Girlfriend in a Coma Read online

  "You mean friends and family?"

  "Yeah."

  Karen tells him only the palatable half of the Story. "The thing I'm noticing is that nobody's really changed in seventeen years; they're simply amplified versions of themselves. Mom is as … er … regulatory as ever. Dad's nice but weird. Richard is still earnest and a cutie-pie and he tries so hard. You're still a brat. Pam's quietly beautiful. Linus is still on Mars. Wendy may be a doctor and everything, but in her head she's still handing in essays and getting A's. Everybody's become, yeah—more like themselves."

  The car hums, and they look at the mountains and the city. "Remember when we went to Future Shop to buy a camera?" Karen asks. The others nod. "Did you see the categories they had there for their products? 'Simulation'; 'Productivity'; 'Games.' I mean, what kind of world is this? And please tell me what's happened to time! Nobody has time anymore. What's the deal? Shit. Now I'm in a bad mood." Lowering the window allows into the Jeep the faint industrial fart smell of a pulp mill. Karen retreats behind her sunglasses. She doesn't tell Hamilton that she had expected people to be grown up at the age of thirty-four. Instead, they seem at best insular and without a central core, which might give purpose to their lives.

  Hamilton talks: "And what of your lovely daughter, Megan?"

  Karen smiles: "Isn't she the coolest, Ham? So strong. So sure of herself. Imagine being so together at seventeen—wow." She pauses: "Well, in a way I am seventeen. So maybe I can be as cool as her, too. Yes."

  "I think you're going to have to be older," Pam says from the backseat, talking through a yawn. "People are expecting you to be wise after all that sleep. To most people you're not seventeen anymore—you're one thousand years old."

  It's true. People treat Karen as though she can sense not only color, smells, and sound, but something else—something rich and sublime and far beyond color. She has this subtle feeling people are a touch jealous of this. What frustrates her, too, is that she knows she's seen things, but these things are locked away and unreachable.

  Megan now has morning sickness and wonders how much longer she can keep her secret. She avoids nearly all her old friends and lives at

  Richard's condo, essentially alone, since Richard spends most of his time with Karen or at work. She likes the solitude; she's too young tounderstand the throbbing weight of loneliness. She has tossed out most of her old Goth clothing and now favors a pared-down, somewhat athletic look. She has also dropped out of school and works part-time with Linus; she'd like to work there full-time someday once her baby is in day care.

  For lack of peers, Megan is reduced to having to speak with adults. Megan can't believe that she actually wants to speak with Lois. A good rousing fight would be fun. Karen ("Bio-Mom") is great, if not slightly clued out (Well, she did miss two decades). But there remains an awkwardness between them. A jealousy? Emotionally, they are both the same age; both need attention from Richard, Lois, and the others. Yet on some deeper level they just don't connect. They're too much the same and each poses a form of competition to the other. They're wary.

  Blond walnuts; a blush; a smile before she closed the door.

  It's a rainy day: Karen and Wendy sit in Wendy's kitchen discussing a small party soon to be held on the day after Christmas—a party celebrating Karen and Richard's engagement. The ceremony is to be small: immediate friends and family only. No dates allowed; no strangers. There isn't too much to plan, so it's fun for Karen and Wendy to arrange things. Wendy's life is so stressful; she enjoys having a girly-girl break. A dress? That's Pam's department. Food? Endive with cream cheese, prosciutto and melon. "What happened to food?" Karen asks. "Food used to come in a box or a can. Now there's dozens of everything and it's all so fresh."

  Their coffee cups run low. God bless NutraSweet. There is a pause at the end of their chat, a pause that indicates that a change in conversational gears is now possible.

  "Wendy," Karen asks while looking out the window at some of Linus's old monsters standing beside the garage, "have you ever noticed— Wait." Another pause. "Have you ever noticed our lives are maybe …"

  "Maybe what'?" Wendy's tone of voice almost says, Please don't. Please don't talk about this."Well, I mean, I know my waking up was like a million-to-one shot. And I can't explain that, but even still—"

  "But even still what?"

