It wasn’t the kind of thing she’d have said, or even thought to say, in any other setting.
Robert didn’t hesitate:
“Do you have someplace in mind?” he asked.
Gypsy scanned the ballroom. Her mother was nowhere in sight.
“Someplace away from all these people,” Gypsy said.
“My thinking exactly.”
He wheeled her out of the ballroom and down a long corridor to the bank of elevators. Gypsy resisted the urge to look over her shoulder. She wished Robert would push faster. It wasn’t until the elevator door closed behind them that she knew she’d made her escape, though she couldn’t say exactly what she’d escaped from, or what she was running to. After a quick wave of relief, she was suddenly very afraid. She glanced up at Robert. The harsh overhead light aged him ten years (he was as old as Dee Dee—maybe older), and his face wasn’t so much thin and angular as gaunt and pale.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
She hadn’t noticed that her limbs were shaking. Now that he’d pointed it out, she couldn’t think of anything else. The trembling spread through her body and into her jaw so that her teeth were knocking together loud enough for him to hear.
“I’ll be OK,” she managed.
He put his hands on her shoulders, rubbed her back with his thumbs until the doors opened.
No going back now, Gypsy thought.
His room was only on the sixth floor and didn’t face the water. It smelled a little musty, and though the bed was made, there were clothes strewn all over the floor and dresser and desk.
“Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
And then Gypsy noticed something that put her at ease, or at least more at ease than she had been. The surface of his nightstand was covered in pill bottles, with the bottles stacked in columns reaching three or four high. Maybe, Gypsy thought, he’s sick. Like me, but not as bad. He’s sick like me but has no one to help him.
Thinking this made her want to be his princess, even if he was more frog than prince.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked. “I have a nice bottle of Irish whiskey that should warm you right up.”
“Um, OK,” Gypsy said. She wasn’t about to tell him that she’d never had so much as a drop of alcohol, any more than she’d confess to this being her first time alone with a man.
He went into the bathroom and came back carrying two plastic cups, the kind hotels give you to gargle with, already filled to the brim with brown liquid. He handed one over.
“Obliged,” Gypsy said: another expression she’d picked up from the movies.
“Cheers,” he said, raising his cup.
“Cheers,” Gypsy echoed.
In her short life, Gypsy had tasted syrups and serums of every kind, but nothing that burned quite like this. She could feel her eyes watering, her cheeks turning red.
Robert smiled, sat across from her on the edge of the bed.
“Take your time with it,” he said. “Whiskey’s an acquired taste.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It grows on you,” Robert said.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, so that their faces were just inches apart. She could smell the alcohol on him, imagined that he could smell it on her, too.
“Tell me about yourself, Gypsy Rose,” he said.
Gypsy grinned, looked around the room as though there might be some other Gypsy Rose lurking in a corner.
“What should I tell?” she asked.
“Well, for starters, where are you from?”
Gypsy took a slow sip of whiskey. This time there was no burn—just a pleasant warmth sliding down into her body.
“New Orleans, to start with,” she said.
“Ah,” Robert said. “The Big Easy.”
“Wasn’t nothing easy about it,” Gypsy corrected. “Katrina ripped my home up and blew it away, just like in The Wizard of Oz. I live in Missouri now. Sounds like misery, but it’s a nice enough place. The people are nice, anyway. It was my old pastor set up this trip. He encourages me with my art.”
She noticed herself saying me and my, quietly avoiding any hint of her mother, who, she realized, must have started searching by now.
“There are some good things about it, too,” she continued. “Missouri, I mean. Like, I ain’t seen a single cockroach since I been there. In New Orleans, they’re big as your fist, and most of ’em fly. There’s no getting used to that no matter how long you live. And it’s quiet in Missouri, especially at night. In New Orleans, I slept with a fan on just to block out the street noise, but in Missouri there’s no noise to block out. Sometimes it’s almost too quiet, like in a horror movie right before the girl gets attacked.”
She knew that she was talking too much, that she should stop and ask about his life, but she’d slipped into a rhythm she couldn’t break. Maybe it was the whiskey, which had her feeling a little like the meds her mother gave her at night, except that she wasn’t tired. This was more like the wide-awake time just before she got tired, when thoughts were like feathers in her head and she was chasing them all around.
Robert let her go on a while longer before he interrupted.
“That’s a dandy of a wheelchair,” he said.
She gave him a vacant look: no one had ever complimented one of her chairs before.
“Sleek and chic,” he continued. “Like something from the future. Like the type of conveyance people might use in your Mars colony.”
“I hadn’t thought much about that,” Gypsy said. “I guess you’re right.”
“Tell me,” he said, “can you walk?”
“You mean without the chair?”
He nodded. Something about him had changed. His eyes were stretched wide, and he looked like he’d never wanted anything so bad as for her to give the right answer.
“Why would I wheel myself around if I could just get up and walk?” she asked.
He didn’t seem to hear. He bent forward, set his cup on the floor, undid the Velcro straps that held his fake bionic leg in place.
“You see,” he said, “I can take this off whenever I want, and then I’m just like everybody else. But you…you’re special. You can’t be anything but special.”
“Special?”
“Unique. No matter what, your experience of this world will never be like everybody else’s.”
He took her half-full cup and set it on the floor beside his own. Then he touched her hand. He was so sincere. So eager. Gypsy felt the fear creeping back. She tried to concentrate, but his face kept dropping out of focus.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he said. “And then I’m going to lift you onto that bed.”
Gypsy gripped the arms of her chair, let his lips touch hers. His stubble scratched her skin; what he was doing with his tongue confused her. She thought it could only be the whiskey that kept her from shaking all over again.
“May I?” he asked, forcing one arm awkwardly under her legs.
And then, before she could answer, she heard her mother’s voice tearing through the hall outside, followed by a furious banging on Robert’s door.
“Gypsy Rose, goddamn it, I know you’re in there!”
Gypsy looked up at Robert. His face was turning colors and there was a saliva bubble swelling out the side of his mouth. She wondered if it was possible to be rescued and taken prisoner at the same time.