"It... I didn't say anything. I just mentioned her."
"How did you mention her. Mindy? What did you say about her?"
"Nothing. Really," she wailed.
"I thought you weren't going to talk about Posy anymore:'" Dr Foreman said to Gia,
"I don't!" she exclaimed. She does!"
Dr. Foreman sat back. Mindy looked down. Gia was biting down hard on her lower lip, so hard I could feel the pain in my own. Silence seemed to fall like an iron curtain between us.
"Okay, girls." Dr. Foreman finally said. "These sessions are what I call purges. We get some of the hateful, spiteful, evil things out of our system. We don't have to be deceitful about any of it anymore. You all have much to do to repair yourselves, and this has been a beginning."
She held up the slips of paper. "Well take this vote again sometime soon, perhaps, and it will be interesting to compare the results. For now, I want you all to return to the barracks and do your schoolwork." She stood and opened her office door.
We rose and filed out. The mladies were waiting for us in the hallway.
"Be sure they go directly to the barracks and get to their schoolwork," Dr. Foreman told them. Then she reached out and touched Mindy's shoulder. "I'm not angry at you. Mindy. I have great faith in you. I know you're going to continue to do well for me, for yourself. right?"
Mindy nodded. and Dr. Foreman lifted her hand from Mindy's shoulder.
No one said anything. We put on our shoes and in a silent parade marched across the yard. I heard Natani on his drum in his hogan. No one else seemed to notice or care. After we entered the barracks, the door was closed and we all went to our respective bunks.
The silence and heaviness in the air was so thick. I could have molded it into a dark plate to put into the kiln,
"Are we going to work together or what?" I asked. No one said anything.
We might as well all have been in separate buildings. I thought. I started to read the chapter in science, but my eyes drifted off the page.
Mindy was staring at the floor. Suddenly, she started to tremble, "Stop it," Gia told her.
She didn't. She grew worse, shaking harder.
"What's wrong with her?" Robin asked.
Teal stood up. Drool was running down the sides of Mindy's mouth and she was making a small but deep moan.
"Maybe you should call for someone," Teal said.
"No, leave her alone." Gia got up and seized Mindy's shoulders, shaking her. "Stop it, Mindy. Stop it. You know what will happen if you don't."
She shook her head. "It., doesn't... matter. She's mad at me, really mad at me this time." Mindy gasped, Her eyes were wide with such terror, it took my own breath away.
I turned to Gia, pleading with my eyes for her to do something.
She smirked and took a deep breath. "She's not mad at you, Mindy." Then Gia shouted at me, "Damn you. Did you have to tell about Posy?"
"I didn't tell anything. I don't even know who Posy is!" I cried. "She's the one who mentioned her. How were we supposed to know we shouldn't say the name?"
"Who is she?" Robin asked. "What's all the damn mystery about that y'all know and we don't?"
"Yes," Teal followed. "Who is she?"
"Why can't we mention her name?" I demanded more firmly.
Gia rose and looked at us while she kept a hand on Mindy's shoulder. Mindy continued to tremble and held on to her.
"Well?" I said. "Who was Posy?"
She was Dr. Foreman's daughter," Gia said.
7
Posy's Story
. -"What do you mean, her daughter?"" I asked. Dr. Foreman is married? Where is her husband?" "I don't know if she's married or not," Gia said. "You don't know?"
"We don't know. Is there something wrong with
your hearing?" she shouted at me.
"Well, how do you know she has a daughter?""
I came right back at her,
"We know." Gia paused and looked at Mindy
before turning back to us. "Whether she was married
or not isn't the point. Posy wasn't her actual daughter.
She was adopted and you don't necessarily have to be
married to adopt someone."
"Adopted?"
"Adopted?" Mindy turned to mimic me. "Yes,
adopted. You ever hear of it?"
"Mindy was adopted. too." Gia revealed. "Oh. Well. I still don't understand it all. What
was Dr. Foreman's daughter doing here?"
"What's good for the goose is good for the
gander," Mindy sang.
"What?" Teal asked, stepping forward, "What
are you saying?"
"It's what Posy used to say after Gia found out
she was Dr. Foreman's daughter. Right. Gia? It means
whatever was good to do to anyone else here was
good to do to her. Right. Gia?"
I looked at Gia, who wasn't answering. "So she was here as a... a student or whatever
we are?" I asked.
"Yes, one of us lost souls,- Gia. said. "Posy
was, shall we say, a bit of a disappointment to her
brilliant mother."
"Sort of what all of us are to our respective
mothers, real or otherwise," Mindy added, her words
dripping out of the corners of her mouth.
"This is still very confusing," Robin said. "Why
would Dr. Foreman have her own daughter, adopted
or otherwise, in this place?"
"You are thick." Gia said sharply.