  "Well, we all seem to have more … not coincidences—more like spooky things in our lives than most people do. I mean, don't we?"

  Wendy's reply is dry and therapeutic: "When did you start feeling this?"

  "The day I woke up. That's a good start: We all ended up at the hospital that day. What are the odds of that? And I'm noticing that we all ended up returning to the same old neighborhood like so much undeliverable mail. I bet we probably couldn't escape Rabbit Lane even if we tried."

  Wendy's unsure where to go with this. "So you think this all means something more, do you? Something big?"

  "Yeah." Karen pours more coffee, eager to do such a mundane task with her new stronger arms. The liquid shakes. "Then there's these visions I've had."

  "Oh?"

  "Wendy, listen up. I'm serious. You're a doctor. Listen." Karen tells Wendy of the images she saw, how she believes it was no accident that she went into a coma in 1979. Karen then asks, "Haven't you ever seen anything weird that wasn't real life, but wasn't a dream either?"

  Wendy enters a form of trance. "I…" She pauses. "I saw Jared. Years ago. He came and talked to me. Back when I was lonely, back before Linus and I were married. He'd told me I wouldn't be lonely forever. He said he was doing what he could. He was real; he was there. I was in love with him back in high school. You knew that, right? Even now I'm still in love with Jared. In my own way. Of course, I love Linus, too. Oh, these feelings are complex."

  "We all knew about you and Jared," Karen says. "The worst kept crush in school. But he was such a dog, Wen—I mean, he'd hump anything in a bra like he was a Great Dane going at the sofa."

  "But Jared wasn't just a crush. I was in love with him. I've never doubted that. Ever." Wendy remembers what had really happened—the sleepover with Jared's older sister, Laura, walking into the sauna while looking for soap, opening the door to find Jared naked, eyes closed, his butt roasting on the cedar. She remembers the brief second (a second and a half?) before Jared knew she was there, the smell of salt air in her lungs and Jared's skin melting like cake frosting, his balls like two blond walnuts, his member turgid, and the embarrassment afterward, slamming the door shut. She remembers avoiding Jared's eyes for weeks afterward, blushing if she even saw him far down the school's corridors. And then came October 14, 1978, the day Jared snuck up behind Wendy and whispered, See you after the game. Meet me in the parking lot. I've got a bag of candy to give you. And then came the collapse on the football field followed by the thousand passionate nights that never were to come Wendy's way. And she's never told anybody, because who would believe it? Because she is only Wendy: dutiful, sexless, brainy, and almost a tragedy (in her father's eyes) had Linus not happened along. Romantic beauty is for others. She wonders if she entered medicine only so that she might see naked men's bodies with impunity. This thought frightens her.

  "Do you still ever speak with him?"

  "No. He's gone. I don't know if it was even really him. It was probably in my head. I work too hard. I don't get enough free time. I still try to talk to him sometimes, but he's never returned. Real or not, I miss him."

  "To me, Jared feels like just a year ago," Karen says. "But for you, Jared's gone for almost twenty years. And the feeling has never gone away?"

  "Never."

  The phone rings, but Wendy doesn't answer. There's a silence between the two. Wendy says, "Off the record? I think, yeah, all your vision stuff means something. But who's to say what? There's no pattern, no direction, no relationship."

  "Let's just keep our eyes open, agreed?"

  "Agreed."…

  20 AFTER AMERICA?

  Ten days before Christmas,
Lois and George approach Karen, who sits by the living room TV watching a tape of The Thornbirds. Karen intuits that their approach will be taxing in some way.

  "We'd like you to do that TV interview, dear."

  I knew it. "Which one?"

  "I don't like that tone of voice, Karen. We're only thinking about the best interests of you and Megan."

  "Explain that to me, please." She remotes off the TV.

  "They're offering a good deal of money, dear," George says. "You could certainly use it. Megan, too."

  "You could put her through college on it," Lois adds.

  "Oh, puh-leeeze. I think we should all know by now that Megan is not and is unlikely to ever be college material."

