"Kelley Eskridge - Alien Jane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eskridge Kelly)

and I could never explain how it made me feel; but then it was okay to talk to this woman Rousseau.

She turned the pen over in her fingers, gove me a doctor look. "Haven't you ever thought that you might
be the first to leaveP" she asked.

I spent the rest of the morning like always, huddled up with Terry Louise on the bench down the hall from
the nurses' station: her smokitg cigarettes until she could hide behind the cloud they made; me t{ottg to
find some way to make my back comfortable against the wood slats, and rnaking kissy noises at the boy
orderlies when they went by, because I hated the way they always picked the little scared ones to rub up
against when they thought no one was loohng. They walked itchy around me after what happened that
one time.
"I hate it when she does that," I said. "Why does she have to talk about me leaving?"

"Just say ilo, babe," Terry Louise said through a mouthful of smoke.

"Can't keep saFng no forever."

Alien Jane . 79

jane's bandages came off and she was all new pink skin on her arms and legs, like someone had decided
she was a big fish that needed scaling. "She did it to herself," Terry Louise said one morning from behind
her smoke.

"No way."

"Uh-huh. Why do you think she's in here? This isn't a plastic surgery ward."

"No one has the guts to do that to themselves. There's no way she could have got past the first 1"g."

"Madge the Badge was talhng to one of the student nurses last night. So unless the meaning of
'self-inficted' has changed while I've been awa/, No-Brain ]ane is sicker than we are."

"We're not sick."

"Stop squirmirg around and sit still for half a minute, Rita. You look like something I'd like to bait a hook
with," Terry Louise said. The old scars down the insides of her dark arms showed plainly when she
raised the cigarette to her mouth. She smiled.

Susan came to see me over the weekend. She made me feel like she was holding my soul when she
touched me: I wished |ane would disappear, but she was right there, watchittg.

"Suze, this is my new roommate jane." I made a face, but not where Jane could see.

Susan leaned across the gap between our beds and held out her hand. "Hi."

Jane picked lint balls off her blanket.

Susan stood with her hand out. |ane wouldn't look at it.

"You shake her goddamned hand, you pink turd, or I'll hurt you worse than whoever did you the last