Dirty Secrets

Part 54

Thursday morning, Lyla made her way along the curved sidewalk toward the hospital entrance. She missed Packer's morning flirtations, his joking, his non-stop talking, his charming goofiness. What she had once considered an annoyance had become her favorite part of the day.

Each time the hospital's sliding glass doors opened and closed, she half-expected to see a reflection of the tall, gangly Packer sneaking up behind her, that mischievous look on his face, his blue eyes beaming. Unfortunately, those days were over.

"Hey, Lyla. Wait up." Bo caught up with her before she entered the atrium.

"Thought you might wanna know," he said. "Heard Packer had surgery yesterday."

"What?"

"My neighbor goes to Emerson. Said Packer had some kind of surgery."

"So he's not..."

"They're not gonna do surgery on a dead guy, right? Chip doesn't know what the F he's talking about."

With a slight smile on her face and a glint of optimism in her eyes, she walked with Bo to the security desk. He babbled on about a party he attended last weekend but she was preoccupied with thoughts of Packer. She felt compelled to return to St. Clair Hospital following her afternoon session but was it too soon? Would she be turned away once again at the ICU?

"You okay?" he asked, getting in line behind Shaniece at the sign-in desk.

"Yeah. Thanks for letting me know."

"No prob."

After handing in their phones, Bo jogged down the hallway to join his group. Lyla and Shaniece made their way to the Activities Room.

Prisha greeted them at the table where stacks of papers and art supplies awaited. "Welcome back to art therapy," she said. "I hope you're in the mood to create something beautiful today."

Shaniece replied, "I hope you're in the mood to see some childish scribbling today."

Lyla cracked up.

"Be child-like." Prisha smiled. "That's a good thing. Be playful."

"Careful what you ask for," Shaniece said as she and her friend took seats across the table from one another.

AJ paced, indecisive about which medium she should select.

"Doesn't matter if you choose to work with markers, paint, or pastels," said Prisha, fairly singing her words. "There's no wrong way to create art. Use them all, if you like."

AJ grabbed a handful of markers and set up shop at the end of the table.

For Lyla, it was a binary decision, do the rose or the goldfish? Today was feeling like more of a goldfish kind of day.

As Natalie, Maisie and the others filtered into the room, Prisha said, "We're going to try a little relaxation exercise this morning before we begin our artwork."

She pushed the play button on a pastel green music player decorated with sunflowers. New Age music filled the room, the tranquil sounds of ocean waves layered with windchimes, reed flutes, and acoustic guitar.

Lyla whispered, "Feel like I'm at Forever 21 shopping for a tie-dyed maxi dress."

Shaniece cracked up.

"Light that incense," Natalie joked. "And that bud."

"Okay," said Prisha. "Let's get comfortable in our chairs and take a long, deep cleansing breath."

Reluctantly, the girls obliged.

"Close your eyes and take another deep breath. Let each breath take you further into your relaxation. Exhale slowly, breathing out every bit of air in your lungs. Good. Now, as you inhale, raise your chin slightly as your chest fills with air. Take another nice, slooooooow, deep breath. Hold the air and, as you begin to exhale, bring a pleasant thought into your consciousness."

Lyla conjured the image of looking up at Packer's smiling face.

"And hold it there. This time, as you inhale, still holding that pleasant thought, bring a smile to your face. That's right."

The girls breathed.

Lyla felt someone placing a marker in her hand. Before she could open her eyes, a voice whispered in her ear, "Camouflage. So they don't see you."

She turned abruptly and caught Clover's wild eyes. Her face was painted with blue and red stripes across her cheekbones, down her cheeks, converging at the chin. "Camouflage," she said with a wide grin.

"Lyla," Prisha spoke calmly. "Are you feeling anxious?"

She shook her head, noticing that the chair beside her was now empty. "I'm fine." A blue marker was in her hand.

............

The cafeteria smelled like hot dogs. With nothing appetizing on the menu, Lyla's go-to was a slice of pizza. She made her way to a table feeling less than enthusiastic about lunch.

Shaniece vigorously shook salt onto her bowl of french fries. She got up, went to a nearby table and swiped the salt shaker. Upon her return, she showered her fries with more salt.

"Whoa," said Lyla. "Not too worried about diabetes or kidney stones or high blood pressure?"

"You saying I should be?"

"I mean we're all subject to the laws of nature." She lifted her slice, brought it close to her face, then tossed it back onto the paper plate with a scowl.

"These fries don't taste like anything," said Shaniece.

"So now they taste like salt."

"You sound like my mom. Seriously, if my biggest vice is salt..."

"Not judging."

"You kinda are."

Lyla shrugged.

"Last summer we went to Puerto Rico."

"Awesome."

"Yeah. Definitely. They serve this stuff called huesos salados. Salt bones."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, they're like bleached animal bones just covered with salt. Sounds gross, but they're sooooo good."

By this point, Lyla was conjuring other images of salted bones. Bags of rock salt dumped onto the bones of a corpse, from the head to whatever was left of the feet.

"Pig, I think," Shaniece said, chomping a fry. "Yeah they call 'em salted white bones." When she saw the distressed expression on her friend's face she asked, "You okay?"

Lyla nodded.

"You gonna eat that pizza?"

She shoved the plate across the table to Shaniece.