  Thus begins an hour-long tussle, after which Karen finally agrees to do a network TV interview for an astronomical sum of money, to be taped in three days—on the condition that the money be put into trust for Megan until the age of twenty-one. "And you're not allowed to tell her how much, because I can just imagine her killing time until she gets a big bundle to blow."

  Almost instantly, lawyers are phoned, moneys are negotiated, and people from both American coasts descend on Karen's doorstep for a Thursday shoot. As Karen's friends are intimate with almost every aspect of TV production, they mastermind lighting schemes and color effects and are bossy with their imported colleagues as they protect Karen. Pam instructs Karen on posture (where possible), deportment, breathing, pacing, makeup, and styling. Their competence is a wonder to Karen; for the first time, she understands that her friends have actual skills. Richard and Hamilton "danger-proof" the Christmas tree while Linus stands lost in his own world, mentally rearranging the furniture to best visual advantage.

  My friends know how to put a good face on a bad situation, Karen thinks.

  "I wouldn't be nervous, Kare," Pam says while applying a Christian Dior 425 foundation. "TV isn't about information. It's about emotion. People will be hearing your words, sure, but first they'll be checking out your skin and hairdo."

  "Then I'm up shit creek."

  "Piffle. You've got good skin and bones and people will probably feel cheated if you don't look a bit weird. Which lipstick do you want?"

  "Do I really have to do this, Pam?"

  "What, makeup? God yes. Even the healthiest people on TV look like corpses without it. The less they look at your skin, the better they'll hear what you're saying."

  This makes sense to Karen. She calms down, lets Pam do her work, and watches out the front window as a newscaster who looks surprisingly like Lois has her hair brushed and dictates notes to minions. Lois, standing on the lawn, raptly watches.Karen recalls her conversation with Richard, who was unsure why she, a photo hater at the best of times, would participate in such an intrusive procedure. Well, it's not going to atone for two decades away from Megan, but it's something practical I can do to help her. It makes me feel motherly. And Megan wants to be interviewed, too.

  A few minutes later, Lois, obviously thrilled, says, "Karen, this is Gloria."

  Gloria walks in, wearing a red suit and flashing teeth like baby corn, teeth so perfect she looks as though she has three rows, not two. A white, paper makeup bib sticks out from her collar. "I'm so happy to meet you, Karen. Are you relaxed?" The woman's hand almost crushes Karen's fingers. Before Karen can reply, Gloria is saying, "That's terrific. It's probably best we don't talk too much right now. It makes for a better show if I meet you the same time the world meets you. Paula said she had a lovely pre-interview with you." A smile. Gloria's eyes: blink blink blink. An assistant asks if Paula called. Yes, Paula called. Gloria is out of the room, but her voice is audible. "Aren't these owls just the dearest things!" Karen can hear Lois blush with pleasure.

  Technicians—who couldn't look more bored even were they to try—hook up cables, manipulate light meters, set up reflectors, and link a satellite feed from one of three vans. Karen feels like she's in a movie in which scientists discover alien life-forms inside a suburban house. Her hearing vanishes; suddenly, she is deaf. She turns her head and sees Richard and Linus at the dining room table chatting with Megan. Wendy is on the back patio playing with a neighbor's cat. George is out of sight in the front hallway.

  And suddenly she is lost in a blast of white light. Her eyelids shut, her arms jitter, and her face bleeds water. "Christ!" says Pam. She, Richard, and Linus come over; Karen's face is running like a river. "Karen." Richard taps her shoulder gently. "Karen!"

  She now remembers where it was she went. She was up in the stars and then she descended to Earth, shimmering and blue, into the swirls of clouds over the Atlantic, flying and swooping, joining the birds and feeling like a bright color. And then she was pulled upwardagain—a hand, a clasp behind her shoulders where her wings ought to have been. She was pulled up in the stars. Once there, she turned around and saw the Moon, and then the hand dropped her there— inside a crater. She was dressed for warmth, but this is outer space and why should it matter?

  "I remember," Karen says. "Yes, I remember." In her head, she walks into a crater and kicks some dust, which falls downward at one-sixth Earth gravity. "And it's going to happen. It's going to happen here."

