When She Was Bad

CHAPTER THREE
1

Lily awoke to the sound of an over-hearty female voice bidding her good morning through a speaker in the wall near the head of the bed. For a few seconds that seemed to last an eternity, she felt lost and frightened, totally disoriented. Then it all came flooding back: the airplane, her grandparents, and-oh God-the Institute!

A moment later the room’s only door slid open, then closed behind a massively built young woman in white duck trousers and a tight-sleeved white polo shirt with the RCI logo over the left breast. Her light brown hair was cut in a mullet: shaved sidewalls, buzzed on top, hanging straight down to her powerful shoulders in back. PATRICIA BENOIT, PSYCH. TECH., read the plastic name badge pinned to her shirt.

“Hi, I’m Patty. Dr. Corder wants me to stick with you this morning, kinda show you the ropes, get you orientated, how’s that sound?”

“I have to pee.”

“You might want to try out the shower, too.” Patty wrinkled her nose. “Getting a little gamy, if you catch my drift. I’ll be at the nurses’ station-buzz me when you’re ready.” At the doorway, Patty angled her body to block Lily’s view of the keypad before punching in the code.

Although she was wearing a modest cotton-flannel nightgown from the suitcase full of clothes and personal effects Dr. Cogan had packed and brought along for her (the nurse who’d helped her unpack last night had confiscated her tweezers and nail file), Lily waited until the door had closed again before pulling the covers back and climbing out of bed. In the bathroom, she wiped off the toilet seat with a neatly folded square of toilet tissue before sitting down, and patted herself dry afterward with another neatly folded square, keeping her nightgown rucked up onto her lap the whole time. Lily hated exposing herself-even at home, she preferred to lock the bedroom door before disrobing, and the bathroom door as well, whether for a quick pee or a long bath.

Here, though, there was no bathroom door to lock, or shower-stall door, or even a shower curtain-the recessed shower head set high and flush in the curved wall angled away from the open stall doorway, and a six-inch-high tiled ledge in the bottom of the doorway kept the water from flooding the bathroom.

After brushing her teeth, Lily reluctantly pulled her nightgown over her head and looked around the bathroom for a place to hang it. There being no hooks or towel racks, she folded the nightie and placed it on top of the towels and washcloths stacked on a high rounded shelf. Naked, she peered tentatively into the shower stall. There were no temperature controls, no faucets, no taps, but the moment she stepped inside, warm water cascaded from the single jet eighteen inches above her head. Electric eye, she guessed; a little experimenting proved her right.

Boy, they thought of everything, Lily told herself as she soaped up and lathered her luxurious dark mane-shampoo, body wash, conditioner in tiny motel-size plastic bottles were arrayed on a recessed shelf under the jet. You couldn’t drown yourself, scald yourself, hang yourself, cut yourself, or even tweeze yourself. Not enough in the little bottles to poison yourself, either. Maybe you could choke or something if you tried to swallow one, but they probably even-

Then suddenly Lily remembered what Lyssy had mentioned yesterday-there’s a reason they call it the observation suite-and all at once, she knew she was being watched. Panic seized her; she squatted on her heels with her legs together and her knees drawn up, crossing her arms over her breasts and hugging herself miserably. The shower turned itself off; she was below the electric eye. Cold and shivering, rocking on her heels, Lily uncrossed her arms and buried her face in her hands.