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psychiatric ward, I think the detoxification unit is separate. Leo wants to get her stabilized and then do an evaluation before he does anything. Right now, she’s a little bit out of control.”
    He shook his head, pulling at his double chin. “God, I don’t know what to do with her. Glen’s probably told you what a source of friction it’s been.”
    â€œHer drug use?”
    â€œOh, that and her grades, her hours, the drop in herweight. That’s been a nightmare. I think she’s down to ninety-seven pounds at this point.”
    â€œSo maybe this is where she needs to be,” I said.
    One of the double doors opened and a nurse peered out. She wore jeans and a T-shirt. No cap, but she did wear a nursing pin and a name tag that I couldn’t read from where I sat. Her hair was ill-dyed, a shade of orange I’d only seen before in marigolds, but her smile was quick and pleasant.
    â€œMr. Wenner? Would you like to follow me, please?”
    Derek got up with a glance at me. “You want to wait? It won’t be long. Leo said five minutes was all he’d permit, given the shape she’s in. I could buy you a cup of coffee or a drink as soon as I’m done.”
    â€œAll right. That’s nice. I’ll be out here.”
    He nodded and moved off with the nurse. For one brief moment, as they passed into the ward, I could hear Kitty delivering some high-decibel curses of a quite imaginative sort. Then the door closed and the key turned resoundingly in the lock. No one on 3 South was going to sleep tonight. I picked up the
National Geographic
magazine and stared at a series of time-lapse photographs of a blowhole in Yosemite.
    Fifteen minutes later, Derek and I were seated in a motel bar half a block away from the hospital. The Plantación is a rogue of a drinking establishment that looks as if it’s crept to its present location from some other part of town. The motel itself was apparently built with an eye to sheltering the relatives of the illand infirm who come to St. Terry’s for treatment from small towns nearby. The bar was added as an afterthought, in violation of God knows what city codes, as it is smack in the middle of the residential neighborhood. Of course, the area by now has been infiltrated by medical buildings, clinics, convalescent homes, pharmacies, and various other suppliers to the health-care industry, including a mortuary two blocks away to service folk when all else fails. Maybe the city planning commission decided, at some point, to help ease the pain by making eighty-six-proof alcohol available along with the other kind.
    The interior is narrow and dark, with a diorama of a banana plantation that extends behind the bar in the space that usually supports a long mirror, liquor bottles, and a neon beer sign. Instead, arranged as though on a small lighted stage, scale-model banana palms are laid out in orderly rows and tiny mechanized laborers go about the business of harvesting fruit in a series of vignettes. All of the workers appear to be Mexican, including the tiny carved woman who arrives with a water barrel and a dipper just as the noon whistle blows. One man waves from a treetop while a wee wooden dog barks and wags its tail.
    Derek and I sat at the bar for a while, scarcely speaking, we were so taken by the scene. Even the bartender, who must have seen it hundreds of times, paused to watch while the mechanical mule pulled a load of bananas around the bend and another cart took its place. Not surprisingly, the house specialties run to cuba libresand banana daiquiris, but no one cares if you order something adult. Derek had a Beefeater martini and I had a glass of white wine that made my lips pull together like a drawstring purse. I’d watched the bartender pour it from a gallon jug that ran about three bucks at any Stop N’ Go. The label was from one of those wineries the grape pickers are always striking and I pondered the