  She blinks and can hear again.

  "Karen, you're scaring the crap out of me," Pam says. "What happened? Are you okay?"

  Her eyes open. "It's going to happen here."

  "What is? What's going to happen, honey?"

  Karen snaps out of it. "Oh. Pam—what did I … ?—I spaced out there."

  "From a cosmetician's viewpoint, you did more than space out, Kare."

  Pam reworks Karen's face, gooey with sweat and foundation. "Is it fixable?"

  "Of course. Relax. Richard—can you get Karen a glass of water?" Richard scuttles to the kitchen and returns with a glass. When he hands it over, Karen says thanks, but refuses to look him in the eye. A few moments later, she looks to her right and sees both Richard and Wendy looking concerned. A technician shouts out, asking if everybody's ready to tape; and so the taping begins.

  We now bring you a girl, or rather, a young woman, who's been very much on the world's mind these past few months. On a cold December evening back in 1979, Karen Ann McNeil, a pretty and popular Vancouver, Canada, teenager, was at a party. There, she drank two weak vodka cocktails and took two Valiums—pills she used to calm her metabolism after a two-month crash diet. The price she paid for this youthful folly? Karen spent the next seventeen years in a coma, during which time she gave no evidence of higher brain functions or otherpromising signs. Then, miraculously, after a bronchial infection earlier this fall, Karen awoke on the morning of November first. Her brain functions were fully normal, as was her memory. She could even remember her homework assignments from the week before the coma.

  And what sort of world did Karen wake up to? A dramatically different world—one without the Berlin Wall and one with AIDS, computers, and radicchio. She also woke up into a world where she now has a daughter, Megan, born nine months after Karen entered her coma.

  I met with Karen recently at her home on a mountain suburb of Vancouver. I found her sparkling with words and, I have to admit, I was a bit shocked at her appearance. Karen left her coma weighing eighty-two pounds. By interview time, she was up to ninety-three, but seventeen years have left her body ravaged by diminished muscle capacity. Fortunately, her mind and face are as animated as they were that fateful December night seventeen years ago… .

  "What about your body—how do you feel now that it's"— pause—"so different than the way it was in 1979?" Gloria has been drilling for tears and is annoyed at the lack of a geyser. She mistakes Karen's disbelieving pauses at Gloria's rude intrusions for emotion. "Do you miss your body?"

  "I'm fine with my body, Gloria. It returns more to normal every day. There are people out there in far worse straits than me. I can stick it."

  The interview isn't going well at all. Karen reali/es that Gloria wants to present a plucky, back-from-the-brink-of-death woman, eager to sing the praises
of the new and changed world. Instead, Karen seems not all that happy and not too thrilled with modern life. And she won't cry.

  "What's the biggest change in the world you've noticed so far, Karen? What strikes you as the deepest change?"

  Behind Karen stands the Christmas tree, cheerful and twinkling.

  She is alone in the room with just the TV people, Pam as makeup, and Richard as emotional support. The others she asked to leave, so asnot to pressure her with her answers. Karen speaks: "You know what it is, Gloria? It's how confident everybody comes across these days. Everybody looks like they're raring to go all the time. People look confident even when they're buying chewing gum or walking the dog."

  "You like that then?"

  "There's more. You take these same confident-looking people and ask them a few key questions and suddenly you realize that they're despairing about the world—that the confidence is a mask."

  "What kind of questions?"

  "What do you think life will be like in ten years? Are you straining to find some kind of meaning? Does growing old frighten you?"

  "Hmmm. We're a culture searching for meaning. Yes." Gloria doesn't like this avenue. Her face morphs into a new position. Suddenly, Gloria's smiling. "You have a daughter now, Karen: Megan." Conspiratorial leer. "We need to know—how does it feel to wake up and discover you have a seventeen-year-old?"

  "Feel? It's a pleasure. And a surprise. Imagine waking up one morning and suddenly there's a teenager there saying, 'Hi, Mom.' In a way, I feel like a sister. I ask myself, If I were back in high school, is Megan somebody I'd be friends with."