I saw Robin's face show crimson, even through
her now deep tan. "I'm thick?" She started toward Gia,
her hands clenched into fists. "You want to see how
thick I am?"
"Stop it!" I cried at Robin. "Look, I'm not as
apart is what Dr. Foreman wants."
Gia relaxed her shoulders and looked at me and
then at Mindy. Then she sat on her cot.
"Probably." she admitted.
"Why?" Teal asked. The three of us were
around Gia and Mindy now.
"I don't know everything either. but I know she
doesn't want us to be strong, and if we all got along
and protected each other, it would be us against her." "Exactly," I said. Gia looked up at me. "She had
us tearing each other apart pretty good in there. It's
exactly what policemen like to do when they arrest
you and start to question you. They get you fighting
among yourselves and pretty soon someone gives
someone else away and it all falls apart."
"How come you know so much about all that?
Haw often have you been arrested?" Mindy asked me,
her face scrunched up with both disgust and curiosity. "Enough," I said.
"Where is this Posy now?" Teal asked, still
thinking about her. "And what kind of a name is
Posy? I can't see Dr. Foreman naming a daughter
Posy, can you?" she asked me. "I would have
expected something more like Hortense."
"Posy named herself Posy, I think." Mindy said.
"Isn't that what you said. Gia?"
"Yes. I can't remember Dr. Foreman calling her
anything but 'young lady.'
"You never met this Posy. Mindy?" I asked. "No. She was already gone by the time I
arrived, Gia told me all about her."
"Well, what happened to her? Where is she?
Did she graduate or something?" Teal asked Gia. Gia's laugh was thin and maddening,
"Graduate? Yes. I guess it is a sort of graduation when
someone gets out of here, if she gets out of here." She
was silent a moment: then, after glancing at Mindy,
she turned back to Teal and said. "I don't know." "Why not?" Robin asked.
"We
can't be sure. right. Gia?" Mindy said. "What does that mean? Did Posy tell you
something?" I asked Gia,
"It wouldn't have mattered if she had. When she
was first brought here, she told Gia so many different
things, it was obvious she was a habitual liar." "Really?"
Gia nodded. "For the longest time. I didn't
know she had any relationship to Dr. Foreman at all,
much less being her daughter. She never called her or
referred to her as anything but 'Dr. Foreman,' and I
never saw anything warm between them, anything even to suggest they had once lived in the same
house."
"Tell them what she did say. Gia," Mindy
urged.
Gia looked at her and then turned to us. "Posy
would talk about her parents as if they were the most
wonderful people. They had everything imaginable
and they loved her and were just heartbroken over the
fact that she was here. In the beginning I didn't know
she was lying. She made it all sound believable. I
mean, she had it down to the smallest details, the
colors of her bedspread, the dolls her father had
bought her, her secret magical place in their beautiful
big home that she shared with an adorable little sister.
I think she called Tamatha."
"Amazing," Teal muttered.
"All of it was her fantasy." Gia said. "Nothing
more than her long wish list"
"Gia says she was a habitual liar or something.
We're not even sure about the bad things she had
done, exactly why she was here. right. Gia?" Gia nodded, "Sometimes it seemed to me she
was here only because she couldn't tell the truth." "Well, then how do you know she was telling
the truth when she told you she was Dr. Foreman's
adopted daughter?" Teal questioned.
"She never actually told me she was," Gia said.
"I told her and she finally admitted it."
"Tell them what she said then. Gia." Mindy
urged, It was weird to me how she enjoyed hearing
about it all so much, as if she really enjoyed reliving
Gia's experience.
Gia laughed. "She said she didn't tell me
because she didn't want me to think she was getting
any special treatment. That was a good laugh. If
anything. I was getting special treatment, not her, but
she always had to have a rosy excuse for everything,"
Gia said bitterly. "Rosy lies. I should say."
"I don't get it," Robin said. "If she didn't tell
you herself first and neither of them showed how they
were related, how would you know?" She looked
poised to hear Gia insult her again, but instead. Gia
looked at Mindy, who shook her head.
"What difference will it make now if they
know." Gia asked her. "One of them is sure to betray
you know that."
"I always thought she knew anyway. Mindy.
Was I wrong?" Gia asked, her eyes small and fixed on
Mindy.
"What's that supposed to mean?" "You know
what it means."
"No. I don't," Mindy said, looking around as if
searching for a way out.
"Sure you don't," Gia said, twisting her lips. "What's going on?" Teal asked me. "What are
they talking about now?"
I shook my head. "What is going on. Gia?" She thought for a long moment, then shrugged,
"Oh, what difference does it make anymore?" she
muttered. "It was my idea to do it. I'll admit to that. I
was bored." she offered as a defense, "I wasn't here all
that long, but it was obvious to me it was going to be
a drag. The early nights, lights out, no television or
radios or anything, just work and studies and those
damn therapy sessions, those questions, prodding,
making me think of things I didn't want to ever
remember. On and on until..."
