Read Online The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel by Sharyn McCrumb - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sharyn McCrumb
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as a ritual of the institutional caste system. Which crowd did you want to hang with? Who were the popular people and who would it be social death to sit beside? (I am not paranoid, she told herself. I am severely depressed. Pick a form of insanity and stick to it, girl.)
Elizabeth noticed that the groups tended to segregate themselves at tables of all males or all females. She sighed. Perhaps we are different beings, she thought. The sexes come togetherfor a few years between puberty and menopause, and then we drift away again, with nothing left to say to each other. She wondered if her time of gender isolation had been prematurely advanced by widowhood, or if she would some day come out on the other side. Lots of topics are gender neutral, Elizabeth told herself. The weather. Movies. News of scientific discoveries. Sometime I will find a man and make small talk with him, she promised herself silently. But not today.
She wandered closer to the women’s tables, searching for a familiar face. A moment later she spotted the pudding face of Emma O., the patient who had come to see her the day before. There were five people seated at the table, all laughing and talking and paying Elizabeth no mind, but opposite Emma O. was an empty chair. With a smile of recognition, Elizabeth approached the table, resolving to make an effort to be sociable.
“Excuse me,” said Elizabeth, pointing to the empty chair. “Is this seat taken?”
Before her new acquaintance could answer, a plump woman with a pink scrubbed face and gooseberry eyes smirked up at her. “Yeah, that chair is taken,” she said. “A middle-aged woman is sitting in it.”
Elizabeth took a step backward in surprise. Delusional, she thought. Or else they don’t like me. Rejected by mental patients—how outcast can you get? Feeling the familiar sting of tears in her eyes, her shoulders sagged, and she turned to go.
“Come back, Sunshine!” Emma O. called after her. “Rose here was making a joke.”
Elizabeth approached the table again, and Emma O. explained: “From a man’s point of view, all the seats at this table would be empty. All, that is, except … that one.” She noddedtoward a pale but lovely young woman at the other end of the table.
Elizabeth had never seen anyone so fragile-looking and yet so beautiful. An angel carved in ivory might look like that, she thought: hair too pale to be called blonde, and skin so translucent that you could see the blue tracery of veins at her hands and throat. She was in that ephemeral stage of modern perfection that came just before death from starvation. An angel carved in ivory also might eat more than she did. The young woman had a full plate, and she was using her fork to make little trails through her mashed potatoes, making it seem as if the food had been picked at. At no time, however, did the fork go near her mouth.
“You can sit down,” said Emma O. to Elizabeth, indicating the empty chair.
While Elizabeth set down her tray and took the seat, Emma O. picked up her fork and went back to eating, as if she had forgotten Elizabeth’s presence altogether.
“I’m Rose Hanelon,” said the dumpy woman who had joked about the empty chair. “It’s no use expecting Emma Kudan to make introductions. The social graces are Martian to her. It would never occur to Emma O. that you’d even care who anybody else was.”
The object of the discussion shrugged and went on eating her Jell-O.
“Asperger’s people have to concentrate very hard on being sociable to think of things like introducing people,” Rose explained. “They can focus on one person at a time, but more people than that puts a strain on their ability to socialize. We wrote out all the instructions on a card for Emma once, but she used it as a bookmark and lost it.”
“How do you do? I’m Elizabeth MacPherson,” Elizabeth said meekly. She smiled and nodded to the other occupants of the table, careful to observe all the social niceties,
Elizabeth noticed that the groups tended to segregate themselves at tables of all males or all females. She sighed. Perhaps we are different beings, she thought. The sexes come togetherfor a few years between puberty and menopause, and then we drift away again, with nothing left to say to each other. She wondered if her time of gender isolation had been prematurely advanced by widowhood, or if she would some day come out on the other side. Lots of topics are gender neutral, Elizabeth told herself. The weather. Movies. News of scientific discoveries. Sometime I will find a man and make small talk with him, she promised herself silently. But not today.
She wandered closer to the women’s tables, searching for a familiar face. A moment later she spotted the pudding face of Emma O., the patient who had come to see her the day before. There were five people seated at the table, all laughing and talking and paying Elizabeth no mind, but opposite Emma O. was an empty chair. With a smile of recognition, Elizabeth approached the table, resolving to make an effort to be sociable.
“Excuse me,” said Elizabeth, pointing to the empty chair. “Is this seat taken?”
Before her new acquaintance could answer, a plump woman with a pink scrubbed face and gooseberry eyes smirked up at her. “Yeah, that chair is taken,” she said. “A middle-aged woman is sitting in it.”
Elizabeth took a step backward in surprise. Delusional, she thought. Or else they don’t like me. Rejected by mental patients—how outcast can you get? Feeling the familiar sting of tears in her eyes, her shoulders sagged, and she turned to go.
“Come back, Sunshine!” Emma O. called after her. “Rose here was making a joke.”
Elizabeth approached the table again, and Emma O. explained: “From a man’s point of view, all the seats at this table would be empty. All, that is, except … that one.” She noddedtoward a pale but lovely young woman at the other end of the table.
Elizabeth had never seen anyone so fragile-looking and yet so beautiful. An angel carved in ivory might look like that, she thought: hair too pale to be called blonde, and skin so translucent that you could see the blue tracery of veins at her hands and throat. She was in that ephemeral stage of modern perfection that came just before death from starvation. An angel carved in ivory also might eat more than she did. The young woman had a full plate, and she was using her fork to make little trails through her mashed potatoes, making it seem as if the food had been picked at. At no time, however, did the fork go near her mouth.
“You can sit down,” said Emma O. to Elizabeth, indicating the empty chair.
While Elizabeth set down her tray and took the seat, Emma O. picked up her fork and went back to eating, as if she had forgotten Elizabeth’s presence altogether.
“I’m Rose Hanelon,” said the dumpy woman who had joked about the empty chair. “It’s no use expecting Emma Kudan to make introductions. The social graces are Martian to her. It would never occur to Emma O. that you’d even care who anybody else was.”
The object of the discussion shrugged and went on eating her Jell-O.
“Asperger’s people have to concentrate very hard on being sociable to think of things like introducing people,” Rose explained. “They can focus on one person at a time, but more people than that puts a strain on their ability to socialize. We wrote out all the instructions on a card for Emma once, but she used it as a bookmark and lost it.”
“How do you do? I’m Elizabeth MacPherson,” Elizabeth said meekly. She smiled and nodded to the other occupants of the table, careful to observe all the social niceties,
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