“Tell me where she took you last night.”
“First we went to a Welsh restaurant called a ‘public house,’ where we ate and drank at a communal table.”
“Wow, how’d that go for you?”
“It was fun, believe it or not. We met two really nice guys—and that was how we ended up at the gay bar.”
“That is so Tabby!”
“What is so Tabby?” Tabby said, sticking her head in the door. She came in, still wearing the blue maid’s shirt.
“Did you see Ursa?” Gabe asked.
She sat on the bed. “I almost did.”
“You got past the ICU doors?” Jo asked.
She nodded. “I bought a balloon and stuffed animal and wrote a note that said Ursa, We love you! Get better fast! I signed it Hugs and kisses, Jo, Gabe, and Tabby. The stuffed animal was a tabby cat, by the way—isn’t that awesome?”
“Tell the story!” Jo said.
“I went to the hospital directory lady, but she didn’t have Ursa listed. She looked at my toy and asked if the patient was a child. When I said she was, the lady said Ursa was probably at their children’s hospital a few blocks away. She checked for me, but they didn’t have her listed either.”
“That’s weird.”
“That’s what I thought. I went to the ICU in this hospital to look around, but the doors were locked. I waited until a nurse came out with a guy in a wheelchair—”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. I ran in. Before anyone realized I wasn’t supposed to be in there, I went looking for Ursa. That was when I saw her room.”
“How do you know?” Gabe said.
“There was a cop guarding her door.”
“A cop!” Jo said.
“Are you sure it was her room?” Gabe said.
“Before I got to the door, a nurse stopped me and asked who I was. I said I had a gift for Ursa Dupree. I told her I was supposed to deliver the toy and balloon and sing her a song. I assumed the cop was guarding Ursa, so I started walking fast toward him. The nurse yelled Stop her! and guess what happened?”
“Oh my god,” Jo said.
“Yeah, the cop drew his gun on me. I got hauled to some security office, and they asked me a bunch of questions about how I knew what room to go to—which means that really is Ursa’s room. She’s probably not in the children’s hospital because the police know that’s too obvious.”
“How did you lie your way out of security?” Jo asked.
“I didn’t. Lying was too dangerous. I told them I knew Ursa through you, and I was upset because the hospital wouldn’t let me see her. I admitted I hatched the plan to sneak in.”
“What did they do?”
“They took my name and address, but they were only trying to scare me. And they said I’d be arrested if I tried it again.”
“I can’t believe this,” Jo said. “Ursa is under police guard.”
“I believe it,” Gabe said.
“So do I,” Tabby said. She lowered her voice and leaned forward. “I bet the government knows she’s an alien in Ursa Dupree’s body!”
32
Jo had looked through every magazine in the ICU waiting room, even Guns and Gardens, which would have amused her pacifist-gardener mother. Her favorite seat was the one next to an adjacent table on which she could support her bandaged leg. She exercised every hour, walking in circles on her crutches around the room. She used the handicapped stall in the waiting-room bathroom to bathe and brush her teeth, and she slept on the couch. She ate when Gabe brought her food. He was still at the nearby hotel, and he washed and dried her clothing in his room every night.
Tabby had wanted to join Jo in her sit-in, but she couldn’t be away from her job any longer. Gabe wanted Jo to leave. He said the police would never let her see Ursa, but Jo couldn’t accept that. She needed to see Ursa again. She knew without the slightest doubt that Ursa wanted to see her, too.
Word of her sit-in had spread through the hospital. Jo’s surgeon came to talk to her on the third day. He said she was risking infection from stress and maybe a blood clot from sitting too much. Hospital security also came the third day. They told her to leave, but Jo said she wouldn’t until she saw Ursa. They said they’d have the police physically remove her, but that hadn’t happened yet.
