a way out of the watery prison, but palms slide on slippery metal and she submerges. It’s a dream, Lily thinks. It’s just a dream.

  Her body won’t work right, and slowly Lily’s fingers slip off the wet brass. The water covers her mouth and nose. She’s about to breathe it in.

  Just as Lily’s about to drown, her body jerks wildly and she wakes up with a gasp.

  ◆◆◆

  Her mom makes Lily take a bath. Although she doesn’t want to move from the hotel bed, Lily has to admit it feels good to lie in warm water. It’s the light version of her dark, wet nightmare.

  She’s tempted to hold her nose, go under, and see how long she can hold her breath, just as she used to when she was five. Her dad freaked out when he found her like that the first time. But her lungs feel like li
mp newspaper, and she knows she won’t last for long.

  When Lily emerges from the bathroom, Mom argues on the clunky hotel phone. “I understand she’s responsible for all work missed, but can we at least get make-up work?” Her voice rises. “How can she complete the assignments if we can’t get the material? No, of course I can’t leave her. My daughter has a serious fever, do you understand? And she can’t keep anything down. Yes, I was there this morning. No, I wasn’t able to find all the professors.”

  The litany goes on and on. Lily realizes she’s terribly thirsty and chugs the plastic cup of soda beside the bed. She pokes the pile Tyler has sent over. Her mom doesn’t stop talking as she waves at Lily and winks.

  He’s brought physics and American Lit, and a few of the books she needs to do the catch-up work. With the hotel’s complimentary Wi-Fi and more soup, Lily is able to lean back among the pillows and reads through some of the assignments until her fever spikes. When the numbers and letters begin to crawl on the laptop screen like insects, her mom reaches over to hit Save and shut the laptop.

  ◆◆◆

  Each day a maid comes to change the sweaty sheets for clean, smooth cotton. Lily has to go and sit on a slippery chair in the hallway while the room is cleaned. It’s hard to stay upright and not puddle onto the rug with exhaustion. All she wants to do is sleep.

  Prescot’s pool seems like a bright jewel locked inside a far-off treasure chest. “You’ll be fine,” Mom insists when Lily complains about missing practice. “Of course it’ll take time to get back up to speed, but Robert says you have to rest. If you attempt to work out now we’ll be set back even longer, so don’t even think about it.”

  The hotel pool is a tiny kidney. It smells like chemicals and new tile grout. Lily sneaks down there while her mom talks to her dad on the phone and stares at the water. A few kids splash each other in the shallow end. She could cross the entire length in three dolphin kicks and five strokes. Still… her body longs for exercise, even though deep down she knows she can’t hack it so soon after her illness.