The Mask

normal.
     
----
     
    Later, at home, just inside the front door, when Grace slipped the latch on the padded travel basket and opened the lid, Aristophanes exploded out of confinement with a hiss and a snarl, his fun bristling, his ears laid back against his head, eyes wild. He clawed her hand and squealed as she thrust him away from her. He sprinted down the hall, disappeared into the kitchen, where the pet door gave him access to the rear yard.
    Shocked, Grace stared at her hand. Ari’s claws had made three short furrows in the meaty edge of her palm. Blood welled up and began to trickle down her wrist.
     
    Carol’s last appointment on Friday was at one o’clock: a fifty-minute session with Kathy Lombino, a fifteen-year-old girl who was gradually recovering from anorexia nervosa. Five months ago, when she had first been brought to Carol, Kathy had weighed only seventy-five pounds, at least thirty pounds below her ideal weight. She had been teetering on the edge of starvation, repelled by the sight and even the thought of food, stubbornly refusing to eat more than an occasional soda cracker or slice of bread, often gagging on even those bland morsels. When she was put in front of a mirror and forced to confront the pathetic sight of her emaciated body, she still berated herself for being fat and could not be convinced that she was, in fact, frighteningly thin. Her prospects for survival had seemed slight. Now she weighed ninety pounds, up fifteen, still well below a healthy weight for a girl of her height and bone structure, but at least she was no longer in danger of dying. A loss of self-respect and self-confidence was nearly always the seed from which anorexia nervosa grew, and Kathy was beginning to like herself again, a sure sign that she was on her way back from the brink. She hadn’t yet regained a normal appetite; she still experienced mild revulsion at the sight and taste of food; but her attitude was far better than it had been, for now she recognized the need for food, even though she didn’t have any desire for it. The girl had a long way to go before she would be fully recovered, but the worst was past for her; in time she would learn to enjoy food again, and she would gain weight more rapidly than she had done thus far, stabilizing around a hundred and five or a hundred and ten pounds. Kathy’s progress had been immensely satisfying to Carol, and today’s session only added to that satisfaction. As had become customary, she and the girl hugged each other at the end of the session, and Kathy held on tighter and longer than usual. When the girl left the office, she was smiling.
    A few minutes later, at two o’clock, Carol went to the hospital. In the gift shop off the lobby, she bought a deck of playing cards and a miniature checkerboard with nickle-sized checkers that all fit neatly into a vinyl carrying case.
    Upstairs, in 316, the television was on, and Jane was reading a magazine. She looked up when Carol entered, and she said, “You really came.”
    “Said I would, didn’t I?”
    “What’ve you got?”
    “Cards, checkers. I thought maybe they’d help you pass the time.”
    “You promised you wouldn’t buy me anything else.”
    “Hey, did I say I was giving these to you? No way. You think I’m a soft touch or something? I’m lending them, kid. I expect them back. And whenever you return them, they’d better be in as good condition as they are now, or I’ll take you all the way to the Supreme Court to get compensated for the damage.”
    Jane grinned. “Boy, you’re tough.”
    “I eat nails for breakfast.”
    “Don’t they get stuck in your teeth?”
    “I pluck ‘em out with pliers.”
    “Ever eat barbed wire?”
    “Never for breakfast. I have it for lunch now and then.”
    They both laughed, and Carol said, “So do you play checkers?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
    The girl shrugged.
    “Nothing’s come back yet?” Carol asked.
    “Not a thing.”
    “Don’t worry. It will.”
    “My folks haven’t shown up, either.”
    “Well, you’ve only been missing for one day. Give them time to find you. It’s too soon to start worrying about that.”
    They played three games of checkers. Jane remembered all of the rules, but she couldn’t recall where or with whom she had played before.
    The afternoon passed quickly, and Carol enjoyed every minute of it. Jane was charming, bright, and blessed with a good sense of humor. Whether the game was checkers, hearts, or five-hundred rummy, she played to win, but she never pouted