Jo watched everyone who went down Ursa’s ICU corridor. She took note of police and official-looking people who went through the doors. A woman with a white-streaked Afro visited frequently, and Jo began to suspect she was Ursa’s court-designated counselor. The woman often looked at Jo while she waited for the ICU doors to open. At first she assessed Jo with apparent coldness. But by the third day, there seemed to be some grudging admiration in her stare.
Gabe came in with lunch on the fourth day of her sit-in. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his cheekbones seemed more prominent. He was in contact with Lacey and his mother, but he didn’t tell them the truth, that Jo had been discharged from the hospital after three days.
Gabe took off his backpack and sat next to her. “Turkey, provolone, avocado, and lettuce on wheat,” he said, handing her a white paper bag.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I wish you’d go home.”
“I wish you would stop this insanity,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“She’s probably not here anymore. I’m sure they’ve moved her.”
“She must still be in there. That woman with the Afro went in about an hour ago.”
“You don’t even know if that woman is connected to Ursa!”
“I think she is. She always stares at me.”
“Everyone does—because what you’re doing is crazy. You need to get out of here and find a lawyer.”
“I don’t need a lawyer.”
Rather than argue about that again, he shook his head and looked away.
“Did you bring me clean clothes?”
“Yes, but they’re still damp.”
As she finished the sandwich, he closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Jo kissed his cheek. “Don’t you want to get back to your birds?” he said, eyes still closed.
“I can’t on crutches, and Tanner and Carly are finishing my work.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her. “I’d think you want to make sure they’re doing everything right.”
“Tanner has to get it right.”
“Why?”
“He’s using my nests to get back in Shaw’s good graces. Shaw was pissed when he dropped me like I was Typhoid Mary after my diagnosis.”
“I still can’t believe he did that.”
“I can. Tanner is—”
The ICU doors opened. Jo looked into the sharp eyes of the woman with the Afro. She was wearing a light-gray skirt with a peach shirt that nicely complemented her brown skin. Her shape was like Lacey’s, full-bodied and strong, but not quite as tall.
She walked straight toward Jo and Gabe. “Joanna Teale, right?” she said.
“Yes,” Jo said.
“And you must be Gabriel Nash,” the woman said, stopping in front of them.
“Yes,” he said with tense vocal cords.
She crossed her arms and looked down at Jo. “So . . . how long have you been out here?”
“This is the fourth day,” Jo said.
“After surgery, no less. You’re as stubborn as her.”
“Ursa?” Jo said.
“Who else? I never met a more stubborn child in all my days.”
“I know how you feel,” Jo said. “She mule-kicked me for a long time before I decided to back off.”
“You know, when I first heard this story, I couldn’t imagine why you did what you did. How could you not bring her to the police for a whole month? How could you not know that was wrong?”
“I knew it was wrong.”
“But the alien got in your head—with her powers—right?”
“She still says she’s an alien?”
“Oh yeah, I know all about her planet. Hetrayeh is its name, and her people’s skin looks like starlight.”
“Did she tell you about the five miracles?”
“She sure did. You know why she didn’t go back to her planet after the fifth miracle?”
“How did she explain it?”
“She said she decided to stay when she found out you loved her. The fifth miracle made her stay instead of go.”
Jo had to look away.
The woman waited for her to recover. “Want to know a little secret? Say Hetrayeh backwards.”
Jo and Gabe looked at each other, trying to work it out.
“It’s not easy, right?” the woman said. “People with regular brains do it slow.”
“Eyarteh?” Gabe said.
“A th sound can’t be reversed unless you put a vowel in. Try that at the end.”
“Earth!” Jo said.
The woman nodded.
Jo tried reversing Ursa’s name. “Ursa Ann Dupree is Earpood Na Asru. She said that was her alien name.”
“You got it,” the woman said. “But she does it fast. Give her a book and she can read the words backward as fast as she can read them forward.” The woman smiled at Jo and Gabe’s confusion. “No, she’s not an alien. But in a way she is—at least to the rest of us. She’s a genius. In first grade, her IQ measured over 160.”