"Until what?"
"I was curious and, like I said. bored." "So?" Teal asked. impatient. "You were bared.
Big deal. A news flash. She was bored. What did you
do about it?"
"I decided to spy on Posy and Dr. Foreman
when Posy was in there alone."
"How could you do that?" I asked.
"I found a way. There's a basement to the
house. The door is on the other side and it was opened
late one afternoon when I had some free time. I just
wandered down the steps and in, almost as a way to
escape the sun and heat as anything else. I heard
voices and followed the sounds down to my right.
There's a floor gate in Dr. Foreman's office. As soon
as I knew what it was and where I was. I ran out. I
was terrified of being discovered listening in. I didn't
even know who was in there with her."
"It couldn't have been me," Mindy said quickly. "No, it wasn't Mindy because she wasn't here
yet. I didn't tell her anything about Posy for a while
after she had arrived."
"Almost a month after." Mindy moaned. "I'm not exactly used to trusting people." Gia
said.
"Wow," Robin said. "Imagine, putting your
own daughter through all this."
"Your mother is putting you through it, isn't
she?" Gia fired at her. She could be so mean and
angry sometimes. It made me feel that if I brushed
against her, she might explode and blow me up with
her.
Robin was about to snap back at her, but hesitated, thought a moment, then relaxed her shoulders. "Yes, she is. Mother darling is doing
exactly that."
"Well, then it shouldn't surprise you. It
shouldn't surprise any of us. Dr. Foreman believes in
everything she does to us. She has this grand plan, this
collection of theories. Every one of us is another case
study for her. I once glimpsed at some papers on her
desk and saw it."
"Saw what?" I asked.
"She's writing about each of us all the time.
We'll be collected in some book and she'll probably
win some prize. And all at our expense!"
"Tell us more about Posy," I said, folding my
legs and squatting on the floor like a little girl who
had asked to be told a story.
"I didn't get to know her all that well. Like
Mindy says, she was always lying to me anyway. She
was here a little over a month or so. One day she
arrived with Dr. Foreman when she returned from one
of her periodic trips away from the ranch. I came in
from work and found her sitting right there." Gia
nodded at my bunk.
"She smiled at me and said. 'Hi, my name's
Posy Don't call me anything else, please.' You would never know she was sent here as any sort of punishment. Nothing bothered her. Everything was interesting to her. I got so I hated hearing the word, Interesthig-. 'Isn't this interesting?' 'Isn't that
interesting?'"
"What did she look like?" Teal asked, sitting
beside me.
"She wasn't much bigger than I am," Gia said.
"I thought she was about twelve, but she swore she
was sixteen, dark haired, pretty with soft brown eyes
and a dimple in her right cheek. She liked to walk on
her toes and said she was once taking ballet lessons." "Another lie, no doubt," Mindy muttered. "She swore it was tru
e of course, like her
swearing to anything meant anything." Gia said. "but I
had no other way to determine anything about her, not
even her age."
-Didn't you ask her why she was here? What
she had done?" Robin asked.
"No." "No?"
"I didn't have to ask. She told me right away.
She said she was here because she had trouble
following rules. She claimed she just forgot all the
time. She made it sound so innocent."
"What rules?" I asked,
"Any rules. She said she just forgot and didn't
mean to hurt anyone's feelings. She proved that by
ignoring the rules here. She talked without permission
when she first arrived and it did them no good to
scream at her or punish her.
"She just looked at them with that same sweet
smile on her face, making the buddies feel like they
were the ones who were to be pitied.
"She never blamed anyone for anything no
matter how cruel they were to her, including her
monster of a mother."
"Did you try to get her to stop thinking like
that?" Teal asked.
"Of course. I tried to get her to see how stupid
she was being by forgiving them or understanding
them or calling them interesting. She would just say.
'They can't help it. They just like me so much they
can't help trying to help me.' For three days they
wouldn't let her eat anything, and all she could say
about that was she was a little too heavy anyway." "It doesn't sound like she belonged here." I said.
"Sounds like she belonged in some mental
institution."
"Don't we all," Mindy muttered.
Everyone was silent, contemplating what she
had said.
"Dr. Foreman believes she can change anyone.
That's the point," Gia finally piped up. "Don't you get
it yet? No behavior, not even mental illness, can't be
changed or cured. She thinks we're all Skinner
pigeons."
"Skinner pigeons? What's that?" Robin asked. I looked at Teal to see if she knew. She shook
her head and shrugged. "I wasn't exactly a good
student," she said. "What is it. Gia?"
"Didn't anyone tell you guys anything about
this place and Dr. Foreman before you were sent
here?" she asked.
"Not much more than this is your last chance."
Teal said. smirking.