The Devil in Silver

Dr. Barger said, “I was just in Aruba.”

“Yuh?” (That’s a slurred “Oh, yes? Do go on!”)

The doctor smiled warmly and leaned back in his chair. He rested one hand on his large hard belly. “I go down and do work with locals who don’t have any other access to treatment.” He wiggled his head side to side. “And I slip in a day or two of relaxation.”

Dr. Barger laughed and Pepper didn’t begrudge him. He actually kind of liked that this guy didn’t pretend life wasn’t happening outside the unit. Liked, even, that the doctor talked about things like vacation, relaxation, joy. He would’ve preferred to hear about the days on the beach more than the days at some clinic for locals. Sometimes, when you’re in bad straits, it’s actually nice to hear about pleasure and not more gloom. Pepper almost asked Dr. Barger about the good days down in Aruba but the next member of Book Group arrived. It was Dorry. And she was not acting well.

Dr. Barger said, “Dorry?”

The woman wore a purple cardigan and pink blouse underneath. The lapels of the blouse flared out over the lapels of the cardigan and the top two buttons of the blouse sat open. Exposing a string of fake pearls! Dorry still rocked her gigantic glasses, but they were so clean, it was as if they’d been sandblasted. And she’d washed her hair; it now sat in a blunt bob that made her look fifteen years younger. She used to look like Angela Lansbury in Sweeney Todd. Now she looked like Angela Lansbury on Murder, She Wrote.

Pepper might actually have started hyperventilating at the sight of her. What happened to their pact? There were supposed to be no obvious signs they’d stopped taking their meds.

But if Pepper experienced a mild panic, Dorry didn’t seem to notice or care. She swayed as she entered the room, looking serene. “I woke up this morning and just had to spruce up,” she said.

Dr. Barger nodded and lifted his pen and wrote something down on his pad. Pepper craned his neck to try to read the words upside down. But he was too far away and Dr. Barger caught him trying to peek, so Pepper returned to his routine, making his face as soft as a bowl of porridge. Any words he might have for Dorry would have to be saved for after Book Group.

Then Loochie arrived.

Her transformation was less of an overhaul. She’d already been the type to wash up and change clothes pretty regularly. And she remained the same stylish teenager. But she wasn’t wearing the blue knit cap. What could have been more jarring to Pepper? Maybe it was finally seeing what lay underneath. Half Loochie’s scalp was hairless. She had dark brown hair that came down to the bottom of her ears, but there were irregularly shaped bald spots in five different places. The largest was the size of a softball. But when Loochie entered the room, she strode as gracefully as Dorry.

Dr. Barger couldn’t hide his surprise. “This is the first time I’ve seen you … so confident,” he said, trying to be kind.

Loochie nodded as if he’d meant the line as a compliment. She touched her head, one of the hairless patches, as she sat. “I think the Geodon was making me pull my hair out at night. I didn’t even know I was doing it.”

“Was?” Dr. Barger asked.

Loochie shrugged, dramatic nonchalance. “I don’t know why, but I just haven’t felt the compulsion recently.”

“That’s wonderful,” Dr. Barger said dispassionately. He wrote something else down on his pad.

Loochie said, “I talked to my mother, and she told me I needed to let my scalp breathe so the hair could start growing again.” She shook her head from side to side as if it had already all come in. “So that’s what I’m doing.”

Pepper glared at Loochie. He would’ve expected a teenage girl to be existentially mortified by exposing her patchy scalp this way, but she wasn’t acting that way at all. She seemed almost proud of her audacity.

Dr. Barger said, “There’s a different air to the room today. Have you noticed?”

Pepper wondered why he bothered to maintain his pretense. A different air in the room? There might as well be a whole new atmosphere.

“Hello, my friends,” Coffee said when he entered.

Pepper did the quick up and down. The man hadn’t suddenly grown some enormous glorious afro. He hadn’t walked into the room wearing an African suit. (Pepper didn’t know what he meant by that exactly. A bright draping cloth? A Western suit made out of that bright draping cloth? Better to not dwell on it.)

Coffee looked like the same man as always. He still wore his pajamas, still wore the blue slipper-socks, and his face maintained the look of concentrated dissatisfaction it had always worn. In fact, if Pepper hadn’t watched Coffee dropping his meds into the bathroom sink in their room these last few days, he would’ve sworn Coffee remained medicated. So okay, at least he and Coffee would carry the torch for subterfuge.

But when Coffee sat down, he looked at Dr. Barger and said, “I liked seeing the sun through my windows this morning.”

And Dr. Barger stared back, baffled.

As did Pepper.